A multifactorial study of the uses of may and can in French-English interlanguage
This study contributes to the understanding of how language learners make use of a second language, specifically how French English learners make use of the English modals may and can. The study is based on the assumptions that (i) acquiring a new language is a cognitively demanding task which requires the acquirer to identify [a] large amount of co-occurrence data, that (ii) those data are probabilistic in nature rather than absolute, and (iii) that semantic differences are particularly hard to discern and learn as they are not oxplicably noticeable. This study applies Divjak and Grie's (2008) behavioural Profile approach to semantic analysis to a corpus of native and learner English and native French in order to offer a fine-grained quantitative investigation of the co-occurrence patterns of may and can in both English varieties. It shows not only that may and can can be characterised and differentiated on the basis of their co-occurrence patterns, but also that such co-occurrence patterns vary systematically in native English and French-English interlanguage. This finding is supported by monofactorial and multifactorial statistical results indicating that (i) the meanings and the functions of may and can
Deshors, Sandra C.
P Philology. Linguistics ; PC2001 French ; PE English
A multifactorial study of the uses of may and can in French-English interlanguage. This study contributes to the understanding of how language learners make use of a second language, specifically how French English learners make use of the English modals may and can. The study is based on the assumptions that (i) acquiring a new language is a cognitively demanding task which requires the acquirer to identify [a] large amount of co-occurrence data, that (ii) those data are probabilistic in nature rather than absolute, and (iii) that semantic differences are particularly hard to discern and learn as they are not oxplicably noticeable. This study applies Divjak and Grie's (2008) behavioural Profile approach to semantic analysis to a corpus of native and learner English and native French in order to offer a fine-grained quantitative investigation of the co-occurrence patterns of may and can in both English varieties. It shows not only that may and can can be characterised and differentiated on the basis of their co-occurrence patterns, but also that such co-occurrence patterns vary systematically in native English and French-English interlanguage. This finding is supported by monofactorial and multifactorial statistical results indicating that (i) the meanings and the functions of may and can
study may french_english interlanguage study contribute language_learner make_use second_language specifically french_english learner make_use english_modal may can study base_assumption acquire new language cognitively demand task require identify large_amount co_occurrence data data probabilistic nature rather absolute iii semantic difference particularly hard discern learn noticeable study_applies behavioural profile semantic_analysis corpus native learner_english native french order offer fine_grained quantitative investigation co_occurrence pattern may english variety show may characterise differentiated basis co_occurrence pattern also co_occurrence pattern vary systematically native english_french english interlanguage find support statistical indicating meaning_function may