ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

DEVELOPMENTAL AND TRANSFER ERRORS OF GERMAN ADULT LEARNERS

OF TURKISH: A CASE STUDY

Eda BÜYÜKNİSAN

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ADANA, 2007

ÇUKUROVA UNIVERSITY

THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

DEVELOPMENTAL AND TRANSFER ERRORS OF GERMAN ADULT LEARNERS

OF TURKISH: A CASE STUDY

Eda BÜYÜKNİSAN

SUPERVISOR

Assis. Prof. Dr. Türkay BULUT

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ADANA, 2007

I certify that this dissertation is satisfactory for the award of the degree of PhD.

______________________________ Asst. Prof. Dr. Türkay BULUT

Supervisor

__________________________ ___________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hatice SOFU Asst. Prof. Dr. Osman ARSLAN

Member of Examining Committee Member of Examining Committee

__________________________ ___________________________ Asst. Prof. Dr. Cem CAN Asst. Prof. Dr. Hülya YUMRU

Member of Examining Committee Member of Examining Committee

I certify that this dissertation conforms to the formal standards of the Institute of Social Sciences.

___________________

Prof. Dr. Nihat KÜÇÜKSAVAŞ

Director of the Institute

Note: The uncited usage of the reports, charts, figures and photographs in this dissertation, whether original or quoted from our sources, is subject to the law of works of Art and Thought No: 5846. Not: Bu tezde kullanılan özgün ve başka kaynaktan yapılan bildirişlerin, çizelge, şekil ve fotoğrafların kaynak gösterilmeden kullanımı, 5846 Sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunu’ndaki hükümlere tabidir.

ÖZET

YETİŞKİN ALMAN ÖĞRENCİLERİN İKİNCİ DİL OLARAK TÜRKÇE

ÖĞRENİMİNDE GELİŞİM VE AKTARIM HATALARI: BİR DURUM ÇALIŞMASI

Eda BÜYÜKNİSAN

Doktora Tezi, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı

Danışman: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Türkay BULUT

Haziran 2007, 181 sayfa

Bu çalışmada, yetişkin Alman ana dil konuşmacılarının Türkçe’yi ikinci dil olarak

öğrenirken, yaptıkları gelişim ve aktarım hataları incelenmiştir. Almanca ile Türkçe arasında,

özellikle karmaşık cümlelerde, belirgin farklılıklar söz konusu olduğundan dolayı, sözcük

dizgesi ve isim hal ekleri araştırılmıştır.

Uzun süreç yöntemiyle yapılan bu çalışmanın katılımcısı yetişkin bir Alman ana dil

konuşmacısıdır. Bu katılımcı 18 aylık bir süreyle Türkiye’de yaşamış ve Türkçeyi ikinci

yabancı dil olarak öğrenmiştir. Bu çalışmada amacımız yetişkin Alman ana dil

konuşmacılarının Almancadan var olan ön bilgilerini Türkçeye aktarıp aktarmadıklarını

araştırmaktı.

Sözlü ölçeklerden elde edilen veriler çözümlenmiştir; yazılı ve sözlü ölçeklerden

elde edilen verilerin frekansları hesaplanıp, yapılan hatalar bu doğrultuda incelenmiştir.

Anahtar Sözcükler: Evrensel Dilbilgisi, İkinci Dil Edinimi, Gelişim Hataları, Aktarım

Hataları

ABSTRACT

DEVELOPMENTAL AND TRANSFER ERRORS OF GERMAN ADULT LEARNERS

OF TURKISH: A CASE STUDY

Eda BÜYÜKNİSAN

PhD Dissertation, English Language Teaching Department

Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Türkay BULUT

June 2007, 181 pages

The present study aims to put light on the developmental and transfer errors of adult

German native speakers learning Turkish as a second language. It is particularly concentrated

on word order and case markers due to the fact that the word order varies in German and

Turkish, especially in complex sentences, and the usage of case markers in Turkish mainly

differs from that in German.

The participant in this longitudinal study is an adult German native speaker. He has

lived in Turkey for a period of 18 months and has learned Turkish as his foreign language.

Our aim in this research was to find out whether adult German native speakers transfer

previous knowledge of German into Turkish.

The data obtained from the oral task have been transcribed; the data from both the oral

and written tasks have been analyzed in terms of the frequencies of errors made.

Key Words: Universal Grammar, Second Language Acquisition, Developmental Errors,

Transfer Errors

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This acknowledgement is dedicated to the innumerable people who have been

involved in the process and completion of this dissertation. I appreciate all the academic and

personal benefits I have gained during various stages of this work.

I particularly thank my supervisor Assistant Professor Doctor Türkay Bulut who

supported and encouraged me throughout the whole periods of both my MA thesis and the

present PhD dissertation. I would also like to thank Professor Doctor Özden Ekmekçi and

Associate Professor Doctor Hatice Sofu for their intellectual and academic contributions in

the fields of language teaching and linguistics. I would also like to express my gratitude to

Assistant Professor Doctor Cem Can and Assistant Professor Doctor Osman Arslan whose

support and feedback during the dissertation writing process have been inevitable. I am

grateful to them for having accepted to be members of my thesis committee. I am also grateful

to Assistant Professor Doctor Hülya Yumru for her invaluable advice and feedback as a

member of my thesis defense committee. I also thank the director of YADİM, Associate

Professor Doctor Zuhal Okan and her assistant Hülya Polat for their understanding and

patience during the completion process of this dissertation.

I owe special thanks to all the staff members of the English Language Teaching

Department, the Faculty of Education at Çukurova University for providing me with endless

professional guidance throughout my academic education since 1996.

I especially thank my dearest friend Meral Şeker for her friendship, patience and

academic support since 2000 when we first met thanks to the MA program at our department.

Her encouragement and enthusiasm has always been a great aid for me to be determined in all

my decisions. I also thank my friends Diser Ertekin and İlkay Çelik for their support and

close friendship. I also would like to thank my friend Cecile Popp for her editing and

proofreading. Special thanks also to Emine Çakır Sürmeli and Herr Baumann for their

supports and contributions during the data collection process of this thesis.

Last but not least, eternal thanks to my parents Sabit and Sevim and my sisters Hatice

and Emra for giving me confidence and having always been behind me all my life long. I am

also grateful to my dearest husband Cenk for his endless patience and moral support during

the demanding and stressful period of the completion of this thesis. Thanks to their love I

have been able to succeed in my academic career and my private life.

*Çukurova Üniversitesi Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Birimine EF2005D8 no’lu projeye olan

katkılarından dolayı teşekkür ederim.

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………… iv

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………… v

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….. vii

List of Appendices…………………………………………………………………………viii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….. 1

1.1 Statement of the Problem …………………………………………………………………2

1.2 Aim of the Study…………………………………………………………………………..3

1.3 Background of the Study …………………………………………………………………3

1.4 Research Questions………………………………………………………………………10

1.5 Operational Definitions…………………………………………………………………..10

1.6 Assumptions and Limitations……………………………………………………………12

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE……………………………………………………………..13

2.1 UG, Principles and Parameters…………………………………………………………..13

2.2 First Language Acquisition………………………………………………………………18

2.2.1 General Background Information on L1…………………………………………...18

2.2.2 The Acquisition of Word Order in Turkish L1…………………………………….19

2.2.2.1 Word Order in Adjectives and Adverbs…………………………………...20

2.2.2.2 Word Order in Noun Phrases……………………………………………...21

2.2.2.3 Word Order in Question Words…………………………………………...22

2.2.2.4 Word Order Variations Due to Pragmatic Reasons……………………….22

2.2.3 The Acquisition of Case Markers in Turkish L1…………………………………..23

2.3 UG and Second Language Acquisition / Learning………………………………………24

2.4 Second Language Acquisition and Interlanguage…………………………………….....27

2.5 Turkish as a Foreign Language…………………………………………………………..30

2.5.1 The Position of Turkish as a Foreign Language…………………………………...30

2.5.2 Turkish in Foreign Language Context in Turkey………………………………….33

2.5.3 Research Overview On “Turkish As A Foreign Language”………………………35

2.6 Turkish and German Language and Syntax……………………………………………..37

ii

2.7 Outstanding Differences Between Turkish and German Syntax……………………… 40

2.7.1 Turkish Word Order Versus German Word Order……………………………… 40

2.7.2 Turkish Case Markers Versus German Case Markers…………………………… 47

2.8 Transfer and Interference……………………………………………………………… 52

2.8.1 Errors from a Linguistic Perspective………………………………………...…. 57

2.8.2 Transfer and Developmental Errors……………………………………………. 57

2.9 Error Analysis………………………………………………………………………... 58

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY ……………………………………………………………………... 61

3.1 Subjects……………………………………………………………………………….. 61

3.2 Procedure……………………………………………………………………………... 61

3.3 Instrumentation……………………………………………………………………….. 62

3.3.1 Data Collection…………………………………………………………………. 62

3.3.2 Tasks and Tools………………………………………………………………… 62

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……………………………………………………….. 65

4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 65

4.2 Error Analysis Based on the Oral Data……………………………………………... 69

4.3 Error Analysis Based on the Written Data………………………………………….. 93

4.4 Total Production Versus Total Errors………………………………………………. 109

4.5 The Analysis of Case Marker and Word Order Errors …………………………….. 114

4.5.1 Case Marker…………………………………………………………………... 117

4.5.1.1 Case Marker Errors Produced in the Spoken Performances……. 118

4.5.1.2 Case Marker Errors Produced in the Written Performances……. 129

4.5.2 Word Order…………………………………………………………………… 136

4.5.2.1 Word Order Errors Produced in the Spoken Performances…….. 137

4.5.2.2 Word Order Errors Produced in the Written Performances…….. 141

4.5.3 Developmental and Transfer Errors in Case Marker…………………………. 144

4.5.4 Developmental and Transfer Errors in Word Order………………………….. 149

4.6 Other Outstanding Error Types……………………………………………………... 153

4.7 An Overall Look at the Findings …………………………………………………… 154

iii

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………. 156

5.1 Evaluation of the Research Questions……………………………………………..

5.2 Implications for English Language Teaching……………………………………...

5.3 Further Research…………………………………………………………………...

156 158

159

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………… 160

APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………… 172

CURRICULUM VITAE……………………………………………………………... 180

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1 = First Language Acquisition

L2 = Second Language Acquisition

UG = Universal Grammar

IL = Interlanguage

TFL = Turkish Foreign Language

SNG = Singular

PL = Plural

ACC = Accusative

DAT = Dative

GEN = Genitive

NOM = Nominative

ABL = Ablative

LOC = Locative

T = Transfer

D = Developmental

OPT = Optative

INDEF= Indefinite

ART = Article

ADJ = Adjective

ADV = Adverb

V = Verb

N = Noun

O = Object

S = Subject

POSS = Possessive

PAST = Past (definite – indefinite)

PR = Present

CONT = Continuous

S. = Simple

PASS = Passive

CONJ = Conjunction

PSNG = Person Singular

PPL = Person Plural

v

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

Table 1.1 – Set of Speech Processing Strategies……………………………………………8

Table 2.1 – Development of Child Language ……………………………………………..19

Table 2.2 – Linguistic Differences between German and Turkish…………………………39

Table 2.3 – Case System in Turkish ……………………………………………………...48

Table 2.4 – Singular Declinations of Definite Articles in German………………………....51

Table 2.5 – Plural Declinations of Definite Articles in German …………………………...51

Table 2.6 – Singular Declinations of Indefinite Articles in German ……………………….52

Table 3.1 – Type and Time of the Tasks Applied…………………………………………..63

Table 4.1 – The Frequency of Errors of the Guided Gramm. Pattern Task (25.04.2005)…..69

Table 4.2 – The Frequency of Errors in the Interview Task (25.04.2005)………………….70

Table 4.3 – The Frequency of Errors in the Guided Picture Task, Situation – Based

(21.06.2005)……………………………………………………………………71

Table 4.4 – The Frequency of Errors in the Free Picture Story Telling Task (21.06.2005)..73

Table 4.5 – The Frequency of Errors in the Translation Task, G - T (27.06.2005)………...77

Table 4.6 – The Frequency of Errors in the Personal Interview Task (Cultural Features

(05.07.2005)…………………………………………………………………….80

Table 4.7 – The Frequency of Errors in the Interview Task, Role Play (13.09.2005)……...81

Table 4.8 – The Frequency of Errors in the Task of Guided Speaking Through Authentic

Pictures (09.10.2005)…………………………………………………………..84

Table 4.9 – The Frequency of Errors of the Picture Story Telling Task, Mr. Ravioli

(06.12.2005)……………………………………………………………………87

Table 4.10 – The Frequency of Errors of the Discussion Task of the Story Mr. Ravioli

(06.12.2005)…………………………………………………………………….87

Table 4.11– The Frequency of Errors of the Story Revision Task (13.12.2005)…………..89

Table 4.12 – The Frequency of Errors of the Interview, Local Food (13.12.2005)………..89

Table 4.13 – The Frequency of Errors of the Picture Describing Task (21.01.2006)……...91

Table 4.14 – The Frequency of Errors of the Guided Grammar Tasks

(25.04.2005), (05.07.2005), (21.01.2006), (24.01.2006)……………………..93

Table 4.15 – The Frequency of Errors of the Sentence Writing Task (02.10.2005)……….96

Table 4.16 – The Frequency of Errors of the Paragraph Writing Task (02.10.2005)………96

Table 4.17 – The Frequency of Errors of the Writing Homework Task “Giving Personal

vi

Information” (05.10.2005), Paragraph Writing Based on Clues (12.11.2005)…98

Table 4.18 – The Frequencies of the Errors of the Make Up Story W. Task (21.01.2006)…101

Table 4.19 – The Frequency of Errors of the SMS Data (05.12.2005 – 28.02.2006)……….104

Table 4.20 – The Frequency of the Errors in the Handwritten Letters 1, 2, 3, 4 (17.12.2005),

(21.01.2006), (29.01.2006), (14.02.2006)…………………………………….106

Table 4.21 – Total Frequencies of the Errors Produced In the Spoken Data………………..110

Table 4.22 – Total Frequencies of the Errors Produced In the Written Data………………..111

Table 4.23– Grand Total Frequencies of Errors in the Total Production of Mr.B ………….114

Table 4.24 – Grand Total Frequencies of the Word Order and Case Marker Errors ………114

Table 4.25 – The Sequential Order of the Total Transfer and Developmental Errors Produced

(from most “1” to least “7”)……………………………………………………117

Table 4.26 – The Frequencies of Errors of the Spoken and Written Data Produced in Case

Marking……………………………………………………………………….118

Table 4.27 – The Differences between Defined and Undefined Noun Constructions in T…120

Table 4.28 – The Frequencies of Errors of the Spoken and Written Data Produced in Word

Order…………………………………………………………………………..136

Table 4.29 – The Frequencies of the Case Marker Errors…………………………………..145

Table 4.30 – The Frequencies of the Word Order Errors…………………………………...149

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

Figure 2.1- Input Processing ……………………………………………………………….16

Figure 2.2 - Forms of Access to UG in L2 Learning……………………………………......17

Figure 2.3 – LAD Model…………………………………………………………………….26

Figure 2.4 – Interlanguage………………………………………………………………….. 28

Figure 2.5 – Graphic Presentation of Transfer ……………………………………………....55

Figure 4.1 - The Distribution of Total Errors in the Spoken Performances ……………......112

Figure 4.2 – The Distribution of Total Errors in the Written Performances………………..113

Figure 4.3 – Grand Totals of the Transfer and Developmental Errors Produced in Case

Marking and Word Order in the Spoken and Written Performances………....116

viii

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 Authentic Picture Samples……………………………………….........

172

APPENDIX 2 Picture Story Sample………………………………………………….. 173

APPENDIX 3 Visual Aids (Translation Task)……………………………………….. 174

APPENDIX 4 Transactional Letter Samples…………………………………………. 175

APPENDIX 5 Writing Homework Samples………………………………………….. 176

APPENDIX 6 Paragraph Writing Samples…………………………………………… 177

APPENDIX 7 Content Page of “Bildungsplan Gymnasium”,

Elective Foreign Language Turkish in “Gymnasium” in Germany…………………… 178

APPENDIX 8 Writing Task (see Table 4.18)………………………………………… 179

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Recent linguistic studies aim to put light on the issue of cognitive development,

especially to language learning processes that directly involve theories of Universal Grammar

(UG). UG, as defined by Chomsky, is “the system of principles, conditions, and rules that are

elements or properties of all human languages...the essence of human language” (in Cook,

1996, p.1). It presents universality in deep structure, which may be quite distinct from the

surface structures of sentences of different languages as they appear (Chomsky, 1998). As a

theory of first language (L1) acquisition, UG argues that “language is a set of general

principles or constraints that underlie any grammar and also a set of a number of parameters

to be set at one of the predetermined values through the exposure to the language being

acquired” (Chomsky in Can, 2000, 1). Chomsky’s hypothesis is that “human beings have a

genetic endowment that enables them to learn languages” (Haegemann, 1994, p.12).

According to him, this innate capacity for language learning is common to all human beings.

Thus, to Haegemann (1994), it is not reasonable to think that

some individuals – those that will become native speakers of English – are born

with a specific grammar of English and that others – those that will end up

speaking Italian as their first language – are born with the grammar of Italian

readily stored in their minds. Human beings with normal mental faculties are

able to learn any human language. The innate linguistic endowment must be

geared to any human language and not to just one

(p.12).

Furthermore, Cook (1995) claims that sharing the same system and thus, the same

principles in their first language (L1) acquisition, human beings apply the same UG system to

their second language (L2) acquisition. Likewise, parameters are considered to vary from one

language to another and hold the characteristics of those specific languages (Cook & Newson,

1996). Accordingly, acquiring an L2 means learning how these principles apply to a particular

language and which value is appropriate for each parameter (Cook & Newson, 1996, p.2).

Although there have been a lot of linguists who accept this hypothesis, the debate on what

ways of access people reach to this system has been going on.

2

N.C. Ellis (2006) points out the shortcomings of second language acquisition by

stating that input fails to become intake. In his paper on selective attention and transfer

phenomena in L2 acquisition, Ellis investigates on questions based on shortcomings of

naturalistic second language acquisition, “the fragile features of languages that L2 learners

fail to acquire despite thousands of occurrences in their input, the cases where input fails to

become intake” (p.164). He pursues questioning whether L2 acquisition can be understood

according to the general principles of associative learning that belong to other aspects of

human cognition. Ellis also points on Corder’s “error analysis” model in 1967 that introduced

the notion of the system of interlanguage (IL). Accordingly, instead of being simply viewed

as indications of difficulties, errors were seen as illustrations of a learner’s active attempts at

systematic development through intake. Thus, this process involved the construction of IL,

“‘a transitional competence’ reflecting the dynamic nature of the learner’s developing system”

(Ellis, 2006, p.187).

At the same time, besides the issue of foreign language acquisition and access to UG,

the ongoing discussion on how learning a foreign language evolves through time has not

reached an end. Smith and Truscott (2005) illustrate in their study the discordance between

gradual stages and continua in second language acquisition. They try to enlighten the issue of

whether second language acquisition is a “sequence of discrete stages” or “a stepwise

movement from one rule system to another” (p.219).

In the present study, it will be concentrated on the linguistic aspect of the language

processing of adult German native speakers acquiring Turkish as a foreign language. As the

field of linguistic research is too broad to cover all aspects of language processing, this study

will serve investigating in the abrasive framework of error analysis in the foreign language

acquisition Turkish; precisely, the analysis of developmental and transfer errors of adult

German native speakers of Turkish.

1.1 Statement of the Problem

As previously mentioned, it is commonly known that theories on second language

acquisition still show lacks in explanations of language systems in mind. Studies provide

broad information on mental processes in the language system of human beings. Additionally,

the availability of UG after the critical period still remains as an unanswered question for

many scholars in the field of linguistics. Accordingly, investigating in these areas will

3

brighten up issues concerning second language learning and teaching, which directly affects

methodological developments in language teaching.

This study specifically focuses on the acquisition of Turkish by an adult German

native speaker in a Turkish-speaking environment. Due to the parametric variations between

Turkish and German, there are pronounced errors made by adult German learners of Turkish.

Hence, these errors may enlighten learner and learning difficulties while dealing with Turkish.

1.2 Aim of the Study

The aim of this study is to shed light on the issue of L2 acquisition in the frame of

two languages that mismatch syntactically with each other. To be more specific, while

analyzing errors of adult German native speakers acquiring Turkish and evaluating these

errors based on general language acquisition hypotheses, it is aimed to provide innovative

information to the Turkish Language classroom. In other words, pointing out interference

errors of adult German native speakers studying Turkish in an artificial classroom setting will

help analyzing their learning difficulties based on the errors made in spoken and written

production.

At this point, it is favorable to state that the Research and Application Center for

Foreign Languages (YADIM) of the University of Çukurova has been featuring Turkish

language courses, especially addressing to incoming exchange students from European

countries such as Germany. This has gained importance since Turkey has been able to

participate fully in the Erasmus Program under the roof of Socrates. These student and teacher

exchange programs cover the condition of Erasmus Intensive Language Courses (EILC)

providing incoming students and staff the opportunity to enroll in language courses separated

into different levels. Moreover, Turkish language courses at YADIM are compulsory for

those Erasmus students who have never attended any Turkish courses before. Based on these

innovations, the field of Turkish L2 will be the focus of the near future. Thus examining

developmental and transfer errors of adult German native speakers acquiring Turkish may

guide Turkish language teachers and learners of Turkish to promote positive language transfer

performances.

4

1.3 Background of the Study

Within the field of language acquisition, the notion of limited processing capacity is a

standard assumption in work on human cognition. For instance, short-term memory is thought

to be limited in capacity and duration (Baddely, 1990) with the assumption that the processing

capacity of L2 learners forms the basis of several approaches to SLA. The limited-capacity

view on L2 processing constitutes a basic assumption in work on L2 input processing

(Krashen,1982; van Patten, 1996), in research on L2 skill acquisition (e.g. McLaughlin 1987),

in work on operating principles (Andersen 1984), in the 'competition model' (Bates and

MacWhinney 1981), in Clahsen's (1984) L2 processing strategies as well as in Pienemann’s

studies on processability (2003).

To focus on input processing, one early approach to SLA that incorporates a processing

perspective is Krashen's (1985) 'monitor model'. In his 'input hypothesis' Krashen claims that

humans acquire language in only one way - by understanding messages, or by

receiving 'comprehensible input'. ... We move from i, our current level, to i+1, the next

level along the natural order, by understanding input containing i+1.

(Krashen, 1985, p.2)

As this quotation illustrates, the 'input hypothesis' is aimed at explaining two things, namely

the inferential mechanisms that drive the acquisition process and the assumed universal order

of acquisition. In other words, Krashen's model evades the issue of specifying the architecture

of the L2 processor and the inferential mechanisms involved.

Another example of later main-stream research on input processing is Van Patten's

(1996) work. Van Patten follows the main idea of the 'input hypothesis' and stipulates two sets

of input processing strategies in an attempt to spell out aspects of the architecture of the L2

processor. The first set consists of five cognitive strategies that are supposed to regulate

which aspects of the linguistic input are attended to and processed first (van Patten 1996). The

second set consists of three Bever-style (Bever, 1970) strategies for the assignment of

grammatical and semantic roles to nouns (van Patten 1996, 32). Van Patten follows Corder

(1967) in distinguishing between 'input' and 'intake' and stipulates attention as the necessary

condition for input to be transformed into intake. In his model the first set of strategies is

intended to operationalise “attention” and the second, aspects of “sentence processing.”

However, these processing strategies are limited to one narrow domain of language

processing and are subject to the same conceptual limitations as Clahsen’s (1984) strategies

approach.

5

Also Carroll (1999; 2000) reviews the literature on L2 input processing and concludes

that the standard assumption, based on Corder's (1967) input-intake distinction, according to

which "... perception is regulated only by attention, which in turn is regulated by intention"

(Carroll, 1999) is not supported by any explicit theory of attention. Her view on the matter

contrasts with the attention-filter assumption. Carroll seeks to demonstrate that signal

detection is regulated by human knowledge systems independently of intention and concludes

that “input is ... determined by our grammars" Carroll (1999, p.343).

Reference to language processing capacity is also made in research on the acquisition

of L2 procedural skills. From their cognitive perspective, McLaughlin and his associates

(McLaughlin, Rossman and McLeod, 1983; McLaughlin, 1987) assume that "to learn a

second language is to learn a skill ..." and that L2 learning "... requires the automatisation of

component sub-skills." (McLaughlin, 1987, p.133). Similarly, other authors have also

expressed the view that language acquisition entails the acquisition of procedural skills (e.g.

Levelt 1978; Hulstijn 1990; Schmidt 1992). In line with his cognitive perspective,

McLaughlin views humans as limited-capacity processors for controlled processes. He

assumes that L2 processing skills become more efficient through automatisation, which

allows them to be processed automatically and thus without the limitation of controlled

processes. He concludes that "the notion of a capacity-free (automatic) process provides an

explanation for improvement in performance." (McLaughlin, 1987, 136).

McLaughlin's work is not directly concerned with language processing procedures.

Instead, it focuses on two key notions: automaticity and restructuring. Automaticity makes

recourse to the dichotomy of controlled and automatic processing (Posner and Snyder, 1975;

Schneider and Shiffrin, 1977; Shiffrin and Schneider, 1977). Restructuring refers to the

replacement of existing procedures by more efficient ones. McLaughlin believes that “once

the procedures at any phase become automatised … learners step up to a ‘metaprocedural’

level, which generates representational change and restructuring” (Mc Laughlin, 1987, p.138).

In other words, McLaughlin's approach is aimed at the skills that underlie L2 processing as

well as at the acquisition of these skills; automatisation is seen as the process by which the

overall L2 processing capacity can be increased. As far as the explicitness of his approach and

of cognitive theory generally is concerned, McLaughlin makes the following cautious

statement:

Cognitive theory does not represent a highly articulated theoretical

position. There have been relatively few attempts to spell out with any

6

degree of precision what the predictions of such a theory would be for

second language learning

(Mc Laughlin, 1987, p. 150)

Andersen (1984, 1988) based his approach to SLA on a different set of assumptions.

Andersen followed the basic design of Slobin's (1973, 1985) approach to L1 acquisition

and proposed a set of 'operating principles' for SLA which concern two aspects of the

acquisition process, namely the processing of language and the discovery of its formal and

functional properties. In other words, his approach goes beyond language processing and

incorporates learning mechanisms. An example is the 'one-to-one principle' which states

that "an interlanguage system should be constructed in such a way that an intended

underlying meaning is expressed with one clear invariant surface form..." Andersen (1984,

p.79).

Andersen's and Slobin's approaches were criticized for being difficult to test, because the

operating principles are not clearly separated from each other (Larsen-Freeman, 1975),

instead they compete against each other. This leads to typical post-factual explanations. If an

IL phenomenon cannot be contributed to principle A, then it can be contributed to a

competing principle B. Bowerman (1985) points out that operating principles are not

falsifiable because evidence against existing principles can be countered by the introduction

of ever new principles. According to Pienemann (2003), the reason why operating principles

are not testable is because they do not contain procedural information to implement the micro-

structure of language processing. He concludes that, in order to make Slobin's (1973)

operating principle 'be semantically expressive' for the speaker, one needs to specify the exact

procedures required to generate the surface structures which best express the semantic

structures intended by the speaker. Thus, operating principles lack linguistic or procedural

explicitness.

A further approach to language acquisition is the 'competition model' (Bates and

MacWhinney, 1981; 1982; 1987) that assumes limited processing resources in L2 learners. It

is a functionalist approach that is based on the assumption that linguistic behavior is

constrained, among other things, by general cognition and not by a language-specific

cognitive module and communicative needs. Following the functionalist tradition, Bates and

MacWhinney assume that "the surface conventions of natural languages are created,

governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions" (1981,

p.192).

7

As this indicates, the competition model is claimed to be applicable to child language,

language processing in general, and second language acquisition. According to this model, it

is the task of the language learner to discover the specific relationship between linguistic

forms of a given language and their communicative functions. The linguistic forms used to

mark grammatical and semantic roles differ from language to language. For instance,

agreement marking, word order, animacy etc. play a different role in the marking of

subjecthood and agency in different languages. Pienemann (2003) proposes that linguistic

forms are seen as cues for semantic interpretation in on-line comprehension and production,

and different cues may compete as in the above case of the marking of subjecthood.

In the competition model, the process of learning linguistic forms is driven by the

frequency and complexity of form-function relationships in the input. In this context, the

majority of L2 learning problems is modeled in connectionist terms. MacWhinney (1987)

exemplifies this with the preverbal positioning of a linguistic form as a processing cue for the

semantic actor-role. He states that the strength of this cue "... can be viewed as the weight on

the connection between the preverbal positioning node (an input node) and the actor role (an

output node). If the preverbal positioning node is activated, it then sends activation to the

actor node in proportion to the weight on the connection," MacWhinney (1987, p. 320).

The competition model has formed the conceptual basis of experiments on bilingual sentence

processing (Gass, 1987; Harrington, 1987; Kilborn and Ito, 1989; McDonald and Heilenman,

1991; Sasaki, 1991). In these studies, bilingual speakers of different languages need to

identify the function of different 'cues' in L1 and L2. The input material is designed to reflect

the coordination and competition of cues. For instance, Harrington (1987) studies the

(competing) effect of word order, animacy and stress on the comprehension of Japanese and

English sentences by native speakers and non-native speakers of the two languages who are

all speakers of both languages. Obviously, the three cues have different weights in the two

target languages concerned. The results show that L2 learners transfer their L1 processing

strategies (i.e. weighting of cues) when interpreting L2 sentences. This overall result is

predicted by the competition model, since within this framework, processing cues are not

initially separated by languages and their weighting can therefore be predicted to be

transferred.

The use of processing strategies in Clahsen's (1984) approach yielded a considerable

number of testable hypotheses. It, therefore, warrants a somewhat more explicit summary and

critique. Clahsen's (1984) 'strategies' approach was designed to explain the stages in the

acquisition of German L2 word order found in the ZISA study (Clahsen, Meisel, and

8

Pienemann, 1983). Clahsen, Meisel and Pienemann investigated in their study

("Zweitsprachenerwerb italienischer und spanischer Arbeiter") the oral production of 43 male

and female Italian and Spanish immigrant workers. They found out and could precisely

allegorize basing on the mentioned methodology that all learners acquired the same syntactic

structures, namely in the same order:

Table 1.1 – Set of Speech Processing Strategies x Canonical Order SVO

x + 1 Adverb Preposing (ADV) adv SVO

x + 2 Verb Separation (SEP) X SVOV

x + 3 INVERSION (INV) X VSY

x + 4 Verb Final (V-END) comp SOV

Clahsen (1984) assumed a set of speech processing strategies, which constrain the

otherwise overly powerful grammar of the learner. These strategies are stated below:

1 - Canonical Order Strategy (COS)

In underlying sequences [x1 + x2...Xn]Cx [ ] Cx + 1 [ ] Cx + m, in which each of the

sub - constituents contributes information to the internal structure of the constituent

Cx, no sub - constituent is moved out of Cx, and no material from the subsequent

constituents Cx+ 1, Cx + 2, Cx +n is moved into Cx.

2 - Initialisation-Finalisation Strategy (IFS)

"In underlying sequences, [X Y Z]s permutations are blocked which move X between

Y and Z or Z between X and Y".

3 - Subordinate Clause Strategy (SCS)

"In subordinate clauses permutations are avoided."

(Clahsen, 1984).

The structures of German that were acquired in the same identical order by all participants are

presented as follows: ( Pienemann et al. 1988,227):

1. Stage X = canonical word order: subject - verb - object

'die kinder spielen mim ball'

2. Stage X + 1 = adverb preposing

'da kinder spielen'

9

3. Stage X + 2: verb separation

'alle kinder muß die pause machen'

4. Stage X + 3: inversion

'dann hat sie wieder die knoch gebringt'

5. Stage X + 4: verb final

'er sagte, daß er nach Hause kommt'

Clahsen et al.(1983) could show in their ZISA – study that the syntax acquisition of

different learners feature identical characteristics and that basic grammatical structures are in

implicational relation, and that language acquisition is cumulative. That is, the learner

grammar does not change arbitrarily through new or renewed rules, but through the fact that

new structures develop the existing system.

However, more recent research reveals that Clahsen's approach based on

psycholinguistic concepts that were developed in the 1970’s that his perspective is now at

odds. Scholars pointed out the shortcomings of this approach. A large amount of criticism has

been raised against Clahsen's paradigm. According to Towell and Hawkins (1994), the status

of grammar in language acquisition remains unclear. They claim that interlanguage grammars

are under-determined by the strategies available to the learner at any given stage of

acquisition. “To put it in other words: the learner does not have sufficient information to go

by for the construction of interlanguage speech on the basis of strategies alone. Strategies can

only operate as complements to a grammar, not as grammar substitutes” (Towell &Hawkins,

1994). A further problem with the "strategies" approach has been pointed by White (1989,

1991); processing strategies are based on comprehension-related phenomena and formulated

through the interpretation of empirical findings on comprehension although it is clear that

comprehension and production are not mirror images of each other. White states that the

NVN strategy of Bever (1970), in particular, accounts for observational facts in speech

comprehension. Moreover, Pinker also argues that another problem with the strategies

approach is its relation to learnability and extendibility (1984).

In conclusion, the processing-oriented approaches reviewed above are not focused

only on L2 processing and its effect on L2 development. Instead, L2 processing is studied as

one of several interacting factors that contribute to L2 acquisition. Procedural explicitness are

viewed as a necessary prerequisite for the operationalisibility of an approach to L2 processing

capacity; a modular processing approach to SLA aims at procedural explicitness, namely on

processability theory (Pienemann 1998).

10

1.4 Research Questions

Regarding the outcome of this study, it is expected that the German native speakers will

show difficulties in acquiring the word order and case markers of Turkish. In complex

sentences in German, the subordinate clauses always start with a subordinating conjunction

and end with the conjugated verb; however, the word order mainly differs in Turkish. In

German the other sentence elements, such as time, manner, place, follow in the normal order

and in German, when a sentence starts with a subordinate clause, the very first word before

the main clause, must be the verb. In Turkish, however, the word order is regular, but differs

mainly in adjectival descriptions of subject and subject, time, adjectival descriptions of object

and object, and verb. The verb is always located finally in a sentence. the following research

questions have been formulated due to these syntactic differences between German and

Turkish:

1. What kind of developmental errors do adult German native speakers learning Turkish

L2 do?

2. What kind of transfer errors do adult German native speakers learning Turkish L2 do?

3. Do adult native speakers of German learning Turkish L2 produce word order errors?

4. Do adult native speakers of German learning Turkish L2 produce case marker errors?

5. Do the errors in the spoken form differ in number when compared to those produced

in the written form?

1.5 Operational Definitions

Due to the fact that the field of this study belongs to a specific area of linguistics,

certain key words will be briefly defined in order to standardize them for the reader.

- Universal Grammar (UG):

- The linguistic competence of native speakers of a language can be accounted for

in terms of an abstract and unconscious linguistic system, in other words, a

grammar, which underlies use of language, including comprehension and

production. Native-speaker grammars are constrained by built-in universal

linguistic principles, known as Universal Grammar (White, 2003).

11

- Chomsky's hypothesis of a single grammatical system which is transmitted

genetically and accounts for the ability of all normal humans to learn and speak

their native language (Croom, 2003).

- Interlanguage (IL):

- If L2 learners acquire abstract properties that could not have been induced from

the input, it is strongly indicative that principles of UG constrain interlanguage

grammars, parallel to the situation in L1 acquisition. So it is not necessary for L2

learners to acquire the same knowledge as native speakers in order to demonstrate

a poverty-of-the-stimulus situation in L2 acquisition; it is sufficient to show that

L2 learners acquire complex and subtle properties of language that could not have

been induced from the L2 input (White, 2003).

- Language Interference:

- Interference is the transference of elements of one language to another at various

levels including phonological, grammatical, lexical and orthographical level

(Berthold, Mangubhai & Batorowicz, 1997). Accordingly, grammatical

interference is defined as L1 influencing L2 in terms of word order, use of

pronouns and determinants, tense and mood. Interference at a lexical level

presents the borrowing of words from one language and converting them to sound

more natural in another.

- Utterance: An utterance is a natural unit of speech bounded by breaths or pauses

(Arnoff & Rees Miller, 2001). An utterance does not have a precise linguistic

definition. Phonetically an utterance is a unit of speech bounded by silence. In

dialogue, each turn by a speaker may be considered an utterance. Linguists

sometimes use utterance to simply refer to a unit of speech under study. The

corresponding unit in written language is text (Crystal, 1985, 1991). A text is a

sequence of paragraphs that represents an extended unit of speech (Searle, 1969).

