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Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities Between L1, L2, and L3: Croatian Learners' use of Modal Particles and Equivalent Modal Elements

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The presented study investigates interlingual identifications (Weinreich (Languages in Contact, 1953); Ringbom (The importance of cross-linguistic similarity in foreign language learning: comprehension, learning and production, 2007)) as a specific form of linguistic transfer in language learning. University students’ interlingual identifications were analyzed with respect to modal particles and equivalent modal elements in Croatian, English and German. The participants were advanced Croatian learners of German and English, 148 students of German language and literature at Croatian universities. The study also investigates the learners’ psychotypology, i.e. their assessments of the overall similarities between their L1, L2, and L3 with respect to English, German and Croatian, and their competence concerning the use of modal particles and equivalent modal elements. Further variables, such as ‘‘year of study’’ and ‘‘the learners’ L2’’ are related to the results of the experimental study. A central conclusion is that pointing learners to cross-linguistic equivalencies can be an essential learning strategy that turns interlingual identifications into a process facilitating learning. German and Croatian as particle-rich languages are contrasted with English which uses other elements for modalizing and contextualizing utterances.
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Interlingual Identifications
and Assessment of Similarities Between
L1, L2, and L3: Croatian Learners’ use
of Modal Particles and Equivalent Modal
Elements
Marijana Kresic
´
and Tanja Gulan
Abstract The presented study investigates interlingual identifications (Weinreich
(Languages in Contact, 1953); Ringbom (The importance of cross-linguistic
similarity in foreign language learning: comprehension, learning and production,
2007)) as a specific form of linguistic transfer in language learning. University
students’ interlingual identifications were analyzed with respect to modal particles
and equivalent modal elements in Croatian, English and German. The participants
were advanced Croatian learners of German and English, 148 students of German
language and literature at Croatian universities. The study also investigates the
learners’ psychotypology, i.e. their assessments of the overall similarities between
their L1, L2, and L3 with respect to English, German and Croatian, and their
competence concerning the use of modal particles and equivalent modal elements.
Further variables, such as ‘‘year of study’’ and ‘‘the learners’ L2’’ are related to the
results of the experimental study. A central conclusion is that pointing learners
to cross-linguistic equivalencies can be an essential learning strategy that turns
interlingual identifications into a process facilitating learning. German and
Croatian as particle-rich languages are contrasted with English which uses other
elements for modalizing and contextualizing utterances.
This publication is based on work financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) and by
the University of Zadar, Croatia.
M. Kresic
´
(&) T. Gulan
Linguistics Department, University of Zadar, TrgknezaVišeslava 9,
23000 Zadar, Croatia
e-mail: mkresic@unizd.hr
T. Gulan
e-mail: tagulan@unizd.hr
D. Gabrys
´
-Barker (ed.), Cross-linguistic Influences in Multilingual Language Acquisition,
Second Language Learning and Teaching, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-29557-7_4,
Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
63
1 Introduction
In the context of a growing societal need for multilingual competences, learners’
preexistent linguistic knowledge and their potential cross-linguistic comparisons
should be utilized as factors that enhance the acquisition of a second and a third
language. Various studies (e.g., Weinreich 1953; Jarvis 2000; Ringbom 2001) point
to the importance of interlingual identifications and of students’ so-called psy-
chotypology, i.e. their evaluation of the linguistic distance between languages, in
processes of cross-linguistic interaction in the case of successive, multiple language
learning. However, there is a need for empirical and especially experimental studies,
such as the work presented here, which highlight the relevance of the process of
learners’ psychotypology and of interlingual identifications with respect to specific
linguistic phenomena. The insights from such studies can provide important results
for the development of theories and models that consider the various factors of the
overall process of cross-linguistic influence in second and third language learning.
The study presented in this paper concentrates on the word category of modal par-
ticles which constitute a special problem in learning German as a foreign language. In
an experimental study, German and Croatian modal particles were contrasted with
equivalent English modal elements. The study investigated a group of Croatian
learners’ proficiency, their psychotypology, and their interlingual identifications
with respect to these linguistic elements. From the results of the study it is concluded
that the development of a respective teaching methodology can benefit from a prior
analysis of the accompanying psycholinguistic processes, i.e. of the learners’ cross-
linguistic identifications and their psychotypology.
