ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate the developmental sequence of negation that the seventh grade students of secondary school go through in acquiring English negation. This study is largely qualitative and longitudinal. The participants include 34 seventh grade students of one private secondary school in Bandung. However, only 24 students constantly produced negation. Their utterances containing negation gathered through the observation, the picture description test and essay writing were used as the main data of the study. All data obtained from all sources is analysed through the theories of developmental sequence of negation by Ellis (1996), Lightbown & Spada (2011), and Meisel (2011). The sequence includes four stages, i.e. stage 1 (external negation), stage 2 (internal negation 1), stage 3 (internal negation 2), and stage 4 (target-like negation). The findings show that the students are able to produce negation. The total occurences of the negation in a period of approximately six months include 1271 utterances, which consist of grammatical and ungrammatical productions of negation. Further, this study confirms that the four stages in previous studies are evidenced in
students’ negation. However, this study finds some variation in the order of the stages across periods, although in the last period the order evidenced in the previous studies are confirmed.
DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES OF NEGATION BY LEARNERS OF EFL:
A CASE STUDY ON SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF ONE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BANDUNG
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master’s Degree in English Education
by
RISA TRIARISANTI NIM: 1006916
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA
DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES OF NEGATION BY LEARNERS OF EFL: A CASE STUDY ON SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF ONE PRIVATE
SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BANDUNG
By Risa Triarisanti
1006916
Approved by Supervisor
Iwa Lukmana, M.A., Ph.D.
NIP. 196611271993031002
Emi Emilia, M.Ed., Ph.D.
NIP. 196609161990012000
DECLARATION
I hereby certify that this thesis entitled “Developmental Sequences of Negation by
Learners of EFL: A Case Study on Seventh Grade Students of One Private Secondary
School in Bandung” is completely my own work. I am fully aware that I have quoted
some statements and ideas from various sources. All quotations are properly
acknowledged.
Bandung, July 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPROVAL SHEET ... i
DECLARATION ... ii
PREFACE ... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... iv
ABSTRACT ... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vi
LIST OF TABLES ... viii
1. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1Background ... 1
1.2Research Questions ... 4
1.3Significance of the Study ... 4
1.4The clarification of main terms ... 5
1.5Thesis Organization ... 6
2 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ... 7
2.1Learner Language ... 7
2.2Acquisition Orders and Developmental Sequences ... 11
2.3The Acquisition of Syntactic Structure ... 15
2.3.1 The Acquisition of Negatives ... 16
2.3.1.1Negation ... 16
2.3.1.2The Development of Negatives ... 19
2.3.1.2.1 Stage 1-External Negation ... 22
2.3.1.2.2 Stage 2-Internal Negation 1 ... 23
2.3.1.2.3 Stage 3-Internal Negation 2 ... 24
2.3.1.2.4 Stage 4-Target-like Negation ... 25
2.4 The Historical Overview of The Developmental Sequence Studies in Second Language Acquisition ... 27
2.5 The Influential Factors of Development of Second/Foreign Language Acquisition .. 34
2.6 Conclusions ... 40
3 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 42
3.1 Research Questions ... 42
3.2 Research Design ... 42
3.3 Participant ... 44
3.4 Data Collection ... 45
3.4.1 Observation ... 46
3.4.2 The Picture Description Test ... 47
3.4.3 Writing Composition Documentation ... 48
3.5 Data Analysis ... 49
3.6 Conclusions ... 50
4 CHAPTER IV FINDING AND DISCUSSION ... 52
4.1 Negative Forms ... 52
4.1.1 Stage 1-External Negation ... 52
4.1.1.3 NEG +N(P) ... 56
4.1.2 Stage 2-Internal Negation 1 ... 58
4.1.2.1 X+no+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 58
4.1.2.2 X+not+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 60
4.1.2.3 X+don’t+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 62
4.1.3 Stage 3-Internal Negation 2 ... 64
4.1.3.1 X+modal+no/not+Y ... 65
4.1.3.2 X+aux+no/not+Y ... 67
4.1.4 Target-like negation -Restructuring of unanalyzed forms, do auxiliary ... 69
4.2 The Development in the Acquisition of Negation ... 71
4.2.1 Realization of Negation per Period ... 71
4.2.1.1 First Period ... 71
4.2.1.2 Second Period ... 73
4.2.1.3 Third Period ... 74
4.2.2 The Developmental Sequences of Negation across Periods ... 75
4.2.2.1 The Development ... 76
4.2.2.2 Factors that Potentially Affect the Development ... 80
