NGHIÊN cứu TRI NHẬN về CHUYỂN DI TIÊU cực TRONG CÁCH sử DỤNG GIỚI từ TIẾNG ANH của NGƯỜI VIỆT TT TA

The author presented how Vietnamese learners of English express prepositional meanings from the perspective of Cognitive linguistics and which factors negatively impacted the way Vietnam

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies,

The University of Da Nang

Supervisor: 1 Assoc.Prof., Dr Tran Huu Phuc

2 Assoc.Prof., Dr Nguyen Tat Thang

Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies -The University of Danang

This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at:

- Library of University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang

- The Information Resources Center, The University of Da Nang

- National Library of Viet Nam

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ABSTRACT

Many current linguists are interested in whether cognition has any influence on

foreign language acquisition A large number of research have been conducted on L1

transfer; however, the grounds for applying Cognitive Linguistics to language transfer

continue to focus on surface structures of the mother tongue and target languages,

rather than the underlying causes, which are the cognition of language users The

purpose of this thesis is to investigate the cognitive factors that influence the usage of

English prepositions by Vietnamese learners of English The author presented how

Vietnamese learners of English express prepositional meanings from the perspective

of Cognitive linguistics and which factors negatively impacted the way Vietnamese

learners of English used prepositions An online survey investigating negative L1

transfer on the use of English prepositions among Vietnamese learners of English was

distributed to English learners Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one

respondents of differing proficiency levels, qualifications, locations, ages, and

biological sexes were surveyed Analysis of the responses showed that negative L1

transfer was associated with the respondents’ cognition Their personal perception of

the world and language influenced their L2 production An empirical experiment

using an AI chatbot (a form of Facebook Messenger) was also included in the survey

to check whether the learning environment contributed to language transfer or not

The author built a speaking and writing assignment corpus from Preparatory Courses

for VSTEP to confirm study results The study results indicated that learners’ L1

cognition played a significant role in affecting learners’ L2 competence, of which

negative conceptual transfer made up a sizeable proportion In particular, the

Vietnamese cognition of space (M < 41.47) was responsible for negative L1 transfer

to the target language (English) Gender and other non-linguistic factors also

contributed to language transfer on the quality of L2 communication with the sig <

0.05 This thesis recommends that language teachers take students’ L1 conceptual

transfer into account when planning lessons in order to prevent some predictable

mistakes in their L2 usage Linguists, translators, and interpreters must understand the

relevant L1 conceptual transfer to improve their L2 production in their work

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THESIS-RELATED PUBLICATIONS

[1] Trần Tín Nghị (2017) Cognition and language transfer: a cognitive study of

prepositions Hội thảo quốc gia Nghiên cứu liên ngành về Ngôn ngữ và giảng dạy

Ngôn ngữ lần thứ 2 (pp 522-535) Hue: Đại học Ngoại ngữ Huế

[2] Trần Hữu Phúc, Nguyễn Tất Thắng, & Trần Tín Nghị (2018) A Cognitive study

of Nonlinguistic Factors Affecting the use of Prepositions by Vietnamese Native

Speakers International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 147-158

[3] Trần Tín Nghị, Trần Hữu Phúc, & Nguyễn Tất Thắng (2019) Applying Ai

Chatbot For Teaching A Foreign Language: An Empirical Research International

Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 8(12), 897-902 (Scopus-indexed)

[4] Trần Tín Nghị (2020) Applying Non-Linguistic Frameworks for Investigating the

Language Transfer International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 9(4), 231-243 (Scopus-indexed, Q1)

[5] Trần Tín Nghị, Nguyễn Tất Thắng, & Trần Hữu Phúc (2021) An Investigation into Factors Affecting the Use of English Prepositions by Vietnamese Learners of English

International Journal of Higher Education, 10(1), 24-40 (Scopus-indexed)

[6] Trần Tín Nghị & Trần Hữu Phúc (2022) A Corpus-Based Study On The Most

Frequently Used English Prepositions: A Conceptual Transfer Perspective Theory

and Practice in Language Studies 12(2), pp 213-220 (Scopus-indexed)

