Dutch Language Proficiency of Turkish Children Born in the Netherlands [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9783110859997, 9783110133189

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Dutch Language Proficiency of Turkish Children Born in the Netherlands

Functional Grammar Series This series comprises monographs and collections written in the framework of Functional Grammar. The aim is to seek explanations for a wide variety of linguistic phenomena, both language specific and cross-linguistic, in terms of the conditions under which and the purposes for which language is used. Editors: A. Machtelt Bolkestein Simon C. Dik Casper de Groot J. Lachlan Mackenzie General address: Institute for General Linguistics Functional Grammar Spuistraat210 NL-1012 VT Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Other books in this series: 1. A.M. Bolkestein, C. de Groot and J.L. Mackenzie (eds.) Syntax and Pragmatics in Functional Grammar 2. A.M. Bolkestein, C. de Groot and J.L. Mackenzie (eds.) Predicates and Terms in Functional Grammar 3. Michael Hannay English Existentials in Functional Grammar

Other studies on Functional Grammar include S.C. Dik, Functional Grammar (1978), T. Hoekstraetal. (eds.), Perspectives on Functional Grammar (1981), S.C. Dik (ed.), Advances in Functional Grammar (1983). All published by FORIS PUBLICATIONS.

Dutch Language Proficiency of Turkish Children Born in the Netherlands Josine A. Lalleman

1986 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Riverton - U.S.A.

Published by: Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 3300 AM Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor for the U.S.A. and Canada: Foris Publications U.S.A. P.O. Box C-50 Riverton N.J. 08077 U.S.A. CIP-data

ISBN 90 6765 160 5 (Paper) © 1986 Foris Publications - Dordrecht No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner.

Printed in the Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

To my parents To Martie

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

xv

CHAPTER 1

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1

1. Background to the study and research questions

1

2. Subjects

4

3. Data and data processing

7

3.1. The language samples 3.2. The social and socio-psychological material 4. The functional paradigm; basic principles and concepts of Functional Grammar

CHAPTER 2

7 10 11

4.1. Introduction

11

4.2. Outline of FG

12

ORAL DUTCH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF TÜRKISCH CHILDREN BORN IN THE NETHERLANDS: Overall results

17

1. Introduction

17

2. The Tests

19

2.1. Morphology Test

19

2.2. Imitation Test

22

2.2.1. IT: Morphological Features

23

2 . 2 . 2 . IT: Syntactic Features

25

2.2.3. IT: Semantic Features

27

2.3. Comprehension Test 3. Spontaneous Speech 3.1. Morphological Features

29 31 31

3.1.1. Verb Conjugation

31

3.1.2. Personal pronouns

32

3.1.3. Prepositions

35

3.1.4. Articles

37

3.2. Syntactic Features

40

viii

3.3. Semantic Features 3.3.1. Informational Units

44

3.3.2. Semantic Category Agreement

47

3.3.3. Vocabulary

48

4. Summary and Establishment of an overall level of linguistic proficiency

50

4.1. Summary

50

4.2.

55

Establishment of an overall level of linguistic proficiency

5. Conclusion CHAPTER 3 MORPHOLOGICAL PROFICIENCY: LI and L2 development of the verbal predicate

CHAPTER 4

43

57 61

1. Introduction

61

2. The Dutch tense system

62

3. Developmental sequences in LI acquisition of the verbal predicate

66

4. Method of Analysis

68

5. L2 acquisition of the Dutch tense system

69

6. L2 acquisition of the present tense conjugation rule

70

7. L2 acquisition of the past participle and the past tense

75

7.1. Past Participle

77

7.2. Past Tense

79

8. Summary and discussion

82

SYNTACTIC PROFICIENCY: Complexity and correctness of utterances

87

1. Introduction

87

2. Word order properties of Dutch declarative main clauses

88

2.1. Complete Utterances

88

2.2.

Elliptical Utterances

89

2.3.

Spoken Dutch

90

3. The FG pattern of Dutch main clauses

91

4. Method of Analysis

92

5. Complexity

93

5.1. Length of Utterances

93

5.2.

Structural diversity

96

5.2.1. One-constituent utterances

97

5.2.2. Two-constituent utterances

99

5.2.3. Three-constituent utterances*

100

ix

5.2.4. Four-constituent utterances

101

5.2.5. Five-, six-, utterances

103

and seven-constituent

5.2.6. Conclusion 5.3. Summary 6. Correctness 6.1. Acceptable spoken Dutch patterns

105 106 107

6.1.1. Utterances starting with the finite verb

1Q7

6.1.2. Utterances with a constituent added to a complete predication

no

6.1.3. Utterances with a noun directly followed by its corresponding demonstrative

112

6.1.4. Frequency of occurrence of acceptable spoken Dutch patterns

113

6.1.5. Conclusion

114

6.2. Utterances without subject and/or without verb

115

6.3. Utterances with a deviant word order pattern

115

6.3.1. Verb Final and V3

117

6.3.2. Utterances with the subject or verb in two different positions

119

6.3.3. Object Final and incorrect joint V f V i

120

6.3.4. Conclusion

121

6.4. Summary

CHAPTER 5

104

122

7. Overall level of syntactic proficiency of the Turkish children

123

SEMANTIC PROFICIENCY: The communication of perceptual experiences

127

1. Introduction

127

2. A Functional Grammar of narratives

129

3. The analysis of the Banana-story 3.1. Introduction

132 132

3.2. The establishment of a basic text

133

3.3. A functional Analysis of the basic text

134

4. How the Dutch and Turkish children communicate perceptual experiences

137

4.1. Basic and Individual Story Fund

137

4.2. Semantic functions

138

4.3. Linguistic form of the Informational Units 4.4. Setting

140 142

4.5. Order of events

145

5. Summary and discussion

147

CHAPTER 6

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL AND SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS ON SECOND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

151

1. Introduction

151

2. Data gathering and Method of Analysis

156

3. General information

156

4. Social Distance

157

4.1. Introduction

157

4.2. Visits to/from Dutch people

159

4.3. Visits to/from Dutch children

160

4.4. Chats with neighbours

160

4.5. Help from neighbours

161

4.6. Contact with Dutch colleagues (father)

162

4.7. Contact with Dutch colleagues (mother)

162

4.8. Knowledge of Dutch politics

163

4.9. Squatting

163

4.10.Dutch papers

164

4.11.Overview of the results

164

5. Cultural Distance

166

5.1. Introduction

166

5.2. Ritual Prayers

167

5.3. Koran

168

5.4. Fasting

169

5.5. Religious Feasts

169

5.6. Alcohol

169

5.7. Marriage

170

5.8. Marriage Giving

171

5.9. Bars and Discotheques

171

5.10.Clothing (1)

172

5.11.Clothing (2)

172

5.12.Turkish language

172

5.13.Longing for Turkey

173

5.14.Return to Turkey

174

5.15.Turkish Food

174

5.16.Turkish music

175

5.17.Overview of the results

175

XI

6. Psychological Distance 6.1. Introduction

177

6.2. Discrimination at work

179

6.3. Discrimination in finding a house

179

6.4. Discrimination at school

180

6.5. Discrimination by the Dutch population in general

181

6.6. Discrimination by the Dutch government

182

6.7. Overview of the results

183

7. Discussion APPENDICES

177

184

1A:

The Morphology Test

189

IB:

The Imitation Test

191

1C:

The Comprehension Test

192

ID:

The Conversation Sample ( C S ) , the questions concerning the CS, and the questions relating to the CS

193

2 :

Levels of Proficiency in Dutch of the individual Turkish children, with respect to 25 variables separately

195

5A:

Transcribed text of the writers' version of the Banana-story

196

5B:

Four versions of the Banana-story as told by the children

198

6A:

Conversation with Hakan's parents (Turkish)

199

6B:

Conversation with Hakan's parents (Dutch)

210

6C:

Profile of Hakan's family

222

REFERENCES

227

SUBJECT INDEX

233

Acknowledgements

This book contains the results of the project "The Dutch of Turkish children born in the Netherlands". This research was supported by the Foundation for Linguistic Research, which is funded by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research, ZWO (nr. 17-25-06). Rene Appel was the supervisor of the project, and to a large extent this book is a product of the efforts of both of us: not only did he define the original research questions, but he also dedicated a lot of his time to the project itself. I think that he will agree that our working relationship has always been very good and friendly. Bernhard Tervoort, my promoter, taught me the basic features of child language and how to study language acquisition. More important, he taught me to enjoy the study of language acquisition. With respect to this book, he dedicated much time to reading the first and second versions, and giving extensive comments on them. The results of this study are described in terms of the theory of Functional Grammar (see chapter 1 ) , and I owe it

to my second promoter,

Simon Dik, that I ever started to write a book (instead of just articles). For me Simon Dik is a prime example of how a linguist should think, work, and present his or her work; I never met a scientist with a clearer mind than his. During the second half-year, four research assistants worked on the project, helping me to collect the data and prepare them for analysis. Marianne Boogaard, Jose Corstens, and Anneli Schaufeli gathered the language material with me, and it is thanks to them that the spontaneous speech was transcribed and the tests scored in a relatively short period of time. The fourth research assistant, Coby van der Kraan, talked with the Turkish parents, transcribed these conversations, and translated them into Dutch. I thank her for doing this timeconsuming job so thoroughly.

XIV

Liz Savage corrected my English; as we agreed upon, she corrected the obvious lexical and grammatical errors in order to provide for an understandable text. It was however, impossible to transform my English into native-like English. Writing this book in a language not my own at least made me aware of the huge problems which the Turkish children of this study are faced with. Annemieke van Schouwenburg expertly typed the final text, and I thank her for doing it in her spare time, with exceptional speed. And above all

I am grateful to Theun de Winter, who helped me to develop

a balance between working hard at this study and not thinking about it at all.

Amsterdam, January 1986

Josine Lalleman

XV

List of Abbreviations

ag = agent Art = articles Cat Agree = semantic category agreement CD = cultural distance CS = conversation sample CT = comprehension test D = Dutch group/child ELI = Eerste Leerjaar intelligentietest go = goal HT = high level Turkish children IT = imitation test IU = informational unit LI = f i r s t , native language L2 = second language LP = language proficiency LT = low level Turkish children M = missing value MLU = mean length of utterance MNDF = mean number of d i f f e r e n t patterns MNIU = mean number of informational units ms = moment of speaking MT = (1) morphology test (2) middle level Turkish children PI = f i r s t position P2 = theme position P3 = tail position Past Part = past participle PD = psychological distance pp = person plural Prep = prepositions Pro = pronouns ps = person singular rec = recipient 0/Obj = object SC = subordinate clause SD = (1) structural diversity (2) social distance SoA = state of a f f a i r s S/Subj= subject T = Turkish group/child TTR = type token ratio Vr = f i n i t e verb V = non-finite verb

Chapter 1:

General Introduction 1. Background to the study and research questions In the second half of the 1970's a great increase in non-native children in Dutch schools was recorded: in 1976 38.700 children or 2% of the total number of children attending nursery and

by

and primary school was of foreign nationality,

1984 this number had grown to 5% (Mededelingen CBS 1985). Most of

these children (approximately 80%) could be described as the children of immigrant workers, that is,

foreigners from countries which had labour migration

contracts with the Netherlands: Greeks, Yugoslavs, Portuguese, Spaniards, Turks, Moroccans and Tunesians (Italy does not have labour migration contracts with the Netherlands; for this reason, Italians are not considered as immigrant workers, although in many studies they are included in the group). Within the category of immigrant workers, children of Turkish nationality form the majority: almost half of the group is Turkish. From the 1970's on, the Dutch government made it legally possible for immigrant workers to be reunited with their families in the Netherlands. Most of them expected to live in the Netherlands for a short period of time only, but in the seventies very few in fact returned to their native country (Penninx & Van Velzen 1976, Cruson 1980). Therefore, the Dutch government's policy became directed to their permanent stay in the Netherlands (WRR 1979). Although in recent years the increase in the number of people with a foreign nationality living in the Netherlands has turned out to be smaller than expected (more families returned to their native country and less non-native Dutch children were born in the Netherlands than was calculated in population prognoses),

between the years of 1982 and 1990 from 38.570 to 42.246 children of

Turkish nationality are expected to be born here, and in 1990 from 35.075 to 43.101 Turkish children between the age of five and fourteen are expected to be living here (SCP 1982). With regard to the education of non-native children, the Dutch education system has faced great d i f f i c u l t i e s . One of the main reasons for these difficulties is that many of these children do not satisfactorily master the Dutch language, whereas this is the most important subject at school, and Dutch language

proficiency is also a prerequisite in other subjects. It is unknown to what extent these difficulties will persist in the future, when the relative number of children who were born in their native country and who later joined their father in the Netherlands has decreased and when the group of immigrant workers' children mostly consists of those who have been born and brought up in the Netherlands. Will these children still lag behind in their Dutch language proficiency compared to Dutch children or will they have learned Dutch satisfactorily in the years they attended nursery school, (hopefully) played with Dutch children on the street and watched Dutch television, etc.? try and answer

I will

this question by studying the Dutch oral language proficiency

of a group of twenty Turkish children born in the Netherlands, at the moment they enter primary school

in Amsterdam. This study is restricted to a single

nationality, the Turkish nationality, because this group is the largest among the groups of non-native children in the Netherlands. I studied children who had just entered primary school because these children had not yet received any formal education, so that this factor would not be able to interfere with the result

. By studying the children at this specific moment, it can be esta-

blished whether or not non-native children are less proficient in Dutch than Dutch native children when they start their school-career. In order to be able to make statements about language proficiency, we should be able to say what the "normal" language proficiency of a 6 year old child is. Therefore, a Dutch group of children of the same age and socio-demographic background ( c f . section 2) took part in this study as well. Taking the considerations mentioned above into account, the (first) research question of this study can be formulated as follows: (1)

Research Question 1: What is the level of oral Dutch language proficiency of Turkish children born in the Netherlands, at the moment they enter primary school, compared with that of native Dutch children of the same age and sociodemographic background?

This research question will be dealt with in chapter 2: spontaneous speech and a number of tests will be analysed with regard to morphological, syntactic and semantic features (cf. section 3) to provide an answer. In studying this question, I aim to reach two goals. In the first place, a theoretical goal: I will try to describe the linguistic skills of this specific group of secondlanguage (L2) learners and native Dutch children in terms of a functional paradigm, that is,

within the theory of Functional Grammar (FG, Dik 1978, 1980;

cf. section 4). Also, I will try to make some predictions about their linguistic future by dealing with the following question: Are the Turkish children developmentally behind in Dutch language proficiency or are they in the process of acquiring their own variety of Dutch? This question will be dealt with in chapter 3, 4 and 5 with regard to morphological proficiency, syntactic proficiency and semantic proficiency, respectively. In the second place, the practical goal of this study is the following: it will be investigated whether or not it seems necessary to continue and extend the special provisions for non-native children at school which the Dutch government started in the seventies -special teachers, appropriate teaching material etc.-

in the future, when the majority of the immigrant workers' children will

have been born and brought up in the Netherlands. As I mentioned before, the main subjects of this study are a group of Turkish children who have their nationality, age and socio-demographic background in common. Anticipating the results of this study, I assume that the individual Turkish children will most probably d i f f e r among themselves with regard to their proficiency in Dutch. The second research question of this study aims to establish the role of certain extra-linguistic factors in the process of L2 acquisition: (2)

Research Question 2: What is the influence of social and socio-psychological factors on the level of Dutch language proficiency of the Turkish children?

Thus, among the many factors which are known to influence L2 acquisition (age, intelligence, language aptitude, input frequency and input quality, social, socio-psychological and psychological factors),

I will explore some aspects of

two of these: social and socio-psychological factors. Research question be taken up in chapter 6. In dealing with it,

I hope to contribute

some

2 will in-

sight into the exact role which some extra-linguistic factors play in the acquisition of a L2. The data that were gathered in order to be able to answer the question ( c f . section 3), were taken from interviews with the parents of the Turkish children, because six year olds cannot be expected to answer rather complex questions concerning their attitude towards the Dutch community and towards the Dutch in general, or concerning their attachment to Turkey and the Turkish culture.

2. Subjects In finding subjects for this study, Dutch and Turkish children had at least to be matched with respect to: (i)

demographic background

(ii)

socio-economic background

(iii)

sex

(iv)

age

With respect to demographic background, the children in this study all attend schools in Amsterdam; the Dutch and Turkish children were also matched with respect to the area in which they lived. The data gathering took place in September 1981, at eleven different primary schools. All children had been attending primary school for less than a month at that point, but school education might still interfere as a possible influence on language proficiency as the children had also attended various nursery schools. It was,however, impossible to avoid this, because in none of the primary schools in Amsterdam which had agreed to take part in the research, was it possible to find more than two or three Turkish children who had been born in the Netherlands and who were attending the first class in primary school in 1981. In order to minimalize the possible effect of nursery school education on the language proficiency of the children, approximately the same number υί' Dutch and Turkish 2 children from each school took part in this study ( c f . table 1). In view of the special status of immigrant workers in the Netherlands it must be stressed that a match between the two groups with respect to socio-economic background

can only partly be attained: the children were matched as far as the

profession of the fathers in the Netherlands was concerned (it was impossible to include the mothers' professions,because many of them were housewives). In table 1 it is shown that the match was not perfect: in the Dutch group there are more skilled labourers than in the Turkish group. This is caused by the fact that among the classmates of the Turkish children often no Dutch child could be found with exactly the same socio-economic background, and the demographic factor- including the educational (nursery school) background of the childrenwas considered as more essential than the socio-economic match, whenever a choice between the two had to be made. A perfect match, on the other hand, was obtained with respect to sex: the subjects of this study are twenty Dutch and twenty Turkish children; each group contains ten girls and ten boys:

Dutch

Turkish

male

10

10

female

10

10

In table 1 (below) the childrens' Christian names only are mentioned; throughout this study, they will be referred to by these names in order to obtain a balance between anonymity and reducing children to mere numbers. The age of the children varies from 5 years and 10 months and 7 years and 8 months, but most of the children were about the same age ( c f . table 1); the average in the Dutch group is 6.5; in the Turkish group 6.4. In table 1 we can also see that all the Turkish children were born in the Netherlands, but that a number of them have lived in Tuckey for some years. These children were not excluded from the research population because,with the exception of Qelil, who had attended nursery school for one year, these children have attended nursery school for the same period of time as all other children. Also, as Turkish parents so often send (some of) their children back to Turkey for a period of time, it would reduce the possibility of generalizing the results of this study to the whole population of Turkish children born in the Netherlands, if they were not included. In the choice of the subjects, the following was not taken into account: a cognitive match between the two groups, (ii)

(i)

the amount of "exposure to Dutch"

within the Turkish group. It is generally agreed that it is very d i f f i c u l t to match children for personality characteristics, but in a pilot study the children could have been matched on their non-verbal intelligence. In fact, this was done in the data collection period itself: an Intelligence Test (the ELI, Eerste Leerjaar Intelligentietest, Sangers & Van der Sluis 1973) containing a verbal and a non-verbal part was administered to the children. The results of the nonverbal part are listed in table 1; the average non-verbal IQ of the Turkish group is 106.2, of the Dutch group 104.5. It can thus be concluded that the two groups of children are comparable with regard to non-verbal IQ. The degree of "exposure to Dutch", that is,

how much and how often the Turkish

children had heard and spoken Dutch before they entered primary school seemed to be crucial to the level of proficiency they had reached. It is, however, a variable which cannot be assessed beforehand, and only in a very thorough longitudinal and observational study can it

be assessed at all.

Therefore, it

will be studied as a dependent variable, along with other social and sociopsychological variables, in chapter 6.

1 2 3 4

Emel Ferhan Ertan Erkan Hakan Serpil Bülent Dilek Zuleyha Umit Cengiz Jale Sibel Özlem Haci Adile Faruk Rahman Qelil Kamile

T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T

A B C D E C D A F G C A H E I J K G G J

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 I 2

construction worker car -sprayer driver cleaner factory worker crane-driver labourer car-sprayer unemployed ship-welder crane-driver ship-welder welder welder building labourer cafe proprietor factory worker building labourer unemployed cleaner

female female male male male female male female female male male female female female male female male male male female

6.8 6.10 6.5 6.2 6.0 5.11 6.3 5.11 6.10 6.10 6.0 6.3 7.2 6.6 5.11 6.5 6.6 6.2 6.10 6.3

133 Holland 120 id. 133 id. 111 id. 120 id. 92 id. 83 id. 111 id. 141 id. 109 id. 80 id. 129 id. 86 id. 101 id. 103 id. 77 id. 117 id. 114 id. 92 id. 71 id.

Pamela Eveline Gerti Wouter Jeroen Mireille Richard Natasha H. Bianca Remy Rob Esther Natasha Soraya Patrick Debby Eddy Erwin Ralph Chantal

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

A B C D E C D A F G C A H E I J K G A J

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

(travelling)salesman tram-driver unknown teacher office-clerk unknown policeman street repairer plumber unknown driver butcher office-clerk truck-driver bus-driver bridge-guard labourer office-clerk photographer salesman

female female male male male female male female female male male female female female male female male male male female

6.9 6.10 6.8 6.8 6.0 6.6 7.8 6.2 6.8 6.10 6.11 5.10 6.7 6.7 6.11 6.4 6.8 6.4 6.1 6.0

111 id. 98 id. 120 id. 95 id. 122 id. 114 id. 98 id. 95 id. 89 id. 89 id. 122 id. 125 id. 106 id. 74 id. 109 id. 125 id. 106 id. 86 id. 103 id. 103 id.

Table 1: Information

0.5 -

3 1.5 1.5

4 — — -

concerning the subjects of the study

1 = nationality; T=Turkish, D=Dutch 2 = primary schools (anonymously) 3 = years in which the child visited nursery school 4 = profession uf the father 5 = sex 6 = age (in years and months) 7 = non-verbal IQ in the ELI (eerste leerjaar Intelligentietest)

8 = country in which the child was born 9 = years during which the child was back in Turkey Average age Dutch children: 6.5 Turkish children: 6.4 Average non-verbal IQ Dutch children : 104.5 Turkish children: 106.2

3. Data and data processing 3.1. The language samples Language samples were obtained from the children in four sessions; these consisted of three tests and two spontaneous speech samples: (3)

a. Tests: 1. Morphology Test 2. Imitation Test 3. Comprehension Test b. Spontaneous speech samples: 1. Picture Sample 2. Conversation Sample

In the Morphology Test (cf. appendix 1A) the child was asked to complete a sentence which the experimenter uttered with reference to pictures, e.g.: FATIMA KIJKT NAAR DE TELEVISIE "FATIMA IS WATCHING TELEVISION"

FATIMA HEEFT NAAR DE TELEVISIE FATIMA HAS TELEVISION

'

A

The results of this test are presented in section 2.1. of chapter 2. The Imitation Test, as the name already indicates, consisted of complete sentences which the experimenter read to the child and which the child was asked to imitate literally ( c f . appendix IB), e.g.: JAN HEEFT Z'N HÄNDEN GEWASSEN, OMDAT ZE VIES WAREN "JOHN HAS WASHED HIS HANDS, BECAUSE THEY WERE DIRTY" In section 2.2. of the next chapter the results of this test are presented. The last test, the Comprehension Test (cf. appendix 1C), measured the ability

of the child to carry out specific instructions, e.g.: PAK HET SCHRIFT, WAAROP GEEN NAAM STAAT, IN JE HAND "PICK UP AND HOLD THE EXERCISE BOOK WHICH HAS NO NAME ON IT" This test will be dealt with in section 2.3. of chapter 2. The way in which the results of the tests were quantified is specified in chapter 2. Spontaneous speech- as far as one can speak of spontaneous in the given settingwas obtained from each child in two sessions. In the Picture Sample the child was asked to tell a story in his or her own words with reference to a number of series of pictures. One of the picture series is the following:

Five series of pictures were presented to the children; the analysis of this material concentrates on the first f i f t y T-units (a T-unit is a main clause, including a subordinate clause, if any) with regard to the morphological and syntactic analysis (cf. chapter 2, 3 and 4) and the complete sample (thus

differing in length between the children) with regard to the semantic analysis ( c f . chapter 2 and 5). In the Conversation Sample, the experimenter read a short story to the child, which he or she was asked to retell in his or her own words. Four stories were read to the child ( c f . appendix I D ) . After each story the experimenter asked a number of fixed questions concerning the story and a number of questions relating to the story ( c f . appendix I D ) . These latter questions were not fixed: they were meant as a guide for a conversation between the adult and the child. An example: (4)

a. One of the stories read to the children by the experimenter: "Ahmet gaat met z ' n vader en moeder en zusje Ayse op vakantie naar Turkije. Ze gaan met de auto. Als ze drie uur gereden hebben, klapt plotseling een van de banden van de auto. De auto begint te slingeren en Ahmet's vader kan nog maar net veilig aan de kant van de weg stoppen. Wat een geluk dat ze nergens tegen opgebotst zijn! Vader verwisselt de band en ze kunnen weer verder rijden." "Ahmet goes on holiday to Turkey, with his father and his mother and little sister Ayse. They go by car. When they have been driving for three hours, all of a sudden one of the tires bursts. The car starts to sway and Ahmet's father only just manages to stop the car at the side of the road. How lucky they were not to have crashed into another car! Ahmet's father changes the tire and they can drive on." b. The story as it was retold by one of the children: Dat Ahmet weg naar Turkije met z'n zus en als ze gaat daar drie That Ahmet away to Turkey with his sister and when she goes there three uur rijden en en ze .... wieletje die is leeg hours drive and and his wheel-(dim.suffix) that is empty "Ahmet gaat naar Turkije met z'n zus en als ze drie uur gereden hebben, gaat de band lek." "Ahmet went away to Turkey with his sister and when they have driven for three hours, the tire bursts." c . The qustions concerning the story:

1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Waarheen gaat Ahmet op vakantie? Wat gebeurt er onderweg? Botsen ze ergens tegenop? Wie verwisselt de band? Where does Ahmet go on holiday? What happens when they are on the Did they crash? Who changes the tire?

way?

10

d. The questions relating to the story: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Ga j i j weleens op vakantie? Waarheen? Heb je weleens een ongeluk zien gebeuren? Vertel eens wat je zag. htbben jullie een auto? Heeft jouw vader weleens een lekke band gehad? Wat deed hij toen?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Have you ever been on holiday? Where? Have you ever seen an accident? Tell me what you saw. Do you have a car? Has your father ever had a burst tire? What did he do?

The analysis of this material matches the one of the Picture Sample: for the syntactic and morphological analysis, the first f i f t y T-units of the conversation between the experimenter and the child were studied; the semantic analysis of the questions relating to the story ( c f . Cat. Agree 2;section 3.3.2. of chapter 2) involves the whole speech sample. A remark on the translation of the examples which I will give throughout this book; the general form will be the following: 1. the transcribed sentence as the child uttered it 2. a literal word-by-word translation of this sentence in English 3. the correct version of 1 (i.e.

in terms of the adult norm) in Dutch

4. the correct English version Whenever (1) contains a correct utterance, (3) is omitted: (5)

e.g.:

Ertan: en toen die meisje gooide die ene emmer weg and then that girl threw that one bucket away "en toen gooide dat meisje die emmer weg" "and then that girl threw away that bucket" Ertan: net meisje haalde water the girl fetched water "the girl fetched water"

3.2. The social- and socio-psychological material The data of the sociolinguistic part of this study was gathered in an interview with the parents of the Turkish subjects. The conversation took place at their 4 home, in Turkish; the interviewer, a research assistant , spoke Turkish with a nearly native-like fluency.

11

The interview was semi-open: a list of 140 questions was followed in principle, as long as the line of conversation was not broken. In appendix 6B one of the transcribed interviews can be read (translated into Dutch). Based upon the interviews, a profile of the family was written ( c f . appendix 6C), containing the following subjects: (6)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Where the family came from The circumstances under which the family moved to the Netherlands Their present situation (number of children; work of the parents ( e t c . ) ) Housing and neighbours Religious convictions and education School (of the children) Language (at home; Turkish and Dutch) Ideas about Dutch society Homesickness

4. The functional paradigm} basic principles and concepts of Functional Grammar 4.1. Introduction Throughout this book, I will follow the basic principles and make use of the concepts and insights of Functional Grammar (henceforth FG), as put forward in Dik (1978,1980). Therefore,! will at this point briefly outline this grammatical theory. FG is based upon a functional paradigm, which entails the following points of view (Dik 1978: 5): (7)

(i) (ii) (iii)

a language is an instrument of social interaction the primary function of a language is communication the psychological correlate of a language is communicative competence: the ability to carry on social interaction by means of language (iv) the study of the language system must from the very start take place within the framework of the system of language use (v) the description of linguistic expressions must provide points of contact for the description of their functioning in given settings (vi) the child (learning his native language) discovers the system underlying language and language use, aided by an extensive and highly structured input of linguistic data presented in natural settings (vii) language universale are to be explained in terms of the constraints inherent in (a) the goals of communication, (b) the biological and psychological constitution of language users, (c) the settings in which language is used (viii) pragmatics is the all-encompassing framework within which semantics and syntax must be studied; semantics is subservient to pragmatics and syntax to semantics; the priorities run from pragmatics via semantics to syntax.

12

FG (Dik 1978: 2) aims to be a linguistic theory which does not only describe the rules of language, but also tries to explain the way in which these rules are used by speakers. In Dik 's view, a grammar is psychologically adequate only if it is compatible with psychological hypotheses about language processing. Although not explicitly stated in FG so f a r , the theory obviously implies that a grammar should also be compatible with hypotheses about language acquisition. In other words, a linguistic theory should be able to explain the way in which grammatical and pragmatic rules are used and acquired by both first language (LI) learners and second language (L2) learners. This does not mean, of course, that every single step a learner goes through in acquiring a language should be accounted for by the theory, but it does mean that the universal features of language acquisition should be explainable within the theory. The results of the present study will be presented and discussed in terms of the basic concepts and insights of FG, and I will try to explain some (hypothetical) developmental features to be found in both native children and in this group of L2 learners within the theoretical framework of FG.

