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Papers by Kholoud Al-Thubaiti
The Year's Work in English Studies, 2013
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, 2015
This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the Engl... more This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the English aspectual contrast between the present simple (e.g. ‘plays’) and present progressive (e.g. ‘is playing’). The study was conducted with 143 Saudi Arabic college students of English and eleven native speakers. Following their performance on a cloze test, the L2 learners were assigned to four proficiency levels (beginners, low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced). They then completed a bimodal timed aspectual interpretation task with 36 short stories (12 progressive, 12 habitual, and 12 fillers) by choosing the sentence with the verb form that best described the story context. Results show that Arabic L2 learners across proficiency levels have successfully learned the tested aspectual contrast. They did not overgeneralize the present simple to progressive and habitual contexts as in L1 Arabic. These results suggest that the interpretive properties of progressive aspect in English are unproblematic for L1 Arabic learners.
One of the major goals of generative L2 research has been to determine the extent to which assume... more One of the major goals of generative L2 research has been to determine the extent to which assumed properties of Universal Grammar (UG) are available to L2 learners in the development of interlanguage grammars. Age at which an L2 learner is first exposed to the target language has also ...
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) ... more This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) property which involves uninterpretable features, such as resumption. The Interpretability Hypothesis predicts persistent L1 effects in L2 grammars because uninterpretable features resist resetting beyond some critical period (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007). Unlike English, Saudi Arabic allows grammatical resumption in complex wh-interrogatives, which is highly preferred with (D)iscourse-linked wh-forms (e. g. ʔayy-NP ‘which-NP’) but disallowed with non-D-linked ones (e. g. ʔeeʃ ‘what’). The study was conducted with fifteen native English speakers and 34 (very)-advanced Saudi Arabic L2 speakers of English with age of onset (AO 1–13 years). In a bimodal, timed acceptability judgment task, their accuracy judgments of 32 (un)grammatical wh-interrogatives were tested. As predicted, results show that L2 speakers of very advanced levels inaccurately accepted resumption especially with D-lin...
Second Language Research
This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the ... more This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the interfaces is problematic for L2 learners. English verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) was tested as an interface property which involves feature interpretability. Two subtle contrasts of VPE at different grammar-internal interfaces were examined: (a) copula be and lexical verb ellipsis at the syntax–lexicon interface (*John is here, and Mary will too vs. John slept, and Mary will too), and (b) progressive be and perfective have stranding at the syntax–semantics interface (*John slept, and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn’t since). Unlike (a), the contrast in (b) requires identifying (un)interpretable features on -ing and -en to recover the semantics of the elided material. Since Saudi Arabic does not license VPE, (very-)advanced English L2 speakers whose first language (L1) is Saudi Arabic were tested. The results from a bimodal timed acceptability judgment task sho...
This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) ... more This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) property which involves uninterpretable features, such as resumption. The Interpretability Hypothesis predicts persistent L1 effects in L2 grammars because uninterpretable features resist resetting beyond some critical period (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007). Unlike English, Saudi Arabic allows grammatical resumption in complex wh-interrogatives, which is highly preferred with (D)iscourse-linked wh-forms (e. g. ʔayy-NP ‘which-NP’) but disallowed with non-D-linked ones (e. g. ʔeeʃ ‘what’). The study was conducted with fifteen native English speakers and 34 (very)-advanced Saudi Arabic L2 speakers of English with age of onset (AO 1–13 years). In a bimodal, timed acceptability judgment task, their accuracy judgments of 32 (un)grammatical wh-interrogatives were tested. As predicted, results show that L2 speakers of very advanced levels inaccurately accepted resumption especially with D-linked wh-interrogatives. The results also show non-significant differences between AO 1–6 and 7–13 years in their rejection accuracy of resumption.
