ISO Certification: Ensuring the Quality of Education

INTRODUCTION

            Quality is very important to everyone. On the products and services we buy, we always look for the quality rather than the quantity. Some say, “It is better to spend money than to regret after we bought a low quality products and services.” It is also important to have a high quality in education. Some parents brought their child to private schools to sure that their child will acquire more knowledge and become competent.

            Internationally, there is an organization that sets standards for its members to have a model in doing their products and services. All customers of the members of this organization can trust that the products of that company are on high quality. That organization is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

What is ISO

            The International Organization for Standardization, widely known as ISO, is an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standard organizations. It was founded on 23 February 1947. Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland. The ability of this organization is to set standards that often become a law, either through treaties or national standards, makes it powerful than most non-governmental organization.

            The International Organization for Standardization is the world’s largest developer and publisher of international standard. ISO is network of national standards institute of 159 countries, one member per country with a central secretariat in Geneva, that coordinates the system. It is a non-governmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors. One the other hand, many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. Other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been set up by national partnership of industry association. 

Benefits of ISO standards

            For business, the widespread adoption of international means that suppliers can develop and offer products and services meeting  specification that have wide international acceptance in their sectors. Therefore, businesses using standards can compete on many more markets around the world.

            For innovators of new technology, International Standards on aspects like terminology, compatibility and safety speed up the dissemination of innovations and their development into marketable products.

            For government, International Standards provide the technological and scientific bases underpinning health, safety and environmental legislation.

            For trade officials, International Standards create a level of playing field for all competitors on those markets. The existence of divergent national or regional standards can create technical barriers to trade. International Standards are the technical means by which political trade agreements can be put into practice.

            For developing country, International Standards that represents an international consensus on the state of the art are an important source of technological know-how. By defining the characteristics that products and services will be expected to meet on export markets. International standards give developing countries a basis for making the right decisions when investing their scarce resources and thus avoid squandering them.

            For customers, the worldwide compatibility of technology which is achieved when products and services are based on International Standards gives them a broad choice of offers. They also benefit from the effect of competition among suppliers.

Ensuring the Quality of Education with ISO certification

            Standards are a vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. The key role of standards has been implicitly recognized in education programs covering a broad variety of technical fields.

            However, it is more recent trend the increased awareness of educational institutions all over the world of the importance of standardization activities in a more general sense, for the contribution that they can give to trade of products and services, to promoting good business practices and to fostering technological innovation.

            International Organization for Standardization considers this trend of utmost importance and believes in the fundamental contribution that educational institutions can give on teaching what international standardization is and what can be achieved through it.

            In the Philippines, one example of educational institution that ensures the quality of its education because it is a member of International Organization for Standardization is the Misamis University.

            Misamis University is the first and only ISO certified university by Det Norske Veritas, Netherlands for quality Education and services in Mindanao. Misamis University received ISO 9001:2000 certification on April 28, 2005 for its quality management system pertaining to educational, research and training services. ISO 9001:2000 is an internationally recognized certification standard for quality management that has been adopted by governments in 146 countries.

            Misamis University is the only University in Northwestern Mindanao that caters to more than 8,000 students every year in its 7.5 hectares campus in H.T Feliciano Street, Ozamiz City. It stands proud of all its accomplishments having grown from only 4 courses when it started, to more than 55 courses it now offers. It has driven hard to faithfully fulfill its mission to advocate a God-centered existence and offer an education that is committed to the development of the person, who is God-fearing, principled and socially responsible.

            At the onset of the third millennium, the institution continuously responded to the challenge of quality education in various fields of specialization. In April 4, 2000, the computer program was identified by CHED as a Center for Development for excellence in Information Technology Education. The one-year Seafarer course with specialization in Deck Rating was opened in school year 1999-2000. To widen the program for computer technology, BS in Information Technology was opened in school year 2001-2002. Subsequently, the CISCO Networking Academy was started in 2002-2003.

