A Study of English Article Choice: A Case Study of Two Indonesian English Teachers.

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Parawati Siti Sondari, 2014

A Study Of English Article Choice: A Case Study Of Two Indonesian English Teachers

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

A Study of English Article Choice:

A Case Study of Two Indonesian English Teachers

A Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master’s Degree in

English Education

Parawati Siti Sondari

1101163

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

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2014

PAGE OF APPROVAL

A Study of English Article Choice:

A Case Study Two Indonesian English Teachers

By

Parawati Siti Sondari 1101163

Approved by

Supervisor,

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Declaration

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “A Study of Article Choice: A Case Study of Two Indonesian English Teachers” is completely my own work. I am fully aware that I have quoted some statements and ideas from various sources and they are all properly acknowledged.

Bandung, December 2013

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Table of Content

Chapter II Theoretical Foundation ... 9

2. 1 English Articles ... 9

2. 1. 1 Semantic-pragmatic context of Definiteness ... 11

2. 1. 1. 1 Uniqueness ... 11

2. 1. 1. 2 Familiarity ... 16

2. 1. 1. 3 Identifiability ... 18

2. 2. 2 Specificity ... 19

2. 2 English Nominal System ... 25

2. 3 The Representation of Definiteness in Indonesian... 28

2. 4 Indonesian Nominal System ... 33

2. 5 Second Language Acquisition Theory: Universal Grammar ... 34

2. 6 Previous Studies on Article Choice ... 36

2. 6. 1 Early Studies on Article acquisition ... 36

2. 6. 2 Article Choice Parameter (ACP) ... 37

2. 6. 3 Studies on Article Choice to Article-less L1... 39

2. 6. 4 Studies of Article Choice to L1 with Articles ... 43

2. 6. 5 Studies of Article Choice Compering L1 with articless and Article-less L1 ... 44

2. 6. 6 Studies of English Article Choice to Indonesian L1 and Malay L1 ... 45

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3. 1 Research Paradigm and Design ... 46

3. 2 Research Questions ... 48

3. 3 Data Collection Method ... 49

3. 3. 1 Research Participants ... 49

3. 3. 2 Data Collection Instruments ... 51

3. 3. 2. 1 Forced-choice Elicitation Task ... 52

3. 3. 2. 2 Video-taped Observation ... 57

3. 3. 3 Data Analysis ... 58

Chapter IV Findings and Discussions ... 61

4. 1 Definiteness ... 61

4. 1. 1 Forced-choice Elicitation Task ... 61

4. 1. 2 Observation Data...67

4. 2 Specificity ... 74

4. 3 Noun Countability ... 90

Chapter V Conclusions and Suggestions ... 102

5. 1 Conclusions ... 102

5. 2 Suggestions for Further Research ... 107

References ... 108

Appendices ... 116

Appendix I The list of nouns used in the task...116

Appendix II Forced-choice elicitation task ...117

Appendix III Forced-choice elicitation task analysis...157

Appendix IV Observation transcriptions...160

Appendix V Transcription analysis...189

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ABSTRACT

This study attempts to look into the article choice of a/an, the, and Ø and their production by two Indonesian English teachers. The participants of this study, i.e. teacher 1 and teacher 2, are two experienced Indonesian English teachers with different proficiency levels, i.e. upper-intermediate and advanced respectively. The primary data collection instrument was a forced-choice elicitation task adopted from Ionin, Ko, and Wexler (2004), Snape (2006), and White (2009) controlled in its noun types and semantic contexts of definiteness [+def] and specificity [+spec]. Furthermore, the article production of the teachers in the classrooms was observed and video-taped. Based on the findings, both teachers have acquired definite article

the yet have shown variability in their use of a/an and Ø as suggested by both the