2 Background: Transfer, Interlingual Identifications
and Psychotypology in Second and Third Language
Acquisition
In the field of second language acquisition research, the psycholinguistic concept
of transfer is closely linked to the process of interlingual identifications, and to the
notion of learners’ psychotypology. These processes were investigated using the
example of modal particles and of equivalent modal elements in German, Croatian
and English. Moreover, the respective learners proficiency in the use of these
word categories was tested. The concepts, processes and linguistic phenomena that
are central to the study are explained in the following sections.
2.1 Transfer
In this account, the term transfer (Odlin 1989) is used as a general cover term for
various potentially conscious, cognitive language learning processes which rely on
the knowledge of previously learned languages and on preceding language
64 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
learning experiences. The term cross-linguistic influence is used as an inter-
changeable term, which some authors consider to be more theory-neutral (e.g.
Odlin 2003; Jarvis and Pavlenko 2008). The aims of the larger project
1
which
includes this study are (a) to evaluate whether and in what way transfer can be
used as an effective and synergetic learning strategy in multiple language learning,
and (b) to develop a model that accounts for central prerequisites and manifes-
tations of transfer.
2.2 Interlingual Identifications and Psychotypology
The focus of the present study are interlingual identifications as a specific form
of language transfer, i.e. the learner’s activity of mapping forms and functions
between languages (Weinreich 1953; Odlin 2003). Weinreich (1953) already
pointed out the relevance of learners’ interlingual identifications between cer-
tain linguistic elements, i.e. their perception of structural similarities between
native and target language in the process of language transfer. Similarities
between L1 and L2 or L3 seem to activate learners to make interlingual
identifications or associations between two languages (Jarvis and Pavlenko
2008).
A way to investigate learners’ overall as well as their specific perception of
similarities between languages is to test their so-called psychotypology. According
to Kellerman (1977, 1992) the psychotypology of the learner, i.e. his or her sub-
jective perception or assessment of the structural closeness of first language and
target language, is an important constraint on transfer. A finding of many empirical
studies (e.g. Ringbom 2001; Jarvis 2000; Cenoz 2001) is that the amount of
language transfer can be expected to be highest in linguistic areas that are per-
ceived to be most similar between languages by the L2 speaker. Testing this
subjective cross-linguistic similarity is one of the aims of the research presented in
this paper.
2.3 Learners’ Proficiency and Interacting Variables
In addition to their interlingual identifications and psychotypology, in the frame of
the experiment, the learnersproficiency with respect to the use of modal elements
and the word category of modal particles was tested. The learners proficiency
was defined as the target-like use of the tested linguistic forms and functions in
contexts in which they are required or appropriate.
1
For more information on the project ‘Transfer as a strategy in foreign language learning’ see
the webpage http://www.transfer-in-language-learning.net.
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 65
Besides, it was tested whether the following two variables interact with the
learners’ performance in the experiment:
(1) The respective learner’s L2 (either German or English)
(2) The learners’ year of study; the tested learners were divided into two groups
that were analyzed separately: 1st year of study (freshmen) and 4th year of
study (seniors). It was assumed that students of German language and liter-
ature in their first year of study are less proficient in German than fourth year
students of the same subject.
2.4 Modal Particles and Equivalent Modal Elements
in German, Croatian, and English
Modal particles are uninflected words used mainly in spontaneous spoken lan-
guage. ‘Their function is a discourse grammatical one: a modal particle marks the
utterance containing it as a non-initial turn. This is achieved by relating the
proposition to a pragmatically presupposed unit’ (Diewald et al. 2009: 190).
2
Modal particles constitute a formal word class of their own. They are typical of
German, for example, but do not occur in all languages. Croatian has linguistic
elements that are equivalent to the German word category of modal particles.
Some languages, such as English, display no linguistic equivalent to the German
modal particles at all.
The following lexemes constitute the pool of German modal particles (Gelhaus
1998): aber, auch, bloß, denn, doch, eben, eigentlich, etwa, halt, ja, mal, nur,
schon, vielleicht, wohl. Peripheral members are the following: fein, ganz, gerade,
gleich, einfach, erst, ruhig (Diewald 2007).
Croatian has even a larger number of particles. Uvanovic
´
(2006) counts 31
equivalent particle lexemes for Croatian: a, al (a), ama, bar (em), baš, da, de/
hajde/daj/dajte; e, eto, i, jednom, jednostavno, kako, li, ma, malo, moguc
´
e, moz
ˇ
da,
naprosto, onda, ono, pa, pak, samo, slobodno, što (li), valjda, vec
´
(jednom), više,
zapravo, zar.