4.2. Outline of FG The basic components of linguistic expressions are predicate-frames Predicate-frames

and terms.

contain predicates, which are either basic, that is, given in

the lexicon and provided there with all the information relevant for their semantic and syntactic behaviour in linguistic expressions, or they are derived, that is,

formed by means of predicate formation rules. An example of a basic pre-

dicate-frame is (Dik 1978: 16):

(8)

givev ( x j : human C ^ ) ) ^ ( x 2^Go ^*3 :

animate

^x3

In (8), "V" indicates that give is a verbal predicate, the variables "x" the argument positions, the labels A g ( e n t ) , Go(al) and Rec(ipient) reflect the semantic functions of the arguments, and the expressions "human" and "animate" specify the selection restrictions on the Agent and Recipient arguments. All this information is thus given in the lexicon. Terms are formed by means of term formation rules with the general scheme: (9)

In ( 9 ) , w indicates one or more term operators and each ^ ( x . ) indicates an open predication having χ . as a free variable. The term formation rules specify which

13

open predications can be combined in the underlying structure of terms, and how they are to be expressed in the final syntactic structure of the term. Open predications may themselves contain terms of the same general structure as ( 9 ) , and therefore, being recursive, term formation may produce very complex terms,

e.g.: (10)

a girl with a beautiful red balloon in her hands and a happy expression on her face

When the appropriate terms are inserted into the argument slots of a predicateframe, a nuclear predication is formed. For example, if the terms John, apple and Peter respectively are inserted into the three argument-slots of (8), we

get: (11)

give v (dx 1 :John(x i )) A g ( d X j : apple ( X . J ) ) G O (dx k : Peter (x k )) R e c

Semantically, predicates designate properties of, or relations between entities and terms designate these entities proper. A nuclear predication as a whole designates a set of specific states of affairs

( S o A ' s ) . For example, (11) de-

signates any state of affairs in which some definite person called "John" (d=definite in (11)) gives some definite thing called "apple" to some definite person "Peter". A nuclear predication can be extended by means of satellites, which specify further properties of the state of a f f a i r s of that predication. For example, (11) could be extended into: (12)

give v (αχ ± : John ( x i ) ) A g (dx..: apple ( X J ) ) G O (dx k : Peter (x k )) R e c (dy^ garden (y i ) L o c )

In (12), the satellite in the garden specifies the state of a f f a i r s reflected by the nuclear predication; a predication which contains one or more satellites is called an extended predication. As was shown in (8) and ( 1 2 ) , semantic functions of terms are given in the (extended) predicate frame. Two types of functions can be distinguished as well as semantic functions: syntactic and pragmatic functions.

14

Syntactic functions account for the different forms in which linguistic expressions containing the same predication can appear. Compare: (13)

a. b. c. d.

John gives the apple to Peter The apple is given to Peter by John Peter is given the apple by John John gives Peter the apple

In (13a) the function of subject

has been assigned to the agent of the predica-

tion, in (13b) to the goal, and in (13c) to the recipient (which, by the way, is not possible in Dutch). FG distinguishes two syntactic functions: subject

and object. In (13a) the

function of object has been assigned to the goal ; in (13d) to the recipient. Pragmatic functions specify the informational status of terms. Four pragmatic functions can be distinguished, two external and two internal to the predication proper: theme and tail

(external), topic

and focus (internal). These functions

are defined as follows (Dik 1978: 19): (14)

Theme'. The theme specifies the universe of discourse with respect to which the subsequent predication is presented as relevant. Tail:

The tail presents, as an "afterthought" to the predication, information meant to clarify or modify it.

Topic: The topic presents the entity "about" which the predication predicates something in the given setting. Focus: The focus presents what is relatively the most important or salient information in the given setting. Compare the following predications: (15)

a. b. c. d.

John JOHN That John

gave the apple to PETER gave the apple to Peter apple, John gave it to Peter gave it to Peter, that apple

In (15a) John has been assigned topic function and Peter focus

function;

it

could be an answer to the question: "To whom did John give the apple?". In (15b)

Peter has been assigned topic function and John focus

function; it could

be an answer to the question: "Who gave the apple to Peter?". In (15c) and (15d) the term that apple has been assigned theme function and tail function respectively.

15

The four structures given in (15) can be represented as follows: (16)

a . givev ( d x J o h n ) )

(dx

b. givev (dx c. (dx^appleCx..))^^, give v (dx. : JohnCx^^g^Cdx .:it( X j )) G o 0 b j (dx k :Peter(x k )) R e c d. give v ( d x i :Joh n (x.)) A g S u b j (dx.:it(x.)) G o 0 b .(dx k :Peter(x k )) R e c > (dx j : a P P le( X j )) T a i l Structures such as (16) form the input to the rules which determine the actual form of linguistic expressions. These rules are called expression rules. Applying the appropriate expression rules to (16 a-d), the output will be (15 a-d). Four types of expression rules can be distinguished: (17)

a. expression rules that regulate the form in which terms are realised b. expression rules that regulate the form in which the predicate is realised c. expression rules which regulate the order of constituents d. expression rules which regulate stress-assignment and intonation

In this book I will deal with type ( a ) , (b) and (c) in chapter 2, in which the overall results of the study are presented. In chapter 3 I will go into type (b) by studying the use of different tenses and agreement between subject and verb. In chapter 4 I will deal with type ( c ) : the order of constituents in the spontaneous speech of the children is studied. This outline of FG can be summarized as follows (Dik 1980: 23 (= 3rd edition 1978)):

16

J

LE XICO N

Λ^

/

predkjtc

Figure 1: The organization of a Functional Grammar. NOTES, Chapter 1 From 1985 on, nursery school (kleuterschool) and primary school (lagere school) together form the "basic school" (basisschool). ο

ο

Each child who attended primary school A ( c f . table 1) also attended nursery school A , etc.; in almost all cases, the two were located in the same building. Throughout this book, the speech of the experimenter is presented in capitals. A student of the University of Leiden, Coby van der Kraan.

Chapter 2:

Oral Dutch Language Proficiency of six year old Turkish Children born in the Netherlands: Overall Results 1. Introduction The concept of language proficiency has no standard definition yet and therefore a standard means of testing language proficiency has not been developed yet either. Among the many definitions I quote the following by Herbert: " ( . . . ) the ability to use the various components of language such as vocabulary, structure and morphology to express one's thoughts". (Herbert 1979:1) In my view, language proficiency also includes the ability to comprehend the various components of language, and the ability to use them not only to express ones thoughts (e.g. in experimental tasks like an elicitation test). I have tried to work out a definition of language proficiency which can be considered to be in line with the basic starting points of Functional Grammar (FG, Dik 1978,

1980): Language proficiency

is the ability to code and decode the various components of language, such as the lexicon, (nuclear) predications, specified predications and expression rules.

I studied these various components in the following way: (1) The Lexicon: the relative number of words that the children use is studied by establishing the diversity of their vocabulary in spontaneous speech. Also, rote memory of certain forms of words which are stored in the lexicon is studied. (2) (Nuclear)

Predications: the basic semantic relationships within a predication are studied in production and comprehension, in an elicitation test and in spontaneous speech.

(3) Specified

Predications: the ability to assign syntactic functions to terms is studied by establishing the distribution between terms with and without subject function.

18

(4) Expression Rules: various rules which bring about the correct form of terms and predicates, and the correct form and order of predications are studied. In this chapter I present the quantitative results of this study; a number of the variables will be dealt with in more detail in the following three chapters of this book. As was pointed out in chapter 1, the research question to be answered can be formulated as follows: (1)

Research Question 1: What is the level of oral Dutch language proficiency of Turkish children, born in the Netherlands, at the moment they enter primary school, compared with that of native Dutch children of the same age and sociodemographic background?

In the following scheme it is shown that the scores on eight different types of variables will together provide an answer to this question:

PRODUCTION MORPHOLOGY elicited spontaneous

+ +

SYNTAX

elicited spontaneous

+ +

SEMANTICS

elicited spontaneous

+ +

COMPREHENSION

+ +

The emphasis of this study is on spontaneous production, but three tests were administered to the children in order to collect some information about their proficiency in linguistic features which at their age seldom occur, if at

all,

in spontaneous speech; at the level of semantics several aspects of language comprehension were studied as well. The research question mentioned in (1) will therefore be answered by comparing the performances of the two groups of children on each dimension separately. Nevertheless, in view of the second research question of this study it is also necessary to establish a single level of linguistic proficiency: (2)

Research Question 2: What is the influence of social and socio-psychological factors on the level of Dutch language proficiency of the Turkish children?

19

The procedure of attaining this single level is taken up later in this chapter (section 4); first, research question (1) will be dealt with. This chapter contains another four sections: in section 2 I will discuss the results of the elicitation tests, in section 3 the analysis of the children's spontaneous speech will be dealt with. In section 4 I will sumjnarize the results of the study and establish a rank-order between the individual Turkish children, and in section 5 the conclusions which can be derived from the results will be discussed. 2. The Tests Three tests were administered to the children ( c f . chapter 1, section 3.1.): 1. a Morphology Test 2. an Imitation Test 3. a Comprehension Test The second test, the Imitation Test, was scored on all three linguistic levels, the Morphology Test was scored on the morphological level and the Comprehension Test was scored on the semantic level. Thus, two variables establish the level of elicited linguistic proficiency on both the morphological and the semantic level, and a single variable measures it on the syntactic level. 2.1. Morphology Test The Morphology Test (MT) consisted of 26 items (appendix 1A), which tested the ability of the children to provide the correct morphological form. The following morphological features were tested: 1. plural nouns 2. past participle 3. past tense

4. diminutive 5. comparative and superlative The procedure was as follows: the experimenter showed the child two pictures and made a statement concerning the first picture; then she uttered a second phrase concerning the second picture which she did not complete herself. The child was asked to complete the phrase, for example:

20

(3)

DIT IS EEN GROTE POES THIS IS A BIG CAT

DIT IS EEN KLEIN THIS IS A SMALL .

,. (poesj'e) (cat-dim.suffix)

Two points were given for a correct answer; one point for an incorrect form of the correct item and zero points when no answer at all was given or when the child simply repeated the test item. For example, the following item elicited a past participle: (4)

DE JONGEN WIL EEN USJE KOPEN

DE JONGEN HEEFT EEN USJE ... (gekocht)

THE BOY WANTS AN ICECREAM BUY

THE BOY HAS AN ICE-CREAM ... (bought)

"THE BOY WANTS TO BUY AN ICE-CREAM/THE BOY HAS BOUGHT AN ICE-CREAM" Two points were thus given to the answer gekocht; one point was given for the following answers: gekopen, gekoopt (= +_ buyed) and zero points were given when the child repeated the test-item literally (kopen) or when he or she gave the present tense form of the verb. The maximum score a child could attain for this test was 52 points; in table 2 the ratio scores of the two groups can be seen: 52 points means a score of 100% correct: MT

Turkish Dutch

26.9% 68.6%

Table 2: Average group scores on the Morphology Test! Si>_ = 16.9; S£L = 16.1

21

2 The Turkish group scores significantly lower on the MT than the Dutch group .

In table 3 it is shown that all five morphological forms of Dutch are more often formed correctly by the Dutch children:

3 Plural nouns :

1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

Past participle: Past tense: Diminutive: Comperative/superlative :

point points point points point points point points point points

T

D

25% 57% 33% 34% 6% 85% 2% 87% 45% 33%

42% 6% 18% 1% 20% 36% 0% 42% 33% 0%

Table 3: Percentage of incorrect forms of the correct item (= 1 point) and no answer or repetition of the test item (= 0 points) in the MT. In FG (Dik 1981) a distinction is made between productive and non-productive rules. It is assumed that whereas in the case of productive forms a specific expression rule should be applied, non-productive forms are stored in the lexicon together with the predicate frame to which they belong: (5)

Predicate frames:

a.

konijn,,

,_

b.

slot,., plural sloten,.

(= lock)

Expression rule: plural X N for (a)

ΚΚ-.-Λ

» X-en

In chapter 3 I will go into the difference between productive and non-productive forms in relation to the past participle and the past tense; in the present context I did not distinguish between them.

Table 3 shows that the past

participle seems to be the easiest morphological form for both groups. Also, the Turkish children often just repeat the test item, whereas the Dutch children do so only occasionally. I will present some representative examples of incorrect forms of the correct item (= 1 point) ;

22 (6)

+ productive rule

- productive rule

correct answer

schipt

sloten (locks) zebrapaden (zebra crossing) schepen (ships)

gekopen

gewassen (washed) gekeken (looked) gekocht (bought)

Plural nouns slotten

zebrapatten

Past participle gewast gekijkt Past tense brengde

ging brengen (= went to bring)

bracht (brought)

een kleine poes (= a small cat)

poesje (kitten)

Diminutive

Comparative/ Superlative zwarer

zwaarder (heavier) allerzwaar heel veel zwaar zwaarst (heaviest) (= very much heavy)

The results of the Morphology Test indicate that, although the Turkish children seem to have mastered the elicited morphological forms to a much lesser extent than the Dutch children, they seldom produce incorrect forms which do not also occur in the Dutch group: the Turkish children make more errors, but these are of the same type as those occurring in the Dutch group. 2.2. Imitation Test The Imitation Test consisted of 16 sentences which the children were instructed to imitate literally (appendix IB). Three linguistic skills were tested here; the ability to reproduce: 1. specific morphological features of Dutch 2. specific syntactic features of Dutch 3. the semantic content of a (structurally complex) sentence Although it is not possible to draw conclusions about the character of spontaneous speech from an imitation test, it is one of the most reliable ways of testing the command of several features of Dutch which seldom occur, if at all in spontaneous speech of six year old children.

the

23

2.2.1. I.T.: Morphological Features The following morphological features were scored: MAX. SCORE 1. plural nouns (7 items) 2. pronouns (16 items) 3. prepositional phrases (5 items) 4. past tense (7 items) 5. past participle (7 items) 6. auxiliaries (6 items) 7. adjectives (4 items) 8. articles (13 items) 9. demonstratives (2 items) 10.possessives (5 items) MAX. SCORE:

14 32 10 14 14 12 8 26 4 10 144

The scoring procedure was the same as in the Morphology Test: a correct realization of a specific item yielded 2 points, an incorrect realization 1 point and the absence of the item 0 points, for example: (7)

Item: SCHEPEN (SHIPS) schepen schippen 0/schip

(8)

2 points l point 0 points

Examples: PIET DROOMDE DAT HIJ TWEE SCHEPEN HAD "PETER DREAMED THAT HE HAD TWO SHIPS" Serpil : Piet droomde dat 'ie twee schip had Peter dreamed that he two ship had

(0 points)

Kamile : Piet ... droomde ... twee Peter ... dreamed ... two

(0 points)

In table 4 the results are given in ratio scores (144 points = 100% correct):

IT

T D

m

56.1% 83.8%

Table 4: Average group scores on the Imitation Test, morphology; SDT =21.1 SDD = 73.8

24

The Turkish group scores significantly lower on the IT, morphology, than the Dutch group. Table 5 shows the results on each morphological feature:

Plural nouns: Pronouns: Prepos. Phrases: Past tense: Past Participles: Auxiliaries: Adjectives: Articles: Demonstratives : Possessives:

1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

point points point points point points point points point points point points point points point points point points point points

T

D

6% 29% 6% 35% 24% 41% 6% 40% 11% 44% 5% 33% 23% 15% 6% 54% 3% 40% 3% 51%

1% 6% 6% 9% 13% 18% 4% 14% 4% 16% 2% 9% 8% 11% 3% 22% 0% 13% 1% 22%

Table 5: Percentage of incorrectly realized (= 1 point) and absent (= 0 points) morphological features in the Imitation Test. In contrast with the results of the Morphology Test (table 2 ) , the standard deviation in the Imitation Test (table 4) is higher in the Turkish group than in the Dutch group: apparently the Turkish children vary more among themselves than the Dutch children. Table 5 shows that the Turkish group scores lower than the Dutch group on each morphological variable: they show more deviations and more omissions in each variable. Nevertheless, the groups are similar in that they both show the highest percentages of deviations and omissions in the same morphological features: the percentage of deviations is highest in Prepositional Phrases (PP's).and the percentage of omissions is highest in Articles and Possessives. Some examples are: (9)

OP DE MARKT LOPEN DRIE TURKSE VROUWEN, DIE BOODSCHAPPEN DOEN ON THE MARKET WALK THREE TURKISH WOMEN, WHO PURCHASES DO "In the market three Turkish women are walking, doing purchases" Adile : In de markt drie Turkse vrouw eh.. boodschappen doen in the market three Turkish women u h . . purchases do

25

(10)

DE RINDEREN MÖGEN N AAR DE TELEVISIE KÜKEN, NADAT ZE HUN THE CHILDREN ARE ALLOWED TO THE TELEVISION WATCH, AFTER THAT THEY THEIR HUISWERK HEBBEN GEMAAKT HOMEWORK HAVE MADE "The children are allowed to watch television, after they have finished their homework" Ferhan: De kinderen maggen naar televisie kijken, nadat ze The children may to television watch, after that they huiswerk 0 gemaakt homework 0 made

2.2.2. I.T.: Syntactic Features The following syntactic features were scored in the Imitation Test: MAX. SCORE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

passive voice (3 items) imperative (2 items) interrogative (2 items) negation (4 items) relative clause (3 items) temporal clause (4 items) conditional clause (3 items) causal clause (3 items) object clause (1 item) MAX. SCORE:

6 2 4 8 6 8 6 6 2 48

With the exception of the imperative, which was scored as 1 point (verb correctly in first position) or 0 points (verb in an incorrect position),

all

items were scored on a three-points scale: 1 point (a) The passive voice (b) Interrogative (c) Negation (d) Subordination

0 points

-door (by) absent -both worden and door abs. -worden (be) absent -incorrect word order -both word order incorrect -question intonation and question-intonation absent absent -incorrect form -form and position incorrect -incorrect position -conjunction absent/incor. -subject of subor.clause absent or incorrect -verb of subord.clause -more than one of the absent or incorrect following three absent or incorrect: conj., S, V

26

An example concerning the passive voice (11), and subordination (12): (11)

JAN WORDT DOOR Z'N MOEDER GESTRAFT, OMDAT HU GATEN IN Z'N JOHN IS BY HIS MOTHER PUNISHED, BECAUSE HE HOLES IN HIS TRUI HEEFT GEMAAKT SWEATER HAS MADE "John is punished by his mother, because he has made holes in his sweater"

(12)

a. Jan wordt gestraft, ... John iy punished, ...

1 point

b. Jan door z'n moeder gestraft, ... John by his mother punished, ...

1 point

c. Jan heeft z'n moeder gestraft, ... John has his mother punished, ...

0 points

d. Moeder heeft Jan gestraft, ... Mother has John punished, ...

0 points

JAN HEEFT Z ' N H NDEN GEWASSEN, OMDAT ZE VIES WAREN JOHN HAS HIS HANDS WASHED, BECAUSE THEY DIRTY WERE "John washed his hands, because they were dirty" a. ( . . . . ) ,

idat ze vies waren

l point

_ = 18 in PS; 13 in CS with regard to correctness SD~ = 10 in PS;

6 in CS with regard to correctness

33

A pronoun was scored as incorrect when from the context it was clear that another pronoun was meant by the child, e.g.: (19)

BUlent, hij gooit water (visual context: a girl throws water) PS: he throws water "ze gooit water" "she throws water" Erwin ( D ) , PS: enne gaat de hond achter hem aan (visual context: and goes the dog behind him dog chases girl) "enne (dan) gaat de hond achter haar aan" "and (then) the dog chases her"

A pronoun was scored as absent when from the context it was clear that a pronoun should have been expressed: (20)

Hakan, PS:

en dan ziet 0 wie 't gedaan heeft and then sees 0 who it done has "en dan ziet hij wie het heeft gedaan" "and then he sees who did it"

In certain cases the absence of a subject or object pronoun was not scored as absent pronoun, namely when the absence could be viewed as an example of spoken Dutch ( c f . chapter 4, section 6.1.1.): (21)

WAT GEBEURDE ER MET DE BALLON? die/hij vloog weg WHAT HAPPENED THERE WITH THE BALLOON? that/he flew away "WHAT HAPPENED TO

THE BALLON? (it)

flew away"

The Turkish group produces many more incorrect pronouns and also omits a pronoun far more often than the Dutch group in both speech samples, as can be seen in table 12. The differences between the correct scores of the groups is significant in both samples. Also, the standard deviation in the Turkish group is much higher than in the Dutch group, which indicates that the second language learners form a much more heterogeneous group than the native children in this respect. Most incorrect pronouns which the children produce concern the confusion between the two third-person-singular pronouns hij to interference

(he) and zij

(she). This may be due

from Turkish, in which the pronoun is incorporated into the

verb, and no distinction is made between third-person feminine and third-person

34

masculine. On the other hand, in an earlier phase of development, native Dutch children also confuse the two ( c f . Schaerlaekens 1977). Some examples from both samples are the following: (22)

feminine instead of masculine Sibel, PS:

dan gaat ze hier gaat ze opstaan (= jongen) then goes she here goes she stand up (= boy) "dan Staat 'ie hier op" "then he stands up here"

Ferhan, CS: ·

maar ik speel niet met haar (= jongen) but I play not with her (= boy) "maar ik speel niet met hem" "but I d o n ' t play with him"

(23)

masculine instead of feminine

Adile, CS:

hij is oma,hoor! he is granny, see! "ze is m ' n oma, hoor!" "but she is my granny!"

Richard ( D ) , PS: en dan zegt 'ie tegen hem: "..." (= girl) and then says he to him: "..." "en dan zegt 'ie tegen haar: "... "and then he says to her: "... This explains the fact that incorrect pronouns occur more often in the Picture Sample than in the Conversation Sample: in the latter the child often refers to himself or to his family, thus using the pronouns ik (I) and wij (we). In telling a story, on the other hand, a child is compelled to use the .third person pronoun almost continuously. As was indicated in expression rule (18), pronouns with subject function, object function and no syntactic function were analysed. The distribution between these is: PS

Pros Pro 0 Pr

°0

CS

90%

93%

89%

86%

8%

5%

9%

11%

2%

2%

2%

3%

Table 13: Distribution between pronouns with subject function (Pro„), with object function (Pro,,) and without syntactic function (Pro*).

35

The total number of pronouns is virtually equal in both groups. Furthermore, both groups make a relatively large number of errors in object pronouns and pronouns without syntactic function. Table 13 shows that both the Dutch and the Turkish children produce mostly subject pronouns, especially in the Picture Sample. Thus, the functional use of pronouns is more or less the same in both groups, but the groups d i f f e r in that the native children master the appropriate expression rule better than the second-language learners: a formal

difference

exists between the groups. 3.1.3. Prepositions In table 14 the results of this morphological variable can be read:

PS: correct incorrect absent CS: correct incorrect absent

57.5% 32.4% 10.1% 53.2% 34.4% 12.4%

88.6% 10.4% 1.0% 92.6% 5.7% 1.7%

Table 14: Percentage of correct, incorrect and absent prepositions in the Picture Sample and the Conversation Samplet SDT = 19 in PSi 21 in CS . . , _ . ,7 T with respect to the correctness variable. SDD = 8 in PS; 7 in CS A preposition was scored as incorrect if from the context it could be established that another preposition should have been used, e.g.: (24)

incorrect prepositions Ümit, PS:

ging tie ' m hard in de raam gooien went he it hard in the window throw "(toen) gooide h i j 'm hard legen het raam" "(then) he threw it against the window"

Richard ( D ) , PS:

die man hij gaat effen bij de kassa that man he goes for a while at the paydesk "die man gaat even naar de kassa toe" "that man goes to the paydesk"

A preposition was scored as absent if from the context it could be derived that a preposition should have been used, e . g . :

36

(25)

absent prepositions Rahman, CS:

ik heb (0) Utrecht geweest I have (0) Utrecht been "ik ben in Utrecht geweest" "I have been in Utrecht"

Gerti ( D ) , CS: en de ander was (0) hout and the other was (0) wood "en de ander was van hout" "and the other was made of wood" Table 14 shows that the Turkish children far more often produce an incorrect preposition and also far more often omit a preposition; the difference in correct scores between the two groups is significant in both samples. Most prepositions which occur in the speech of both groups are prepositions of place (location, direction, source) and instrument. The expression rules of terms with these semantic functions are: (26)

naar χ (χ)

* van ( a f ) χ source* . uit χ

(v x ) . . 'instr

» met χ

Prepositions which are added to a term with another semantic function, for example the goal or the recipient of the predication, occur infrequently, especially in the Turkish group. Sometimes the preposition proper is incorrect or omitted, e.g.: (27)

Jale, PS :

en dan stapt ze naar die banaan z'n schil and then steps she to that banana his peel "en dan stapt ze op die bananeschil" "and then she steps on that banana-peel"

But in many cases the whole term is omitted, in which case the preposition can only be scored as missing if the term is obligatory, such as in:

37

(28)

Haci, PS : en dan ze stapt (0) and then she steps "en dan stapt ze op de schil" "and then she steps on the peel"

The distribution in the PS (this is not studied in the CS) between prepositions of place and instrument on the one hand, and prepositions involving other semantic functions (including omitted prepositions!) on the other hand is:

P

place/instrument

81%

75%

other

19%

25%

Table 15: Distribution between prepositions of place and instrument and other prepositions in the PS. Table 15 shows that in the PS the distribution between the different types of prepositions is more or less equal in both groups. But, contrary to the previous variable, personal pronouns, the total number of prepositions is much lower in the Turkish group. This seems to be an indication of the tendency to omit, or rather, to avoid terms which require prepositions. Thus, a functional as well as a formal difference is found between the two groups of speakers, the functional difference being that the Turkish children simply produce fewer prepositional phrases. Regarding the formal difference: the Turkish children fail to apply the appropriate expression rules more often than the Dutch children do, and also more often apply inappropriate expression rules. 3.1.4. Articles The expression rule of articles in the singular is:

(29)

(x)

indef

(x) , , The use of de or het depends on the noun in question, and with the exception of a few rules ( e . g . diminutive nouns require the het article in the singular), the coding takes place in the lexicon. In other words, whenever a child confuses the articles de and het in singular nouns, it means that he or she has

38

not mastered this coding rather than that he or she has not been able to apply a morphological expression rule. Nevertheless, this variable is dealt with in the present context, because the omission of an article in most cases can be viewed as a morphological deficiency. An article was scored as incorrect when the definite articles de and het were wrongly used with a singular n o u n , e . g . : (30) Kamile, CS: mamma pakt de brood (= het brood) "mamma fetches the bread" BÜlent, PS: hij schiet in de raam he kicks in the window "hij schiet tegen het raam" "he kicks the ball against the window" Serpil, PS: en dan gooit "ie aan het jongen and then throws he to the boy "en dan gooit ze (het water) over de jongen" "and then she throws (the water) on the boy"

Plural terms (which occur fairly infrequently in the samples) were not included in the analysis; the incorrect use of the definite and indefinite articles was viewed as

functional inappropriateness and therefore, these

cases were not included either. An article was scored as absent if from the context it could be established that an article should have been placed in that specific position, e.g.: (31)

Faruk, CS : ik politie niet zien niet I police not see not "ik heb de politie niet gezien" "I didn't see the police" Rahman, PS: meisje gaat hem water gooien girl goes him water throw "het meisje gooit water over hem heen" "the girl throws water on him"

Table 16 shows the results of this variable:

39

PS: correct

49.7% 18.9% 31.4% 57.3% 10.5% 32.2%

incorrect absent CS: correct incorrect absent

86.3% 7.9% 5.8% 86.2% 3.9% 9.9%

Table 16: Percentage of correct, incorrect and absent articles in the Picture Sample and the Conversation Sample; SD„ = 28 in the PS; 27 in the CS „.. ,. . , „„ ,, . ^ , „„ with regard to correctness. ö SDn = 10 in the PS; 16 in the CS

In both samples the Turkish children on average more often omit the articles de or het in the singular and also more often confuse them. The difference between the two groups is singnificant with regard to the correct scores; also, the standard deviation in the Turkish group is much higher than in the Dutch group: the Turkish group is far more heterogeneous. It may be that the frequent omission of articles should be viewed as an indication that some type of transfer from Turkish has taken place: Turkish does not possess articles (with the exception of fair, which is used as an indefinite article in specific cases). In my view, interference from the native language plays a certain part in this, but on the whole the phenomenon is one of the ways of simplifying speech which is universal for both first and second language learners. Both the Dutch and the Turkish children use the definite article de most frequently in the PS, whereas the indefinite article een occurs frequently in the CS: PS T de het een

CS D

56% 49% 21% 19% 23% 32%

T

D

48%

38%

11%

8%

41%

54%

Table 17: Distribution of the two definite articles qe_ and het and the indefinite article een. In both samples the Dutch children use the indefinite article more often than the Turkish children; here I think the native language may play an indirect role: the Turkish children are not familiar with the fact that articles may express

40

indefiniteness. It seems probable that this influences their acquisition of indefinite articles. The functional difference between the PS and the CS regarding the use of articles in different syntactic positions, on the other hand, is more or less the same in both groups: in the PS referential terms (versus pronouns) relatively often appear in subject position, whereas in the CS the referential terms with object or zero function form the majority: PS

art. Hh

(x)

def/ind S

art. Hh

(x)

def/ind 0

art. Hh

(x)

def/ind 0

CS

T

D

T

D

51%

41%

29%

26%

23%

28%

30%

33%

26%

31%

41%

41%

Table 18: Distribution between articles in different syntactic positions: Subject-, Object and zero-syntactic function of the term involved. Thus, functionally the two groups d i f f e r in the use of the indefinite article; formally the Turkish children are not only less capable of applying expression rule (29) in that they more often omit articles, but they also have less knowledge about the coding of nouns with the appropriate article than the Dutch children. 3.2. Syntactic features In both samples the following two variables were studies: 1. Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) 2. Subordination Furthermore, two additional variables were scored in the Picture Sample only: 3. Structural Diversity 4. Word Order In this section I will deal with subordination in more detail and only summarize the results on the other variables, because these will be discussed in detail in chapter 4, in which syntactic complexity and syntactic correctness are the focus of study. In table 19 the scores on the syntactic variables are presented:

41

MLU PS MLU CS Structural Diversity PS Word Order PS Subordination PS Subordination CS

5.2% 5.4% 4.1% 12.0% 2.9% 4.4%

5.9% 6.0% 5.6% 1.5% 3.8% 7.6%

table 19: Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) in both samplest Structural Diversity and Percentage of Deviant Word Order Patterns in the PSt Subordination in both samples (as a Percentage of the total number of utterances)t

SDT MLU PS = .95, MLU CS = .92 SDD MLU PS = .67, MLU CS = .94 SDT SD PS = 2.0, WO = 15 SDD SD PS =2.7, WO = 2 SDT Sub PS = 4, Sub CS = 4 SDD Sub PS = 3, Sub CS = 5 In both samples the Mean length of Utterance is higher in the Dutch group, but the difference in the CS is not significant. Structural Diversity, which was studied in the PS only and can be defined as the relative heterogenity of utterances in terms of patterning (cf. chapter 4, section 5), is higher in the Dutch group, but the difference is not significant. The Percentage of utterances (in the PS) which have an incorrect word order pattern (according to the "official" grammar, as well as according to the norms of spoken Dutch, cf. chapter 4, section 6) is significantly higher in the Turkish group. But, as the standard deviation indicates, the scores of the individual Turkish children are highly divergent. Subordination does not regularly appear in the speech of these six year old children. In the PS the Turkish children on average produce somewhat fewer subordinate clauses than the Dutch children: 3.8% of the Dutch utterances and 2.9% of the Turkish utterances contain a subordinate clause. The difference between the groups is not significant. In the CS both groups produce more complex sentences, and the difference between the groups is greater and significant: the Dutch children produce 7.6%, the Turkish children 4.4%. The following types of subordination occur:

42

(a) Object Clauses, (32) Wouter ( D ) , PS

en daar ziet 'ie dat die 't heeft gedaan and there sees he that that it has done "en daar ziet 'ie dat zij het heeft gedaan" "and there he sees that she did it"

(b) Temporal Clauses, (33) Emel, PS

toen dat meisje dat water gooit, werd 'ie wakker when that girl that water ghrows, awoke he "toen dat meisje het water gooide, werd hij wakker" "when that girl threw the water, he awoke"

(c) Conditional Clauses, (34) Ertan, CS

als je 't zo schiet, gaat hij d ' r zo uit if you it so kick, goes he there like this out "als je hem zo schiet, gaat 'ie er zo uit" "if you kick it like this, it emerges like this"

(d) Relative Clauses, (35) Chantal ( D ) , PS

daar is een meneer die een tasje heb en die there is a gentleman who a brief case has and who een banaan eet a banana eats "there is a man who carries a brief case and who is eating a banana"

Furthermore, an occasional causal clause, locative clause and purpose clause occur: the distribution between these various types in both groups is:

CS

PS Object Clauses Temporal Clauses Conditional Clauses Relative Clauses Causal Clauses Locative Clauses Purpose Clauses

54% 38% 0% 4% 4% 0% 0%

64% 3% 11% 17% 5% 0% 0%

21% 44% 30% 0% 0% 5% 0%

24% 32% 18% 23% 0% 0% 3%

Table 20: Distribution between various types of subordination in the Picture Sample and the Conversation Sample.