forced-choice elicitation task and the observation data. They could consistently produce accurate the in most cases yet the uses of a/an and Ø were contrastingly different in the two sources of data. In addition, teacher 1 substantiated the flooding and more omission errors of a/an, while teacher 2 demonstrated more comission errors of overusing a/an. In terms of specificity, based on the two data sources, both participants demonstrated that their article choice indicated very low fluctuation, thus, specificity still plays a role in the participants article choice. In addition, there are other uses in which both participants overused the in [+def,+spec] contexts and a/an or Ø in [-def,-spec] contexts indicating that the participants have not fully acquired (in)definiteness in their article choice (Humphrey, 2007). In terms of noun countability in the two sources of data, teacher 1 demonstrated that the four types of nouns contributed to misidentification to his article production, i.e. abstract singular nouns, mass nouns, imaginable singular nouns, and imaginable plural nouns. Meanwhile, teacher 2 showed that three types of nouns, i.e. abstract singular nouns, imaginable singular nouns, and mass nouns, contributed misidentification to her use of articles.

Keywords: Article choice, non-NEST, noun countability, semantic context,

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Chapter III

RESEARCH METHOD

This particular chapter elaborates the methodological aspects of the research. It consists of four sections. The first section presents the research paradigm and design. The second section covers problem justification. The third section elaborates the data collection techniques as well as their justification. The fourth section presents data analysis.

As further justification for each section of this chapter, researcher elaborates why each section is aligned to descriptive case study design. In attempting to do so, researcher attempts to meet three conditions proposed by Yin (1994, p. 1) in justifying the research paradigm applied and the research problem. Such conditions consist of (a) the type of research question posed; (b) the extent of control an investigator has over actual behavioral events, and; (c) the degree of focus on contemporary as opposes to historical events. In addition, second language acquisition theories are accounted for to justify the data collection techniques and the data analysis procedures applied in this study.

3. 1 Research Design

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context especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.”

Zonabend (1992) cited in Tellis (1997) states that “case study is done by giving special attention to completeness in observation, reconstruction, and analysis of the cases under study.” A case study researcher focuses on a single entity as it exists in its natural environment (Johnson, 1992). Frequently, as Thomas (2003, p. 33) claims, “case studies also provide the reasons why the entity acts as it does.” Furthermore, Yin (1994, p. 3) claims that case study “allows an investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events.”

This study applies case study as it deals with finding insights on the use of articles. This study is intended to explain the article choice of two Indonesian English teachers. Furthermore in line with Zonabend (1992), special attention is given to observation, reconstruction and analysis of the article choice.

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Particularly in this research, the advantages of the case study outweigh the disadvantages. The natural data is essential in this research in order to prove that the events studied are the actual phenomenon as it is. The lack of rigor in terms of bias is resolved for researcher has no control over the events. It is further resolved as case study requires multiple sources of evidence or triangulation. In this research, two techniques were used namely video-recorded observation and elicitation task as an attempt to triangulate. The procedure of each technique was specified to ensure that bias did not occur.

The flexibility of case study is of crucial advantage in which the course of the study is adjusted to the research question as concepts by concepts develop, ranging from theoretical foundation to data analysis. Especially for this research, where field observation is frequently conducted, it is very likely that uncontrolled factors or events occurred and required to be accounted for and this is where flexibility is most needed.

3. 2 Research Questions

The following research questions, as previously stated in chapter I, contribute to defining the research design of this research.