4.3 Conclusions ... 83
5 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ... 85
5.1 Conclusion ... 85
5.2 Recommendation ... 86
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 88
APPENDICES ... 94
LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Summary of general stages in the sequence of acquisition in L2 English negation (Ellis, 1996:100) ... 19
Table 2 Acquisition sequence of negation in L2 English (Meisel, 2011:81) ... 20
Table 3 Developmental Sequence for ESL Negation (Larsen-Freeman & Long 1991:94) ... 21
Table 4 Summary of Developmental Sequence Studies in Irvine (2005:17-18). ... 29
development of sentence structure formation of the negative (Hanania &
Gradman, 1977 in Irvine, 2005:41) ... 33
Table 6 The summary of developmental sequence of acquisition in L2 English negation by Ellis (1996), Lightbown & Spada (2011) and Meisel (2011) ... 40
Table 7 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the First Period ... 72
Table 8 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the Second Period ... 73
Table 9 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the Third Period ... 74
Table 10 The Development of Students’ Negation accross Period ... 76
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the general issues related to the present study. These
include background, research questions, significance of the study, the clarification
of main terms, and thesis organisation.
1.1Background
A number of theories regarding language development in human beings
have been proposed in the past and are still being proposed in the present time.
Such theories have generally arisen out of major disciplines such as psychology
and linguistics (Kiymazarslan, 2002).
One of the theories concerns ordered sequence in first and second
language acquisition which is particularly significant to the theory of language
development (Meisel, 2011). Much of the early research focused on the order of
acquisition while subsequent research has increasingly paid attention to sequence
of stages evident in the acquisition of a single feature as well as order (Loewen &
Reinders, 2011).
Furthermore, Loewen & Reinders (2011) stated that the order of
acquisition represent a developmental of L2 learning similar to developmental
sequence. However, the order of acquisition relates to the learning of different
syntactic and morphological structures, whereas developmental sequence relates
to the stages of acquiring one specific morphosyntactic features, such as English
morphosyntactic features studied include negation, question formation, relative
clauses, and word order.
Some studies concerning negatives acquisition in English and German
provide evidence of a clear sequence of development (Meisel, 2011). Each of
these sequences is defined in terms of grammatical properties, such as negation,
which have been acquired during the period. Furthermore, Ellis (1996) mentioned
that the acquisition of negation shows clear transitional structures which involve a
series of forms that learners use to master the target language form. Examples of
English:
no swim (the negative article is placed at the beginning of the utterance–
external negation)
I no can swim (the negative article comes inside the utterance- internal
negation 1)
I can’t swim (negative is attached to modal verbs-internal negation 2)
These forms are indicative of the developmental stages that learners pass
through on the way to target language (TL) competence. Clear examples of
developmental sequences in L1 acquisition are those found in the acquisition of
English negatives and interrogatives (Ellis, 1994). Wode (1997:100 in Meisel
2011:80) suggested three universal stages in the development of L1 negative
structures:
Stage I is one word negation for example no, non
Stage II is multi-word negation that is Neg placed in external position which consists of, anaphoric negation and non-anaphoric negation
Stage III is clause-internal negation
The question to be asked now is whether second language learners succeed
according to Meisel (2011), negation was perhaps the most frequently studied
feature of second language learners’ interlanguage. The majority of these studies,
however, focused on English as a TL (e.g. Ravem 1968; Milon 1974; Cazden et
al. 1975; Hanania&Gradman1977; Cancino, Rosansky and Schumann 1978;
Stauble 1978; Schumann 1979 in Meisel 2011). In spite of disagreement in detail,
there was a consensus in assuming that learners follow an invariant acquisition
sequence. Most authors also agreed that the same sequence holds for child and
adult L2 learners. Based on those studies mentioned above, Meisel (2011:81)
summarized the stages in the development of L2 negative structures:
Stage I is anaphoric negation
Stage II is non-anaphoric external negation
Stage III consists of internal negation, neg preposed with main verbs, neg postposed with auxiliaries
Stage IV is target-like negation.