English (like many other languages) has other linguistic means or modal
elements with the same function: intonation, question tags, specific syntactic
constructions, idiomatic expressions, discourse markers and others.
Example sentences taken from the experiment conducted in the frame of
the study will serve to illustrate possible counterparts in the three languages.
The elements in question are marked in the form of bolded words:
Croatian Pa on uvijek puno radi (= modal particle)
2
A detailed description of the basic function of this word class and a model for the contrastive
semantic description of particle meanings is proposed in Diewald (2010).
66 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
German Er arbeitet ja immer viel (= modal particle)
English He always works a lot, you know. (= idiomatic expression)
Croatian Ama sjedi. (= modal particle)
German Setz dich doch! (= modal particle)
English DO sit down! (= Verum focus construction, stressed intonation)
Croatian Ma zašto to nije ranije rekao? (= modal particle)
German Warum hat er das denn nicht früher gesagt? (= modal particle)
English Why on earth didn’t he say so earlier? (= idiomatic expression)
Modal particles often represent a problem in learning German as a foreign
language. The difficulties in learning how to use this word category have various
possible causes: (a) modal particles are mostly used in informal, spontaneous
communication, which can hardly be practised in the foreign language classroom,
(b) they have doublets in other word classes, such as conjunctions, (c) modal
particles have complex, context-dependent meanings, and (d) a sound and
exhaustive linguistic description of their meaning has not been provided yet. An
important aim of the larger project presented here is to develop such a contrastive
linguistic description of modal particles in German and Croatian as a basis for
developing effective learning materials. Until now, modal particles are underrep-
resented in text books and materials for learning German as a foreign language.
Due to the lack of both detailed psycholinguistic studies of the learning process of
modal particles and of a contrastive linguistic description of their meaning and
function, adequate materials for the learning of this word category have not been
developed yet.
3 Research Hypotheses
On the basis of the concepts and findings presented above, the following research
questions were formulated and tested:
1. What is the degree of target-like use of modal particles/modal elements in
Croatian learners of German and English?
2. What is the degree of interlingual identifications in Croatian learners of German
and English?
3. Is there a difference between freshmen (1st year students) and seniors (4th year
students) with respect to the two processes listed under (1) and (2)?
4. What is the relationship between variables such as ‘similarity assessment/
psychotypology’’, ‘number of interlingual identifications’’, and ‘L2/L3
German or English’ in the conducted study?
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 67
4 Methodology and Experimental Design
4.1 Participants
Two groups of university students of German language and literature participated
in the study (N = 148). Both, the freshmen (N = 89) and the seniors (N = 49)
were native Croatian speakers. The percentage of students learning English and
German as their L2 or L3 is given in Table 1. Participants with an L2 and L3 other
than English or German were excluded from the analysis. The average length of
learning the respective L2 was eight years for freshmen (both languages), whereas
for seniors it was in average ten years (also for both languages).
The L2 (English or German) was a group criterion for some of the statistical
analyses (t-tests).
4.2 Instruments
The instruments used in this study were: a questionnaire, personal computers,
software for designing and conducting the experiment, headphones. The stimuli
used in the experiment comprised a set of recorded utterances spoken by native
speakers of German, English and Croatian, and a list of corresponding written
sentences in those languages. The questionnaire served to survey information on
the participants’ foreign language learning biography: order of language acquisi-
tion, age of acquisition, length of language learning, the context of learning, and
students’ self-assessments of their knowledge concerning L2, L3, Ln. The ques-
tionnaire also gathered information regarding learners’ age, sex, major and minor
degree courses, and their native language.
4.3 Design and Materials
The experiment consisted of four different types of tasks: mapping of equivalents,
filling in gaps, translations, and assessments of similarities. The software Superlab
4.0 was used for designing and conducting the psycholinguistic experiment. The
first three types of tasks were rotated, the trials of each part being randomized by
Table 1 Percentage of participants’ L2/L3 per group
L2 English
(%)
L2 German
(%)
L2 Other
a
(%)
L3 English
(%)
L3 German
(%)
L3 Other
b
(%)
Freshmen 44 54 2 50 41 9
Seniors 30 70 0 63 27 10
a
Slovenian, Albanian
b
Italian, French, Slovenian
68 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
the software. The ‘Similarity assessment’task was the last task participants had to
complete in all cases. This task was not included in the experimental rotation in
order to avoid an influence of the prior conscious reflection on linguistic simi-
larities on the performance in the other tasks.