1. Have the participants acquired English articles the, a/an, and Ø?

2. How does semantic-pragmatic context of definiteness contribute to English article choice of the participants?

3. How does semantic-pragmatic context of specificity contribute to English article choice of the participants?

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Yin (1994) claims that the first and most important condition for differentiating the various research strategies is to identify the type of research question under question. Yin (1994, p. 5) remarks, “there are certain form of research questions appropriate for case study, namely ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions.” In the research problems of this research, the type of the first research question is a yes/no question. Despite the type of the first research question, it actually implies a ‘what’ questions to be exact, ‘what level’ of acquisition of L2 article of the participants has arrived at. The first question leads the way to the subsequent problems which are ‘how’ questions. Thus, the research questions suit well with case study paradigm. In order to further corroborate the use of descriptive case study related to the research questions, Yin (1994, p. 9) also mentions that “‘a how’ and ‘why’ question is being asked about a contemporary set of events over which the investigator has little or no control.” This research studies the article choice produced by non-NESTs. This study is considered as contemporary as it involves the process of article acquisition which is still a growing field of study in second language acquisition. It also requires natural data to be investigated, so researcher must minimize control or must not interfere with the studied events. In the context of this study, the natural use of articles serves as the secondary data. Thus, case study suits the study in terms of research problems and the control of researcher over the case.

3. 3 Data Collection Method

3. 3. 1 Research participants

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English using English consistently in the class. Furthermore, the researcher had full access to conduct obervation to their classroom interaction.

The first participant, teacher 1, is a 27-year-old teacher. He has about two and a half years of experience teaching adult classes both in formal and non-formal institutions. He earned his first degree in English literature in one of foreign language academies in Bandung. During the data collection process, he was pusuing a master’s degree in English Education in one of the state universities in Bandung. In terms of proficiency, his latest TOEFL score, taken on May 15th 2013, was 550 with the sub-section result of 55 for listening comprehension, 54 for structure and written expression, and 56 for reading comprehension (attached in the appendix). Such a result indicates that does not have considerable difficulties in reading and listening; however he occasionally produces inaccurate grammar in producing English.

The second participant, teacher 2, is a 32 year-old teacher. She has 6 years of experience teaching in tertiary level of education and adult classes in non-formal institutions. She earned her first degree in Communications in one of public universities in Bandung. She went to Australia to pursue a master’s degree in Marketing for a year. Afterwards, she taught English in one of junior high schools in Singapore for a few years. Currently, she teaches in a private high school in one of national schools in Bandung and in a non-formal institution teaching adult classes.

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written expression, and 55 in reading comprehension (attached in the appendix). In terms of both teaching experience and language proficiency level, teacher 2 is ahead of teacher 1.

In addition, a native speaker of English, a British with the initial ML, was involved in validating the elicitation task and also the analysis results. The native speaker is a female teacher. She has been teaching English in different parts of Asia for more than 15 years. In addition, another native speaker, an American, MM also took part in reviewing the elicitation task. She was asked to answer all 160 items by email. She works for one of the public universities in Iowa city. The involvement of a native speaker is intended to avoid any bias and inaccuracies of article use in this study.

3. 3. 2 Data Collection Instruments

Two data collecting instruments were used, namely a set of written forced-choice elicitation task and video-taped observation of the teaching processes. They were chosen for the naturalistic nature of the required data and for gaining detailed information and clarification of the phenomenon under study. In addition, Yin (1994: 78) states, “the use of multiple source of evidence from two or more sources into a case study investigation will increase its quality substantially.”

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available through automatic processing whereas explicit knowledge is generally accessible only through controlled processing. Ellis further adds default L2 production relies on implicit knowledge but difficulty in performing a language task may result in the learner attempting to exploit explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is only evident in learners’ verbal behavior whereas explicit knowledge is verbalizable. There are limits on most learners’ ability to acquire implicit knowledge whereas most explicit knowledge is learnable.

Based on the characteristics presented, the first instrument, the forced-choice elicitation task, was aimed to cover the aspect of the participants’ performance in their tacit or intuitive and the procedural use of English articles. Despite the controlled nature of the items, it was presented in a dicourse or a contextual use to elicit verbal-like behaviour of the participants. In addition, the classroom observation represented the participants’ performance in naturalistic setting. The instruments did not involve metalinguistic elicitation which is one of the main characteristics of explicit knowledge measurement.

