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- Title
Kuidas uurida esimese ja teise keele omandamist?
- Authors
Eslon, Pille; Õim, Katre; Kaivapalu, Annekatrin; Argus, Reili; Matsak, Erika
- Abstract
The main objective of the research is to compare the linguistic development of first (L1) and second language (L2) learners from a dual perspective: 1) stages of acquisition (young children - pre-schoolers - primary school pupils - basic school pupils - upper-secondary school students - adults) and 2) levels of proficiency (A1 - A2 - B1 - B2 - C1 - C2). The intersection of these two coordinate systems forms the general framework on the basis of which one can describe the written and oral language use and linguistic development of L1 and L2 learners of Estonian performing similar communicative tasks. The results of the research should give an overview of the similarities and differences in the stages and proficiency levels of language acquisition in the L1 and L2. They should help researchers understand in what order and in what manner language learners create and use new linguistic structures; whether L1 and L2 are acquired in paral lel, and if yes, then to what extent this is so; what is the role of the frequency, transparency, grammaticality and acceptability of linguistic elements and (idiomatic) constructions in language acquisition; and to what extent learners rely on rules or analogy in language acquisition. The methodological objective of the research is to determine the most typical and frequent communicative goals that can be compared in the case of language learners of different ages in terms of acquisition stages and of proficiency levels. Investigation of corpus data will help the researchers who are implementing the research to identify words and word forms, syntactic and logical constructions that are used to achieve similar communicative goals. This aspect of the research is expected to identify a considerable number of idiomatic expressions whose order of acquisition can then be observed through various acquisition stages and on various proficiency levels. It will also be important to study L1 and L2 text production and the psycholinguistic mechanisms of language acquisition by means of experiments specifically adapted or designed for the Estonian language. The research will be based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the Development Strategy of the Estonian Language. The present descriptions of reference levels of Estonian language proficiency are mostly based on one's teaching experience. The descriptions of reference levels A, B and C1, which have counterparts in the CEFR, are given in practical, 'can-do' terms; the linguistic aspect of language acquisition remains in the background. No corpus-based longitudinal studies to explore morphosyntactic constructions and lexical patterns characteristic of various proficiency levels of Estonian have yet been conducted in Estonia. Questions of interest for researchers include the following: whether lexical patterns and grammatical constructions become gradually more complex and varied in active communication, whether their number increases, stabilises or decreases, whether the learner's linguistic creativity increases with age or whether the language use of adults remains similar to that of teenagers. Researchers have also investigated how and in which order a learner chooses and uses words and word forms, what the grammar of linguistic units is, what stages the learner goes through while producing a text, what the characteristics of this process are, etc.
- Subjects
ESTONIA; LANGUAGE acquisition; LANGUAGE &; languages; LINGUISTICS; COMMUNICATION; IDIOMS; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS; MORPHOSYNTAX
- Publication
Lähivõrdlusi / Lähivertailuja, 2010, Vol 20, p11
- ISSN
1736-9290
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5128/LV20.01