- Clause: A clause is a grammatical unit that includes, at minimum, a predicate and

an explicit or implied subject, and expresses a proposition (Hartmann & Stork,

1972). The following example sentence contains two clauses:

It is cold, although the sun is shining

The main clause is “it is cold” and the subordinate clause is “although the sun is

shining”.

12

1.5 Assumptions and Limitations

Although researchers always try to take any possible condition into consideration, of

course, limitations do occur during the preparation of a study. In this case, subject loss may be

the major limitation, as it would be a burden for the researcher to find a substitute for the loss,

especially in finding participants speaking German and learning Turkish as a foreign

language.

Moreover, it should not be forgotten that no matter how valid the study is, the results

can never be generalized to the whole field or theory. That is, all data collected and

interpreted in this study are just related to the participant chosen and cannot be completely

transferred to any other situation or samples.

13

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 UG, Principles and Parameters

According to Chomsky (in Cook and Newson, 1988), UG is the “system of principles,

conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all human languages ... the essence of

human language (p. 1). All languages taken into consideration, UG is the common possession

of all human beings. Cook and Newson (1988, p.2) define UG as a “theory of knowledge, not

a behavior”, dealing with the internal structure of the human mind. They state that with UG

the speaker knows a set of principles that can be applied to all languages. Concerning

parameters, they differ in some ways from one language to another. Cook and Newson (1988)

claim that while acquiring a language, it is learned how these principles apply to a particular

language and it is learnt which value is suitable for each parameter. These scholars argue that

“each principle or parameter of language that is proposed is a substantive claim about the

mind of the speaker and about the nature of language acquisition” (1988, p.2). Cook (1993)

proposes that UG allows for variation between languages through parameters; that is,

languages can only vary within the pre- set limits for a particular parameter. He continues that

the parameter itself is universal but the values it may take vary from one language to another.

Cook claims that any language a human being knows must be either pro- drop or non- pro-

drop, must have a setting for each of the parameters affecting word order, and must have one

of the possible settings for the governing category parameter of Binding Theory (1993,

p.201).

Chomsky establishes the basis of the UG theory of acquisition as, “what we ‘know

innately’ are the principles of the various subsystems of S0 [the initial state of the child’s

mind] and the manner of their interaction, and the parameters associated with these

principles” (Chomsky, 1986, p.150). He claims that principles are not acquired from outside

since they are already present as part of UG inside the mind. Some syntactic properties being

universal does not mean that these languages are the same.

In addition, O’Grady, Dobrovolsky and Aronoff state that UG offers enhancing

opportunities for variation, allowing individual languages to show differences related to

certain parameters (1997). This can be variations in syntactic categories, phrase structure rules

and the use of transformations. Children are born with prior knowledge of the type of

14

categories and rules that are found in the grammar of any human language. So they know that

the words in the language they are acquiring will belong to a small set of syntactic categories

and that there will be some kind of rules to create larger phrases (O’Grady, Dobrovolsky and

Aronoff, 1997). Their ideas are supported with Chomsky’s statement that “the grammars for

human languages are too complex and abstract to be learned on the basis of the type of

experience to which children have access” (1997, p.466). Therefore, significant components

of the grammar must be inborn. On the other hand, according to O’Grady, Dobrovolsky and

Aronoff, normal linguistic development can only occur if the child is exposed to language

during a particular period of time that is called ‘critical period’ (1997). These scholars argue

that in some situations where children were not exposed to any language during their critical

period show that these children make word order errors. Moreover, their speeches lack non-

lexical categories or affixes. O’Grady, Dobrovolsky and Aronoff exemplify formation errors

with the sentences below:

(1) a.*The woman is bus the going.

b.*Combing hair the boy.

c.*Orange Tim car in.

d.*The girl is cone the ice cream shopping buying the man.

(1997, p.468).

The theory of Universal Grammar from ‘the poverty of stimulus’ point of view is

supported by Crain and Lillo- Martin (1999). As previously mentioned, the input to a child

consists of sample sentences generated by the grammar. If there is a failure in generalizing

properly, there will be no ability in generating all of the sentences of the language (Crain and

Lillo- Martin, 1999). Consequently, as the input given is not sufficient enough to provide all

the information the child proves knowing, it is obvious that certain linguistic knowledge must

be innately given (p.53). This is also supported by Cook and Newson (1996) stating that there

is not only the complexity of language knowledge, but also the impoverished data available to

the learner. If the child’s mind could not create language knowledge from the data in the

surrounding environment, the source must be innately given. This is known as ‘the poverty of

the stimulus’ argument.

Also Haegemann (1991) points out important issues regarding the argument of the

poverty of the stimulus. He states there are important inadequacies in the linguistic experience

that is the stimulus. In spite of these inadequacies, human beings gain linguistic competence.

The first inadequacy occurs during the language acquisition of a child where he or she comes

across various ungrammatical sentences like slips of the tongue, hesitations and incomplete

15

sentences. The second inadequacy is the input stimulus. It is quite limited during the

acquisition of a language; whereas, the output is finite. The last inadequacy according to

Haegemann is “positive evidence”. Following are examples of sentences produced during

language acquisition:

(2) a. I think that Miss Marple will leave.

b. I think Miss Marple will leave.

(3) a. This is the book that I bought in London.

b. This is the book I bought in London.

Haegemann (1991, p,11).

Obviously, the conjunction “that” can be omitted in the examples above and a child learning

English can make overgeneralizations about the conjunction “that”: it can be present and

absent in a sentence. Hence, this is not the case for all sentences of this type. For example:

(4) a. *Who do you think that will be questioned first?

b. Who do you think will be questioned first?

Haegemann, (1991, p.11).

Contrary to the previous examples, the conjunction “that” is not optional in the third example.

4a is ungrammatical as the rule requires the conjunction “that” to be absent. Certainly

children acquiring English are not explicitly taught that 4a is ungrammatical.

In conclusion, for Haegemann, the problem is between the input one gets and the

output one achieves. Thus, it is insufficient to present language acquisition as a triggering

experience where the child constructs the grammar of a language through exposure to

linguistic data.

On the other hand, Crain and Lillo- Martin (1999) introduce the argument of the

poverty stimulus by presenting “positive and negative statements” (p.53). Language rules are

considered to be positive statements. Constraints, on the other hand, are negative statements

that are distinguished from grammatical statements. Constraints are results of overall

reductions in a language. Crain and Lillo – Martin (1999) claim that Universal Grammar must

be innately specified as children acquire knowledge of constraints that circumscribe the set of

hypotheses that children (unconsciously) entertain in response to their linguistic experience.

Here, it is convenient to present some views of different scholars related to the

Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Crain and Lillo – Martin (1999) define LAD generally

as the means by which the child or learner analyzes the linguistic input from the near

environment. According to this view, the last grammar that is formulated due to the input

taken is called the Final State or Adult Grammar (Crain and Lillo - Martin, 1999, p.54). The

16

Final State just occurs on the basis of the input data, that is, the Primary Linguistic Data

(PLD):

Input (PLD) LAD Final State (Adult Grammar)

Figure – 2.1 Input Processing

This schema is also supported by Chomsky’s view claiming that children need to be exposed

to linguistic data in order to attain adult competence. His hypothesis is that “human beings

have a genetic endowment that enables them to learn languages. It is this innate capacity for

language learning common to all human beings...” (Chomsky, in Haegemann, 1994, p.12).

Haegemann interprets Chomsky’s hypothesis by saying that “human beings with normal

mental faculties are able to learn any human language. The innate linguistic endowment must

be geared to any human language and not to just one (1994, p.12). Furthermore, Chomsky

argues that children are able to develop very complex linguistic systems in a very short period

of time, moving from a one – word stage to multiword stages, on the basis of limited and

often fragmentary data (Chomsky in Akmajian, Demers, Farmer and Harnish, 1997, p. 452).

In conclusion, Chomsky (1996) proposes that LAD consists of a set of innate

principles and parameters that are universal at what he calls the “initial state”. His hypothesis

leads to the consequence that all human languages are similar in a way. According to Cook

(1996), human beings not only share the same system in their first language (L1) acquisition,

but also apply the same UG system to their second language (L2) acquisition. On the one

hand, there are many linguists who agree with this idea. But on the other hand, still it is not

clear in what ways people reach to this system. That is, how the access to UG is fulfilled still

remains as a question mark. Therefore, many scholars investigate the issue of access to

Universal Grammar. However, as it is impossible to get any row data, and thus, evidence on

the mechanism of the language faculty, different views on the accessibility of UG are

presented by scientists. Until 1980’s, scholars argued on three different perspectives regarding

the accessibility of UG: direct access, indirect access and no access. Figure 2 (Cook, 1985)

below shows these three perspectives.

17

UG Other mental faculties

L1 Grammar L2 Grammar

Figure 2.2 - Forms of access to UG in L2 learning

These three perspectives are defined by Cook (1985) as follows:

In the no access position L2 learners acquire the L2 grammar without any

reference to UG; the grammar is learnt through other faculties of the

human mind, and so probably bears little resemblance to usual linguistic

competence; it is learnt in the same way as any other aspect of

knowledge – cookery, physics, or whatever. In a direct access position,

L2 learners learn in exactly the same way as L1 learners; they set values

for parameters according to the L2 evidence they encounter without any

other influence. In an indirect access position L2 learners have access to

UG through what then the initial neutral or default state

(p.210-211).

After the 1990’s, however, scholars’ horizons regarding access to UG enlarges. White

(2000) develops an innovative framework on the access to UG by presenting five types of

accessibility. In her article on second language acquisition, White (2000) categorizes UG into

three parts: initial state, developmental state, and final state. She argues for a full access to

UG in the initial state of L2 acquisition, and claims that transfer from L1 must occur in

interlanguage development. White (2000) does not accept the idea of a critical period in the

final state. Contrary, she believes that second language learners from different language

backgrounds can attain native like L2 competence.

As previously mentioned, UG consists of two properties: principles and parameters,

underlying all human languages. Haegemann suggests that Universal Principles are rigid and

need to be learnt (1994). Moreover, UG theory estimates the principles as a set of rules that

can be applied to all languages. It is majorly known that there are some highly abstract

universal linguistic principles, such as the Binding Principles which for instance determine

what can or cannot be the antecedent of an anaphoric, pronominal, or fully referential nominal

indirect access

direct access

no access

18

element (Saleemi, 1995). Other outstanding principles are the Subjacency and Head

Movement Constraint, and the Empty Category Principle (Saleemi, 1995).

Closely related to the principles are the parameters which are allowed to vary in a

limited style. They, therefore, represent the linguistic variation in human languages. In other

words, they are considered to vary from one language to another and hold the characteristics

of that specific language (Cook & Newson, 1996).

Acquiring language means learning how these principles apply to a particular

language and which value is appropriate for each parameter (Cook & Newson, 1996, p.2).

Cook (1993) states that in principles and parameters theory, the speaker’s knowledge of

language consists of principles that are common to all languages and of parameters whose

values vary from one language to another. This theory embodies the difference between

underlying and surface structure. The deep structure specifies the underlying structure of a

sentence (Cook, 1993). As Chomsky and Lasnik (in Cook, 1991) define it, “d – structure

expresses lexical properties in a form accessible to the computational system”. S – structure,

on the other hand, represents the relationships in the sentences involving movement, including

traces (t) that show the places from which movement takes place.

2.2 First Language Acquisition

2.2.1 General Background Information on L1

First Language Acquisition takes a comprehensive look at where and when children

acquire a first language. Furthermore, it integrates social and cognitive approaches to how

children analyze, understand, and produce sounds, words, and sentences, as they learn to use

their language. It is commonly known that first language acquisition also emphasizes

pragmatic factors in language use, and includes research on word-formation, and on

bilingualism and dialect-choice. In nearly all human languages, children's language

development follows a predictable sequence. However, the age at which children reach a

given milestone differs extremely. Moreover, each child's development is usually

characterized by gradual acquisition of particular abilities.

Libermann (2003) explains the development of child language in the table below

(Table 2.1), pointing out that there are also many different ways to characterize the

developmental sequence. He focuses primarily on the unfolding of lexical and syntactic

knowledge of children:

19

Table 2.1 – Development of Child Language

• Stage • Typical

age

• Description

• Babbling • 6-8

months

• Repetitive CV patterns

• One-word stage

(better one-morpheme

or one-unit)

or holophrastic stage

• 9-18

months

• Single open-class words or word stems

• Two-word stage • 18-24

months

• "mini-sentences" with simple semantic

relations

• Telegraphic stage

or early multiword

stage

(better multi-

morpheme)

• 24-30

months

• "Telegraphic" sentence structures of lexical

rather than functional or grammatical

morphemes

• Later multiword stage • 30+

months

• Grammatical or functional structures emerge

Libermann (2003).

2.2.2 The Acquisition of Word Order in Turkish L1

As Turkish is an SOV language, a speaker of Turkish has the opportunity to vary this

word order; especially, for pragmatic reasons. This word order variation can take place due to

Turkish being an inflectional language. It requires case markers fixed to the noun phrases so

that one can see the grammatical relations between sentence constituents. Ekmekçi (1979;

20

1986), in her case study on the significance of word order in the acquisition of Turkish L1,

investigates the usage of the dominant unmarked SOV pattern and the marked order. The

participant in her longitudinal study was a Turkish child in her initial stages (1;7 – 2;4).

2.2.2.1 Word Order in Adjectives and Adverbs

Ekmekçi (1986) states that the position of adjectives and adverbs is limited to the

immediate left of the unit that is modified or quantified. According to her, this kind of word

order restriction recognition is fulfilled at the age of 1;7. In the example below, Ekmekçi

(1979) shows the preceding of adjective (or adverb) to the qualified item:

(5) soGuk su (1;7)

cold water

Ekmekçi continues that word order variation is used in order to distinguish between the

attributive (6) and predicative (7a,b) use of adjectives:

(6) soGuk su (when asking for cold water) (1;7)

‘cold water’

(7) a. Bao-mus gocaman. (while describing her balloon) (1;10)

Balloon 1P:POSS big

‘Our ballon is big.’

b. oba sIcak. (while complaining that the soup is hot) (2;0)

soup hot

‘The soup is hot.’

Ekmekçi (1986) explains that if the adjectives in (7a,b) were situated at the right of the NPs

they would function as verbs (see Ex. 6), and thus, would not have the same meaning. She

continues that the usage of adverbs of manner starts at the age of 2;0. However, in contrast to

adverbs of time and place, the usage of adverbs of manner change within the phrase according

to the restriction imposed. If the manner is imitated while stating the action, the adverb (or its

substitute) occurs in pre – verbal position. But, if the manner is imitated after the statement,

the adverb occurs in post – verbal position. Ekmekçi (1986) points out that this strategy of the

child shows the close relation between the modifier and the action modified. In the case of

adverbs of time and place, however, word order variation occurs. Adverbs can be found in pre

– verbal position or post – verbal position, as seen in Ekmekçi’s (1986) following examples:

21

(8) iste – me – m atIk. (1;11)

want NEG AOR:1SG anymore

‘I don’t want (to) anymore.’

(9) AtIk dUS – mU – yo. (1;11)

anymore fall NEG PROG

‘It doesn’t fall anymore.’

Regarding the restriction of the direct object taking place between the adverb and the verb, we

see that neither case marking nor an indefinite article precedes it. Ekmekçi (1986) states that

also this is recognized by the child:

(10) M: Klara ne yapI – yor? C: Klaa hep Sark sOy – Uyo.

Clara what do PROG Clara always song sing PROG

‘What’s Clara doing?’ ‘Clara is always singing.’

As seen in example (10), the direct object “sarkI” is placed in pre – verbal position in order to

express what is being done. Ekmekçi argues that at this point, the unmarked direct object is

used as part of the verb. In the case that the adverb “hep” was placed immediately to the left

of the verb, it would be syntactically incorrect.

2.2.2.2 Word Order in Noun Phrases

In the same study, Ekmekçi (1986) analyses the position of unmarked direct objects

and subjects. Erguvanlı (in Ekmekçi, 1986) argues that indefinite or non – referential direct

objects have to be placed right before the verb and cannot be replaced. According to

Ekmekçi’s data (1986), also this restriction is considered by the child:

(11) Ba – na biaz yemek veyiy – mi – siniz?

I DAT some food give Q 2PL

‘Will you give me some food?’

She continues that her participant also considers the restriction on non –referential direct

objects in imperatives. The non –referential direct object is never placed in post – verbal

position, but always in pre – verbal position (Ekmekçi, 1986):

(12) cu ve (1;9)

water give

‘Give (me) water.’

Furthermore, Ekmekçi (1986) indicates that if the subject NP is definite, the child places it in

sentence initial position, but if indefinite, it is placed in pre – verbal position:

22

(13) Oa – dan avcI geC – iyo – muS. (2;0)

there – ABL hunter pass – ROG- REP

‘A hunter was passing by that place.’

2.2.2.3 Word Order in Question Words

In Turkish, question words are always used pre – verbally while other elements

within the sentence can be placed in pre – verbal or post – verbal position. This restriction is

completely observed by the child (Ekmekçi, 1986):

(14) Ne yap – yo – sun sen gua – ma? (2;0)

What do PROG 2SG you ear 1SG:POSS DAT

‘What are you doing to my ear?’

Also Bulut and Can (2001) in their study on the acquisition of wh-questions in Turkish,

focused on the position of wh-questions within Turkish sentences. Accordingly, wh-questions

are placed immediately preceding the verb of the sentence (Kornfilt in Bulut & Can, 2001) as

presented in their following examples:

(1)English (2) Turkish

Who played what? Kim ne oynadı?

Who slept where? Kim nerede uyudu?

*Who read where? Kim nerede okudu?

*Who came when? Kim ne zaman geldi?

*Who cried why? Kim niye ağladı?

*Who walked how? Kim nasıl yürüdü?

(Bulut & Can, 2001)

2.2.2.4 Word Order Variations Due to Pragmatic Reasons

As in many languages, the “normal” word order may change – but still being

syntactically correct – according to an intended meaning or discourse content. Also here, the

child in Ekmekçi’s (1986) study uses word order variations correctly:

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(15) Kes – eceg – le becaG – n – I

Cut FUT 3PL leg 3S:POSS ACC

‘They will cut his leg off.’

In the example above, the direct object is predictable from the question directed to the child:

‘What will they do to his leg?’ So it is used in post – verbal position. Also information which

is considered less significant and afterthoughts are placed in post – verbal positions.

Furthermore, when the emphasis is on the action itself, all other elements can be placed after

the verb (Ekmekçi, 1986).

2.2.3 The Acquisition of Case Markers in Turkish L1

In Turkish, case markers are attached to the final entity of nouns in the accusative,

genitive, dative, locative, and ablative case. Sofu’s (1989) study on the acquisition of case

markers in Turkish reveals that case markers are acquired at an early age, within the first three

years of a child’s life. Furthermore, nominative case markers are acquired earlier than the

other case markers. Sofu (1989) continues that especially the acquisition of the accusative

case marker occurs much later. In addition, she claims that after children start using nominals

in the nominative case in naming objects, they start to apply the other case markers

appropriately as well, which shows that “they immediately start appropriate marking in

limited cases” (1989, p.73). According to Sofu (1989), Turkish children acquire case markers

at an early age and easily due to the fact that the system of the usage of case markers in

Turkish is regular.

However, here it is suitable to point out that there are some remarkable errors in the

case marker production of Turkish children. Sofu (1989) categorizes these errors into three

groups:

a) Errors in consonant assimilation

b) Misapplication of case markers

c) Lack of case markers

Following examples show errors in consonant assimilation of Turkish children:

(16)*salıncaka correct: salıncağa

*Memet’e correct: Mehmed’e or Memed’e

*köpeki correct: köpeği

(Sofu, 1989, p.63).

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Although very low in rate, examples of misapplications of case markers in the same

study are following:

(17)*Buasına el tutuyor. correct: Burasını eliyle tutuyor.

this partGENDAT this partGENACC

In explaining this example, Sofu underlines that the problem may lie in the incorrect choice of

the verb. Here two alternatives are possible: “el sürmek” (to touch) or “eliyle tutmak” (to hold

with hands). The first verb mentioned requires the dative case marker and the noun “el” in the

nominative case; whereas, the second alternative requires the accusative case marker on

“burası” and the attachment of the instrumental “ile” to the word “eli”. So, according to

Sofu’s (1989) interpretation, “the child might have either confused these two expressions…or

the mistake originates from his inefficiency in producing nominals with the accusative case

marker” (p.64).

As mentioned above, in some examples there is a complete lack of case markers:

(18)Question: Neyi elliyorlar?

WhatACC

Answer: *Köpek. correct: Köpeği.

dogNOM dogACC

(19)Question: Bu kimin evi?

whoGEN

Answer: *Baba. correct: Babanın.

fatherNOM fatherGEN

According to Sofu (1989), lack of case markers are be found either when the noun occurs in

the nominative case, so that it does not require any case marker attachment, or the child does

not attach the required case marker.

To sum up, although errors in case marker application as presented in the examples

above do occur in the production of Turkish children, Sofu (1989) underlines expressly that

these are beneath notice, as they only appear in extraordinary cases.

2.3 UG and Second Language Acquisition / Learning

It is a fact that the discussion on language acquisition has been continuing. Wray

(2002) in her paper on needs analysis in linguistic ontogeny and phylogeny tries to put light

on unsolved issues in language evolution research; more specifically, the uniformity of

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language and of fundamental linguistic knowledge and what exactly is innate in relation to

language.

As previously discussed, LAD plays a decisive role in language acquisition.

Acquisition is the process through which language data goes into the LAD (black box) and a

grammar comes out. It evaluates alternative grammars to see which best fits the incoming

data. Incoming data is screened due to the principles forming part of the language faculty of

the mind, which is called UG. Cook (1993) claims that the principles are unchanging

regardless of the actual language involved (p.200). According to him, it is impossible for a

human mind to know a language without knowing the X – bar and Projection principles, since

they are innately born in every human being.

However, parameters create variation among languages. The parameter unit itself is

universal, but the characteristics and values it covers can differ from one language to another.

Supporting this hypothesis, Cook (1996) points out that “any language a human being knows

must, among other things, be either pro – drop or non – pro – drop, must have a setting for

each of the parameters affecting word order...” (p.201). In order to set a specific parameter in

mind, this parameter has to be triggered by something in the language input of the child. At

this point, Cook (1993, p.202) detects “a problem with the deterministic view … that L1

children may switch parameter – setting, for example from pro – drop to non – pro – drop in

the acquisition of English…” and questions: “why does the input not immediately set off the

right setting?... The child may not be able to take in crucial aspects of the input at a particular

stage or that the child may at first not have certain aspects of UG available”. Regarding

principles and parameters in second language acquisition, Hyams (1986) showed that the

early speech of children learning English has null subjects. Thus, concerning the pro – drop

parameter, the child starts with pro – drop. However, the setting can remain the same if the

child is learning Spanish, but he must change it if it is learning English.

Following picture shows how Cook (1993, p.205) applies the LAD model into second

language acquisition:

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L1 Input a grammar of L1

UG principles and parameters

L2 Input a grammar of L2

Figure 2.3 – LAD Model

Based on this model, Cook argues that L2 grammars might not be describable in

principles and parameters terms, but if the L2 user’s language knowledge includes principles

and parameters, the principles are not more learnable in a second language than in a first

language. Supporting the same hypothesis, Cook interprets that if the UG exists, no

syntactical structure that does not obey the principles of UG or varies in core grammar can

take place in the language faculty. To focus on access to UG specifically, White (2003) in her

paper on second language acquisition claims for a full access to UG in the initial state of L2

acquisition and says that language transfer from L1 must occur in interlanguage development.

In addition, in the final state she does not believe in the Critical Period theory. Contrary, she

argues that L2 learners can reach native – like L2 competence.

On the dispute of similarities and differences between first and second language

acquisition, Cook (2002) focuses on the continuing theme whether human acquire a second

language in the same way as their first language. As in Cook (1979) he approves that L1

acquisition is completely successful, whereas L2 learning is not. Towell & Hawkin’s (in

Cook, 2000) advocate this idea by saying that very few L2 learners appear to be fully

successful in the way that native speakers are. Larsen-Freeman & Long (in Cook, 2000) also

agree with this theory stating that language mastery is not often the outcome of SLA. Cook

(2000) concludes that while there are many similarities between L1 and L2 learning, the

variation in situation and other factors also produces many differences. One difficulty,

according to Cook, is filtering out differences that are accidental rather than inevitable. He

continues that L1 children mostly acquire language in different settings with different

exposure to language than L2 learners and that they are at different stages of mental and

social maturity (Cook in Cook, 2000). Also the age factor plays a crucial role in L1 and L2

acquisition. As Cook (1999) states, the age of L2 learners varies from early childhood to old

age; whereas, there is a stable, unchanging relationship between age and language acquisition

in L1 children.

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White (2003), for instance, in her study on fossilization in steady state L2 grammars

focuses on the problem of access to underlying knowledge. She investigates L2 learners of

English from Chinese and Turkish L1 backgrounds and determines that the Turkish speakers

had more accurate use of inflectional morphology in English than the Chinese speakers. The

reason of this outcome lies in the fact that Turkish is an inflectionally rich language, whereas

Chinese is an inflectionally poor one. However, both Turkish and Chinese participants

experienced difficulty with determiner use in English, as neither language uses determiners

similar to English. White (2003), due to the outcome of her study, concludes that second

language learners are more likely to acquire features in the L2 that match with counterparts in

their L1.

Ellis (2006), in his paper on selective attention and transfer phenomena in L2

acquisition, reveals that the “shortcomings” in the intake of L2 acquisition are due to one of

the factors of contingency, cue competition, salience, interference, overshadowing, blocking,

or perceptual learning. Ellis supports his theory saying that

it does not matter how you see grammatical functors as

operating in acquisition or processing, whether they serve as direct

cues to interpretation in structuralist/functional/construction grammar

accounts, whether they serve as cues to parameter resetting in UG –

based accounts, whether acquisition of routines for their processing is

what serves as the major determinant of acquisition as in

Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998), or whatever your favorite

flavor, or blend. In all cases, the functors have to be perceived as cues

before they can partake in acquisition… Together, these experiences

conspire dynamically in the emergence of interlanguage systems. An

understanding of associative learning theory illuminates both the

rationality of L1 fluency and the apparent irrationalities of fragile L2

acquisition and fossilization.

(Ellis, 2006; p.188 – 189)

2.4 Second Language Acquisition and Interlanguage

Due to the fact that the issue of SLA and the language faculty in human mind has been

the target of many scholars, a great amount of studies are made in this field. It has been

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investigated how people gain proficiency in a foreign language. Linguists agree in that the

second language acquisition process can take place at every age, in all languages and society

classes. From the perspective of linguistics, psychology and first language acquisition, SLA

tries to enlighten the organisation and functioning of the grammar system of second language

learners.

Compared to the first language acquisition of children, according to O’Grady,

Dobrovolsky, Aronoff (1997), second language learners develop a grammar that is as

systematic as L1, but not native – like. In contrast to L2, in the case of L1 acquisition, the

difference between child and adult grammar can be defined as cognitive or biological

immaturity in the child. On the other hand – rather than being immature – adult L2 learners,

“are subject to an influence that is absent from the child’s situation: the first language

grammar” (p.476). The figure below shows the status of interlanguage in the human mind:

L1 Interlanguage L2

Figure 2.4 – Interlanguage

In order to briefly explain the relations between L1, L2 and IL, L2 learners have a

systematic interlanguage (IL) grammar. Because it is influenced by both, the first and the

second language, it is called “interlanguage”. Taking the roles of L1 in learning an L2 into

consideration, a main trait of a second language learner’s speech is the resemblance to his or

her L1. Ro (1994), in his paper on interlanguage signs and lexical transfer errors, tries to put

light on computational error diagnosis of L2 input. In the same study, Ro presents Catt’s

example of translational transfer from French idiomatic expression:

(20)*My friend has hunger. correct: My friend is hungry.

Mon ami a faim.

According to Ro (1994), an error having syntactic or semantic properties of an IL lexical item

diverging from the standard of Lt, but are remarkably similar to properties of the

corresponding L1 lexical item, lexical transfer might be probably the case.

As a result, it can be concluded that an interlanguage contains features of both the L1

and the L2. Thus, both languages do influence the progress and development of interlanguage.

After having seen transfer patterns affecting second language acquisition, it will be tried to

put light on the nature of interlanguage. Based on the Ontogeny Model of SLA, O’Grady (et

al, 1997) presents two types of error in an IL grammar: transfer errors and developmental

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errors. As mentioned above, the former type of error reflects transfer from the L1. Contrary,

developmental errors are those kinds of mistakes made by children acquiring L1. Those

mistakes may be for example overgeneralization of rules like goed or breaked (p.478).

O’Grady explains this state saying that the interlanguage grammar is influenced by both the

L1 and the L2. However, the grade of influence depends on the learner’s level of overall

proficiency. For instance, it should be considered that advanced learners have a lower

proportion of both transfer and developmental errors. O’Grady (et al, 1997) continues that it is

common in second language acquisition for learners to reach a kind of steady state in their

second language development. This phenomenon is called fossilization (O’Grady et al,

p.479). The interlanguage grammar has fulfilled its development and does not continue

changing.

Finally, it is useful to focus on issues affecting SLA. To start with the Critical Period

Hypothesis by Lenneberg (1967), also known as the age factor; he states that the crucial

period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12. He claims that if a language is not

learned before this age, it can never be learnt in a normal and fully functional way. based

upon age of acquisition, O’Grady (et al, 1997) states that while people who begin SLA as

adults tend to retain non-native-like phonology in the second language, it is much more

difficult to predict knowledge or ability in any of the other areas of communicative

competence, for instance syntax, cohesion, sociolinguistics, etc. Although people who start

learning their L2 before the critical age reach native-like L2 pronunciation, people who start

learning after it will have non-native-like pronunciation; innovative scholars, such as De

Keyser support the idea that there is no evidence of anything biological that is preventing

adults from acquiring proficiency in a second language. Hence, a more modern view of the

Critical Period Hypothesis is represented by Robert DeKeyser (2000) opposing that adults

actually can learn a second language perfectly, despite the reality that the critical period

exists. DeKeyser (2000) underlines the role of language aptitude in contrast to the critical

period and states that adults can reach a native – like performance in SLA, at least on the

syntactical level. Here arises a new issue. Supposed adults are engaged in the same kind of

development process as children; their IL grammar would be expected to be similar in terms

of the same principles and parameters of UG that we use to describe first languages.

However, according to O’ Grady et al (1997, p.495), if a second languages is acquired using

different learning processes, like general problem solving abilities, than in L1, it might be

expected that independent hypotheses to UG are adopted. In addition to the factor of age,

individual difference is another factor to be focused on. O’ Grady et al (1997) argues that a

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particular quality (x) of a learner might affect the learning process negatively or positively.

Thus, besides the definition of measure (x), also the criteria of what it means to be better in

language learning, and what aspect of communicative competence it is referred to specifically

plays a crucial role in SLA.

2.5 Turkish as a Foreign Language

Linguistic studies on minority languages in European countries are very limited, so

that acquisition issues concerning Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) in German native

speakers are still quite unenlightened. Thus, previously a general focus on TFL in European

countries would be suitable. Some of these countries are Germany and the Netherlands where

TFL has been taught under certain conditions.

Though migrant languages are spoken by close to half a million speakers in the

Netherlands, their role in education is very limited (Extra & Gorter in de Bot 2005). De Bot

(2005) states that until recently, provision of minority language teaching was allowed during

normal teaching hours in schools, but now such teaching is only allowed after school hours.

The well known argument is that the teaching of minority languages should not go at the

expense of other subjects and in particular the learning of Dutch as a second language. Some

migrant languages now have an official status as an optional language in secondary education,

and pupils can choose to include them in their final examinations program. These programs

cater only for students from the minority groups. Hardly any native Dutch pupils take Turkish

or Arabic. The presence of these languages is hardly considered an asset by national or local

authorities. De Bot (2005) concludes that at the moment the government focuses on the

learning of Dutch primarily and only allows the teaching of those languages outside school

hours.

Further research on minority languages have been conducted in the Regio Basiliensis.

The University Basel provides the ideal ground for a trans-disciplinary research project on the

neurobiological correlates of multilingualism. Basel as a Swiss border town, and a migration

center, with its university and the research industry is a point of intersection of various

phenomena of language use. In the last decades, with the result of immigration, numerous

languages, such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Slavic languages and so on, have

joined the country's four national languages.

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2.5.1 The Position of Turkish as a Foreign Language

On an interview about Turkish as a foreign language published on the web – page of

“Türk Dil Kurumu” (Turkish Language Association) in 2004, Prof. Dr. Efrasiyap Gemalmaz

states that foreign language learners of Turkish learn this language objectively, for instance

academicians or scientists who aim to take advantage of Ottoman, political, commercial or

archeological resources. According to Gemalmaz, the most difficult structural patterns for

these students are inflections (markers) and vowel harmony.

The issue of TFL is recently on the agenda of many European countries. In Germany,

the article “Man spricht (nicht) nur Deutsch”, in “Die Zeit”, by Spiewak (2006) raises the

questions of why Turkish is only considered as a spot of bother rather than a treasure, where

teachers learn teaching children from foreign cultures, or why teacher rooms lack in

pedagogues from Bosnia, Morocco, or Turkey. It states that although a third of the students in

Germany are migrant families, the schools keep on ignoring this fact. However, there are

opposing models, like the Heinrich – Wolgast – Schule in Hamburg providing bilingual

classes starting from the first day of school. It is one of the two German – Turkish primary

schools in Hamburg where students are daily exposed to both languages and cultures. Twice a

week the classes are divided into two: while German children learn Turkish as a foreign

language, migrant children have remediation classes in the German language. On the other

hand, though, a secondary school in Berlin – Wedding decides on prohibiting any other

language than German on the school ground. In the same article, it is stated that the German

Ministry of Education is thinking of whether enforcing this regulation to all schools in

Germany or not. Spiewak (2006) underlines in his article that the additional tuition in the

mother tongue Turkish, primarily included in the education system to prepare immigrant

children to their return to their homeland, is shortcoming due to serious lacks in curriculum

and text books. In addition, the Turkish grade on the school report at the end of each

educational school year is of no value, contrary to the foreign languages English, French and

Latin. Furthermore, the teachers to enter Turkish foreign language classes have generally been

immigrants from Turkey or employed as part – time teachers without any educational

training.

As an alternative solution for the problem, Dortmund University provides preparation

lessons for freshmen German teachers. A specialist in Turkology teaches them basic

structures of the Turkish language. The linguist Hoffmann (in Spiewak, 2006) states that

teachers can overcome recurring errors of the language learner easier in this way.

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To continue with the status of TFL, in the “Bildungsplan 2004, Allgemein bildendes

Gymnasium” (Education Program 2004, General Educating Gymnasium) prepared by the

Ministry of Cult, Youth and Sports in Baden – Württemberg, in Germany, Turkish is

presented as a late beginning foreign language taught after the 10th class in Gymnasiums

(schools similar to British grammar schools). It is placed only as an elective subject in the

education plan of Gymnasiums, mentioned last in the order, sequentially standing after

French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Latin, Greek, Hebraic, Chinese, and Japan (see

Appendix 6). However, in the chapter of “Leitgedanken zum Kompetenzerwerb” (“Guiding

Ideas to the Competence Acquisition”) of the same paper, providing Turkish as a foreign

language is considered to be of great importance in a multicultural Europe (p.522).

To focus further on TFL in schools of higher education, Gutenberg University in

Mainz, also called FASK (Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach – und Kulturwissenschaft,

Special Field Applied Language – and Culture Science) explains the reason why TFL is

covered in their program as preliminary Turkish playing an important role in the growing

global commerce and politics in Germany. They claim that knowledge in the Turkish

language and culture is a crucial additional skill for many students. Regarding futurities, the

subject Turkish as a foreign language at FASK is expected to become en vogue.

In this Chapter, it is also noteworthy to mention some interpretations regarding the

outcome of the PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) study including 32

countries in 2002. Stanat et al (2002) state in their report from the Max Planck Institute for

Human Development on the results for Germany that in almost all of the German states a

relatively low level of overall performance is coupled with a wide variation of student

performance. In comparison to the international results, Germany belongs to the at – risk

group. Furthermore, the relationship between social background and student performance is

stronger in Germany than in any of the other PISA – countries. FÖTED (Föderation

türkischer Elternvereine in Deutschland), in their article on expectations from the German

education system, interprets the remarkably outstanding results for German schools as signs

for deficiencies and lacks in a quite social framework in the German education system

(Çıbıkçı, 2003). FÖTED argues that the system fails in educating students who need social

support. Also Keskin, social scientist and chairman of the Turkish community in Germany, in

his article in “Die Zeit” (2002), focuses on language competence deciding on success at

school. He supports the idea that the results of the PISA study are closely related to the social

shortcomings of the school system. Keskin points out that Turkish is the most spoken mother

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tongue after German in Germany. Due to the fact that it is spoken by more than 300 million

people worldwide, it should also take place in the foreign language curriculum of German

schools.