43

In both groups the majority of subordinate clauses are object clauses in the PS, whereas the distribution is more spread in the CS. In both samples relative clauses appear more often in the speech of the Dutch children; evidently these are difficult for the second-language learners (compare the results of the Imitation Test, table 7). Although all types of deviations occur in the subordinate clauses that the children produce spontaneously, for example, an incorrect subordinator, omission of the subject of the subordinate clause, and the appearance of nonconjugated verb forms in the subordinate clause, it is striking that not a single subordination has been found in which an incorrect word order pattern is followed: the verb is always correctly placed in clause-final position. This result agrees with that of Clahsen (1982), who studied the acquisition of German word order by native children. The fact that second language learners, or at least this specific group of second language learners, do not overgeneralize the Dutch (and in Clahsen's study, the German) main clause pattern in the few instances they produce a subordinate clause, is certainly surprising. In general, the results of the syntactic variables indicate that the spontaneous speech produced by the Turkish group in two different situations is somewhat less complex than that of the Dutch group in that they produce on average shorter sentences with fewer subordinate clauses and less heterogeneous word order patterns, and also less correct in that they produce on average more incorrect word order patterns. However, half of the syntactic variables which were scored do not reveal significant differences between the native children and the second language learners.

3.3. Semantic Features Semantic proficiency in spontaneous speech is operationalized by scoring the following variables: 1. Mean Number of Informational Units 2. Category Agreement 3. Type/token Ratio The first variable establishes the childrens* ability to transfer information, irrespective of the grammatical form in which this information is given. The second variable assesses the ability to answer a question in the correct semantic category, again irrespective of the answer's syntactic and morphological features.

44

The third variable measures the diversity of the children's vocabulary as far as content words are concerned; it is implicitly assumed here that the larger the variety in content words, the larger the vocabulary itself. 3.3.1. Informational

Units

An Informational Unit (IU) is a textual unity which forms a semantic whole (cf. chapter 5, section 2). It can occur in three forms: (i) (ii) (iii)

a state of affairs a satellite an extended term

For example: (36)

Op het strand gooit het ondeugende meisje water over het jongetje heen on the beach throws the naughty girl water on the boy (part.) "At the beach the naughty girl throws water on the boy" Informational

Units: - GOOIEN (MEISJE)(WATER) THROW (GIRL)(WATER) - ZIJN(GOOIEN)(OVER JONGETJE) BE(THROWING)(ON BOY) - ZIJN(GOOIEN)(OP HET STRAND) BE(THROWING)(ON THE BEACH) - ZIJN(MEISJE)(ONDEUGEND) BE(GIRL)(NAUGHTY)

state of affairs satellite satellite extended term

Sentence (36) consists of four Informational Units, one of which is uttered in the form of a state of affairs, two in the form of a satellite, and the fourth in the form of an extended term. In both speech samples the Mean number of Informational Units (MNIU) was established; in the Picture Sample the MNIU is formed by those states and events, expressed by the child in the form of IU s which can be seen or derived from the pictures. An example: (37)

Ertan: het meisje haalde water/en ze gooit 't op dat jongetje/ the girl fetched water/and she throws it on that boy/ en het jongetje schrikt/en toen Staat hij op/en toen and the boy is frightened/and then stands he up/and then die meisje gooide die emmer weg/en toen Staat die jongetje that girl threw that bucket away/and then stands that boy weer op/en toen zeg die jongetje:"Jij heb 't gedaan", again up/and then says that boy:"You have it done",

45

zegt 'ie. says he "Het meisje haalde water en ze gooide het over het jongetje heen. Het jongetje schrok en stond op. Toen gooide het meisje haar emmer weg. ( . . . ) En toen zei het jongetje: "Jij hebt het gedaan"." "The girl fetched water and she threw it on the boy. The boy was frightened and stood up. Then the girl threw away her bucket. ( . . . ) And then the boy said: "You did it"."

The Beach-story as it was told by Ertan contains the following lU s: (38)

HALEN(MEISJE)(WATER) GOOIEN(MEISJE)(WATER) ZIJN(GOOIEN)(OVER JONGEN) SCHRIKKEN(JONGEN) OPSTAAN(JONGEN) WEGGOOIEN(MEISJE)(EMMER) ZEGGEN(JONGEN)(IETS) DOEN(JIJ)(HET)

FETCH(GIRL)(WATER) THROW(GIRL)(WATER) BE(THROWING)(ON BOY) BE FRIGHTENED(BOY) STAND UP(BOY) THROW AWAY(GIRL)(BUCKET) SAY(BOY)(SOMETHING) DO(YOU)(IT)

46

His story contains eight IU s, all of which are uttered in the form of a state of affairs, except for BE(THROWING)(ON BOY), which is uttered in the form of a satellite (the adverb toen (then) is not considered as a satellite, cf. chap-

ter 5). The Picture Sample contains five stories, and a group means was calculated per story: MNIU

T D

5.6 7.4

Table 21: Mean Number of Informational SDT = 1.6

Units in the PSt

SDD = 2.2 The Dutch children on average utter 7.4 IU s per story, and the Turkish children 5.6. The difference between the groups is significant. In contrast to most variables studied so f a r , the Turkish group is less heterogeneous than the Dutch group. In the Conversation Sample the Mean Number of Informational Units was calculated by scoring the number of IU s that the children utter in the retelling task ( c f . chapter 1, section 3.1.). The experimenter asked the children to retell the stories she read to them in their own words; the mean of the four stories is: MNIU T D

1.0 2.5

Table 22: Mean Number of Informational SDT = 1.3

Units in the CSt

SDD = 1.8 It can be concluded that six year old children are hardly capable of retelling a story which has been read to them: the Dutch children on average utter only 2.5 IU s, whereas the stories contained at least sixteen units ( c f . appendix I D ) , Nevertheless, the Dutch children on average perform significantly better than the Turkish children.

47

3.3.2. Semantic Category Agreement The ability to answer a question in the correct semantic category is quantified in two ways: (i)

the percentage of semantically correct answers to a number of wh- and yes/no-questions concerning the stories that were read to the children within the Conversation Sample.

(ii)

the percentage of semantically correct answers to a number of whquestions, asked in the conversation between the experimenter and the child (that is, in the "free" part of the CS).

With reference to (i),

seventeen fixed questions were asked ( c f . appendix I D ) .

The semantic category was considered to be correct if the answer corresponded to the question in the semantic content: (39)

Question: WIE VERWISSELT DE BAND? WHO CHANGES THE TYRE? Answer (semantically correct): Ahmet's vader (Ahmet's father) Ahmet Answer (sem. incorrect)

Although it is Ahmet's father who

: auto (car) drie uur (three hours) changes the tyre, the answer "Ahmet" is

scored as semantically correct, because the semantic content of the answer corresponds to the question. The answers "the car", "three hours" are scored as semantically incorrect because they lack the property + PERSON. Another example: (40)

Question: WANNEER HELFT JAN HEM? WHEN DOES JOHN HELP HIM? Answer (semantically correct): op zaterdagen(on Saturdays) altijd (always) Answer (sem. incorrect)

: op de markt (on the market) dat vindt hij leuk (he likes it)

The semantic content of the question in (40) requires an answer in the semantic category + TIME, and answers in other semantic categories are incorrect. For (ii),

f i f t e e n wh-questions - the first fifteen that were asked by the

experimenter in the CS (and thus not always the same questions) - provided the data for this variable. The scoring procedure was the same as for the previous

48

variable. For example, the following answers were scored as semantically incorrect: (41)

WAAR GAAN JULLIE DAN ALTIJD NAAR TOE IN TURKIJE? WHERE DO YOU ALWAYS GO TO IN TURKEY? Qelil: vakantie holiday IS JOUW VADER ZIEK? (knikt) WAT HEEFT 'IE DAN? IS YOUR FATHER ILL? (nodds) WHAT DOES HE SUFFER FROM? Özlem: bruin jas brown coat

(Jelil interpretes a +PLACE-question as a + GOAL-question; Özlem interpretes a question concerning the source of an illness as a question concerning the clothes of her father. The results of these two variables are presented in table 23: CatAgr 1

70.7% 90.3%

T D

CatAgr 2

79.5% 96.3%

Table 23: Category agreement in answer to wh- and yes/no questions concerning stories read to the children (CatAgr 1), and in answer to wh-questions in a free conversation (CatAgr 2); SD

T= 19'8 in CatAgr 1, SDD = 19.5

SD

T = 16'6 in CatAgr 2. SDß = 5.9

Table 23 shows that the Dutch children on average score higher than the Turkish children; the difference between the groups is significant. However, the Turkish children on average do not seem to score very low: in both variables more than 70% of the questions were answered in the correct semantic category. 3.3.3. Vocabulary The Type Token Ratio (TTR) was calculated for both speech samples in order to measure the diversity of the children's vocabulary as far as content words are Q

concerned.

The result is presented in table 24:

49

PS

τ D

3.9 4.7

CS 4.1 5.2

Table 24: Type Token Ratio in the Picture Sample (PS) and the conversation sample (CS); SD = .47 SD = .92 in PS t in CS. SDD - .51 SDD = .48 The diversity of the vocabulary is higher in the Dutch group; in both samples the difference between the groups is significant. The children who show a low TTR tend to repeat themselves often, for example, this is how Rahman tells the first story of the PS: (42)

Rahman, PS: meisje gaat hem water gooien/hond gaat hem eten/ girl goes him water throw/dog goes him eat/ meisje heb water gegooid/hond gaat hem eten/die girl has water thrown/dog goes him eat/that heb water gooit hem/hond gaat hem vasthouden en has water throws him/dog goed him hold/and de jongen gaat slaan the boy goes hit "Het meisje gooit water over hem heen/de hond gaat haar opeten/het meisje heeft het water gegooid/de hond gaat haar opeten/ze heeft het water over hem heen gegooid/ de hond gaat haar pakken/en de jongen gaat (haar) slaan". "the girl throws water over him/the dog is going to eat her/the girl has thrown the water/the dog is going to eat her/she has thrown water over him/the dog is going to fetch her/and the boy is going to hit (her)"

Also, many of the Turkish children are clearly searching for words or use an understandable, but semantically incorrect word, e.g.: (43)

Search for words: Jale, PS : en dan gaat ze die banaan z'n dinget je weggooien and then goes she that banana his little thing throw away "en dan gooit 'ie de bananeschil weg" "and then he throws away the banana-peel"

50

Adile, PS : en dan eet die ..../wat eet 'ie nou weer?/(HOE and then eats he ..../what eats he now again?(HOW HEET DAT? EEN BANAAN)/banaan eet 'ie CALLS THAT? A BANANA)/banana eats he "and then he eats...(what does he eat?/(WHAT IS THE NAME OF IT? A BANANA/(a) banana he eats" (44)

Semantically incorrect words Serpil.PS : en dan ging de man het bal uitsneten (= kapot snijden) and then went the man the ball +_ cut through "en toen sneed de man de bal kapot" "and then the man cut the call" Bulent.PS : en hij pakt de spaarpot (= portemonnee) and he fetches the money-box "en hij pakt de portemonnee" "and he fetches the purse"

Although the vocabulary of the children was not examined in a test, it seems evident that the reason why the Turkish group on average uses fewer different content words in both speech samples than the Dutch group, is that their vocabulary is smaller than that of the Dutch children. 4. Summary and Establishment of an overall level of linguistic

proficiency

4.1. Summary The results of the study can be summarized as follows: INSERT TABLE 25 HERE I will summarize these results in terms of the functional definition of language proficiency, which I presented in the introduction to this chapter. Lexicon The vocabulary of the children was studied in their spontaneous speech. It was found that the Dutch children use relatively more different both speech samples than the Turkish children (TTR) .

content words in

51

MORPHOLOGY VARIABLE

MEAN,

MEAN^

SD,

SD

MT

68.6% 83.8% 95.4% 94.2% 85.1% 93.2% 88.6% 92.6% 86.3% 86.2%

26.9% 56.1% 74.9% 71.0% 61.1% 76.5% 57.5% 53.2% 49.7% 57.3%

16.1 13.8 8 5 10 6 8 7 10 16

16.9 21.1 21 20 18 13 19 21 28 27

8.04 4.92 3.46 5.00 5.15 4.84 6.60 7.80 5.37 4.05

.000 .000 .002 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

53.4% 5.2 5.4 4.1 12% 2.9% 4.4%

15.4 .67 .94 2.7 2 3.4 5.3

19.1 .95 .92 2.0 15 4.1 4.3

5.16 2.61 1.97 1.09 2.87 .76 2.10

.000 .013 .056* .258* .01

10.5 3.1 2.2 1.8 19.5 5.9 .51 .48

19.0 7.4 1.6 1.3 19.8 16.6 .47 .92

5.64 3.98 3.00 3.26 3.08 4.27 5.03 4.46

.000 .001 .005 .004 .004 .000 .000 .000

IT-m +V PS

+v es +Pro PS +Pro CS +Prep PS +Prep CS +Art PS +Art CS

t

P

SYNTAX 81.8%

IT-sy MLU PS MLU CS SD PS WORD ORDER PS SC PS SC CS

5.9 6.0 5.6 1.5% ·* . S7 -J O/o

7

f ge- X - en

Examples: gekopen (= gekocht, bought) gekijken (= gekeken, watched) The forms gekijken and gekopen seem to be productively formed, that is,

the

children seem to apply the non-productive rule in (34) as if it were the productive rule of Past Part-formation. Because this occurs regularly in the Morphology Test, and only occasionally in the spontaneous speech sample, it

is

scored separately in the former as "+_ productive rule". In the HT group we find a rather high percentage of incorrect non-productive Past Parts in the test, which do not seem to be overgeneralizations of the productive rule; this is mainly due to one child, Bvilent, who does not seem to have mastered the rule of Past Part-formation, nor does he have the non-productively formed Past Parts at his disposition. Like many of the LT children, he simply reproduces the form which the experimenter used, which in this particular case is the present tense Without him, the HT children would score more or less the MT children: 16% instead of 25% incorrect, not following the productive rule (- prod.rule). In view of the results of the spontaneous speech sample and the Morphology Test, I hypothesize that the following course of development takes place in the Turkish group: (34)

1st phase: storage in the lexicon of some specific Past Parts 2nd phase: the productive rule of Past -Part-formation is learned and overgeneralized 3rd phase: non-productive forms are gradually learned and stored in the lexicon.

The developmental sequences native children go through in acquiring the past participle have not yet been described. However, it seems very probable that they more or less match the sequence in which the past tense is acquired ( c f . Schaerlaekens 1977: 162; also section 3, (17)). If this is the case, then the development of LI and L2 learners would be more or less identical. However, as I noted before, this conclusion is premature as long as we do not dispose of more detailed information about the LI development of Dutch children. 7.2. Past Tense It was already observed ( c f . table 28) that the past tense occurs infrequently in the speech of LT and MT children, and also in the speech of many HT and Dutch children. Therefore, I also studied the results of the Morphology Test as

80

far as the formation of the past tense is concerned, in order to be able to infer a possible developmental sequence. The results of this study are presented in table 32 and 33: LT

MT

HT

D

7

Total number o f productive P T s

2

0

6

% incorrect

-

-

0%

Total number of non-productive PTs

1

1

% incorrect: (i) + prod.rule (ii) - prod.rule Total % incorrect

-

-

28 2.9% 0% 2.9%

0% 92 0% 0% 0%

Table 32: Number of productive and non-productive past tenses (PTs) occurring in the Picture Sample, and percentual number of incorrect forms. LT

MT

HT

D

Total number of productive PTs

35

25

40

80

% incorrect

97.2%

96%

80%

48%

Total number of non-productive PTs

35

25

40

80

% incorrect: (i) + prod.rule (ii) - prod.rule Total % incorrect

2.9% 82.5% 85.4%

0% 96% 96%

7.5% 82.5% 90%

30% 26% 56%

Table 33: Number of productive and non-productive past tenses (PTs) elicited in the Morphology Test, and percentual number of incorrect forms. In their spontaneous speech, both Turkish and Dutch children mainly produce non-productive forms of the past tense, and these are hardly ever incorrect. The very few productive forms occurring in the sample, are always correct. An example of each: (35)

a. productive past tense Emel

: toen hij de stem hoorde, ging 'ie opstaan when he the voice heard, went he stand up "toen hij haar stem hoorde, stond 'ie op" "when he heard her voice, he stood up"

b. non-productive past tense Erkan : en toen keek 'ie in z ' n boekje and then looked he in his little book "en toen keek hij in z'n boekje" "and then he looked in his book"

81

In the Dutch group, however, a few cases of an incorrect agreement rule have been found. The children overgeneralize the present tense agreement rule in that they add a -t to the third person singular of the past form: lagt (=lag,"lay"), vielt (=viel, "fell"), gingt (ging, "went"). 6 It seems to be a striking fact that the PT occurs only in the most advanced Turkish group, thus indicating that this tense is acquired relatively late. Still, it is not possible to draw conclusions with respect to the development of this tense: only two Turkish children and seven Dutch children produce more than three past tenses in the Picture Sample. Although it was shown in section 7, in (31) and (32), that all children seem to use specific avoidance strategies when they should use a past tense, it can always be claimed (and rightly so) that children do not produce a past tense because they don't need it in telling a story from pictures. I therefore turn to the results of the Morphology Test, table 33. Table 33 clearly shows that the past tense has not been acquired yet by almost any of the Turkish children, and that the Dutch group has not mastered this tense either, although they show far fewer incorrect forms than the Turkish groups.

Never-

theless, some important facts can be inferred from table 33 and from the various types of errors the children make. In the first place, LT children mainly produce verb stems and infinitive forms of the verb, whereas MT children often produce a past participle (thus producing a form referring to the past, although it is not the right o n e ) , and HT children often produce a periphrastic construction, GING + Vinf

(was going to + V i n f ) ( c f . (31a)), which is also

present in the Dutch group. In the second place, HT children more often produce a correct productively formed past tense than the other two groups, which might indicate that they are in the process of acquiring the productive rule. On the other hand, only one child (which is the most advanced Turkish child, cf. chapter 2 ) , Emel, overgeneralizes

the productive rule of the past tense, thus

producing forms like brengde (= bracht, "brought") and houdde (= hield, "held"). Based upon the results of the spontaneous speech sample and the Morphology Test I hypothesize that the following developmental sequences can be distinguished in this group of L2 learners: (36)

1st phase: no expression of the past at all: avoidance of the past by means of the infinitive form of the verb, the verb-stem or the third person singular of the present tense.

82

2nd phase: any past is expressed by means of the past participle, with or without an auxiliary. 3rd phase: the past tense is paraphrased by means of the construction GING + Vinf. 4th phase: some (mainly) non-productive past tenses occur in spontaneous speech. 5th phase: the productive rule of the past tense is learned and overgeneralized. It is difficult to compare the development sketched in (36) with the developmental sequences Schaerlaekens (1977: 162) established for native childrens' acquisition of the past tense ( c f . section 3, (17)), because she did not include avoidance of the past tense in her developmental scale, whereas in (36) the first three phases all represent ways of avoiding this tense. Also, only one Turkish child is beyond phase 4, so that it is impossible to describe the L2 course of development after this phase. Nevertheless, it seems that both native children and these L2 learners start by spontaneously producing some - mainly non-productive - past tenses, and only after this, acquire (and overgeneralize) the productive rule of past tense formation. This seems to indicate that at least in the first phases of Dutch past tense acquisition LI and L2 development is more or less identical. Further evidence for this claim can be derived from a study of the acquisition of the past tense by Rijken & Stroombergen (1981). They found that 5 year old native Dutch children often avoided the past tense by means of using the infinitive of the verb, the present tense and by means of the periphrastic construction GING + Vinf.,

whereas seven

year olds seemed to have mastered the productive rule of past tense formation while still producing very few correct non-productive past tenses. In comparing the results of table 30 and 31 on the one hand, and those of table 32 and 33 on the other, it is obvious that in all groups of speakers the past participle is more often morphologically correctly realized than is

the past

tense. This result is also in line with the results of Schaerlaekens (1977: 162): the Past Part is acquired earlier than the PT in LI development.

8. Summary and discussion In this chapter I have tried to infer the development of the morphological expression of the verbal predicate in the Turkish group, by comparing their performance with that of native children. The results of this study should be considered as partially hypothetical, because on the one hand the development of

83

the verbal predicate in native childrens' acquisition of Dutch morphology has not yet fully been described, and on the other hand, the inference of a development based upon cross-sectional data always needs longitudinal verification. The results of this study are threefold: Result 1: With respect to the Dutch tense system, it is argued that LI and L2 learners start by uttering tenseless sentences, then acquire the prospective, but used to indicate the present, before they fully acquire the present tense. Also, both LI and L2 learners acquire the present perfect before the past tense. Result 2: With respect to the acquisition of the morphological agreement rule of the present tense, it is argued that the L2 learners start by uttering verb-final sentences, with tenseless verbs, just as native children do. After that, they first use a periphrastic construction to refer to the present tense (i.e. GAAN + Vinf), then acquire the syntactic placement rule of the present tense, and lastly acquire the agreement rule itself. It is as yet unknown to what extent native Dutch children follow the same line of development. Result 3: In acquiring the expression of the past, the Turkish children first refer to past events by means of the present perfect, as native children do. As for the morphological expression of the past participle and the past tense, the L2 learners first seem to have internalized some forms in their lexicon, then acquire the productive rule, which they overgeneralize to the non-productive forms, and lastly gradually master the non-productive forms. In the development of the past tense in LI learners, the same sequence has been found. Also, in both LI and L2 acquisition, the correct morphological expression of the Past Part is acquired before the correct morphological expression of the PT. In view of these results, the research question in (1) can now be answered: (1)

Are the Turkish children developmentally behind or are they in the process of acquiring their own variety of Dutch morphology?

It seems that with respect to the acquisition of the Dutch tense system, the agreement rule in the present tense and the morphological expression of the past participle and the past tense, the Turkish children follow more or less the same course of development as was described for native Dutch children by Schaerlaekens (1977). This might indicate that they are merely developmentally behind as far as Dutch morphology is concerned. However, as long as the acquisition of Dutch morphology by native Dutch children has not been described in more detail, this conclusion is premature. Also,in a longitudinal study, following the course of development of these L2 learners, or at least in a follow-up study of the same children, it should be investigated whether or not

84

specific incorrect morphological features in the speech of this group of L2 learners fossilize, i.e.

do not change anymore. If this does not happen, it

would indeed indicate that the children are only developmentally behind. If it occurs, that is, if it is shown that the L2 learners get stuck in certain developmental sequences, this would probably indicate that they are in the process of acquiring their own variety of Dutch morphology. I conclude this chapter with a remark upon the psychological adequacy of FG, the theoretical framework in which I described the development of the verbal predicate. In section 2 it was argued that a child that is in the process of acquiring the expression possibilities of the verbal predicate, would learn to take the following steps successively: Step 1 : Decide which verb you are going to use Step 2 : Determine the tense in which the verb should appear Step 3a: Search through the lexicon for the adequate form of this tense Step 3b: If the form is not found in the lexicon, apply the adequate productive rule Step 4a: Search through the lexicon for the adequate form of the person; Step 4b: If not found, apply the adequate agreement rule. In other words, the procedure of verb formation is described in a temporal way. If we accept this temporality, we should expect children to acquire these steps in a temporal way as well. Throughout this chapter, it has been shown that steps 1 to 4 are indeed developmentally ordered. For example, with respect to the acquisition of the past tense it was found that both LI and L2 learners seem first to either imitate or have memorized some forms, before they acquire the productive rule. Although these forms are "prefabricated" in the sense that they are unconsciously produced, they still must in some way be linked to the correct predicate frame in the child's lexicon. Thus, step 3a. is acquired before step 3b. Also, it was shown that some Dutch children, who show relatively many correct non-productive PTs in their spontaneous speech, apply an incorrect agreement rule to non-productive past tenses. This indicates that for each tense, step 4 is acquired after step 3. These facts support the claim to psychological adequacy of FG.

85

NOTES, Chapter 3 A productive phonological rule regulates the choice between /d/ and 2

3

/t/.

Stern & Stern (1907) found that in German, too, the imperfekt (i.e. the past tense) is acquired relatively late in child language development, and that children first produce periphrastic forms such as Der Hund hat gebellt (the dog has barked) and much later forms such as Der Hund bellte (the dog barked) (cf. Dik 1985: 26). The three levels are based upon the rankorder between the individual Turkish children, as it was established in chapter 2. It was, however, not possible to maintain the levels of proficiency (I to IV) as they were established there, because the levels had to contain more or less the same number of children in order to be able to compare them. The three levels contain the following children. HT: Tl to T8: Emel, Ferhan, Ertan, Erkan, Hakan, Serpil, Bulent, Dilek MT: T9 to T13: Ziileyha, Omit, Cengiz, Jale, Sibel LT: T14 to T20: Özlem, Haci, Adile, Faruk, Rahman,Celil and Kamile. The borderline, drawn between HT and MT children (all belonging to level II (cf. chapter 2), except for Emel, who was classified as level I) is based upon a qualitative analysis of the morphological features of spontaneous speech and of the Morphology Test, with the exclusion of those variables which deal with the verbal predicate. Infinitive forms of the verb and verb-stems are considered as forms of the present tense; it should be noted, however, that this may not always be meant by the child! I consider these suffixes as reinterpretations of the object pronouns ''m (= hem,him) and 't (= het, it) in sentences such as: Haci

Adile:

: en zij heb 'm gepikt and she has him stolen "and she stole it" hij heb 't pakt he has it stolen "he has stolen it"

These pronouns are incorporated into the verb and have lost their original meaning. The fact that these suffixes never occur in sentence final position might indicate that this analysis is correct. The productive rule of the agreement between Subject and verb in the past tense has not been discussed in the text; it can be described as follows: past V

> l/2/3ps

V-0, l/2/3pp

V-en.

Chapter 4:

Syntactic Proficiency: Complexity and Correctness of Utterances 1. Introduction As well as morphology, in chapter 2 the results of a syntactic analysis were presented; it was concluded that the Turkish group was also behind with respect to syntax. But in contrast to the results of the morphological analysis (chapter 2 and 3), it appeared that the majority of the individual Turkish children were syntactically at least as proficient as a low level Dutch child ( c f . Appendix 2D, chapter 2). In this chapter I will further explore this result, by studying the following question: (1)

Have the majority of the Turkish children reached native-like syntactic proficiency in Dutch in that their spontaneous speech is as complex and as correct as that of the Dutch children?

In order to be able to answer this question, I analysed the first f i f t y T-units which were uttered in the declarative mode, in the Picture Sample. Syntactic complexity and syntactic correctness in terms of word order closely interact: the longer and the more diverse the utterances are, the more d i f f i c u l t it is to place the various constituents in the correct order. Therefore, in dealing with research question (1), these two parameters will both be studied, and the results will together provide an answer. In the previous chapter the morphological course of development in Dutch LI acquisition was compared with the hypothetical course of development in the Turkish L2 learners group; this will not be done with respect to syntactic development, because even less is known about Dutch LI syntactic development than about LI morphological development. I will, however, go into the nature of the word order deviations which occur in the speech of the Turkish children, by trying to establish the possible role of the native language, Turkish, in the word order patterns that the children follow in Dutch utterances. In this way, I will indirectly be able to deal with the question that was raised in the previous chapter, namely:

88 (2)

Are (part of) the Turkish children developmentally behind or are some/ they in the process of acquiring their own variety of Dutch?

If many clear examples of interference from Turkish are found in the Turkish corpus, it seems likely that the Turkish children would be on their way to acquiring their own variety. I f , on the other hand, Dutch children show the same type of word order deviations, it might be concluded that the second language learners are developmentally behind with regard to syntax. 2. Word order properties of Dutch declarative main clauses 2.1. Complete Utterances Dutch word order has three striking characteristics in the declarative mode, namely: (i)

a difference in word order between main and subordinate clauses

(ii)

a consistent second position of the finite verb (V,) in main clauses

(iii)

a split of finite ( V f ) and non-finite ( V . ) verbs in main clauses

In this chapter I will only deal with word order in declarative main clauses, so I will not go into the differences between main clauses and subordinate clauses. In main clauses the Subject may appear in front of the finite verb or immediately after it; (3)

the verb always appears in second position:

het meisje ziet de jongen S Vf 0 "the girl sees the boy"

(4)

en daar ziet het meisje de jongen X Vf S 0 and there sees the girl the boy "and there the girl sees the boy"

The non-finite verb appears in sentence-final position when it is accompanied by an auxiliary: (5)

het meisje heeft de jongen gezien V V S f ° i the girl has the boy seen "the girl has seen the boy"

89

The same holds for complex verbs, which contain particles such as vast- and opin the verbs vasthouden and opbellen (to hold tight; to phone up): the particle is separated from the finite verb and takes final position: (6)

het meisje houdt de jongen vast S Vf 0 P "the girl holds the boy tight"

The position of adverbs and prepositional phrases is fairly free: they may appear in first position, directly after the finite verb or after the object, and even after the non-finite verb, although in the case of adverbs this often results in a marked word order, in the sense that not all native speakers of Dutch would consider this sequence as correct Dutch: (7)

a. het meisje heeft de jongen in het bos gezien S Vf 0 PP V the girl has the boy in the woods seen b. het meisje heeft de jongen gezien in het bos V V PP S f ° i the girl has the boy seen in the woods "the girl saw the boy in the woods"

(8)

a. het meisje heeft de jongen dear gezien S Vf 0 A V± the girl

has

the boy

there seen

?b. het meisje heeft de jongen gezien daar S

Vf

0

Vi

the girl has the boy seen "the girl saw the boy there" 2.2.

A

there

Elliptical utterances

Elliptical utterances will not be part of the analysis presented here, but they will be referred to once or twice, especially with respect to the difference between them and incorrect T-units. An elliptical utterance is an utterance in which a constituent, or several constituents, is/are absent, but can be reconstructed on the basis of contextual data and is thus still correct according to Dutch standard norms:

90

(9)

(WAT DOE JE?) niks (WHAT DO YOU?) nothing "(WHAT DO YOU DO?) (I do) nothing

(10)

(WAT DOE JE?) de poes eten geven (WHAT DO YOU?) the cat food give "(WHAT DO YOU DO?) (I)

feed the

cat

In (10) it is shown that there are both syntactic and morphological differences between complete and elliptical utterances: the verb takes a different position (in complete utterances it takes the second position) and it is in the infinitive form. Elliptical utterances should be distinguished from utterances in which an essential constituent is absent, resulting in an incorrect sequence according to the standard norms of Dutch: (11)

(12)

*geeft de poes eten 0 gives the cat food "(he/she?) feeds the cat" 2 *de jongen de poes the boy 0 the cat "the boy (feeds?, strikes?) the cat"

Utterances such as (11) and (12) are part of the analysis presented here; they can be viewed as incorrect T-units.