Several Vietnamese linguistics scholars have conducted comparative analytic studies

on Vietnamese and English prepositions in an effort to understand the similarities and differences between the two languages Recently, a few studies in cognitive linguistics have looked at prepositions in Vietnamese and/or English; the majority of these studies focused solely on motion or direction prepositions (Trần Thị Minh Giang, & Lưu Quý Khương, 2014; Lưu Trọng Tuấn, 2011; Lý Ngọc Toàn, 2019) When looking

at these studies, it is simple to see that learners believe prepositions and adverb particles are irrelevant, and as a result, they are more likely to use or translate into English a word with a comparable meaning in their home tongue rather than the correct preposition or particle This type of L1 transfer negatively affects the acquisition of fluent native-like mastery of the English language for years CL investigations of language transfer when prepositions are used, notably negative transfer, have not yet been done

1.2 Statement of the problem

Vietnamese learners confront numerous difficulties when learning or using English prepositions These difficulties can be summarized as follows:

 There are not exactly the same number of prepositions in Vietnamese as there are in English

 An English preposition that is combined with other words can have many meanings, and some of its meanings are quite different from its core sense For instance, the phrasal verb "make up" involves eight different meanings according to their contexts;

 There is a significant difference in the way Vietnamese and English speakers understand prepositions

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Therefore, this thesis examines the issues of L1 negative transfer from the perspective

of CL and proposes some educational implications for teaching English in the Vietnamese context

1.3 Aims and objectives

The following issues were examined to set precise and concise objectives for the study

The primary objective was to identify factors that resulted in negative L1 transfer via the use of English prepositions Eight hypotheses were established to examine the semantic features of English prepositions, which Vietnamese learners of English may use inappropriately From the survey, factors related to cross-linguistic similarities were analyzed to produce a complete understanding of linguistic transfer because most

of the available studies on cognitive grammar were theoretical and ignored its role in

teaching and learning Likewise, other factors such as cognitive embodiment, recency,

the learning environment, L1 language acquisition, and language proficiency were

also included in the study In this study, the Type I error, which aimed to test whether

an effect of treatment was true or not, was taken into account By setting the alpha level at 0.05, all of the data was analyzed to determine which factors associated with language transfer were statistically significant Three research techniques, namely survey, empirical, and corpus, were employed to be able to draw a firm conclusion and bridge the gap between linguistics and language teaching to contribute to the field

of applied linguistics

The second objective was to identify the choice of English prepositions made by Vietnamese learners in terms of negative transfer A questionnaire was utilized to discover the schema sanctioning the use of the English preposition, based on the accuracy rates Some non-linguistic factors such as religion, favorite colors, and location were also added to provide a complete picture for investigating L1 culture and background transfer To achieve this objective, the T-test and Chi-square test of independence were used to compare the variables, e.g., simple prepositions and complex prepositions, to see the difference in participants’ choices A report on the interference of L1 background and culture on the choice of English prepositions explains why most Vietnamese learners tend to use simple rather than compound or

complex prepositions Only variables with a p-value of 0.05 or less than 0.05 were

considered statistically significant in proving or disproving individual hypotheses The third objective was to evaluate whether gender was a source of negative transfer Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to investigate whether different genders had different levels of negative L1 transfer or not The author used the

ANOVA test to determine whether the scores of three groups, viz., males, females and

gender-undisclosed, differed statistically or not By examining each section of the

1.4 Research questions

As discussed in Section 1.2, the problem statement, prior studies are limited to a subset of CL perspectives on L1 transfer This study used CL as a basis to investigate the factors that negatively influence the use of English prepositions in motivated polysemy networks Some potential open-ended questions related to the stated objective remain unanswered Hence, we explored the three critical research questions:

1 What factors negatively impact how Vietnamese learners use English prepositions from a cognitive linguistic perspective?

