Discontinuous NP and discourse organization/Second language mastery in multilingual adults
Mast. filol. Branislava Ciganovic (Institut für Slawistik): Discontinuous NP and discourse organization: evidence from Slavic Serbian
This research explores morphosyntactic and pragmatic properties of discontinuous noun phrases (DNP) in Slavic Serbian, particularly their effects in discourse. DNPs have been discussed in the literature, mostly in terms of their morphosyntactic licensing conditions, where the motivation for their licensing was found in information-structural notions (IS), particularly focus marking. In other words, DNPs are motivated by the need to mark one or the other part of a DNP for (contrastive/narrow) focus, and are felicitous only in contexts where the need for focus marking arises (aside from Schultze-Berndt (2022) who argues that DNPs are tools for obtaining thetic sentences). To tease out IS and pragmatic properties of DNPs, we have conducted a corpus study of 'Kratka vsemirna istorija od Georgija Magaraševića, profesora' (1831) (A Short History of the World by Georgije Magarašević, Professor (1831)), because Slavic Serbian employs DNPs more than spoken contemporary Serbian; and because the properties of DNPs can be investigated in a larger discourse context. We first highlight their morphosyntactic properties and then examine what motivates their uses at specific points of discourse development. While it is true that DNPs easily render themselves for (contrastive) focus interpretations, as most word order rearrangements do, the question is whether they are exclusively interpreted as being ‘focus marked’. We argue that (contrastive) focus assumed to be responsible for the licensing of DNPs does not serve to (only) evoke alternatives for the expression in focus, since in many cases no obvious alternatives are present. The crucial licensing factor is the notion of unexpectedness. We propose that DNPs appear in order to drive narrative discourse development, where the strict division in terms of IS is often absent, and DNPs serve to indicate the discourse status of discourse participants, thereby marking them as - discourse topic introduction, reintroduction and discourse switch from one discourse segment to another one.
Keywords: discontinuous noun phrase, focus, information structure, discourse organization, morphosyntax, pragmatics
MA Daphne Reitinger-Zemann (Treffpunkt Sprachen, Plurlingulismus und Fachdidaktik): Second language mastery in multilingual adults: social and cognitive factors
Recent years have shown a rise in research evidence demonstrating native-like L2 attainment in adult learners (e.g. Kinsella and Singleton 2014; Dörnyei and Mentzelopoulos 2023). Studies report on social-experiential factors, such as prolonged immersion into the L2 environment, whose effects prove to be better predictors of ultimate attainment than the effects of age at the time of first exposure to the L2 (e.g. Marinova-Todd 2003). One individual variable that empirical research has repeatedly pointed out to be strongly predictive of high levels of L2-learning outcomes is the learner’s individual motivation to achieve a high level of competence in the L2 (Marinova-Todd 2003; Wen et al. 2017). In addition, a number of researchers have previously addressed musical perception skills as a cognitive factor that correlates with phonological aspects of second language acquisition (e.g. Chobert and Besson 2013; Li et al. 2024). The overall connection of musicality and speech is supported by neuroscientific research, which shows that the processing of music and speech partially occurs in overlapping brain areas (Patel 2014; Peretz et al. 2015). A link between beneficial effects of musicality on perceptual aspects of L2 acquisition has been convincingly established. The connection between musicality and L2 speech production, however, is yet debated. This presentation aims to discuss the theoretical background and methodology of my PHD project, within which I seek to investigate the correlation of social factors (motivation to achieve a high level of L2 competence) and cognitive factors (musical perception skills) with high levels of L2 attainment in adult learners.
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