3. 3. 2. 1 Forced-Choice Elicitation task

This instrument was basically intended to find out the accuracy of the participants’ article use in context. It basically incorporated elements of grammar completion test and discource completion test or DCT. Despite the focus on form, this instrument also involved a focus of meaning since the use of articles involved semantic-pragmatic aspects.

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imaginable count plural, abstract count singular, and non-count or mass adapted from Snape (2005) and White (2009). The nouns were taken from different resources ranging from previous studies (Hawkins, 1976; IKW, 2004; Snape, 2005; Pongpairoj, 2007; and White, 2009) and other sources such as grammar books (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Cowan, 2008), and The University of Western Australia (UWA) MRC Psycholinguistic Database version 2.00 (1997). The list of nouns used in the forced-choice elicitation task is attached in appendix I.

In terms of the semantic/pragmatic contexts, the task involved (in)definiteness [+ def] and specificity [+ spec] which makes up the following four contexs, i.e. [+ def, + spec], [+ def, - spec], [- def, + spec], and [- def, - spec]. The combination of noun types and the four semantic/pragmatic contexts were resulting in the following matrix. Each context was operationalized into ten items, thus with 16 contexts, the overall items were 160 items. The matrix was also applied in analyzing and coding both the oral production task and the video recorded observation. Thus, the matrix was the main framework of this study.

Table 6. The framework of the study adapted from Hawkins (1978), IKW (2004), Snape (2005), and White (2009)

No. Noun Types Semantic-pragmatic context

Definite [+ def] Indefinite [- def] Specificity [+ spec] Specificity [+ spec] 1. Imaginable count 3. Abstract count Singular 1. [+def, +spec]

2. [+def, -spec]

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comment position, either serving as a direct/indirect object of a verb or a complement. Such is the case since the topic position preferably allows a specific reading as it is pre-established in the discourse (Ihsane and Puskas, 2001).

In addition, following previous studies (IKW, 2003, 2004; Snape; and White, 2009), the value of explicit speaker knowledge [ESK] is conflated with specificity. As the adopted definition suggests, specificity concerns with the speaker’s intent to refer and it posses a noteworthy property which is operationalised by [ESK]. As an illustration, in IKW’s study (2004), the value of specificity is always conflated with ESK.

(38) [-indefinite, +specific] Meeting on a street

Roberta: Hi, William! It’s nice to see you again. I didn’t know that you were in Boston.

William: I am here for a week. I am visiting (a, the, --) friend from college— his name is Sam Brown, and he lives in Cambridge now.

(IKW 2004, p. 22)

In this context, IKW claimed that L2 Korean and Russian learners of English overused the and such a case was resulted from the effect of specificity. In this item, the speaker, William, intends to refer to a friend of his with the value of [+ESK] and the noteworthy property of his name Sam Brown, and he lives in Cambridge.

(39) Conversation between two police officers

[-definite,-specific]

Chris : I need to find your roommate Jonathan right away. Clara : He is not here—he went to New York.

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Clara : I don’t really know. He is staying with (a, the, --) friend—but he didn’t tell me who that is. He didn’t leave me any phone number or address. (IKW 2004, p. 22)

In this context the learners were accurate in using the indefinite article and attributed this result to the negative value of specificity [-spec]. In this item, the value of specificity is operationalised by denying the identity of the referent which is conflated with the value of [-ESK].

However, Trenkic (2007b) and Pongpairoj (2007) suggested that the value of [+spec] could be [-ESK] as shown in the following sample.

(40) [-definite, + specific] (- explicit speaker knowledge) Office gossip

Gina : and what about the others?

Mary : Well, Dave is single, Paul is happily married, and Peter…he is engaged to a/ this merchant banker, but none of us knows who she is or what she is like.