There were thirteen studies performed between 1968 and 1982 which
explored developmental sequence in the acquisition of negation in English by
speakers of other languages (Irvine, 2005). Furthermore, he stated that the
majority of these, or seven of the studies, had subjects who were children from 9
months to 7 years old. These included Ravem’s (1968, 1978) studies of his son
and daughter with L1 Norwegian, Wode’s (1976) study of his son and daughter
with L1 German, Milon’s (1972) study of a recent immigrant from Japan with L1
Japanese, Adams’ (1974) study of 10 children with L1 Spanish, Young’s (1974)
study of three Spanish speaking children, Gillis and Weber’s (1976) study of two
seven studies have a total of twenty-one children who were studied and only
Adams’ (1974) study dealt with more than three subjects.
Three studies, according to Irvine (2005) dealt exclusively with
adolescents. These were more varied in nature. Butterworth (1972 in Irvine 2005)
was a case study of a 13-year old Junior High School student who was a recent
immigrant from Colombia. In Ellis’s 1982 study (reported in Ellis, 1996), he
looked at the SLA of three ESL students in London; two had L1Punjabi and one
L1 Portuguese. Felix (1982 in Irvine 2005) did a study involving a classroom of
44 EFL students in Germany.
Based on the aforementioned explanation, studies of developmental
sequence of negation in Indonesian context have not been conducted. Therefore,
this study seeks to examine the developmental sequence of negation by learners of
EFL at the beginner level of secondary school with Indonesian as their L1. It is
worth studying because as Meisel (2011) states that it constitutes strong empirical
evidence in support of the claim that the stucture of negation is indeed acquired in
a strictly ordered fashion.
1.2Research Questions
The research problems of the present study are formulated in the following
questions.
(1) What negative structures are evident in the interlanguage produced by EFL
learners at one secondary school in Bandung?
1.3The significance of the Study
Theoretically, this study can give insights into several aspects of negation
acquisition of EFL beginner level regarding the case of developmental sequence
which can contribute to the development of the theory of applied linguistics,
especially to the existing theorization of developmental sequences in SLA.
Practically, this study is also significant for teachers as it can help them to
understand why students might produce certain negation whose variety of
utterances may be necessary for the learners to hear in order to move to the next
stage. Investigating the learners’ developmental sequences might influence the
teaching and learning process. That is because the investigation provides teachers
with the information about how much the learners had learnt and how language
was learnt.
1.4The clarification of main terms
1) Second Language Acquisition is generally used to refer to the process in
which people learn any language other than the first language (Ellis, 1996:11)
2) Developmental sequence is that learners pass through a series of identifiable
stages in acquiring specific grammatical structures such as negatives,
interrogatives and relative clauses (Ellis, 1996:20).
3) Interlanguage is the separateness of a second language learners’ system, a
system that has a structurally intermediate status between the native and target
4) Negation is an example of transitional structure (Ellis, 1996:99).