2.3. Spoken Dutch In spoken Dutch many constructions ocQur, which are not considered to be part of the "official" Dutch grammar, but which regularly occur in the speech of native speakers and are accepted as normal by the majority of them. The following constructions will be dealt with in the present chapter: 1. Utterances starting with the finite verb, e.g.: (13)

doe ik niet 0 do I not "(that) I w o n ' t / d o n ' t do"

2. Utterances with a constituent added to an already completed utterance, e.g.: (14)

ik zie 'm daar staan, die jongen 1 see him there stand, that boy "I see him standing there, that boy"

91 3. Utterances in which a constituent is repeated anaphorically, e.g.:

(15)

dat meisje dat zit in de boom! that girl that sits in the tree! "that girl is sitting in the tree!"

3. The FG pattern of Dutch main clauses The word order properties of Dutch main clauses as they were summarized in the previous section can be accounted for by means of the following basic pattern (Dik 1978:178) (compare section 4 . 2 . , chapter 1):

(16)

PI V f S O V i

The first position ( P I ) is filled by members of categories which always go to this position, such as Q-constituents (waarom ( w h y ) , wanneer (when) etc.), or by constituents with the pragmatic function of topic or focus , The subject , when appearing in P I , will often have topic or focus function. Furthermore, when the S appears in PI, the regular S-position remains empty (example (3) in the previous section); when another constituent appears in PI, the S is placed in its pattern position (example (4) in the previous section). There are two positions for the verb (V, and V . ) . Both positions are filled when a sentence contains an auxiliary verb: (5); in other cases the lexical verb appears in V,. and V . remains empty. The rules that are required in order to produce correct main clause sequences are placement rules rather than movement rules ( c f . Koster 1975 for a discussion of movement rules). I assume that (16) is psychologically adequate in the sense that in the course of the acquisition process both first and second language learners of Dutch have to learn (at least) the following word order rules in order to be able to produce declarative main clauses with a correct word order pattern: (17)

(a) PI is filled by a constituent with the pragmatic function of topic or focus . If this constituent also has the syntactic function of subject , the pattern position S remains empty. (b) V^ is filled by a finite verb form. If this verb form has the function of an auxiliary verb, the lexical verb is placed in the V. position.

These two word order rules are based on both pragmatic and syntactic notions.

92

In several studies of first language acquisition it has been claimed that in early child language the ordering of constituents is determined by pragmatic factors only (Gruber 1967, also Givon 1979), or that at least the use of syntactic notions in early speech cannot be determined (Clark & Clark 1977:312). In view of this, I assume that: (i)

both native children and second language learners start to learn the rules mentioned in (17) by applying only pragmatic rules

(ii)

the children of the present study, both the Dutch and the Turkish, have acquired the syntactic notions of subject and object

(iii) the Turkish children more often fall back to the pragmatic mode (Givon 1979:223) than the Dutch children do The pragmatic mode is characterized by a simple pragmatic principle for constituent ordering: old information goes first, new information follows; and it is also characterized by a lack of use of grammatical morphology. 4. Method of Analysis In the introduction to this chapter I mentioned the two parameters along which the syntactic proficiency of the children was measured: complexity and correctness. It was observed that these two parameters closely interact, because it is more difficult to follow a correct word order pattern in a relatively long sentence than in a short one, and it is also more difficult to follow a correct word order pattern if each sentence contains its own structure than if

all

sentences follow the same structure. For example, in studying utterances on the syntactic correctness parameter only, (18) would be viewed correct with respect to word order in the same way as (19): (18)

meisje wandelen girl stroll "het meisje wandelt" "the girl is strolling"

(19)

er loopt een lief klein meisje in het bos te wandelen met een balonnetje there walks a sweet little girl in the woods to stroll with a balloonin haar hand—» dim.suffix in her hand "a sweet little girl is strolling in the woods with a balloon in her hand"

And complexity of speech, in its turn, can only be adequately assessed if the

93

parameter of correctness is taken into account, because otherwise a speaker who utters long, structurally diverse, but incorrect utterances would appear to be syntactically as proficient as someone who utters the same utterances correctly. The parameter of complexity is operationalized into the following two variables: (a) Length of Utterances in major constituents (b) Structural Diversity of Utterances The first variable measures the length of utterances in terms of predicates, arguments and satellites ( c f . section 4 . 2 . , chapter 1), instead of in words. In this way the influence of morphology, that is, determiners

of the possible absence of

, prepositions etc. is minimalized, and the length of the

utterances in terms of syntax is measured. The second variable, structural diversity, measures the relative heterogenity of the utterances in terms of patterning.In section 5.2. I will explain this variable by means of some examples. The two complexity variables together are considered to give a representative picture of the syntactic complexity of speech. The parameter of correctness is operationalized into these two variables: (a) Presence of essential constituents (b) Word order patterns The first variable measures the presence (irrespective of the morphological form) of the subject and the verb in the utterance; the second variable measures the application of the correct syntactic expression rules of Dutch. Together the correctness variables are considered to give a representative picture of the syntactic correctness of speech. I will assume that a Turkish child is syntactically as proficient as a Dutch child if it is classified in level I or II ( c f . chapter 2) with respect to each of these four variables. The variables will be dealt with consecutively in the following sections.

5. Complexity 5.1. Length of Utterances As was shown in chapter 2, the mean length of utterance (MLU) in words significantly higher in the Dutch children

1

is

speech in the Picture Sample.

94

In the Dutch group the MLU is 5.9 words on average, in the Turkish group 5.2 words. The range in the Dutch group is between 6.9 and 3.8, and only one child has a MLU lower than 5; in the Turkish group the range is between 6.6 and 2.6 words, and seven children have a MLU lower than 5. It might be possible, however, that this difference between the two groups is morphologically rather than syntactically determined, that is, that the difference is caused by a frequent omission of determiners such as articles and demonstratives. In that case the utterances of the Turkish children could be as long as those of the Dutch children in terms of major constituents, or, in terms of FG, in terms of predicates, arguments and satellites. For example, a child who

utters sequences such as (20) would have a MLU of 5 words and 3 major

constituents: (20)

het meisje slaat de jongen arg pred arg "the girl hits the boy"

A child that utters sequences such as (21) would have a MLU of 3 both in words and in major constituents: (21)

meisje jongen slaan girl boy hit "het meisje slaat de jongen" "the girl hits the boy"

I counted the split of the predicate into an auxiliary verb and a lexical verb as being two separate major constituents, because the two are usually noncontiguous. Thus, ( 2 2 ) contains four major constituents: (22)

het meisje heeft de jongen geslagen arg. pred. arg. pred. the girl has the boy hit "the girl has hit the boy"

The MLU in predicates, arguments and satellites is:

95

Dutch Turkish

MLU me 3.9 3.6

Table 34: Mean Length of Utterance, calculated in major constituents, average score of the Dutch and the Turkish group. The difference between the two groups remains significant at the level of 3 p = .05 . The question can be raised of what the distribution between predications with various numbers of major constituents is in the two groups: do the Turkish children produce shorter predications than the Dutch children or do they only produce more relatively short predications? Table 35 gives the answer to this question: 1

2

3

4

Dutch children

0.6%

1%

37%

38% 19%

Turkish children

2%

9%

32%

40% 13.5% 3%

NUMBER OF CONSTITUENTS

5

6

7

4%

0 .4% 0 .5%

Table 35: Percentual distribution between utterances containing a single major constituent (1), containing two major constituents (2), etc, in the Dutch and TUrkish group. The Turkish children utter more predications with only a single or with two major constituents than the Dutch children do (11% in the Turkish group; 1.6% in the Dutch group). The distributional proportion of three- and four-constituent utterances (henceforth I will speak of constituents in the meaning of major constituents)

is about the same in both groups, but on average the Dutch

children produce more five-constituent utterances. Utterances with more than five constituents occur infrequently in both groups. Thus, in general it can be concluded that the Turkish children utter far more relatively short predications and somewhat less relatively long predications than the Dutch group. In considering the level of proficiency of the individual children, the following picture emerges:

96

Number of Turkish children

I

II

III

IV

4

14

1

1

Table 36: Level of Proficiency of the individual _ Turkish children: I = score equal to or higher than the mean Dutch score II " score higher than or equal to the lowest Dutch score, but lower than the mean Dutch score III = score lower than the lowest Dutch score IV = score 20% lower than the lowest Dutch score Most of the Turkish children score below the Dutch group means, but still are more proficient with respect to this aspect of syntactic complexity than the least proficient Dutch child. However, on average it should be concluded that the speech of the Turkish group is less complex in length of utterance than that of the Dutch group. 5.2. Structural diversity Another aspect of syntactic complexity is the structural diversity of speech. I define structural diversity as the relative heterogenity in terms of patterning. Suppose that two children both produce utterances with a MLU of 3 constituents. One of them consistently follows an SVO word order and shows the following sequences: (23)

de jongen leest een boek

SVO

"the boy reads a book" (24)

de hond slaapt the dog sleeps

SV

"the dog is asleep" (25)

het meisje heeft een emmertje in haar hand

SVOPP

"the girl has a bucket in her hand" (26)

de hond begint te blaffen

SV V

f i

"the dog starts barking" while the other child varies between placing the subject in PI and placing some other constituent in first position, for example: (27)

daar leest de jongen een boek there reads the boy a book "there the boy reads a book"

XVSO

4

97

If this child produces such alternative patterns for all the constructions (23)(26), he or she will produce twice as many d i f f e r e n t patterns as the f i r s t child. His speech is structurally more diverse and I assume it therefore to be also more complex in the sense that this child has mastered more grammatical rules. However, it must be added that whereas "length of utterance" is an established measurement of complexity, "structural diversity" is not. In my opinion, the two variables closely interact, and more importantly, length of utterance is a less valuable measurement of complexity if structural diversity is not taken into account: a child may utter relatively long predications, all ordered along a single pattern. The only way to distinguish the properties of his speech from that of a child that follows various ordering patterns, is to measure structural diversity. Table 37 presents the average structural diversity in the two groups of speakers, calculated as follows: for each child every correct and incorrect utterance longer than a single major constituent was classified according to the major constituents it contained and according to the word order pattern it followed. In this way each child attained a score for the number of different patterns he uttered in the sample. The average score of the groups was subsequently calculated: MNDP Dutch Turkish

17.2 16.1

Table 37: Mean Number of Different Patterns (MNDP) in declarative main clauses in the Dutch and Turkish group. Although the Dutch group on average shows somewhat more diversity in patterning, the difference between the groups is not significant ( t = l . l , p > .05). However, without taking the other complexity variable, length of utterance in major constituents into account, this result does not o f f e r much information. Therefore, I will successively discuss the structural properties of sequences containing different numbers of major constituents. 5.2.1. One-constituent utterances Although utterances containing a single major constituent do not form part of the analysis of the structural diversity of utterances, I will discuss them for the sake of completeness.

98

By the very definition of a T-unit (cf. chapter 1, section 3.1.)» any utterance containing a single constituent (and which is not an elliptical answer) is incorrect according to the standard norms of Dutch. In the Dutch group only one child utters some one-constituent predications, containing a verb, whereas in the Turkish group seven children produce one or more of these utterances. Not only a verb, but also a subject, an adverb or a prepositional phrase appears by itself:

*v *s *X Figure 2: Types of one-constituent predications in the Turkish (T) and Dutch (D) group ι * = incorrect according to the standard norms of Dutch Some examples: (28)

a. Kamile

(WIE ZIJN DAT ALLEMAAL?) kijken (WHO ARE THAT ALL?) watch

*V

"(WIE ZIJN DAT ALLEMAAL?) ze staan te kijken" "(WHO ARE ALL THOSE PEOPLE?) they are watching (i.e. the fire)" b. Zuleyha; (KAN JE DAAR IETS OVER VERTELLEN?)brand (CAN YOU THERE SOMETHING ABOUT TELL?) fire

*S

"(KAN JE DAAR IETS OVER VERTELLEN?) er is brand" "(CAN YOU TELL SOMETHING ABOUT THAT (= PICTURE)?) (there is a) fire" c. Cengiz

(WAT GEBEURT ER MET DE RUIT?) stuk (WHAT HAPPENS THERE WITH THE WINDOW?) broken

*P

"(WAT GEBEURT ER MET DE RUIT?) die is stuk" "(WHAT HAPPENS TO THE WINDOW?) it breaks/is broken" d. Faruk

(WAAROM DOEN ZE DAT?) met da auto (WHY DO THEY THAT?) with the car "(WAAROM DOEN ZE DAT?) om de auto" "(WHY DO THEY DO THAT (= KICKING)?) (it

*PP

is caused) by the car"

In a way, thus, the Turkish children show more diversity, but by the very definition of the concept, these utterances cannot be described in terms of structural diversity.

99

5.2.2. Two-constituent utterances Almost all the children utter sequences containing two constituents. Again, the structural diversity in the Turkish group is higher than in the Dutch group: working with the variable X for both particles

prepositional phrases and adverbs

the following sequences occur:

* ov * XV SV

* vx * vs * sx * XX

Figure 3: Types of two-constituent predications in the Turkish and Dutch group; * = incorrect

In the Dutch group the sequences 0V, VS and XX do not occur. According to standard norms, only the third sequence, SV, is correct, provided that the verb is intransitive. ^S-sequences that are acceptable in spoken Dutch in which a constituent is omitted in first position that is inferable from the direct context,(see section 6.1.1.) are not considered here: they are classified as (X)VS-sequences. As answers to these particular questions the following twoconstituent utterances are incorrect according to the norms of both written and spoken Dutch: (29)

a. Sibei: (WAT DOET DIE MEVROUW?) boodschappen doen *OV (WHAT DOES THAT LADY?) purchases do "(WAT DOET DIE MEVROUW?) boodschappen" "(WHAT IS THE LADY DOING?) she is shopping" b. Hakan: (EN WAT GEBEURT ER MET DE BALLON?) naar boven vliegen *XV (AND WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE BALLOON?) upwards fly "(EN WAT GEBEURT ER MET DE BALLON?) die vliegt naar boven" "(AND WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BALLOON?) it flies into the air" c. Ertan: en dan heb hij het al gekopen/en toen naar de kassa *XX and then has he it already buyed/and then to the check-out "en dan heeft ze het al gekocht/en dan gaat ze naar de kassa" "and then he(=she) had bought it already/and then she goes to the check-out"

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Although most of the two-constituent utterances are incorrect with regard to both word order and morphology, they cannot be viewed as examples of the use of pragmatic mode in the sense of Givon (1979), because they do not show a topic-comment structure. Nevertheless, it might be concluded that in view of their length and (frequent) incorrectness, a high level of structural diversity in two-constituent utterances does not necessarily indicate a high level of complexity. As shown in the previous section, the frequency of occurrence of both one- and two-constituent utterances is very low in the Dutch group (1.6%) and rather low in the Turkish group (11%), whereas in both groups three-constituent utterances occur quite frequently. I will now turn to the structural diversity of these utterances. 5.2.3. Three-constituent

utterances

All children produce utterances with three constituents. The following word order patterns occur: T

* * * * * * *

sov sxv xov xsv xvx sxo sxx

+ + + + + + +

D

+

svo (X)VS svv svx

T

D

+ + +

+ + + +

+

Figure 4: Types of three-constituent predications in the Turkish and Dutch group; * = incorrect. In the Turkish group more different structures have been found, but these are all incorrect according to standard norms. Some examples: (30)

a.gelil

: hij die bal gooien he that ball throw

*SOV.

"hij gooit die bal" "he throws that ball" b. Bulent : en nou water gooien and now water throw "en nu gooit ze 't water" "and now she throws water"

*XOV.

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c. Qelil : h i j daar zitten he there sit

*SXV.

"hij zit daar" "he sits there" d. Haci

: en dan ze stapt and then she steps

*XSV

"en dan stapt ze (= op de bananenschil)" "and then she steps (= on the banana-peel) The pattern SOV is interesting because this sequence might be a consequence of transfer from Turkish: the Turkish language shows an SOV word order, although in spoken language in many cases a constituent is found to the right of the verb. I will come back to this issue in section 6.3. Utterances in which the verb is absent (SXO and SXX) are seldom found: each occurs in one child's speech (Celil produces SXO and Kamile (SXX). Here we are confronted with the usefulness of a taxonomic approach: verbless utterances appear to be not longer than two constituents. Utterances in which the subject is absent (XVX), on the other hand, occur frequently in the speech of both Turkish and Dutch children: half of each group

produce

this type of utterance . They are discussed in section 6.2.

The four correct sequences containing three major constituents, SVO, (X)VS, SVV and SVX all

occur in the speech of almost all

Dutch children, and in the

speech of the majority of the Turkish group. 5.2.4. Four constituent utterances From four-constituent

utterances on, almost all occurring word order patterns

in the children's speech are correct according to the standard norms, or acceptable according to the norms of spoken Dutch (see section 2 . 3 . ) . The following patterns occur in the speech of the children:

T

D

* svxo (X)VSX (X)VSO (X)VSV

svox svxx svov svxv

Figure 5: Types of four-constituent predications in the Turkish and Dutch group» * = incorrect.

102

The first sequence SVXO occurs in the speech of a single Turkish child; all others (correct or acceptable) are found in the speech of the majority of both Dutch and Turkish children, for example: (31)

a. Jale

: en dan worden ze boos and then get they angry "and

XVSX

then they get angry" SVOV

b. Gerti(D) :ze ging wat melk pakken she went some milk fetch "she fetched some milk" c. Sibel

XVSV

: dan gaat ze opstaan then goes she stand up "then she stands up"

In utterances with four or more constituents, both the Dutch and the Turkish children often show sequences: (a) beginning with a constituent other than the subject (b) with two verbal elements: an auxiliary and a lexical verb. It is noteworthy that on average the Turkish children utter both types of sequences more often than the Dutch children: in the first part of the Picture Sample

the distribution between SV- and XVS-sequences and between sequences

with the lexical verb in second position and in final position accompanied by an auxiliary verb in second position is as follows:

P1=S

P1=X

V,=lexical

V,-=auxiliary

Dutch

42%

58%

64%

36%

Turkish

35%

65%

47%

53%

Table 38: Percentual distribution of (a) sequences beginning with the Subject (P1=S) and those beginning with any other constituent (P1=X) and (b) sequences in which the lexical verb takes the second position (V,.=lexical) and in which it takes the final position, accompanied by an auxiliary in second position (V=aux.), in sequences with more than three constituents. As for the filling of the first position of the sentence, slight preference is given to a constituent other than the subject. This might be a consequence of the task that the children had to perform in the PS: telling a sequence of events from pictures, requires the leap from one point of time or place to another: the children do so in a very consistent manner by using the adverbs hier/daar

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(here/there) and dan/toen (then). These adverbs can be placed after the finite verb, e.g.: (32)

Eveline: (D)

die gaat dan de portemonnee pikken S Vf A 0 V± he goes then the purse steal "then he steals the purse"

but it is also possible to place such an adverb in PI: (33)

Sibel:

en dan gaat die jongetje z ' n tas pakken V Co A V f S ° i and then goes that boy his bag fetch "and then that boy fetches his (=her) bag"

Thus, the very nature of the type of speech may influence word order properties of the utterances the children produce. As for the rather high number of utterances containing an auxiliary verb, expecially in the Turkish group, it has been pointed out in many studies ( c f . Schaerlakens 1973 for the first language learners; Jansen, Lalleman & Muysken 1981 and Lalleman 1983c for adult second language learners) that in the initial stages of Dutch word order acquisition, the verb is mainly placed in final position in the infinitive form. In Lalleman (1981) it was suggested that the word order rule which brings about the correct second position in the sentence is acquired via a sort of interim stage, in which a finite verb, but not the lexical verb, takes the second position. This auxiliary verb, in many cases semantically empty, is then substituted by the lexical verb in a later developmental phase (see chapter 3, section 6 for the morphological aspects of this phenomenon). 5.2.5. Five-, six- and seven-constituent utterances The following sequences, longer than four constituents, have been found:

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5 const.

T

*XVSVO (X)VSOX (X)VSXX (X)VSOV (X)VSXV

+ + + + +

svoxx svxxx svoxv svxxv

D

+ + +

+ + +

+ + + +

6 const.

T

D

7 const.

T

(X)VSOXX (X)VSXXX (X)VSOXV (X)VSXXV

+ + + +

+ + + +

(X)VSOXXV

+

svoxxv svxxxv

+ +

D

+ +

Figure 6: Types of five-, six-, and seven-constituent predications in the Turkish and Dutch group! * = incorrect. Some examples of five- and six-constituent utterances in the speech of the children are the following: (34)

a. Ertan

: en toen staat het jongetje weer op Co A V S A P

(Co)XVSXX

and then stands the boy again up "and then the boy stands up again" b. Emel

: hier zit een jongetje A Vf S

een boekje te lezen O V±

xvfsovi

here sits a boy a book to read "here a boy is reading a book" c. Remy(D) : en hier gaan hunnie boos doen tegen elkaar Co Vι. PP and here go them angry do against each other

(Co)XV f SXV i PP

"and here they are going to be angry at each other" 5.2,6. Conclusion In the first part of this section (table 37), it was shown that the Dutch and Turkish children on average do not d i f f e r much in the number of different word order patterns they follow in declarative main clauses. It was noted, however, that the length of utterance should be taken into consideration as well. If only those (correct and incorrect ( c f . note 5)) utterances which are longer than four constituents are taken into account, the mean number of different patterns (MNDP) in the two groups of speakers is as follows:

105

MNDP Dutch

5.6

Turkish

4.1

Table 39: Mean Number of Different Patterns of utterances longer than four constituents in declarative main clauses in the PS in the Dutch and Turkish group. The difference between the two groups is not significant (t=1.99; p ^ .05), and thus it is concluded that with regard to structural diversity, the Turkish children's speech on average is not syntactically less complex than that of the Dutch children. This can be shown more clearly in the classification of the individual Turkish children into the four proficiency levels:

Number of Turkish children

I

II

III

10

8

0

IV

2

Table 40: Level of proficiency of the individual Turkish children with regard to structural diversity of utterances which are longer than four constituents. 5.3. Summary I have distinguished two variables measuring the complexity of speech: (1) length of utterance in terms of predicates, arguments and satellites (2) structural diversity of utterances I consider these two variables each to influence in their own way the chance of making errors; that is, of uttering predications with a deviant word order pattern, because: (i)

the longer the predications, the more difficult to pattern them according to the appropriate word order rules

(ii) the more heterogeneous the patterning of the predications, the more difficult to apply the appropriate word order rules. With regard to the first variable, Length of Utterance, it is concluded that the speech of the Turkish group is less complex than that of the Dutch group, although only two of the individual Turkish children score lower than the lowest Dutch score. Looking at the second variable, Structural Diversity, the conclusion is that the speech of the Turkish group shows more or less the same measure of complexity

106

as that of the Dutch group, and half of the individual Turkish children score higher than the mean

of the Dutch group.

6. Correctness In this section I will complement the analysis of syntactic complexity with the analysis of syntactic correctness. I will try to establish to what extent the Turkish children seem to have mastered the basic pattern of Dutch main clauses: (35)

PI V f S O V ±

(cf. section 3, (16))

by examining whether or not they apply the following two word order rules: (36)

a. PI is filled by a constituent with the pragmatic function of topic or focus . If this constituent also has the syntactic function of subject, the pattern position S remains empty. b. V, is filled by a finite verb form. If this verb has the function of an auxiliary verb, the lexical verb is placed in the V. position.

These two word order rules are centered around two positions: V, and S. If a child shows a specific deviant pattern in a systematic way, I assume that he either starts from a different basic pattern than (35), or applies an incorrect expression rule. However, in spoken Dutch a number of constructions may occur which cannot be viewed as "deviant" or "incorrect" because most (adult, native) speakers use them. Those which occur in the speech of these children, I will discuss in section 6.1. I will define a number of criteria, in the form of optional expression rules, which define a borderline between these acceptable spoken Dutch patterns and incorrect

patterns.

There is yet another class of utterances to be distinguished in which the application of the word order rules mentioned in (36) cannot be determined: utterances which lack the subject or the (finite) verb. Although in these utterances it can thus not be determined whether or not the child has mastered the basic pattern and expression rules, they form part of the analysis of correctness, because they may be examples of avoidance; if a constituent is absent, it cannot be in an incorrect position. They will be discussed in section 6.2.; in section 6.3. I will deal with utterances with a deviant word order pattern.

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6.1. Acceptable spoken Dutch patterns Most grammars of Dutch are largely based on features of Dutch as we find them in written texts, and not too much attention is paid to features of spoken Dutch (cf. De Vooys 1960; Overdiep 1937). In dealing with Dutch word order, De Vooys mentions a number of sequences which do not follow the normal pattern of declarative main clauses and states that such 'deviations' often occur: "in most cases it has the form of a supplement, a correction of something that did not cross one's mind in time" (1960: 366; English translation mine.FG ). Most grammarians recognize the occurrence of patterns typical of spoken Dutch, but they do not seem to consider them as part of the grammar, although this position has recently been abandoned in the ANS ( ' 8 4 ) , In a study that focusses on oral language proficiency,

such as the present one,

it is very important to be able to determine the borderline between correct, acceptable and incorrect word order patterns. We will come closer to the establishment of which deviations from the target norm word order are typical for second language learners, if we recognize the possibility that a certain sequence, although not considered as standard Dutch, is perfectly normal in spoken Dutch. These will be called 'acceptable' patterns. The following acceptable spoken Dutch patterns occur in the speech of the children: 1. utterances starting with the finite verb 2. utterances in which a constituent is added to an already completed utterance with a short break in the intonation pattern 3. utterances in which a noun is directly followed by its corresponding demonstrative I will successively discuss these three constructions. 6.1.1. Utterances starting with the finite verb

Jansen (1981: 109-145) discusses the phenomenon of declarative main clauses starting with the finite verb in the speech of adult native speakers. He found that adults often omit pronominal adverbs, adverbs of time and place, demonstratives and dummy subjects: (37)

Omitted Constituents

Example:

(a) pronominal adverbs:

(daar) wil ik je over spreken (there) want I you about talk "about that I want to talk with you"

(b) adverbs of time:

(toen) ging ik weg (then) went I away "then I went away"

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(c) adverbs of place:

(daar) kwam ik hem tegen (there) met I him "there I met him"

(d) demonstratives:

(die) zag ik niet (that) saw I not "that I didn't see"

(e) dummy subject:

( d ' r ) was helemaal geen schoolfonds (there) was at all no schoolfund "there was no schoolfund at all"

In the speech of the children of the present study, pronominal adverbs do not appear in sentence-initial position. Furthermore, whereas subject pronouns are seldom omitted in first position by adults, the children do so fairly often. Because the omission of the subject pronoun may also be a feature of simplified speech, and typical for a rather low level of language proficiency, we need a criterion by means of which we can distinguish the two types of omission: one an acceptable spoken Dutch pattern, the other a deviation from the target norm. In terms of FG, this criterion can be formulated by means of an optional expression rule: (38)

Optional Expression Rule 1: PI may remain empty if the constituent normally filling this position was mentioned or referred to in the 'immediate prior' conversation (Jansen 1981: 56).

This criterion also covers the explanation of the phenomenon: a speaker may safely assume that a constituent which was mentioned or referred to shortly before, is easily filled in by the listener. The function of the omission of course is the shortening of speech: especially in a story telling task it enlivens a story when it is told in a quick manner, without redundant details and many children (and adults) think that this is the best way to tell a story. Using (38) as a criterion for acceptable subjectless main clause sequences, we can distinguish between (39) and (40): the former an acceptable spoken Dutch pattern, the latter a feature of simplified speech: (39)

(EN DE BALLON?) (die) is weg in de lucht (AND THE BALLOON?) (that) is away in the

air

"(EN WAT GEBEURDE ER MET DE BALLON?) die vloog de lucht in" "(AND WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE BALLOON?) it flew away into the air"

109

(40)

en daar gooi (=zij)/en toen schrik (=hij) and there throw (=she)/and then is frightened (=he) "en daar gooit ze (het water)/en dan schrikt hij" "and there she throws (the water)/and then he is frightened"

The following types of acceptable verb-initial patterns can be distinguished in the speech of the children; the absent constituent normally filling PI is added between brackets: (41)

Omitted Constituent:

Example:

a. demonstratives (objects):

(EN WAT GEBEURDE ER TOEN?) (dat) wreet (AND WHAT HAPPENED THERE THEN?) (that)know

b. adverbs of time:

c. adverbs of place:

ik niet I not "(AND WHAT HAPPENED THEN?) that I don't know" en dan wil 'ie net iets kopen/ea and then wants he just something buy/and (dan) hebt 'ie geen geld (then)has he no money "and at that very moment he wants to buy something/and then he hasn't got money" hier loopt een meisje met haar ballon/(hier) here walks a girl with her balloon/(here) gooit 'ie z ' n banaan leeg throws he his banana empty "(...)/hier gooit 'ie z'n banaan weg" "here is a girl walking with her balloon/ here he throws away his banana"

d. demonstratives (subjects):

(EN WAAR WERKT JE MOEDER?) (die) (AND WHERE DOES YOUR MOTHER WORK?) (that) werkt niet works not

e. subject pronouns:

"she doesn't work" hij koopt iets, die mevrouw/en hij pakt he buys something, that lady/and he fetches z'n spaarpot/(zij) koopt wat his money-box/(she) buys something "ze koopt wat, die mevrouw/en hij pakt haar portemonnee/zij koopt wat" "she buys something, that lady/and he takes the purse/she buys something"

There is, however, one thing which remains unclear: why the omission of certain constituents is only possible in PI: in other positions in the sentence it results in a deviant word order pattern, such as (30b). Probably this phenomenon

110

is another piece of evidence that PI in fact is a "special position" (cf. Dik 1978: 178),to which several rules can be applied that are restricted to that position. I suggest calling this acceptable spoken Dutch pattern the Empty PI Pattern. 6.1.2. Utterances with a constituent added to a complete predication In Dutch declarative main clauses it is possible to add a constituent to an already complete predication, provided that a short break in the intonation pattern is heard. This possibility is very useful to a speaker: it offers the opportunity to extend an utterance, without really violating the rules of word order. It is not exactly known how often native speakers of all ages make use of this ordering possibility; in the spoken Dutch of native children between the age of four and eight on average 4% of all utterances show the phenomenon of dislocation (both in front of and to the right of the complete utterance), (van lerland, personal communication). Van lerland did not distinguish leftand right dislocation, so that it is not possible to exactly compare her data with mine; assuming, however, that both forms of extraposition occur more or less equally often, a percentage of 2 would appear to be normal for Dutch native children between the ages of four and eight. It seems obvious that this phenomenon should be distinguished from those (incorrect) sequences in which a constituent appears to the right of the predication without a pause, such as: (42)

Ferhan:

en toen had ze in de zak gestopt die banden and then had she in the pocket put those hands "en toen had ze haar handen in haar zak gestopt" "and then she had put her hands in her pocket"

Dik (1978:153-156) argues that given the extended pattern (43) for Dutch main clauses:

(43)

P2, PI

Vf

S 0

V ., P3

P3 is a special position, which is usually filled by a constituent with the pragmatic function of tail. Tail constituents add information to the predication or part of the predication, but they do not form part of the predication proper: this is symbolized by the comma. The following optional expression rule distinguishes the occurrence of a

Ill

constituent with the pragmatic function of tail in P3 from incorrect sequences such as (42): (44)

Optional expression rule 2: a predication may be followed by any constituent filling P3, provided that a short break in the intonation pattern is heard between predication and added constituent.

