experimental materials

On this page, I put the experimental materials I create. Please contact me if you want to discuss them :-)

Definiteness - Maximality with definite numerals in out-of-the-blue contexts from a hearer's perspective

downloadable: pdf

These simple materials are assessing differences in maximality in out-of-the-blue contexts. Plural definites with numerals are opposed to all and to indefinite numerals as in the sample items in (1), (4) and (7):

1. I stole 3 pencils of Harry’s, so now he only has two left. [indef., comp.]

4. I stole the 2 pens of Mary’s, so now she only has one left. [def., incomp.]

7. I stole all of Jacky’s books, so now she only has one left. [all, incomp.]

Results with native speakers and L2 learners are reported in L2-English definites and non-maximality.

Definiteness - Maximality with singular definites from a speaker's perspective in a cooperative task

downloadable: ppt-speaker, ppt-hearer

These materials consist of small clips in which there is either one individual or one out of two individuals who does something. Participant-speakers are asked to describe what happens in the clip by choosing between a sentence with a definite or an indefinite. The description is addressed to participant-hearers who have to recreate the scene as faithfully as possible based on the description alone. The following stills of clips illustrate the individual and the dual conditions (one girl falls off the horse and one girls gets into a hot air balloon).

Some indicative results: For Mandarin L2 learners of English (N=25) we found that the definite was used with the one-individual items in 46% of the cases but only in 12% of the cases for the two-individual items. For native speakers (N=30) we found that the definite was used in 51% of the cases for the one-individual items and in 6,5% of the cases for the two-individual items. The native speakers were told to imagine they were in a cooperative setting, the L2 learners were in a real cooperative setting.

Definiteness - Maximality with familiar plural definites from a hearer's perspective

downloadable: pdf

These materials oppose definites to all and full partitives in an interpretation task. An example of an item is given below:

Some indicative results: When asked which option corresponds to the last episode of the small story above, Mandarin English learners (N=15) selected option 3 in 90 % of the cases. Significant differences were found with ‘one box/two boxes/one of the boxes/two of the boxes’ but not with ‘all of the boxes’.

Noteworthiness and identifiability in indefinite contexts

downloadable: pdf

Background: Ionin et al. (2004) and Trenkic (2008) propose that noteworthiness and identifiability promote the use of definites in indefinite contexts for L2 learners of English with an articleless L1. They use forced-choice elicitation tasks to investigate. In these tasks, non-identifiability is consistently marked in the same way ('I don't know who it is').

In the materials we propose, we mark the distinction between identifiable and non-identifiable items not linguistically but pictorially. To achieve this, we create day and night contexts, the former leading to identifiable individuals, the latter to non-identifiable ones. We furthermore add a familiar context in which the definite article is the correct choice. The relevant conditions are illustrated below:

familiar definite

unidentifiable indefinite

identifiable indefinite

Some indicative results: For Mandarin L2 learners of English (N=24), we found that the definite was chosen in 86% of the familiar definite contexts, in 23% of the non-identifiable indefinite cases and in 29% of the identifiable indefinite cases. Even though the tendency seems to suggest that identifiability might be a relevant factor, no significant difference was found and the effect is extremely weak.

Prominence

downloadable: pdf, pdf

These materials test the relevance of prominence in the article choice of L2 learners of English. We distinguish between new referents that are likely to be picked up and those that are unlikely to be picked up.

There are two versions of this experiment. One in which the scenes are pictorially represented and one in which the scenes are only linguistically represented.

Results with native speakers and L2 learners are reported in AC2015.pdf and L2 article choice and prominence.pdf.