5) The scope of negation normally extend from the negative itself to the end of
the clause, or to the beginning of a final adjunct (Quirk & Greenbaum,
1983:187)
1.5Thesis Organisation
This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I introduces the present
study, outlining background, research questions, the significance of the study, the
clarification of main terms and thesis organization. Chapter II reviews of the
related literatures on the topics being studied, i.e. the developmental sequences of
negation which includes learner language, acquisition orders and developmental
sequences, the acquisition of syntactic structure, the historical overview of the
developmental sequence studies in second language acquisition and the influential
factors of the development of second/foreign language acquisition. Chapter III
discusses a set of methodology which covers research questions, research design,
participants, data collection and data analysis. Chapter IV presents research
findings and interpretations, while, conclusions and recommendations are
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology of the present study, which covers
the research questions, research design, participants, data collection, and data
analysis. Each of them will be explained below.
3.1Research Questions
The present study is conducted to answer the following questions:
(1) What negative structures are evident in the interlanguage produced by EFL
learners at one secondary school in Bandung?
(2) How is negation acquired across periods?
3.2Research Design
This study aims to investigate the developmental sequences in acquiring
English negation in the learners of EFL; therefore, this study employs qualitative
approach. According to Cresswell (1994:1), “qualitative study is defined as an
inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem based on building a
complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of
informants and conducted in a natural setting."
The study used students‟ utterances on observation, pictures description
test and writing as the main data. The observation was conducted once a month.
was conducted three times. Similarly, the writing composition, of which the
themes were related with students‟ textbooks, was also conducted three times in
one semester academic year. The nature of the analysis merely focused on
negation. The participants of this study were 34 students from seventh grade of
one private secondary school in Bandung. Both acceptable and unacceptable
versions related to the use negation were analysed and presented.
This study is also longitudinal in nature because developmental sequence
concerns with the the chronology of language acqusition. Documenting the course
of acqusition for some individual appears to be the optimal methodological choice
(Meisel, 2011).
Longitudinal studies, according to Rajulton et al. (2000), are meant to
uncover the dynamism of language acqusitionby examining both stability and
change, and not one or the other. Furthermore, Rajulton et al. (2000) states that
the general motivation in longitudinal studies is that they can show the nature of
growth, trace patterns of change in an individual, and possibly give a true picture
of cause and effect relationships over time. An advantage of longitudinal research
according to Loewen & Reinders (2011) is that it can track the developement of a
learner‟s interlanguage system, yet a process takes time. According to Iwasaki
(2004), to accurately document acquisition orders and developmental sequences,
it is important to capture this dynamic process of language acquisition.However,
even a longitudinal approach requires certain conditions in order for the dynamic
process of acquisition to be precisely captured. The data collection needs to be of
accurately documented.In response to these difficulties with accuracy Pienemann
(1987:89 in Iwasaki 2004) states:
In principle, every productive usage of a structure is treated as an instantiation of an interlanguage rule. Thus the development of L2 structures is described as a dynamic process, taking the early „deviant‟ interlanguage structures as the starting point rather than defined as some arbitrary criterion for „acquired‟ or „mastered‟.
This study is not purely longitudinal study due to the duration of data
collection. Butterworth & Hatch (1978 in Iwasaki 2004) state that three months
was the shortest duration for a study of this type and the longest was three years
(Huter, 1998). Generally it seems that the duration most commonly used is
approximately one year (Iwasaki, 2004). Therefore, this study can‟t track the
whole process.
This study also has the characteristics of a case study due to the limited
number of participants that are involved in it. A case study approach allows this
study to be conducted in a small scale, and one single case in a case study causes
it to be defined as “a study of a single case or bounded system” (Stake 1985;
Connole 1993 in Emilia 2008).
3.3Participants
The participants of this study are 34 students of beginner level in the
secondary school, but as this study investigates the negation, only 24 students that
constantly produce negation are included in this study. They are in 7th grade. Most
of them are between 11-13 years old. All subjects had studied English as a
secondary school. Their first language is Indonesian. However, these students
have a different mother tongue e.g., Sundanese, Javanese and Bataknese. They
learn English six credit hours a week during second semester in the academic year
2012-2013.