In the speech of the children that took part in the present study, the following extensions in P3 were found: (45)

Extension in P3:

Example:

a. clarification of the subject: en hij gaat een book lezen, de jongen and he goes a book read, the boy "en hij leest een boek, de jongen" "and he reads a book, the boy" b. correction of the subject:

ennem die jongen gaatte nog ze boom and that boy goes still the tree ze achter, die bond his behind, that dog "en die jongen rent naar de boom, de hond" "and that boy runs to the tree, that dog"

c. clarification of the object:

die pakt 'm uit de zak, de portemonnee he takes him out of the pocket, the purse "he takes it out of the pocket, the purse"

d. clarification of the predication as a whole: a. hij gaat slapen, in het bosje he goes sleep, in the grove "hij slaapt, in het bosje" "he is sleeping, in the grove" b. die meisje gaat met de ballon spelen, that girl goes with the balloon play, buiten outside "dat meisje speelt met haar ballon, buiten" "that girl plays with her balloon, outside" c. nu gaat 'ie weg,met zonder dingen now goes he away, with without things "nu gaat ze weg, zonder iets" "now she leaves, without a thing"

112

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish a constituent which is placed in P3 from a normal sequence, if the intonation break is very short. Mostly, however, the pause between the first part of the sentence and P3 is obvious. In some cases a child has even begun another sentence and then adds a constituent to the previous sentence: (46)

en er zit een jongetje in de zon op het strand te leggen, enne.... op and there sits a boy in the sun on the beach to lie, and on een handdoek a towel "en er ligt een jongetje in de zon op het strand, enne... op een handdoek" "and a boy is lying in the sun on the beach, a n d . . . . on a towel"

I call this spoken Dutch pattern the P3 Pattern. 6.1.3. Utterances with a noun directly followed by its corresponding demonstrative In section 6.1.1. an exception to the rule "PI is filled by a constituent with the pragmatic function of topic or focus" is formulated (compare (17a), section 3): PI can remain empty in specific cases. There is, however, a second acceptable spoken Dutch pattern to be distinguished, in which at first sight this rule is also violated, for example: (47)

Esther (D):

dat meisje dat trapt op de schil that girl that steps on the peel "that girl (she) steps on the peel"

It seems that both the term dat meisje and the demonstrative dat are placed in PI. There are two alternative explanations: (a) the demonstrative dat is to be viewed as a dummy; dat meisje

is placed

in PI and has the syntactic function of subject (b) the noun dat meisje does not form part of the predication proper, it

is

placed in P2 (compare the extended pattern (43)) and the demonstrative dat is placed in PI and has the syntactic function of subject. In contrast to P3, in which constituents may be placed after a short intonational break, constituents in P2 may be followed by a constituent in PI without a pause. Therefore, explanation (b) seems to be the more probable one. Sequences such as (47) are perfectly normal in spoken Dutch, and therefore they should form part of the grammar of Dutch. This can be done by means of the following optional expression rule:

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(48)

Optional expression rule 3:

a term may appear in P2, followed by its corresponding demonstrative in PI. The latter normally has the syntactic function of subject within the predication.

By means of (48) the acceptability of the following utterances is correctly ruled out: (49)

*m'n mamma zit ze alleen ook my mommy sits she alone also "my mommy is also alone"

(50)

*een meneer hij was aan 't rijden a gentleman he was driving "a gentleman was driving"

In (50) a personal pronoun appears in PI, which results in a deviant pattern. In (49) a pronominal counterpart of the noun appears in the regular subject position, so that this utterance in fact is deviant in two respects. In terms of FG the spoken Dutch pattern I discussed here might be referred to as the P2 PI Pattern. 6.1.4. Frequency of occurrence of acceptable spoken Dutch patterns In the previous sections I discussed three types of constructions, each of which at first sight seemed to "disobey" the word order rules of Dutch, but which are nevertheless accepted as normal in spoken Dutch. These three types do not occur with the same frequency in the speech of the Dutch and Turkish children: whereas the Empty PI Pattern is relatively often found in the speech of both groups of speakers, the other two constructions appear only once or twice in the speech sample of each child, or, as is the case with the P2 PI- Pattern, in the speech of only a number of children, and not at all in the speech of the others: Empty PI

Dutch Turkish

10.3%

8.6%

P3

P2 PI

2.3% 2.0%

1.9% 0.6%

Table 41: Percentual number of utterances in the Picture Sample containing acceptable spoken Dutch patterns: (1) Empty PI Pattern, (2) P3-Pattern and (3) P2 PI Pattern.

114

The Empty PI Pattern is followed in .more than 20% of all their utterances by two Turkish and four Dutch children. In these cases it is not certain that this construction always has the function of speech enlivenment: Schaerlaekens (1977) considers the Empty PI Pattern as a feature of simplified speech, representing a certain developmental phase in (native speaker ) word order acquisition. However, this conclusion would be at least partly in contradiction with the results of the study of Jansen (1981), who found that this pattern occurs fairly frequently in the speech of adult native speakers of Dutch. 6,1.5. Conclusion Spoken Dutch patterns such as the three construction dealt with here occur whenever, by whoever, Dutch is spoken. There is, however, variation in occurrence: between speakers and in different situations, and in a single speaker as well. Children, both native children and second language learners,often tend to

follow

the Empty PI Pattern. Also, adults seem to follow the P3- and the P2 Pi-Pattern fairly often, although no systematic research has been done in which this claim is verified. The relative frequency of occurrence, however, is not the most important reason for including spoken Dutch patterns in the grammar of Dutch. It is a fact that all (native) speakers of Dutch consider these patterns as normal. If the function of a grammar of Dutch is to record all the constructions which form part of that language, it would be strange,to say the least, to exclude specific constructions which occur in the speech of almost every native speaker, and which are accepted as normal by native speakers. Accepting the fact that speech patterns should form part of the grammar, it

is

necessary to be able to formulate grammatical rules in order to do so. I showed that each of the speech patterns that was discussed can be incorporated into Functional Grammar by means of optional expression rules. These expression rules apply to "special positions", PI, P2 and P3, which refer to pragmatically defined positions in the sentence. It seems to be difficult to incorporate these spoken Dutch patterns into the grammar by means of rules that are purely syntactically defined. The important conclusion of this section is that with regard to the frequency of occurrence of patterns which are typical for spoken Dutch, the difference between the Dutch and the Turkish group is minimal. Because I consider these patterns to be equally correct given the task that the children had to perform

115

(i.e.

the telling of a story) as those patterns which do form part of the

"official" grammar of Dutch, they will both be classified

as

a single category

in the analysis of the correctness of speech. 6.2. Utterances without subject and/or without verb With the exception of cases such as (39), in which the omission of the subject pronoun is acceptable in spoken Dutch, utterances in which either the verb or the subject (or both) is (are) absent, are deviant according to the norms of Dutch. Therefore, utterances such as (51): (51)

Sibel:

(EN DE BALLON?) (die) is weg in de lucht (AND THE BALLOON?) (it) is away in the air "(EN DE BALLON) die vloog de lucht in" "(AND THE BALLOON?) it flew away into the

(=(39))

air"

are not included here, whereas utterances such as (52) are: (52)

Ozlem:

en daar gooi (=zij)/en toen schrik (=hij) and there throw (she)/and then is startled (he)

(=(40))

"en daar gooit zij (het water)/en dan schrikt hij" "and then she throws (the water)/and he is startled" In the latter the subject is not omitted in first, but in third position, and this is not permitted even in spoken Dutch. With respect to the presence of the verb, I distinguished between utterances in which an infinitive form was used and those in which a past participle was used: (53)

Kamile:

meisje vallen girl fall "het meisje valt" "the girl falls"

(54)

Cengiz:

nog niks gekoop/nu wel gekoopt still nothing buyed/now (part.) buyed "ze heeft nog niets gekocht/nu heeft ze wel wat gekocht" "she hasn't bought anything yet/now she has bought something"

Utterances such as (53) were scored as +V (verb present), with a deviant verb form, and utterances such as (54) were scored as -V, in this particular example with a deviant form of the past participle, because the auxiliary verb is absent in these cases.

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The percentual number of utterances without verb and/or subject in the two groups of speakers

is:

0S /0V Dutch

3.9%

Turkish

8.9%

Table 42: Percentual number of utterances without verb and/or without subject in the Dutch and Turkish group. The difference between the groups turns out to be non-significant (t=1.4, p ) .05). The individual Turkish children can be classified into the following proficiency levels:

Number of Turkish children

I 11

II 6

III 2

IV 1

Table 43: Level of proficiency of the individual Turkish children with regard to presence of verb and subject. I = higher than or equal to the mean Dutch score II = higher than or equal to the lowest Dutch score III = lower than the lowest Dutch score IV = 20% or more below the lowest Dutch score. Apart from the omission of the verb and the subject, we sometimes find sequences in which the object (55)

of the sentence is omitted, e.g.

Richard ( D ) : en dan ziet 'ie (=haar) niet meer and then sees he (=her) not more "and then he doesn't see her any more"

These occurrences are not included in the analysis, because in most cases the presence of the object is not as strictly obligatory as the presence of the subject and the verb. 6.3. Utterances with a deviant word order pattern In table 44 it is shown that the frequency of deviant word order patterns in the Dutch group is extremely low and therefore, it seems justified to consider them as accidental mistakes. In the Turkish group the frequency of deviant word order patterns is higher than in the Dutch group; the difference between the groups turns out to be significant

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(t=2.87, p(.Ol). Table 44 shows the percentual number of six types of deviations in the Dutch and Turkish group: Dutch

Turkish

Vfin

0.1%

3.3%

V3

0 2%

2.8%

Sdoubl

0.4%

2.6%

0-final

0.1%

1.6%

Vdoubl

0 %

1.0%

vv

0.1%

0.2%

other

0.6%

0.5%

Table 44: Percentual number of utterances with a deviant word order pattern in the Dutch and Turkish group in the PS; Vfin = verb in final positions V3 = verb in third position; Sdoubl = subject-doubling; 0-final = object in (incorrect)final position; Vdoubl = doubling of the verb; VV = finite verb and non-finite verb (incorrectly) joint. In the Dutch group 1.5% of all utterances shows a deviant word order pattern and in the Turkish group 12%. In the speech of seven Turkish children on average more than one fourth (27%) of all utterances shows word order deviations. I will discuss the deviations which occur in succession.

6.3.1. Verb Final and V3 One of the Turkish children, Qelil , produces many utterances with the verb in final position: (56)

£elil:

h i j die bal gooien ( , . . ) / e n dan hij raam kijken he that ball throw ( , . . ) / a n d then he window look "hij gooit die bal/en dan kijkt hij naar het raam" "he throws that ball ( . . . ) / a n d then he looks at the window"

Utterances containing two constituents, in which the verb appears in the infinitive form in final position after the object, an adverb or a prepositional phrase are also classified as verb-final. Note that these are also classified as 0S utterances,

utterances lacking a subject (section 6 . 2 . ) :

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(57)

Sibel:

(WAT DOET DIE MEVROUW?) boodschappen doen (WHAT DOES THAT LADY?) purchases do

(=(29a))

"(WAT DOET DIE MEVROUW?) boodschappen"(ell.) of "ze doet boodschappen" "(WHAT DOES THAT LADY DO?) purchases"(ell.) or "she is shopping" However, utterances in which a conjugated verb form appears in final position after a constituent followed by the subject, are classified as V3 (verb in third position): (58)

Haci:

en dan ze stapt and then she steps "en dan stapt ze (op de schil)" "and then she steps (on the peel)"

Verb-final utterances have practically always either an infinitive form or a verb stem in final position (compare chapter 3, section 6). Utterances with a conjugated verb in final position are rare: they are mostly to be interpreted as

V3's: (58). Verb final utterances occur frequently in the speech of only one Turkish child, Celil, regularly in the speech of another child, Özlem, and occasionally in the speech of Faruk. Five Turkish children produce a verb-final construction in a single utterance: we might consider these occurrences as accidental mistakes, except for one child, Kamile. She produces many one-constituent utterances; the few utterances containing more than one constituent do not contain a verbal element: she may be at a proficiency level in which the next stage would be characterized by verb-final constructions. Utterances in which the verb is placed in third position occur regularly in the speech of Haci and occasionally in the speech of Özlem and Adile, whereas five other children produce this sequence in a single utterance. Considering the length of the utterances in which these deviations occur, and the obligatory presence of the subject (most utterances with V3 contain more than three constituents),it is plausible that this type of deviation represents the next developmental stage in the acquisition of Dutch word order, in comparison with the stage in which verb final constructions are typical.

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6.3.2. Utterances with the subject or verb in two different

positions

Two Turkish children, Haci and Rahman, regularly produce utterances in which a constituent with the syntactic function of subject appears both in PI and in its pattern position (= S doubling): (59)

Haci:

en ze kijkt 'ie and she looks he "en h i j kijkt" "and he looks"

Rahman: hurt gaat ze voetballen them goes they play soccer "zij gaan voetballen" "they are going to play soccer"

Apart from these two children, six others produce a single utterance with two pronominal subjects in two different positions. In terms of FG this word order pattern can be explained as follows. Word order rule (17a) ( c f . section 3) actually consists of two parts: (60)

Part 1: PI is filled by a constituent with the pragmatic function of topic or focus Part 2: The pattern position of the subject (S) remains empty if this constituent in PI has the syntactic function of subject , as well as the pragmatic function of topic or focus.

In acquiring this complex word order rule, it seems only natural that a child at first confuses these two parts of the rule, by placing the S both in PI and in its pattern position. This implies, however, that the child is in the process of acquiring the rule, in the same way as children who fluctuate between placing the (finite) verb in third position and in its pattern position, V. ( c f . section 6.3.1.). Verb doubling is found in the speech of one Turkish child only, and therefore may be an idiosyncratic feature. Sometimes, however, as in the first example given below, his ordering strongly resembles a construction which is quite normal in spoken Dutch:

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(61)

Faruk: hier gaat die jongen gaat die pikken/meisje gaat lopen gaat here goes that boy goes that steal/girl goes walk goes "hier pikt die jongen dat/het meisje loopt" "here that boy steals that/the girl walks"

In view of the extremely high frequency in which Faruk follows this pattern, in most cases not comparable with the spoken Dutch pattern, I considered this phenomenon as an example of deviant word order patterning. 6.3.3. Object final and incorrect joint

VfVi

In the speech of seven Turkish children the object occasionally appears in final position in the utterance, after a non-finite verb form: (62)

Ferhan:

toen had ze in de zak gestopt die banden then had she in the pocket put those hands

(=(42))

"toen had ze haar handen in haar zak gestopt" "then she had put her hands in her pocket" It is worthy of note that only one of these children belongs to the group of seven least proficient children: apparently this error occurs at a more advanced proficiency level. In the Turkish corpus only two occurrences of joint finite/non-finite verbs have been found, which are incorrect. The other examples in which both verbs are placed together are correct: (63)

Jale:

vijf jongetjes twee meisjes gaate voetballen/(...) gaan voetballen five boys two girls go play f o o t b a l l / ( . . . ) go play football hier wel here "vijf jongetjes en twee meisjes gaan voetballen/(...) hier (op dit plaatje) gaan ze voetballen" "five boys and two girls are going to play soccer/(...) here (on this picture) they are going to play soccer"

In the above example the first joint V..V. is correct, or at least it cannot be determined that it is incorrect, whereas the second one is definitely incorrect: both adverbs hier (here) and wel (+_ sure) should have been placed between the finite and non-finite verb.

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6.3.4. Conclusion In the Dutch group 1.5% of all utterances are deviant with respect to word order, and these can be considered as accidental mistakes.The Turkish children produce a deviant word order pattern in 12% of all their utterances. The difference between the groups is significant. Six types of deviations occur, ο but most of these are produced by the seven least proficient children. If the deviations in the speech of the other thirteen children are counted separately, the difference between them and the Dutch group is minimal: 2% deviant in the Turkish group and 1.5% in the Dutch group. The individual Turkish children can be classified as follows:

Number of Turkish children

I 2

II 11

III 1

IV 6

Table 45: Level of proficiency of the individual Turkish children in relation to word order deviations

In the introduction

to this chapter I remarked that although it is impossible

to compare the (hypothetical) developmental sequences these L2 learners may go through with those in LI syntactic acquisition, it is possible to deal indirectly with an aspect of the following question: Are the Turkish children developmentally behind or are they in the process of acquiring their own variety of Dutch? For it can be established which deviations in the Turkish group are a consequence of language transfer or interference from Turkish. It should, however, be kept in mind that in this way, avoidance of specific word order sequences and other possible interlanguage features which are not caused by interference from Turkish, are excluded from the analysis. In the previous subsections I discussed six types of word order deviations occurring in the Turkish group; of these, the following two may be a consequence of language transfer:

Turkish structure (1) verb in final position (2) joint V f V 1

SOV V-suffixes

Joint V _ V . hardly ever occurs in the Turkish group and moreover, the attribution to interference is disputable: in Turkish both tense and aspect are expressed by means of verbal suffixes. The verb in final position does occur in the Turkish

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group, both in two-constituent- and in in three-constituent utterances (5.2.2. and 5.2.3.). But from first language acquisition studies it is known ( c f . Schaerlaekens 1977) that verb final is also a feature of normal LI development, although "pure" SOV utterances (such as those produced by Qelil) seem to be rare in Dutch LI acquisition. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that in the production of this specific group of second language learners, transfer from Turkish plays a minimal role in the acquisition of Dutch word order rules. This result is in line with Appel (1984: 133). The necessary LI data lacking, it is impossible to

say

whether the word order deviations occurring in the Turkish sample are

developmentally determined or not, because we do not know whether native children show these patterns in the course of acquiring the word order rules of Dutch. Thus, whereas in the previous chapter some hypotheses could be formulated concerning the linguistic future of this group of L2 learners with respect to morphology, further research is required to even hypothesize on their syntactic future. 6.4. Summary In this section the parameter of correctness in the speech of the children was studied. First I discussed a number of typical spoken Dutch patterns, that is, patterns which occur in the spoken Dutch of all types of speakers and which are considered as 'acceptable' by the large majority of native adults. I found that these patterns occur in more or less the same frequency in both the Dutch and the Turkish group. I suggested three optional expression rules by means of which these patterns can be incorporated into the grammar of Dutch; with respect to the study of correctness, they were treated in the same manner as correct patterns. The variable absence of subject and/or verb resulted in a non-significant difference between the Dutch and Turkish group: although the Turkish children did omit the subject and the verb more often than the Dutch children, only three individual children scored below the lowest Dutch score (and because this variable, as well as the variables Deviations, measures incorrectness, below should be read as higher than in this particular context!) With regard to deviations in word order, the difference between the two groups turned out to be significant: the Turkish children utter more predications with a deviant word order pattern than the Dutch children do. In section 5.3. I suggested that in view of the complexity variable Length of Utterance (in major constituents), on which the Dutch children scored

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significantly higher than the Turkish children, the Dutch children have in fact more chance of producing word order deviations than the Turkish children: the longer the utterance, the greater the opportunity to violate the appropriate word order rules of Dutch. In view of this, the conclusion of this section is that as far as correctness of speech is concerned, the level of syntactic proficiency of the Turkish group is lower than that of the Dutch group. 7. Overall level of Syntactic proficiency of the Turkish children As was pointed out in chapter 2, we can determine the level of proficiency of each individual Turkish child by classifying him/her into different levels of second language proficiency. These levels are the following: I II

= equal to or higher than the average Dutch score = equal to or higher than the lowest Dutch score, but lower than the mean Dutch score III = lower than the lowest Dutch score

IV = much lower than the lowest Dutch score (i.e. more than 20% lower) In this chapter I studied word order in two ways: I looked into the complexity of the utterances and into the correctness of the utterances. Complexity of speech can be determined by studying two variables: (1) the length of the utterances in constituents (2) the structural diversity of the utterances Regarding ( 2 ) , in section 5.2. it was argued that the best way to determine the structural diversity of speech was to look into those utterances, which contain more than four constituents. Correctness of speech can be determined by studying the utterances with regard to word order deviations. In section 6 it was shown that these deviations from Dutch target norm can be classified into at least three different types: (1) sequences which are acceptable in spoken Dutch, and therefore, should not be considered as deviant (2) sequences which are incorrect by reason of the omission of either the verb or the subject (or both): the word order sequence that was meant cannot be traced (3) sequences which are incorrect because the word order sequence followed is unacceptable in Dutch, even according to the norms of spoken Dutch Type (1) "deviations" do not form part of the analysis, type (2) are considered as instances of simplified speech, and type (3) deviations refer to word order

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patterning. The level of syntactic proficiency of the individual Turkish children is established on the basis of the joint results on these four variables: LENGTH

SD

0S/0V

DEVIATIONS-

I II II I II II II II I II II I II II II II III II II IV

I II II II I I I II I I I I I II II I II II IV IV

I I I II I I I I II I II I II II II I III I III IV

II II II II II I II II II II I II II IV IV III IV IV IV IV

Emel Ferhan

Ertan Erkan Hakan Serpil Billent Dilek Zuleyha Omit Cengiz Jale Sibel Özlem Haci Adile Faruk Rahman gelil Kamile

Table 46: Level of Proficiency of the individual Turkish children compared with the Dutch group on four variables: (1) LENGTH = Length of Utterances in Constituents, (2) SD = structural diversity of the utterances (i.e. number of different sequences longer than four constituents)t (3) 0S/0V = percentage of utterances without subject and/or verb and (4) DEVIATIONS = percentage of word order deviations. I II III IV

= level of proficiency equal to the average Dutch score, or higher than the average Dutch score = level of proficiency between the average Dutch score and the least proficient Dutch child = level of proficiency lower than the lowest Dutch score = level of proficiency 20% lower than the lowest Dutch score.

LENGTH SD 0S/0V DEVIATIONS

: : : :

Mean Mean Mean Mean

Dutch group: 3.9 Lowest Dutch score: 3.31 I F = < 2 . 6 Dt 5.6; Lowest D: If IV =< 0.8 Dutch 4%; "lowest"D: 17%t IV = > 20% Dutch 1.5%; "lowest"D: 9%t IV => 11%

On the basis of the results presented in table 46, the research question of this chapter can now be answered: (1)

Have the majority of the Turkish children reached native-like syntactic proficiency in Dutch in that their spontaneous speech is as complex and as correct as that of the native children?

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Those children whose scores on each variable are classified in level I or II can be considered as having reached native-like syntactic proficiency in the sense that in both syntactic complexity and syntactic correctness they are at least as proficient as the least proficient Dutch child. Table 46 shows that two thirds of the Turkish group, thirteen out of twenty children, have reached native-like syntactic proficiency in Dutch as far as syntactic complexity and correctness in spontaneous speech are concerned. With respect to the seven children who score lower than the least proficient Dutch child on a single variable

(Özlem, Haci, Adile and Rahman) or on several (Faruk,

Celil and Kamile), not even hypotheses have been formulated with respect to their subsequent development. Unlike the morphological variables studied in the previous chapter, no systematic research has yet been done into the syntactic variables dealt with here in LI acquisition. This means that as far as syntactic development is concerned no framework of reference is available within which the performance of the Turkish children can be compared. Therefore, future research should establish whether the seven Turkish children are simply developmentally behind

or whether they are in the process of acquiring their own variety of

Dutch. NOTES, chapter 4 Subordinate clauses, although they form part of T-units, and elliptical utterances are excluded from the analysis, because their word order pattern differs completely from that of main clauses. In order to explain the difference between elliptical utterances and incomplete T-units I will shortly summarize the word order properties of correct elliptical utterances in section 2.2. 2 3

4

It should be noted that this sequence is correct if it is an answer to the question: WHO FEEDS/STRIKES WHO? The difference between the groups was statistically tested for significance by means of a two-tail t-test, independent samples. The difference was concluded to be significant from p = .05 on i.e. t = 2.03, but in almost all cases throughout this chapter, a value of at least p < .01 was reached. X = adverb, prepositional phrase or particle. In this sequence (and in others in this section) I will not refer to the first position with PI, but with the neutral variable X. Incorrect utterances are included because the parameter of correctness should not interfere with the parameter of complexity. Only the first ten T-units of the Picture Sample were analysed for each child: the results of table 38 should therefore be viewed as a tendency.

126

An occasional example of this pattern has been found in the corpus in which the demonstrative has the syntactic function of object . According to my intuition this pattern occurs quite frequently in adult spoken Dutch. If this is indeed the case, the expression rule should incorporate this possibility. These children are: Özlem, Haci, Adile, Faruk, Rahman, Celil and Kamile. In the previous chapter, dealing with morphology, these children form the LT (·= low level Turkish children) group. In table 46 the children are rank-ordered according to the overall proficiency level which was calculated in chapter 2, table 26.

Chapter 5:

Semantic Proficiency: The Communication of Perceptual Experiences 1. Introduction In this chapter I will go into an aspect of semantic proficiency by dealing with the following question: (1)

How do the Turkish and Dutch children d i f f e r in their communication of perceptual experiences?

I will try and answer this question by examining the children's ability to transform a visual experience, in this case some pictures together forming a story, into language. For this purpose, one of the series of the Picture Sanrnle will be analysed (see also Lalleman 1983b). Among the many attempts to write a grammar for stories (e.g. Labov 1972, Chafe 1977, Kintsch & van Dijk 1975, Rumelhart 1975), I consider the theoretical framework of Rumelhart to be the most promising starting point for the analysis of picture-based stories. From it,

I will develop a Functional Grammar (FG)

scheme of stories, and I will try to answer the research question formulated in (1) within this scheme. Rumelhart (1975) has worked out a grammar for stories, in which a story is divided into units that relate to each other in both a syntactic and a semantic way. One of the stories he analyses is the following: (2)

Margie was holding tightly to the string of her beautiful new balloon. Suddenly, a gust of wind caught it. The wind carried it into a tree. The balloon hit a branch and burst. Margie cried and cried.

This story is divided into the following units: (3)

Unit (i)

Margie was holding tightly to the string of her beautiful balloon

Unit (ii)

Suddenly, a gust of wind caught it

Unit (iii)

The wind carried it into a tree

Unit (iv)

The balloon hit a branch

Unit (v)

and burst

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Unit (vi)

(sadness)

Unit (vii) Margie cried and cried In (4) the syntactic and semantic (in capitals) relationships between the various units of this story are visualized: story ALLOW

(4)

1

setting (i)

episode INITIATE event CAUSE/ALLOW event CAUSE/ALLOW

event (u)

event (iu)

change of state (v)

reaction MOTIVATE internal response (vi)

overt response (vii)

event (iv)

Syntactically, a story consists of a setting and an episode at the highest level of description. Rumelhart defines these two as: (5)

setting: the introduction to the characters and conditions of the characters (1975:222) episode:

an event and the reaction of an animate being to that event (ibidem)

At a lower level of description, the event may be divided into a sub-event, or several sub-events (as in the Margie-story) and a change of state. The reaction consists of an internal response (which in some cases, as in the Margie-story, is not expressed but only implicitly present) and an overt response of a "willful being to an internal response" (ibidem). In addition to the syntactic relationships visualized in ( 4 ) , Rumelhart formulates a set of semantic interpretation rules, which semantically link the various units to each other. Thus, the Margie-story can be semantically described as follows: the setting is a stative unit which ALLOWS the remainder of the story to be told. Within the episode, several events

INITIATE the reaction of the character (Margie) to

129

those events. Events are semantically linked to each other by means of CAUSE or ALLOW. For example, (ii)

and (iii), the fact that the wind caught the balloon

and carried it into a tree, are linked by ALLOW: the first makes it possible for the second to happen. On the other hand, (iv) and (v) are linked by means of CAUSE: the hitting of the branch causes the balloon too burst. Finally, in the Margie-story only an overt response is present, but the MOTIVATE relationship (linking the internal response to the overt one) is clearly one of emotion, of sadness. In the next section, I will make some critical remarks on Rumelhart's line of analysis, and also add some points. 2. A Functional Grammar of narratives As was shown in (3), Rumelhart divides a story into units, and these units correspond to what we generally know as clauses. In my view, a clause is not an adequate unit of analysis in a narrative. Consider (a) and (b) in (6): (6)

a. Margie was holding tightly to the string of her beautiful new balloon b. Margie was holding to the string of her new balloon. The balloon was beautiful, so she did so tightly.

In (b) the same information is given as in ( a ) , but in two clauses instead of one. In terms of FG (cf. chapter 1, section 4 . 2 . ) the unit BE (BALLOON) (BEAUTIFUL) is expressed within an extended term in (a) and by means of a nuclear predication in ( b ) . The unit HOLD (MARGIE)(STRING) is expressed by means of an extended predication in ( a ) , in which tightly is a satellite that specifies the nuclear predication as a whole, whereas in (b) it is part of the nuclear predication DO (MARGIE)(HOLDING)(TIGHTLY). Instead of dividing a story into grammatical units (clauses) I will make use of the semantic concept of informational unit. An informational unit ( I U ) corresponds to a large extent with the concept of transeme in the discipline of textual translation ( c f . van Leuven-Zwart 1981): it is a textual unity which can be viewed as forming a semantic whole. Van Leuven (1981: 253) distinguishes two types of transemes, (a) state-of-affairs transemes and (b) satellite transemes. Following her, I distinguish state-of-affairs

Informational

Units and satellite Informational Units, but unlike her , I distinguish a third unit: an extended term IU.

130

The second point of criticism I have against the Rumelhart method of analysing stories concerns the concept of setting. Rumelhart defines the setting as: "the introduction to the characters and conditions of the characters" (1975:222). Semantically, the setting is a state» which allows the remainder of the story to be told. In other words, when a story starts with an event instead of a state, it provides no setting, nor is it possible that one of the characters or the conditions of the characters is introduced within the story proper. In my view, the concept of setting should be defined in a broader way, because it is obvious that a story can be set by an event and that a main character may be introduced in the story proper, e.g.: (7)

An event functioning as setting: Op een mooie zomerdag werd Margie vroeg wakker "On a beautiful summerday Margie awoke early" A main character introduced within the story proper: Ze zag door haar gordijnen dat de zon al volop scheen. Toen ze zieh snel aankleedde, kwam haar moeder de slaapkamer binnen " She saw through the curtains that the sun was already shining fully. While she was dressing quickly, her mother entered the room"....

In view of these facts, I will make use of the concept of setting in a functional way:

(8)

FG definition of setting: a setting is a (set of) state(s) and/or event(s) which function(s) as an indication to the listener that the speaker is going to tell a story.