2.5.2 Turkish in Foreign Language Context in Turkey

The first institution that comes to mind when thinking of Turkish as a foreign language

in Turkey is TÖMER. Established in 1984 under the roof of Ankara University, TÖMER is

the center for Turkish and foreign language research and application. This center provides

classes in 20 foreign languages like Arabic, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian,

Spanish, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Korean, and certainly Turkish. The main TÖMER center

and its twelve branch offices in eleven different cities of Turkey work in strong cooperation

with the Faculty of Science and Letters of Ankara University. Thus, it does not only cover the

medium of modern western and eastern languages, but also the analysis of antique and

classical languages. Beside conferences, seminars and symposiums at national and

international basis, publications of TÖMER cover learning materials, the quarterly “Language

Journal”, the “Mother Tongue Journal” (three times a year), and the news – bulletin on its

web site. In addition, TÖMER is the publisher of the innovative language learning series

“HITIT” developed for TFL. This series covers three separate packages, one for each level:

elementary, intermediate and advanced level. “HITIT” has been on the market since 2002 and

has been sold worldwide. Providing all pedagogical support, TÖMER is also involved in the

internet – based Turkish learning project called “Distance Turkish Learning Center”.

Furthermore, TÖMER also gives teachers teaching TFL the opportunity to participate in

training courses especially designed for them. The department of Turkology works in strong

cooperation with countless Turkish language institutes in 111 nations so that all developments

in this field can be permanently tracked. It should be taken to consideration that Ankara

University TÖMER is the only institution within Turkey to be qualified for certificating the

European Language Portfolio for adults.

Furthermore, it is a fact that Turkey is a prospective member of the European Union

(EU) and thus, has been diligently preparing for the EU membership. In the case that the

membership negotiations result positively, Turkish – in relation to population – will be one of

the most spoken languages in Europe. Demircan (1988) supports this idea reminding that

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learning of TFL by Europeans has started with the beginning of commercial and political

relations with the Ottoman Empire. With Turkey being a prospective EU member, the rise in

TFL learning has been rising, resulting in the need for Turkish teaching and learning

developments and innovations. According to Demircan (1988), today Turkish language from

the perspective of foreign language acquisition has been shortcoming as Turkology

departments of universities have focused more on historical and cultural, rather than linguistic

studies. Hızır (1985) supports this view stating that linguistic studies on TFL have not been

considered and thus, Turkish language structure needs to be enlightened. He claims that as

TFL teaching as a communication language in other countries than Turkey has been out of

Turkish language studies, teachers of TFL can only get a general education graduation that is

a pedagogy certificate. However, it should be noticed that İstanbul University and Yıldız

Teknik University provide MA programs in TFL teaching.

In addition to the rising role of TFL in Turkey’s position as an EU member candidate,

TFL has also gained importance since Turkey has been able to participate fully in the

Erasmus Program under the roof of Socrates since 1 April 2004. These student and teacher

exchange programs cover the condition of Erasmus Intensive Language Courses (EILC)

providing incoming students and staff the opportunity to enroll in language courses separated

into different levels. The Socrates – Erasmus National Agency of Turkey lists the universities

to provide intensive language courses in Turkish in 2006 as follows:

• Akdeniz University – Antalya

• Ankara University – Ankara

• Çukurova University – Adana

• Cumhuriyet University – Sivas

• Gazi University – Anakara

• Marmara University – İstanbul

• Süleyman Demirel University – Isparta

• Yıldız Teknik University – İstanbul

As seen in the list above, Çukurova University is involved in the EILC program 2006, as it

also was in 2004 among three universities (Ege University, Fatih University and Çukurova

University) getting accreditation to open intensive Turkish language courses for incoming

students and academicians. It should also be emphasized that the University of Çukurova

35

offered TFL courses in 2005 when it was not included in the EILC program. The courses

were held by professional TFL teachers at YADIM (Research and Application Center for

Foreign Languages).

2.5.3 Research Overview on “Turkish as a Foreign Language”

In close relation to the extension of TFL teaching and learning, TÖMER language

teaching center of Ankara University has organized a seminar in 1999 under the title of

“Dünyada Türkçe Öğretimi” (Turkish Language Teaching in the World). With a participation

of linguists from 22 different countries, common views on TFL are summarized by TÖMER

as follows:

1) Turkish is the 7th most spoken language among nearly five thousand languages in the

world.

2) Beside Turkish being spoken by Turks in European countries in the West, it is also

expected as a foreign language by the inhabitants of the same countries.

3) That most Turkish television channels can be watched in many countries, results in Turks

wishes of continuing Turkish as their native language and foreigners to learn Turkish as a

foreign language.

TFL has also been investigated from different perspectives by many scholars like

Aydın (2001, 2004), Aydın İ. (2004), Bölükbaş (2004), Çiçek (1994), Haznedar (2003),

Hengirmen (1994), Montrul (2001). For instance, Bölükbaş (2004), on the one hand, analyzes

TFL in terms of methodology pointing on issues of reflective teaching in TFL. Aydın (2004),

on the other hand, in his study on the subject position of adverbial clauses based on mistakes

by TFL learners focuses on possible empty categories in subject position and their features.

According to Aydın, the aim of the mentioned study is pointing out possible difficulties

language learners may be confronted with in learning adverbial clauses in Turkish and

providing basic principles for teaching. The outcome of his study reveals that both the empty

category and the agreement category need to be analyzed in teaching Turkish as a foreign

language. Thus, the three types of adverbial categories (arak – type, ınca – type, dığında –

type) have to presented beside the dığı – type which takes only the pronoun in contrast to

dığında – type says Aydın (2004). Another scholar on TFL is Aydın İ. (2004) investigating

36

subordinate clauses in Turkish which is still an object at issue in Turkish. He states that this

topic plays an important role in the functional system of the word order plane and argues that

focusing on subordinate clauses will put light on the understanding and acquisition of a

complex sentence built of one or more than one subordinate clause being placed around a

main clause. Studies on Turkish L2 are also conducted by Montrul (2001) investigating the

acquisition of causative/inchoative verbs in L2 Turkish by Spanish and English speakers. The

results of her study reveal that L2 learners largely acquire the correct lexico – syntactic

classification of Turkish verbs. However, they are constrained by the morphological patterns

of their L1 when involved to derivational morphology, especially with causative/inchoative

verbs. Montrul (2001) continues that Turkish L2 learners also show failure in rejecting

transitivity errors and inappropriate derivational morphology with non accusative, non

ergative and non causative/inchoative transitive verbs. She argues that L2 learners of Turkish

are not set to the rich morphology of Turkish and thus, the acquisition of derivational

morphology and lexical semantics do not disintegrate in their interlanguage grammar.

Haznedar (2003) contributes to the issue of Turkish L2 in her study on missing surface

inflection in adult L2 (Turkish) and child L2 (English). In her paper, she definitely argues

“against the position that second language learners’ variable use of inflection indicates lack of

or impairment in associated syntactic representations” (p.140). Haznedar (2003) supports her

view presenting the data of an American student John obtained in a 5 months period during

his stay as an exchange student in Turkey. Regarding tense marking, the data reveals that past

and presence utterances are most frequently and rather accurately produced. Hence, four types

of tense morphology are used by the participant: past (- dI), present continuous (- Iyor),

present (- Ir), future (- AcAk). Haznedar continues with subject – verb agreement production,

stating that with the exception for the third person singular, uninflected stems are not allowed

in Turkish and verbs have to be inflected for person. Regarding the Turkish L2 data of her

study, the first person singular agreement morpheme (-Im) is the most frequently produced

form. According to the author, native – like mastery is the case in agreement morphology. In

the case of subjects, Haznedar states that she considers two types of subjects: overt subjects

referring to lexical and pronominal subjects, and null subjects. The outcome for the subject

production in her study says that they are consistently used in the nominative form, especially

the nominative pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’. Related to case marking Haznedar’s findings are

similar to those of Prevost & White (2000) and Gürel (2000) indicating the variable use of

case morphology being used either inaccurately or being missed. Haznedar (2003) explains

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that the genitive case marking is used less incorrectly in comparison to ablative, accusative,

dative and locative following the given order. Furthermore, she underlines that the “omission

errors far exceed substitution errors” (p.146). She concludes that although her participant

shows efficiency in the usage of subject – verb agreement, he seems to have difficulties in the

case morphology of Turkish.

2.6 Turkish and German Language and Syntax

The languages German and Turkish differ from each other in many perspectives.

Turkish is an Ural – Altaic language, having an agglutinative word structure with productive

inflectional and derivational processes. In the context of Turkish, derivational features can be

considered as a phenomenon, as the amount of forms derivable from a single root may be in

the millions (Hankamer, 1989). In addition, although Turkish has an unmarked SOV

constituent order, it is considered as a free – constituent language since all constituents can

move freely as demanded by the discourse context with limited syntactic constraints

(Erguvanlı, 1979).

(21)Herkes [(biz + im) heykel + i kır + dığ + ımız)] + ı bil + iyor everybody we + gen. statue + acc. Break + ger. + 1pl + acc. + know + 3sg. ‘Everybody knows that we broke the statue’

(Kornfilt, 1990, p.633).

Furthermore, Kornfilt (1997) states that Turkish is a pro – drop language where pronominal

subjects of finite clauses can be omitted. Also arguments in free, discourse conditioned cases

can be omitted (Kornfilt, 1997). According to Oflazer et al (2003), syntactic roles of nominal

constituents are indicated by case marking on the same. They explain “that constituent order

in embedded clauses is substantially more constrained but deviations from the default order,

however infrequent, can still be found” (2003, p.3). Furthermore, Turkish is a pro – drop

language; thus, the subject can be omitted as it is also indicated with the agreement marker on

the verb. To focus on noun phrases, Oflazer et al (2003) states that there is a non – stable

order with specifiers preceding modifiers. However, within each phrase, the order is

determined by the aspect to be emphasized. Oflazer exemplifies this by saying that “the

Turkish equivalents of two young men and young two men are both possible: the former being

the neutral case or the case where youth is emphasized, while the latter is the case where the

38

cardinality is emphasized” (p.3). Another complication is that many different verbal adjuncts

are able to take place in the NP causing interrupted constituents.

On the other hand, German, belonging to the Indo - European language family, is a

West Germanic language. It is an inflected language having declension classes (nominative,

genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative) and three genders (masculine, feminine,

neuter). Similar to Turkish, German has a large subject – verb agreement inflection for person

and number: 1sg (-e), 2sg (-st), 3sg (-t), 1pl (-en), 2pl (-e), 3pl (-en) (Sundquist, 2005). The

list below presents all inflection forms in German:

§ Person (1., 2., 3.)

§ Numerus (Singular, Plural)

§ Modus (Indicative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II)

§ Tempus (present tense, past tense, present perfect tense, past perfect tense, future

tense, future perfect tense)

(Vogel, 1998)

However, as opposed to Turkish, German has only a single set of agreement markers for all

clause types. Sundquist (2005) presents examples on German main clauses (a) and embedded

clauses (b) in his study on the inflection production in Turkish – German interlanguage:

(22) a. Fritz schreibt heute den Brief. Fritz writes+3sg today the letter ‘Fritz is writing the letter today.’ b. …dass Fritz heute den Brief schreibt that Fritz today the letter writes+3sg ‘that Fritz is writing the letter today’

Sundquist (2005) explains that as the infinitive marker is –en, all first plural and third plural

forms are homophonous with the infinitival form in German. In the case of the example above

this would be: schreiben. To focus on finiteness in German, there are obligatory finite

contexts like embedded clauses (a), yes/no questions (b), negations (c) and non – finite

contexts like auxiliary verb + past participle (d), model verb + infinitive (e):

(23) a. Wenn der Mann den Brief endlich schreibt,… If the man the letter finally writes+3sg.

39

‘When the man finally gets around to writing the letter,…’ b. Schreibst du heute den Brief? write+sg. you today the letter ‘Are you going to write the letter today?’ c. Ich schreibe den Brief nicht. I write+sg. the letter not ‘I’m not going to write letter.’ d. Der Mann hat den Brief nicht geschrieben. The man has the letter not written-PARTICIPLE ‘The man hasn’t written the letter.’ e. Der Mann muss den Brief heute lesen. The man must the letter today read-INFINITIVE ‘The man has to read the letter today.’

(Sundquist, 2005, p. 239 – 240).

Kauschke and Ari (2006) in their crosslinguistic study on noun and verb naming analyze

differences between the languages Turkish and German. They state that German is a classical

noun – verb language with a clear – cut distinction; whereas, Turkish is less rigid in the noun

– verb distinction. Consequently, the word category acquisition may differ in these languages,

too. Table 2.2 below presents the main linguistic differences between the languages Turkish

and German.

Table 2.2 – Linguistic Differences between German and Turkish

German Turkish

Morphology Inflected agglutinated

Marking of nouns case, number, gender Articles obligatory

case, (number), no gender no definite articles

Marking of verbs person, tense, mode, Number, (genus verbi)

person, tense, mode, number, negation, aspect,

40

genus verbi

Word order verb – second; canonical SVO (in main clause; OVS also possible) SOV (in subordinate clause)

Canonical SOV, other word Orders possible for pragmatic effects

Subject drop subject is obligatory no obligatory subject

Word formation derivation, conversion derivation, conversion, function overlap between nouns and verbs (in predicate position)

Noun – Verb Distinction clear distinction, “noun – friendly”: nouns consistent with articles, verbs appear in various positions

Less obvious distinction, “verb – friendly” language: Verbs consistent in the salient final position

(Kauschke & Ari, 2006)

2.7 Outstanding Differences between Turkish and German Syntax

Under this main heading the reader will find subheadings analyzing differences in

language patterns between Turkish and German. It should be taken into consideration that the

‘outstanding’ differences are determined according to the specific outcome of the present

study. Thus, mainly differences in word order and case marker structures in Turkish and

German syntax are discussed in detail.

2.7.1German Word Order versus Turkish Word Order

Linguists are, in general, familiar with the notion that certain languages tend

consistently to put modifying or limiting elements before those modified or limited, while

others just do the opposite. Greenberg (2000) exemplifies Turkish as a language of the

former type, putting for instance adjectives before the nouns they modify, placing the

object of the verb before the verb, the dependent genitive before the governing noun,

adverbs before adjectives which they modify, etc. He states that such languages,

moreover, tend to have postpositions for concepts expressed by prepositions. A language

41

of the opposite type is English, in which adjectives follow the noun, the object follows the

verb, the genitive follows the governing noun, and there are prepositions. According to

Greenberg (2000), the majority of languages, as for example English, are not as well

marked in this respect. In English there are prepositions, and the noun object follows the

verb. On the other hand, English resembles Turkish in that the adjective precedes the

noun. Moreover, in the genitive construction both orders exist: 'John's house' and 'the

house of John'.

Greenberg (2000) states that more detailed analysis of these and other phenomenon of

order reveals that some factors are closely related to each other while others are relatively

independent. Greenberg sets up a typology involving certain basic factors of word order.

This typology is referred to as the basic order typology. Three sets of criteria are

employed. The first of these is the existence of prepositions as against postpositions. The

second is the relative order of subject, verb, and object in declarative sentences with

nominal subject and object. The vast majority of languages have several variant orders but

a single dominant one. There are six possible orders: SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, and

OVS. Of these six, however, only three normally occur as dominant orders. The three

which do not occur at all, or at least are excessively rare, are VOS, OSV, and OVS. These

all have in common that the object precedes the subject. This gives the first universal

stating that in declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is

almost always one in which the subject precedes the object. According to Greenberg

(2000), this leaves three common types: VSO, SVO, and SOV.

Pienemann (2003) defines the word order in German sentences as both being more

variable and more flexible than in English. In many cases, German word order is identical to

English. This is the case for simple sentences like Pienemann exemplifies:

(24)Ich sehe dich. [I see you.]

Er arbeitet zu Hause. [He works at home.]

[Subject + Verb + Other Elements].

This "normal" word order places the subject first, the verb second, and any other elements

third (SVO). By ‘verb’, the conjugated or finite verb, that is, the verb that has an ending

agreeing with the subject is meant:

(25) er geht, wir gehen, du gehst, etc.

Pienemann (2003) continues that by saying "in second position" or "second place," the second

element is meant, not necessarily the second word. For example, in the following sentence,

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the subject (der alte Mann) consists of three words and the verb (kommt) comes second, but it

is the fourth word:

(26) Der alte Mann kommt heute nach Hause. [Subject] [ Verb]

With compound verbs, the second part of the verb phrase (past participle, separable

prefix, infinitive) goes last, but the conjugated element (CE) is still second:

(27)"Der alte Mann kommt heute an." [CE]

(28)"Der alte Mann ist gestern angekommen." [CE]

(29)"Der alte Mann will heute nach Hause kommen." [CE]

However, Pienemann (2003) emphasizes that German native speakers often prefer to begin a

sentence with another element than the subject, usually for emphasis or for stylistic reasons.

Only one element can precede the verb, but it may consist of more than one word (see Ex. 31

below). In such cases, the verb remains second and the subject must immediately follow the

verb:

(30)Heute kommt der alte Mann nach Hause. [Verb] [Subject]

(31)Vor zwei Tagen habe ich mit ihm gesprochen.

[Verb] [Subject]

The subject will either come first or immediately after the verb if the subject is not the first

element. However, this rule applies to sentences and phrases that are independent clauses. The

only verb-second exception is for dependent or subordinate clauses. In subordinate clauses the

verb always comes last, although today this rule is generally ignored by German native

speakers. One other exception to this rule is that interjection, exclamations, names, and

certain adverbial phrases usually set off by a comma, come first. The initial word or phrase set

off by a comma comes first, but does not alter the verb-second rule. Another area where

German syntax may vary from that of English is the position of expressions of time (wann),

manner (wie) and place (wo) presented by Pienemann (2003). In English one would say:

(32)Frank is coming home on the train today. [place] [manner] [time]

The English word order in such cases is place, manner, time. However, the German version is

the exact opposite - time, manner, place:

43

(33)Frank kommt heute mit dem Zug nach Hause. [time] [manner] [place] The only exception is if the sentence is started with one of these elements for

emphasis:

(34)Heute kommt Erik mit der Bahn nach Hause. (Emphasis on "today.")

But even in this case, the elements are still in the prescribed order: time ("heute"), manner

("mit der Bahn"), place ("nach Hause"). If we start with a different element, the elements that

follow remain in their usual order, as in:

(35)Mit der Bahn kommt Erik heute nach Hause.

The emphasis is put on "by train", that is not by car or plane. Pienemann states that these are

the general rules in simple declarative sentences; though the word order rules change in the

dependent or subordinate clauses in German.

A subordinate clause is that part of a sentence - in English or German - that cannot stand

by itself and is dependent on another part of the sentence, the main clause. That makes the

clause subordinate. A subordinate clause is introduced by a subordinating conjunction (daß,

ob, weil, wenn, etc.) or in the case of relative clauses, a relative pronoun (den, der, die,

welche, etc.). The conjugated verb is placed at the end of a subordinate clause (post position).

However, it should be underlined that substandard German preferred by many German native

speakers today ignores the verb-last rule, particularly with weil (because) and daß (that) –

clauses as presented in the following example:

(36)*...,weil ich bin müde. [..., because I am tired].

Pienemann (2003) states that the sentence above is unacceptable in formal or standard

German. Some linguists support the theory that this ‘bad-German’ trend derived from the

influence of English. However, they also agree in the point that this is unacceptable German.

To focus on German subordinate clauses as used frequently, especially in written German,

and in some common phrases, some examples are presented below:

(37) a. Ich weiß nicht, wann er heute ankommt. [Sub.Conj.] [V] b. I don't know when he arrives today. [Sub.Conj.] [V]

It is also of importance that a subordinate clause may come first or last in a sentence:

44

(38) Als sie hinausging, bemerkte sie sofort die glühende Hitze.

When she went out, she immediately noticed the intense heat. (39)Es gibt eine Umleitung, weil die Straße repariert wird. [There is a detour because the road repaired is being]. (40)Das ist die Dame, die wir gestern sahen. [That is the lady (that/whom) we yesterday saw].

(Pienemann, 2003)

As seen in the examples above, a German subordinate clause always starts with a

subordinating conjunction and ends with the conjugated verb. It is always set off from the

main clause by a comma, whether it comes before or after the main clause. The other sentence

elements, such as time, manner, place, follow in the normal order. In German, when a

sentence starts with a subordinate clause, as in the second example above, the very first word

after the comma, before the main clause, must be the verb. In the example (38) above, the

verb bemerkte is this first word.

Compared to German, the Turkish word order shows main differences in basic

semantic structures. The pragmatically unmarked word order in Turkish is SOV, however, a

basic sentence with three constituents can have six possible orderings (Greenberg, 2000). This

is also supported by Kornfilt (1997) stating that the Turkish word order is variable. She claims

that the main word order is SOV head – final, and that in main clauses pre – verbal and post –

verbal scrambling is permitted. In embedded clauses, however, scrambling varies according to

the compliment type. Embedded clauses are usually center embedded and placed before the

matrix predicate, whereby the word order in embedded clauses is rather free with verb – final

gravity (Kornfilt, 1997).

Also Guise (2006) agrees in that the word order is regular, but differs mainly in adjectival

descriptions of subject and subject, time, adjectival descriptions of object and object, verb.

The verb is always located finally in a sentence. Turkish punctuation normally puts a comma

after the subject as with the following example sentence:

45

(41)Ellerinde oltası olan adam, yarın gece arkadaşının 50’ci doğum günü partisini [Subject] [Time clause] [Object] [Hands-his-in-which-are fishing-rods-the-with man, tomorrow night friend-your-of ziyaret edecek. [Main Verb] [Aux.Verb,Future] 50th birthday party-of-his will visit.]

The man with the fishing rods in his hand will visit your friend's 50th birthday

party tomorrow night.

(Guise, 2006)

Turkish is a very adjectival language. At a low level the adjective always precedes its

noun:

(42)kara kedi [black cat]

A Turkish example sentence including adjectival phrases is presented below:

(43)Minderin üstünde oturan uzun kuyruklu kara kedi aç görünüyor.

[On the mat which is sitting long tailed black cat hungry looks.] The black cat with the long tail which is sitting on the mat looks hungry.

(Guise, 2006)

In Turkish the subject and objects are described adjectivally considering their place and

disposition. Afterwards, the verb is put at the end of the sentence. Adjective clauses are

marked by the inflections – An or – DIK (see Ex. above) (Kornfilt, 1997).

To continue with the adverb word order, in German many adverbs are not derived

from an adjective. Often they have very important meanings within a clause and are called

native adverbs as exemplified by Lewis (2000) "nicht", "leider" or "gerne". There are also

accusative nouns with adverbial meaning. These are used to express the duration or the spatial

extent of an action by a nominal expression in the accusative case:

(44)Das Kind malte den ganzen Weg Bilder.

[The child painted pictures during all of the way.]

There are also adverbial forms of adjectives presented by Lewis (2000). These adverbs are

rather simple to form, at least in comparison to other languages. An adverb is simply the

46

uninflected form of the adjective (or participle) as stated by Lewis (2000). This holds for the

positive, comparative and superlative forms: schnell, gross, fliessend, geklaut, schneller, am

schönsten, fliessender.

A prepositional phrase consists of a nominal phrase and a preposition (Lewis 2000). It is

the placing of one linguistic element before another, as placing a modifier before the word it

modifies in a sentence or placing an affix before the base to which it is attached. The case of

the nominal phrase depends on the pre- or postposition and sometimes on its exact meaning.

There are several ways to replace a position by another construction with the equivalent

meaning, as exemplified by Lewis:

(45) a."In dem Haus" (dative case) - "inside the house"

b."In das Haus" (accusative case) - "into the house"

c."der Ehre wegen" - "for the cause of honour"

Prepositions do not always have a locative meaning; they can also be modal or temporal

adverbs. Prepositional phrases, being adverbial, may be used to describe actions and

adjectives. They can also be attributes of a nominal phrase:

(46) Ich gehe in das Haus

(47) (Eis ist) während der Sommerzeit begehrt

To continue, adverbs in Turkish and their relative ordering are exemplified by Wilson and

Saygın (2001). The canonical position for adverbs in Turkish is immediately before the verb

as exemplified below:

(48) Ahmet hızlı koş -uyor-du.

Ahmet quickly run-PROG-PAST.3sg

Ahmet was running quickly..

According to the authors, however in practice, there is a great deal of flexibility. When there

is more than one adverb, there is usually a preference for one possible order over the other, or

often one of the options is simply ungrammatical. Here are some examples:

(49) a.Açıkçası muhtemelen gel-me-yeceğ-im.

frankly probably come-NEG-FUT-1sg

Frankly, I probably won’t come..

b. *Muhtemelen açıkçası gel-me-yeceğ-im.

probably frankly come-NEG-FUT-1sg

Probably I frankly won’t come.

47

(Wilson and Saygın, 2003, p.3)

These ordering restrictions equally make sense in terms of the meanings of the adverbs

involved. Açıkçası (frankly) is an illocutionary adverb and logically takes scope over

muhtemelen (probably). The speaker is rather being frank in saying that she will probably not

come; she is not probably saying that frankly she will not come. Lewis (1967; 2000) states

that Turkish is not as strict as English in determining what can and cannot be used as an

adverb. In theory, according to the author you may use any Turkish adjective as an adverb.

For instance, the exact same word, ‘iyi’, may be used as an adjective meaning good or as an

adverb meaning well, fine – depending on the sentence in which it appears:

(50) O iyi bir filmdi. That was a good movie. (adjective)

(51) Çok iyiyim. I'm feeling very well. (adverb)

(Lewis, 2000)

2.7.2 Turkish Case Markers versus German Case Markers

Before specifying in Turkish and German case markers in detail, it should be focused

on case marking in linguistic terms in general. Case markers mainly function as indicators of

relations within clauses (Duden – Grammatik in Gallmann, 2006). In Turkish, case marking is

related to pragmatic and grammatical functions, so that inflectional morphology and syntactic

processes are integrated (Karagöl – Ayan, 1999). Furthermore, grammatical functions can be

marked morphologically (e.g., case) or syntactically (e.g., indirect objects). She states that in

Turkish, nouns are case marked for genitive, accusative, dative, locative, ablative,

instrumental, relative, and deprivative. In addition, these suffixes are also fixed to pronouns

and question words (Karagöl – Ayan, 1999). She claims that “a rich system of case marking

identifies the predicate – argument structure (PAS) of a Turkish sentence, while the word

order variation serves a pragmatic function” (p.138). Although the default word order in

Turkish is SOV, all six variations of a transitive sentence are possible as subject and object of

a sentence are differentiated by case marking (see also 2.7.1). Pragmatic conditions (i.e.

context, intonation, stress or clefting) determine the word order in Turkish. This is also

supported by Karagöl – Ayan (1999) who claims that “elements with overt case marking

generally can scramble freely, even out of embedded clauses” (p.138). Based on Kornfilt’s

(1997) explanations of the case system in Turkish, the table below presents the case

inflections in Turkish:

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Table 2.3 - Case System in Turkish

CASE INFLECTION

Nominative – Ø

Accusative – (y)I

Dative – (y)A

Genitive – (n)In

Ablative – DAn

Locative – DA

The accusative case (- [y]ı), also known as DOM (differentiated object marker), assumes that

the case suffix marks a direct object (Kornfilt, 2005).

Following are example sentences for the respective cases in Turkish:

(52) Sen ben – i okul – a git – meğ – e ikna et – ti – n. you – nom I – acc school – dat go – inf – dat persuaded ‘You persuaded me to go to school.’

(Kornfilt, 1997)

(53) [Ø Burada dur – mak] tehlikeli here – LOC stop – INF dangerous ‘It is dangerous to stop here.’

(Erguvanlı – Taylan, 1990)

(54) ZEYNEP [Hasan – ın karides – i ye – diğ – in – i ] Zeynep Hasan – GEN shrimp – ACC eat – FNOM – 3.SG – ACC [Mehmed – in de istiridye – yi ye – diğ – in – i] duy - du Mehmet – GEN and oyster – ACC eat – FNOM – 3.SG – ACC hear - PAST ‘Zeynep heard that Hasan ate the shrimp, and Mehmet ate the oyster.’

(Kornfilt, 2000)

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(55) Ben [kitab – ın taraf – ım/ - dan oku – n – ma – sı] – nı child book – GEN. 3 SG by – POSS: 1SG – ABL read – PASS – ma POSS.ESG – ACC ist – iyor – um want - PROG ‘I want [the book to be read by me].’

(Bozşahin, 2004) German, on the other hand, is an inflected language having three different genders; masculine

(der), feminine (die), neuter (das), and two numbers (singular, plural) (Klinger, 1997). There

are four cases in German, namely nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive sequentially,

from least demonstrative to the most demonstrative (in Gallmann, 2006). Klinger (1997)

supports this adding that nouns can appear in four different cases either in singular or in

plural. Accordingly, a noun has to be in the nominative case if it answers to the question

‘Who or what…?’. Klinger exemplifies this by:

(56) Der Junge schreibt einen Brief. Frage: Wer oder was schreibt einen Brief? The boy writes a letter. Question: Who or what writes a letter? The subject ‘Junge’ appears in the nominative case in (56). Klinger continues that a noun has

to be in the genitive case if a possessive condition is demonstrated. The genitive case is the

answer to the question ‘Whose…?’:

(57) Die Scheune des Bauern Müller ist abgebrannt. Frage: Wessen Scheune ist abgebrannt? The barn of farmer Müller has burnt down. Question: Whose barn has burnt down?

(Klinger, 1997)

In the example (57), ‘des Bauern Müller’ is in the genitive case. However, the answers to the

question ‘Whom…?’ has to be a noun in the dative case:

(58) Ich gebe dem Baby das Fläschen. Frage: Wem gebe ich…? I give the baby the bottle. Question: Whom do I give…?

(Klinger, 1997) ‘dem baby’ in the example (58) appears in the dative case. Finally, Klinger exemplifies a

noun in the accusative case answering the question ‘Who or what…?’:

(59) Ich schreibe ein Buch. Frage: Wen oder was schreibe ich?

I’m writing a book. Question: Who or what do I write?

50

Regarding the functions of the cases mentioned above, Gallmann (2006) underlines three

issues. Primarily, cases are aids for the identification of units within clauses when predicates

requiring more than one compliment are used:

(60) a.[Der Junge] gefällt [dem Mädchen].

the boy NOM appeal the girl DAT The boy appeals to the girl. b.[Dem Jungen] gefällt [das Mädchen]. the boy DAT appeal the girl NOM The girl appeals to the boy.

(Gallmann, 2006) When using the predicate gefallen, it should be considered that the observing person has to

appear in the dative case (60a, b). Regarding the example above (60), it is clear that in the first

sentence (a.) the observer is the girl; whereas, in the second sentence (b.) it is the boy.

Secondly, cases facilitate the interpretation of definite prepositional phrases:

(61) a. Der Ballon fliegt [über [der Stadt]]. (Dativ → Ort) dative place b. Der Ballon fliegt [über [die Stadt]]. (Akkusativ → Weg, Richtung) accusative way, direction

(Gallmann, 2006)

Finally, cases do also show to which phrases predicates and appositions refer to. The

agreement of the cases is leading in these sentences:

(62) a. [Als[erfahrener Kunstkritiker]] schätze [ich] [ihn] schon lange. as [experienced art critiqueNOM]] appreciate [I] [him] for long b. [Als[erfahrenen Kunstkritiker]] schätze [ich] [ihn] schon lange. as [experienced art critiqueACC]] appreciate [I] [him] for long

(Gallmann, 2006)

The declinations of the definite and indefinite articles in German are presented in the

tables based on Klinger (1997,p.3) below. Tables 2.4 and 2.5 show the singular/plural

51

declinations of the definite articles in German where the cases for all three genders are the

same.

Table 2.4 – Singular Declinations of Definite Articles in German Kasus

Case

Maskulinum

Masculine

Femininum

Feminine

Neutrum

Neuter

Nominativ 1. Fall

Nominative 1. Case

der Mann die Frau das Kind

Genitiv 2. Fall

Genitive 2. Case

des Mannes der Frau des Kindes

Dativ 3. Fall

Dative 3.Case

dem Mann(e) der Frau dem Kind(e)

Akkusativ 4. Fall

Accusative 4. Case

den Mann die Frau das Kind

Table 2.5 – Plural Declinations of Definite Articles in German Kasus

Case

Maskulinum

Masculine

Femininum

Feminine

Neutrum

Neuter

Nominativ 1. Fall

Nominative 1. Case

die Männer die Frauen die Kinder

Genitiv 2. Fall

Genitive 2. Case

der Männer der Frauen der Kinder

Dativ 3. Fall

Dative 3.Case

den Männern den Frauen den Kindern

Akkusativ 4. Fall

Accusative 4. Case

die Männer die Frauen die Kinder

52

Table 2.6 – Singular Declinations of Indefinite Articles in German Kasus

Case

Maskulinum

Masculine

Femininum

Feminine

Neutrum

Neuter

Nominativ 1. Fall

Nominative 1. Case

ein Mann eine Frau ein Kind

Genitiv 2. Fall

Genitive 2. Case

eines Mannes einer Frau eines Kindes

Dativ 3. Fall

Dative 3.Case

einem Mann(e) einer Frau einem Kind(e)

Akkusativ 4. Fall

Accusative 4. Case

einen Mann eine Frau ein Kind

Table 2.6 indicates the singular declinations of the indefinite articles in German. There is no

plural form of these articles. Plural nouns appear with indefinite amounts or numbers without

articles (Klinger, 1997):

(61) Ich esse Äpfel.

I eat apples.

(62) Ich schreibe Briefe.

I write letters.

2.8 Transfer and Interference

With studies on linguistics before the time of Chomsky, scholars tried to reveal the

meaning of language variations and the underlying issues of these variations (Wray, 2002).

According to Wray (2002), there is a mismatch between a person’s intuition and language

use, which is incorrect production both syntactically and semantically. However, she strictly

underlines that in linguistics it is quite difficult to define concrete allocations of asterisks

(unacceptable sentences). Michiels (1999), in his study on the effect of Dutch knowledge of

native speakers of French learning German L3, claims that the learning of a foreign language

53

deals with a systematic but variable and dynamic process that precisely develops towards the

second language. He continues that individual learning environments, strategies, processes,

and rules define various development sequences, called interlanguages, reflecting

characteristics of L1 and L2, and also attributes independent of these. Michiels (1999)

presents other terms trying similarly to express variability (Inter-) and systematic (-language):

• transitional competence, CORDER (1967) (still in the frame of a weak version of the

identity hypothesis)

• idiosyncratic dialect, CORDER (1971)

• approximative system, NEMSER (1971)

• general transitory system, FILIPOVIC (1972)

• Interimsprache, RAABE (1974)

• Lernersprache, LAUERBACH (1977) and KIELHÖFER / BÖRNER (1979)

• language learner language, CORDER (1978)

• zwischensprachliche Kompromißformen, (CLYNE, 1980)

(p.14)

Gass and Selinker (1992) explain the existence of interlanguage as follows:

what is clear in retrospect, we feel, is that it is indeed possible and

not incompatible to view second language acquisition as both (1) a

process of hypothesis testing in which learners create bodies of

knowledge from the second language data they have available to

them, while at the same time viewing it as (2) a process of utilizing

first language knowledge as well as knowledge of other languages

known to learners in the creation of a learner language...

(1992, p.6)

Transfer in the frame of multilingualism is explained by Michiels (1999) as that it occurs in

both artificial and natural learning environment. A lot of research in this field showed that in

general the same error types appeared.

Regarding the terminology of ‘interference’ and ‘transfer’ Michiels (1999) points out

that they are variably used by different scholars; clear definitions are needed to avoid

misunderstandings. In this study, following definitions might be suitable:

those instances of deviation from the norms of either language

which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their

54

familiarity with more than one language, i.e. as a result of

language contact, will be referred to as interference phenomena.

(Weinreich in Michiels, p.15)

Gass (1983), in addition, defines transfer as the replacement of previously learned language

structures onto a new learning situation. Selinker, on the other hand, defines transfer as

a cover term for a whole class of behaviors, processes and constraints,

each of which has to do with cross-linguistic influence, i.e. the influence

and use of prior linguistic knowledge, usually but not exclusively native

language knowledge. This knowledge intersects with input from the target

language and with universal properties of various sorts in a selective way

to help build interlanguage

(1992, p. 208).