The indefinite NP is considered specific since it can be felicitously introduced by this (Prince, 1981; Fodor & Sag 1982 cited in Pongpairoj, 2007). Trenkic (2007b) and Pongpairoj (2007) claimed that by conflating the two values, the effect of specificity on article choice is dificult to determine. They suggested adding contexts in which the two values are not conflating, i.e. by adding [+spec;-ESK] context. Pongpairoj (2007) conducted a study to L2 Thai learners of English and L2 French learners of English by adding [+spec;-ESK] contexts. The results showed that the Thai learners article choice was influenced by ESK instead of specificity. They overused a(n) in [+def, +spec; -ESK] contexts.

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specificity (Heusinger, 2011). The items contain the speaker’s knowledge of the referent’s identifying attributes such as name, apperance, etc. [+ESK] or the denial of the speaker’s knowledge of the referent’s identifying attributes [-ESK]. The items [+spec] were operationalised based on the speaker’s intent to refer and the noteworthy property of the referent as well as [-ESK] and the items [-spec] were operationalised without speaker’s intent to refer and no noteworthy property as well as [-ESK].

(41) Imaginable Singular Nouns Context 1 [+def, +spec]

At the end of a chess tournament Laura : Are you ready to leave?

Betsy : No, not yet. First, I need to talk to ____ winner of this tournament. She is my best friend and I want to congratulate her!

(42) Imaginable plural nouns Context 2 [+def, -spec] Two friends are chatting

Calvin : Did you hear about the murder on fourth street? That’s just three blocks from here.

Brandy : Oh, yes. It’s horrible. The police found ____ bodies of three women in the dumpster. The police have not identified them yet. I can’t believe there is a murderer on the loose in our neighborhood. (43) Abstract singular noun

Context 3 [-def, +spec]

Sheila : The reseach methodology course last semester was really fun. Sean : Even with all the crazy assignments?

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu (44) Imaginable Singular Nouns

Context 4 [-def, -spec]

Professor Clark: I’m looking for Professor Anne Peterson.

Secretary : I’m afraid she is busy. She is meeting ____ reporter. I don’t know who this reporter is but Professor Peterson went in with him and she told me not to let anyone in. I think it will take quite a while.

All the items are reviewed by the British native speaker and the American native speaker mentioned earlier, ML and MM. ML provided corrections and comments to ensure that the items were both accurate and sounded natural. She also provided the input on the noun types used in this study. She validated the content of all the items in accordance to the obligatory contexts in the matrix. The items were then given to MM as a pilot study and the items were eventually administered to the participants. The items were distributed to teacher 2 on August 18th, 2013 and to teacher 1 on the following day. Both of them spent around 90 minutes to complete the items.

3. 3. 2. 2 Video-taped observation

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The observation was conducted to teacher 1 and teacher 2 in the course of 3 months starting from March to May 2013. Each participant was observed 10 times which are recorded both by video camera and voice recorder device. Such means is conducted to avoid any technical issues that would inhibit transcription and analysis processes. However only three observations were transcribed for each participant since the data obtained was able to capture the article choice of the participants.

Teacher 1 was observed in one of English institution in Bandung. He taught one elementary class and one pre-intermediate class and his interaction with the two classes were recorded. Each classroom session lasts about one and half hour. Three sessions out of 10 were transcribed and analysed in which teacher 1 taught his elementary students in two sessions and one session with his pre-intermediate students. The observation took place on April 17th, 30th, and May 2nd, 2013. There were 6 elementary students and 9 pre-intermediate students involved in this study. However, the main focus was placed upon the teacher.

The second participant, teacher 2, was observed teaching in the same intitution with Teacher 1 in which she taught two TOEFL preparation classes; one is TOEFL B and the other one is TOEFL iBT. Teacher 2 was observed teaching the two TOEFL preparation classes; two sessions with 6 TOEFL iBT students and a session with 7 TOEFL B students on April 16th and May 1st, 2013 subsequently.

The observations were transcribed and the use of article was identified and coded. The transcription was further analyzed in accordance to the noun types and the semantic-pragmatic contexts of article use.