The subjects were divided into two groups: 1st and 4th year of study (freshmen
and seniors). Each of the four types of tasks was designed to test a different
process, strategy or competence of the learners.
The task ‘Equivalents’ aimed at testing the students’ ability to make inter-
lingual identifications with respect to modal particles and equivalent modal ele-
ments. A list of Croatian sentences containing modal particles and their English
and German translations was used in this task. Participants were asked to identify
the word in the second and third sentence that would be equivalent to the bold
word in the first sentence. Recorded sentences that correspond to the written ones
were simultaneously presented in this task.
The task ‘Fill the gap’ and the task ‘Translation’ tested the learners’ com-
petence in supplying the correct modal particle or modal element. In the task ‘Fill
the gap’’, each trial consisted of three sentences; the first one was complete,
whereas the second two were missing a word or expression. The second two
sentences were translations of the first, complete one. The order of the three
languages across the sentences varied randomly. In the task Translation’, par-
ticipants were presented only one sentence, either in Croatian or in German, with
the instruction to translate it to the other language.
Finally, the task ‘Assessment of similarities’ aimed at testing the learners’
psychotypology on the various levels of linguistic description with respect to the
tested language pairs (Croatian vs. English, Croatian vs. German, and English vs.
German). A list of statements was used that compared pairs of languages in terms
of their similarity on seven different levels (task ‘Similarity assessment’) with the
help of a Likert scale ranging from 1–7: 1 corresponding to ‘I absolutely do not
agree’ and 7 corresponding to ‘I absolutely agree’’. All tasks were introduced
with an instruction, an example and a short exercise.
5 Statistical Analyses
5.1 Results
In the first three types of tasks the performance was measured as the number of
correctly given answers. In the fourth task, ‘Similarity assessment’, there were no
correct or incorrect answers, but the medians of the participants’ judgments were
calculated. In the following, students’ performance results will be displayed in tables.
The average success in the three types of tasks was calculated as the percentage
of correctly given answers. The results show that the seniors were in average better
in the given tasks (see Table 2).
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 69
The t-test results indicate that there is a significant difference between the
groups in question in three of the four types of tasks, i.e. only in the task ‘Fill the
gap’ there were no significant differences (see Table 3).
The t-test revealed significant differences in the amount of identified English
modal elements compared to the amount of German modal particles for freshmen
as well as for seniors. In both groups, participants were better in identifying
German modal particles (see Table 4).
Since not all participants learned the same language as their L2, it was assumed
that they would differ in their performance regarding tasks in the language that
matches their L2. That is, it was expected that if their L2 was English, their
performance in tasks related to English would be better than the performance of
those students whose L2 was German. To test this assumption two t-tests were
used, one for the group of freshmen (see Table 3) and one for the group of senior
students (see Table 4).
The results of the t-test for dependant samples showed significant differences
(p \ .05) between the two groups of subjects (English L2 learners and German L2
learners) in the task ‘Translation’ for both translations to German and for
translations to Croatian (see Table 5).
Table 2 Average success in three types of tasks for two groups, freshmen and seniors
Task type Freshmen (%) Seniors (%)
1.a. English equivalents 55.1 64.4
1.b. German equivalents 64.71 77.12
2. Fill the gap 44.4 48.8
3.a. Translations to German 47.3 54.8
3.b. Translations to Croatian 55.1 64.4
Table 3 Significance of differences in task success between freshmen and seniors, t-test for
independent samples
Task type t-value df
1.a. English equivalents -2.75 134
1.b. German equivalents -2.95 134
2. Fill the gap -1.66 134
3.a. Translations to German -2.18 131
3.b. Translations to Croatian -2.52 132
Table 4 Significance of differences in the average amount of correctly identified English and
German equivalents for freshmen and seniors, t-test for dependent samples
Group Task type Mean t value Df p
Freshmen English equivalents 26.43
German equivalents 31.09 -7.23 87 \0.001
Seniors English equivalents 30.9
German equivalents 37.02 -7.88 49 \0.001
70 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
Significant differences from the t-test analysis arose only for the ‘Translation’
task, i.e. students who learned German as their L2 performed better in the
‘Translation task than students whose L2 was English (see Table 6).