This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the ... more This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the interfaces is problematic for L2 learners. English verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) was tested as an interface property which involves feature interpretability. Two subtle contrasts of VPE at different grammar-internal interfaces were examined: (a) copula be and lexical verb ellipsis at the syntax–lexicon interface (*John is here, and Mary will too vs. John slept, and Mary will too), and (b) progressive be and perfective have stranding at the syntax–semantics interface (*John slept, and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn’t since). Unlike (a), the contrast in (b) requires identifying (un)interpretable features on -ing and -en to recover the semantics of the elided material. Since Saudi Arabic does not license VPE, (very-)advanced English L2 speakers whose first language (L1) is Saudi Arabic were tested. The results from a bimodal timed acceptability judgment task showed they were more target-like on the contrast at the syntax–lexicon interface than they were on the syntax–semantics interface. They particularly deviated from target-like judgments on have stranding which requires recognizing the perfective uninterpretable feature on -en. These results suggest selective vulnerability at grammar-internal interfaces whenever uninterpretable features are involved.
This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the Engl... more This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the English aspectual contrast between the present simple (e.g. ‘plays’) and present progressive (e.g. ‘is playing’). The study was conducted with 143 Saudi Arabic college students of English and eleven native speakers. Following their performance on a cloze test, the L2 learners were assigned to four proficiency levels (beginners, low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced). They then completed a bimodal timed aspectual interpretation task with 36 short stories (12 progressive, 12 habitual, and 12 fillers) by choosing the sentence with the verb form that best described the story context. Results show that Arabic L2 learners across proficiency levels have successfully learned the tested aspectual contrast. They did not overgeneralize the present simple to progressive and habitual contexts as in L1 Arabic. These results suggest that the interpretive properties of progressive aspect in English are unproblematic for L1 Arabic learners.
This chapter reports on a study examining the long-term effects of input and age of L2 learning o... more This chapter reports on a study examining the long-term effects of input and age of L2 learning on the English proficiency of Saudi Arabic speakers. The participants were 132 adult college students who had started learning English in school at different ages. Findings show that input measures are stronger predictors of performance than is age of L2 learning on four linguistic tasks (cloze test, acceptability judgment task, acceptability comprehension task, and gap-filling task). The chapter concludes suggesting that policy makers should attend to the quality of exposure as a factor for successful learning more than the age of L2 learning.
English be and have stranding differ under vP ellipsis: *John slept and Mary was too vs. Peter sa... more English be and have stranding differ under vP ellipsis: *John slept and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn't since. Rouveret (2006) claims that -ing has an interpretable progressive feature that cannot be elided (unless recoverable), whereas -en has an uninterpretable perfective feature which deletes freely. In Arabic, such contrasts do not arise. According to the Interpretability Hypothesis, uninterpretable features not realized in the L1 are not fully available to post-childhood L2 learners. Therefore, Arabic speakers who learn English beyond childhood are predicted to have difficulty distinguishing be and have stranding, unlike childhood starters. The present study compares 50 (Saudi) Arabic EFL elementary school (child) starters, 82 middle school (teen) starters, all now in their 20s, and 11 English controls. Results from a bimodal timed Acceptability Judgment Task show that even at advanced stages of acquisition, child and teen starters incorrectly reject Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn't since, suggesting that for them -en has an interpretable perfective feature. While the Interpretability Hypothesis predicts the teen group's performance, the identical performance of the child starters is unexpected. The implications of this for a Critical Period for L2 acquisition are considered.
http://www.lingref.com/cpp/gasla/10/abstract2269.html
srcf.ucam.org
Page 1. The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research Age Effects on the Acqui... more Page 1. The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research Age Effects on the Acquisition of Uninterpretable Features by Proficient Arabic Speakers of English Kholoud A. Al-Thubaiti University of Essex kalthuATessexDOT ac.uk ...
cf.linguistlist.org
... Dissertation Information. Title: Age Effects in a Minimal Input Setting on the Acquisition of... more ... Dissertation Information. Title: Age Effects in a Minimal Input Setting on the Acquisition of English Morpho-Syntactic and Semantic Properties by L1 Speakers of Arabic, Add Dissertation. Author: Kholoud Al-Thubaiti, Update Dissertation.