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In this research, the analysis conducted, in accordance with the research problem, is aimed to discover significant patterns of article use and how such patterns interact in the explaining the use. Thus, the analysis used in this research is highly of pattern-matching. As for case study analysis, one of the most desirable strategies is to use a pattern-matching logic. Such logic compares an empirically based pattern to a predicted one (or with several alternative predictions). Furthermore, Trochim (1989) cited in Yin (1994:106) states that “if the patterns coincide, the results can help a case study strengthen its internal validity.”

The observation data were classified according to the empirically based pattern as suggested in the framework and will be quantified to allow for interpretation of the tendencies occurred. The observation data were analyzed in three main classification analyses, namely the classification analysis of the article use, the analysis of the noun types, and the semantic/pragmatic contexts. The illustration of data coding and analysis of the first participant, teacher 1, is presented in (8) and (9). The complete transcription and analyses are attached in the appendix.

(45) Transcription 1

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu Table 7. The analysis sample of transcription 1

No. Line NP

Furthermore, there were cases leading to ambiguous interpretation as depicted in the following transcription. avoid bias judgement, such a case was excluded from the numerator of Ø, yet it was included in the denominator. Hence, some cases do not show 100% overall use.

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu SOC = number of correct suppliance in obligatory contexts Number of obligatory contexts

In order to determine whether acquisition has taken place, this study adopts 80% or over of the SOC (Brown, 1973; Andersen, 1978). The overall SOC measure of 160 forced-elicitation items for definiteness is calculated by dividing the number of the correct suppliance in obligatory contexts by each participant, GP and NS with the denominator 80 for definite article the and 40 for indefinite article a/an, and 40 for indefinite article Ø.

In addition to SOC, TLU measure is used to address the potential overestimation of SOC measure when the morpheme is over-supplied or overgeneralized since TLU takes into account the suppliances in non-obligatory contexts in the denominator (Wong and Quek, 2007). TLU analyses were performed to the task item results of both participants. In calculating TLU, the numerator is similar to SOC, i.e. the correct suppliance in obligatory contexts, yet the denominator includes the number of suppliance of the target article in non-obligatory contexts. TLU = number of correct suppliance in obligatory contexts Number of obligatory contexts + Number of suppliances in non-obligatory contexts

Since SOC and TLU measures are used to measure accuracy, UOC is used to tap into article use. Following Master (1987), this study also uses UOC to observe the learner’s underuse and overuse of articles. SOC and TLU cannot exceed 100 %, but it is possible for UOC to do so. UOC was measured by dividing the total of suppliance of articles in both obligatory and non-obligatory contexts with the number of obligatory contexts. In other words, the numerator in UOC is the denominator in TLU and the denominator in UOC is the numerator in TLU.

UOC = The total number of suppliances in both obligatory contexts and non- obligatory contexts

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Chapter V

Conclusions and Suggestions

5.1 Conclusions

Based on findings and discussions, it can be concluded that the two Indonesian teachers, teacher 1 and teacher 2, have acquired definite article the in their L2 article choice as suggested by both forced-choice elicitation task and observation data. As instantiated by the measure of supplied in the obligatory context (SOC) in the forced-choice elicitation task, teacher 1 could produce 92.5% accurate definite article the. In addition, teacher 2 was able to produce accurate the as much as 83.75% Furthermore, the target-like use (TLU) measure of the task, teacher 1 and teacher 2 could accurately produce the as much as 83% and 73.6% respectively. To further corroborate such results, the observation results substantiated that both participants could produce accurate the as much as 92%. Since the results of SOC measure of the task and the observation data adhere to 80% and higher correct use (Brown, 1973; Andersen, 1978), it can be concluded that both participants have acquired definite article the.

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results of the task, the higher misuse of a/an supports the developmental path of article acquisition proposed by Andersen (1978, cited in Kadaryanto, 2010, p. 14) in which a/an or Ø are acquired after the. Yet such results are not in line with Ekiert’s finding (2005) that intermediate and advanced learners only misuse a/an at early stages of acquisition.