In order to determine the average assessment of similarity between languages,
the median measure instead of the mean measure as a measure of central tendency
was used, because the results were not normally distributed. Participants made
similarity assessments to given statements on a scale from 1 to 7. In this analysis,
participants were treated as two independent groups of subjects, i.e. the L2 was not
taken into account. The results are as follows:
Table 7 shows the average assessments for two language pairs on seven levels
of linguistic description for freshmen and senior students separately. In general,
English and German were assessed to be more similar than the other two language
pairs. Croatian and English were assessed to be the least similar. There are only
Table 5 Differences in task success between freshmen with either English or German as L2
Type of task L2 English M L2 German M t value df p
1.a. English equivalents 26.90 26.06 -0.367 85 0.715
1.b. German equivalents 31.46 30.73 -0.269 85 0.789
2. Fill the gap 13.62 14.71 1.027 85 0.307
3.a. Translations to German 12.84 16.94 2.979 82 0.004*
3.b. Translations to Croatian 13.08 17.17 3.192 83 0.002
*
significant at level p \0,05
Table 6 Differences in task success between seniors with either English or German as L2
L2 English M L2 German M t value df p
1.a. English equivalents 31.733 30.68 0.511 47 0.612
1.b. German equivalents 35.467 37.79 -0.822 47 0.415
2. Fill the gap 14.400 16.06 -1.503 47 0.139
3.a. Translations to German 15.267 18.53 -2.037 47 0.047
3.b. Translations to Croatian 14.467 19.74 -3.178 47 0.003*
*
significant at level p \ 0,05
Table 7 Median values for similarity assessments of two language pairs on seven linguistic
levels
Croatian–English Croatian–German English–German
Freshmen Seniors Freshmen Seniors Freshmen Seniors
Generally similar 2 2 2 3 3 3
Phonology 1 2 2 2 3 3
Writing 2 2 2 3 3 3
Lexicon 2 2 2 3 4 3.5
Morphology 2 2 2 2 3 3
Syntax 2 3 2 3 3 3
Pragmatics 3 3 3 3 4 4
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 71
minor differences between the assessments of the freshmen and seniors with
respect to all language combinations.
There is a significant correlation between the freshmen’s performance in the
tasks testing their English interlingual identifications and their assessment of
similarity with respect to the language pair English and German on the levels
of lexicon, syntax, and pragmatics. As far as the task testing the identification of
German equivalents is concerned, there is only a significant correlation with the
assessment of similarity on the levels of lexicon and pragmatics.
There is a significant correlation between the seniors’ success in identifying
German equivalents and their assessment of similarity between the language pair
Croatian and German on the levels of morphology and syntax. Another significant
correlation occurs between this group’s success in identifying German equivalents
and their assessment of similarity between the language pair Croatian and English
on the level of syntax.
6 Discussion
The results of the statistical data analyses allow various conclusions with respect to
the research questions that were the starting point of the study. The discussion is
subdivided into sections dealing with the single parameters that were tested.
6.1 Learners’ Proficiency in the Use of Modal Particles
and Equivalent Modal Elements
6.1.1 Research Questions 1 and 3:
(1) What is the degree of target-like use of modal particles/modal elements in
Croatian learners of German and English?
(3) Is there a difference between freshmen (1st year students) and seniors (4th year
students) with respect to this process?
The tested learners’ average success in using modal particles and modal ele-
ments was relatively high. The freshmen’s performance ranged between 44 and
48% correct answers, whereas the seniors scored about 48–57% correct answers
(see Table 2). Besides, the seniors on average performed better than the freshmen
in the two tasks that tested the learners’ proficiency in the use of modal particles
and modal elements. Due to the longer training in the tested languages it was
expected that seniors would perform better than freshmen in the use of modal
particles and modal elements. Significant differences between two groups emerged
only for the task ‘Translation’, both German and Croatian (p \ .05). This might
72 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
be due to the longer length of the language training of the seniors. Concerning the
success in the task ‘Fill the gap’there were no significant differences between the
two groups. It is possible that seniors were not significantly better than freshmen in
the task Fill the gap’, because students might have been prone to supply any
linguistic element(s) that would fit into the context, whereas translations seemed
either to trigger a more exact reproduction or a skipping of the modal particle/
modal element in question.
Husso (1981) and Kutsch (1985) tested learners’ of German as a second lan-
guage competence in using modal particles and also observed a considerable
knowledge of this word category. Steinmüller (1981), however, found a remark-
able poverty concerning the use of modal particles in his data, which was based on
recorded interactions between foreign children and German native speakers.