Moreover, he divides transfer into three categories, namely positive, negative and neutral

transfer. Accordingly, Selinker (1992) explains:

• Positive transfer occurs when the interlanguage string arrangements are non –

errors.

• Negative transfer occurs when the interlanguage string arrangements are errors.

• Neutral transfer occurs when the interlanguage string arrangements are either non

– errors or errors, neither dominating significantly.

However, Gass & Selinker (1992) argue that there is only one single transfer process, but

different transfer products, namely, positive, negative and neutral.

Odlin’s ‘differing lengths of acquisition’, which plays an important role in this study,

(see Chapter 3), claims that not only the distinction between positive and negative transfer but

also the cumulative effects of cross – linguistic similarities and differences on the process of

acquisition are of great importance, one of which is the period of time a foreign language

learner needs to receive mastery of a language (1989).

Finally, some subcategories of transfer which are presented in Figure 2.5 are defined and

exemplified based on Serindağ (2003).

55

Figure 2.5 – Graphic Presentation of Transfer

(based on Serindağ, 2003, p.88)

Interlingual interference is the incorrect transfer of rules between two or more languages,

whereby this is subdivided into proactive and retroactive interference (Hufeisen/Neuner,

Eberle in Serindağ, 2003). If L1 affects L2 and L3 or L2 affects L3, proactive interference is

the case. However, if the native language is affected by the second or third language, then

retroactive interference is the case. Proactive interference is divided into four subcategories:

1. Overdifferentiation is exemplified by Hufeisen/Neuner (in Serindağ, 2003):

(63) Ich fahre mit dem Bus.

*I drive by bus.

In German there is a main difference between ‘gehen’ and ‘fahren’ according to the type of

movement (Serindağ, 2003). However, in English ‘drive’ is only used if the person itself is

driving. The correct expression would be:

(64) I go by bus.

Transfer

negative transfer (interference) positive transfer

interlingual intralingual

retroactive proactive overgeneralization hypercorrectness

overdifferentiation

underdifferentiation

overrepresentation

underrepresentation

56

2. Underdifferentiation is the usage of a single or limited interpretation of an utterance in an

L2 or L3:

(65) *Ich weiß deine Schwester Neriman.

In the example (65) the verb ‘wissen’ is misinterpreted from the English equivalent ‘know’ by

Turkish native speakers of German L3. The correct interpretation is ‘kennen’ in this context:

(66) Ich kenne deine Schwester Neriman.

3. Overpresentation is called the situation where learners use utterances that are rather

incorrect in the target language. Consider following example:

(67) Er ist im Wasser ertrunken.

The verb ‘ertrinken’ (drown) in German already covers the situation of being ‘im Wasser’ (in

the water). In Turkish, however, there is only one interpretation for ‘choke’, ‘drown’ or

‘quench’ , or in German ‘ersticken’, ‘ertrinken’. So the proper version is:

(68) Er ist ertrunken.

4. Underpresentation is the exclusion of elements in the target language, which are rather not

used in the previously learnt language. In the example presented, the obligatory relative

pronoun ‘den’ is omitted by Turkish native speaker learning German L3:

(69) *Der Mann ich sah.

(70) The man I saw.

The effect of English L2 is quite obvious in these ezamples. After having exemplified

interlingual interference, we will focus on intralingual interference.

Intralingual interference, according to Serindağ (2003), is the case is errors that are not

made due to differences between two or more languages, but are in the frame of a single

language. This type of interference is divided into two subcategories (see Figure 2.5),

overgeneralization and hypercorrectness. Overgeneralization is the case if a pattern in the

target language is identified with a previously learned one:

(71) machen – er machte

(72) *fahren – er fahrte

(Serindağ, 2003)

In example (72) the verb ‘fahren’ is irregular and the past form should be ‘fuhr’.

Hypercorrectness, on the other hand, is the case, when learners adhere strictly to language

rules, exaggerating the language correctness, as presented below by Serindağ:

(73) Das Haus, das schön ist.

The more applicable expression would be: ‘Das schöne Haus’.

57

2.8.1 Errors from a Linguistic Perspective

A large number of investigations in the field of language teaching have tended to rely

on empirical data to identify common types of errors which proof inauthentic or incorrect

usages in a target language. According to Tan (2005) one reason of this kind of investigations

is that such studies do rather not consider the inextricable relation between language and

culture. Karra (2006) claims that before Corder, linguists observed errors made by language

learners, categorized them, analyzed the most and least common ones. However, she

continues, that no attention was paid to their function in SLA. Karra (2006) states that Corder

was the first linguist to show teachers, researchers and students the importance of errors and

how they are useful. From Corder’s (1967) perspective, the learner determines what the input

is; therefore, syllabuses should be designed based on learner’s needs. He also introduces the

distinction between systematic and non – systematic errors learners made. Accordingly, non –

systematic errors, called ‘mistakes’ by Corder, occur in a learner’s native language and do not

play any significant role in the language learning process. Errors, however, only occur in SLA

(Corder, 1967).

Corder shows the crucial importance of errors in three different ways:

- They show teachers a student’s progress in language learning.

- They show researchers the ways and strategies a language is acquired.

- Learners can learn from these errors.

Carroll (1955) and Corder (1967) agree in that the learner should find the correct forms by

own means. To conclude, in general many errors are due to the fact that patterns from the

native language (L1) are used.

2.8.2 Transfer and Developmental Errors

In interlanguage research, the question of whether target – deviant patterns are

transferred from the L1 or belong to the developmental acquisition process of the target

language evidenced by every learner of that particular language, has been ongoing for long

(Paradis & Crago, 2003). They continue that “even if target – deviant structures in the L2 can

logically be attributed to the L1, this does not necessarily mean that transfer is the source”

(p.219). There have been two ways of identifying which incorrect structures are due to

transfer, and which are developmental. The first one is comparing the use of a target structure

in learners of L2 with different L1. If the interlanguage structures show similarities, then these

errors are probably not transfer errors. The second way is comparing errors of L2 learners

58

with those of children acquiring the same language as their L1. Only if differences occur,

transfer errors can be the case. A third, but not very common one is supported by Paradis &

Crago (2003), comparing L2 interlanguage with the language production of L1 learners

suffering specific language impairment (SLI). It has to be taken to consideration that it is not

focused on the finally mentioned way of identifying errors in this study.

2.9 Error Analysis

Error analysis is a method primarily approached from the theory of contrastive

analysis. Contrastive analysis, however, is a comparative analysis of two languages. It is

mainly based on the similarities and differences of two (or recently more) languages. It is

Corder (1967) who first introduces the differences between ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’. Due to

Corder, ‘errors’ refer to lacks in competence; whereas, ‘mistakes’ are based on weaknesses in

performance. Following Corder, Richard (1971) with a counter - theory focuses on a non –

contrastive approach to error analysis, identifying sources of competence errors. He figures

out that language transfer results in interference errors. Moreover, these second language

errors were treated like errors encountered in first language acquisition (developmental

errors):

• incorrect applications of language rules causing intralingual errors (see Figure

11)

• overgeneralization (see Figure 11)

• constructing incorrect hypotheses in L2 leading to developmental errors (see

2.8.2)

Error analysis was thought to predict where language learners would encounter problems

during their process of language learning. The frequency of a particular error is evidence of

the difficulty learners have in learning that particular pattern (Schachter, 1974). According to

Richards (1971), these kinds of errors reflect a learner’s competence differing from individual

to individual. To conclude, both constructs of language learning, contrastive analysis and

error analysis can be applied in order to identify and define some problems language learners

face in the classroom (Schackne, 2002).

To focus on a more recent study, Michiels (1999) in his paper on the influence of L1 –

Dutch and L2 – French on L3 – German supports Lado’s theory (in Michiels, 1999) theory on

contrastive analysis pointing out that learners have no difficulties in language learning, in

59

patterns where there are no differences between L1 and L2. Variable elements, however, lead

to difficulties, as they force the learner to diverge from own basic lingual habits.

Error analysis helps revealing in what ways and how far language acquisition

processes occur, how distinctive particular errors approach and what kind of factors are

crucial in guided and free learning environments (Michiels, 1999). The preliminary question

to be answered in investigating error analysis is related to the identification of errors:

What is false? What is to consider as an error?

One opportunity of identifying errors is basing on native speakers. Michiels presents

Legenhausen (in Michiels, 1999) and Stegu’s view (in Michiels, 1999) view, stating that

utterances can be accepted as non – errors if educated native speakers would state the same in

a particular given context. Accordingly, errors are utterances that educated native speakers

would not have made in the same communication target. However, this method implicates

some shortcomings, too, as even native speakers can disagree in the correctness or suitability

of an utterance or word (Michiels, 1999). A second way of error identification is focusing on

a definite norm or standard of a language, which is a kind of definite control system based on

references and sources like grammar books or dictionaries (Michiels, 1999). Though, even

standard language sources vary among each other. At this point it is noteworthy to consider

not only syntactic correctness (system competence) but also semantic suitability (norm

competence) of the utterances a speaker produces. Michiels exemplifies this by saying that

utterances may be grammatically totally correct; however, show unacceptability from a

pragmatic view.

(73) *Er trinkt eine Zigarette.

*He drinks a cigarette.

In the example above, the sentence is grammatically correct. However, the predicate ‘trinken’

(drink) is only used as drinking a liquid in German. In Turkish, on the other hand, it also

indicates the meaning of ‘rauchen’ (to smoke).

To sum up, Michiels (1999) underlines that it is not enough to consider grammatical

norms as they only cover phonological, orthographical, morphological, and syntactical errors

(system errors). Also lexical – semantic and pragmatic errors have to be considered. However,

besides these, some errors that are neither correct nor incorrect may occur, states Michiels,

and continues that the identification of errors assumes native speaker (-like) competence. A

second way of identifying errors is due to authorized interpretation (Corder in Michiels,

1999) where the speaker or producer is asked to translate the produced utterance into his or

her native language (L1). This technique helps the researcher to build an authorized

60

reconstruction of the previous utterance in the L2. Furthermore, if on the other hand, there is

no chance to interview the learner regarding an ambiguous or indefinite utterance, the

researcher or teacher has to rely on linguistic and situation based contexts. This kind of

interpretation is called plausible interpretation and the regarding reconstruction of the

utterance is called plausible reconstruction (Corder in Michiels, 1999). Both of these

techniques, ‘authorized’ and ‘plausible’ interpretation have been applied in the present study.

The next question to be answered in error analysis would be related to the classification of

errors:

What does this incorrectness look like? Why is this incorrect?

As its name says, here it is aimed to analyze and specify the produced errors in detail and

subsequently try to search for reasons (Michiels, 1999). To focus on the classification of

errors, Michiels points out that errors can occur at any level in the language learning process

and presents subcategories like phonetic, orthographic, syntactic, morphological and syntactic

errors. However, also here he underlines that some errors may be difficult to categorize as

they may not be interpretable. Thus, some errors may be categorized as developmental, as

well as transfer errors, depending on the interpretation of the analyzer. However, the

classification of errors in this study is further discussed in detail in Chapter 3 and 4.

61

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Subjects

The participant of this longitudinal study was a 48-year-old German native speaker.

Due to privacy matters, we will address him Mr. B. throughout the dissertation. He was

working as an engineer for a private Turkish company in Adana, Turkey, during the data

collection period. He got Turkish lessons for 14 months from a professional language teacher

who speaks German, English and Turkish. We tape – recorded the classes and interviews

which were held in the classrooms of a private language course in Turkey.

Mr. B’s major office and leisure environment were all in Turkish; as his family was

living in Germany, he communicated mostly in Turkish and sometimes in English or German.

All data were collected within the information scope of the study content and with the

permission of the participant.

3.2 Procedure

After having decided on the participation of Mr.B. and having received his own

acceptance, first of all, we arranged fixed dates and intervals to organize our observations.

The main data were obtained from the free and guided writing and speaking tasks which we

further grouped and analyzed accordingly as the written production and the oral production.

The tasks were applied at different intervals ranging from once a month or a fortnight

depending on the availability and the permission of the participant and his tutor. While

collecting the oral production, we either taped or took notes. As for the written production, we

collected the pieces of written tasks [compositions, letters, and SMS (short message services)]

that the participant produced.

After collecting all the data, we categorized them as the written and the oral

production. Then, we numbered all the sessions and accordingly analyzed the data in time

sequence in order to see the development more clearly. Organizing the row data, we then

counted and categorized the errors as developmental and transfer errors.

62

3.3 Instrumentation

3.3.1 Data Collection

The lessons were taught by a professional language teacher twice a week but we only

recorded the classes once a fortnight or once a month in order to follow the process and

production stages of the participant. Another reason for not being able to record the classes

more regularly was that Mr.B had limitations based on his job as an engineer in a private

company and had to work overtime or travel abroad. For the oral production, we recorded the

conversations between Mr.B and the teacher during the class hours. Sometimes the researcher

was included into the conversations. We also took notes for crossing the data. For the written

production, we included the compositions, letters, and the SMS sent by the participant; all

were approved by the teacher and the participant.

3.3.2 Tasks and Tools

We believe that we need to discuss the teaching materials utilized during the teaching

sessions to show that they were in line with our data collection tools. The teacher applied

Communicative Approach. Most of the exercises and activities were based on visual aids such

as picture – stories, single pictures presenting various situations or actions and colorful

authentic pictures in advertisements (Appendix 1). When presenting picture stories, Mr. B.

was asked to look at the pictures carefully, think of the actions in particular and comment on

them one by one. Generally the instructions were given in Turkish. Only when the participant

had real difficulties in understanding the instructions or stating his answers, the teacher

switched over to German. There was no interference or correction while Mr. B was talking.

Only right after his finishing explaining, feedback was given. After having discussed a picture

story in detail, the same story was reviewed and went through the next week, in order to

cultivate new vocabulary items or structural patterns.

Another fruitful task which was applied frequently and helped gaining a lot of data

was the role – play activity. Due to this technique, Mr. B. was impelled to express himself

freely, without guidance. He often had to focus on comprehension questions and try to build

sentences in order to play his role correctly. In one case he was given the role of an

unemployed engineer looking for a suitable job in the newspapers. He was asked to apply for

a job and make up an appointment with the company manager who was the observer herself.

The conversation between him and the ‘manager’ was quite natural and authentic picked from

63

an everyday situation. And as the participant was completely concentrated on his role, the

anxiety of doing mistakes was quite low. As a result, he produced much more Turkish

independently than in guided or controlled activities.

The table below presents the tasks applied and the dates they were applied. Also the

frequency of the applications can be seen in the table. The abbreviations “S” and “W” stand

for “Spoken Task” and “Written Task”

Table 3.1 – Type and Time of the Tasks Applied GUIDED PRACTISE, GRAMMATICAL PATTERN S 25.04.2005

PERSONAL INTERVIEW S 25.04.2005

SITUATION BASED PICTURE DESCRIPTION S 21.06.2005

FREE PICTURE STORY TELLING S 21.06.2005

TRANSLATION, GERMAN – TURKISH S 27.06.2005

GUIDED PRACTISE, REVIEW COMPARATIVE – SUPERLATIVE,

GRAMMATICAL PATTERN W

05.07.2005

GUIDED PRACTISE, COMPARING 3 ITEMS AT A TIME,

GRAMMATICAL PATTERN W

05.07.2005

PERSONAL INTERVIEW, CULTURAL FEATURES S 05.07.2005

INTERVIEW – ROLEPLAY S 13.09.2005

GUIDED WRITING W 02.10.2005

PARAGRAPH WRITING W 02.10.2005

WRITING HOMEWORK – PERSONAL INFORMATION W 05.10.2005

GUIDED SPEAKING TROUGH AUTHENTIC PICTURES S 09.10.2005

WRITING HOMEWORK BASED ON PREVIOUSLY GIVEN

INFORMATION W

12.11.2005

PICTURE STORY TELLING – MR. RAVIOLI S 06.12.2005

INTERVIEW, DISCUSSION – MR. RAVIOLI (CHARACTER) S 06.12.2005

REVISION – RETELLING A PREVIOUS STORY S 06.12.2005

PERSONAL INTERVIEW – FAVOURITE FOODS S 06.12.2005

DESCRIBING SINGLE PICTURES S 21.01.2006

GUIDED WRITING – BASED ON KEYWORDS W 21.01.2006

GUIDED PRACTISE, GRAMMATICAL PATTERN W 21.01.2006

FREE WRITING W 07.02.2006

GRAMMAR – INTRODUCTION + PRACTISE W 07.02.2006

64

Beside the data of the tasks applied above in Table 3.1, other writings done by Mr. B., the

SMS and letters are included in the analysis of this study, too.

65

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction

There have been many steps to be followed in the analysis of the data, as the

gathered data was copious and just as much. After the lessons had been observed and tape –

recorded, the tape scripts were transcribed. Previously, all gathered data was categorized

according to the tasks applied. Following subcategories have been established under the

heading of row data:

I. Oral Production

– Speaking, Personal Interview, Role – play, Discussions on a Topic

– Guided Practice, Grammatical Patterns

– Situation – based Picture Description, Free Picture Story, Revising a Story

– Translation

II. Written Production

– Guided Practice, Grammatical Patterns

– Guided Writing, Free Writing, Letters

– SMS

First, all errors were analyzed and subdivided in themselves as developmental or transfer.

Then we subcategorized and analyzed them as lexical, morphological and syntactic ones. We

did not analyze the phonological or pragmatic ones since they were not in the scope of this

study:

- case marker

- word order

- direct translation from German

- adjective/adverb use

- verb inflection

- spelling

- possessive marker

- number

- question marker / use

66

- punctuation

- vocabulary

- tense marker

- buffer, vowel, devoicing

- missing elements

- possessive inflection

- code – switching

- capitalization

- question marker

- conjunction

- preposition marker

- active/passive

- quantifier

- negation

- others

Only outstanding spelling, devoicing and buffer errors that also occur in the writing tasks of

Mr. B have been included in the analysis of the data.

Moreover, it should be taken to consideration that it has especially been concentrated

on errors made in the choice and production of case markers and word order. The reason for

such concentration was that the data of this study revealed that the participant made the

majority of errors in the field of case markers and word order. The tables of frequency of

errors in this chapter show that word order and case marker errors occur in approximately all

tasks given. However, we strongly believe that the gradual decrease of these types of errors

during the learning process is the indication of an awareness raising in the difference of the

languages German and Turkish, and continuous improvement of the participant. Thus, besides

the interpretation and exemplification of all errors listed above, a separate analysis of the

gradual decrease of case marker and word order errors during the learning process within the

period of 10 months, starting from 25.04.2005 to 28.02.2006, have also been presented in this

chapter. All errors in all applied tasks have been analyzed from another perspective as well,

with the idea that they play a crucial role in this study; that is, the frequency of developmental

and transfer errors in all applied tasks have been calculated and presented separately.

In order to show the way of data collection and data analysis applied, some sample

recordings of the row oral and written data are presented below.

Following is a cutout of the role – play between the participant (B) and the observer (O):

67

O: Hoş geldiniz Herr B.

B: Hoş bulduk

O: Nasılsınız?

B: İyiyim. Teşekkür ederim.

O: Kaç yıldır Türkiye’de yaşıyorsunuz?

B: Yanlış. Yaklaşık 10 ay Türkiye [Türkiye’de] yaşıyorum.

O: Türkçe biliyor musunuz?

B: İyi soru. Türkçe biraz konuşuyorum ve anlıyorum. Aşağı derece.

O: Şimdiye kadar gayet iyi konuşuyorsunuz. Anlaşabiliyoruz.

B: Orta derece.

O: Gazete ilanını gördünüz mü?

B: Esas, seyrettiğim için.

O: Neden bu işi istiyorsunuz?

B: Bir daha söylermisiniz?

O: Bu işi niye istiyorsunuz?

B: Hayatta iş gerekmek.

O: Neden bizim şirketimizi seçtiniz?

B: Mesleğim mühendisim ve bu esas seyrettiğim için başvurum için.

The words in bold show the errors in Mr. B.’s Turkish language production; whereas, the

brackets [] include his self – correction. The words and phrases in italics are analyzed in detail

in this chapter.

As for the translation tasks, Mr. B stated that he felt very anxious and stressed while

completing this type of activity. This was also obvious in that his self – confidence was very

low while fulfilling translation tasks though we utilized some visual aids to facilitate the

exercises and decrease the anxiety level of the participant. At the beginning, he was asked to

do single word or phrase based translations as exemplified below:

(74) Baum = ağaç

(75) çamaşır = die Wäsche

(76) Zahnbürste = diş fırça

A further step in these tasks was translating sentences which were much more complicated

and intimidating for the participant. The examples below show sentence based translations

from German to Turkish done by Mr. B.:

(77) Ich komme aus Hannover. = Hannover’dan geliyorum.

(78) Ich wohne zur Zeit in Adana. = *Şu zamandır Adana’da yaşıyorum.

68

(79) Ali ist 55 Jahre alt. = Ali 55 yaşında.

Finally, some guided grammar activities were applied and interpreted as written

production. However, these controlled tasks have profoundly been applied at the beginning of

the learning process (within the first five months). An example for a structural guided activity

was on comparatives and superlatives in Turkish in which Mr. B. was required to make up

sentences in Turkish comparing two nouns given:

• kaplumbağa – tavşan

(80) Kamplumbağa tavşandan daha yavaş. turtleNOM rabbitNOM-than more slow A turtle is slower than the rabbit. SchildkröteNOM HaseNOM-als KOMP.-er langsam Eine Schildkröte ist langsamer als ein Hase.

• bisiklet – araba

(81) Bisiklet arabadan daha pahalı. bicycleNOM carNOM-than more expensive A bicycle is more expensive than a car. FahrradNOM AutoNOM-als KOMP.-er teuer Ein Fahrrad ist teurer als ein Auto. As it is discussed in this chapter, these kind of controlled grammar activities do not reflect the

participant’s real comprehension and production capacity, because they are mechanical

exercises. Although both examples above (80) and (81) are grammatically correct, example

(81) is semantically incorrect since it was the car which was more expensive not the bicycle.

Personal interviews have been another tool of gathering oral data. They were

generally done spontaneously and without any particular preparation, dealing with any topic

up-to-date or from the participant’s current life. They generally resulted in question – answer

sessions as presented below (O= observer; B= Mr. B.):

O: Dün neler yaptınız?

B: ….

O: Ben dün dondurma yedim.

B: Dün kitap okudum.

O: Evi temizlediniz mi?

B: ... evi biraz temizledim, ama bir kadın çamaşır yapti.

Furthermore, some additional data not prearranged to be analyzed beforehand were

short messages (9 SMS) sent by the participant to the teacher and handwritten letters (4)

69

written during his frequent stays in Germany. These data were analyzed under the main

heading of written production.

14.12.2005

Iyi akşamlar, iyiyim, teşekkürler. ve ya siz? Tabii, yarın akşamda görüşürüz.

7.02.2006

İyi akşamlar,… iyisin umurum, yarin 19:30’da buluşabilecekmiyiz?

Both, the SMS and letters were analyzed and calculated under the category of writing, as the

participant has had enough time to think before producing as this is considered in writing

activities, too. All examples produced by the participant are analised and interpreted in both

languages English and German as can be seen under the subheadings of Chapter 4.

4.2 Error Analysis Based on the Oral Data

As mentioned previously, all the data were categorized into two main groups, namely

“Oral Production” and “Written Production”. The tables from 4.1 to 4.13 below present the

outcome of the oral production data. Each table represents a respective oral task and was

analyzed and interpreted accordingly. The tables illustrate the the frequency (f) of errors made

by the participant, the type of errors made, and the total number of errors made. The

abbreviations “D” and “T” under “Type of Error” in the tables stand for “developmental” and

“transfer” errors respectively (see Section 2.8.2). Also here, the total number of transfer and

developmental errors for each recording are itemized in each table. Besides the recording

dates stated above each table, the number of utterances produced by the participant counted

for the tasks are indicated under each table too.

Table 4.1 – The Frequency of Errors in the Guided Practice, Grammatical Pattern Task (25.04.2005)

Errors Made F

Case Marker 1 D

Total 1 (D)

5 utterances

Table 4.1 represents the spoken data outcome of a guided grammatical task. The main

focus in this task was the use of the simple present tense in simple sentences. Out of five

utterances produced by the participant, one error was made. This was a case marker error

proved to be a developmental error. This error is presented in the example (82) below:

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(82) *ama belki bugünde but maybe tomorrowLOC. but maybe tomorrow

aber vielleicht heuteLOC aber vielleicht heute

In the example above the participant used the locative case marker “-DE” at the adverb of

time “bugün”. However, adverbs do not require case markers in Turkish.

Table 4.2 – The Frequency of Errors in the Interview Task (25.04.2005) Errors Made F

Case Marker 1 T

Others 2 D

Total 3 (1 T; 2 D)

13 utterances

Table 4.2 shows the results of a short interview with the participant conducted on

25.04.2005. As presented in this table, the total number of errors made was three, out of two

were developmental and one was a transfer error. The participant produced 13 utterances

including a case marker error, a prepositional marker error and an incorrect use of

conjunction. To start with the developmental errors; as can be seen in the table, they were

made in the incorrect use of a prepositional marker and a conjunction:

(84) *Yedi ayda Türkçe çalıştım seven monthPREP Turkish studyPAST1stP.SNG I have studied Turkish for seven months sieben MonatPREP türkischNOM lernenPAST1stP.SNG Ich lerne seit sieben Monaten türkisch The prepositional marker “–da” in the example above is unnecessary, as the verb “çalışmak”

(study) in Turkish does not require any prepositional marker with the time expression “ay”

(month). This would have been required for the verb “öğrenmek” (learn), but not “çalışmak”.

(85) *Dün akşam çay içtim ve bira içmedim. yesterday evening tea drinkPAST1stP.PL and beer drinkNEG.PAST1stP.SNG Yesterday evening I drank tea and no coffee. gestern abend Tee trinkenPAST1stP.PL und Bier trinkenNEG.PAST1stP.SNG Gestern abend trank ich Tee und keinen Kaffee.

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In example (85) the conjunction “ve” (and) is used incorrect, as there is a negation after the

conjunction. The contradiction in meaning requires the conjunction “ama” (but) instead of

“ve”. This is the case in both languages Turkish and German, so that this error is also counted

as a developmental and not transfers error. The error in example (86) however, is interpreted

as a transfer error, as the accusative case marker “-I” is missing at the noun “çamaşır”

(clothes). In German, the nominative and accusative cases of “Wäsche” (clothes) are the

same: die Wäsche. Thus the noun “Wäsche” does not require any change in this case in

German. In the utterance below the participant is assumed to have applied the same rule to the

word “çamaşır” in Turkish.

(86) *ama bir kadın çamaşır yaptı but a woman clothes doPAST2ndP.SNG but a woman did the clothes aber eine FrauNOM Wäsche machenPAST2ndP.SNG aber eine Frau machte die Wäsche Table 4.3 – The Frequency of Errors in the Guided Picture Task, Situation – Based (21.06.2005)

Errors Made F

Case Marker 4 T; 6 D

Word Order 1 T

Vocabulary 2 T; 1 D

Number 1 T

Total 15 (8 T; 7D)

26 utterances

Table 4.3 presents the statistical outcome of the production recorded during the

situation – based picture telling of the participant Mr.B on 21.06.2005. The table shows that

ten case marker errors, three vocabulary errors, one word order error and one error in number

were produced out of a total of 15 errors in 26 utterances. To focus on case marker errors first,

it can be obviously seen in the table that the most errors were made in this field. Out of 10

case marker errors, six were interpreted as developmental and four as transfer errors.

Vocabulary errors come second with two transfer and one developmental error. In this picture

telling task only one word order error - proved to be a transfer error - was produced.

Examples of some errors made are presented below:

(87) *Belki hasta, belki çok söyledi.

maybe ill, maybe too much sayPAST2ndP.SNG

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Maybe he/she is ill, maybe he/she sung too much.

Vielleicht krank, vielleicht zu viel sagenPAST2ndP.SNG Vielleicht ist er/sie krank, vielleicht sang er/sie zu viel.

In the example above, the object “şarkı” (song) is missing. Based on the context, the person is

ill because of having sung too much. The verb “söylemek” means only “to say” in Turkish,

but combined with “şarkı”, that is “şarkı söylemek” it means “to sing”. In this case, the

participant seems to have translated these utterance directly from German where it is not

required to mention the noun “Lied” (song) when using the verb “singen” (sing). The correct

form of this Turkish sentence would be: Belki hasta, belki çok şarkı söyledi.

(88) *Steve baş ağrıyor, belki çünkü çok kitaplar Steve head achePR.CONT.3rdP.SNG maybe because many bookPL okumuş. readPAST3rd PSNG Steve’s head is aching, maybe because he has read many books. SteveNOM KopfNOM schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG vielleicht weil viel BuchPL lesenPAST3rd PSNG Steve’s Kopf schmerzt, weil er vielleicht zu viele Bücher gelesen hat.

Example (88) includes four different errors within the same sentence. The first error is at the

subject of the main sentence “Steve”. Here the genitive case marker “-in” is missing. This is

considered to be a developmental error, as this subject would require the same genitive case in

German too. However, the second error is found in the noun “baş” (head) which requires the

accusative case marker “-ı” and not the nominative case. At this point, we can interpret the

error as a transfer error, because the German version requires the nominative case as in

“Steve’s Kopf”. It is assumed that this case marker error in example (88) was transferred from

German. The next is a word order error, also transferred from German. The place of the

conjunction “çünkü” (because) in the subordinate clause comes right after the comma,

followed by the adverb “belki” (maybe) modifying the other adverb “çok” in terms of degree

(Yavuz et al., 2004). In German however, both cases are possible. That is, the conjunction

can also follow the adverb. The final error in example (88) is the lack of number inflection.

The morpheme “-lAr” indicates plurality, whereas lack of it implies singularity of the subject

(Yavuz et al., 2004); in this case “kitap” (book). In contrast to German, in general Turkish

does not require plural inflection if a quantifier precedes the noun (Underhill, 1985; Yavuz et

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al., 2004). In this case “çok” (many) quantifies “kitap” so that the plural inflection “-lAr”

should be omitted. However, there are also some exceptions where the plural morpheme “-

lAr” remains when it is referred to people or events that are common public knowledge. The

examples “Kırk Haramiler” or “Üç Silahşörler” show that “-lAr is no longer seen as a plural

morpheme, but rather as an inseparable part of a proper noun” (Korkmaz, 2003, p.259 in

Yavuz et al., 2004, p.98).

Another outstanding example showing errors in vocabulary choice and case marker usage is

example (89):

(89)*Maria’nın saçı çok kısa, çünkü Maria saçı bakmış. MariaGEN. hairACC. very short, because Maria hairACC. lookPAST3rdPSNG. Maria’s hair is very short, because Maria cared for her hair. MariaGEN HaarPOS. sehr kurz, weil Maria HaarACC guckenPAST3rdPSNG Maria’s Haar ist sehr kurz, weil Maria ihre Haare gepflegt hat. The errors in example (89) are found in the subordinate clause where the participant used the

accusative case marker “-I” instead of the dative case marker “-NA” for the noun “saç”. The

dative case suffix corresponds to the English words “to” and “for” specifying “the place to or

toward which motion is directed” (Underhill, 1985, p.67 - 68). Moreover, the verb “bakmak”

chosen by the participant belongs to the group of intransitive verbs in Turkish directly

requiring a dative suffix (Underhill, 1985). This incorrect case marker usage in example (89)

is not assumed to be transferred from German as the same dative case is required in German

too. However, the other error in the same utterance is the incorrect verb choice “bakmak”,

which means “to look after something or someone”, “to look at”, “to pay attention to” in

Turkish. As the main clause indicates that Maria’s hair is very short and the subordinate

clause starts with “because”, a reason why her hair is so short is expected. In this context,

suitable verbs would be “kesmek” (to cut), “kestirmek” (to let cut), “saç yaptırmak” (to let the

hair done) or even “bakım yapmak” (to care for). But when this incorrect utterance is

analyzed in comparison to its counterpart in German, the incorrect verb choice in Turkish

seems to be caused by its German meaning “pflegen” (to care for) which does not require the

noun form “die Pflege” as it does in Turkish “bakım”. Thus, this expression seems to be

directly transferred from German. Table 4.4 – The Frequency of Errors in the Free Picture Story Telling Task (21.06.2005)

Errors Made f

Case Marker 1 D

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Word Order 1 D

Pronunciation 4 D

Tense 1 D

Vocabulary 1 T

Others 1 T

Total 9 (2 T; 7 D)

12 utterances

The table above (Table 4.4) shows the outcome of the picture telling task (see

Appendix 2) conducted on 21.06.2005. The data revealed a total of 9 errors out of 12

utterances, whereby 7 are developmental and 2 are transfer errors. Errors are predominantly in

the field of phonology which is not the focus in this study. However, some examples are

presented below as this kind of pronunciation errors are found in the data of many recordings

of the participant.

(90) *Sonra hirsız yemiş then burglarNOM eatPAST3rdPSNG Then the burglar ate dann EinbrecherNOM essenPAST3rdPSNG Dann aß der Einbrecher

(91) *Sonra bu hirsız basamakları çıkmış then this burglarNOM. stepPL.ACC. climb upPAST3rdPSNG Then the burglar climbed up the steps dann dieser EinbrecherNOM StufePL.ACC. hochsteigenPAST3rdPSNG Dann stieg der Einbrecher die Stufen hoch (92) *ve sonra polisler hirsizi tutuklamış and then policePL.NOM. burglarACC. arrestPAST3rdPSNG and then the police arrested the burglar und dann PolizeiPL.NOM. EinbrecherACC. festnehmenPAST3rdPSNG und dann nahm die Polizei den Einbrecher fest (93) *Çünkü hirsız uyumuş because burglarNOM sleepPAST3rd PSNG Because the burglar slept weil EinbrecherNOM schlafenPAST3rd PSNG Weil der Einbrecher schlief

(96) *Sonra hırsız buzdolabı açmış. then burglarNOM fridgeNOM openPAST3rd PSNG

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Then the burglar opened the fridge. dann EinbrecherNOM KühlschrankNOM öffnenPAST3rd PSNG Dann öffnete der Einbrecher den Kühlschrank As can be seen in the examples (90), (91), (92) and (93), the participant made errors only in

pronouncing the noun “hırsız”. The reason can be interpreted to be due to the fact that the

German alphabet does not include the letter “ı” and thus is very difficult to pronounce for

German native speakers. The vowel “ı” is a high – back – unrounded sound (Yavuz et al.,

2004; Underhill, 1985) occurring in many Turkish words. However, in the four examples

discussed above, the participant had only difficulties in pronouncing the word “hırsız”,

whereas there are also the words “basamakları”, “çıkmış” and “tutuklamış” including the

same sound “ı” in the same utterances being interestingly pronounced correctly by the

participant. Moreover, in example (96) from the same picture story telling task the same word

“hırsız” is also pronounced correctly. This shows that although Mr.B had difficulties in

pronouncing the vowel “ı”, he was able to pronounce it correctly. These four spelling errors

are counted as developmental errors (see Table 4.4). The remaining five errors are found in

the field of case marker, word order, tense inflection and. The remaining error under the

“others” category is an incorrect adverb usage. To start with example (94), while describing

the picture story of a burglar breaking into a house, it can be seen that the participant does not

use any verb inflections. The verbs “almak” (to take) and “çalmak” (to steal) are barely used

as infinitives; tense and person markers are omitted. This using is definitely not transferred

from German, as person and tense markers are required for verbs in clauses in German too.

(94) *Değerli şey, eşya almak, çalmak. valuable thingNOM., propertyNOM. takeINF., stealINF. (He/She) take, steal valuable thing, property. wertvoll DingNOM, SacheNOM nehmenINF, stehlenINF (Er/Sie) nimmt, stiehlt wertvolles Ding, Sache. To focus on the adverb error made in fulfilling the same task of picture story telling, example

(95) shows the incorrect usage of an adverb which would require reduplication in this case as

the action demonstrates a time span, namely the circumstance of getting drunk. And this is

expressed with a reduplicated adverb in Turkish (Yavuz et al., 2004).

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(95) *Sonra bu hirsız basamakları çıkmış ve then this burglarNOM. stepPL.ACC. climb upPAST3rdPSNG and yavaş sarhoş olmuş slowADV drunkADJ getPAST3rdPSNG Then this burglar climbed up the stairs and got slowly drunk. dann dieser EinbrecherNOM StufePL.ACC. steigenPAST3rdPSNG und langsamADV betrunkenADJ werdenPAST3rdPSNG Dann stieg dieser Einbrecher die stufen hoch und wurde langsam betrunken. The incorrect adverb use in example (95) is ranked among the transfer errors, because there is

no reduplication of adverbs to emphasize duration in manner in German. Contrary, this can

only be done with bare adverbs or accusative nouns with adverbial meaning (see 2.7.1, p.58).