As well as these two critical remarks on the way Rumelhart analyses stories, I will now add two points to his model. In the first place, Rumelhart does not mention the fact that stories might be told in a non-temporal order. Compare (i) and (ii): (9)

i.

The balloon hit a branch and burst

ii. The balloon burst after it had hit a branch because It appears that to a certain extent, the order in which the several events constituting the story is

told, is free.Within a FG of stories this fact can be

131

accounted for by assuming that the temporal order of events is the pattern order (i.e.

the "normal" order), and that orderings which diverge from this pattern

order should be regulated by special expression rules. For example, (9ii)

could

be accounted for as follows: (10)

Story Fund: HIT(BALLOON(BRANCH) CoUSG , BURST(BALLOON) COnSGO U 6 ΠΟ 6 Pattern Order: 1. cause, 2. consequence Special Expression Rule: 1 consequence, SUB 2. cause

The special ordering rule in (10) states that the state-of-affairs Informational Unit (SoA-IU) with the semantic function of consequence my preceed the SoA-IU with the semantic function of cause by expressing the latter in the form of a subordinate clause (SUB). In the second place, and this was already implicitly mentioned above, the various units which constitute a story are not only semantically linked to each other, they also bear their own semantic load. Thus, whereas Rumelhart merely speaks of semantic relationships between units, in a FG grammar of stories each unit which is part of the Story Fund has a semantic function as well. With these four points in mind, I will now analyse the Margie-story in terms of a Functional (11)

(i)

Grammar. The Margie story consists of a Story Fund of eleven IU s: state-of-affairs

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. (ii)

IU s (SoA-IU s):

HOLD(MARGIE)(STRING) CATCH (GUST OF WIND)(BALLOON) CARRY (WIND)(BALLOON)(INTO TREE) HIT(BALLOON)(BRANCH) BURST(BALLOON) CRY(MARGIE)

allow (1,2) allow (2,3) allow (3,4) cause (4,5) consequence (5,4) reaction (6,5)

satellite IU s (Sat-IU s) 7. BE(HOLDING)(TIGHT) 8. BE(CATCHING)(SUDDEN)

(iii)

Sem. function

0 allow (8,3)

extended term IU s (ExT-IU )

9. BE(STRING)(OF BALLOON) 10. BE(BALLOON)(BEAUTIFUL) 11. BE(BALLOON)(NEW)

0 0 0

In (11) I have also specified the semantic functions of the various lUs . It must be noted that all three types of lUs

may have a semantic function within

the story; it is only coincidental that one of the Sat-IU Ext-IUs

have zero semantic function. Compare:

and all of the

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(12)

Margie pointed at the balloon, with tears in her eyes

In (12), the italicized part of the sentence is a satellite; this Sat-IU HAVE (MARGIE)(TEARS IN HER EYES)) would bear the semantic function of reaction within the Margie-story. The complete first predication of the Margie-story can be considered to provide the setting of the story, in that this stative predication functions as an indication to the listener that the speaker is about to tell a story. In fact, the relation between the setting and the episode of a story can be compared with the relation between the theme and the predication proper of an isolated sentence: (13)

Theme: a constituent with Theme function represents a domain or universe of discourse with respect to which it is relevant to pronounce the following predication (Dik 1978: 130).

The Margie-story follows the pattern order of stories; the temporal order of events is maintained and thus no special ordering rules have to be formulated. I will now turn to the story which was presented to the children of this study and analyse this story within the framework of FG, as it was presented above. 3. The analysis of the Banana-story 3.1. Introduction The following four pictures together constitute the Banana-story: INSERT PICTURES HERE This

series of pictures was the fourth series that was presented to the

children in the Picture Sample (PS). The actual pictures are 13cm by 18cm, and coloured; they were put in front of the children in a single row : the first picture on the left, the fourth on the right. The children were instructed as follows (at the start of the PS): (14)

"Now look carefully. Here you see four pictures. This is the first picture (experimenter points to the left picture), this is the second, the third and the fourth. Take your time and look at them carefully, and you will see that together they form a little story. I want you to tell that story. Do you understand? O . K . , go ahead!"

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3.2. The establishment of a basic text No text of the Banana-story is available. Therefore, as a starting point of the analysis, I had to find a way of obtaining one. I considered two alternatives: (i) ask judgements of competent speakers, (ii) ask competent speakers to tell the story themselves. I decided that the second alternative is more reliable than the first one, because people often act differently from how they think they act, or want to act. In my view, people who are used to telling stories can be considered to be competent story tellers, so I asked five writers to tell the Banana-story: Mies Bouhuys, Simon Carmiggelt, John Jansen van Galen, Henk Mulder and Jan Wolkers. They were instructed in the same way as the children were. The transcribed texts of their stories can be read in appendix 5A. In (15) I made a composition of the five texts; it contains the information which at least four of the writers o f f e r , and I also tried to render the story in a common form and order:

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(15)

"Er loopt een man in het park. Hij eet een banaan. Achter hem huppelt een meisje met een ballon. De man gooit de schil van de banaan op de grond. Het meisje ziet dat niet en ze glijdt erover uit. Ze begint te huilen. De man draait zieh om en troost haar." "A man is walking in the park. He is eating a banana. Behind him a girl is hopping with a balloon. The man throws away the bananapeel. The girl does not see that and she slips on it. She starts to cry. The man turns around and comforts her."

It is rather surprising that several writers did not mention the fact that because she falls,the girl lets go of her balloon and/or that the balloon floats away. After they had told the story, I asked some questions to all of them, and those who had forgotten to mention these facts still considered them as essential to the story. In other words, it is indeed true that people act differently from how they think or want to act, and judgements are less reliable than actual performances. In the analysis of the Banana-^story, I will distinguish this basic text from what the writers and children actually say

by assuming that (15) contains the

Basic Story Fund of the Banana-story, while any individual story-teller exhibits his own Individual Story Fund, which might be smaller or more extensive than the Basic Story Fund. 3.3. A Functional Analysis of the basic text The basic text as it was formulated in (15) contains the following IDs : (16)

Basic Story Fund of the Banana-story (a) state-of-affairs

2

IU s

(i) LOPEN(MAN) (ii) ETEN(MAN)(BANAAN) (iii) HUPPELEN(MEISJE) (iv) OP DE GROND GOOIEN(MAN)(SCHIL) (v) NIET ZIEN(MEISJE)(WEGGOOIEN) (vi) UITGLIJDEN(MEISJE) (vii) BEGINNEN TE HUILEN(MEISJE) (viii)OMDRAAIEN(MAN) (ix) TROOSTEN(MAN)(MEISJE)

semantic function 0 allow (ii.iv) allow (iii.v) cause (iv.vi) cause ( v . v i ) consequence ( v i , i v / v ) reaction (vii.vi) reaction (viii.vii) reaction (ix.vii)

(b) satellite IU s (χ) (xi) (xii) (xiii

PLAATSVINDEN(LOPEN)(IN PARK) ZICH BEVINDEN(MEISJE)(ACHTER MAN) HEBBEN(MEISJE)(BALLON) GEBEUREN(UITGLIJDEN)(OVER SCHIL)

0 allow (xi.vi) allow (xii.v) 0

(c) extended term IU (xiv) ZIJN(SCHIL)(VAN BANAAN)

0

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In (16) we can see

that the basic text of the Banana-story contains nine

SoA-IUs , four Sat-IUs

and one ExT-IU. The semantic functions of these units

are: 0 (zero; i.e. not contributing to the course of events), allow, cause, consequence and reaction. For example, the fact that the man eats the banana allows the fact that he will later throw away the peel; the fact that the man throws away the peel and the fact that the girl does not see that, both cause her to fall down, and her falling down is a consequence of these facts. The girl's reaction to this is that she starts to cry. The distinction between SoA-IUs , Sat-IUs

and ExT-IUs

is not fixed: any

SoA-IU can also be expressed by means of a Sat-IU or an ExT-IU, and vice versa. Consider for example the unit HOP(GIRL): (17)

a. HOP(GIRL) as a SoA-IU Achter hem huppelt een meisje in een geel jurkje (Jansen) Behind him hops a girl in a yellow dress "Behind him a girl, wearing a yellow dress, is hopping" This unit could also have been expressed in another form: b. HOP(GIRL) as an ExT-IU Achter hem körnt een vrolijk huppelend meisje aan Behind him comes a happily hopping girl (part.) "Behind him a girl is approaching, hopping happily"

In (8) I formulated a functional definition of the concept of setting. In applying this to the basic text of the Banana-story, it can be stated that the first predication, i.e.

"Er loopt een man in net park", constitutes the setting

of the Banana-story in that this predication indicates that the speaker is going to tell a story, or at least intends to start a narrative. However, the writers largely vary in the way they set their story; compare the following three: (18)

a. Eh een park in de zomer, beschut door een bosrand Uh a park in the summer, sheltered by a wood-border

(Jansen)

en omgeven door banken, is er een vijver en daar loopt and surrounded by seats, is there a pond and there goes een wandelpad längs. En op het pad loopt een man. a stroll-path along.And on the path walks a man. "A park in the summer, sheltered by a border of wood and surrounded by seats, there is a pond and along that pond there is a path. And on that path a man is walking".

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b. Nou.moet je nou eens kijken wat een mooie ballon of Well,must you now once look what a beautiful balloon Mirjam heeft gekregen! Mirjam has got

(Bouhuys)

"Look what a beautiful balloon Mirjam has got!" c. (nou eh) d ' r loopt een meneer op straat ( . . . . ) (Carmiggelt) (well uh) there walks a gentleman on street (...) "A man is walking on the street (....)" It thus seems that a setting can only be defined functionally, not linguistically: neither the content nor the linguistic form seem to be fixed. With respect to the order in which the various events forming the banana-story should be told, it is obvious that in general the writers follow the pattern order: they follow the temporal course of events, except for Bouhuys, who mentions the two Ills

bearing the semantic function of cause in a non-temporal

order, resulting in the use of a subordinate clause: (19)

... en Mirjam ziet helemaal niet dat 'ie net de schil weggooit ...and Mirjam sees wholly not that he just the peel throws away als zij eraan komt. En kijk, daar gaat ze! Ze glijdt over de when she comes. And look ; there goes she! She over the banaan ( . . . . ) banana ( . . . . )

(Bouhuys)

"And Mirjam doesn't see at all that he throws away the peel at the very moment that she is approaching him. And look, there she goes! She slips on the banana ( . . . ) " Apart from the issue of the temporal versus non-temporal order, the order in which the Banana-story is told by the writers also varies as a consequence of the informational content of the setting. Most of the writers start their story by introducing the man, whereas the only female writer starts hers by mentioning the girl (cf.(18b)). This results in a different order of mentioning various IU s. It can be concluded that the order in which a story is told depends upon two things: (a) temporal versus non-temporal ordering (b) the starting point of the narrator in the case of there being more than one main character in a story. In the next section I will study the Banana-story as it was told by the children with respect to the four issues that were discussed here:

137

(a) Basic and Individual Story Fund (b) The semantic functions of the various lUs (c) The formal expression of lUs : SoA-IUs

versus Sat-IUs and Ext-IUs

(d) The form and content of the setting (e) the order of events 4. How the Dutch and Turkish children communicate perceptual expediences 4.1. Basic and Individual Story Fund In establishing the childrens' Basic Story Fund (BSF), all ways to refer to the participants and objects of the story were treated alike; a child could refer to the man with the following words: man (=man), mannetje (=little man), meneer (=gentleman), hij (=he), and even by means of the incorrect pronoun zij

(=she) .

Also, a predicate having more or less the same semantic load as the one of the BSF (cf.(16)), was treated alike: e.g. WEGGOOIEN (=to throw away) instead of OP DE GROND GOOIEN (=throw on the floor), HELFEN (=to help) instead of TROOSTEN (=to

comfort).

With respect to the establishment of an Individual Story Fund (ISF), the following criterium holds: (20)

any event/state expressing an IU which can be seen or logically derived from the pictures forms part of a child's ISF.

For example, the IU WEGV'LIEGEN'(BALLON)

(=FLY AWAY(BALLOON)) forms part of this

child's ISF: (21)

Erkan: en toen vloog ze ballon weg and then flew his balloon away "and

then his balloon flew away"

But the following utterance of Serpil is not logically derivable from the pictures: (22)

Serpil: Het meisje zegt aan het meneer: "Niet opeten, de banaan!" The girl says to the mister: Not eat the banana "Het "The

meisje zegt tegen de meneer:"Niet opeten, de banaan!"" girl says to the (gentle)man: "Don't eat it, the banana·!""

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In table 47 the mean number of IDs forming part of the BSF, and the mean number of Ills contributing to the ISF are presented: T 4.1 6.1

Mean number of BSF lUs Mean number of ISF IUs

D 5.1 7.1

Table 47: Mean number of IU s forming part of the Basic Story Fund (BSF) and of the Individual Story Fund (ISF) in the Dutch (D) and Turkish (T) group. It turns out that both the Dutch and the Turkish children provide much less information with reference to the pictures than the writers do: the BSF varies from zero

to seven IDs

in the children's versions, whereas the adults mention

at least thirteen IU S of the BSF. The largest ISF is twelve Ill's in the children's group, and thirty seven in the adult group. The overall Turkish group's Basic and Individual Story Fund is smaller than that of the Dutch children, but in neither of the two Funds is the difference between the groups significant (two-tailed t-test, independent samples: t=l.l, p > .05 as for the ISF and t= 1.7, p > .05 as for the BSF). Thus the Turkish group does not perform significantly worse than the Dutch group with respect to this specific aspect of semantic proficiency. 4.2. Semantic functions In table 47 the mean number of IDs which the children utter with respect to the Banana-story was specified. In order to learn what type of information the children o f f e r , I listed the lUs

of the BSF and ordered them according to

their semantic function (compare (16)). The number of children in both the Dutch and the Turkish group who utter each of these units can be read in table 48 (see note 2 for translation): INSERT TABLE 48 In section 4.3 I will deal with the linguistic form in which these units are uttered by the children.

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Sem.Function

Number of children D T

Unit

0 i. 0 ii. 0 iii. allow (iv.viii) iv. allow (v,ix) v. allow (xi.xi vi. allow (vii.ix) vii. cause (viii.xi) viii. cause (ix.xi) ix. 0 x. consequence (xi, viii/ix) xi. reaction (xii.xi) xii. reaction (xiii,xii)xiii. reaction (xiv.xii) xiv.

LOPEN(MAN) PLAATSVINDEN ( LOPEN ) ( IN PARK ) ZIJN(SCHIL)(VAN ΒΑΝΑ AN) ETEN(MAN)(BANAAN) HUPPELEN(MEISJE) ZICH BEVINDEN(MEIS JE) (ACHTER MAN) HEBBEN (MEIS JE ) ( BALLON ) OP DE GROND GOOIEN(MAN)(SCHIL) NIET ZIEN(MEISJE)(WEGGOOIEN) GEBEUREN ( UITGLIJDEN ) ( OVER SGHIL )

2 0 5 13 4 7 15 13 0 12

1 0 3 11 0 5 9 14 2 11

UITGLIJDEN(MEISJE) BEGINNEN TE HUILEN(MEISJE) OMDRAAIEN(MAN) TROOSTEN (MAN ) (MEIS JE )

19 6 1 5

16 6 2 2

Table 48: Number of children in the Dutch (n~20) and Turkish (n=20) group who utter each of the fourteen lU's contained in the Basic Story Fund. With reference to the semantic function of the units of the Banana-story, table 48 shows that the majority (i.e.

more than ten children) of both the Dutch and

the Turkish children utter at least one IU with the semantic function of allow, of cause and of consequence, but that far fewer children utter IUs with zero semantic function or with the function of reaction. The largest difference to be found between the two groups concerns the unit

HEBBEN(MEISJE)(BALLON)

(=HAVE(GIRL)(BALLOON)), which is uttered by far wore Dutch children. It seems highly improbable that this difference is culturally determined: the Turkish children were born and brought up in the Netherlands, and even if they have never had a balloon of their own, they must have seen lots of them on the street. It may, however, be indirectly culturally determined in the sense that for Turkish children a balloon is not so important as for Dutch children. So it might be that the Turkish children concentrate upon the falling of the girl more than upon what happens with the balloon. It can be concluded that the Turkish children in general do not only offer as much information as the Dutch children, they also offer the same type of information. I studied the performance of younger Dutch children as well, in order to be able to formulate a hypothetical course of development in the ability to communicate perceptual experiences (cf. section 5). It is obvious that they are not yet cognitively capable of telling the Banana-story: they either merely give answers to questions, or only mention an IU or IUs with the semantic function of

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consequence: (23)

a. Paul (3.9): hier is ze helemaal niet zo ver/en hier is ze wel wat here is she totally not so far/and here is she(.) somever/en hier nog wat ver/en hier is ze gevallen/ what far/and here yet somewhat far/and here has she fallen/ "hier is ze helemaal nog niet zo ver/en hier is ze wel wat verder/en hier nog wat verder/en hier is ze gevallen" "here she is not yet so far/and here she is a little further/and here still further/and here she has fallen down/ b. Bob

(4.0): (WAT GEBEURT ER?) ze valt/bajon zweeft

weg/ze trapt op

(WHAT HAPPENS ( . ) ? ) she falls/bajoon floats away/she steps een schilf on a peel/ "(WAT GEBEURT ER?) ze valt/de ballon zweeft weg/ze trapt op een schil" "(WHAT HAPPENS?) she falls/the balloon floats away/she steps on a peel" In (23) we can also see that these Ill's are not necessarily related in the temporal order ( c f . Bob's performance). I will come back to this issue in section 4.5. Based upon these facts, and upon those to be presented in the next sections, I will formulate a hypothesis in section 5 concerning the sequence in which the semantic skill to tell a story from a series of pictures is acquired. In appendix

5B the versions of the Banana-story as it was told by some of the

Dutch and Turkish children, are presented: Remy (D) and Erkan mention at least one allow-, cause-, and consequence-IU, whereas Jeroen (D) and Ozlem also mention at least one reaction-IU. 4.5. Linguistic form of the Informational

Units

In section 2 I distinguished three different types of Informational Units: stateof-affairs lUs

(SoA-IUs ), satellite lUs

(Sat-IUs ) and extended term lUs

(ExT-IUs ). In table 49 the distribution between these three types in the Basic Story Fund of the children is

SoA-IUs Sat-IUs ExT-IUs

presented:

D

T

84.3% 13.7% 2.0%

82.9% 14.7% 2.4%

Table 49: Percentual distribution between SoA-IU s, Sat-IU s and ExT-IU s in the BSF of the two groups of children.

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As opposed to the adults, who express many lUs

in the form of satellites and

extended terms, the Dutch and Turkish children express most of their units in the form of a state of affairs.Especially unit $E(PEEL)(OF

ExT-IUs

occur infrequently;

the

BANANA) is more often expressed by means of a derived term

( c f . section A . 3 . , chapter 1) than by means of an extended term: (24)

a. derived term: Hakan: bananeschil b. extended term: Jale: die banaan z'n dingetje (=that banana its (little) thing)

Only one (Dutch) child utters another unit in the form of an extended term: EAT(MAN)(BANANA), (25)

which most children utter in the form of a state of affairs:

Chantal: daar is een meneer, die een tasje heb en die een (D) there is a (gentle)man, who a little bag has and who a banaan eet banana eats "There is a (gentle)man who has a bag and eats a banana"

Satellites occur somewhat more often in both groups. Some examples: (26)

Hakan:

en dan glijdt 'ie door hem been and then slips he through him

"en dan glijdt ze erover uit" "and then she slips on it" Pamela: (D)

hier loopt een meisje met haar ballon here walks a girl with her balloon "here a girl is walking with her balloon"

Haci:

en ze gaatem meisje met een ballon and she goes-sf. girl with a balloon "en er loopt een meisje met een ballon" "and a girl is walking there with a balloon"

It can be concluded that six year old children, when they are asked to tell a story from a series of pictures, communicate perceptual experiences in the form of states-of-affairs, and seldom in the form of satellites or extended terms. Also, as a consequence of this, they are seldom able to communicate more than a single IU within a predication. In this, native children are no more advanced than L2 learners. This conclusion is illustrated by the way in which the following IU is expressed: BE(GIRL)(BEHIND

MAN). All writers express this unit

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in the form of a satellite; only one (Turkish!) child does the same, whereas all others express it in the form of a state of affairs: (27)

a. Jansen: achter hem huppelt een meisje in een geel jurkje behind him hops a girl in a yellow dress

(Sat.)

"behind him a girl, wearing a yellow dress, is hopping" b. Mulder: en achter hem aan huppelt een vrolijk meisje met een and behind him ( . ) hops a happy girl with a ballon balloon

(Sat.)

"and behind him a happy girl is hopping with a balloon in her hand" c. Özlem:

maar ze meneer loopt in ze voor but the (lit.:she) gentleman walks in her front

(Sat.)

"maar de meneer loopt voor haar" "but the gentleman walks in front of her" d. Sibel:

(SoA)

en gaat 'ie weer achter körnen and goes he again behind come "en zij körnt achter hem aan" "and she follows him"

e. Rob: (D)

(SoA)

ze loopt achter een vader aan she walks behind a father (part.) "ze loopt achter de man aan" "she follows the man"

In (27), the predication of Jansen contains four IU s: (1)

HOP(GIRL)

(2)

BE(GIRL)(BEHIND MAN)

(3)

WEAR(GIRL)(DRESS)

(4)

BE(DRESS)(YELLOW)

The predication of Özlem contains two IU s: WALK(MAN)

and BE(MAN)(IN

GIRL), whereas those of Sibel and Rob contain a single IU,

FRONT OF

FOLLOW(GIRL)(MAN),

which can be considered as semantically equivalent to BE(GIRL)(BEHIND MAN). 4.4. The Setting In section 2 I defined the concept of setting in a functional way: the setting of a story functions as an indication that the speaker is going to tell a story; it may contain a single stative or dynamic predication, or several. In section 3.3. it was shown that the writers who told the Banana-story, vary greatly in the way they set their story, and it was concluded that the concept

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of setting could not be linguistically specified. In this section I will study the eay the children start telling their story with respect to the following points: 1. The starting point of the story: does the child mention the man or the girl first? 2. The introduction strategy: does the child mention the character with whom he or she starts the story

or refer to him/her by means of a pronoun?

As was shown in section 3.3., most writers start their story by introducing the man, and three of them do so in the way fairy-tales usually start: Er loopt een man in het park

(lit.: There walks a man in the park). The majority of the

children, on the other hand, start their story with the girl. I have no explanation for this difference between the children and the adults; it might be that

each starts with the person he/she feels most familiar with. It

is,

however, more interesting to find out how the character which is mentioned first (in the case of the children, mostly the girl) is referred to for the first time. I distinguish four types of introduction strategies; a strategy: (i)

in which the character is placed in the S-position of the sentence (cf. chapter 4, section 3), and expressed in the form of an indefinite term,

(ii)

in which the character is placed in Pi-position of the sentence in the form of an indefinite term,

(iii)

in which the character is placed in Pi-position of the sentence in the form of a definite term,

(iv)

in which the character is placed in Pi-position of the sentence in the form of a pronoun.

I will give an example of each of these strategies: (28)

(i)

Remy (D)

: hier loopt een meisje te huppelen here walks a girl to hop "here a girl is hopping"

(ii)

Dilek

: een meisje kom haar achterna a girl comes her behind "een meisje loopt achter hem aan" " a girl is walking behind him"

Ralph (D)

: een meisje heb een ballon gekregen a girl has a balloon got "a girl has got a balloon"

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(iii)

Emel

: die meisje die had een ballonnetje that girl that had a balloon-dim.sf. "dat meisje dat had een ballonnetje" "that girl had a balloon"

Ferhan : de meneer eet een banaan the gentleman eats a banana "the gentleman eats a banana" (iv) Jeroen(D):hiero, ze loopt ze op straat met een ballon here, she walks she on street with a balloon "hier loopt ze op straat met een ballon" "here she walks on the street with a balloon" In table 50 the children are ordered according to these four introduction strategies:

Strategy (i) Strategy (ii) Strategy (iii) Strategy (iv)

D

T

4 3 8 5

0 2 14 3

Table 50: Four different Introduction strategies followed by the Dutch and Turkish children to provide a setting of the Banana-story. One Turkish child does not introduce either the man or the girl by herself, so that in table 50 nineteen instead of twenty children are listed. It is shown that strategy (iii)

is followed by most Turkish children, and by

almost half of the Dutch children, and that four Dutch children and none of the Turkish children follow strategy (i). In terms of FG, focus function has been assigned to the character in strategy (i) and (ii), whereas in strategy (iii)

and (iv) the character has topic

function: a definite term or a pronoun refers to a person who has already been introduced before (compare section 4.2. in chapter 1 for a FG definition of topic and focus). Therefore, although the child might be speaking to the experimenter, who can look at the pictures while the child is speaking, and therefore assume the characters to be knwon to the listener, it seems to be more correct to assign focus function to a term which refers to a character by means of which the beginning of a story is marked. This means that the Dutch group is more advanced in providing a suitable setting to a story than the Turkish group.

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4.5. Order of Events In section 3.3. it was observed that the adults in general follow the pattern order of stories in telling the Banana-story; that is, they mention the various events in their temporal order. One of the writers, however, diverges from the temporal order of events by first mentioning that the girl does not see the peel before she talks about the man throwing away the peel. In (19) it was shown that this reversal of the temporal order necessarily results in a more complex linguistic construction. It turns out that the children almost unanimously follow the temporal order of events, independently of their grammatical proficiency: (29)

Emel

: die meisje die had een ballonnetje/en die meneer die eet that girl that had a little balloon/and that gentleman that eats een banaan/gooit 'ie het op net straat/en dat meisje rennet/ a banana/throws he it on the street/and that girl runs/ en toen viel ze op de banaan/toen ging ze huilen and then fell she on the banana/then went she cry "Het meisje had een ballonnetje en die meneer at een banaan. Toen gooide hij de schil op straat en dat meisje rende. En toen viel ze over de bananeschil en begon te huilen". "The girl had a balloon and the man was eating a banana. Then he threw the peel on the ground and that girl was running. And then she fell on the banana-peel and started to cry".

Celil :: ( . . . ) hij banaan eten/en hij banaan is weggooien/ ( . . . ) he banana eat/and he banana is throw away/ en meisje ze is weg hij achteraan/(...)/en dan meisje and girl she is away he b e h i n d / ( . . . ) / a n d then girl is vallen/( ,.. ) is fall "Hij eet een banaan en gooit de schil weg. Het meisje loopt achter hem. Εη dan valt het·meisje". "He eats a banana and throws away the peel. The girl walks behind him. And then the girl falls". In (29) we can see

that the most advanced Turkish child and one of the least

advanced children both follow the temporal order of events: they mention the fact that the man eats a banana before the fact that he throws away the peel and the throwing away of the peel is mentioned before the falling of the girl. And Erne! tells of the reaction of the girl at the end of her story; in fact all who utter IDs their story:

children

with the semantic function of reaction, do so at the end of

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(30)

Bianca (D)

: het kindje heb een ballon gekocht/(... )/de man the little child has a balloon bought/(...)/the man eet een banaan/het kindje gaat huppelen en naar de eats a banana/the child goes hopping and at the ballon kijken/en de man heb ze banaan al op/het manballoon look/and the man has his banana alEeady eaten/the netje heeft de schil op de vloer gegooid/het kindje little man has the peel on the floor thrown/the child valt/de ballon is weg/de man draait zieh om en troost falls/the balloon is away/the man turns himself around and het kindje comforts the child "The child has bought a balloon. The man eats a banana. The child is hopping while looking at the balloon. The man has finished his banana and has thrown the peel on the ground. The child falls. The balloon is away. The man turns around and comforts the child".

Very occasionally a child does not follow the temporal order of events: (31)

Eddy (D)

: de ballon vloog weg(EERST DEZE, HE?)/ze had een banaan/ the balloon flew away (FIRST THIS ONE,UH)/she had a banana/ en toen glee ze uit/en toen gooide banaan weg/en toen and then slipped she/and then threw banana away/and then gong ze huilen/maar de meneer pakte toen de ballon (JA, went she cry/but the mister fetched then the balloon (YES, WAAR GLEE ZE OVER UIT?) om een bananeschil (EN HOE KWAM WHERE SLIPPED SHE ON?) to a banana-peel (AND HOW CAME DIE DAAR?) iemand had banaan gegeten (WIE?) die meneer THAT THERE?) a person had banana eaten (WHO?) that mister "De ballon vloog w e g ( . . . ) . Hij had een banaan. En toen gleed ze uit. En toen gooide hij de banaan weg. En toen begon ze te huilen. Maar de man pakte toen de ballon", (etc.) "The balloon flew away ( . . . ) He had a banana. And then she slipped. And then he threw away the banana. And then she started to cry. But the man fetched the balloon", (etc.)

Although Eddy understood the course of events of the Banana-story (as can be derived from his answers to the experimenter's questions), and thus should be able to tell the story in its temporal order, he seems linguistically incapable of departing from the temporal order of events. For example, his ordering would have been perfect had he uttered "en toen gleed ze uit over de bananeschil, die de man had weggegooid" (= "and then she slipped on the banana-peel, which the man had thrown away") instead of "en toen glee ze uit/en toen gooide banaan weg".

147

It can be concluded that both the Dutch and the Turkish children tell the Bananastory in the temporal order, i.e. in its pattern order, and that probably six year old children do not have the skills necessary to depart from the temporal order of events when they are asked to tell a story, because although they are cognitively capable of rendering the events in their non-temporal order (in contrast to younger children, cf. ( 2 3 ) ) , they are not yet linguistically capable of doing so.

5. Summary and discussion In this chapter I dealt with an aspect of semantic proficiency; I studied the following question: (1)

How do the Turkish and Dutch children d i f f e r in their communication of perceptual experiences?

One of the stories of the Picture Sample was analysed within a FG framework, and the following results were obtained: (a) The Dutch and Turkish children offer more or less the same amount of information with respect to the four pictures together forming the Bananastory (b) The Dutch and Turkish children offer more or less the same type of information in telling the Banana-story (c) Both the Dutch and the Turkish children communicate perceptual experiences mostly in the form of state of affairs and they seldom mention more than one informational unit within a single predication. (d) More Dutch (7) than Turkish (2) children are capable of providing a suitable setting to the Banana-story: they introduce one of the two characters by means of an indefinite term, either in S-position (»strategy (i)) or in Pi-position (=strategy

(ii)).

(e) Almost all children tell the story in its temporal order of events; none of them has the ability to accurately depart from the temporal order. It may thus be concluded that as far as this aspect of semantic proficiency is concerned, the Turkish children are no less proficient than the Dutch children: both groups communicate perceptual experiences in more or less the same way. I will now tentatively propose a course of development with respect to this aspect of semantic proficiency . In section 4 . 2 . it was shown that Ills

with

the function of reaction are uttered far less frequently by both the LI and the L2 learners group than IDs

with the function of allow/cause and of consequence.