2 How aware are Vietnamese learners of English of the distinction between simple and complex English prepositions?

3 Is there any relationship between gender and the usage of English prepositions among Vietnamese learners of English?

This thesis will explore English prepositional use by Vietnamese learners from a CL perspective by utilizing English assignments based on the three research questions To achieve this, eight significant hypotheses as follows were decided upon:

Within the domain of RQ 1, the following five hypotheses were set:

Hypothesis 1: Vietnamese intra-lingual interference does not affect prepositional meaning expressed by Vietnamese learners of English

Hypothesis 2: Cognitive Embodiment does not play any significant role in terms of negative language transfer affecting a specific preposition's usage Hypothesis 3: Learners with more than one foreign language do not use English prepositions better than those who only study English as a foreign language

Hypothesis 4: A suitable learning environment has no negative transfer effect

on learning English prepositions

Hypothesis 5: There are no significant differences among low, intermediate, and advanced level Vietnamese learners of English in terms of negative transfer affecting specific preposition usage

For the investigation of RQ 2, the author chose the following two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 6: The way in which English is learned does not affect the choice

of English prepositions

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Hypothesis 7: Vietnamese English learners tend not to use simple English prepositions

For RQ 3, the author formulated the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 8: There are no significant differences between genders in terms

of negative transfer when acquiring English prepositions among Vietnamese learners

of English

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND 2.1 Literature review

In this chapter, the author reviews previous studies, based on thematic topics such as

SLA and Cognitive Studies on SLA, Cognitive studies on English prepositions usages

in the Vietnamese context, Cognitive studies of prepositional senses, English prepositions, and language transfer Two important topics are focused on

interpretation: English prepositions and language transfer English prepositions are

reviewed according to the chronological process from behaviorism to cognitive

perspective, and language transfer is presented in terms of its four phases of development The first phase is the identification of possible explanans (viz

explanation, affecting factor or independent variable) that may affect the process of SLA During this phase, most of the researchers' time and effort are expended identifying cases of language transfer, defining the scope of the transfer, and quantifying the effects of the transfer (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008, p 5) The second phase describes the phenomenon in question as an independent variable or

explanandum*1 This phase is very important in transfer research because the entire study has as its goals the 'verification of the transfer effects, identifying causes of transfer, identifying constraints in transfer, investigating the selectivity of transfer and directionality of transfer effects (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008, p 5).’ The third phase is the development of a theory designed to explain the phenomenon under investigation

in relation to social, situational, and mental constraints, constructs, and processes During this phase, the focus is on the theoretical development of CLI models and hypotheses, as well as on conducting empirical research Phase 4 overlaps phases 2 and 3 in that it begins while they are still underway The researcher investigates the neurophysiology of how language is produced and stored in our brains

The purpose of this literature review is to view the trends in cognitive studies on the uses of English prepositions, especially introducing research in the Vietnamese context within the next 10 years The research is based on the thematic structure of cognitive and language transfers Two hundred and forty-three studies have been cited

to demonstrate the thematic structure in this thesis

1 Explanandum is the technical term used by Jarvis & Pavlenko (2008)

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2.2 The theoretical framework for language transfer

The author applied Jarvis (2011) and Odlin (2005) frameworks to investigate the conceptual transfer hypothesis in SLA from their empirical evidence Based on these frameworks, the author developed the conceptual transfer framework in relation to the English prepositional usages of Vietnamese learners of English (See Fig 1)

The taxonomy of transfer includes a distinction between linguistic and conceptual

transfer The former is primarily related to the linguistic forms and structures of the mother tongue and target language, while the latter refers to the various types of transfer that occur due to the mental concepts that underpin those forms and

structures Linguistic transfer aims to explain 'transfer' by examining the similarities

and differences between two languages' structural properties: the source and target languages — this kind of language transfer results in the linguistic representation of

lexical level However, the aim of conceptual transfer is to interpret another locus of

transfer by comparing similarities and differences in conceptual categories corresponding to the source and recipient languages' grammatical and discourse levels

Figure 2.1 Conceptual transfer framework in Vietnamese context of learning English