(96) *Sonra hırsız buzdolabı açmış. then burglarNOM fridgeNOM openPAST3rd PSNG Then the burglar opened the fridge. dann EinbrecherNOM KühlschrankNOM öffnenPAST3rd PSNG Dann öffnete der Dieb den Kühlschrank.

In the example above the case marker error of this “Free Picture Story Telling Task” is

analyzed. It shows that Mr.B used the nominative case instead of the accusative case for the

object “buzdolabı” of the clause. The correct form of the object should be “buzdolabını” with

the fix of the accusative marker “-NI”. This is considered as a developmental error (see Table

4.4) as the same condition is required in German too (see 2.7.2).

Table 4.5 below presents the error frequencies of the oral translation data recorded on

27.06.2005. This translation task was based on oral communication with the aid of authentic

visual material (see Appendix 3). At this point it should be mentioned that there was a lot of

code-switching from Turkish to German while carrying out this task. The participant was

actually required to translate simple sentences from German into Turkish. The reason why he

slipped easily into German expressions may be because his native language German was also

used by the instructor and observer during the exercises which might make him feel more

comfortable and confident.

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Table 4.5 – The Frequency of Errors in the Translation Task, German – Turkish (27.06.2005) Errors Made f

Case Marker 4 T, 4 D

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 1 D

Vocabulary 5 T

Number 1 D

Missing Elements 2 D, 1 T

Total 19 (11 T, 8 D)

51 utterances

As can be seen in the table above, errors were predominantly made in the field of case marker

usage. 8 out of a total of 19 errors were case marker errors, followed by vocabulary and

missing elements with 5 and 3 errors. The remaining 3 errors were made in the field of

number, word order and spelling usage. When scanning the totals for transfer and

developmental errors in the table, it is obvious that transfer errors overweigh developmental

errors at this translation task. This was not the case for the free picture story telling task (see

Table 4.4) where there was no intervention of the German language, neither by the instructor

nor by the participant. The distribution of transfer errors according to the errors made seems

homogeneous for case marker errors. However, word order, vocabulary and naturally direct

translation errors were merely transfer errors. The samples below exemplify errors made in

the translation task (Table 4.5).

(97) *Diş fırça. toothNOM brushNOM toothbrush ZahnNOM BürsteNOM Zahnbürste

In (97) above, Mr.B answered the question to what "Zahnbürste” (toothbrush) in Turkish

means with “diş fırça”. As can be seen in the example, he used the nominative case for both

the completing (diş) and completed (fırça) nouns in the same non – descriptive compound

noun. However, this is incorrect in Turkish as the completed noun of a non - descriptive

compound noun is always marked with the third person possessive morpheme requiring one

of the inflections “-i, -ı, -ü, -u” with the buffer “-s” for nouns ending with a vowel (Guise,

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2007; Yavuz et al, 2004); in this case “diş fırçası”. A similar type of error was found in

example (98).

(98) *Fiyat televizyona. priceNOM televisionDAT price of the television PreisNOM FernseherDAT der Preis des Fernsehers This example presents a descriptive noun completion. However, besides case marker errors,

this time the participant made also a word order error. To start with the word order error, the

completed noun “fiyat” is put in first place followed by the completing noun “televizyon”. In

Turkish the describing (completing) noun showing who or what is owned by the described

(completed) noun has to come before the completed noun (Guise, 2007). The correct version

of (98) would be: “televizyonun fiyatı”. As can be seen here, also the case markers are used

incorrectly. The describing noun “televizyon” requires the genitive case marker “-Un”,

whereas the described noun “fiyat” requires the Ø nominative case and the 3rd person singular

possessive marker “-I” (Guise, 2007). The participant, however, used the nominative case for

the described noun and the dative case for the describing noun.

(99) *Şu zamandır Adana’da yaşıyorum. this timeSINCE AdanaLOC livePR.CONT.1stPSNG I live in Adana since this time. diese ZeitSEIT AdanaLOC lebenPR.CONT.1stPSNG Ich lebe seit dieser Zeit in Adana. In the example (99) above, the participant made an error in vocabulary choice. The expression

“şu zamandır” means “since this time” requiring a previous indication of time which is not the

case here. Based on the counterpart of this sentence in German “Ich wohne zur Zeit in

Deutschland”, the equivalent of “zur Zeit” (now, at the moment) was asked for in this

translation task. Translating the word “Zeit” with “zaman”, Mr.B neglected the general

meaning of the whole sentence. The correct translation for “zur Zeit” is “şimdi” or “şu anda”

in this case. Similar to (99), example (100) is also a transfer error showing incorrect choice of

vocabulary.

(100) *Klaus arabasıyla işe sürüyor. Klaus carPOSS.ACC.PREPwith workDAT drivePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Klaus drives with his car to work. Klaus AutoPOSS.ACC.PREPmit ArbeitDAT fahrenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Klaus fährt mit seinem Auto zur Arbeit.

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In German the equivalent of the verb “sürmek” is “fahren” which does not particularly require

the indication of a transportation tool in the same clause. However in Turkish, if a

transportation tool is indicated in a clause and rather than the action of driving, the emphasis

is on the location, the verb “gitmek” is used instead of “sürmek”. If the emphasis was on the

action of driving, the sentence would be:

Klaus araba sürüyor. Klaus carNOM drivePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Klaus is driving (a) car. Thus, the participant seems to have translated the verb “sürmek” directly from “fahren” in

German.

(101) *Hafta sonlarında garson çalışıyor. week endPL.POSS.PREP waiterNOM workPR.CONT.3rd PSNG At the weekends he works (as) a waiter. Wochen EndePL.POSS.PREP KellnerNOM arbeitenPR.CONT.3rd PSNG Am Wochende arbeitet er als Kellner.

Example (101) shows that the preposition “olarak” (as) is missing in the clause. This error

was counted as developmental, because it can not be transferred from German. In German the

preposition “als” is required in expressing occupations with the verb “arbeiten” (work):

Er arbeitet als Kellner.

he workSPR.3rd PSNG as waiter He works as a waiter.

Table 4.6 presents the frequencies of errors in the interview task based on cultural

features. As can be seen in the table, the majority of 5 errors were made in vocabulary choice

including primarily direct translation errors. Following are 3 errors in case markers and 2

errors in word order and number respectively. The remaining 2 errors were made in tense

inflection and the omission of the object under the category of “Missing Elements”. Here

again the transfer errors outraged the developmental errors.

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Table 4.6 – The Frequency of Errors in the Personal Interview Task - Cultural Features (05.07.2005)

Errors Made f

Case Marker 2 D, 1 T

Word Order 2 T

Vocabulary 2 D, 3 T

Number 2 T

Tense 1 D

Missing Elements 1 D

Total 14 (8 T; 6 D)

22 utterances

(102) *Bazen Alman şoför kötü, bencil. sometimes GermanNOM driverNOM bad, selfish Sometimes German drivers (are) bad, selfish. manchmal deutschNOM FahrerNOM schlecht, egoistisch Manchmal sind deutsche Fahrer schlecht, egoistisch. (103) *yaşlı insanları çok çalıştılar old peoplePL.ACC. a lot workPAST3rdPPL old people worked a lot alt MenschPL.ACC. sehr viel arbeitenPAST3rdPPL alte Menschen arbeiteten sehr viel Some examples for case marker errors are presented above. During the application of this

task, the participant gives general information about Germany and Germans making some

comparisons and contrasts with Turkish people and Turkey. To give general information with

common nouns representing a category, in Turkish, either a plural inflection is attached to the

noun in the nominative form or an adjective phrase is used in the singular form with the noun

requiring an accusative case marker (Yavuz et al, 2004). In example (102) we can see that an

adjective phrase in the singular form is used. However, the noun is in the nominative case.

Contrary, in example (103) a general statement is made with a plural adjective phrase in the

accusative case. In this case, however, “insanlar” requires the nominative form as it is the

subject of the clause (Yavuz et al., 2004).

To continue with word order errors for the personal interview task, examples (104) and (105)

show the transfer errors Mr. B. made in word order.

(104) *ve bekliyorlar fazla, fazla, fazla… and expectPR.CONT.3rdPPL much, much, much…

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and they expect (too) much, much, much… und erwartenPR.CONT.3rdPPL viel, viel, viel… und sie erwarteten (zu) viel, viel, viel… The example above shows the incorrect placement of the verb “bekliyorlar”. It is required to

be placed at final position following the adverb “fazla”. The participant obviously transferred

this word order from German where the verb is placed on second position being followed by

the adverb (see 2.7.1). The same is the case in example (105). The adverb is incorrectly

placed at final position following the verb of the clause. The verb is required verb final in

Turkish (Yavuz et al., 2004; Underhill, 1985).

(105) *Belki genç insanlar bekliyor fazla. perhaps young peopleNOM.PL expectPR.CONT.3rdPSNG much. Perhaps young people expect (too) much. vielleicht jung MenschNOM.PL erwartenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG viel vielleicht erwarten junge Menschen zu viel.

Table 4.7 – The Frequency of Errors in the Interview Task, Role Play (13.09.2005) Errors Made f

Case Marker 2 T, 6 D

Word Order 4 D

Vocabulary 4 D, 5 T

Number 1 T, 2 D

Tense 2 D, 1 T

Missing Elements 2 D

Others 5 D, 1 T

Total 35 (10 T; 25 D)

50 utterances

As can be seen in the table above, the total number of errors for the interview task was 35

with developmental errors outranging transfer errors with a total of 25. Most errors were

made in vocabulary (9) and case marker (8) usage. These categories are followed by word

order errors with a total of 4 developmental errors. Some outstanding examples for this

interview task are presented below.

(106) *Yaklaşık 10 ay Türkiye yaşıyorum. about 10 monthSNG.NOM TurkeyNOM livePR.CONT.1stPSNG I am living in Turkey (for) about 10 months.

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fast 10 MonatSNG.NOM TürkeiNOM lebenPR.CONT.1stPSNG Ich lebe in der Türkei (für) fast 10 Monate. The first major error is made in the case marking of “Türkiye” in the nominative case. As the

“locative case is used to mark the locational relationship between a verb and its argument”

(Yavuz et al, 2004) and “Türkiye” is the argument supposed to indicate “spatial location” in

this example (106), it requires the locative case marker – DE. Another error in the same

example is the missing of the prepositional marker – dIr at the time expression “10 ay”. Some

vocabulary errors are presented in the examples (107, 108, 109, and 110) following:

(107) *Aşağı derece. down level Low level. unter Ebene tiefe Ebene

(108) *İyi ortam esas başarılı iş için... good environmentNOM actual successful workNOM for... düşünüyorum. thinkPR.CONT.1stPSNG A good environment is a requirement for (a) successful work…I think.

gutNOM UmgebungNOM Muß erfolgreich ArbeitNOM für… denkenPR.CONT.1stPSNG Eine gute Umgebung ist ein Muß für (eine) erfolgreiche Arbeit…denke ich. (109) *Mümkün bu yanlış anlama. possible this wrong understanding

This can be a misunderstanding. möglich dies falsch Verstehen

Das kann ein Mißverständnis sein.

All the examples above are developmental errors, as they are not transferred from Mr.B’s

native language German. In example (107), Mr B. replied the question of whether he speaks

Turkish with “aşağı derece”. To focus on the incorrect word choice, “aşağı” means “down” in

Turkish. The correct adjective to be used here is “düşük”. The equivalent of “düşük” in

German is “niedrig” or “gering” in this context being in no coherence with “aşağı”. Thus,

there is no transformation from German. This is partiallty the case for example (108), too. The

first error is an incorrect choice of the adjective “esas” which means “actual”. In fact, the

participant wanted to express the “necessity” or “must” of a good working environment. The

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correct equivalents for these nouns in Turkish are “şart” or “ihtiyaç” in this context. The

second vocabulary error in the same sentence is the expression “düşünüyorum” at the end of

the clause. This can be considered as a transfer error, because the expression “denke ich”,

having the definite meaning of “I think so” or “according to me”, is very often used in

German. Another transformation error can be seen in the dialogue between the interviewer (I)

and Mr.B (B) below where the noun “ortam” is confused with “orta” meaning “die Mitte”

(middle) in German.

(110) I: Her ortamda çalışabilir misiniz? [Can you work in all environments?] B: Ortam? Mitte?

I: Können Sie in jedem Umfeld arbeiten?

B: Ortam? Mitte?

Outstanding tense errors are also found in the interview task (see table 4.7). The example

below (111) shows that the participant preferred using the inflections – (I)yor indicating the

present progressive tense in Turkish. However, from the interview context it is interpreted

that he refers to the future. But using the progressive markers –(I)yor one can imply a

progressive or habitual aspect or can be used for scheduled future events (Yavuz et al, 2004)

which is not the case in this context.

(111) *Tatil gün Noel bayramlar holidayNOM dayNOM Christmas feastNOM.PL

kullanıyorum ve başka Avrupalı bayramlar usePR.CONT.1stPSNG and other EuropeanACC feastNOM.PL kullanıyorum usePR.CONT.1stPSNG I am using the holiday feast day Christmas and I am using other European feast days. FerienNOM TagNOM Weihnacht FestNOM.PL nutzenPR.CONT.1stPSNG und andere europaeischeACC FestNOM.PL nutzenPR.CONT.1stPSNG Ich nutze die Ferienfesttage zu Weihnachten und ich nutze andere europaeische Festtage. (112) I: Önceden çalıştınız mı? İş deneyiminiz var mı? Have you worked before? Do you have any work experiences? B: *Evet, çok ülkede mühendisim olarak yes, many countryLOC.PL engineer1stP.SNG as

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Yes, I have worked in many countries as an engineer. çalışıyorum. workPR.CONT.1st PSNG I: Haben Sie vorher gearbeitet? Haben Sie Arbeitserfahrungen? B: ja, viele LandLOC.PL Ingenieur1stP.SNG als workPR.CONT.1stPSNG Ja, ich habe in vielen Ländern als Ingenieur gearbeitet.

A similar tense error as in (111) can be seen above. To the question of the interviewer (I) of

whether he has worked before, Mr.B (B) answers in the progressive tense. If he had indicated

any time expression pointing to a period of time started in the past and persisting into the

present, - (I)yor would have marked the perfect of persistant situation (Comrie in Yavuz et al,

2004). However, there is no time indication like this, so depending on the context, the tense

marker – (I)yor is used incorrectly in this example. The correct marker would be – DI

indicating definite past in Turkish (Underhill, 1985; Yavuz et al, 2004).

Table 4.8 – The Frequency of Errors in the Task of Guided Speaking Through Authentic Pictures (09.10.2005)

Errors Made F

Case Marker 5 T, 8 D

Word Order 3 T

Pronunciation 6 D

Vocabulary 5 T, 2 D

Number 1 T

Tense 2 D

Missing Elements

(4 Copula)

1 T, 5 D

Others 3 D, 2 T

Total 43 (17 T; 26 D)

84 utterances

The table above the total number of errors produced by the participant in the speaking task

applied on 09.10.2005. In order to elicit more production from Mr.B., authentic pictures (see

Appendix 1) supported the tutor during the application of the task. As can be seen in Table

4.8, out of a total of 43 errors, developmental errors obviously overweigh transfer errors.

Most errors were produced in case marker usage (13 errors) and vocabulary choice (7 errors),

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followed by 6 pronunciation errors. The remaining 17 errors were made in word order,

number choice, tense markers, the omission of obligatory elements within the clause and in

categories such as voice (active/passive), code – switching, and quantifier choice covered

under “Others” (see Table 4.8). Striking repeated errors made in this task were missing

copular verbs which are essential for linking the subject and the predicate of a sentence. In

addition, the frequency of errors in the use of the accusative case was remarkably high.

Instead of the accusative case the participant preferred using other case inflections such as the

nominative or the locative case marker. The examples below present same outstanding errors

produced in this guided speaking task.

(113) …*belki camlarda süslüyor. perhaps windowPL.LOC decoratePR.CONT.3rdP.SNG … perhaps it decorates the windows. …vielleicht FensterPL.LOC schmückenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG …vielleicht schmückt es die Fenster. In the example above we can see Mr.B’s answer to the question of what he can see in the

picture. The implied picture shows colorful window decorations in various shapes and forms.

The plural noun “camlar” requires the accusative case inflection “– I” marking the direct

object and thus defining the patient in the clause (Erguvanlı, 1984); instead the participant

attached the locative case marker “-dA”.

(114) I: Hangisini en çok beğendiniz? [Which one did you like most?] B: *Belki sol kelebek beğendim. may be left butterflyNOM likePAST1stP.SNG May be I liked the left butterfly. I: Welches hat Ihnen am meisten gefallen? B: vielleicht links SchmetterlingNOM gefallenPAST1stP.SNG Vielleicht gefiel mir der linke Schmetterling.

The example above shows another error in case marker choice. To the question of the

interviewer (I) of which one he liked most, Mr.B (B) answered with “sol kelebek” in the

nominative case. However, the noun “kelebek” requires the accusative case inflection “– I”.

The frequency of copula errors was also remarkably high in this task (see Table 4.8).

The examples below show some outstanding copula errors produced by the participant.

(115) *Şeker kutusuda bir kaşık. sugar box a spoon (There is) a spoon in the sugar box.

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Zucker Dose ein Löffel (Da ist) ein Löffel in der Zuckerdose. Copula verbs in Turkish are used to link the subject to its predicative noun phrase, adjective

phrase or prepositional phrase. In Turkish, there is a small class of verbs having little

semantic meaning: “olmak”, “İmEk”, and “zero copula” (Yavuz et al, 2004). The example

(115) requires zero copula used with “var” (there is). The placement of “var” at final position

in the sentence is obligatory in this case. The correct version of this example is:

(116) Şeker kutusunda bir kaşık var.

Another copula error similar to (115) is presented in the example below:

(117) Ortada bir tencere ateş için. in the centre a potNOM fireNOM for (There is) a pot for fire in the centre. in der Mitte ein TopfNOM FeuerNOM für (Da ist) ein Topf für Feuer in der Mitte. Here again the zero copula is required together with the existential “var”. Except the copula

error, there is also an error in word order in example (117). The correct sentence in this case

would be:

Ortada ateş için bir tencere var.

The Tables 4.9 and 4.10 below present the frequencies of errors for the picture story task “Mr.

Ravioli” and its post discussion task. Both tasks were applied consecutively on 06.12.2005.

As can be seen in Table 4.9, developmental errors overweigh transfer errors with a number of

15. A total of 25 errors were produced out of 44 utterances whereby the highest error

frequency was determined in case marker and vocabulary choice. In contrast to the picture

story telling task presented in Table 4.9, the frequency of errors in the subsequent discussion

task (Table 4.10) is more homogenous. There are 3 transfer and 3 developmental errors out of

a total of 6. 2 errors were produced in the choice of case markers, whereas respectively 1 was

made in the category of word order, pronunciation, vocabulary and missing elements.

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Table 4.9 – The Frequency of Errors of the Picture Story Telling Task, Mr. Ravioli (06.12.2005)

Errors Made Number of Errors

Case Marker 4 T, 4 D

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 6 D

Vocabulary 4 T, 3 D

Number 1 T

Others 1 D

Missing Elements 1 D

Total 25 (10 T; 15 D)

Table 4.10 – The Frequency of Errors of the Discussion Task of the Story Mr. Ravioli (06.12.2005)

Errors Made Number of Errors

Case Marker 1 D, 1 T

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 1 D

Vocabulary 1 T

Missing Elements 1 D

Total 6 (3 T; 3 D)

16 utterances

44 utterances

Some outstanding errors produced by the participant during the application of the picture

story telling task and its discussion are presented below.

(118) *Belki bir fikir geldi. maybe an idea comePAST3rdP.SNG Maybe an idea came. vielleicht eine Idee kommenPAST3rdP.SNG Vielleicht kam eine Idee. In the example above, the object of the clause is missing. Based on the context of the picture

story, the main character Mr. Ravioli suddenly decides to go shopping. In example (118) Mr.

B. wanted to express that Mr. Ravioli had an idea. “To have an idea” is verbalized in Turkish

with “akıla bir fikir gelmek”, which means directly translated “an idea coming to the mind”.

“Fikir” is the subject of the clause, whereas “akıl” is the object to be marked with the dative

case inflection – A conveying the meaning of direction (Yavuz et al., 2004); in this case

indicating “to his mind”. The correct form of this example is:

Belki aklına bir fikir geldi.

Some errors exemplifying misuses of case markers and vocabulary are presented in the

example below.

(119) *Sonra elbise takimı giyiyor ve kravat Then suitACC wearPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG and tieNOM

sarıyor… takıyor… bağlıyor. rollPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG… stickPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG…tiePR.CONT.3rdP.SNG

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Then he wears (his) suit and rolls…sticks…ties his tie.

Dann AnzugACC anziehenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG und KrawatteNOM rollenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG…befestigenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG…wickelnPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG Dann zieht er (seinen) Anzug an und rollt…befestigt…wickelt seine Krawatte.

The non – descriptive noun completion “takım elbisesi” (suit) is produced by the participant

as “elbise takimı” illustrating a basic error in word order. The completed noun “elbise” is put

in pre position followed by the completing noun “takım”. In Turkish however, only the

completed noun is marked by the accusative case (Guise, 2007). Another case marker error is

found at the noun “kravat” which is put in the nominative case by the participant. However, it

requires an accusative case marker as it is “affected by the action of the verb on a larger

scale” (Yavuz et al, 2004, p.102). Finally, it can be interpreted from the same example that

Mr. B. had difficulties in choosing the correct verb for the noun “kravat”. Until his third trial,

he was hesitant to complete the sentence. “Bağlamak” is the appropriate verb for “kravat”.

Furthermore, the participant also omitted the possessive inflections of the 3rd person singular

for the nouns in both clauses, so the correct variant of this sentence is:

Sonra takım elbisesini giyiyor ve kravatını bağlıyor.

Tables 4.11 and 4.12 below illustrate the frequency of errors of the story revision task and the

interview with the participant on local food. As can be interpreted from the tables,

developmental errors outweigh transfer errors in both tasks. Again, it is quite evident that the

majority of errors in both tasks were produced in the use of case markers and vocabulary

choice. However, remarkably few errors were made in word order.

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Table 4.11– The Frequency of Errors of the Story Revision Task (13.12.2005)

Errors Made F

Case Marker 1 T, 4 D

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 2 D

Vocabulary 3 T, 1 D

Number 2 D

Tense 2 D

Missing Elements 1 D

Total 17 (5 T; 12 D)

26 utterances

Table 4.12 – The Frequency of Errors of the Interview, Local Food (13.12.2005)

Errors Made Number of Errors

Case Marker 3 T, 2 D

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 5 D

Vocabulary 3 T

Number 1 T

Missing Elements 3 D

Others 1 D, 1 T

Total 20 (9 T; 11 D)

40 utterances

Example (120) demonstrates an example from the story revision task where the participant

was supposed to retell a picture story without any support or guidance of his tutor.

(120)*Bir gün bir çift bir salonda oturuyorlar ve One dayNOM one coupleNOM one livingroomNOM sitPR.CONT.3rdPPL and kadın kitabı okuyor, ama adam sıkici

womanNOM bookACC readPR.CONT.3rdPSNG but manNOM boring pencereden görüyor. windowABL seePR.CONT.3rdPSNG

One day a couple is sitting in a living room and the woman is reading a book, but

the man is bored and looking out of the window.

Ein TagNOM ein PaarNOM ein WohnzimmerNOM sitzenPR.CONT.3rdPPL und

FrauNOM BuchACC lesenreadPR.CONT.3rdPSNG aber MannNOM langweilig

FensterABL sehenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG

Eines Tages sitzt ein Paar in einem Wohnzimmer und die Frau liest ein Buch,

aber der Mann ist gelangweilt und sieht aus dem Fenster.

The first error produced in the sentence above is the number choice in the verb “oturmak”.

The singular noun “çift” in Turkish requires a singular verb, in this case “oturuyor”. However,

in Turkish the morpheme – lAr is attached to convey the meaning of plurality (Yavuz et al,

2004). The next error in the same sentence is the accusative case inflection at the noun

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“kitap”. Accusative marking has either a definitizing, generic, or locative function (Yavuz et

al, 2004). Hence, neither of these functions is implied in example (120). It is not clear which

book the woman is reading. Thus, the noun “kitap” should be in the nominative case, Ø

marked. In the remaining second clause of the sentence, there are two further errors. One is

the incorrect adjective use of “sıkıcı”. It is used predicatively in the verb phrase as the

complement of the subject (Yavuz et al, 2004). In this case it is the subject “adam” who is

bored, that is “sıkılmış”, and not “sıkıcı” (boring). The last error in example (120) is another

vocabulary error made at the choice of the verb “görmek” (see). The participant confused it

with the verb “bakmak” (look) in Turkish. These kinds of errors are commonly made by SLA

learners as these vocabularies are cohesive or in the same context. However, both vocabulary

errors in this example are definite transformation errors from German. On the one hand, the

equivalent adjective for both “sıkıcı” and “sıkılmış” is “langweilig” in German. On the other

hand, the equivalent of “görmek” is “sehen” in German which can be used to express the

same meaning as “bakmak” in example (120). Thus, “aus dem Fenster sehen” (to look out of

the window) is grammatically and syntactically acceptable in German. Another transfer error

is exemplified in (121) from the interview task (see 4.12).

(121) *Bugün…hm…altıncı Aralık ve bugün St. Nikolaus! Today… hm…sixth DecemberNOM and today Saint Nicholas Today is the sixth of December and today is Saint Nicholas day! Heute…hm…sechste DezemberNOM und heute St.Nikolaus Heute…hm…ist der sechste Dezember und heute ist St. Nikolaus!

Dates in Turkish are expressed by placing cardinal numbers before the month of the year. In

example (121) the participant used the ordinal number “altıncı” before the month “Aralık”.

The combination of the cardinal number with the month “altı Aralık” is the correct form of

expressing the date in this example. However in German and in English ordinal numbers are

used to express dates. A further example demonstrating errors in pronunciation, case marker

and tense inflection is (122).

(122) *Birinci ayaç, çam ağaç süslemek. first treeNOM firNOM treeNOM decorateINF First (we) decorate (a) tree, fir tree. erste BaumNOM TanneNOM BaumNOM schmückenINF Erst schmücken (wir) (einen) Baum, Tannenbaum. The pronunciation error is made in pronouncing the sound “ğ” in “ağaç”. “ğ”, which is called

“soft g” in literature, is by some scholars accepted as a distint sound, and by others not

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(Yavuz et al, 2004). Underhill (1985) however, defines “ğ” as a substitute for the letter “g”

occurring after vowels or between vowels. It was difficult to pronounce for the participant as

the letter “ğ” is not covered in the German alphabet. The first time he pronounced the word

“ağaç” as “ayaç”, substituting the letter “ğ” with “y”, but the second time he pronounced it

correctly (see example 122). The case marker error is here again in the production of the

compound noun “çam ağacı”. It is a non – descriptive noun completion where the completed

noun requires accusative case marking (Underhill, 1985; Guise, 2007; Yavuz et al, 2004). As

can be seen in the same example, the verb is stated in the infinitive form without any tense,

aspect or mood markers. Verbal agreement is necessary to show grammatical relationship

between the action and the subject of the clause (Yavuz et al, 2004). Based on the context, the

temporal morpheme required in this example can be either “– DI” (definite past), “- Iyor”

(habitual present), or “I/Ar” (habitual present) (Kornfilt, 1997; Yavuz et al, 2004). As (127) is

the answer of the participant to the question “Noel’de neler yaparsınız?” (What do you do at

Santa Claus?), the 1st person plural person marker “– Iz” for habitual present and “- k” for

definite past is required. Correct forms of the example (122) could be:

çam ağacı süsleriz → habitual present

çam ağacı süsledik → definite past

çam ağacı süslüyoruz → habitual present

The final table to be analized for the spoken data of this study is Table 4.13 demonstrating the

frequency of errors of the picture describing task. We tried to elicit production of the

participant by using single pictures showing various different actions of a person or some

people in different contexts.

Table 4.13 – The Frequency of Errors of the Picture Describing Task (21.01.2006) Errors Made f

Case Marker 1 T, 2 D

Word Order 1 T

Pronunciation 2 D

Vocabulary 4 D

Others 1 D

Total 11 (2 T; 9 D)

15 utterances

As can be seen from the table above, developmental errors outweigh transfer errors as in most

of the tasks previously discussed. Out of a total of 11 errors, only 2 were transfer errors.

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Errors were predominantly made in the choice of case markers and vocabulary as presented in

the examples below:

(123) Ayşe birçok kısa elbise takıyor. Ayşe a lot of mini dressNOM fixPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Ayşe fixes (wears) a lot of mini dresses. Ayşe sehr viel kurz KleidNOM befestigenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Ayşe befestigt (zieht…an) sehr viele Mini – Kleider.

Example (123) includes a developmental error in vocabulary choice. The verb “takmak” in

Turkish means “to fix” or “to mount”. It may only be used instead of “bağlamak” (to tie) in

“kravat bağlamak” (to tie a tie). However, in order to express “wearing” clothes, in Turkish

the verb “giyinmek” is used.

(124)*Ayşe genellikle akşamda kitabı okuyor, ama Ayşe generally eveningLOC bookACC. read PR.CONT.3rdPSNG. but bugün bol bol sohbet hoşlanıyor. today abundantly chatNOM likePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Ayşe generally reads a book in the evening, but today she likes chatting a lot.

Ayşe generell abendLOC BuchACC lesenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG aber

heute reichlich PlaudernNOM mögenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Ayşe liest abends generell ein Buch, aber heute gefällt ihr das Plaudern sehr.

The example above presents case marker and vocabulary errors produced by the participant in

the picture describing task conducted on 21.01.2006. The first error is made in the choice of

case inflection at the adverb of time “akşam”. Generally adverbs of time do not require any

case markers in Turkish (see example (82)). However, when speaking about habitual actions

an accusative case marker “– I” is attached to the noun after the plural inflection “– lAr”.

However, in example (124) the participant used the locative case marker “– DA”. A further

case marker error is made in the noun “kitap”. The accusative case inflection having a

defining aspect is used unnecessarily, as this noun requires the Ø nominative case (Yavuz et

al, 2004). The final error in this example is a vocabulary error in the subordinate clause. The

redublicated adverb “bol bol” requires an action which should follow the noun “sohbet” (chat)

in order to form a predicative. The compound verb “sohbet etmek” (to chat) consisting of a

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noun followed by an auxiliary is the correct expression in this case. Aditionally analyzed from

a semantic point of view, depending on the nature of the action implied by “sohbet etmek”, it

can be categorized under activity verbs defining an ongoing process in time (Vendler in

Yavuz et al, 2004). Furthermore, the verb complementizer “sohbet etmek” can not be in the

infinitive case within this clause. It requires also the ablative case inflection “- Dan”

indicating directionality with the semantic function of source. It is to emphasize here that only

a “certain sub – group of verbs, adjectives, and postpositions selets the ablative case to assign

to their objects. Some examples of such verbs are X-ten nefret etmek, X-ten hoşlanmak, X-ten

bahsetmek…” (Yavuz et al, 2004, p.105). Accordingly, the correct form of example (124) is

following:

Ayşe genellikle akşamları kitap okuyor, ama bugün bol bol sohbet etmekten

hoşlanıyor.

4.3 Error Analysis Based on the Written Data

The tables from 4.14 to 4.26 below present the outcome of the written production data.

Each table represents a respective written task and was analyzed and interpreted accordingly.

The tables illustrate the frequency (f) of errors made by the participant, the type of errors

made, and the total number of errors made. The abbreviations “D” and “T” under “Type of

Error” in the tables stand for “developmental” and “transfer” errors respectively (see Section

2.8.2). Also here, the total number of transfer and developmental errors for each recording are

itemized in each table. Besides the recording dates stated above each table, the number of

clauses produced by the participant counted for the tasks are indicated under each table too.

Table 4.14 – The Frequency of Errors of the Guided Grammar Tasks (25.04.2005), (05.07.2005), (21.01.2006), (24.01.2006) f

Case Marker 1 T, 2 D

Vocabulary 1 T, 1 D

Others 3 D

Total 8 (2 T, 6 D)

48 clauses

The table above presents the frequency of errors of the guided grammar tasks applied

in this study. These grammar tasks consisted of four different data contents respectively

conducted on 25.04.2005, 05.07.2005, 21.01.2006, and 24.01.2006. As can be seen in the

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table, out of a total of 48 clauses, 2 transfer and 6 developmental errors were produced by the

participant. The errors were made in case marker inflections, vocabulary choice and divers

(others). The category of “others” covers an error in negation, an error in capitalization and

another in adjective use. Following examples demeonstrate outstanding errors produced in the

written grammar tasks of this study:

(125) …ama Baklava sağlıksız. …but BaklavaNOM unhealthy ….but baklava is unhealthy. … aber BaklavaNOM ungesund … aber Baklava ist ungesund.

Example (125) presents a capitalization error transferred from German. The word “baklava” is

a noun in Turkish representing a kind of dessert. In the example above, it is written in capital

which is incorrect according to the case sensitivity in Turkish. Except proper nouns all nouns

in Turkish are written in small letters (Durmuşoğlu, 2007). This error is counted as a transfer

error, as all nouns in German are required to be written in capitals.

(126) *Bisiklet arabadan daha pahalı. bicycleNOM carABL more expensive (A) bicycle is more expensive than a car. FahrradNOM AutoABL noch teuer (Ein) Fahrrad ist teurer als ein Auto.

Although the sentence above is grammatically correct, it is semantically incorrect. While

practicing the Turkish comparative structure, Mr. B. was supposed to form full sentences

using the nouns given as prompts. The structure of comparison is from the syntactical point of

view correct. However, the place of the nouns in the sentence should be just the other way

around. Not the car, but the bicycle is more expensive. This is not transferred from German as

the word order in comparisons in German is the same as in Turkish. Furthermore, this error

seems to be made because of the type of this grammar activity. It was a completely

mechanical exercise expecting the learner to form comparative sentences independent from

each other and without any context to focus on.

(127) *Kebap Pizza’dan daha lezzetli, belki baklava en lezzetli. KebapNOM PizzaABL more delicious, maybe baklava most delicious Kebap is more delicious than Pizza; maybe baklava is the most delicious. KebapNOM PizzaABL noch lecker, vielleicht baklava am Leckersten Kebap is leckerer als Pizza, vielleicht ist baklava am Leckersten.

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The example above shows a production of the comparative and superlative structure in

Turkish. The comparison is both syntactically and semantically correct. However, there is an

error in the superlative construction. The bare superlative adjective has to precede a noun;

otherwise, it requires the accusative case inflection “-I”. As there is not any noun followed by

the superlative construction in (127), the correct clause is following:

…, belki baklava en lezzetlisi.

A final outstanding error made in the grammar tasks is presented in example (128) illustrating

a semantic error caused by transformation from German. The main focus of this exercise was

reviewing adverb phrases and adverbials which had been presented and practiced a lesson

before. As in example (126) the sentence below (128) is also syntactically correct, but in this

case pragmatically incorrect. The negations “-ma” in the modifiers “bak-” of the verb “yalan

söylemek” had to be omitted in the sentence below.

(128) Gözümün içine bakmaya bakmaya yalan eyeGEN1stPSNG in lookNEG.ADV lookNEG.ADV. lieNOM

söylüyor. tellPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG

He is telling lies to me without looking into my eyes. AugeGEN1stPSNG in schauenNEG.ADV schauenNEG.ADV LügenNOM erzählenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG

Er erzählt mir Lügen ohne mir in die Augen zu schauen.

The example above presents a redublicated expression (Yavuz et, 2004) aiming here to imply

the meaning of lieing to someone by looking straight into someone’s eyes (without shame).

The participant attached negative markers to the adverbials as he misinterpreted the meaning

of this adverbial expression. He explained his attitude saying that “he can not look into my

eyes as he is lieing”. The correct form of the sentence above is as follows.

Gözümün içine baka baka yalan söylüyor. eyeGEN1stPSNG in lookADV lookADV lieNOM tellPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG He is telling lies to me looking straight into my eyes. AugeGEN1stPSNG in schauenADV schauenADV LügeNOM erzählenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG Er erzählt mir Lügen und schaut mir dabei in die Augen (schamlos). To continue, Tables 4.15 and 4.16 show the frequencies of the errors produced in the single

sentence and free paragraph writing tasks conducted on 02.10.2005.