Also, younger LI learners appeared to be incapable of telling a story from pictures in a coherent way. Based upon these facts, I hypothesize that the

148

following four developmental sequences can be distinguished in the ability to communicate perceptual experiences: (32)

Stage 1: A story is told without the child seeming to notice the internal relationship between the various events: he just enumerates things which strike him. Stage 2: The internal relationship between the various events of the story is partly told: the cause and the consequence of the story are told in their temporal order. Stage 3: The internal relationship between the various events of the story is completely told: the cause, consequence and the reaction to these events of the characters are told in their temporal order. Stage 4: The story is completely told; optionally in another order than the temporal order of events.

Only three ( c f . note 4) children in this study, one of whom is Dutch, might not yet have passed the first stage. But stage (1) seems to be typical of younger children, as can be derived from how the Banana-story is told by two approximately four year old Dutch children ( c f . (23), section 4 . 2 . ) . Tha large majority of both the Dutch and the Turkish group are either in stage 2 or in stage 3. As far as the Turkish group is concerned, the developmental sequence between these two stages does not seem to be linguistically determined, because relatively the same number of LT children (children with a relatively low level of proficiency in Dutch, cf. chapter 3) and HT children (children with a relatively high level of proficiency in Dutch)can be classified in stage 3. On the other hand,the number of lUs

contained in the Basic Story Fund ( c f . section

4.1.) is clearly linguistically detei determined : the number of BSF IUs steadily increases with level of proficiency:

mean number of BSF I U s

LT

MT

HT

D

3.4

4.2

5.3

5.1

Table 51: Mean number of Informatinal Units forming part of the Basic Story Fund (BSF) in the LT (low level), MT (middle level) and HT (high level) Turkish groups and the Dutch group. LT children on average mention less IUs

which form part of the BSF than MT

children, who in turn mention less than HT children. The HT children even score somewhat higher than an average Dutch child in this respect. It thus seems that the (hypothetical) course of development as sketched in (32), concerning the

149

development in the acquisition of the ability to communicate perceptual experiences is only partly linguistically determined, and in other respects is cognitively determined. NOTES, chapter 5

In the analysis of the Margie-story in Rumelhart (1975:216-218), the text is not fully in accordance with the figures (Ib and Ic: 217, 218). In my summary of his article I followed the text, so that (4) is not completely similar to Rumelhart's figures (in their discussion of his work, Clark & Clark (1977: 169-170) have done exactly the same). 2

(a) state-of-affairs (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) (vii) (viii) (ix)

IU s:

WALK(MAN) EAT(MAN)(BANANA) HOP(GIRL) THROW ON THE GROUND(MAN)(PEEL) NOT SEE(GIRL)(THROWING AWAY) SLIP(GIRL) START TO CRY(GIRL) TURN AROUND(MAN) COMFORT(MAN)(GIRL)

(b) satellite IU s ( ) (xi) (xii) (xiii)

TAKE PLACE(WALKING)(IN PARK) BE(GIRL)(BEHIND MAN) HAVE(GIRL)(BALLOON) BE(SLIPPING)(ON PEEL)

(c) extended term IU (xiv)

BE(PEEL)(OF BANANA)

Note that within a FG analysis of a story, the IU with the semantic function of consequence is comparable with Rumelhart's notion of change of state ( c f . (4)). 3

4

Omitted terms referring to the characters and objects of the story were amplified whenever it was clear to who or to what the child was referring (compare appendix 5B, the stories of Jeroen and Özlem). One Turkish child, Kamile, does not tell the story of her own accord; she merely gives answers to questions. Two other children, Cengiz and Natasha ( D ) , do not mention any of the BSF-IUs of their own accord. Toen, dan ( t h e n ) , hier (here) and daar (there) and adverbs which scarcely alter the meaning of the predication ( e . g . zo in Remy's story, see appendix 5B) were not scored as satellites here. Compare the results of chapter 2, section 3.3.1.

Chapter 6:

The Influence of social and sociopsychological Factors on Second Language Proficiency 1. Introduction In chapter 2 I established the level of Dutch language proficiency of the Turkish children in relation to that of the Dutch children. It was concluded that the Turkish group's performance was significantly poorer at all linguistic levels, with regard to virtually all variables which were studied. Also, the differences between the individual children turned out to be much greater within the Turkish group than within the group of native children (cf. table 25, chapter 2), especially as far as morphologyis concerned. In this chapter I will go into a number of extra-linguistic factors, which may influence these intragroup differences in the Turkish group. The research question (1)

is:

What is the influence of social and socio-psychological factors on the level of Dutch language proficiency?

Many factors may influence the speed with which a second language (L2) is learned and the ultimate level which is reached in second language cognitive factors such as general intelligence and language aptitude

proficiency: (Krashen

1981), biological factors such as age (Krashen 1973, Snow & Hoefnagel 1978), input factors (Krashen 1980), social factors (Schumann 1976), socio-psychological factors (Gardner 1979, Oiler 1981) and psychological factors (Schumann 1978). In this chapter I will explore two sets of factors, namely social and socio-psychological factors (also: affective factors). In the literature on social, sociopsychological and psychological factors influencing second-language acquisition, the borderline between these three fields is not always clear. For example, Schumann (1976) distinguishes six social factors, which will either reduce or augment the social distance between the second language learning group and the target community. One of these factors, attitude, is in fact socio-psychological in nature. The factors he mentions are:

152

1. dominance or subordination

(in a political, cultural, technical or economic sense) of the second language learner group (L2 group) will augment the existence of a social distance between the two.

2. preservation (versus assimilation versus acculturation) of the L2 group, that is, the complete maintenance of their own cultural patterns, will augment social distance. 3. Cohesiveness and size of the L2 group will augment social distance. 4. Incongruence of the two cultures will augment social distance. 5. Negative attitudes which the L2 group holds towards the target community and/or the target community holds towards the L2 group will augment social distance. 6. Intended length of residence of the L2 group: if the L2 group intends to remain in the target language area only for a short time, this will augment the social distance. In fact, Schumann mentions three types of factors here: social, socio-psychological and cultural ones. Apart from these notional inadequacies, Schumann himself mentions two problems concerning his proposal: (a) the factors are not equally powerful: how to weigh them?, (b) the factors are not necessarily independent from each other. Thus, a numerical quantification of a group's social distance, and of an individual's social distance for that matter, is problematic In either a "good" or a "bad" language learning situation (Schuman 1976), an individual can violate the general tendency of his group. In this case, psychological distance (Schumann 1978) accounts for succesful or unsuccesful second language acquisition. Psychological distance pertains to the individual as an individual (as opposed to social distance, which pertains to the individual as a member of a social group) and involves such psychological factors as language shock (i.e.

the fear of a L2 learner that he will appear comic when

speaking the L 2 ) , culture shock (the anxiety resulting from the disorientation encountered upon entering a new culture), motivation (involving the learner's reasons for attempting to acquire the L2) and ego-permeability (i.e.

the flexi-

bility of a speaker's "language ego" ( c f . Guiora et al. 1972) in trying for example to acquire native-like pronunciation

in a L 2 ) .

Several of the factors Schumann mentions have been studied by other researchers. Taylor, Meynard & Rheault (1977), in a study on French learners of English in Canada, discovered that in certain circumstances, learning a second language can pose a threat to the ethnic identity of the learner and this feeling of threat may negatively affect acquisition. In particular minority group members learning a L2 within the environment of a dominant L2 community may develop

153

feelings of anomie (Lambert 1969), as they begin to master the L2. Klein & Dittmar (1979) found that contact with Germans during leisure time proved to be the most important extra-linguistic variable for the level of L2 syntactic proficiency in German of Italian and Spanish immigrant workers. d'Anglejan (1978) and Richards (1972) also believe that the lack of interaction with target language speakers and therefore, the lack of integration into the target community is one of the causes of failure to acquire a L2. Gardner & Lambert (1972, Gardner 1979) claim that success in a L2 depends on the motivation of the learner to learn the L2, and suggest two basic motives for learning a L2: (a) instrumental motivation: the desire to be better educated and to acquire prestige and success by learning the L2. (b) integrative motivation:

the wish to learn more about the cultural community in which the L2 is spoken by learning the L2.

They hypothesized that students with an integrative motivation would have a greater chance to become proficient in a L2 than

those instrumentally orien-

tated. On the other hand, Meisel, Clahsen & Pienemann (1981) found that these two different types of motivation led to the same proficiency level amongst foreign workers in German: they only found a relevant difference between a segregative and an integrative orientation (1981:129). Moreover, in more recent work, Gardner and Lambert both distanced themselves from the proposed hypothesis Related to the subject of motivation, many studies have been conducted into the attitudes of students towards the L2 and its speakers. For example, Adler (1977) discusses an investigation carried out at a London grammar school during the Second World War. It was discovered that Russian was considered as much easier than French and especially German, whereas out of these languages, German is structurally closest to English. Thus attitudes towards a specific language are influenced by stereotypical ideas about those who speak the language, and in this way may influence the L2 acquisition process. Oiler (1981) offers a slightly modified version of a schematic representation that Gardner (1979) has constructed concerning the relation between attitudes and motivation and L2 achievement: LiNbUlMiL

SOCIAL CONTEXT-

ATTITUDES —» MOTIVATION

' —

» ACHIEVEMENT—» NON-LINGUISTIC—» -

ί This model shows that attitudes influence the motivation of a speaker, which in turn influences his achievement. Furthermore, the linguistic and non-linguistic

154

outcomes may in their turn influence attitudes. Most researchers consider attitudes to be socially or societally determined, whereas motivation is regarded as an individually determined concept, although e.g. Appel (1984) opposes the idea that motivation is a personality variable. In his view, this would lead to the incorrect conclusion that L2 learners could be held responsible for their failure to acquire the L2: if they had had the motivation, they would have learned the L2. In short, it seems obvious that social, socio-psychological and psychological factors influencing the L2 acquisition process have been studied in many different linguistic contexts, with many different labelings of the factors involved; furthermore, the ideas about the relationship between language proficiency and these extra-linguistic factors are not always uniform: whereas Savignon (1976) for example considers attitude to be the most important factor in second language learning, Macnamara (1973) thinks that attitudes are of minor importance. In the present study, as was exemplified by the research question in (1), a number of social and socio-psychological variables will be studied; I will try to relate these variables to the proficiency level that the Turkish children have reached in Dutch. Although Zirkel & Jackson (1974) showed that children's attitudes can indeed be measured, it seems obvious that in order to obtain reliable information concerning the social and socio-psychological circumstances in which a child grows up, it is

necessary to talk to the parents of

the children. This was done in the present study. I distinguish three factors which may influence the level of second-language proficiency this group of L2 learners have reached at the age of six: Social Distance, Cultural Distance Psychological Distance. That is, I will make use of Schumann's terms (1976: social distance, 1978: psychological distance), but in the present context these concepts are defined and operationalized in a different manner: (a) Social Distance relates to (social) contact: it is hypothesized that if contact between the LI and L2 groups is maximal, social distance is minimal and acquisition of the L2 is enhanced. (b) Cultural Distance relates to (cultural) assimilation: it is hypothesized that if cultural assimilation is maximal, cultural distance is minimal and acquisition of the L2 is enhanced. (c) Psychological Distance relates to the attitudes which the L2 group holds towards the LI community and which the LI community holds towards the L2 group: it is hypothesized that if the attitudes are positive, psychological distance is minimal and acquisition of the L2 is enhanced.

155

The concept of Social Distance is operationalized into measures of intergroup relationships, that is,

relationships between the Turkish families and members

of the Dutch community, and intergroup knowledge of the Turkish families about typical Dutch matters. The concept of Cultural Distance is operationalized

into measures of cultural

assimilation and intended length of residence. The concept of Psychological Distance is operationalized into measures of the Turkish familiesS attitudes towards the Dutch community by studying their feelings of discrimination. Although I have both extended and modified Schumann's concepts of social and psychological distance, the problems he mentions concerning numerical quantification remain: (a) How should the factors and the variables be weighed with reference to each other? How does for example assimilation relate to intended length of residence? (b) How can it be established that the factors are independent of each other? Does for example assimilation not relate to contact with Dutch people? For the first problem I have decided to choose the most obvious solution, which in fact in this type of study is often chosen: in the absence of a (possibly) more adequate solution, all variables which affect the various factors are weighed equally heavily. No solution has been suggested for the second problem either. Even if

the

factors which are studied are not clustered in advance, but "discovered" by means of a factor analysis ( c f . Clahsen, Meisel & Pienemann 1982), a lot

is

left to the intuition of the researcher. For when a number of variables load highly on a specific factor, it remains uncertain whether it is this factor at work or some other factor: "The question of greatest importance that remains ( . . . . ) is whether the variance in the motivation index or in any of the attitude measures is really attributable to motivation or attitude and not to some other factor- for instance, general language proficiency and intelligence". (Oiler 1981:24). This chapter contains the following sections. Section 2 provides information on the data gathering procedure and method of analysis. In section 3 I will give some general information on the Turkish families. Section 4 deals with Social Distance; section 5 with Cultural Distance and section 6 with Psychological Distance.In section 7 the statistical relations which were found between

156

the three distance scales and the overall level of second-language proficiency will be discussed and I will present some ideas about the possible causal relationship between the various social and socio-psychological factors. 2. Data gathering and Method of analysis The parents of the Turkish children were interviewed at home by a Dutch female student of Turkish, in the same period as their children were interviewed at school (september-december 1981). The conversation took place in Turkish, so that the parents would not have any problem expressing themselves. The interviewer spoke Turkish with a nearly native-like fluency; the interview lasted from three quarters of an hour to an hour and a half, depending upon the eloquency of the parents involved. The interview was semi-open: a list of 140 questions was followed in principle, as long as the line of conversation was not interrupted. The interviews were transcribed and for each pair of parents a profile was written in Dutch: a text, with several sections dealing with different topics, in which many literal quotes were inserted (see Appendix 6 A-C for one of the conversations and its resulting p r o f i l e ) · The variables pertaining to the three distance scales ( c f . section 1) were scored on a three point scale: 1 point

Φ great distance towards Dutch community and its members

2 points = moderate distance towards Dutch community and its members 3 points = small distance towards Dutch community and its members For each pair of parents three overall scores were established, for Social Distance, Cultural Distance and Psychological Distance respectively, by adding the points they had scored on the variables pertaining to each distance scale. A rank-order between the scores of the parents was established on each distance scale and this rank-order was correlated (Spearman rankorder correlation coefficient) with the language proficiency rank-order of the children, attained in chapter 2 (table 26). Thus, statements can be made concerning the relation between social distance, cultural distance and psychological distance on the one hand, and language proficiency on the other. 3. General information In this section I summarize some general information on the Turkish families: where they come from in Turkey, how old the parents were when they came to the Netherlands, what kind of education they followed in Turkey

and what kind of

profession they had there, and finally, their profession here in the Netherlands

157

at the time of the conversation. These data are summarized in table 52, in which the children are ordered from left to right from high

second-language

low second language proficiency: Tl is the child with the highest overall level of Dutch language proficiency and T20 the child with the lowest level. Table 52 shows that the majority of the parents come from cities; seven parents were born and bred in small villages: the parents of Hakan, Serpil, Zuleyha, Jale, Adile, Faruk.and Kamile. Most of the parents came to the Netherlands at a rather young age: seven mothers were younger than twenty, and the parents of Emel met each other in the Netherlands. Only three fathers and two mothers were older than 30 when they came to the Netherlands. Somewhat more than half of the fathers received secondary education, mostly in the form of vocational training, and all of them received some sort of education. Of the mothers, at least three (there is no information about the mother of Faruk) received no education (so they are probably illiterate), and only four mothers received secondary education. Furthermore, only three fathers, those of Emel, limit and Sibel, have found a job in the Netherlands suited to their professional education in Turkey. With the exception

of the mother of Jale and Haci, all

the mothers who work

outside the home, work as cleaning-women. INSERT TABLE 52 HERE

4. Social Distance 4.1,

Introduction

Social Distance (SD) is measured in terms of two factors: (1) Contacts with members of the target community (2) Knowledge of current affairs of the target community These factors are operationalized into the following variables:

(a)

Contact variables: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Visits to/from Dutch people Visits to/from Dutch children Chats with neighbours Help from neighbours Contact with Dutch colleagues (father) Idem (mother)

158 2a

2b

3b

3a

PP

l

Tl 11

city Μ. Α .

T2

city Nw.T.

26

16

p.e. & s.e.

Τ3

city U / N e . A .

25

21

Τ4

city M . A .

17

18

Τ5

village Ne.T. village E.T. city Me. A. city M.A. village M.A. cityM/N.A. city Nu.T. village N w . A . city W.T. city W.T. c i t v Me A village M . A . village M . A . city M . A . city M . A . village M . A .

24

24

26

19

24

19 23 20

p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e. p.e.

Τ6 Τ7 Τθ

Τ5 Τ10

Τ11 Τ12 Τ13 Τ14 ΤΙ 5 Τ16 Τ17 Τ18 Τ19 Τ20 ΤΙ Τ2 Τ3 Τ4 Τ6 Τ7 Τ8

Τ9 T1

« • = =

Emel Ferhan Ertan Erkan Hakan Serpil BulenL Dilfk Zuleyhn Umit

4a

4b

5a

construction worker car-sprayer driver cleaner factory worker crane-driver labourer

cleaning— woman cleaning-woman housewife clean ing- woman unemployed cleaning-woman cleaning-woman

unemployed ship-welder crane- driver ship-welder welder welder

housewife

building-trade 1. unemployed cleaner

housewife cleaning-woman housewife

5b .

19 26 24

22

23 28 24

21

27

21 27

32

27 17

33

32

e

24

22

k .s.

p.e. p.e. k. s.

17

19

25

30

30

22

p.e. & s.e. none p.e. & s.e. none none p.e.

hairdresser welder none agricu It. labourer civil servant plasterer

none none none none none none

& s.e. & s.e. & s.e.

p.e. p.e. k.s, p.e. p.e. & s.e. p.e. & s.e.

car-repairer ship-welder iron-caster driver welder inspector

none none none none none none none

&s e

/

s op e er

none p.e. p.e.

none street-vendor agric. labourer

& s.e. & s.e.

& s.e. & s.e.

111 « Lengiz T12 - Jale T13 - Sibel T14 - z lern T15 - Haci T16 - A d i l e T17 = Faruk T18 . Rahman T19 > C e l i l T20 = Kami Le

.

c leaning-woman cleaning-woman tailor cook

housewife actory- abourer

8

none none none

Nw.T.Ne.T.ad 3. p.e. « s.e. -

north-vest Turkey north-east Turkey primary education secundary education or vocational education k.s. = koran school

Table 52: General information on the Turkish parents

1 2. a. b. 3. a. b. 4. a. b. 5. a. b.

Oriein Age of A r r i v a l ( f ) (m) idem Education in T ( f ) idem Profession in T ( f ) idem Cm) Profession in H ( f ) (m) idem

159

(b) Knowledge variables: 7. Knowledge of Dutch politics 8. Squatting 9. Reading Dutch papers The contact variables relate to questions of personal acquaintance with Dutch people: whether or not they visit Dutch people and Dutch people visit them at home, whether their children bring home Dutch friends or visit Dutch friends at home; whether or not they chat with their Dutch neighbours and ask for their help, if necessary; whether they have contact with Dutch colleagues at work. The knowledge variables relate to knowledge of and interest in Dutch matters and a typical Dutch social problem: squatting (which is the illegal occupation of an uninhabited house). I will deal with how the parents answer the above questions in turn, inserting quotes of what they exactly said; and in the last section (4.11) I will give an overview of the quantitative results. In this section I will try to establish the degree of social association the Turkish families have with Dutch people and the degree of knowledge they have of politics and a social problem in the Netherlands, in order to assess the social distance they have towards Dutch society. There are, however, always various reasons why they do or do not associate with Dutch people. Some of these reasons are culturally or psychologically determined and will be discussed in the following sections. In other cases, contact finds its cause in mere chance: for example, a Turkish family may just happen to meet with very nice Dutch neighbours, causing them to associate with Dutch people in general. It is obvious that these cases of chance influence the degree of social distance of the family and possibly, to be examined here, also the level of language proficiency their children reach in Dutch. 4.2. Visits to Ifrom Dutch people Half of the families visit Dutch people and receive Dutch visitors at their home, but three of them admit that it happens infrequently. Eight families never visit Dutch people or receive Dutch visitors. Some of these families declare that they d o n ' t want to make friends with Dutch people: Sibel's father: "I don 1 1 know any nice Dutch people." "Yes, of course you know some!" (the mother) "Then tell me who." But others say they would like to make Dutch friends, and don't know how to find the right way:

160

Ferhan's mother:

"If you are not invited and nobody visits you, then that's the end of it".

4.3. Visits to/from

Dutch children

The same number of parents who say they never receive Dutch visitors, state that their children never bring home Dutch friends, but the two groups do not overlap: for example, the parents of Haci and Adile have Dutch friends (in the case of Adile, it is the father only) who visit them regularly, but Dutch children are never to be seen in their house. Haci's parents would like them to come: Haci's father : "You know the Turks, in our house a guest is a guest. We would like our children to bring Dutch friends here". On the other hand, Adile's father explicitly states that he would not allow Dutch friends in his house: Adile's father: "No, I don't want that. They are at school and have their homework to do. I don't let them go anywhere, and I don't want children here either". Other parents do not allow their children to associate with Dutch children because they fear a "bad influence": Kamile's father;. "She once had a (Dutch) girlfriend, but this child said she had a couple of fathers. Then I thought about that and made acquaintance with her mother at school. She appeared to be a bad women". Faruk's mother:

"Our daughters could bring home their girlfriends, but boys... if I saw them talk to boys I would start to beat them, let alone bring them to our home!"

On the whole, there are five Turkish families, or one quarter of the group, whose house is never visited by Dutch people, either adults or children, and another three families only seldom have visitors, either adults (Kamile's parents), or children (Rahman's parents) or both (Serpil's parents), (see also table 53). 4.4. Chats with neighbours Seven parents never talk with their (Dutch) neighbours. Most of these families d o n ' t want to, because they feel threatened by Dutch people:

161 2 Sibel's parent :

"In the past we had many problems with our downstairs neighbour, an old lady. She spoiled our lives for seven years. Every day she insulted us and also our guests·, she sent them away! We couldn't make friends with Turkish people because for us it is normal to visit one another, and that wasn't possible because of her".

The parents of Faruk say they can't talk with their neighbours because of the language: Faruk's parent :

"We usually have a chat with the Turkish people in the neighbourhood, but we get along with our Dutch neighbours very well. One of them recently translated a letter for us into German. We have never had any problems with our neighbours" .

However, the majority of the parents do talk with their neighbours (nine families do so frequently, three families now and then): Ertan's father:

"Through mere loneliness in this neighbourhood you start talking with other people".

Dilek's parent:

"Our Dutch neighbours are glad with us and we with them. We always have a chat with each other and if someone in the family is ill, we help them. Our neighbour even advised us to cut off our telephone: it was too expensive for us. Now people can phone us via him".

Serpil's parent:

"Our Dutch neighbours on the first and on the third floor are good people, they visit us now and then, but our neighbours next door are not so nice. But we have no problems even with them".

Bulent's father:

"Our whole street came to visit me a few years ago when I had an accident".

Jale's mother:

"Our Dutch neighbours have even joined us on our holiday to Turkey!"

It must be stressed that this variable (and this goes for other variables as well) in a certain respect is dependent on mere chance: not all neighbours are the same! 4.5. Help from neighbours Somewhat fewer families ask the help of Dutch neighbours when they need it than have a chat with them: nine families never ask their neighbours for help:

162

Rahman's parent:

"Because our (Dutch) neighbours are not nice to us, because they don't want to help us, we have to go to a lawyer".

Erkan's mother:

"I am afraid even to say hello to them. They treat us as if we were savages".

The above cited parents (and the parents of Sibel, cited in 4 . 4 . ) are the only ones who explicitly utter their antipathy against Dutch neighbours, causing them not to associate with them. However, most of the families, and also most of the ones who do not ask for help, express more differentiated opinions on their Dutch neighbours: Zuleyha's parent:

"We are very quiet, but our neighbour from below still gets mad at us for very fussy reasons. But I say to myself, she is old and can't help it. Then I try to forget it".

Hakan's parent:

"We just don't associate with the people we don't like".

The following are a few citations of the families who do ask and get help from their Dutch neighbours: Emel's mother:

"I ask my Dutch neighbour to look after my children when I have to leave my house for some time".

Jale's mother:

"They help us with official papers and the like, the things we don't understand they translate for us".

Kamile's father:

"We looked after their children and they after ours".

4.6. Contact with Dutch colleagues

(father)

Seven fathers never speak Dutch during work: they either work alone or with other foreigners. Ten fathers work with both Dutch and foreign colleagues and only three are "forced" to speak Dutch during work: they work with Dutch people only. 4.7. Contact with Dutch colleagues (mother) More than half of the mothers work outside the home in addition to their work as housewives, but most of them work as a cleaning-woman, either working alone or with other foreigners. Three'women work with foreigners and Dutch women, and the mother of Emel is the only one who works with Dutch women only.

163

4.8. Knowledge of Dutch politics One fourth of the Turkish parents do not know a single name of the most important Dutch politicians; all the others can mention two or three, or a single name: Rahman's father:

"Van Agt, for example, I know his name because he is the leader, I see him on television very often.The others I don't know".

This does not mean that the Turkish families do not care at all for Dutch politics; as will be shown in the next section, their ideas about Dutch politics diverge in many ways. Still, not knowing a single name seems to point to a lack of interest in Dutch matters. 4.9. Squatting The verb "squat", in the definition meant here, is described in a Dutch dictionary (van Dale 1976) as "procure entrance by means of violence, or at least illegally, to a uninhabited house, in order to live there". One third of the Turkish families did not know the word, but only the parents of Celil did not know the notion either: all the others not only knew the notion, they also uttered very clear opinions on the subject. Exactly half of the group approved of squatting, seven parents did not, two parents did not agree with each other on the subject and the parents of one child (Celil, mentioned above) did not want to give their opinion. A few citations, both in favour of and against are: Ferhan's mother:

"First I did not approve of it. But later people told me that the landlords or the housing authorities - I don't remember which of these two -, leave these houses empty on purpose, because they could make more money that way. Now that I have heard that, I grant that the squatters are right in what they do".

Ertan's father:

"If there is space to live, why should people suffer"?

Dilek's father:

"It is against the law, illegal. I nearly squatted this house myself, because the housing authorities had assigned it to us, but the landlord did not want to give it to me, because I was a foreigner and wouldn't pay the rent. But the moment I wanted to force the door, I couldn't pursue it: it was illegal".

164

Cengiz' father:

"I don't approve of what they do. Of course I don't know everything about it, but what I disapprove of most, is that they complain that they have no house being Dutch, whereas foreigners such as we, do have one. We don't force the government to give us a house, we have our rights too".

4.10. Dutch papers All the families read Turkish papers, except for the women who cannot read or write (compare section 3.). Most of them (fourteen parents) never read a Dutch paper, mostly because of language problems. Four parents read a Dutch paper now and then, but mostly because of the advertisements: Cengiz' father: Emel's mother:

"I don't buy them, but I read them at work now and then". "Sometimes I buy Dutch magazines.I can read them a little bit, but mostly I look at the advertisements".

The fathers of Ertan and Adile regularly read Dutch papers. 4.11. Overview of the Results In table 53 the variables discussed so far are summarized: 1 point is given when the family displayed a lack of contact with Dutch people or a lack of knowledge of Dutch matters; 2 points were given when the family had some contact with/some knowledge of Dutch persons/matters and 3 points were given when the contact was regular or the knowledge present. On five occasions the particular question was not asked by the interviewer ("?" in Table 53); in these cases the average score was calculated over the variables which could be scored. The Social Distance scale is thus constructed by adding the points each family scored on the nine variables, and three groups were formed by calculating an average score: INSERT TABLE 53 HERE The large majority of the families thus falls within the middle group: on average they have some contact with Dutch people and some knowledge of typical Dutch matters. Only one pair of parents, the family of Emel (Tl), on average can be placed in group I as far as Social Distance is concerned. This is particularly evident in the following quotation:

165

Emel's mother:

"In this neighbourhood there are many Turkish people living, but we visit only one of them, the others we do not even greet ( . . . ) . My Dutch friends are like sisters to me!" Tl

1. Dutch people visit u s regularly/We visit Dutch people regularly

T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 Til T12 T13 T14 T15 T16 T17 T18 T19 T20

3

2

2 . Dutch children regularly 3 come to our house to play with our children and vice versa

3

3

1

3

3

3

2

3

3

2

3

3

1

2

7

1

1

3

3

3

2

1

1

3

3

1

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

1

3 . W e regularly have a chat with our Dutch neighbours

3

1

3

1

2

3

3

3

3

1

3

3

1

1

3

2

1

1

4 . W e regularly a s k o u r Dutch neighbours to help us,e.g. with the translation of official letters

3

1

2

1

7

3

2

3

1

1

3

3

1

1

1

1

3

1

5 . I (»father) have contact with Dutch colleagues every day

3

1

3

2

2

2

1

2

1

2

1

2

2

2

3

1

2

2

1

1

6 . I (=mother) have contact with Dutch colleagues every day

3

1

1

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

7 . W e know t h e important Dutch politicians by name

2

2

1

1

3

2

2

2

7

2

2

2

1

2

1

2

2

2

2

1

8. We know what squatting is

3

3

1

3

3

3

1

1

3

3

3

3

3

1

1

3

2

2

1

2

1

I

1

2

1

1

1 1

1

2

3 1

3

9. We regularly read a Dutch paper

2

1

1

1 1

3 1

TOTAL

25

15

20

15

19

20

18

18

12

14

19

21

12

13

16

17

13

12

10

13

MEANS

2.8 1.7 2.2 1.7 2.4 2.2 2.0 2.0 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.3 1.3 1.4 1.8 1.9 1.4 1.3 1.3 1.6

Table 53: Social Distance scale, based on 9 variables 1 point : no contact with Dutch people/knowledge of typical Dutch matters 2 points: some contact with Dutch people/knowledge of typical Dutch matters 3 points: regular contact with Dutch people/much knowledge of typical Dutch watters ? : missing level I = overall regular contact with Dutch people/knowledge of Ό. matters (3.0-2.5): 1 family level II = overall some contact with Dutch people/knowledge of D. matters (2.4-1.5): 14 families level III = overall no contact with Dutch people/knowledge of D. matters (1.4-1.0): 5 families

166

A Spearman rank-order correlation was calculated between Social Distance and Language Proficiency (cf. table 26, chapter 2). The correlation turned 3 out to be not very high (r = .64 , p < .01) . Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a weak positive relation between the two in the following sense: the lower the social distance of the Turkish families towards the Dutch community, the higher the second-language proficiency in Dutch of the children. In section 7 I will go into the problem of how to interpret this relationship. 5. Cultural Distance 5.1. Introduction For a person who has been born and raised in one country and starts to live in another, it is not only a new language, but a whole new system of norms and values he is confronted with. Such a person normally does not forget his native language, and in the same way, he does not forget the norms and values of the native country. However, it seems to be less difficult to live in a country and speak two languages than to live in a country and obey two different sets of norms. In the context of the present study I can exemplify this as follows: a Turkish person who lives in the Netherlands for some years speaks Turkish with his Turkish friends and colleagues, and is normally able to speak Dutch (never mind to what extent) with his Dutch friends and colleagues. It is not possible for him to accomplish his ritual prayers combined with a visit to a Christian church on Sundays. Neither can he ask his wife to look exactly like she did in their native village and wear a headscarf, and at the same time to look like a Dutch woman. In other words, with respect to the concept of culture, a daily switch between two different sets of norms and values is hardly possible. This of course does not mean that every foreigner in the Netherlands has either abandoned or continues to be totally devoted to the norms and values of his native country: at least some type of mixture or cultural change should be expected. In this section I will investigate the relation between the degree of cultural 4 distance towards Dutch norms and values of the parents and the level of proficiency in the Dutch of their children. The cultural distance scale was built up by the quantified answers to the following questions:

167

(a) Questions directly connected with the Islamic religion: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Do you Do you Do you Do you

perform the namaz (= ritual prayers)? want your children to be able to read the Koran? fast during the Ramadan celebrate the religious feasts?