Further, especially longitudinal studies like the one conducted by Cheon-
Kostrzewa (1998) are needed to investigate the developmental aspect in the
acquisition of particles. The results of the study presented here indicated that there
is considerable initial knowledge at the university level of learning German as a
foreign language, which needs to be further enhanced.
6.2 Interlingual Identifications
6.2.1 Research Hypotheses 2 and 3:
2. What is the degree of interlingual identifications in Croatian learners of German
and English?
3. Is there a difference between freshmen (1st year students) and seniors (4th year
students) with respect to this process?
The freshmen’s success in identifying cross-linguistic equivalents ranged
between 55 and 65%, whereas the seniors’ success ranged between 64 and 77%
(see Table 2). Thus, the seniors on average performed better than the freshmen.
Moreover, both groups were better in identifying German particles compared to
equivalent English modal elements. The expectation that there would be a con-
siderable amount of interlingual identifications in general was met, which might be
due to their functional equivalence in all three languages. German modal particles
might have been identified to a higher degree because they occur as a distinct word
class which can be more easily detected, whereas English modal elements are
distributed across various linguistic forms, constructions and levels (lexemes,
syntactic and intonational structures, etc.).
Both groups, freshmen and seniors significantly differ in the amount of cor-
rectly identified German modal particle equivalents, as well as in the amount of
correctly identified English modal elements (see Table 3). On average, the seniors
performed better than the freshmen in the task ‘Equivalents’’.
For both target groups, freshmen and seniors, the results show that the amount
of correctly identified English equivalents significantly differs from the amount of
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 73
correctly identified German equivalents. Both groups were better in identifying
German modal particles. These results meet the prior expectations, as it was
assumed that it is easier for Croatian learners to identify German modal particles
due to their equivalent form and function in the two languages.
Both groups performed worse in identifying English modal elements than German
modal particles. This was expected because English lacks a distinct word class of
modal particles, so that a variety of linguistic phenomena had to be supplied.
Weinreich (1953) originally used the term ‘‘interlingual identifications’ to refer
to an important prerequisite of negative transfer or interference. The results of the
study presented here serve as a basis for the argument that interlingual identifi-
cations are an important form of cross-linguistic influence that can facilitate the
learning of German modal particles for Croatian learners. This is possible because
of the actual linguistic equivalence of particle forms and meanings in the learners’
L1 (Croatian), and their L2/L3 (German).
6.3 Psychotypology, Interlingual Identifications and Learners’ L2
6.3.1 Research Question 4:
(4) What is the intercorrelation between variables such as ‘similarity assessment/
psychotypology’’, ‘‘number of interlingual identifications’ and ‘‘L2/L3 German or
English’ in the conducted study?
The gained significant correlations (Table 8) could be ascribed to the fact that
the elements (English syntactic constructions, idiomatic expressions etc.) that had
to be identified belong to the levels of linguistic description which were assessed to
be similar between the two languages (lexicon, syntax, and also touching prag-
matics). These significant correlations were expectable.
The significant correlations with respect to the German equivalents on the
levels of lexicon and pragmatics were expectable in the same way as the ones
mentioned above. However, there is no obvious explanation for the lack of sig-
nificant correlations with respect to this language pair on the other levels of
linguistic description and for their lack with respect to the other language pairs, i.e.
Croatian–English and Croatian–German for the freshmen, and English–German
for the seniors.
All in all, the correlations between students’ similarity assessments and their
success in identifying equivalents in the presented study are modest, the highest
correlation coefficient being 0.35. A factor discussed by Kellerman (1992) holds a
possible explanation for such a low correlation. According to him, the degree of
markedness is one of the restrictions for transfer to occur. Learners tend not to
transfer structures that they find marked or language-specific but prefer transfer-
ring structures that are more frequent, regular and semantically and structurally
clear (Sag
˘
in Sßimsßek 2006). The low correlations of the presented study might be
due to the learners’ perception that modal particles represent a marked word
74 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
category in discourse. Another explanation might lie in the fact that participants
were not asked to estimate linguistic similarity on a specific level (i.e. between
modal particles and modalizing elements in the three languages) but rather on a
general level (i.e. general similarity between the three language pairs, including
various levels of linguistic description).