This study focused on the effects of L1 that impede the ability of native speakers of Vietnamese to use English The term L1 in this thesis refers to Vietnamese language because some of the learners may have learned more than two foreign languages such

as English and another language at the same time This research project only involved Vietnamese-speaking participants learning English as a foreign language to investigate the negative L1 transfer in English prepositions Numerous factors can have both learning-related and performance-related effects on transfer The author clarified the factors according to whether they belong to learning-related, or performance-related effects, or both types of effect The author adopted Jarvis' CLI framework analysis for categorizing five main factors as follows:

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- Linguistic and psycholinguistic factors

- Cognitive, attentional, and developmental factors

- Factors related to cumulative language experience and knowledge

- Factors related to the learning environment

- Factors related to language use

Linguistic and psycholinguistic factors relate to characteristics of both L1

and L2 languages such as cross-linguistic similarity, area of language use, frequency,

recency and salience, markedness and prototypicality, and linguistic context

Interaction between linguistic context and transfer is affected by L2 users in forms, structures, meanings, and so forth This means that the performance-related rules, governed by L1 context-induced variation, could have been transferred to the L2

Cognitive, attentional, and developmental factors directly concern cognitive

and developmental constraints on transfer For instance, people with different levels of cognitive and conceptual maturity will process and store new knowledge of a language in different ways Cognitive maturity directly affects the quality of language use This second category involves four sub-factors: level of cognitive maturity, developmental and universal processes of language acquisition, cognitive language learning abilities, and attention to and awareness of language

Factors relating to cumulative language experience and knowledge are

connected to learners' language knowledge and experience Among these factors, the

learner's language proficiency in both L1 and L2 is significant in reducing negative language transfer This category has the following four subsections: age; length,

frequency, and intensity of language exposure; length of residence; and number and order of acquired languages All four factors in this category are somehow linked to

learners' language proficiency

Factors related to the learning environment, which are noted to affect CLI,

involve the distinction between formal learning and naturalistic exposure The differences largely lie in the issue of explicit versus implicit memory Formal learning focuses more on learners' explicit memory and conscious monitoring, and therefore, the possibility of negative transfer increases However, naturalistic exposure, which is believed to be the main source of transfer, is misleading Recent work on naturalistic exposure has appeared to pertain to performance-related rather than learning-related effects on transfer

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Factors related to language use are the final set of factors that influence

transfer This involves four main non-linguistic variables, namely social, situational, contextual, and performance-related variables Works on the relationship between such variables and language transfer are still limited (Odlin, 2005; Jarvis, 2000) Research on the nature and occurrence of language transfer has identified numerous factors Some of them have been documented in past research, and others reveal more about transfer mechanisms, conditions, and patterns As mentioned above, these factors interact with language transfer in a complex way, even affecting one another Some of them may exert both learning-related and performance-related effects on language transfer

2.3 Summary

Cognitive studies of language transfer are very recent additions to the study of linguistics Not many researchers have carried out research into that phenomenon because it seems complicated and intense Some of the studies focus on major lexical categories like (Trần Thị Minh Giang, & Lưu Quý Khương, 2014; Borovsky & Elman, 2006; Netra, 2016), L2 word order processing (Erdocia & Laka, 2018; Lee,

Lu, & Garnsey, 2013; McDonald, 2008; Cat, Klepousniotou, & Baayen, 2015), language skills (Tare & Gelman, 2010; Burchinal, et al., 2000), teaching grammar (Raflis & Lase, 2018; Tian, 2015; Kermer, 2016), but none have investigated a so-called minor lexical group of words such as prepositions and particles A few cognitive analyses of prepositions have been undertaken, but those studies were mainly focused on language teaching (Wijaya & Ong, 2018; Adamska-Sałaciak, 2008; Bùi Phú Hưng, Trương Viên, & Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ, 2018) That is why there is currently a knowledge gap regarding conceptual transfer in this area This study aimed

to uncover specific aspects of conceptual transfer on English preposition usage by Vietnamese learners of English

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CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This thesis set up three independent research designs to investigate the eight

hypotheses (stated in Section 1.4.), but the survey design was dominant for the study