(b) Questions indirectly connected with the Islamic religion: 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Do you drink alcohol? Would you allow your children to marry a Dutch person? Will you choose a husband/wife for your children? Would you allow your children to visit a bar or discotheque? Would you allow your daughter to wear a miniskirt? Do you (=mother, elder daughters) always wear a headscarf?

(c) Questions concerning the family's prospects: 11. Do you consider it as important that your children speak Turkish fluently? 12. Do you feel homesick? 13. Are you going back to Turkey or do you intend to stay in the Netherlands? (d) Questions connected with Turkish culture (not religiously oriented) 14. Do you cook in the Turkish manner? 15. Do you listen to Turkish music? In the following sections I will deal with these questions consecutively and quote the parents' answers as much as possible. In the last part of this section (section 5.17) I will give a summary in the form of a quantified cultural distance scale and present the rank-order correlation between cultural distance and language proficiency. 5.2. Ritual Prayers The namaz (Turkish term for ritual prayers)is carried out five times a day: one kneels on the floor, bows until one's nose touches the floor and then rises again. This is repeated several times. Half of the parents both perform the namaz daily, whereas in seven families either one of the parents or both prays irregularly: Urnit's father:

"I don't always do it... well, I do it occasionally. In the month of fasting and on fridays when I don't work".

Ümit's mother:

"... only when I feel like it..."

In three families nobody ever prays, for example: Erkan's mother:

"Oh no! we have nothing to do with the mosque"

168

The families that pray daily, can be further distinguished according to their attitude to obedience of this particular Islamitic law. For example, Celil's parents do not show any sign of doubt, whereas the parents of Ferhan reveal some scepticism in their answer: Ferhan's parent:

"We have been performing the namaz for one year now. We will see whether we will make it to the end. Five times a day is a little "

5.3. Koran Nearly half of the parents do not read the Koran, because they cannot read Arabic: Qelil's parent:

"We cannot read it ourselves, but we love the Koran so much that it seems as if in our heart we can read it".

All the parents would be very pleased if their children learnt to read the Koran . Some of the parents are critical of the courses that are given in the Netherlands: Hakan's mother:

"Our daughter is taking a course (i.e. in Koran reading), but we d o n ' t know yet whether we will continue to send her. We want her to learn the rules of Islam, but they teach the wrong things. For example, they asked her why she didn't wear a headscarf, and why I (the mother) didn't wear one. I am grown up and can do what I want. Another time they asked her: "Do you love Ataturk?" "Of course", she said. Then they said: "The people who love Ataturk do not love God".

Others do not send their children to courses for practical reasons: Bülent's father:

"My eldest son once asked me: "Dad, are we Muslim?" "yes, my son". "Then why don't you send us to a Koran school?" Some of the questions of my children embarrass me. But I am afraid that if he should learn to read the Koran (i.e. Arabic) and Dutch and Turkish, he won't make it at school. Therefore I said: "First you finish your school and then you go to the Koran school".

Adile's father:

"I go nowhere without reading the Koran. I want my children to learn it too, but I haven't sent them yet (i.e. to a Koran School), because I an afraid they w o n ' t be able to cope with two things at a time. Others send their children to a Koran school and then I see them standing at the icecream stand".

169

In general it seems that the mothers are more concerned with the fulfilling of religious duties than the fathers. Compare Jale's father and mother: Jale's father:

"I go to the mosque in the month of Ramadan and on Friday if I can; I do the namaz now and then; I was able to read the Koran, but I have forgotten it".

Jale's mother:

"I always do the namaz. At my work it is impossible, but I do it at home, when I return. After that, I read the Koran".

I cannot explain why this is so. Maybe the mothers are less influenced by Dutch culture because they less often work outside the home (half of the mothers are housewives). 5.4. Fasting All parents fast in the period of Ramadan (see note 5), except Adile's father (who reads the Koran every day, he says!). In the family of Serpil everybody fasts, but all the other parents think that (most of) their children are too young and can join them when they are about thirteen years of age. 5.5. Religious feasts All the families celebrate the two religious feasts of Turkey: de $eker bayrami at the end of the Ramadan-period and the kurban bayrami, a sacrificial feast. Eight families also celebrate "western" feasts, such as

birthdays. In the

scoring I have distinguished between families that only celebrate Turkish religious feasts and those who also celebrate western feasts (see note 6). 5.6. Alcohol According to the laws of Islam, it is strictly forbidden to drink alcohol. Half of the parents do not reject drinking for religious reasons, and most of these drink themselves (or at least the father does). Some of them hope that their children will not drink, but they seem to be merely concerned with their health: Erkan's mother:

"If it was healthy, I would approve. But I will try to stop him as much as possible".

Another family approves of both drinking and smoking, but under certain - culturally determined - circumstances it is not allowed. In the scoring this family (only one of the families explicitly made this restriction) falls into the category "moderate distance towards Dutch norms and values":

170

Ferhan's father:

"When the children are around twenty years of age, they will be allowed to drink and smoke. But they should know where and when they can do it. With us it is not customary to smoke or drink in the presence of your father, in the presence of your mother it is possible".

The other half of the parents do not drink alcohol themselves, and would not allow their children to drink either: Ozlem's mother:

"She would be allowed to smoke, at a party with her friends for example, but alcohol I would never approve o f . I is both against our morals and against our religion".

5.7. Marriage The parents were asked whether they would allow their children to marry a Dutch man or woman. Only six of them said they would approve, and two other families would let their son marry a Dutch woman; most of these, however, do not even give a whole-heartedly affirmative answer: Dilek's father:

"You can't deny that something like love exists. If she loves him and he loves her, he will be converted to Islam. But even if he doesn't want to be converted, I won't be able to stop her. If you do that, misery will pass your way, or even a crime. Think that for 90% it won't happen, but not for 100% (the last sentence was directed to his wife)".

The vast majority of the families thus does not approve of a marriage with a Dutch person. Some of them do not approve, because they think that the Dutch and the Turkish people are too different, others are solely concerned with the differences in religion: Ertan's father:

"The marriage of a daughter is a great responsibility. I would never accept anyone else than a Turk. Marriage between peoples is very difficult. Most of our friends who have married a Dutch woman get divorced after ten or fifteen years of marriage".

Rahman's father:

"Both our son and our daughter would be allowed to marry a Dutch person, provided that this person was converted to Islam".

Although the parents of Ertan and those of Rahman differ in the sense that the latter say they would approve of a marriage with a Dutch Muslim, both are

171

classified under the category "large distance towards Dutch values": Erkan's parents want their children to marry a Turkish person, Rahman's parents want their children to marry a muslim. In the establishment of cultural distance, these two are dealt with as equivalent. 5.81 Marriage giving According to the traditional customs of Islam the parents choose a husband for their daughters and a wife for their sons. This custom is not followed by the majority of the parents, but (this applies to the other variables dealt with so far as well)

it is possible that they were not brought up with this custom in

Turkey, and so it would have nothing to do with cultural adaptation. The research question, however, is not especially directed towards the measure of adaptation to Dutch norms and values, and its relation to language proficiency, but it is directed more towards existing distance from Dutch culture. And this variable certainly measures the distance from what is normal in the Netherlands. Six parents (i.e.

pairs of parents, see note 2) do follow this Islamitic custom,

for example the parents of Jale: Jale's father:

"According to our religion it is better that we find a partner for our children, because when we married, our parents did the same thing. We took our children, and we will give them away (for marriage). This counts for sons and daughters".

5.9. Bars and discotheques Eight parents wouldn't think of allowing a son or daugher to go to a bar or discotheque, and another eight wouldn't dream of letting their daughters go: Faruk's father:

"As parents we wouldn't give him our permission to go. You know, discotheques are bad places. If you visit them, you cease to receive God's blessing. This holds for daughters even more so, because we are even more careful with daughters".

The four parents that would give their permission (note that I often use the word would because the children are still very young, and the parents are talking about a distant f u t u r e ) , would do so on the condition that daughters were accompanied by a (steady) boyfriend or a brother.

172

5.10. Clothing (1) Fourteen parents consider it as imperative that women cover their arms and legs: they would never allow their daughter to wear for example a mini-skirt: Faruk's mother:

"Of course I don't want her to wear short skirts, to walk around naked, because that is forbidden. If somebody sees your "haram" places", then you will have to pay for it in another world".

The other six parents do not care: their daughters are allowed to wear anything they want. 5.11. Clothing (2) It appears that the covering of arms and legs is necessary for more families than the wearing of a headscarf: ten of the mothers wear a headscarf, so exactly half of the group, but three of them will allow their daughters to leave it off when they are grown up. This means that only half of the families which consider the covering of arms and legs as imperative, also believe a headscarf is necessary; in none of the families in which the mother wears a headscarf, are bare arms and legs allowed. It is possible that in the families

in which the women do not wear a headscarf,

the parents were not brought up with this custom in Turkey; it is also possible that the mother wore a headscarf in Turkey and has adapted to Dutch norms in leaving it o f f . We only know that at least half of the families in this respect have not given in to Dutch ideas about clothes. This is what the mother of Cengiz thinks of "adaptation": Cengiz's mother:

"You know of course that our religion forbids bare arms and legs and loose hair. Of course, you have to adapt to the country in which you live, but I want my daughter to adapt in a decent manner".

5.12. Turkish language The parents were asked whether they considered it to be important that their children spoke Turkish fluently; which language they considered to be more important, Dutch or Turkish, and how they would react if their children forgot Turkish completely. Four parents consider proficiency in Turkish as more important for their children than fluency in Dutch, for example:

173

Jale's father:

"We are foreigners here. One day we will go back to our own country. If the children spoke only Dutch here, then they would have many problems with the language when we return to Turkey".

The majority of the parents say they think Turkey is as important as Dutch: Emel's mother:

"At home we would rather have them speak Turkish, so that the children can learn both languages at the same time ( . . ) · We speak Dutch at home only when we have Dutch guests".

In only two families is Dutch considered to be more important than Turkish, and in one of these the parents say they wouldn't mind at all if their children were not able to speak Turkish: Erkan's mother:

"No, it (=Turkish) is not important ( . . . ) . I have turned my back on Turkey. Sometimes the children get angry at me: "Don't speak Turkish to us, we don't understand it". I am glad they react this way, because we will never leave this country".

5.13. Longing for Turkey Related to the previous variable, in which the importance of the Turkish language was discussed, the parents were asked to describe the degree to which they missed their native country, felt "homesick", or merely thought about their life in Turkey: with the exception of a single family,the parents of Erkan, and one father (Adile's father) all the interviewees were longing to go back to Turkey, and most of them had already built a house there in order to be able to live there in the future. We asked the fathers (with the exception of Adile's mother, none of the mothers had worked in Turkey) whether they liked their work in Turkey more than the work they do in the Netherlands: twelve fathers said they preferred the work in Turkey: Dilek's father:

"I had my own profession in Turkey, I was a tailor. Here I work in a factory, and do work I was not trained to do".

(^elil's father:

"I had a cart with a scales on top of it. All day long I sold my sun-kernels. I weighed them and for a couple of pennies I sold them. Then I came home, counted the money: wow! I earned two guilders! With that wonderful feeling I went to sleep".

174

Six fathers did not especially like the work in Turkey more than in the Netherlands or had not worked in Turkey; whereas only two fathers have a preference for the work they do here: Ertan's father:

"Whether you like your work or not depends upon your colleagues. The people I work with now are good people, we get along very well".

Cengiz' father:

"My work in Turkey was heavy work: iron-casting is heavy work. My job here is easier; I can sit and rest now and then; have a chat or read the paper. That was not possible there".

With respect to the question of homesickness, especially the

mothers expressed

their feelings of loneliness in the Netherlands, for example: Faruk's mother:

"We are very well off here, but still we want to go back. We lived in a village, we had a house with a garden; here we live on the third floor. We went wherever we wanted to, to our pastures and fields...thus time went by. Here I sit in the house, I am bored to death, I don't feel happy. And you cannot always go to the neighbours..."

All the families write to or phone their relatives in Turkey and all of them more or less regularly go to Turkey for the holidays; twelve families once every two or three years and eight families go every year. 5.14. Return to Turkey Fourteen parents have built a house in Turkey in order to live there in the f u t u r e , whereas five others say they definitely want to go back but have not yet made arrangements of this kind. Only the parents of Erkan say they want to live in the Netherlands for the rest of their life. None of the parents, however, have taken Dutch nationality. 5.15. Turkish food Two families regularly eat Dutch food: Emel's mother:

"It is easy to make Dutch food. Whenever I have little time, I cook Dutch. My husband is able to cook Dutch as well".

Six other families occasionally eat Dutch (or better: West-European) food:

175

Umit's mother:

"I learned to eat Dutch in the hospital. But I can only make one Dutch meal".

Thus the majority of the families always eat food which is cooked in the Turkish manner. 5.16. Turkish music Fifteen parents listen to Turkish music, but six of these families also listen to European music: Ferhan's mother:

"When I was seventeen I mostly listened to western music, but now I prefer to listen to Turkish music, especially when I am brooding".

Five families only listen to western music: Erkan's father:

"I like disco-music mostly, it has good rhythm. Turkish music has a sad influence on me these last years. Why should I feel as if someone just died while the world is so full of life... I don't want that".

5.17. Overview of the results In table 54 the fifteen variables and the quantified answers of each family are summarized. The family scored 1 point when the answer to a particular question exhibited a large distance from Dutch cultural norms and values; 2 points when they turned out to show a moderate distance from Dutch cultural norms and values and 3 points when there seemed to exist a very small or no cultural distance (see also note 6 for detailed information on the scoring procedures). The Cultural Distance scale was built up in the same way as the Social Distance scale; the scores were added and each family was classified according to

its

average score. Table 54 shows that seven families can be classified in the category "large distance from Dutch norms and values", whereas only one family exhibits a cultural value system which is hardly distinguishable from an "average" Dutch family's: the parents of Erkan (T4). Throughout this section, quotes of both his father and his mother demonstrate this. Twelve parents, or somewhat more than half of the sample, show on the average a moderate distance from Dutch norms and values. A rank-order correlation (Spearman) was calculated between Cultural Distance

176

and Language proficiency (cf. table 26, chapter 2 ) . The correlation turned out to be not very high ( r = . 6 5 > Ρ < ·01), and therefore it is concluded that there is 3 a weak relation between the two: the lower the cultural distance of the parents towards Dutch norms and values ,the higher the second-language proficiency in Dutch of their children. In section 7 I will go into the subject of interpretation of this relationship. Tl

T2 T3

TA T5

T6 T7

T8 T9

T10 Til T12 T13 T14 T15 T16 T17 T18 T19 T20

1 . W e perform t h e ritual prayer 2 2. We want our children to 1 learn to read the Koran 3 . W e fast during t h e Ramadan 1

1 1

1 1

3 ?

1 1

3 1

2 1

3 1

1 1

2 1

1 1

1 1

2 1

2 1

2 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

2 1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

4 . W e celebrate t h e Islamitic religious feasts 5 . W e d o n o t drink alcohol for religious reasons 6 . O u r children would n o t b e allowed to marry a Dutch person

2

1

1

2

2

2

7

1

1

2

1

2

1

2

1

2

1

1

1

1

3

2

1

3

7

3

1

3

1

3

3

3

3

1

1

3

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

2

3

2

3

1

3

1

1

1

3

1

3

1

1

1

1

1

3

3

2

3

1

1

1

1

1

2

3

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

7 . W e will choose a husband/ 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 3 3 wife for our children 8 . W e would n o t allow o u r child 3 2 2 3 2 2 1 2 1 3 2 to visit a bar or discotheque 9 . O u r daughter h a s t o cover 3 1 1 3 3 1 3 3 1 3 1 her arms and legs

1

1

10.A woman should wear a headscarf

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

2

1

3

1

1

3

2

3

2

1

1

1

1

11.We want o u r children t o speak Turkish

2

2

1

3

2

2

2

2

2

1

2

1

2

2

2

3

2

2

2

1

12.We miss Turkey 13.We will definitely g o back to Turkey 14.We always e a t Turkish food IS.We only listen t o Turkish music

1 1

1 1

1 1

3 3

1 1

1 2

7 2

1 1

1 2

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 2

1 1

2 2

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

2 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

2 1

TOTAL MEANS

3 2

1 2

2 3

1 3

2 2

1 2

2 3

1 2

1 2

2 1

1 2

1 3

3 1 1 1

31 23 23 36 26 30 26 29 18 30 22 20 26 26 20 30 16 16 16 17 2.1 1.5 1.5 2.6 1.9 2.0 2.0 1.9 1.2 2.0 1.5 1.3 1.7 1.7 1.3 2.0 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1

Table 54: Cultural Distance Scale, based on 15 variables 1 point = large distance from Dutch norms and values 2 points= moderate distance from Dutch norms and values 3 points- small/no distance from Dutch norms and values ? = missing Level I = overall small/no distance (3,0-2.5): 1 family Level II = overall moderate distance (2,4-1.5): 12 families Level III = overall large distance (1.4-1.0) : 7 families

177

6. Psychological Distance 6.1.

Introduction

In the introduction to this chapter I stated that psychological distance is conceptualized as the (positive/negative)

attitude towards the Dutch community:

but how can it be discovered whether a foreign family exhibits a positive attitude towards the target country or a negative attitude? It seems that the best way to answer this question is to discover how the family thinks, feels about the Dutch in general: if they d o n ' t like the Dutch in general, it can be concluded that their attitude is negative; if they say nice things about the Dutch the conclusion is that their attitude is positive. Unfortunately, this problem cannot be solved so easily, because people are generally not able to answer vaguely formulated questions and if they can, it is hardly ever possible to quantify the answers. For example, the following quotes are answers to the question: "And what do you think about the Dutch in general?"; it is hardly possible to distil an attitude from them, because the answers cannot be compared with each other: Emel's father:

"I don't like it that the Dutch are so careless about what their wives do: they let them go to cafes and drink alcohol there. That is the only thing I d o n ' t consider as normal".

Ferhan's mother:

"The Dutch don't want to be disturbed. With us, if somebody has got a problem, we fly to them to o f f e r help. Without an appointment you can't go to a Dutch person".

Hakan's mother:

"I really can't say much, because I don't know them enough. But those dogs of theirs, the mess on the streets everywhere, I find it so dirty!".

Dilek's father:

"The Dutch do not distinguish between girls and women. I like that. They can arrange their own lives; for example, they marry a person they love, and do not put any conditions on marriage as is done in our culture".

Bulent's father:

"I d o n ' t like to see pregnant women drinking alcohol, and Dutch women knowing nothing about child raising. Furthermore, I don't like to hear the stories about adultery which I hear at my work".

Zuleyha s father: "The Dutch are quiet people, soft and nice. We Turks are easily excited and moved. But the Dutch are also somewhat sneaky. If you do something just a little bit wrong, a Dutch person will rush to your boss to tell. Turkish people are more honest: they say it directly to your face".

178

Jale's father:

'Jale's mother:

"A Dutch person never thinks about tomorrow. What he earns today, he eats today. He does not take responsibility for his children. At eighteen they kick their children out onto the streets". ."Some colleagues of mine eat their bread and throw the crusts onto the floor, and kick them around. We pick them up and then they laugh at us. We throw them into the basket, they get them out again and kick them around a second time. That is the difference: some people give their old bread to the animals, others kick it away. Not everyone is the same".

Ozlem's mother:

"I hate it that dogs are kept in the house. And furthermore, Dutch people don't respect their parents. I will try to teach my children our own morals, the Turkish morals. I would never, never, allow them to flirt with boys on the street, like Dutch mothers do. I hope that I will succeed..."

Adile's father:

"The Dutch bring into practice everything that is written in the Koran. They don't do the namaz, they don't fast. Their religion is different, they have other obligations, perform different prayers".

Rahman's father:

"All religions are perfect. Christianity is not bad, but the Christians do not obey the Christian laws".

Because of this difficulty in directly comparing answers, I have decided to only study one component of the concept of attitude, namely, the feelings of being discriminated against by the Dutch community, its members and representatives, which a family may have: the questions concerning this component of their attitude could be quantified. The psychological Distance scale consists of the answers to the following questions: 1. Do you think that Dutch people get the same kinds of jobs as you do? 2. Do you think that it is harder for a Turk to find a house than it is for a Dutch person? 3. Do you think that your children get as much attention in children?

school as Dutch

4. Do you feel discriminated against by the Dutch in general? 5. Do you feel discriminated against by the Dutch government? In this section I will investigate the relationship between the degree of psychological distance towards the Dutch community, its members and representatives, of the parents and the level of second-language proficiency in Dutch of their children.

179

6.2. Discrimination at work

9

The parents were asked whether they thought that Turkish people in general did the same kind of work as Dutch people. Eleven parents thought they did: Emel's mother:

"Turkish women do the same work as Dutch women at my work".

In five families it was thought that Turkish people were discriminated against in this respect: Haci's father:

"They fire the foreigners first, and their own people afterwards".

Haci's mother:

"Dutch women get the better jobs; if they can they give the worse jobs to Turkish women".

Zuleyha's father:

"In the Netherlands the foreigners have gradually become second or third rate citizens, as in the rest of Europe. The economy has deteriorated. In the old days, when you were looking for a job, they asked when you could start. They preferred Turkish people. But now that unemployment has increased and the factories are closing one after the other, foreigners are the first to feel it".

In two families this question was not asked by the interviewer and another two said they couldn't answer the question: they didn't know. 6.3. Discrimination in finding a house Thirteen families thought it was harder to find a suitable house being a foreigner than it was for a Dutch person. Some of them had experienced

it

themselves: Erkan's father:

"If you ask information about a house, everywhere you are told that you have to wait for five or six years. But a Dutch person has to wait for six months at the most".

Others tell about the difficulties other Turkish people they know have experienced: Emel's father:

"Houses are assigned to Dutch people first, and furthermore many Turks do not speak enough Dutch. We did not have any difficulties, but if you don't speak the language, you can't ask for a rent subsidy. Either you take the day off and can't find an interpreter; or, you can find an interpreter but your boss doesn't want to give you a day o f f . Our friends have many problems".

180

Some of these families feel discriminated against but they seem to try and find a reason for it,

for example:

Faruk's mother:

"In every country you can find clean and dirty people. For example, if some Turkish people do not clean their house, they say that all Turks do not clean their house and then they don't want to give you a house. But, of course you have dirty Dutch people as well...".

On the other hand, seven families do not think they have been discriminated against in finding a house, and some of them even ventilate negative opinions on the behaviour of Turkish people: Adile's father:

"Next to us there is a Dutch couple living with two children in one attic room and they have been on the council waiting list for a house for 5 years already. You can't make the Turks understand that they are not the only ones who have to wait. They want to get a house immediately and bring their family here; then they go and live with some relatives and after three months make up a story to tell the housing authorities, for example that the relatives beat their children. A real Dutch civil servant gives priority to them in these cases!"

6.4. Discrimination at school None of the parents think that their children are being discriminated against at school, and except for the parents of Ümit, Jale and Rahman, who say that they don't know, all of them are very content with the teachers. Some of them do have some criticism of the Dutch school system, however: Faruk's father:

"I think that they pay more attention to the children here (i.e. than in Turkey). They deal with the children individually. But in Turkey they teach them more discipline".

Faruk's mother:

(adding) "Here the teachers don't beat a child. In Turkey children are very afraid of the teacher. If they don't know their lessons .... Here they have no fear".

Emel's mother:

"We are very grateful for what the teachers do for our children. They really use every e f f o r t to help foreign children. Our eldest was very weak at figures; a special teacher gave her extra lessons, so that she wouldn't have to stay down for a year".

The last quote is from the parents who feel discriminated against in every other way, but at school:

181

Sibel's father:

"I have regular contact with the teacher of my daughter. They pay much attention to foreign children. They have an extra teacher especially for foreign children and what is even more important, they are very fond of the children".

Sibel's mother:

(adding) "In the hospital and at school discrimination does not exist. Whether you are Dutch or Turkish or Moroccan, to them you are all the same".

6.5. Discrimination by the Dutch population in general Almost half of the parents do not feel discriminated against by the Dutch population in general: Dilek's mother:

"In the beginning, when we had just arrived here, my neighbours were extremely helpful. I never experienced anything unpleasant, maybe that is why I d o n ' t feel discriminated against".

Two parents couldn't give an answer to this question and another two were not asked; that leaves seven families who do feel discriminated against. Some examples of what they say about the reasons for this are given here: Kamile's father:

"One of the neighbours had left his key in the front door. I went to them to warn them at about twelve thirty at night. They were so afraid of me that they didn't want to fetch their key! So I did it myself, and the next day my wife took it back to them. They said that they had seen on television that Turks carry knives".

Bülent's father:

"I was fired once because an interpreter had cashed in the money I had earned. I was with some other foreigners and when we complained about not receiving the money our boss fired us because he thought that we were cheating him. He said: "I d o n ' t like tittle-tattle-labourers", I could kill him! And the interpreter talks and you can't understand him... I felt like a woman without a husband! But the boss believed the interpreter..."

Sibel's mother:

"A woman once asked me: "What do you want here, Turkey is a big country and Holland is so small". And when you are ill, she says: "Easy, uh, to earn money!" And she herself is permanently "ill". "I am Dutch", she says, "and you are a foreigner, naturally you have to work!" It is so difficult for me... And now that there is so much unemployment, they want to send us back to Turkey".

182 6.6. Discrimination by the Dutch government Half of the parents feel discriminated against by the Dutch government, and most of them express their reproaches in fierce terms: Emel's father:

"The government pays regard to our interests only as long as we are here. The moment we return to Turkey all our rights cease to exist and we don't have any social security any more. Still we have to pay very high taxes".

Haci's father:

"I have lived in the Netherlands for eleven years now and the moment they give me the money they owe me, I will leave this country. If only the government would give us our pension! I have grown bald here, and in Turkey they won't give me back my old job. I am too old for everything. It is a shame that a person who has worked here his whole life has to go back to Turkey without any money!"

Three parents say they do not know whether they are discriminated against or not, mostly because they cannot follow Dutch politics: Faruk's father:

"We cannot decide whether we are treated well or badly by the govenment. The only way to know what decisions are being made is to listen to (Turkish) broadcasts. Furthermore, we have no right to vote, so we really don't know".

Seven families think the Dutch government treats foreigners well, and that Dutch law does not discriminate between Dutch and foreign people: £elil's parent:

"From the human point of view the government in Holland is very good: they give every individual the right to profit from social benefits whenever he needs it. We have the same rights as Dutch people have, and we make use of them in the same way as they do".

6.7. Overview of the results In table 55 the answers to the five questions are quantified. The family scored 1 point when the answer to a particular question showed the parents felt strongly discriminated against; 2 points when the parents showed some feelings of discrimination, when they said they didn't know or when the parents didn't agree with each other (one felt discriminated, the other not) and 3 points when they said they didn't feel discriminated against at

all:

183 ΤΙ

1 . W e a r e discriminated against at our work

Τ2 Τ3

3

3

2 . W e a r e discriminated against 2 by the housing authorities (CBH)

it. T h e Dutch population i n general discriminates against Turkish people

3 3

5 . T h e Dutch government discriminates against Turkish people

1

2

3 . O u r children a r e discriminated against et school

11

Τ5 Τ6

7

3

1

2

1

3

3

3

3

3

3

13

1

3

3

1

6

13

Τ7 Τ8 Τ9

3

3

?

1

Τ4

3 3

3

2

13

3

11

13

3 3

1

?

3

1

2 3

2

10

1 1

3

1

5

3

1

2

1

9

3

1

3 3

1

1

1

3 1

3

1

3

3

Τ10 Τ11 Τ12 Τ13 Τ14 Τ15 Τ16 Τ17 Τ1Θ Τ19 Τ20

3

3 1

2

13

3

2

2

3

3

?

3

3

1

1

1

1

3

3

2

3

3

1

1

3 2

1

7

1

3 2

3

14

3

1

10

3

3

14

1

2

11

1

8

3

TOTAL

12

MEANS

2.4 2.8 2.6 1.5 2.6 2.6 2.2 2.6 1.8 1.3 2 0 2.6 1.4 2.8 2.0 2.8 2.2 1.6 2.2 2.0

Table 55: Psychological Distance Scale, based on five variables 1 point 2 points 3 points ? Level I Level II Level III

: : : :

strong feelings of discrimination some feelings of discrimination no feelings of discrimination at all missing

= overall (virtually) no feelings of discrimination (3.0-2.5) : 8 families = overall some feelings of discrimination (2.4-1.5): 10 families = overall strong feelings of discrimination(1.4-1.0): 2 families

11

3

8

184

Table 55 shows that eight families don't feel discriminated against in most

res-

pects; ten families do feel discriminated against in some respects and two others show strong feelings of being discriminated against except for the way their children are treated at school: as the mother of Sibel (T13) puts it,

discrimini-

nation exists everywhere except for the schools and hospitals ( c f . section 6.4.)· A Spearman rank-order correlation between Psychological Distance and Language Proficiency (cf. table 26, chapter 2) was calculated. The correlation between these two turned out to be low and non-significant (r

S

= .25 , ρ "> .05), and *

therefore it is concluded that no relation exists between them: the level of language proficiency which the children have reached in Dutch at the age of six is not influenced by the degree of discrimination their parents feel from the side of the Dutch community. Feelings of discrimination being part of the general attitude towards the Dutch community, it can be concluded that this component of attitude does not influence the second language proficiency of the children. Of course,

the question of whether the relation between attitude

and second language proficiency of the parents themselves would also turn out to be non-significant and low still remains. 7. Discussion In the previous sections I have dealt with the relationship between the overall level of second language proficiency of the Turkish children (henceforth: Language Proficiency or LP) on the one hand, and the degree of social distance, cultural distance and psychological distance towards the Dutch community as expressed by their parents, on the other hand. In table 56 the statistical relationship between these factors can be seen:

LP SD CD

SD

CD

PD

.64+

.65+

.25

.49

X

.45X .23

Table 56: Spearman Rank-order correlations between Language Proficiency (LP), Social Distance (SD), Cultural Distance (CD) and Psychological Distance (PD); + = p < .01 χ = p < rr φ Ο CO CO φ 3 Ο Τ3 > CO CO COOO οο η Τ) Ό CO 1 1 CO M+ + + +

σ f""| PH | ^>

II

II

CO 3

II

II

^^ *T^

II

II

Ρ· Ό Ό Ό

·


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* * ^ PO G G l Ο "0 0 13 CO CO CO CO η Τ3> ο

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