In the study presented here, the significant correlation between students’ sim-
ilarity assessment for the language pair Croatian–English (on the level of syntax)
and their success in identifying German equivalents is unexpected: the perfor-
mance and the assessment of similarity refer to different language pairs. Within the
same group, there is also a significant correlation between students’ success
in identifying German equivalents and their similarity assessment concerning
Croatian vs. German morphology and syntax (see Table 9). In general, it was
expected that the assessment of a high similarity between Croatian and German
would correlate with students’ success in identifying German equivalents at the
mentioned levels because modal particles are elements situated between the levels
of morphology and syntax (and also lexicon and pragmatics). All mentioned
correlations are positive, which means that the more similar participants assessed
two languages the better their score in identifying respective equivalents was, on
the mentioned levels of similarity (lexicon, syntax, pragmatics, etc.).
All in all, the absence of significant correlations with respect to Croatian in the
group of freshmen on the one hand, and the occurrence of significant correlations
with reference to Croatian on some levels of linguistic description in the group of
seniors on the other hand, might be due to fact that more advanced students have
Table 8 Correlations between average similarity assessments on all levels of comparison (for all
three pairs of languages) and success in identifying English and German equivalents for freshmen
Generally
similar
Phonology Writing Lexicon Morphology Syntax Pragmatics
English vs. German
English
equivalents
0.10 0.20 0.19 0.25* 0.14 0.23* 0.34*
German
equivalents
0.12 0.21 0.10 0.29* 0.14 0.18 0.32*
Croatian vs. English
English
equivalents
-0.07 -0.11 -0.08 -0.01 0.02 -0.01 0.01
German
equivalents
-0.02 -0.11 -0.18 0.03 -0.04 -0.13 -0.16
Croatian vs. German
English
equivalents
0.10 0.06 0.04 0.03 0.13 0.02 0.15
German
equivalents
0.10 0.17 0.07 0.08 0.16 0.00 0.06
*All correlations were significant at the level of p \ .05
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 75
more metalinguistic awareness of their L1 than freshmen. As a consequence, the
seniors might be able to make more subtly differentiated judgments with respect to
their L1.
As far as the variable ‘the learner’s L2’ is concerned, the results gained in
the presented study are plausible. The results showed that two groups of par-
ticipants (English L2 learners and German L2 learners) significantly differ in
their performance only in the ‘Translation’ task, which was the case for both of
its subtasks. The reason why no significant differences arose in the other tasks
might lie in the nature of those tasks. In the task ‘Equivalents’ and ‘Fill the
gap’ participants had to either identify or to translate a given word and fit it into
a given context. It might be assumed that these tasks did not require participants’
active use of modal particles, but rather their passive knowledge with respect to
the recognition and allocation of MPs. On the other hand, the task ‘Translation’
requires their full productive knowledge, which is more demanding. Moreover, if
the tested learners’ L2 was German, they were better in the German tasks, which
was consistent with the expectations, because of the longer length of learning
German for this group of students. For all of them, German was the language of
their degree course. However, if the tested learners’ L2 was English, they did not
perform better in the English tasks than the other students. This might be due
to the less intensive learning of English compared to German throughout the
participants’ academic training. The tested learners were students of German
language and literature, so that a dominance of German compared to English can
be assumed.
Table 9 Correlations between average similarity assessments on all levels of comparison (for all
three pairs of languages) and success in identifying English and German equivalents for senior
students
Generally
similar
Phonology Writing Lexicon Morphology Syntax Pragmatics
English vs. German
English
equivalents
0.01 0.08 0.00 0.15 0.06 0.21 0.25
German
equivalents
0.02 -0.02 -0.02 0.08 -0.04 0.15 0.16
Croatian vs. English
English
equivalents
0.10 0.00 0.05 0.18 0.21 0.17 0.19
German
equivalents
0.18 0.09 0.14 0.20 0.21 0.29* 0.20
Croatian vs. German
English
equivalents
0.12 -0.13 0.03 0.14 0.27 0.17 0.20
German
equivalents
0.16 0.01 0.19 0.18 0.29* 0.35* 0.26
*All correlations were significant at the level of p \ .05
76 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
7 Conclusion
Several conclusions concerning the teaching and learning of German modal
particles, and of equivalent English modal elements to Croatian learners and
concerning the general psycholinguistic process of interlingual identifications and
cross-linguistic comparisons can be derived from the various individual results of
the study.
First, the unexpectedly high success of freshmen in using modal particles and
modal elements shows that teaching such forms and functions to Croatian fresh-
men at the university level does not imply starting from zero. On the contrary, the
teacher can assume that students do possess an elementary, perhaps intuitive
knowledge which can serve as a basis for the further learning of modal particles.
