Difficulties in The Acquisition and Use of English Articles among Adult Pashto Learners
Abstract
The acquisition of the English articles is one of the most difficult areas for the second language learners particularly when there are no articles in the first language of the learners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difficulties in acquisition and use of the English articles. The study aims at identifying the errors the EFL learners make in using the English articles. Two theoretical approaches regarding noun classification for articles choice were adopted in this study. The data were collected in the form of a gap-fill task from 75 adult Pashto learners of English. The results showed the students used the definite article ‘the’ and the indefinite article ‘a/an’ more often than the zero article Ø. In noun types, a few subjects made errors in using articles before count nouns. In the noun phrase environments, the lowest error rate was in referential indefinite while the highest error rate was in generics. The reasons for difficulties in acquiring and using the English articles were found to be mainly the identification of noun types, NPs environments, and language transfer.
References
Bataineh, R. F. (2005). Jordanian undergraduate EFL students' errors in the use of the indefinite. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 7(1), 56-76. Bickerton, D. (1981). Roots of language. Ann Arbor, 10, 268-284. Butler, Y. G. (2002). An analysis of the metalinguistic knowledge used by Japanese students in acquiring the English article system. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24(3), 451-480.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263102003042
Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: An ESL teacher's course. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Crompton, P. (2011). Article errors in the English writing of advanced L1 Arabic learners: The role of transfer. Asian EFL Journal, 50(1), 4-35.
Ellis, N. (2005). At the interface: Dynamic interaction of explicit and implicit language knowledge. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 305-352.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S027226310505014X
Hasbún, L. H. (2009). The use of English articles by a group of EFL learners. Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 177-189.
Hawkins, R. (2001). Second language syntax: A generative Introduction. New York, NY: Blackwell.
Hewson, J. (2017). Article and noun in English (Vol. 104). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Huebner, T. (1983). A longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of English. Michigan: Karoma Press.
Ionin, T., Ko, H., & Wexler, K. (2004). Article semantics in L2 acquisition: The role of specificity. Language Acquisition, 12(1), 3-69.
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327817la1201_2
Liu, D., & Gleason, J. L. (2002). Acquisition of the article the by nonnative speakers of English: An analysis of four non-generic uses. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 1-26.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263102001018
Master, P. (1987). A cross-linguistic interlanguage analysis of the acquisition of the English article system. Unpublished Doctorial dissertation, UCLA.
Master, P. (1990). Teaching the English articles as a binary system. TESOL Quarterly, 24, 461-478.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3587230
Master, P. (1994). The effect of systematic instruction on learning the English article system. Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar, 229-252.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524605.011
Master, P. (1997). The English article system: Acquisition, function, and pedagogy. System, 25, 215-232.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(97)00010-9
Miller, J. (2005). Most of ESL students have trouble with the articles. International Education Journal, 5(5), 80-88.
Odlin, T. (1989). Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524537
Parrish, B. (1987). A new look at methodologies in the study of article acquisition for learners of ESL. Language Learning, 37, 361-383.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1987.tb00576.x
Raverty, H. G. (1860) A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushtu or the Language of the Afghans. Calcutta, India: Baptist Mission Press.
Snape, N. (2005). The uses of articles in L2 English by Japanese and Spanish learners. Essex Graduate Student Papers in Languages and Linguistics, 7, 1-23.
Tarone, E., & Parrish, B. (1988). Task-related variation in interlanguage: The case of articles. Language Learning, 38, 21-43.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1988.tb00400.x
Thomas, M. (1989). The acquisition of English articles by first- and second-language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 10, 335-355.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400008663
Wang, F. (2010). English article acquisition: An investigation among Chinese Students. Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:3436 62/FULLTEXT01.pdf
White, B. (2009). Accounting for L2-English learners' article choices. MSU Working Papers in SLS, 1(1).
Yamada, J., & Matsuura, N. (1982). The use of the English article among Japanese students. RELC Journal, 13, 50-63.
https://doi.org/10.1177/003368828201300104
Young, R. (1996). Form-function relations in articles in English interlanguage. In R. Bayley & D. R. Preston (Eds.), Second language acquisition and linguistic variation (pp. 135-175). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamin's.
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