Talks by Kholoud Al-Thubaiti
The Year's Work in English Studies, 2013
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, 2015
This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the Engl... more This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the English aspectual contrast between the present simple (e.g. ‘plays’) and present progressive (e.g. ‘is playing’). The study was conducted with 143 Saudi Arabic college students of English and eleven native speakers. Following their performance on a cloze test, the L2 learners were assigned to four proficiency levels (beginners, low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced). They then completed a bimodal timed aspectual interpretation task with 36 short stories (12 progressive, 12 habitual, and 12 fillers) by choosing the sentence with the verb form that best described the story context. Results show that Arabic L2 learners across proficiency levels have successfully learned the tested aspectual contrast. They did not overgeneralize the present simple to progressive and habitual contexts as in L1 Arabic. These results suggest that the interpretive properties of progressive aspect in English are unproblematic for L1 Arabic learners.
One of the major goals of generative L2 research has been to determine the extent to which assume... more One of the major goals of generative L2 research has been to determine the extent to which assumed properties of Universal Grammar (UG) are available to L2 learners in the development of interlanguage grammars. Age at which an L2 learner is first exposed to the target language has also ...
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) ... more This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) property which involves uninterpretable features, such as resumption. The Interpretability Hypothesis predicts persistent L1 effects in L2 grammars because uninterpretable features resist resetting beyond some critical period (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007). Unlike English, Saudi Arabic allows grammatical resumption in complex wh-interrogatives, which is highly preferred with (D)iscourse-linked wh-forms (e. g. ʔayy-NP ‘which-NP’) but disallowed with non-D-linked ones (e. g. ʔeeʃ ‘what’). The study was conducted with fifteen native English speakers and 34 (very)-advanced Saudi Arabic L2 speakers of English with age of onset (AO 1–13 years). In a bimodal, timed acceptability judgment task, their accuracy judgments of 32 (un)grammatical wh-interrogatives were tested. As predicted, results show that L2 speakers of very advanced levels inaccurately accepted resumption especially with D-lin...
Second Language Research
This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the ... more This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the interfaces is problematic for L2 learners. English verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) was tested as an interface property which involves feature interpretability. Two subtle contrasts of VPE at different grammar-internal interfaces were examined: (a) copula be and lexical verb ellipsis at the syntax–lexicon interface (*John is here, and Mary will too vs. John slept, and Mary will too), and (b) progressive be and perfective have stranding at the syntax–semantics interface (*John slept, and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn’t since). Unlike (a), the contrast in (b) requires identifying (un)interpretable features on -ing and -en to recover the semantics of the elided material. Since Saudi Arabic does not license VPE, (very-)advanced English L2 speakers whose first language (L1) is Saudi Arabic were tested. The results from a bimodal timed acceptability judgment task sho...
This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) ... more This study investigates whether second language (L2) speakers can pre-empt a first language (L1) property which involves uninterpretable features, such as resumption. The Interpretability Hypothesis predicts persistent L1 effects in L2 grammars because uninterpretable features resist resetting beyond some critical period (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007). Unlike English, Saudi Arabic allows grammatical resumption in complex wh-interrogatives, which is highly preferred with (D)iscourse-linked wh-forms (e. g. ʔayy-NP ‘which-NP’) but disallowed with non-D-linked ones (e. g. ʔeeʃ ‘what’). The study was conducted with fifteen native English speakers and 34 (very)-advanced Saudi Arabic L2 speakers of English with age of onset (AO 1–13 years). In a bimodal, timed acceptability judgment task, their accuracy judgments of 32 (un)grammatical wh-interrogatives were tested. As predicted, results show that L2 speakers of very advanced levels inaccurately accepted resumption especially with D-linked wh-interrogatives. The results also show non-significant differences between AO 1–6 and 7–13 years in their rejection accuracy of resumption.