In terms of the use of indefinite articles a/an and Ø, both participants instantiated variability in such uses. As shown in the SOC analysis of the task, teacher 2 could accurately supply a/an as much as 90% and Ø as much as 70%. Such a result was also corroborated by the TLU analysis results in which she could produce

a/an more accurately than Ø with 70.6% and 59.6% subsequently. However, the

observation data instantiated that teacher 2 could produce Ø more accurately as much as 80.7% than a/an with 64.4%. Such variability in producing a/an and Ø indicates that the production of indefinite articles are evidently more elaborate than that of the definite article (Andersen, 1978, cited in Kadaryanto, 2010, p. 14).

Furthermore, teacher 1 also substantiated variability in producing a/an and Ø as shown in both data sources. On one hand, the SOC measure of the task attested that he could supply Ø more accurately than a/an with 77.5% and 75% respectively. On the other hand, the TLU analysis substantiated that when involving non-obligatory contexts, teacher 1 could produce a/an more accurately than Ø with the percentages of 69.8% and 53.5% subsequently. Furthermore, the results of the observation data support the SOC measure of the task yet contradicted the TLU measure of the task in which teacher 1 could produce Ø slightly more accurate than

a/an with the percentages of 70.8% and 70.7% respectively. Despite the variability,

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the production of indefinite article is more complex than the definite article (Andersen, 1978, cited in Kadaryanto, 2010, p. 14).

In reference to the two data sources, the semantic-pragmatic context of definiteness contributed accurate use of the and the overuse or the flooding (Huebner, 1983; Master, 1987) to teacher 1’s article choice. Such a context also contributed accurate use of the to teacher 2, yet it also contributed the underuse. Such results adheres to the results of the previous studies claiming that accurate use of the occured earlier than a/an as the suggested developmental pattern (Huebner, 1983; Master, 1987; Parrish, 1987; Lardiere, 2004; Robertson, 2000; White, 2003; Zdorenko and Paradis, 2008, among others).

However, teacher 1 and teacher 2 have not encoded indefiniteness in their article choice since the uses of a/an and Ø were contrastingly different in the two sources of data. In addition, teacher 1 instantiated more omission errors of a/an while teacher 2 demonstrated more comission errors of overusing a/an as suggested by the UOC measure of the task1. However, based on the observation data, teacher 1 attested almost similar accuracy in the use of a/an (70.7%) and Ø (70.8%). He still omitted

a/an as much as 17.6% much higher than the misuse with only 5.4%. Furthermore, in

contrast to the task, teacher 2 used Ø (80.7%) more accurately than a/an (64.4%). She omitted a/an (23.8%) much more than misused the (4%). Such omission errors are more typically produced by L2 learners with articleless L1 (Parrish, 1987; Thomas, 1989, among others).

In terms of specificity, based on the two data sources, both participants demonstrated that the semantic-pragmatic context of specificity contributed minor fluctuation to their article choice as evident in [+def, -spec] and [-def, +spec]

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contexts. In reference to the SOC measure of the task, teacher 1 instantiated low misuse of a/an (2.5%) and Ø (5%) in [+def,-spec] contexts. When required to suppy

a/an in [+spec] contexts, he demostrated low overuse of the (5%). However, when

required to supply Ø in [+spec] contexts, he overused the as much as 15%. It means that specificity contributed more fluctuation in the use of Ø. Furthermore, in the TLU measure of the task, teacher 1 showed the least accurate use of Ø in [+spec] contexts (59.3%) and followed by the use of a/an (63.6%). In UOC measure of the task, teacher 1 overused Ø (115%) and underused a/an (80%) in [+spec] contexts. In short, in teacher 1 article choice, specificity contributed more fluctuation to the use of indefinite articles of Ø contributing overuse and a/an contributing underuse subsequently.