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Table 4.15 – The Frequency of Errors of the Sentence Writing Task (02.10.2005) f

Case Marker 2 D

Spelling 6 T, 10 D

Vocabulary 2 T, 1 D

Tense 2 D

Punctuation 2 D

Code - Switching 4 T

Total 29 (12 T, 17 D)

16 clauses

Table 4.16 – The Frequency of Errors of the Paragraph Writing Task (02.10.2005) f

Case Marker 2 T, 1 D

Spelling 12 T, 6 D

Word Order 1 T

Tense 2 T

Punctuation 1 D

Number 1 T

Total 26 (18 T, 8 D)

13 clauses

As can be seen in the above tables, out of a total of 29 produced clauses in both writing tasks,

only 1 error in word order occurred. Moreover, the majority of errors were made in spelling

with a total of 18 transfer and 16 developmental errors. These are followed by case marker

errors with a frequency of 2 in the sentence writing task and 3 in the paragraph writing task.

The 4 code – switching errors appeared to be the repetition of the same error in that task.

Mr.B. combined the word “Türkiye” with the English version “Turkey” and wrote “Türkey”.

Other errors were produced in vocabulary choice, tense inflection, punctuation and number.

Some errors of the single sentence and free paragraph writing tasks are presented in the

examples below.

(129)*Türkey’de vardiktan sonra türk havayi TurkeyLOC arrivePAST.ABL after TurkishNOM weatherACC hoslanırım. likeS.PR.1stP.SNG After arriving in Turkey I liked the Turkish weather. TürkeiLOC ankommenPAST.ABL nachdem türkischNOM WetterACC mögenS.PR.1stP.SNG Nachdem ich in der Türkei angekommen war, mochte ich das türkische Wetter. As can be seen in the example above, the participant attached a locative inflection to the noun

“Türkiye”. However, the dative marker “–(y)E” conveying the meaning of direction (to

something or someone) having the semantic function of goal (Yavuz et al, 2004) is required

for this noun. The next error is the spelling error in “vardiktan” where the letter “i” has to be

replaced by “ı”. A further spelling error is made in capitalization. The adjective “türk” has to

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be written in capital as proper names, and thus country names, are written in capitals in

Turkish (Durmuşoğlu, 2007). Next, a case marking error is made in the object “hava” of the

clause. The participant marked the noun with an accusative inflection; however, the verb

“hoşlanmak” requires the ablative case to be assigned to its object (see example (124)). In

addition to the ablative case, the noun “hava” requires also an accusative case marker,

because it is part of the noun phrase “Türk havası” (see examples (97) and (98)). The final

error in example (129) is the tense inflection attached to the verb “hoşlanmak”. Based on the

context and the postposition of “vardıktan sonra” (after arriving), the main verb of the

sentence requires the definite past tense inflection “-DI” (Yavuz et al, 2004). Accordingly, the

correct form of example (129) should be:

Türkiye’ye vardıktan sonra, Türk havasından hoşlandım.

A further example from the paragraph writing task indicating errors in word order, spelling

and verb inflection is given in (130).

(130)*TEMSAdaki iş ilginç ve gelişmeyi TEMSA’nin TEMSALOC.POSS. workNOM interesting and developACC TEMSAGEN. desteklemek zevk alıyorum supportINF enjoyPR.CONT.1stP.SNG.

The work at TEMSA is isteresting and I enjoy supporting the development of TEMSA.

TEMSALOC.POSS. ArbeitNOM interessant und ErweiterungACC TEMSAGEN. unterstützenINF genießenPR.CONT.1stP.SNG. Die Arbeit bei TEMSA ist interessant und ich genieße es die Erweiterung TEMSA’s zu unterstützen.

The word order error is at the compound noun “TEMSA’nın gelişmesi”. The participant

placed the completed noun “gelişmesi” in preceding position of the completing noun

“TEMSA” (see also examples (97) and (98)). Moreover, the verb “gelişmek” requires the

accusative marker “-I” with the preceding buffer “-s”. In addition, as analized in example

(124), some verbs in Turkish require ablative marking. The verb “zevk almak” assigns its

object with an ablative case marker “-DAn” (Yavuz et al, 2004). The correct form of example

(130) is presented below:

TEMSA’daki iş ilginç ve TEMSA’nın gelişmesini desteklemekten zevk

alıyorum.

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Comparing examples (129) and (130), it can be seen that also spelling errors were made in the

genitive case inflection of TEMSA. Here again the participant confused the usage of the

letters “i” and “ı”.

Table 4.17 illustrates the frequencies of the errors produced in the writing tasks

“Giving Personal Information” and paragraph writing based on clues. A total number of 70

errors out of 57 clauses were found in this data. The majority of errors were made in spelling,

whereas the least were made in word order and number. Also case marker errors with a

frequency of 10 were in general much less than in the spoken tasks discussed in 4.2. The

remaining errors were produced in vocabulary, tense and the omission of obligatory elements

in the clauses.

Table 4.17 – The Frequency of Errors of the Writing Homework Task “Giving Personal Information” (05.10.2005) and Paragraph Writing Based on Clues (12.11.2005) f

Case Marker 3 T, 7 D

Word Order 3 T, 1 D

Spelling 21 T, 13 D

Missing Elements 5 D

Vocabulary 4 T, 2 D

Number 1 D

Tense 9 D

Others 1 D

Total 70 (31 T, 39 D)

57 clauses

It is worth mentioning that the participant produced remarkably complex sentences in the

writing tasks mentioned above (Table 4.17). The examples below present some basic errors

representing the overall outcome. The words in parentheses stand for the first writing trials of

Mr.B.

(131)*Bir (Aleman) Alman otobüslerin (kuruş) kuruluşinde A (German) German busPL.GEN. (coinNOM) institutionGEN.LOC avrupada bilinen. EuropeLOC knowPASS. (He/She) (verb) in a German bus institution known in Europe. Ein (deutsch) deutsch BusPl.GEN. (MünzeNOM) GesellschaftGEN.LOC.

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EuropaLOC kennenPASS. (Er/Sie) (verb) in einer deutschen Busgesellschaft, die in Europa bekannt ist.

Example (131) contains errors in spelling, case marker and word order. The spelling errors

occurred in the writing of the proper noun “Alman”. As can be seen above, the participant

added the vowel “e” between the consonants “l” and “m”, but corrected himself and rewrote

the word correctly again. The same selfcorrection was observed in the noun “kuruluş”

(institution, establishment) which was confused with the noun “kuruş” (coin) at first. But

although Mr. B. rewrote the incorrect noun in the right form as “kuruluş”, he chose the

incorret vowels in the inflections following the noun. According to the vowel harmony rules

in Turkish, the vowel “u” in the word root requires suffixes involving the vowels “a” or “u”

(Hengirmen, 2006; Yavuz et al, 2004). Thus, in this case the root “kuruluş” requires the

genitive case inflection “-Un” followed by the locative case in flection “-dA”. The participant

found the correct case markers for the word “kuruluş”; however, he ignored the vowel

harmony rules in Turkish. To focus on case marker errors in the same example (131), there is

only one in the incorrect choice of the genitive case in the plural noun “otobüsler”. This noun

requires the accusative case as it belongs to the compound noun “Alman otobüsleri” (see also

examples 97, 98, 129). The most outstanding error in the same example is the incorrect word

order caused by the position of the adjective phrase “Avrupada bilinen” in the adjective clause

“Arupada bilinen bir Alman otobüsleri kuruluşu”. In Turkish, the noun in the adjective clause

is placed at the end of the phrase; whereas, the defining auxiliary constituent precedes the

noun (Karahan, 2006). However in example (131) the participant placed the adjective phrase

at the end of the adjective clause. The incorrect word order seems to be transferred from

Geman as defining relative clauses are in postmodifying position in German clauses. The final

error in this example is that the main verb of the sentence is completely missing. Based on the

task and the context of the participant’s writing a verb indicating action is required. Mr.B was

supposed to give personal information about himself, and according to the content of the

sentence, the most suitable verbs are “çalışmak” (work) or “görev almak” (be employed in)

with the present continous tense inflection “-Iyor” and the 1st person singular person marker

“-um”. The correct possible form of example (131) is presented below.

Avrupada bilinen bir Alman otobüsleri EuropeLOC knowPASS a GermanNOM busPL.ACC

kuruluşunda çalışıyorum. institutionGEN.LOC. workPR.CONT.1stP.SNG

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EuropaLOC kennenPASS ein deutschNOM BusPL.ACC GesellschaftGEN.LOC. arbeitenPR.CONT.1stP.SNG

Further examples representing errors of the writing homework task based on clues (see Table

4.17) are shown below. In example (132) only one error in case marker choice is made.

Instead of using the nominative Ø marker assigning the subject of a clause or generic

expressions (Hengirmen, 2006 and see also 2.7.2), the participant attached the defining

accusative case inflection “-U” to the subject “çocuk”.

(132)*Meslek sahibi olmak ve bir çocuğu yetiştirmek, JobNOM ownerNOM beINF and a kidACC growINF bu kolay değil. this easy not Having a job and growing a child, this is not easy. BerufNOM BesitzerNOM seinINF und ein KindACC erziehenINF das einfach nicht Einen Beruf haben und ein Kind erziehen, das ist nicht einfach. The case marker error analized above can be interpreted as a developmental error caused by

the accusative case inflection used in the completed noun “sahibi” of the noun phrase “meslek

sahibi” in the first noun phrase of the same sentence (see also example (97). The participant

may have been misled because of the equivalence of both noun phrases.

(133) *Japonya gitmek isteyeçek. JapanNOM goINF wantFUT3rdP.SNG He will want to go to Japan. JapanNOM gehenINF wollenFUT3rdP.SNG Er wird nach Japan gehen wollen.

As can be seen in the example above, the participant did not make any tense or person

inflection errors. However, the first consonant in the future tense marker “-Ecek” is

miswritten as “ç” instead of “c”. A further more remarkable error is made in the case marking

of the subject “Japonya”. Possibly the participant omitted the dative case inflection “-YA”

indicating direction (Yavuz et al, 2004) because of the fact that the respective noun already

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ends with the two letters “ya”. The correct form of the subject assigning the directionality “to

someone or something” would be “Japonyaya”. A similar case marking error is made in

example (134).

(134)*Ispanya görmek istiyor. SpainNOM seeINF wantPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG He/She wants to see Spain. SpanienNOM sehenINF wollenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG Er/Sie will Japan sehen. Although the subject “İspanya” requires the defining accusative case marker “-(y)I”, the

participant omitted it and wrote the noun in the Ø nominative case. This choice may be

transferred from German as the proper noun “Spanien” belongs to the country names that do

not require any articles in German (Sick, 2007).

(135)*Jose Perez, Meksidan gelip Las Vegas’da öğrenci olarak Jose Perez MexicoABL comeCONJ Las VegasLOC studentNOM as yaşiyor yalnız. livePR.CONT.3rdP.SNG alone Jose Perez, coming from Mexico lives as a student alone in Las Vegas. Jose Perez MexicoABL kommenCONJ Las VegasLOC StudentNOM als lebenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG allein Jose Perez aus Mexico, lebt als Student allein in Las Vegas. Example (135) shows another error in word order produced by the participant. Mr.B ignored

the basic rule in Turkish word order that the predicate of a clause is in final position as long as

there is no emphasis on any other particular element (Karahan, 2006). Thus, “yalnız” should

precede the verb “yaşıyor”. A further error of less importance is the spelling error in the verb

“yaşıyor”. The letter “i” has to be replaced by the letter “ı”.

Table 4.18 – The Frequencies of the Errors of the Make Up Story Writing Task (21.01.2006) f

Case Marker 0

Word Order 1 D

Spelling 2 D

Vocabulary 2 T, 3 D

Missing Elements 1 D

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Others 2 D

Total 11 (2 T, 9 D)

11 clauses

The table above illustrates the frequencies of the errors of the story writing task

conducted on 21.01.2006. The participant was supposed to make up a story based on the

predetermined words “çünkü, asla, pahalı, kaza, dikkatsizce, pişman, travma, yavaşça,

sürmek”. In the first instance he misinterpreted the given instruction (see Appendix 8) and

wrote a single sentence including all required words. The first production of this

misunderstood task is presented below.

(136)*Hem dikkatsizce hem yavaşça sür(e)melisiniz, cünkü asla hem pahali kazayı

hem travmayı pışman olmaliniz.

Because of the fact that the participant misinterpreted the instruction of the story writing task,

the errors produced in example (136) were not included into the calculations of the

frequencies in Table 4.18. Furthermore, Mr.B. was given another chance to fulfill the story

writing task after having explained him the same task in his mother tongue German in detail

once again. Some examples of the errors produced (4.18) are illustrated and analized below.

(137)*Ali Ayşele sürkün sobeth etmiş AliNOM AyşeNOM.PREP driveCONJ(while) chatNOM doPAST3rdP.SNG ve dikkatsizce kavşağı geçmiş. and carelessADV crossroadACC passPAST3rdP.SNG

While Ali was driving with Ayşe, he was chatting and passed the crossroad carelessly.

AliNOM AyşeNOM.PREP fahrenCONJ(als) PlauderNOM machenPAST3rdP.SNG und unvorsichtigADV KreuzungACC überquerenPAST3rdP.SNG

Als Ali mit Ayşe fuhr, war er am plaudern und überquerte unvorsichtig die Kreuzung.

The example above includes errors in gerund use, spelling, vocabulary, tense and word order.

To start with the error in word order, the position of the adverb “dikkatsizce” is incorrect. It

should be placed before the verb of the clause, in this case “geçmiş”. According to the

canonical position for adverbs in Turkish, adverbs imminently precede the verb (Wilson and

Saygın, 2001; Karahan, 2006) (see also 2.7.1, Example (48)). Another remarkable error is the

incorrect spelling of the gerund inflection “-ken” which is a kind of auxiliary attached to a

nominal stam to make it function as a predicative verb (Vardar, 2002). In example (137) the

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participant attached this inflection as “-kün” to the word “sür” (drive). However, the inflection

“-ken” does not adapt the harmony rules in Turkish (Hengirmen, 2006) and thus always

requires the same vowel “e”. Furthermore, the present tense inflection “-Er” preceding the

gerund marker is also missing. A further error is made in the vocabulary choice of the verb

“sürmek” indicating the action of driving a vehicle. The appropriate expression for driving to

a particular place is “arabayla gitmek” (go by car). Moreover, beside the spelling error in the

verb “sohbet”, another tense error is made in the verb “sohbet etmek” (chat). Being an activity

verb defining an ongoing process in time (see example (124)), it requires the continuous

marker “-Iyor” before the indefinite past inflection “-mUş”. Finally, the participant made an

error in the attachment of the postposition inflection “-(y)lA” denominating “ile” (together

with) (Hengirmen, 2006). He omitted the obligatory buffer “y” which is required after vowels

and consequently had to be placed immediately after “Ayşe”. The correct form of example

(137) is presented below:

Ali Ayşeyle arabayla giderken sohbet ediyormuş ve kavşağı dikkatsizce geçmiş.

A further example illustrating an error produced in the make up story writing task (Table

4.18) is analized below. It shows a definite transfer error.

(138)*…çünkü o asla sırası kazayı because he never sequencePOSS.ACC accidentACC

istemiş. wantINDEF.PAST3rdP.SNG.

… because he never wanted the accident to happen. weil er nie ReihePOSS.ACC UnfallACC wollenINDEF.PAST3rdP.SNG. … weil er nie gewollt hat, daß der Unfall geschieht.

The main oıutstanding error produced in the example above is the ommittion of the negation

particle “-mA” which had to be placed preceding tense and person markers (Yavuz et al,

2004) of the verb. The error was most probably caused by the use of “asla” in the same

clause. In German and also in English the equivalents for “asla” that is “nie” and “never”

require a verb marked positive. However in Turkish, the verb requires a negative marking

although the adverb “asla” has a negative meaning.

Tables 4.19 and 4.20 indicate the additional data which were not prearranged to be

analyzed beforehand. These data were obtained from 9 short messages (SMS) and 4

handwritten letters of the participant.

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Table 4.19 – The Frequency of Errors of the SMS Data (05.12.2005 – 28.02.2006) f

Case Marker 3 D

Word Order 2 T

Spelling 3 D

Vocabulary 1 T, 1 D

Buffer, Vowel,

Devoicing

1 D

Adjective/Adverb 1 T, 3 D

Missing Elements 1 D

Question Marker 2 D

Total 18 (4 T, 14 D)

Total 43 clauses

The frequency of errors of the SMS data produced by the participant between 05.12.2005 and

28.02.2006 is presented in the table above. Out of a total of 18 errors, 14 developmental and 4

transfer errors were counted. The majority of developmental errors were made in spelling and

the use of case markers and adjectives/adverbs. Transfer errors were made in the category of

word order, vocabulary choice and question marker. Some outstanding examples are

presented below.

(139)*Tabii, yarın akşamda görüşürüz. (14.12.2005) sure, tomorrow eveningLOC meetPR3rdP.PL Sure, we will meet tomorrow evening. natürlich, morgen abendLOC treffenPR3rdP.PL Natürlich, wir treffen uns morgen Abend. As can be seen in the example above, the participant attached the locative case marker “-dA”

to the adverb of time “akşam”. In Turkish, adverbs are not marked by the locative case

inflection. In the example (139) the adverb does not require any inflection. Similar errors are

made in the examples (140), (141) and (142).

(140)*…evet, Türkiye’ye dünde geri geldim. (16.01.2006) … yes, TurkeyDAT yesterdayLOC back comePAST1stP.SNG … yes, I came back to Turkey yesterday. … ja, TürkeiDAT gesternLOC zurück kommenPAST1stP.SNG … ja, ich bin gestern in die Türkei zurückgekehrt.

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(141)*Gelecek ders çarşamba günde saat 19:30’da next lessonNOM Wednesday dayLOC hourNOM 19:30LOC uygun sizin için. (16.01.2006) suitable youGEN for Is Wednesday at 19:30 suitable for you for the next lesson? nächster UnterrichtNOM Mittwoch TagLOC UhrNOM 19:30LOC passend duGEN für Ist Mittwoch um 19:30 passend für dich für den nächsten Unterricht? (142)*…ve tabii cumartesi günde buluşabileceğiz… (23.02.2006) ...and certainly Saturday dayLOC meetMODAL.FUT.3rdP.PL… …and we will certainly be able to meet on Saturday… …und sicherlich Samstag TagLOC treffenMODAL.FUT.3rdP.PL… …und wir werden uns sicherlich am Samstag treffen können. In example (140) the participant marked the adverb “dün” with the locative case inflection “-

dA” which is incorrect. Adverbs are not marked with the locative case. The adverb “dün”

does not require any inflection. Similar is the case in example (141) and (142). The noun

“gün” is marked incorrectly with the locative case inflection “-dA” in both examples.

However, the defininitizing accusative case marker “-Ü” is required in both examples. A

further error in example (142) is its affirmativity. According to the context of the SMS sent

from Mr.B to his tutor on 23.02.2006, the participant wanted to approve if the time mentioned

was suitable for his tutor. Accordingly, this requires a question form which is obtainable

through the question marker “mI” in Turkish. This question marker is placed immediately

before verbs or nouns and words derived from nouns depending on which element is to be

stressed (Hengirmen, 2006). In contrast to the other inflections in Turkish, “mI” is not

attached to the verb or a word derived from a noun. It is written separately as a word

following the element it is related to. However, it adjusts the vowel harmony rules in Turkish.

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Table 4.20 – The Frequency of the Errors in the Handwritten Letters 1, 2, 3, 4 (17.12.2005), (21.01.2006), (29.01.2006), (14.02.2006) f

Case Marker 4 T, 7 D

Word Order 6 T

Spelling 15 T, 20 D

Tense 6 D

Verb Inflection 1 T, 1 D

Vocabulary 2 T, 1 D

Missing Elements 2 T

Others 4 D

Total 69 (28 T, 41 D)

127 clauses

The frequency of the errors produced in the handwritten letters sent by the participant to his

tutor between 17.12.2005 and 14.02.2005 is shown in Table 4.20. Out of a total of 127

clauses, 28 transfer and 41 developmental errors were made. Errors were predominatly

produced in spelling (35), case marker choice (11), tense inflections (8) and word order (6). A

low frequency of errors is registered in vocabulary choice and possessive inflection. Some

remarkable errors produced in the handwritten letters of Mr.B. are analized in the examples

below.

(143)*Ama şu an ben vakit var ve bunun size but that momentNOM I-NOM timeNOM have and thisGEN youDAT mektubi yazmam için kulaniyorum. letterACC writeINF.POSS to usePR.CONT.1st P.SNG But now I have time and I use it to write a letter to you.

aber diese AugenblickNOM ichNOM ZeitNOM haben und diesGEN duDAT BreifACC schreibenINF.POSS zu nutzenPR.CONT.1st P.SNG Aber jetzt habe ich Zeit und nutze sie, um dir zu schreiben.

The example above includes errors in case and personal markers, spelling and verb inflection.

The first error is made in the case of the subject “ben” which could have been dropped as

Turkish is a pro – drop language (see Table 2.2) and the person marker is obligatorily

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inflected to the verb. However, the subject is indicated in this clause and has to be in

agreement with the verb “var” (have). The verb “var” assigns a genitive case marking and

therefore the subject requires the compatible possessive suffix “-Im”. The same possessive

suffix is also required for the following determinated noun “vakit” as nominal agreement in

possessive constructions is obligatory (Hengirmen, 2006; Yavuz et al, 2004). The next error is

also in case marking. The participant marked the subject “bu” of the second clause with a

genitive inflection. However, it requires the definitizing accusative case. The accusative case

is used with the correct buffer “b” in “mektup”. However, in this case the participant ignored

the vowel harmony rules in Turkish. Due to the vowel “u” in “mektup” all following vowels

in any inflection should be either “a” or “u” (Hengirmen, 2006). Besides, the Ø nominative

case would be appropriate here as the noun “mektup” belongs to the verb “yazmak” which is

stated in the infinitive form. A further error is made in the choice of infinitive marker attached

to the verb stam “yaz” (write). As the person marker of the main verb of the clause is the

same 1st person singular marker, the verb stam “yaz” requires the bare infinitive marker “-

mAk”. The possessive marker “-m” is unnecessary. Finally, two spelling errors were made in

the production of the main verb “kullanıyorum”. The verb “kullanmak” is written with a

double “l” and the vowel “i” in the tense inflection is incorrect according to the vowel

harmony rules in Turkish. Because of the last vowel “a” in the verb stam, following vowels

can only be “a” or “ı”.

(144) Ama dünya dönür ve ilk bahar gelecek. but worldNOM turnPR3rdP.SNG and springNOM comeFUT3rdP.SNG But the world is turning and spring is going to come. Aber WeltNOM drehenPR3rdP.SNG und FrühlingNOM kommenFUT3rdP.SNG Aber die Welt dreht sich und der Frühling wird kommen.

In the example above Mr.B made an error in the choice of tense marker which he may have

transferred from German. The inflection “-r” seems to indicate the simple present tense

marker. However, the preceding vowel “ü” is incorrect. The monosyllabic verb stam “dön”

requires the vowel suffix “-Er” (Yavuz et al, 2004). Furthermore, for the expression in

example (144) indicating that the world is turning around, instead of the simple present tense,

the present continous tense having a non – complete progressive aspect in Turkish (Yavuz et

al, 2004) would have been more appropriate. However, German has no progressive tense. The

simple present tense corresponds to the present and progressive aspect (Freeman, 2006). This

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might be the reason why Mr.B preferred to use the simple present tense instead of the

progressive tense.

(145)*Noel bayramını ailele kutladım ve Christmas feastGEN. familyNOM.PREP. celebratePAST1stP.SNG and çok zamanı hem(a) kücük kızımla hem(b) eşimle much timeACC both(a) little daughterGEN.PREP and(b) partnerGEN.PREP geçirdim. spendPAST1stP.SNG I celebrated the Christmas feast with my family and spent much time with both my little daughter and my partner. Weihnacht FestGEN FamilieNOM.PREP. feiernPAST1stP.SNG und viel ZeitACC beide klein TochterGEN.PREP. und PartnerinGEN.PREP. verbringenPAST1stP.SNG Ich feierte das Weihnachtsfest mit meiner Familie und verbrachte viel Zeit mit meiner kleinen Tochter und meiner Partnerin.

Example (145) presents errors produced in the handwritten letter of Mr.B written on

21.01.2006. The first error is made in the noun “aile” where the possessive marker “-m” for

the first person singular is missing. The next outstanding error in the example is the error in

word order. The noun “zaman” belongs to the verb “geçirmek” (spend time) and thus has to

be in preceding position of the verb. “Çok” is the quantifier of the noun “zaman” and is

placed correctly before the noun. In addition, the verb “geçirmek” assigns Ø marking to the

related noun. Yet, Mr.B attached an accusative case inflection to the noun. The correct form

of example (145) is stated below.

Noel bayramını ailemle kutladım ve hem küçük kızımla hem eşimle çok zaman

geçirdim.

The next example illustrates errors from Mr.B’s 3rd letter sent to his tutor on 29.01.2006. It

shows errors in spelling, tense and case marking.

(146)*Şimdi dişarda siçaklık arttı, gök Now outside temperatureNOM increasePAST3rdP.SNG skyNOM yüzü bulutsuzdu ve güneş pırıl pırıl surfaceACC cloudNEG.PAST3rdP.SNG and sunNOM brightlyR.ADV

parladı – şu demek…haydi bisiklet shinePAST3rdP.SNG - that mean… let’sINT bicycleNOM

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binelim. rideMODE.OPT.1stP.PL. Now the temperature (has) increased, the sky is free of clouds and the sun is shining brightly – this means… let’s ride bicycles! Jetzt außen TemperaturNOM erhöhenPAST3rdP.SNG HimmelNOM OberflächeACC WolkeNEG.PAST3rdP.SNG und SonneNOM strahlendR.ADV scheinenPAST3rdP.SNG – das heißen…laß’ unsINT FahrradNOM fahrenMODE.OPT.1stP.PL.

Jetzt hat sich die Außentemperatur erhöht, der Himmel ist wolkenlos und die Sonne scheint strahlend – das heißt…laß’ uns Fahrrad fahren!

To start with the spelling errors in (146), the first vowel “i” in “dişarda” should be replaced by

“ı”. The same error is made in the following noun “siçaklık”. Additionally, the consonant “ç”

is incorrect. It has to be replaced by “c”. The next errors are made in the tense inflections of

the copular “bulutsuzdu” and the verb “parladı”. Based on the context of the statement, the

participant describes the weather conditions of that moment of speech. This is interpreted

from the time expression “şimdi” at the beginning of the sentence. Accordingly, the use of

past tense markers, although used syntactically correctly, is semantically unacceptable.

Instead, the Ø copula indicating present tense (Yavuz et al, 2004) should have been used for

the copular “bulutsuz” and the present progressive tense inflection “-Iyor” should have been

attached to the verb “parlamak”. The final error is the nominative marking of “bisiklet”. It

requires dative marking, conveying the meaning of directionality, because of the verb

“binmek”. The verb “binmek”, like a “certain sub – group of verbs, adjectives …selects the

dative case to assign to their objects” (Yavuz et al, 2004, p.103).

4.4 Total Production versus Total Errors

It can be interpreted from the frequencies of the errors produced by the participant in the

spoken and written data (see Tables 4.1 and 4.20 under the headings 4.2 and 4.3) that

approximately the same total amount of errors were made during the performance of both the

spoken and written tasks. Final calculations revealing the total frequencies of the errors

produced in the written and spoken data are illustrated in the tables below.

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Table 4.21 – Total Frequencies of the Errors Produced In the Spoken Data f Total T - D

Case Marker 69 28 T; 41 D

Word Order 17 12 T; 5 D

Pronunciation 27 27 D

Vocabulary 49 32 T; 17 D

Number 11 6 T; 5 D

Tense 9 1 T; 8 D

Missing Elements 18 2 T; 16 D

Others 18 5 T; 13 D

Total 218 86 T; 132 D

360 utterances

As can be seen in Table 4.21, the majority of errors produced in the spoken data with a

frequency of a total of 360 utterances were made in case marker choice with a frequency of 69

followed by errors in vocabulary use with a frequency of 49. A relatively high frequency of

errors was also produced in pronunciation which is not in the scope of this study and thus will

not be further analized in detail. The remaining errors were found in the categories of number

(11) and tense inflection (9). The frequency of errors for missing elements in the utterances of

the participant was 18 and the frequency of the remaining other errors such as in question

marker, preposition marker, quantifier and aspect was also 18. In conclusion, a total number

of 218 errors out of a total of 360 utterances were produced in the spoken performance of the

participant. Of these 218 errors, 132 were developmental and 86 were transfer errors. Errors

transferred from German were predominantly made in vocabulary choice (32) and case

marking (28) followed by errors in word order (12). Developmental errors on the other hand,

were determined prevailing in the categories of case marking (41), pronunciation (27),

vocabulary choice (17) and missing elements (16).

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Table 4.22 – Total Frequencies of the Errors Produced In the Written Data f Total T-D

Case Marker 32 10 T; 22 D

Word Order 14 12 T; 2 D

Spelling 109 54 T; 55 D

Vocabulary 21 12 T; 9 D

Number 2 1 T; 1 D

Tense 21 3 T; 18 D

Code – Switching 4 4 T

Missing Elements 9 2 T; 7 D

Punctuation 3 3 D

Others 16 1 T; 15 D

Total 231 99 T; 132 D

315 clauses

The above table presents the total frequencies of the errors produced by the participant in the

written data. The errors produced in a total frequency of 315 clauses were predominantly

generated in spelling with a frequency of 109. However, as spelling, like pronunciation in the

spoken data, does not belong to the scope of this study, it is not analized further in detail.

Compared to the other categories, the frequency of errors for case marking is also remarkably

high with a frequency of 32. These are follwed by vocabulary and tense errors with

frequencies of 21 and word order errors with a frequency of 14. The remaining errors were

determined in the categories of number (2), code - switching (4) and punctuation (3). The

frequency of errors for missing elements in the utterances of the participant was 9 and the

frequency of the remaining other errors such as in question marker, quantifier, aspect and

conjuction use was 16. In sum, a total number of 231 errors out of a total of 315 clauses were

produced in the written performance of the participant. Of these 231 errors, 132 were

developmental and 99 were transfer errors. Errors transferred from German were

predominantly made in spelling (54), word order (12) and vocabulary choice (12) followed by

errors in case marking (10). Likewise, developmental errors were determined prevailing in the

categories of spelling (55) and case marking (22).

The figures 4.1 and 4.2 view the ratio of the total errors produced in the spoken and written

performances of the participant in percentages.

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case markerword order

pronunciationvocabulary

numbertense

missing elementothers

spoken total

0

10

20

30

Perc

ent

31,7

7,8

12,4

22,5

54,1

8,3 8,3

spoken total

Figure 4.1 - The Distribution of Total Errors in the Spoken Performances

The bar chart above illustrates the distribution of the total errors produced by the participant

in the spoken data of the study. As can be seen, errors in case marking outweigh the other

categories with 31.7%. Case marker errors are followed by errors in vocabulary choice or use

with 22.5% and pronunciation errors with 12.4%. However, least errors were produced in

tense (4.1%) and number inflections (5%). The remaining categories are word order (7.8%),

missing elements (8.3%) and others such as question and preposition marking, quantifier and

aspect (8.3%).

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case markerword order

spellingvocabulary

numbertense

code-switchingmising element

punctuationothers

writing total

0

10

20

30

40

50

Perc

ent

13,9

6,1

47,2

9,1

0,9

9,1

1,73,9

1,3

6,9

writing total

Figure 4.2 – The Distribution of Total Errors in the Written Performances

Figure 4.2 presents the distribution of the total errors produced by the participant in

the written data of the study. It can be interpreted that errors in spelling were remarkably high

with 47.2% compared with the other categories. Those are followed by case marker errors

with 13.9% and vocabulary and tense errors with a percentage of respectively 9.1. However,

least errors were produced in number inflections (0.9%), code – switching (1.7%) and

punctuation (1.3%). The remaining categories are word order (6.1%), missing elements

(3.9%) and others such as question marking, quantifier use, aspect and conjunction use

(6.9%).

To focus on the frequencies of the errors calculated in the grand total data of the

participant, Table 4.23 illustrates the grand total frequencies of the total error production of

Mr.B. Out of a total of 360 utterances in his spoken performances and 315 clauses in his

written performances, a total frequency of 449 errors were determined. As can be seen in the

same table, developmental errors outweigh transfer errors with a frequency of 264. Moreover,

considering the total amount of errors produced by the participant in both the spoken and

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written tasks, the ratio of the total transfer errors is 41.2 % and of the developmental errors is

58.7%.

Table 4.23– Grand Total Frequencies of Errors in the Total Production of Mr.B

Data f Total T - D

Total 449 185 T; 264 D

360 utterances and 315 clauses

The analyses and interpreatation of the distribution of transfer and developmental errors

in case marking and word order, which are the main focus of this study, are illustrated in

Table 4.24 and interpreted in the next part of this chapter (4.5).

4.5 The Analysis of Case Marker and Word Order Errors

As case marker and word order errors are the main interests in the present study, the

general distribution of transfer and developmental errors of the total case marker and word

order errors produced by the participant are illustrated in Table 4.24.

Table 4.24 – Grand Total Frequencies of the Word Order and Case Marker Errors

Data f Total T - D

SPOKEN DATA

Case Marker 69 28 T; 41 D

Word Order 17 12 T; 5 D

WRITTEN DATA

Case Marker 32 10 T; 22 D

Word Order 14 12 T; 2 D

Total 132 62 T; 70 D

Total Case Marker 101 38 T; 63 D

Total Word Order 31 24 T; 7 D

360 utterances and 315 clauses

The table above shows that the total frequency for case marker errors produced in the spoken

and written tasks was 101. Compared with the frequency in case marker errors, the number of

errors in word order was relatively low with a frequency of 31 in total. Furthermore, the

number of case marker errors in the spoken production (f = 69) of the participant was more

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than twice as much than in the case marker errors produced in the written task (f = 32).

However, comparing the frequencies of word order errors produced in the spoken and written

data of the participant, the results are approximately the same. Accordingly, the number of

word order errors produced by the participant in the spoken performances was 17 and in the

written performances 14. It can also be interpreted from the frequencies in Table 4.24 that out

of all case marker and word order errors, developmental errors outweighed errors transferred

from German. However, the number of transfer errors in word order (f = 24) was remarkably

high when compared with the total word order error ratio (f = 31). In conclusion, the

frequency of case marker and word order errors produced in the spoken performances of the

participant was remarkably higher with f = 86 when compared to those produced in the

written production (f = 46). These results may be due to the fact that the learner had more

time to think in performing the writing tasks before language production than in the speaking

tasks. In addition, the high frequency of errors produced in the spoken data point out that the

anxiety level of the learner during the performance of the speaking tasks was much higher

than of the writing tasks. Mr B. frequently adumbrated his anxiety of speaking Turkish during

the lessons and also his negative physical responses before and during the speaking tasks

implied the same.

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SCT SCD SWT SWD WCT WCD WWT WWD

Grand Total

0

10

20

30

Perc

ent 21,2

9,1

3,8

7,6

16,7

9,1

1,5

31,1

Grand Total

SCT= Spoken Case Marker Tranfer; SCD= Spoken Case Marker Developmental; SWT= Spoken Word Order Transfer; SWD= Spoken Word Order Developmental; WCT= Written Case Marker Transfer; WCD= Written Case Marker Developmental; WWT= Written Word Order Transfer; WWD= Written Word Order Developmental

Figure 4.3 – Grand Totals of the Transfer and Developmental Errors Produced in Case Marking and Word Order in the Spoken and Written Performances

Figure 4.3 views the ratio of the transfer and developmental errors produced in case

marking and word order in both the spoken and written performances of the participant. It can

be interpreted from the bar chart that the developmental errors in case marking in the spoken

production prominently outweigh with 31.1%. Transfer errors in case marking in the oral

production follow with 21.2%. The participant made also a high amount of developmental

errors in case marking in his written language production (16.7%). These are followed by

transfer errors of word order in the oral and written production with a ratio of 9.1%. The least

were developmental errors of word order produced in the written tasks (1.5%). The remaining

errors were determined as developmental word order errors in the spoken production (3.8%)

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and transferred case marker errors in the written production (7.6%) of the participant in this

study. The order of error production from most to least based on Figure 4.3 is listed below.