3.4Data Collection
It is generally believed that the data for a longitudinal case study should be
spontaneously produced oral language, and that this should be taken from one
subject or a small number of subjects over a long period of time (Iwasaki, 2004).
In the majority of case studies on child bilingualism, the researchers were
linguists using their own children as a subject of investigation (Dopke, 1998). In
such cases, spontaneous speech is almost always accessible by these parent
linguists, particularly when the subject is too young to go to kindergarten or
school. This meant that researchers who are not the parent of a subject are
disadvantaged with regard to the on-going access to a subject‟s natural oral
production. On the other hand, Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991:26) point out that
spontaneous speech itself can be, in reality, tricky “natural” data. They list three
reasons for this claim:
(1) It often contains too sparse a number of linguistic aspects which
researchers are interested in finding, simply because subjects have no opportunity to produce all of those aspects of language in given contexts during data collection.
(2) Subjects often use an avoidance strategy, where they tend to stay in a
range of easier linguistic aspects which they believe they can handle with confidence. That is, they will rarely show all of their language performance to researchers.
Therefore, to overcome these problems, particularly when a longitudinal
approach is used, it is beneficial if researchers use instruments that elicit particular
linguistic features (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991:13). As they state:
There is no reason, for example, why the natural linguistic performance data obtained through a longitudinal study could not be supplemented by
data elicited by some controlled, „obtrusive‟ verbal task. Indeed, specific
hypotheses generated by an analysis of the natural data are sometimes concurrently tested by means of data collected through elicitation procedures. Moreover, quantifying the data obtained by either means is standard practice in SLA.
A variety of tasks have been used in FLA and SLA studies, including
reading tasks such as “read aloud” (e.g., Beebe, 1980; Flege, 1980 in Iwasaki
2004), writing tasks such as “free composition” (e.g., Andersen, 1976 in Iwasaki
2004) and oral production tasks such as “oral interview” and “role play” and so on
(for a full explanation of these twelve different types of tasks, see Larsen-Freeman
and Long, 1991, pp. 27-30). The present study employs observation, negation test
and writing composition documentation to collect the data. The observation,
negation test and writing composition documentation are used to gain data about
the negation produced by the research subjects.
3.4.1 Observation
Observational research, but not necessarily research conducted in the
classroom, according to Allwright (1993), has provided language teacher training
with some new input. It has also pursued fundamental issues in the field, still
(now frequently referred to as interlanguage studies, see Davies, Criper and
Howatt, 1984 in Allwright, 1993)
The observation aims to observe the occurrences of the negation. The
observation was conducted once a month from January 2013-May 2013. The
observation was done five times altogether. Each observation was recorded then
transcribed. Taking notes was also conducted during the observation. The
observation looked into the ways the participants communicated among
themselves and with their teacher to see how they produced negation.
3.4.2 The Picture Description Test
Brown (1973:255 in Chen 2004) introduces the concept of obligatory
context to provide the framework that can be used to show the child‟s acquisition
of grammatical structures:
….so one can set an acquisition criterion not simply in terms of output but in terms of output-where-required. Each obligatory context can be regarded as a kind of test item which the child passes by supplying the required morpheme or fails by supplying none or one that is not correct. This performance measure, the percentage of morphemes supplied in obligatory contexts, should not be dependent on the topic of conversation or the character of the interaction.
Furthermore, Dulay and Burt (1974:39 in Chen 2004) develop an
instrument called the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) which consists of “seven
color cartoon-type pictures and a set of 33 questions”. It meant to elicit certain
grammatical structures. As an instrument, it requires that the administrator asks
The present study applies picture description tests. According to Rispens
et al. (2001), the tests help to investigate the production of negative sentences in
more details. Furthermore, Baker (2012) states that the picture description task is
a language intervention provided through individual sessions with the purpose of
eliciting growth in language production.