In further details, based on SOC analysis, teacher 2 also showed minor fluctuation in [+def, -spec] contexts. She misused a/an (10%) more than Ø (7.5%) in such a context. However, fluctuation was inevident in the use of a/an in [+spec] contexts. It was evident in the use of Ø as shown in the overuse of the (15%). Moreover, despite a slight difference in the TLU measure, she least accurately produced Ø (72.7%) and a/an (73.1%) in [+spec] contexts. In further analysis, UOC measure further instantiated different results from teacher 1 in which she underused Ø (90%) and overused a/an (125%) in [+spec] contexts. In short, specificity still plays a role in the participants article choice as exhibited in the low overuse of a/an and Ø in [+def,-spec] contexts used by both participants and the overuse of the in teacher 1 suppliance of a/an and in both teachers suppliance of Ø in [-def,+spec] contexts (IKW, 2003; Ionin, Ko, and Wexler, 2004).

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[-Parawati Siti Sondari, 2014

def,-spec] contexts as much as 105%. However, teacher 2 only substantiated a/an overuse in [-def,-spec] as much as 110%. Such results indicated that the teacher 1 has not fully acquired (in)definiteness in his article choice while teacher 2 has not fully encoded indefiniteness in her article choice (Humphrey, 2007; Ionin, Zubizaretta, and Maldonado, 2008).

In terms of noun countability, both participants exhibited that noun countability triggered noun misidentification to their article choice2. Teacher 1 demonstrated that the four types of nouns contributed to errors in his article production, i.e. abstract singular nouns, mass nouns, imaginable singular nouns, and imaginable plural nouns respectively. Meanwhile Teacher 2 showed that three types of nouns, i.e. abstract singular nouns, imaginable singular nouns, and mass nouns, contributed errors to her use of articles subsequently. The high omission errors attested by both participants in their article production in NPs containing abstract singular nouns suggest that Indonesian (L1) bare NPs which are indefinite in numbers, i.e. singular or plural (Kadaryanto, 2010) still play a role in their L2 article choice.

In addition, there are cases of two conflating variables out of the three variables, i.e. definiteness, specificity, and countability, contributed to the article choice of the two participants. Such accounts were shown in the task in which Teacher 1 omitted the in [+def, +spec] contexts with imaginable and abstract singular nouns and he also omitted a/an in [-def, -spec] contexts with imaginable and abstract singular nouns suggesting two conflating variables of noun misidentification (Hiki, 1991. Butler, 2002; White, 2009) and inaccurate (in)definiteness marking (Humphrey, 2007; Ionin, Zubizaretta, and Maldonado, 2008). Furthermore, Teacher 1

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also omitted the in [+def, -spec] contexts with imaginable and abstract singular nouns and he also omitted a/an in [-def, +spec] contexts with imaginable and abstract singular nouns suggesting two conflating variables of noun misidentification (Hiki, 1991. Butler, 2002; White, 2009) and specificity fluctuation (IKW, 2003; Ionin, Ko, and Wexler, 2004). In terms of mass nouns, Teacher 1 also produced a/an overuse in [-def, +spec] contexts in both data sources suggesting two conflating variables of noun misidentification (Hiki, 1991. Butler, 2002; White, 2009) and specificity fluctuation (IKW, 2003; Ionin, Ko, and Wexler, 2004). As a matter of fact, such conflating variables were evident in Teacher 2 article choice but not as frequent as Teacher 1. This study could not offer the significance between the two variables since such an attempt requires quantitative approach.

All in all, in relation to UG, the overall result shows that both participants have access to UG since they have acquired definite articles. However, in terms of indefinite articles, the access is partial since both participants also shows a minor degree of specificity effect as evident in low degree of fluctuation (IKW, 2003, 2004). In addition, L1 influence also plays a part in the article choice of both participants in terms of the noun countability (Kadaryanto, 2010).

5. 2 Suggestions for Further Research

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