Table 4.25 – The Sequential Order of the Total Transfer and Developmental Errors Produced (from most “1” to least “7”) 1. Developmental Case Marker Errors in the Spoken Production

2. Transferred Case Marker Errors in the Spoken Production

3. Developmental Case Marker Errors in the Written Production

4. Transferred Word Order Errors in the Spoken and Written Production

5. Transferred Case Marker Errors in the Written Production

6. Developmental Word Order Errors in the Spoken Production

7. Developmental Word Order Errors in the Written Production

4.5.1 Case Marker

In order to get a precise overview of the error types produced in case marking, the

outcome was divided into oral and written data and analized accordingly. The grand total

frequency of errors counted for case markers in both spoken and written production was 101;

whereby 38 were transferred from German and 63 were developmental errors (see also Table

4.24 and Figure 4.3). It was arised from the data analysis that abrasively case marker errors

were produced in three different categories. Therefore, the analysis of case marker errors in

the oral and written production was based on three basic groups as presented in Table 4.26. It

should be pointed out that other kinds of errors such as in tense, person, number, vocabulary,

spelling, pronunciation or likewise are not considered in the data analysis of this part of this

study. It is only concentrated on the case marker errors produced by the participant in his oral

and written performances.

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Table 4.26 – The Frequencies of Errors of the Spoken and Written Data Produced in Case Marking Data Category f Total T - D f Total T - D

SPOKEN DATA WRITTEN DATA

Noun Phrase 30 15 T; 15 D 9 7 T; 2 D

Agreement 11 3 T; 8 D 7 3 T; 4 D

Others 28 10 T; 18 D 16 16 D

Total 69 28 T; 41 D 32 10 T; 22 D

The table above illustrates the frequencies of the errors produced by the participant in

his spoken and written performances. Based on the majority of the case marker error

categories, the produced errors were subcategorized into three main groups, namely “noun

phrase”, “agreement” and “others” which covers errors produced in various subheadings of

case marking which are also analised and interpreted in themselves.

4.5.1.1 Case Marker Errors Produced in the Spoken Performances

To begin with the oral production of the participant, it revealed a total error production

of 69 in case marking. Thereof, 28 were transfer and 41 developmental errors (see also Table

4.24 and Figure 4.3). The participant produced the majority of case inflection errors in his oral

performances in the production of Turkish noun phrases (f = 30), which is considered as the

first category. The next category where an outstanding number of case marking errors (f = 11)

were determined was in agreement (verb – noun, adjective – noun, postposition – noun

agreement). The participant showed main difficulties in considering Turkish verbs that require

a specific case marker and thus are different in nature from other verbs. The remaining

category (f = 28) covers errors produced in various subheadings of case marking analised and

interpreted in themselves.

Errors in Noun Phrases

To focus on the oral error production in noun phrases, out of a total of 30 errors, 15

were developmental and 15 were transfer errors. However, only 9 case marking errors were

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determined in the written performances of Mr.B. Of these 9, 7 were transfer errors and 2

developmental (see Table 4.26).

In Turkish, compounding free morphemes from different or the same word classes

means creating new lexical items in order to represent a new meaning (Yavuz et al, 2004;

Hengirmen, 2006). Noun constructions are created by combining two or more nouns. They

are categorised into three groups, namely genitival noun construction (defined), shortened

genitival noun construction (undefined) and chained noun construction (Hengirmen, 2006).

Accordingly, the defining noun of the defined noun construction requires one of the genitive

inflections “-ın, -in, -un, -ün” based on the vowel harmony rules in Turkish. As two vowels

can never stand together in Turkish, the consonant “-n” is placed before the genitive marker if

the noun ends in a vowel (see example (147)). The defined noun on the other hand, requires

one of the possessive markers “-ı, -i, -u, -ü”, also based on the same vowel harmony rules. If

the defined noun ends in a vowel, it requires the buffer “-s” preceding the accusative

inflection (Hengirmen, 2006, Guise, 2007) (see examples (147) and (148)).

(147) kız + çanta → kızın çantası Kızın çantası istasyonda kayboldu. ev + kapı → evin kapısı Evin kapısı dün boyandı okul + müdür → okulun müdürü

Okulun müdürü arabaya bindi. otobüs + şoför → otobüsün şoförü Otobüsün şoförü çok hızlı gidiyor.

(148)araba + kapı → arabanın kapısı

Arabanın kapısını açtım. müze + pencere→ müzenin penceresi Müzenin penceresini kapattım. oyuncu+ elbise → oyuncunun elbisesi Oyuncunun elbisesi çok güzel. ütü + fişi → ütünün fişi Ütünün fişi bozuldu.

(Hengirmen, 2006; p.118)

Another issue to be considered in noun phrases is that the consonants “ç, k, p, t” at the end of

a noun become “c, ğ, b, d” if they are placed between two vowels as presented in the example

below.

120

(149) ağaç + dal → ağacın dalı Ağacın dalına çıktım. gözlük + cam → gözlüğün camı Gözlüğün camını değiştirdim. kitap + sayfa → kitabın sayfası Kitabın sayfasını açtım. yurt + kapı → yurdun kapısı Yurdun kapısından içeri girdik.

(Hengirmen, 2006; p.118)

Defining nouns of undefined noun constructions on the other hand, the second group of noun

phrases does not require any case markers. The table below presents the difference between

defined and undefined noun constructions in Turkish (based on Hengirmen, 2006).

Table 4.27 – The Differences between Defined and Undefined Noun Constructions in Turkish

Defined Noun Construction Undefined Noun Construction

arabanın lastiği

geminin kaptanı

ineğin sütü

çocuğun şapkası

araba lastiği

gemi kaptanı

inek sütü

çocuk şapkası

(150) defining defined → noun construction

kadın çanta kadının çantası woman bag the woman’s bag

A defined noun construction is illustrated in example (150). The defined noun “çanta”

belongs to a definite woman. However, in the undefined noun construction “kadın çantası”

(women’s bag), a bag manufactured for women in general is meant. It is not known who the

bag belons to (Hengirmen, 2006). The final subcategory to be analised under the heading of

noun constructions is “Chained Noun Constructions” which require more than one defined or

defining nouns in one construction. Some examples (based on Hengirmen, 2006; p.120) for

chained noun constructions are presented below.

(151) elbise dolabının kapısı clothNOM cupboardGEN doorNOM the door of the gardrobe

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(152) Turgut’un evinin penceresinin camı TurgutGEN houseGEN windowGEN glassNOM the glass of the window of Turgut’s house

(153) Türk Hava Yollarının uçakları TurkishNOM AirNOM LinePL.GEN planePL.NOM the planes of the Turkish Airlines After having focused on the aspects of the rules for noun constructions in Turkish, some

examples of the errors in case marking in noun phrases of the spoken and written data of the

participant are analised and interpreted. The examples below present errors produced in the

spoken performances of Mr.B.

(154)*Ona bel ağrıyor. HeDAT backNOM achePR.CONT.3rdPSNG His back is aching. ErDAT RückenNOM schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Sein Rücken schmerzt. In the example above the participant marked the defining noun with a dative inflection,

although genitive is required. Furthermore, the defined noun “bel” which requires the 3rd

person singular possessive inflection “-I” (Hengirmen, 2006) is marked only nominative. The

correct form of this example is “Onun beli ağrıyor”.

(155)*Steve baş ağrıyor. SteveNOM headNOM achePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Steve’s head is aching. SteveNOM KopfNOM schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Steve’s Kopf schmerzt. In the noun phrase “Steve’in başı”, the participant used the Ø nominative marker for both the

defining and defined nouns. However, the defining noun requires genitive marking and the

defined noun requires the 3rd person singular possessive inflection “-I” (Hengirmen, 2006).

Similar errors are produced in the examples (156) and (157).

(156)*Sam karnı ağrıyor. SamNOM stomacheACC achePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Sam’s stomache is aching. SamNOM BauchACC schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Sam’s Bauch schmerzt.

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(157)*…çünkü ona takım elbise ütülemiş. … because he/sheDAT suitNOM ironPAST3rdPSNG … because he/she ironed his/her suit. … weil er/sieDAT AnzugNOM bügelnPAST3rdPSNG … weil er/sie seinen/ihren Anzug bügelte.

In example (156) the defining noun “Sam” requires the genitive marker. However, it is

marked Ø. In example (157) both the defining and defined nouns of the chained noun

construction (see examples (147), (148) and (149)) are marked incorrectly. The correct form

of the clause is presented in the example below:

…çünkü onun takım elbisesini ütülemiş. … because heGEN suitGEN ironPAST3rdPSNG … because he/she ironed his/her suit.

Other outstanding casemarking errors in noun phrases determined in the spoken performances

of Mr B. are illustrated in the examples below.

(158)*Tatil gün Noel… FreeNOM dayNOM ChristmasNOM… On the free day of Christmas… FreiNOM TagNOM WeihnachtenNOM… An dem freien Weihnachtstag… The noun “gün” requires the 3rd person singular possessive inflection “-ü” as it is the defined

noun of the undefined noun construction “tatil günü” (Hengirmen, 2006). However, both

nouns of the construction are Ø marked by the participant.

(159)*sanatın resim artGEN paintingNOM a painting of art KunstGEN BildNOM ein Kunstbild

As in many previous noun constructions, also in example (159) the participant omitted the 3rd

person singular possessive inflection “-I” at the defined noun “resim” (Hengirmen, 2006).

Other case marking errors in noun phrases produced in the spoken data are analised in

examples (160), (161), (162) and (163).

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(160)*Kahvenin değirmeni coffeeGEN millNOM coffee mill KaffeeGEN MühleNOM Kaffeemühle (161)*Bir şeker kutu. one sugarNOM boxNOM a sugar box eine ZuckerNOM DoseNOM eine Zuckerdose (162)*Kadın parmaklarda yüzük yok, demek yalnız. womanNOM fingerPL.LOC ringNOM no, meanINF alone There is no ring in the woman’s fingers, this means she is alone. FrauNOM FingerPL.LOC RingNOM kein, bedeutenINF alone Da ist kein Ring an dem Finger der Frau, das bedeutet, sie ist allein. (163)*Bu kahvaltı basit bir Türk kahvaltı. this breakfastNOM simple a TurkishNOM breakfastNOM This breakfast is a simple Turkish breakfast. dieses FrühstückNOM einfach ein türkischNOM FrühstückNOM Dieses Frühstück ist ein einfaches türkisches Frühstück. The examples (160), (161) and (163) present undefined noun constructions that do not

indicate who the items belong to (see Table 4.27). Accordingly, the defining noun does not

require any marking; whereas the defined noun requires the 3rd person singular possessive

inflection“-I” (Hengirmen, 2006). The correct forms of these examples are following:

Kahve değirmeni

Bir şeker kutusu.

Bu kahvaltı basit bir Türk kahvaltısı.

Contrary, example (162) presents a defined noun construction that requires genitive marking

at the defining noun and 3rd person possessive “-I” at the defined noun. In addition, the

genitive marker is needed to show possession and the locative case marker is necessary to

indicate spatial location (Yavuz et al, 2004). The correct noun construction in this case would

be “kadının parmaklarında yüzük yok”. Further outstanding defined noun construction errors

are presented in following examples.

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(164)*çam ağaç süslemek pineNOM treeNOM decorateGER decorating pine trees TanneNOM BaumNOM schmückenGER Tannenbäume schmücken

(165)*Üste şeker ezme var. above sugarNOM pasteNOM beCOP Above there is powder sugar. oben ZuckerNOM PasteNOM seinCOP Da drüber ist Puderzucker. (166)*Sonra Noel müzik dinliyorlar. then ChristmasNOM musicNOM listenPR.CONT3rdPPL Then they listen to Christmas songs. dann WeihnachtNOM MusikNOM hörenPR.CONT3rdPPL Dann hören sie sich Weihnachtsmusik (-lieder) an. (167)*İçinde buğday un var. in wheatNOM flourNOM beCOP There is wheat flour in it. in WeizenNOM MehlNOM seinCOP Da ist Weizenmehl drin. All noun constructions illustrated in the examples above are defined. However, the participant

produced all nouns in these constructions in the Ø nominative case, although the defined

nouns require the 3rd person possessive inflection “-I”. Accordinly, the grammatically correct

forms of these constructions are presented below.

çam ağacı

seker ezmesi

Noel müziği

buğday unu

Errors in Agreement

Besides in compound noun constructions, the spoken data in this study revealed also a

major amount of case marker errors produced in verb – noun agreement. In Turkish there is a

125

large group of verbs, adjectives and postpositions that assign the preceding related object with

a definite case marker (Yavuz et al, 2004). The participant produced a total number of 11 case

marker errors based on disagreements between particular elements within a clause. Of these

errors, the majority were developmental errors probably caused by lacks in Turkish

proficiency (see Table 4.26). The examples below present errors in verb – noun agreement

produced in the spoken performances by Mr.B.

(168)*Birgit soruya yanıtlıyor. BirgitNOM questionDAT answerPR.CONT3rdPSNG Birgit is answering the question. Birgit NOM FrageDAT beantwortenPR.CONT3rdPSNG Birgit beantwortet die Frage. The verb “yanıtlamak” selects the accusative case to assign to its object. However, the

participant marked the object with a dative inflection. The accurate form of the object is

“soruyu”. If the verb “cevap vermek” (answer) had been used, the dative inflection “-a”

would have been correct, because “cevap vermek” requires dative case marking to its

preceding object.

(169)*bazen yalnızlık seviyorum sometimes lonelinessNOM likePR.CONT.1stPSNG sometimes I like loneliness manchmal EinsamkeitNOM mögenPR.CONT.1stPSNG manchmal mag ich die Einsamkeit

(170)*evde bay Ravioli salon… saloni homeLOC Mr. Ravioli living roomNOM… living roomACC süsledi decoratePAST3rdPSNG at home Mr. Ravioli decorated the living room zu HauseLOC Herr Ravioli WohnzimmerNOM…WohnzimmerACC schmückenPAST3rdP.SNG zu Hause schmückte Herr Ravioli das Wohnzimmer The verbs “sevmek” and “süslemek” in the examples (169) and (170) select the accusative

case to assign to their objects. In example (169) the object “yalnızlık” is used in the Ø

nominative case. In example (170) however, although the correct accusative case is chosen,

126

the preceding vowel does not obey the vowel harmony rules in Turkish. The correct forms of

the objects in these examples are “yalnızlığı” and “salonu”.

(171)*Belki hiç kimse davet gelmedi, … Maybe nobody invitationNOM comeNEG.PAST3rdPSNG Maybe nobody came to the inviatation,… Vielleicht niemand EinladungNOM kommenNEG.PAST3rdPSNG Vielleicht kam niemand zu seiner Einladung… (172)*Bu sadece sebep Almanya’da geri gidiyor… This just reasonNOM GermanyLOC back goPR.CONT.3rdPSNG gitmek için. goINF to This is just a reason to go back to Germany. Das nur GrundNOM DeutschlandLOC zurück gehenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Das ist nur ein Grund (um) nach Deutschland zurückzukehren.

In the examples above, the same verb “gitmek” that selects the dative case to assign its object

is used. In both examples the object of the clause is marked incorrectly. The object of

example (171) “davet” should be “davete” and the object of example (172) should be

“Almanya’ya”.

Other Errors in Case Marking

As can be seen in Table 4.26, beside case marker errors in noun phrases and

agreement in elements, various other case marker errors were produced in the spoken

performances of the participant in this study. The frequency of the errors in this remaining

category is 28, out of which 10 are determined as transfer errors and 18 as developmental

errors. The case marker errors in this category are not related to or based on a subcategory as

in the prior categories. Accordingly, outstanding errors in case marking are exemplified,

analised and interpreted individually. To begin with explicit incorrect case marker

attachments, the participant produced a high frequency of 17 errors (out of a total of 28 in this

remaining category) in using nominative case markers instead of accusative. The examples

below show productions of this nature of the participant in his oral production.

127

(173)*ama bir kadın çamaşır yapti but a womanNOM clothNOM doPAST3rdPSNG but a woman did the laundry aber ein FrauNOM WäscheNOM machenPAST3rdPSNG aber eine Frau machte die Wäsche

(174)*Çanta taşıyor. bagNOM carryPR.CONT.3rdPSNG He/She is carrying the bag. TascheNOM tragenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Er/Sie trägt die Tasche.

(175)*Sonra hırsız buzdolabı açmış. then burglarNOM fridgeNOM openPAST3rdPSNG Then the burglar opened the fridge. dann EinbrecherNOM KühlschrankNOM öffnenPAST3rdPSNG Dann öffnete der Einbrecher den Kühlschrank. (176)*Şişe sekt, şampanya yerleştiriyor. bottleNOM sparkling wineNOM champagneNOM arrangePR.CONT.3rdPSNG He/She is arranging a bottle of sparkling wine, champagne. FlascheNOM SektNOM, ChampagneNOM einordnenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Er/Sie ornet eine Flasche Sekt, Champagne ein. All the utterances above present examples of nouns assigned with the Ø nominative case,

although they require accusative marking. In general, the accusative case marks the direct

object in a sentence. However, it also has some subcategories defining peculiar cases of

accusative marking (Yavuz et al, 2004). First, the accusative case has a definitizing function

indicating a definite reading of the governed noun phrase as can be seen in examples (173)

and (174). The speaker and the hearer know which cloth and which bag is meant. Second, the

accusative case has a syntactic function in noun phrases with definite readings distinguishing

subject and object of a sentence. The accusative case marked noun functions as the direct

object and the nominative noun as the subject in a sentence (examples (175) and (176)).

The participant made further case marker errors in his oral performances in attaching

accusative case inflections where nominative was required.

(177)*Otu çok kısa. grassACC very short The grass is very short.

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GrasACC sehr kurz Das Gras ist sehr kurz.

(178)*yaşlı insanları çok çalıştılar old peopleACC a lot workPAST3rdPPL Old people worked a lot. alt LeuteACC viel arbeitenPAST3rdPPL Alte Leute arbeiteten sehr viel.

(179)*ve kadın kitabı okuyor and womanNOM bookACC readPR.CONT3rdPSNG and the woman is reading a book und FrauNOM BuchACC lesenPR.CONT3rdPSNG und die Frau liest ein Buch (180)*Ayşe genellikle …kitabı okuyor. AyşeNOM generally… bookACC readPR.CONT3rdPSNG Ayşe generally reads a book. AyşeNOM generell … BuchACC lesenPR.CONT3rdPSNG Ayşe liest generell ein Buch.

The Ø nominative case generally marks subjects of independent finite clauses in Turkish.

Though, not all Ø marked nouns indicate subject position in the sentence. As the position

immediately before the verb indicates the position for the object, the remaining noun is

interpreted as the subject. “Ot” in example (177) definetly qualifies for subjecthood as there is

no other noun in the sentence. The same is the case in example (178) where “insanlar” is in

subject position. However in example (179), the utterance is interpreted as grammatically

incorrect, because neither the speaker nor the hearer knows which book is meant. The noun

“kitap” has not a definitizing function and thus can not be assigned with an accusative marker.

The same is the case in example (180) where “kitap” is in preverbal position and has no

definitizing function as not a definite book is emphasised. Hence, this noun requires Ø

nominative marking.

Other case marking errors in the spoken performances of Mr B. are presented in the

examples below.

(181)*7 ayda Türkçe çalıştım. 7 monthLOC TurkishNOM workPAST1stPSNG I studied Turkish for 7 months.

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7 MonatLOC türkischNOM arbeitenPAST1stPSNG Ich lernte türkisch für 7 Monate.

The noun “ay” is attached with the incorrect locative marker indicating locational

relationships between the verb and its argument. The verb “çalışmak” does not belong to the

sub – group of verbs that select the locative case to assign to its object (Yavuz et al, 2004).

(182)*Yaklaşık 10 ay Türkiye yaşıyorum. About 10 monthNOM TurkeyNOM livePR.CONT1stPSNG I have been living in Turkey for about 10 months. Ungefähr 10 MonatNOM TürkeiNOM lebenPR.CONT1stPSNG Ich lebe seit ungefähr 10 Monaten in der Türkei. The noun “Türkiye” in the example above requires locative marking as the verb it precedes

belongs to the sub – group of verbs that select the locative case to assign to its object. The

locative marker shows here “spatial location (location in place)” (Yavuz et al, 2004; p.104).

4.5.1.2 Case Marker Errors Produced in the Written Performances

To focus on the written production of the participant, it revealed a total error production

of 32 in case marking. Thereof, 10 were transfer and 22 developmental errors (see also Table

4.24 and Figure 4.3). The participant produced the majority of case inflection errors in his

written performances in attaching the incorrect case marker for various different reasons (f =

16), which is categorized under “others” (see Table 4.24). These subheadings of case marking

were analised and interpreted in themselves. The next category where an outstanding number

of case marking errors (f = 9) were determined was in compound noun constructions. The

remaining category (f = 7) covers errors produced in agreement where the participant showed

main difficulties in considering Turkish verbs that require a specific case marker and thus are

different in nature from other verbs (see also 4.3).

Errors in Noun Phrases

To focus on the written error production in noun phrases, out of a total of 9 errors, 2

were developmental and 7 were transfer errors (see Table 4.26). The examples below present

case marker errors in noun constructions produced by the participant in his written

performances.

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(183)*türk havayi hoslanırım TurkishNOM weatherACC likeS.PR1stPSNG I like Turkish weather. türkischNOM WetterACC mögenS.PR1stPSNG Ich mag türkisches Wetter.

In the noun phrase “Türk havası”, the first error is made in the accusative marking of the

defined noun “hava”. The defined noun in noun constructions requires the possessive marker

“-I” with the preceding buffer “s” (see 4.5.1.1 and examples (97) and (98)). Furthermore, the

verb “hoşlanmak” requires the ablative case to be assigned to its object (see example (124)).

(184)*Adana’nin trafik ilginc ve heyecanli AdanaGEN trafficNOM interesting and exciting the traffic of Adana is interesting and exciting AdanaGEN VerkehrNOM interessant und aufregend der Verkehr in Adana ist interessant und aufregend

Although the genitive marking of the defining noun of the compound is produced correctly,

the possessive marker “-I” is missing at the defined noun “trafik”. Furthermore, due to the

consonant rules in Turkish, the final consonant “k” of “trafik” becomes “ğ” (see examples

(149)).

(185)*işte firsatı Türkçe konuşmak here chancePOSS TurkishNOM speakINF here is the chance of speaking Turkish hier ChancePOSS türkischNOM sprechenINF hier ist die Chance, türkisch zu reden The example above illustrates an error in the undefined chained noun construction (see

4.5.1.1) “Türkçe konuşma fırsatı”. The verb “konuşmak” in the defining noun construction

“Türkçe konuşma” is written in the infinitive form by the participant. Besides the defined

noun “fırsat” is placed in preceding position of the defining nouns. The correct order would

be “Türkçe konuşma fırsatı”.

Errors in Agreement

Besides in compound noun constructions, the written data in this study revealed also a

dominant amount of case marker errors produced in verb – noun agreement. In Turkish there

is a large group of verbs, adjectives and postpositions that assign the preceding related object

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with a definite case marker (Yavuz et al, 2004) (see also 4.5.1.1). The participant produced a

total number of 7 case marker errors based on disagreements between particular elements

within a clause. Of these errors, 4 were developmental and 3 transfer errors (see Table 4.26).

The examples below present errors in verb – noun agreement produced in the written

performances by Mr. B.

(186)*Türkey’de vardiktan sonra … TurkeyLOC arriveABL after … After having arrived in Turkey… TürkeiLOC ankommenABL nach… Nach der Ankunft in die Türkei…

As can be seen in the example above, the participant attached a locative inflection to the noun

“Türkiye”. However, the dative marker “–(y)E” conveying the meaning of direction (to

something or someone) having the semantic function of goal (Yavuz et al, 2004) is required

for this noun. In addition, the verb “varmak” belongs to the sub – group of verbs that require

dative marking that assign the preceding related object with a definite case marker (Yavuz et

al, 2004).

(187)*arabamla Adanaya gezmek seviyorum carPOSS.CONJ AdanaDAT strollINF likePR.CONT.1stPSNG I like strolling around Adana in my car. AutoPOSS.CONJ AdanaDAT spazierenINF mögenPR.CONT.1stPSNG Ich mag es, mit meinem Auto in Adana herumzufahren. Both verbs “gezmek” and “sevmek” belong to the group of verbs that assign their objects with

the accusative marker. In addition, “gezmek” may also assign its object with the locative case

inflection “-dA”. Accordingly, the correct forms of the example (187) are presented below.

a. arabamla Adanayı gezmeyi seviyorum

b. arabamla Adanada gezmeyi seviyorum

While example (a.) emphasizes the pleasure of sightseeing Adana, example (b.) points out the

pleasure of strolling around in Adana.

(188)*Temsa’nin gelışmesini desteklemek zevk alıyorum TemsaGEN developGEN supportINF enjoyPR.CONT.1stP.SNG. I enjoy supporting the development of Temsa

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TemsaGEN ErweiterungGEN unterstützenINF genießenPR.CONT.1stP.SNG. ich genieße es, die Erweiterung TEMSA’s zu unterstützen The verb “zevk almak” in the example above assigns its object with the ablative case marker

“-dAn”. However, it is used in the Ø case.

(189)*Hobilerin bisiklet binmak… hobbyPL.POSS bicycleNOM rideINF My hobbies are riding a bicycle… hobbyPL.POSS FahrradNOM fahrenINF… Meine Hobbies sind Fahrrad fahren, … A further error in verb – noun agreement is shown in example (189) of the written production

data of the participant. The verb “binmek” assigns its objects with the dative case marker “-

dA”. However, it is marked Ø nominative in the example above.

Other Errors in Case Marking

As can be seen in Table 4.26, beside case marker errors in compound noun

constructions and agreement in elements, various other case marker errors were produced in

the written performances of the participant in this study. The frequency of the errors in this

remaining category is 16. Remarkably, all these errors were determined as developmental

errors. The case marker errors in this category are not related to or based on a subcategory as

in the prior categories. Accordingly, outstanding errors in case marking are exemplified,

analised and interpreted individually. To begin with uses of nominative case marker instead of

accusative case markers, a total frequency of 5 errors were found in the written performances

of the participant.

(190)*O bekar ve bir çocuk var. he/sheNOM single and one childNOM have He/She is single and has one/a child. er/sieNOM alleinstehend und ein KindNOM haben Er/Sie ist alleinstehend und hat ein Kind.

The noun “çocuk” requires the definitizing accusative inflection “-I” after the change of the

final consonant “k” into “ğ”. Accrdingly, “çocuğu” is the correct form of the object in the

clause.

(191)*Ispanya görmek istiyor. SpainNOM seeINF wantPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG He/She wants to see Spain.

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SpanienNOM sehenINF wollenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG Er/Sie will Spanien sehen.

Although the proper noun “İspanya” requires the accusative case marker “-(y)I” as it is in

object position, the participant omitted it and wrote the noun in the Ø nominative case. This

choice may be transferred from German as the proper noun “Spanien” belongs to the country

names that do not require any articles in German (Sick, 2007).

(192)*Bugün cumartesi’nin sabah… today SaturdayGEN morningNOM Today is Saturday morning… heute SamstagGEN morgenNOM Heute ist Samstag Morgen… The example above shows both semantic and syntactic inaccuracy. The adverb of time

“bugün” should be replaced by “now” to express a logical meaning of the clause. If the

compound noun “cumartesi’nin sabahı” (the morning of Saturday) is accepted as semantically

correct, the defined noun “sabah” would require the possessive inflection “-I”. However, it

has no marking at all.

(193)*Bir gözüm ağladı ve diğer güldü… oneNOM eyePOSS cryPAST3rdPSNG and otherNOM laughPAST3rdPSNG One of my eyes cried and the other one laughed… einNOM AugePOSS weinenPAST3rdPSNG und anderNOM lachenPAST3rdPSNG Eines meiner Augen weinte und das Andere lachte… The noun “diğer” requires the definitizing accusative case marker “-I” because both speaker

and hearer know what is meant by “the other one”. It is “the other eye”, which is laughing. To

focus on accusative marking where nominative was required; the examples below show errors

of this nature produced by the participant in his written performances.

(194)*Meslek sahibi olmak ve çocuğu yetiştirmek,

JobNOM ownerNOM beINF and kidACC growINF bu kolay değil. this easy not Having a job and growing a child, this is not easy. BerufNOM BesitzerNOM seinINF und KindACC erziehenINF das leicht nicht

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Einen Beruf haben und ein Kind erziehen, das ist nicht leicht.

Instead of using the nominative Ø marker assigning the subject of a clause or generic

expressions (Hengirmen, 2006) (see also example (146)), the participant attached the defining

accusative case inflection “-U” to the subject “çocuk”.

Further case marking errors produced in the written tasks of the participant are presented and

analised in the examples below.

(195)*ama belki bugünde… but maybe todayLOC… but maybe today… aber vielleicht heuteLOC… aber vielleicht heute… It can be seen in the example above that a locative case marker is attached to the adverb of

time “bugün”. In the singular use of adverbial expressions the locative case is not used in

Turkish. As it shows locational relationships between a verb and its argument, it can be used

with a plural adverb to express temporal location. Thus, “bugünlerde” with the plural

inflection “-lAr” is syntactically correct, whereas “bugünde” is not acceptable and should be

in the Ø nominative case. The same is the case in the example below (196) where the

participant attached a locative inflection to the adverb of time “akşam”. However, as in

example (195), it can only be marked locative in plural position to express temporal location.

But in the example below neither direction nor location is indicated. Thus, the adverb should

be marked Ø nominative.

(196)*Tabii, yarın akşamda görüşürüz. sure, tomorrowNOM eveningLOC meetS.PR.3rdPPL Sure, we will meet tomorrow evening. sicher, morgenNom AbendLOC treffenS.PR.3rdPPL Sicher, wir treffen uns morgen Abend.

(197)*…ve bunun size mektubi yazmam …and thisGEN youDAT letterACC writeINF.POSS için kulaniyorum to usePR.CONT.1st P.SNG …and I use it to write a letter to you.

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…und diesGEN duDAT BriefACC schreibenINF.POSS

zu nutzenPR.CONT.1st P.SNG

…und ich nutze sie, um dir zu schreiben.

The error in the example above is in the case marking of the object in the sentence. The

participant marked the subject “bu” of the clause with a genitive inflection. However, it

requires the definitizing accusative case inflection “-I”. Furthermore, based on the context of

the sentence, the noun “mektup” does not require any case marking as it is related to the verb

“yazmak” which is used in the infinitive form.

(198)*…ama Türkçe düzeyim bizim ikimiz …but TurkishNOM levelGEN weGEN bothNOM eseridik. creationPOSS.PAST3rdPPL …but my Turkish level is the creation of both of us. …aber türkischNOM NiveauGEN wirGEN beideNOM WerkPOSS.PAST3rdPPL …aber mein türkisch Niveau ist das Werk von uns beiden.

As can be seen in the example above, there is no attached case marking at the pronoun

“ikimiz”. However, it requires genitive marking as it belongs to the defined noun “eser”

which is also syntactically incorrect. The tense and person markers attached to the same noun

should be omitted completely as the clause includes the Ø copula “be”.

(199)*Sana ve ailene iyi ve mutlu yıllar. Baumannlarından. youDAT and familyDAT good and happy yearPL . BaumannPL.GEN.ABL Good and happy years for you and your family. The Baumanns duDAT und FamilieDAT gut und glücklich yearPL. BaumannPL.GEN.ABL Gute und glückliche Jahre für dich und deine Familie. Die Baumanns. The final example above presents data from the SMS sent by the participant to his tutor. The

error in case marking is at the second clause “Baumannlarından” which is double attached

with a genitive and ablative marker preceded by a plural inflection. The ablative case “-Dan”

is a directional case having the semantic function of source (Yavuz et al, 2004). The noun

assigned with the ablative inflection indicates the source from which the action proceeds.

Accordingly, the proper noun is marked correctly with the ablative case. However, the

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genitive marker “-In” is unnecessary as it indicates possession. The number aspect at the same

proper noun is also used correctly as it represents the whole family.

4.5.2 Word Order

In order to get a detailed overview of the error types produced in word order, the

outcome was divided into oral and written data and analized accordingly. The grand total

frequency of errors counted for word order in both spoken and written production was 31;

whereby 24 were transferred from German and 7 were developmental errors (see also Table

4.24 and Figure 4.3). It should be pointed out that other kinds of errors such as in tense,

person, number, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation or likewise were not considered in the

data analysis of this part of this study. It is only concentrated on the case marker errors

produced by the participant in his oral and written performances.

Table 4.28 – The Frequencies of Errors of the Spoken and Written Data Produced in Word Order Data Category f Total T - D f Total T - D

SPOKEN DATA WRITTEN DATA

Verb Phrases 5 5 T 2 2 T

Noun Phrases 4 2 T; 2 D 2 2 T

Adjective Phrases 6 4 T; 2 D 6 5 T, 1 D

Others 2 1 T; 1 D 4 3 T; 1 D

Total 17 12 T; 5 D 14 12 T; 2 D

The table above illustrates the frequencies of the word order errors produced by the

participant in his spoken and written performances. Based on the majority of the word order

error categories, the produced errors were subcategorized into four main groups, namely

“verb phrases”, “noun phrases”, “adjective phrases” and “others” which covers errors

produced in various subheadings of case marking which are also analised and interpreted in

themselves.

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4.5.2.1 Word Order Errors Produced in the Spoken Performances

To begin with the oral production of the participant, it revealed a total error production

of 17 in word order. Out of these, 12 were transfer and 5 developmental errors (see also Table

4.28 and Figure 4.3). The participant produced the majority of word order errors in his oral

performances in the production of adjective phrases (f = 6), which is considered as the first

category. The next category where an outstanding number of word order errors (f = 5) were

determined was in verb phrases. The next category where errors in word order occurred was

“noun phrases” (f = 4). The remaining category (f = 2) covers other word order errors analised

and interpreted in themselves.

Errors in Adjective Phrases

The errors in adjective phrases produced in word order in the spoken data of the

participant have a total frequency of 6 (see Table 4.28). Out of these 6 errors, 4 were transfer

and 2 developmental errors. The examples below illustrate utterances of the participant where

word order errors in adjective phrases were produced.

(200)*Bu bir basit ev. thisNOM aINDEF.ART simple houseNOM This is a simple house. diesNOM einINDEF.ART einfach HausNOM Dies ist ein einfaches Haus.

(201)*…ve bir küçük tören hazırlıyor. …and aINDEF.ART little ceremonyNOM preparePR.CONT.3rdPSNG …and he/she is preparing a little ceremony. …und einINDEF.ART klein ZeremonieNOM vorbereitenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG …und er/sie bereitet eine einfache Zeremonie vor. (202)*Bir yaşlı, mutsuz adam. aINDEF.ART old unhappy manNOM An old, unhappy man. einINDEF.ART alt unglücklich MannNOM Ein alter, unglücklicher Mann. (203)*…ve bir çekici kadın tanıdı …and aINDEF.ART attractive womanNOM meetPAST3rdPSNG

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… and he met an attractive woman. …und einINDEF.ART anziehend FrauNOM treffenPAST 3rdPSNG …und er traf eine anziehende Frau. All the word order errors produced in the examples above are of the same kind. The indefinite

adjective “bir” is placed in preceeding position of the adjective phrases above. However,

according to the order of adjectives to be followed in Turkish phrases, the indefinite adjective

“bir” is to be placed immediately before the noun. Indefinite adjectives function as adjectives

that do not define nouns accurately (Hengirmen, 2006).

Errors in Verb Phrases The number of word order errors in verb phrases in the spoken outcome of this study

amounts 5, all of which are transferred from German (see Table 4.28). The examples below

show word order errors produced by the participant in his oral performances.

(204)*Bulmuş iki şişe şampanya ve yemek findPAST3rdPSNG two bottleNOM champagneNOM and foodNOM

bulmuş. findPAST3rdPSNG He found two bottles of champagne and he found food. findenPAST3rdPSNG zwei FlascheNOM ChampagnerNOM und EssenNOM findenPAST3rdPSNG Er fand zwei Flaschen Champagner und er fand Essen. As can be seen in the example above, the verb is placed head initial in the clause, although it

was not intended to put the emphasis on the verb. The utterance was produced during a

picture story telling task where actions of a character following each other were told.

However, the same verb “bulmak” is placed correctly in head – final position in the

subordinate clause of the sentence.

(205)*Belki geçen zaman çok mutlu ve bekliyorlar maybe passing timeNOM very happy and expectPR.CONT.3rdPPL fazla, fazla, fazla… much, much, much… Maybe the passing time has been very happy and they expect (too) much, much, much…

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vielleicht vergehende ZeitNOM sehr glücklich und erwartenPR.CONT.3rdPPL viel, viel, viel… Vielleicht ist die vergangene Zeit sehr glücklich gewesen und sie erwarten (zu) viel, viel, viel… The example above shows the incorrect placement of the verb “bekliyorlar”. It is required to

be placed at final position following the adverb “fazla”. The participant obviously transferred

this word order from German where the verb is placed on second position being followed by

the adverb (see 2.7.1). The same is the case in example (105) (2.7.1) where the adverb is

incorrectly placed at final position following the verb of the clause. The verb is required verb

final in Turkish (Yavuz et al., 2004; Underhill, 1985).