Each test consists of twenty different pictures. The short oral explanation
and question of each picture before the test was hoped to help participants in
constructing utterances containing negation. The examples of oral question are as
follows. 1) What do you see in the picture? 2) Why is she/he do it? 3) How do
they do it? 4) Where do this event take place? 5) When do they do it? After the
students answer the questions, then they were asked to make a sentence based on
their answers. The test has been tried out to the similar level of participants to
examine the occurrences of negation. The test was given 3 times in one semester
to investigate the development of negation in the participants. The first test was
conducted on 14 February 2013, the second test on 15 April 2013 and the third
test on 13 May 2013.
3.4.3 Writing Composition Documentation
The writing composition assignments from the teacher, as part of teaching
and learning process in school, were also used to investigate the occurrences of
negation and the developmental sequences of negation in the EFL learners. The
students were asked to write three essay in one semester of academic year
favorite cloth” and the third theme is “My hobby”. For the specific purpose of the
study, it is hoped that those writing instruments could be more accurate in
producing many well-defined, structured negatives than any of the possible
spontaneous oral prompts that may just elicit unclear responses for analysis. In
order to achieve that purpose, the clues are given before the students write the
essay. The clues for the first theme are as follows, 1) I have one brother, 2) My
father is a teacher, 3) My house is big, etc. The clues for the second theme are as
follows, 1) I have a lot of clothes, 2) Most of my clothes are shirt and jeans, 3) I
wear it every time, etc. The clues foe the third theme are as follows, 1) what is
hobby? 2) My hobby is music, 3) I do my hobby every day, etc. The first writing
assignment was conducted on 11 March 2013, the second assignment on 16 April
2013 and the third assignment on 14 May 2013.
3.5Data Analysis
The data in this study include the utterances from the recorded
observations, the picture description test and writing composition document. The
essential step in qualitative analysis is reading the observational notes and
documents that were analyzed (Dey, 1993; Smith, 1979; Tesch, 1990 in Maxwell,
1996).
In analyzing the data, this study takes several steps. The first is to identify
the occurrences of negation. The recorded observation is transcribed. The data
negative and positive structure construction. Then, only the utterances containing
negation are chosen as the data.
The second is to clasify and categorize all the data containing negation
obtained from all sources by using the stages of the developmental sequence of
negation for L2 proposed by Ellis 1996; Meisel 2011; and Lightbown & Spada
2011. The sequence includes four stages, stage 1 {external negation-NEG + Adj/
V(P)/ N(P)}, stage 2 {internal negation 1- X+no/not/don’t+V(P)}, stage 3
{internal negation 2- X+copula/aux+no+Y}, and stage 4 {target-like
negation-Restructuring of unanalyzed forms, do auxiliary}.
The third is to intepret and explain the data through the interpretation of
the order of developmental language acquisition. According to Ellis (1996:111),
what constitutes evidence for a developmental pattern?
1) Developmental patterns can be established by looking at either the
order in which different target structures are acquired, or the sequence are acquired, or the sequence of stages through which a learner passes en route to mastery of a single TL structure.
2) In the case of transitional structures, a „stage‟ consists of a period during which learners use a particular form or structure in a systematic manner, although not necessarily to the exclusion of other forms and structures.
3) The forms and structures that a learner produces at different points
during the process of L2 acquisition can be ordered such that one form or structure always precedes another.
4) Learners progress step-by-step along an order or a sequence, mastering
one particular structure-target language or transitional-before another.
5) Strong evidence for developmental patterns occurs when it can be
shown that an order or a sequence is universal (i.e. applies to different L2s and to all learners). Weaker evidence is found if it is shown that an order or a sequence applies only to specific L2s and/or to specific groups or learners.
This study aims to investigate the developmental sequence in acquiring
English negation in the learners of EFL. For this purpose, the study employs
qualitative approach. As this study attempts to uncover the dynamism, both
stability and change, of acquiring negation in an individual, it is a longitudinal
one.
The study used students‟ utterances on observation, pictures description
test and writing as the main data. The observation was conducted once a month.