This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the ... more This study examines whether the second language acquisition (L2A) of syntactic properties at the interfaces is problematic for L2 learners. English verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) was tested as an interface property which involves feature interpretability. Two subtle contrasts of VPE at different grammar-internal interfaces were examined: (a) copula be and lexical verb ellipsis at the syntax–lexicon interface (*John is here, and Mary will too vs. John slept, and Mary will too), and (b) progressive be and perfective have stranding at the syntax–semantics interface (*John slept, and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn’t since). Unlike (a), the contrast in (b) requires identifying (un)interpretable features on -ing and -en to recover the semantics of the elided material. Since Saudi Arabic does not license VPE, (very-)advanced English L2 speakers whose first language (L1) is Saudi Arabic were tested. The results from a bimodal timed acceptability judgment task showed they were more target-like on the contrast at the syntax–lexicon interface than they were on the syntax–semantics interface. They particularly deviated from target-like judgments on have stranding which requires recognizing the perfective uninterpretable feature on -en. These results suggest selective vulnerability at grammar-internal interfaces whenever uninterpretable features are involved.
This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the Engl... more This chapter reports on a study that investigates whether L1 Arabic speakers can acquire the English aspectual contrast between the present simple (e.g. ‘plays’) and present progressive (e.g. ‘is playing’). The study was conducted with 143 Saudi Arabic college students of English and eleven native speakers. Following their performance on a cloze test, the L2 learners were assigned to four proficiency levels (beginners, low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced). They then completed a bimodal timed aspectual interpretation task with 36 short stories (12 progressive, 12 habitual, and 12 fillers) by choosing the sentence with the verb form that best described the story context. Results show that Arabic L2 learners across proficiency levels have successfully learned the tested aspectual contrast. They did not overgeneralize the present simple to progressive and habitual contexts as in L1 Arabic. These results suggest that the interpretive properties of progressive aspect in English are unproblematic for L1 Arabic learners.
This chapter reports on a study examining the long-term effects of input and age of L2 learning o... more This chapter reports on a study examining the long-term effects of input and age of L2 learning on the English proficiency of Saudi Arabic speakers. The participants were 132 adult college students who had started learning English in school at different ages. Findings show that input measures are stronger predictors of performance than is age of L2 learning on four linguistic tasks (cloze test, acceptability judgment task, acceptability comprehension task, and gap-filling task). The chapter concludes suggesting that policy makers should attend to the quality of exposure as a factor for successful learning more than the age of L2 learning.
English be and have stranding differ under vP ellipsis: *John slept and Mary was too vs. Peter sa... more English be and have stranding differ under vP ellipsis: *John slept and Mary was too vs. Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn't since. Rouveret (2006) claims that -ing has an interpretable progressive feature that cannot be elided (unless recoverable), whereas -en has an uninterpretable perfective feature which deletes freely. In Arabic, such contrasts do not arise. According to the Interpretability Hypothesis, uninterpretable features not realized in the L1 are not fully available to post-childhood L2 learners. Therefore, Arabic speakers who learn English beyond childhood are predicted to have difficulty distinguishing be and have stranding, unlike childhood starters. The present study compares 50 (Saudi) Arabic EFL elementary school (child) starters, 82 middle school (teen) starters, all now in their 20s, and 11 English controls. Results from a bimodal timed Acceptability Judgment Task show that even at advanced stages of acquisition, child and teen starters incorrectly reject Peter saw your parents last week, but he hasn't since, suggesting that for them -en has an interpretable perfective feature. While the Interpretability Hypothesis predicts the teen group's performance, the identical performance of the child starters is unexpected. The implications of this for a Critical Period for L2 acquisition are considered.
http://www.lingref.com/cpp/gasla/10/abstract2269.html
srcf.ucam.org
Page 1. The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research Age Effects on the Acqui... more Page 1. The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research Age Effects on the Acquisition of Uninterpretable Features by Proficient Arabic Speakers of English Kholoud A. Al-Thubaiti University of Essex kalthuATessexDOT ac.uk ...
cf.linguistlist.org
... Dissertation Information. Title: Age Effects in a Minimal Input Setting on the Acquisition of... more ... Dissertation Information. Title: Age Effects in a Minimal Input Setting on the Acquisition of English Morpho-Syntactic and Semantic Properties by L1 Speakers of Arabic, Add Dissertation. Author: Kholoud Al-Thubaiti, Update Dissertation.