The observation that seniors do not perform considerably better than freshmen
points to the need of developing adequate and efficient teaching concepts,
especially with respect to German modal particles. It seems necessary to enhance
and optimize the learning of these elements throughout this advanced level of
education.
Interlingual identifications pertaining to English modal elements and German
modal particles turned out to be an important and frequent psycholinguistic pro-
cess in the tested learners. It should be included as a basic element into cross-
linguistic activities in the foreign language classroom in order to achieve the
maximum of synergy between languages. All in all, participants were better in the
respective experimental task, in identifying equivalents, than in all the other tasks,
which supports the assumption that allocating equivalents is primary as a psy-
cholinguistic process, and that the active production of forms is the second step
that follows. This succession should be considered in the design of learning
materials. The results of the study also show that higher level students (the seniors)
achieved a higher number of interlingual identifications than less advanced stu-
dents (the freshmen), which suggests that this process is more frequent in more
proficient learners, i.e. that it is connected to higher proficiency. Consequently, it
should be further developed in less advanced learners. Another striking result with
respect to the learners’ interlingual identifications was that both groups were better
in identifying German modal particles than English modal elements. A possible
explanation might be: It is easier to allocate linguistic elements that are isolated,
distinct lexemes, i.e. which are more easily detectable, than complex multi-part
constructions.
The results concerning the tested learners’ psychotypology do not clearly
indicate what the role of assessments of similarity between languages is with
reference to cross-linguistic processes in second and third language acquisition. In
general, both freshmen and seniors assessed German and English to be more
similar than the other language pairs; Croatian and English were assessed to be
least similar. These results were expectable, since they correspond to the actual
linguistic typology. For the freshmen, only a significant correlation for the lan-
guage pair English–German was gained with respect to the success in the tasks
Interlingual Identifications and Assessment of Similarities 77
‘English and German equivalents’ on the levels of lexicon, syntax (only for
English) and pragmatics. For the seniors, only a significant correlation for the
language pair Croatian–English (pertaining to the German equivalents on the
syntactic level), and Croatian–German (pertaining to the German equivalents on
the levels of morphology and syntax) was gained. Further studies investigating the
intercorrelation of transfer processes in language learning and psychotypology are
required. The development of a ‘realistic’ psychotypology in the sense of fos-
tering learners’ accurate interlingual identifications is suggested as a metacognitive
learning strategy that will help to master not only German modal particles, but
many other phenomena which cause learning difficulties.
As far as the variable ‘the learner’s L2’ is concerned, the results gained in the
presented study are plausible. If the tested learners’ L2 was German, they were
better in the German tasks, which was consistent with the expectations, because of
the longer length of learning German for this group of students. For all of them,
German was the language of their degree course. However, if the tested learners’
L2 was English, they did not perform better in the English tasks than the other
students. This might be due to the less intensive learning of English compared to
German throughout the participants’ academic training. The tested learners were
students of German language and literature, so that a dominance of training in
German compared to English can be assumed.
It might be concluded that the formal instruction with respect to modal particles
and equivalent modal elements is not sufficient in the degree courses of German
language and literature at the Croatian universities that were included in the study.
More efficient teaching concepts and learning materials with respect to modal
particles and modal constructions will have to be developed. Corpus-based
materials for teaching German modal particles are certainly most adequate, as
suggested by Möllering (2004), since they allow a context-sensitive learning
drawing on authentic, spoken language. Besides, pointing learners to cross-
linguistic equivalencies with the purpose of enhancing interlingual identifications
can serve as an important prerequisite and as an effective cross-linguistic strategy
in second and third language learning.
The findings concerning interlingual identifications and the tested learners’
psychotypology are of relevance to studies in trilingualism and multilingualism
that highlight the process of learning a third foreign language (Cenoz et al.
2001), especially with reference to German as a third language. The effective use
of previously acquired linguistic knowledge is considered to become more rel-
evant, in the sense of a synergetic resource, the more languages are learnt. As far
as the process of learning further languages after a first foreign language is
concerned, the following statement is essential: Transfer is typical of and
indispensable for the learning of third languages (Hufeisen and Neuner 2003).
The more languages are learnt, the more important it becomes to draw on
existing linguistic competence and to exploit the learners’ previous knowledge
effectively.
78 M. Kresic
´
and T. Gulan
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