The pictures description test, which consists of twenty different items in each test,
was conducted three times. Similarly, the writing composition, of which the
themes were related to students‟ textbooks,was also conducted three times in one
semester academic year. The nature of the analysis merely focused on negation.
The participants of this study were 34 students from seventh grade of one private
secondary school in Bandung, but as this study investigates the negation, only 24
students that constantly produce negation are included in this study. Both
acceptable and unacceptable versions related to the use of negation were analysed
and presented.
In the case of developmetal sequence of negation analysis, students‟
utterances containing negation that obtained from all sources were analysed
through identification, description or categorization, and explanation using
developmental sequence of negation in L2 learner (Ellis 1996, Meisel 2011 and
Lightbown & Spada 2011).
Next chapter will present the findings and the discussion of the study. It
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter presents the conclusions and recommendations of this study.
The conclusion section shows how the problem of the present study is answered.
The recommendation section presents the recommendation to other researchers
who are interested in interlanguage theory and realisations and also to teachers of
English as the second language for a beginner level.
5.1 Conclusions
The primary goal of this study is to investigate the development of
negation by learners of EFL through observation, the picture description test and
essay writing. This study includes two research problems, i.e. (1) the negation that
the students produced in the tasks, and (2) the developmental sequence of
negation that the students went through across periods.
Regarding the first research question, it is found that the students are able
to produce negation. However, their productions reflect an interlanguage. The
total number of negative utterances in the first period is 490. Out of them, 241
(49.2%) are accurate or grammaticaly correct. The rest (249 occurrences or
50.8%) are ungrammatical. The total occurrences of negative utterances in the
second period are 399 times, 212 of which (53.1%) are accurate or grammatical
correct and the rest (187 occurrences or 46.9%) are ungrammatical. The total
are ungrammatical. It is shown that the development of negation acqusition is
evidenced in this study because the acceptable negation slightly improves from
the first period up to the third period.
Regarding the second research question, it is found that these students go
through all the stages in acquiring English negation. In the first period, the order
of stages do not fully confirm the order of stages found in previous studies.
Similarly, in the second period, the order of stages still do not fully confirm the
order of stages in previous studies. However, in the third period the order of
stages confirm the order of stages found in perious studies. It can further be
concluded that, overall, the order of stages in negation acquisition in previous
studies (see Ellis 1996, Lightbown & Spada 2011, and Meisel 2011) are finally
evidenced in this study. Furthermore, the acquisition of English negation is
influenced by several factors. In this study, the influential factors appear to be
EFL setting (input), L1 interference (Bahasa Indonesia), and the longitudinal
study which is relatively ‘short’.
Based on the findings above, it can be said that the order of stages in
acquiring English negation seems to be universal. This study has proved it,
although it is evidenced late in the last period. This late confirmation may result
from the fact that the students learn English in a formal classroom context, which
differs from the contexts in which previous studies were conducted, i.e. ESL.
5.2 Recommendations
the field of second language acquisition, namely interlanguage. First, since the
present study finds that the order of stages in acquiring English negation is not
directly confirmed, it seems that more research on negation in EFL context still
needs to be conducted with the same or different methodology. Second, since the
present study is not able to cover all the syntactical features due to its limitation,
i.e. question formation and auxiliary verbs, it is recommended that further studies
analyse structures other than negation. Third, since the present study is not purely
longitudinal, it is recommended that further research be undertaken in lengthier
longitudinal studies. Lastly, it is hoped that this study of negation acquistion lends
support to the construct of developmental stages in the acquisition of English
negation by second language learners and contributes to the existing theorisation
of developmental sequences in SLA.
This study also proposes some practical suggestions for teachers. First,
the presence of developmental sequences in learner language might influence the
teaching and learning process and therefore teachers should provide exposure on
negation in the learning materials. The learning material should be adjusted with
students’ development, but the negation should be produced ‘naturally’. Second,
teachers should be more tolerant to the error correction as part of the language
88
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