This section detailed each kind of research design used in the study

Interview For re-checking and refining the data

Table 3-1 The brief description of research designs

3.1 Survey design

3.1.1 Participants

The number of participants involved in the survey was 2831: 1437 female, 1355 male, and 39 participants who preferred not to give their gender They came from different regions in Vietnam All of them were made aware of the research purpose before completing the survey The participants' backgrounds were mentioned in the research context in section 3.1

3.1.2 Materials

The materials used in the survey were the exercises from 10 units (from unit 13 to unit

22) in Part II of the book entitled English Pronouns and Prepositions, which was

written by Ed Swick Prepositions were chosen for the research because they were authentic and published by a well-known publisher The topics in the materials

included prepositional forms (viz., location, movement, and directions, time and mixed

uses) and usages (viz., compound prepositions, prepositions with the other words, participial prepositions, postpositive prepositions, words requiring a specific preposition, prepositions and phrasal verbs) (Swick, 2011) The distributions of the

chapters were listed in the questionnaire as follow:

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I Three items involving Prepositions That Indicate Location

II Five items involving Prepositions That Indicate Movement or Direction III Three items involving Prepositions That Indicate Time

IV Three items involving Compound Prepositions

V Four items involving Prepositions That Combine with Other Words

VI Three items involving Prepositions and Phrasal Verbs

VII Four items involving Phrasal Verbs as Participles

VIII Five items involving Picture descriptions using prepositions

A total of 25 multiple-choice questions and five picture descriptions were used to test hypotheses 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 The total score for the multiple-choice section was 100 marks The picture description part was evaluated and examined based on their work and was not scored The survey intensively collected the participants' backgrounds regarding their English studies, locations, regions, hobbies, and habits to investigate

non-linguistic factors affecting their use of English prepositions (see Appendix 1)

3.2 Empirical design

3.2.1 Participants

The participants were recruited from undergraduate students from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, Ho Chi Minh City on a voluntary basis There were two groups of students: the experimental and the control group The initial number of participants in each group was the same at 100 students each The first group was the control group, who attended a 15-period course on using English Prepositions without

a Facebook chatbot The second group attended ten periods of the class but had the help of a Facebook chatbot The same teacher taught all students The students were randomly selected ranked from the low to intermediate based on their TOEIC scores and divided into two nearly equivalent levels The students enthusiastically did all of their assignments during the experiment

3.2.1.1 The control group

All students were required to attend three class meetings of five periods each They

were taught ten lessons from units 13 to 22 of English Pronouns and Prepositions

(Swick, 2011) Students were supplied with the materials, and teachers delivered the lectures in strict adherence to the course procedures Then, the students were tested on what they had learned in the same way as the experimental group

3.2.1.2 The experimental group

Step 1: All students were introduced to the chatbot and given time to do its placement test

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Step 2: Students were asked to write the kind of prepositions they had got incorrect during the tests and then given suggestions on which units of the coursebook they should attend the lectures

Step 3: Students in the experimental group could choose the classes on English

Pronouns and Prepositions to attend based on chatbot topic suggestions

Step 4: Students were tested and surveyed with the students in the control group

3.2.2 Variables and measurement

This empirical research examined the relationship between the learning environment and language transfer The author employed the descriptive method for describing all the linguistic and nonlinguistic factors, the correlation between the variables under investigation, and the interviews with the participants Each of the variables had five possible values or outcomes in this experiment, ranked from one to five points The respondents could only choose one of the options that they believed best reflected their performance or situation For the test results, the author used a 10-point scale to grade the students' performance The empirical research data were then analyzed and interpreted to determine how well participants in the two groups performed

3.3 Corpus design

3.3.1 Preparatory Courses for VSTEP Corpus (PCVC)

The author compiled a corpus of English writing and speaking assignments from students enrolled in Preparatory Courses for VSTEP (PCVC) at Da Nang University

of Foreign Language Studies The VPCC was constructed from practice assignments which were submitted online, including 190 written papers and speaking audio files A text corpus application, Sketch Engine, was used to analyse the data, and the results were uploaded and saved at the URL ske.li/jtl

Table 3.1.VSTEP Preparatory Courses Corpus (PCVC)