(206)*O diyor mutsuz veya üzgün. he/sheNOM sayPR.CONT.3rdPSNG sad or upset He/She says (that someone is) sad or upset. er/sieNOM sagenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG unglücklich oder traurig Er/Sie sagt (daß jemand) unglücklich oder traurig (ist).

In the example above, the verb “demek” is placed in second position immediately after the

subject of the clause. The adjectives “mutsuz” and “üzgün” are placed in final position. As

previously mentioned in the other examples above, in Turkish the verb is required in final

position (Yavuz et al, 2004; Underhill, 1985; Karaha, 2006) as long as no special emphasis on

the action is intended.

Errors in Noun Phrases The total frequency of word order errors produced in compound nouns is 4. Out of

these four errors, 2 were developmental and two were transfer errors (see Table 4.28). The

examples below show word order errors in compound nouns produced by the participant in

his oral performances.

(207)* Fiyat televizyona.

priceNOM televisionDAT price of the television

PreisNOM FernseherDAT Preis des Fernsehers

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The example above presents a descriptive noun construction. The completed noun “fiyat” is

put in first place followed by the completing noun “televizyon”. In Turkish the describing

(completing) noun showing who or what is owned by the described (completed) noun has to

come before the completed noun (Guise, 2007). The correct form of (207) would be

“televizyonun fiyatı” (see also 4.2, example (98)).

(208)*sonra elbise takimı giyiyor then dressNOM suitNOM wearPR.CONT.3rdPSNG then he wears a suit dann KleidungNOM AnzugNOM anziehenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG dann zieht er einen Anzug an

The correct form of the noun construction in the example above is “takım elbisesi” with the

defining noun “takım” in preceeding position of the defined noun “elbise”. The word order

error in this example is equal to that in the previous example (207).

Other Errors in Word Order

Beside word order errors in verb phrases, compound nouns and adjective phrases, the

participant also produced outstanding word order errors that needed separate categorization.

The examples below present word order errors in verb phrases including Ø copula which is

used very often in Turkish.

(209)*Mümkün bu yanlış anlama. possible thisNOM wrong understandingNOM This misunderstanding is possible. möglich diesNOM falsch VerständnisNOM Dieses Mißverständnis ist möglich. The example above presents an incorrect placement of the adjective “mümkün”. In fact, it

does not function as an adjective but as a predicate. The Ø copula links the subject to its

predicative adjective phrase. Expressing the copular verb in its full form, it would be

“mümkündür”, an adjective phrase within the verb phrase (Yavuz et al, 2004). Accordingly, it

has to be placed in final position in the clause.

(210)*Bu sadece sebep Almanyada geri gitmek için. thisNOM just reasonNOM GermanyLOC back goINF to This is just a reason to go back to Germany. diesNOM nur GrundNOM DeutschlandLOC zurück gehenINF zu Das ist nur ein Grund, um nach Deutschland zurückzugehen.

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The example above shows that the postpositional phrase “Almanyaya geri gitmek için” is

incorrectly placed in final position. However, it should be placed in preceding position of the

noun “sebep”. The semantically correct form of example (210) is ‘Bu sadece Almanyaya geri

gitmek için sebep.’

4.5.2.2 Word Order Errors Produced in the Written Performances

To continue with the written production of the participant, it revealed a total error

production of 14 in word order. Out of these, 12 were transfer and 2 developmental errors (see

also Table 4.28). The participant produced the majority of word order errors in his written

performances in the production of adjective phrases (f = 6), which is considered as the first

category. The next category where an outstanding number of word order errors (f = 4) were

determined was in the category of “others” analised and interpreted in themselves. Finally, the

categories “compound nouns” and “verb phrases” follow with f =2.

Errors in Adjective Phrases

The errors produced in word order in adjective phrases in the written performances of

the participant revealed that the majority of them were transferred from German. The

examples below show word order errors in adjective phrases in Turkish.

(211)*…ve bir ünlü türk otobüsler üreticiyi bilgi …and one famous TurkishNOM busPL.NOM producerACC informationNOM verilir. giveS.PR.PASS3rdPSNG …and information is given to a famous Turkish bus producer. …und ein berühmt türkischNOM BusPL.NOM ProduzentACC InformationenNOM gebenS.PR.PASS3rdPSNG …und Informationen werden einem berühmten Busproduzenten gegeben. (212)*ve biz bir başarılı ekibe yetişiriz and weNOM aINDEF.ART successful teamDAT achieveS.PR.3rdPPL and we achieve a successful team und wirNOM einINDEF.ART. erfolgreich TeamDAT erreichenS.PR.3rdPPL und wir erreichen ein erfolgreiches Team.

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Thee word order errors produced in the examples above are of the same kind. The indefinite

adjective “bir” is placed in preceeding position of the adjective phrases above. However,

according to the order of adjectives to be followed in Turkish phrases, the indefinite adjective

“bir” is to be placed immediately before the noun. Indefinite adjectives function as adjectives

that do not define nouns accurately (Hengirmen, 2006).

(213)*…ve biraz hem polonyalıca, rusça, fransizca…bilir. …and little both PolishNOM RussianNOM FrenchNOM…knowS.PR3rdPSNG …and he/she knows all a little Polish, Russian, French … …und wenig beide polnischNOM russischNOM französischNOM…wissenS.PR3rdPSNG …und er/sie weiss (alle) ein wenig polnisch, russisch, französisch… The example above shows an error in word order similar to those analised in the examples

(211) and (212). However, in this example the indefinite adjective is not “bir” but “biraz”.

Likewise, its position is immediately before the noun.

Errors in Verb Phrases There were only two word order errors in verb phrases produced by the participant in

his written performances in this study. Both of these word order errors are transferred from

German. These are presented in the examples below.

(214)*öğrenci olarak yaşiyor yalnız studentNOM as livePR.CONT.3rdPSNG aloneADV He lives alone as a student. StudentNOM als lebenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG alleinADV Er lebt allein als Student. The adverb “yalnız” in the example above is placed in postposition of the verb “yaşamak”

although adverbs preceede verbs in Turkish clauses (Karahan, 2006). Moreover, as long as no

special emphasis is put on the verb it is placed head – final in Turkish.

(215)*Lütfen “sen” birbirine söylelim. please “you” each other3rdPPL say(OPT)3rdPPL Let’s say “you” to each other please. bitte “du” zueinander3rdPPL sagen(OPT)3rdPPL Bitte sagen wir “du” zueinander.

The optative mood marker “-(y)A” is not attached to the verb “söylemek”. Only the final

person marker indicates the speaker’s wish of using the informal “sen” (you) instead of the

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formal “Siz” (you) in order to decrease the distance to each other. The word order error is

made at the verb compound “birşey söylemek” (to say something), in this case “‘sen’

söylemek” (to say “you”). The verb complementizer “sen” is placed incorrectly separated

from the main verb “söylemek”. It should be placed in preceeding position of the verb.

Errors in Noun Phrases The two word order errors in noun phrases produced in the written data of the

participant are presented in the examples below. Both of these errors are transfer errors.

(216)*ve gelişmeyi Temsa’nın and developmentACC TemsaGEN and the development of Temsa und ErweiterungACC TemsaGEN und die Erweiterung Temsa’s As can be seen in the example above, the defined noun “gelişmesi” is placed in preceeding

position of the defining noun “Temsa”. However, in Turkish the defining (completing) noun

showing who or what is owned by the defined (completed) noun has to come before the

completed noun (Guise, 2007). The same is the case for the chained noun construction in the

example below. The defined noun marked with the possessive inflection “-I”, should be

placed after the shortened genitival construction “Türkçe konuşma” (Hengirmen, 2006).

(217)*işte firsatı Türkçe konuşmak kullanırım here chancePOSS TurkishNOM speakINF useS.PR.1stPSNG here I use the chance of speaking Turkish hier ChancePOSS türkischNOM sprechenINF nutzenS.PR.1stPSNG hier nutze ich die Chance türkisch zu sprechen Other Errors in Word Order One outstanding word order error under the category of “others” (see also Table 4.28)

in the written performances of the participant was produced in a relative clause construction.

(218)*bir Aleman otobüslerin kuruluşinde avrupada a GermanNOM busPL.POSS organizationGEN.LOC EuropeLOC bilinen knowRC a German bus organisation known in Europe

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ein deutschNOM BusPL.POSS UnternehmenGEN.LOC EuropaLOC kennenRC ein in Europa bekanntes Busunternehmen The head of the noun phrase above is “Alman otobüs kuruluşu” in subject position, whereby

the relative morpheme “-En” is attached to the verb stam “bilmek” of the underlying sentence.

However, as “relative clauses serve to provide additional information about the noun they

modify”, they are supposed to be placed immediately before the noun they modify (Yavuz et

al, 2004; p.234). As can be seen in the example above, the noun is put in preceeding position

of the relative clause. Other word order errors in the written production were found in

questions as presented in the example below.

(219)*Gelecek ders Çarşamba günde saat nextNOM lessonNOM WednesdayNOM dayLOC o’clockNOM

19:30’da uygun sizin için. 19:30LOC suitable youGEN for The next lesson is suitable for you on Wednesday at 19:30. nächstNOM UnterrichtNOM MittwochNOM TagLOC UhrNOM 19:30LOC passend SieGEN für Der nächste Unterricht ist passend für Sie am Mittwoch um 19:30.

As can be seen in the example above, the sentence is affirmative including information about

a meeting time. However, this sentence is a production of the participant’s SMS data trying to

confirm if the next lesson could be hold on Wednesday at 19:30. In fact, this affirmative

sentence represents a question of the participant to his tutor. In Turkish, yes – no questions are

formed by the question inflections “mI” placed after predicates or nouns. Different from the

other inflections in Turkish, it is a free morpheme, written separately as a word. However,

also here the vowel harmony rules have to be applied (Hengirmen, 2006). In the example

above, the question marker should be placed immediately after the copular “uygun”.

4.5.3 Developmental and Transfer Errors in Case Marker

As illustrated in Table 4.29 (see also Tables 4.24 and 4.26), the participant Mr.B

produced a total of 101 errors in case marking in this study. The data revealed that the

majority of the errors produced were developmental (f = 63). The frequency of transfer errors

in case markers (f =38) was about half as much as the frequency of developmental errors. As

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can be seen in the table below, 69 general case marker errors were produced in the oral

performances; whereas only 32 were produced in the written performances.

Table 4.29 – The Frequencies of the Case Marker Errors Data f Total T - D

SPOKEN DATA

Case Marker 69 28 T; 41 D

WRITTEN DATA

Case Marker 32 10 T; 22 D

Total Case Marker 101 38 T; 63 D

The highest frequency of developmental errors in case markers (f = 41) were counted in

the spoken outcome of the participant in this study. The data revealed that the developmental

errors in this category were predominantly produced in noun phrases and verb – noun

agreement, accusative marking instead nominative and vice versa. The examples below

previously analised in 4.5.1.1 present developmental case marker errors in the spoken

production of the participant:

(154)*Ona bel ağrıyor. HeDAT backNOM achePR.CONT.3rdPSNG His back is aching. ErDAT RückenNOM schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Sein Rücken schmerzt. In the example above the defining noun is marked with a dative inflection, although genitive

is required. In addition, the defined noun “bel” which requires the 3rd person singular

possessive inflection “-I” (Hengirmen, 2006) is marked Ø nominative. The error in the

marking of the defining noun “onun” is not transferred from German as also in German the

defining nouns in noun constructions require genitive marked elements. The German version

of the same example above is presented below:

Sein Rücken schmerzt. HeGEN backNOM achePR3rdPSNG His back aches. However, as can also be seen in the example above, defined nouns in German compound

nouns do not require possessive marking. They are marked Ø nominative or any other case

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depending on the relation of the nouns to the verb (Duncan, 2007). Accordingly, the errors

produced in the possessive marking of noun constructions are assumed to be transferred from

German. The same developmental and transfer errors in noun phrases are further illustrated in

the example below.

(155)*Steve baş ağrıyor. SteveNOM headNOM achePR.CONT.3rdPSNG Steve’s head is aching. SteveNOM KopfNOM schmerzenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG Steve’s Kopf schmerzt. In the noun construction “Steve’in başı”, the participant used the Ø nominative marker for

both the defining and defined nouns. However, the defining noun requires genitive marking

and the defined noun requires the 3rd person singular possessive inflection “-I” (Hengirmen,

2006). As shown in the example (154) and its German counterpart, the Ø nominative marking

of the defining noun is a developmental error based on lack of Turkish proficiency, whereas

the missing possessive inflection indicates transfer from German. Similar errors in noun

phrases are produced in the example (155) and its German counterpart (see 4.5.1.1). The

examples below (based on Duncan, 2007) show genitive noun constructions in German

designating a relationship between two nouns in which one of them belongs to the other.

(220) Der Motor dieses Autos ist viel zu klein. theNOM motorNOM thisGEN carGEN is much too small This car’s engine is much too small.

(221) Die größte Liebe aller deutschen Männer theNOM bigSUP loveNOM allGEN GermanPL.GEN manPL.GEN ist Fußball. is soccerNOM Soccer is all German men’s greatest love.

One rule to be considered in German is that proper names in the genitive precede the noun.

And if the proper noun already ends in "-s" or "-z," only an apostrophe is added to the final

letter (example (250)).

(222) Heinz' Hut ist wirklich hässlich. HeinzGEN hatNOM is really uglyNOM Heinz’ hat is really ugly.

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A relatively high amount of case marker errors in noun phrases were also determined in the

written data of the participant. 7 case marker errors of 9 were transferred from German, all of

the same nature as in the previously analised examples.

To continue with case marker errors in agreement, the majority of errors in both the

spoken (f = 8) and written (f = 4) performances was developmental. As a matter of fact, these

errors were caused by the insufficient Turkish vocabulary knowledge of Mr.B. In order to

avoid case marking errors based on verb – noun agreement, a learner of Turkish has to know

which verb groups assign their nouns with which case. The examples below show

developmental case marker errors in verb – noun agreement produced in the spoken

performances of the participant.

(186)*Türkey’de vardiktan sonra … TurkeyLOC arriveABL after … After having arrived in Turkey…

TürkeiLOC ankommenABL nach… Nach der Ankunft in die Türkei…

The example above shows incorrect locative marking of the noun “Türkiye”. However, the

dative marker “–(y)E” conveying the meaning of direction (to something or someone) having

the semantic function of goal (Yavuz et al, 2004) is required for this noun. In addition, the

verb “varmak” belongs to the sub – group of verbs that require dative marking that assign the

preceding related object with a definite case marker (Yavuz et al, 2004).

(188)*Temsa’nin gelışmesini desteklemek zevk alıyorum TemsaGEN developGEN supportINF enjoyPR.CONT.1stP.SNG. I enjoy supporting the development of Temsa TemsaGEN ErweiterungGEN unterstützenINF genießenPR.CONT.1stP.SNG. ich genieße es, die Erweiterung TEMSA’s zu unterstützen As also analised in 4.5.1.1, the verb “zevk almak” in the example above assigns its object

with the ablative case marker “-dAn”. However, the participant used the Ø nominative case. A

remarkable number of developmental and transfer error were also counted in the category of

“other case marker errors”. To begin with uses of nominative case markers instead of

accusative case markers, the example below shows a case marker error transferred from

German.

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(190)*O bekar ve bir çocuk var. he/sheNOM single and one childNOM have He/She is single and has one/a child. er/sieNOM alleinstehend und ein KindNOM haben Er/Sie ist alleinstehend und hat ein Kind.

The noun “çocuk” requires the definitizing accusative inflection “-I” after the change of the

final consonant “k” into “ğ”. Accordingly, “çocuğu” is the correct form of the object in the

clause. However in German, the nominative and accusative articles of the neuter noun “das

Kind” are exactly equal and does not need any change (see also Table 2.4 in Chapter 2, 2.7.2).

Thus, the lack of marking in the noun “çocuk” above may be referred to the equality of the

neuter and feminine nominative and accusative case markers in German.

(191)*Ispanya görmek istiyor. SpainNOM seeINF wantPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG He/She wants to see Spain. SpanienNOM sehenINF wollenPR.CONT.3rdP.SNG Er/Sie will Spanien sehen.

Although in Turkish the proper noun “İspanya” requires the accusative case marker “-(y)I” as

it is in object position, the participant omitted it and wrote the noun in the Ø nominative case.

This preference may be transferred from German as the proper noun “Spanien” belongs to the

country names that do not require any articles in German (Sick, 2007).

(192)*Bugün cumartesi’nin sabah… today SaturdayGEN morningNOM Today is Saturday morning… heute SamstagGEN morgenNOM Heute ist Samstag Morgen… The example above shows both semantic and syntactic inaccuracy. The adverb of time

“bugün” should be replaced by “now” to express a logical meaning of the clause. If the

compound noun “cumartesi’nin sabahı” (the morning of Saturday) is accepted as semantically

correct, the defined noun “sabah” would require the possessive inflection “-I”. However, it

has no marking at all. The equivalent of “sabah” is the masculine noun “der Morgen” in

German. As previously mentioned in the analysis of case marker errors in compound nouns

above, the defined noun in German compound nouns do not require any possessive marking.

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Thus, the lacks of the possessive markers in compound noun constructions may be transferred

from German.

(193)*Bir gözüm ağladı ve diğer güldü… oneNOM eyePOSS cryPAST3rdPSNG and otherNOM laughPAST3rdPSNG One of my eyes cried and the other one laughed… einNOM AugePOSS weinenPAST3rdPSNG und anderNOM lachenPAST3rdPSNG Eines meiner Augen weinte und das Andere lachte… The noun “diğer” requires the definitizing accusative case marker “-I” because both speaker

and hearer know what is meant by “the other one”. It is “the other eye”, which is laughing. In

general, it can be interpreted from the errors in nominative instead accusative and accusative

instead nominative case marking that they were most probably transferred from German. This

is due to the fact that in feminine, neuter and plural declinations of German articles, the

nominative and accusative cases are the same (see Table 2.4 and 2.5).

4.5.4 Developmental and Transfer Errors in Word Order

As presented in Table 4.30 (see also Tables 4.24 and 4.28), the participant Mr.B

produced a total of 31 errors in word order in this study. The data revealed that the majority of

the errors produced were transferred from German (f = 24). The frequency of developmental

errors in word order (f =7) was much lower. As can be seen in the table below, 17 general

word order errors were produced in the oral performances and 14 were produced in the

written performances.

Table 4.30 – The Frequencies of the Word Order Errors

Data f Total T - D

SPOKEN DATA

Word Order 17 12 T; 5 D

WRITTEN DATA

Word Order 14 12 T; 2 D

Total Word Order 31 24 T; 7 D

In word order, the frequency of errors was categorized into four groups (see Table 4.28). The

majority of word order errors were produced in adjective phrases in both the spoken and

written performances. These were followed by word order errors in verb phrases and noun

phrases. The remaining word order errors were found in more complex clauses such as

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questions or relative clauses. To start with adjective phrases, the examples below show

transferred word order errors in adjective phrases produced in the oral and written

performances of the participant in this study.

(200)*Bu bir basit ev. thisNOM aINDEF.ART simple houseNOM This is a simple house. diesNOM einINDEF.ART einfach HausNOM Dies ist ein einfaches Haus. (201)*…ve bir küçük tören hazırlıyor. …and aINDEF.ART little ceremonyNOM preparePR.CONT.3rdPSNG …and he/she is preparing a little ceremony. …und einINDEF.ART klein ZeremonieNOM vorbereitenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG …und er/sie bereitet eine einfache Zeremonie vor.

(202)*Bir yaşlı, mutsuz adam. aINDEF.ART old unhappy manNOM An old, unhappy man. einINDEF.ART alt unglücklich MannNOM Ein alter, unglücklicher Mann. (203)*…ve bir çekici kadın tanıdı …and aINDEF.ART attractive womanNOM meetPAST3rdPSNG … and he met an attractive woman. …und einINDEF.ART anziehend FrauNOM treffenPAST 3rdPSNG …und er traf eine anziehende Frau. (211)*…ve bir ünlü türk otobüsler üreticiyi bilgi …and one famous TurkishNOM busPL.NOM producerACC informationNOM verilir. giveS.PR.PASS3rdPSNG …and information is given to a famous Turkish bus producer. …und ein berühmt türkischNOM BusPL.NOM ProduzentACC InformationenNOM gebenS.PR.PASS3rdPSNG …und Informationen werden einem berühmten Busproduzenten gegeben.

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(212)*ve biz bir başarılı ekibe yetişiriz and weNOM aINDEF.ART successful teamDAT achieveS.PR.3rdPPL and we achieve a successful team und wirNOM einINDEF.ART. erfolgreich TeamDAT erreichenS.PR.3rdPPL und wir erreichen ein erfolgreiches Team. All the word order errors produced in the examples above are of the same nature. As

previously defined in the analysis of word order errors in adjective phrases, the indefinite

adjective “bir” is placed by the participant in preceeding position of the adjective phrases.

However, according to the order of adjectives to be followed in Turkish phrases, the indefinite

adjective “bir” is to be placed immediately before the noun (Hengirmen, 2006). However, in

German the articles are placed immediately before the adjective (see 2.7.1) as illustrated in

the counterparts of the examples above:

Das ist ein einfaches Haus. thisNOm is aINDEF.ART.NOM simpleNOM houseNOM This is a simple house.

und er bereitet eine kleine Zeremonie and he preparePR3rdPSNG aINDEF.ART.NOM littleNOM ceremonyNOM and he prepares a little ceremony Ein alter, unglücklicher Mann. aINDEF.ART.NOM oldNOM unhappyNOM manNOM An old, unhappy man. und es werden einem berühmten türkischen and it bePASS INDEF.ART.GEN famousGEN TurkishGEN

Busproduzenten Informationen gegeben bus producerGEN informationPL.NOM givePAST.PART and information is given to a famous Turkish bus producer

To continue with word order errors in verb phrases, all 7 errors produced by the participant in

this study were transferred from German. In German the verb is placed head initial, whereas it

is in head final position in Turkish (see Chapter 2, Table 2.2 and Part 2.7.1). The examples

below show word order errors in verb phrases transferred from German.

(223)*O diyor mutsuz veya üzgün. he/sheNOM sayPR.CONT.3rdPSNG sad or upset He/She says (that someone is) sad or upset. er/sieNOM sagenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG unglücklich oder traurig Er/Sie sagt (daß jemand) unglücklich oder traurig (ist).

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In the example above, the verb “demek” is placed in second position immediately after the

subject of the clause. The adjectives “mutsuz” and “üzgün” are placed in final position.

However, in Turkish the verb is required in final position (Yavuz et al, 2004; Underhill, 1985;

Karaha, 2006), except special emphasis on the verb is aimed. The German counterpart of the

example above is following:

Er/Sie sagt “unglücklich oder traurig”. He/She sayPR3rdPSNG unhappyNOm or sad He/She says “unhappy or sad”.

In the example below the adverb “yalnız” is placed in postposition of the verb “yaşamak”

although adverbs preceede verbs in Turkish clauses (Karahan, 2006). Moreover, as long as no

special emphasis is put on the verb it is placed head – final in Turkish. In German however,

the verb is placed immediately before the adverb as presented in the German counterpart of

the example (214) below.

(214)*öğrenci olarak yaşiyor yalnız studentNOM as livePR.CONT.3rdPSNG aloneADV He lives alone as a student. er lebt alleine als Studentin he livePR3rdPSNG aloneADV as studentNOM.FEM he lives alone as a student Accordingly, the word order errors produced in verb phrases in both the oral and written data

were interpreted as errors transferred from German. In word order errors produced in noun

phrases however, both developmental and transfer errors were determined. Examples for each

are presented below:

(207)* Fiyat televizyona. priceNOM televisionDAT price of the television

PreisNOM FernseherDAT Preis des Fernsehers

The Turkish example above presents a defined noun construction. The completed noun

“fiyat” is put in first place followed by the completing noun “televizyon”. In Turkish the

describing (completing) noun showing who or what is owned by the described (completed)

noun has to come before the completed noun (Guise, 2007). The syntactically correct German

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counterpart of example (207) is presented below. It can be seen that the defined noun is

placed before the defining noun. Hence, it is totally contrariwise to the Turkish word order in

noun constructions.

der Preis des Fernsehers theNOM priceNOM theGEN televisionGEN the price of the television On the other hand, the example below shows a developmental word order error in a noun

phrase.

(208)*sonra elbise takimı giyiyor then dressNOM suitNOM wearPR.CONT.3rdPSNG then he wears a suit dann KleidungNOM AnzugNOM anziehenPR.CONT.3rdPSNG dann zieht er einen Anzug an

The correct form of the compound noun construction in the example above is “takım elbisesi”

with the defining noun “takım” in preceeding position of the defined noun “elbise”. However,

this error can not be transferred from German as the counterpart of the same example is a

single word presented below.

dann zieht er den Anzug an then putPR3rdPSNG he theACC suitACC onPREP then he puts on the suit

Beside in adjective phrases, verb phrases and noun phrases, word order errors were also

produced in other categories such as in a relative clause or yes – no question. But they were

too less in number than to be subcategorized under word order errors.

4.6 Other Outstanding Error Types

In the present study it is focused on developmental and transfer errors especially in case

marking and word order. This is because the outcome of both the spoken and written data

revealed a majority of errors produced in case marker and word order. As discussed in

Chapter 2, the syntax of the Turkish and German languages does not assemble each other.

Hence, we expected to find a high frequency of transfer errors in both the oral and written

performances produced by the adult German learner of Turkish in our study. As the error

analysis of the data pointed up, a major amount of syntactical errors were determined in case

marking and word order. However, when analising the outcome of the study from other

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perspectives of linguistics, one may find also interesting errors produced in phonology,

semantics, pragmatics and discourse. As also discussed in 4.4, the spoken data produced by

the participant revealed that beside case marker and word order errors, a high frequency of

errors in vocabulary and pronunciation was also produced. Moreover, the written outcome of

the data pointed out that the highest amounts of errors were produced in spelling and beside

case marker errors, in vocabulary use and tense inflections. Errors of these categories were

also partially exemplified and analised in 4.2 and 4.3 of this chapter. Hence, those examples

will be a fundamental basis for further research in error analysis of Turkish L2. In addition,

the remaining error categories will serve as crucial and decisive data for research in the field

of contrastive analysis in SLA.

4.7 An Overall Look at the Findings

To sum up, the main concern of this research study is the role of errors in second

language acquisition (SLA). In particular, it is aimed to put light on the issue of the learning

process of adults in SLA; in this case, the learning process of German adult learners of

Turkish L2. To refer to Cook’s argument (1993) that although L2 grammars might not be

describable in terms of principles and parameters, if the L2 user’s language knowledge

includes principles and parameters, the principles are not more learnable in a second language

than in a first language; research on contrastive error analysis may enlighten this issue.

Contrastive analysis may also support the claim for a full access to UG in the initial state of

L2 acquisition and furthermore, that language transfer from L1 must occur in interlanguage

development (White, 2003). Hence, interlanguage is equal to error production. In this study, it

is aimed to point out the importance of errors in language learning and teaching.

The findings of this research study revealed that German adult learners of Turkish L2

show difficulties in the learning process of syntactical elements in Turkish. It has especially

been concentrated on the developmental and transfer errors in case marking and word order

produced in the oral and written performances of the learner. It can be concluded from the

outcome of the data analysis that transfer errors are predominantly produced in the word order

of adjective and verb phrases. In addition, transfer errors occur in the word order of

compound nouns. Contrary, the frequencies of developmental errors in word order are

remarkably low when compared to the frequencies of case markers. The analysis of case

marker errors in the Turkish learning process of the German adult indicated that the majority

of case marker errors are produced in compound nouns, nominative and accusative marking

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and verb - noun agreement. A high frequency of case marker errors in compound nouns and

nominative marking turned out to be tranfer errors. Contrary, errors in verb – noun agreement

were predominantly developmental errors caused by the limited Turkish knowledge of the

participant.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

As mentioned in Chapter 1, this study is concentrated on the acquisition of Turkish

by an adult German native speaker in a Turkish-speaking environment. For parametric

variations between Turkish and German, there are fundamental errors produced by adult

German learners of Turkish. Hence, with the analysis of these errors it is aimed to enlighten

learner and learning difficulties while dealing with Turkish. Furthermore, the analysis of

developmental and transfer errors of adult German native speakers acquiring Turkish and the

evaluation of these errors based on general language acquisition hypotheses will provide

innovative information to the Turkish language classroom. Besides, analizing interference

errors of adult German native speakers studying Turkish in an artificial classroom setting

points out their learning difficulties based on the errors they produce in oral and written

performances. In addition, from a particular perspective based on error analysis, the findings

of this research study are a contribution to the field of second language learning and teaching

in general.

5.1 Evaluation of the Research Questions

As mentioned in Chapter 4, due to parametric variations between German and Turkish,

it was expected that the German native speakers will show difficulties in acquiring the word

order and case markers of Turkish. According to the German word order, the verb is placed in

head – initial position; whereas, the requirements in Turkish word order mainly differ. The

verb is always placed in head – final position in a sentence. Additionally, German syntax

covers a large scale of articles preceeding the noun and indicating the cases of the nouns. In

Turkish however, cases are marked morphologically by attached suffixes. Based on these

main syntactical differences between German and Turkish, five research questions have been

formulated. The first research question is as follows:

1. What kind of developmental errors do adult German native speakers learning Turkish

L2 do?

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The data of this study has revealed that the German native speaker learning Turkish L2

produced the highest frequencies of developmental errors in the oral performances in the

categories of case marking, pronunciation, vocabulary choice and missing elements. In the

written performances however, developmental errors were determined prevailing in the

categories of spelling and case marking. The second research question of this study is

following:

2. What kind of transfer errors do adult German native speakers learning Turkish L2 do?

According to the outcome of the data analysis, the German native speaker learning Turkish

L2 produced the highest frequencies of transfer errors in the spoken performances in

vocabulary use, case marking and word order. Errors transferred from German in the written

data were predominantly made in spelling, word order, vocabulary use and case marking. The

third research question of the present study is stated below.

3. Do adult native speakers of German learning Turkish L2 produce word order errors?

As exemplified and analised in Chapter 4, the adult native speaker of German produced word

order errors in learning Turkish L2 in both the oral and written performances (see Figures 4.1

and 4.2). The fourth research question of the study is stated below.

4. Do adult native speakers of German learning Turkish L2 produce case marker errors?

The findings of the data in this study revealed that adult native speakers of German learning

Turkish L2 produce case marker errors in both the oral and written performances (see Figures

4.1 and 4.2). The fifth research question of this study is as follows:

5. Do the errors in the spoken form differ in number when compared to those produced

in the written form?

The general frequencies of errors in the spoken production of the adult German native speaker

of Turkish L2 are higher in both case marking and word order when compared to the general

frequencies of errors in the written production. Furthermore, the grand total frequencies of

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errors in the spoken data are higher in comparison to those of the written data. However, the

frequencies of developmental errors in the spoken and written data are the same; whereas, the

frequency of transfer errors in the written production is higher than in the spoken production.

5.2 Implications to English Language Teaching

It is a fact that research studies on SLA are conducted in order to put light on issues

that are crucial in the language teaching and learning classroom. Lately it is believed that

linguistic awareness of teacher and learner facilitates the language teaching process and

improves the language learning process. As a matter of fact, the taboo of involving the native

language into the language classroom is broken. Thus, the field of contrastive linguistics has

been gaining popularity for a long time.

A large scale of investigations based on Chomky’s theory of Universal Grammar

cites evidence of adoption. According to this theory, children have an inborn system in mind

that enables them to learn the grammar of any language. The basic function of this innate

capacity is adjusting the abstract principles and parameters that establish the grammar of a

particular language. The primary target of SLA research in the frame of UG is investigating

how this language system functions in adulthood.

The aim of the present study has been pointing out particular categories of error

production of an adult German learner of Turkish. In order to enlighten the factors of the

produced errors, a contrastive error analysis based on developmental and transfer errors has

been carried out. Due to the parametric differences of German and Turkish, a majority of

errors were especially produced in case marking and word order. It is assumed that the

findings of this study are fundamental contributions to the broad field of linguistics.

Furthermore, they may be a possible bridge between theoretical linguistic knowledge and

practical pedagogic implementation in language classrooms as the basis of efficient

approaches and techniques in language teaching and learning lies in reliable and valid analytic

principles. Thus, the outcome of this study can be transferred not only to the Turkish language

clasroom but also to second language classrooms in general.

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5.3 Further Research

As mentioned in Chapter 4, the scope of the present study has been limited in the

analysis of case marker and word order errors of an adult German learner of Turkish in a

major Turkish environment. The oral and written data has been interpreted based upon

contrastive analysis of the developmetal and transfer errors produced. For further research,

other categories evaluated at large in the present study can be analised in detail. These

categories may be for instance pronunciation and vocabulary use in the spoken performances

and spelling and tense marking in the written performances. In addition, investigations based

on a larger scale of adult German learners of Turkish either in a total Turkish environment or

in Germany can be conducted. This would enable the generalization of the research findings.

Furthermore, the frequency of errors produced in the applied tasks could be analised and

interpreted separately and in detail. For instance, the frequency of code – switching from

Turkish to German during the translation tasks may reveal interesting insights. Overall, the

data gained during the data collection process of this longitudinal study provides a key to

various different fields of linguistics and methodology.

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179

APPENDIX 8 Writing Task (see Table 4.18)

Task

Aşağıdaki kelimeleri kullanarak, mantıklı, akıcı bir paragraf yazınız. Eklemeler yapabilirsiniz.

Hayal gücünüzü kullanabilirsiniz.

çünkü asla pahalı kaza dikkatsizce pişman

travma yavaşça sürmek

180

CURICULLUM VITAE

Eda BÜYÜKNİSAN

Birth Date : 21.08.1977 Birth Place : Mönchengladbach, Germany Address (office) : Çukurova University, Research and Application Center for Foreign Languages, YADİM, 01330 Yüreğir – Adana, Turkey Address( home) : Seyhan mah. 22 sok. no. 36, Yüreğir – Adana, Turkey E-mail : ebuyuknisan@cu.edu.tr Phone (office) : 0322 338 60 84 (2921 - 2922) Educational Background : 1982-1986 – Elementary School Katholische Grundschule Anton – Heinen, Mönchengladbach, Germany 1986- 1993 – Secondary School and Highschool Katholisches Gymnasium am Geroweiher, Mönchengladbach, Germany 1996- 2000 – Bachelor’s Çukurova University, Faculty of Education, English Language

Teaching Department 2000- 2003 – Master of Arts (MA)

Çukurova University, Institute of Social Sciences, English Language Teaching Department (Linguistics) 2003- 2007 – Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Çukurova University, Institute of Social Sciences, English Language Teaching Department (Linguistics)

Professional Experineces : 2000- …, Çukurova University, Research and Application Center for

Foreign Languages, YADIM, Instructor 2005- …, Affiant Interpreter, German – Turkish, Turkish – German, English – Turkish, Turkish – English, English – German, German – English 2005- 2006, Çukurova University, International Office, Erasmus Incoming Students and Staff 2004- 2005, Çağ University, ELT Department, Linguistics and Writing Classes

181

Thesis and Dissertation : “The Parameter Resetting Process in German – Turkish Bilingual

Adults Acquiring English”, Çukurova University, Institute of Social Sciences, Adana 2003 – MA “Developmental and Transfer Errors of German Adult Learners of Turkish: A Case Study”, Çukurova University, Institute of Social Sciences, Adana 2007 - PhD

Papers :

May 2003, Anadolu University, Conference on Turkish Linguistics “İkidilli Yetişkinlerde Değiştirgenlerin Yeniden Uyarlanması”, Eskişehir, Turkey September 2004, Middle East Technical University, 2nd Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics and Language Teaching, “Second Language Acquisition: Focus on Anaphora”, Ankara, Turkey October 2005, Çukurova University, 3rd Postgraduate Conference on Linguistics and Language Teaching, “Acquiring L2 Turkish by German Adult Learners: A Case Study on the Acquisition of Adjectival and Adverbial Elements”, Presentation of the First Progress Report of the PhD Dissertation, Adana, Turkey April 2006, Universidad de la Rioja, Department of Modern Languages, XXI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociacion Internacional de Jovenes Linguistas, “Acquiring L2 Turkish by German Adult Learners: A Case Study on the Acquisition of Adjectival and Adverbial Elements”, Logrono, Spain December 2006, Çukurova University, 4th International Postgraduate Conference on Linguistics and Language Teaching, “Developmental and Transfer Errors of German Adult Learners of Turkish: A Case Study”, Adana, Turkey

Languages : German – fluent in all four skills Turkish – fluent in all four skills English – fluent in all four skills Latin – Minor Latinum (Gymnasium Am Geroweiher) Italian – intermediate