            To this end, Misamis University operates a fully-documented quality management system designed to ensure that specified education, training and support requirements are met. The effectiveness is monitored through regular internal auditing, students, staff and faculty feedback, management reviews and external auditing. Areas on non-compliance are addressed by corrective action. ISO requires conformity to standards that are developed by national delegations of experts from government, business and other private sectors.

            Since 1929, the University has maintained a reputation for high academic standards, and achievement of ISO certification provides even more confidence to students that their requirements for academic quality are being met on a continuous basis, and that they will have the required knowledge and skills when they graduate.

CONCLUSION

            We therefore conclude that ISO certification ensures the Quality of Education. It ensures the performances of companies and the quality of products and services.

 In education, schools that are ISO certified, operate a fully-documented quality management system designed to ensure that specified education, training and support requirements are met. They can assure that their students can acquire knowledge and skills and also become competent in the fields of their profession.

           

           

Dreams and Success: An Analysis of the Story The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

A term paper presented in partial fulfillment of

the requirements of the Subject

Literary Criticism

to

Mr. Ricky M. Latosa, Course Instructor

Faculty, College of Education

Laguna State Polytechnic University

By

Victor F. Banawa Jr.

March 2010

I-Introduction:

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker. Once she surprised her guests by explaining that she was kept in the attic because of her love for the postman. On another occasion she pretended to be a cripple and attended a faith healer's revival, jumping up suddenly and proclaiming herself cured. Thurber described her as "a born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I've ever known." Thurber's father, who had dreams of being an actor or lawyer, was said to have been the basis of the typical small, slight man of Thurber's stories. Later Thurber portrayed his family in MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES (1933). "I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father," Thurber wrote in the book.

Thurber was partially blinded by a childhood accident – his brother William shot an arrow at him. When he was unable to participate in games and sports with other children, he developed a rich fantasy life, which found its outlet in his writings.

Thurber began writing at secondary school. Due to his poor eyesight, he did not serve in WW I, but studied between 1913 and 1918 at Ohio State University. He worked as a code clerk in Washington, DC, and at the US embassy in Paris. In the early 1920s he worked as a journalist for several newspapers. He also lived in Paris, writing for the Chicago Tribune.

In 1922 Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1935. In 1926 Thurber went to New York City, where he was a reporter for the Evening Post. Next year he joined Harold Ross's newly established The New Yorker, where he found his clear, concise prose style. "Everybody thinks he knows English," Ross said to Thurber, "but nobody does. I think it's because of the goddam women and schoolteachers." Later Thurber published his memoirs from this period under the title THE YEARS WITH ROSS (1959).

Thurber's first book, IS SEX NECESSARY?, appeared in 1929. It was jointly written with the fellow New Yorker staffer E.B. White. The book presented Thurber's drawings on the subject, and instantly established him as a true comic talent. Thurber made fun of European psychoanalysis, including Freud's work, and theorists who had been attempting to reduce sex to a scientifically understandable level. In 'The Nature of the American Male: A Study of Pedestalism' Thurber claimed that "in no other civilized nation are the biological aspects of love so distorted and transcended by emphasis upon its sacredness as they are in the United States of America." According to Thurber, baseball, prize-fighting, horse-racing, bicycling, and bowling have acted as substitutes for sex. The female developed and perfected the "Diversion Subterfuge" to put Man in his place. "Its first manifestation was fudge-making."

In the 1950s Thurber published modern fairy tales for children, THE 13 CLOCKS (1950) and THE WONDERFUL O (1957), which both were hugely successful. Thurber's children's tales display a cynical undercurrent, and show at times a great deal of bitterness. Truman Capote also worked at the New Yorker, but according to his reminiscences he was a general dogsbody, who helped Thurber to and from meetings, or escorted Thurber to his trysts with one of the magazine's secretaries. Thurber had already in 1933 left The New Yorker staff, but remained still its contributor. His eyesight became worse in the 1940s, and by the 1950s his blindness was nearly total. Thurber continued to compose stories in his head, and he played himself in 88 performances of the play A Thurber Carnival. He received a Litt.D. in 1950 from Kenyon College, one from Yale in 1953, and an L.H.D. (honorary) from Williams College in 1951.

Thurber was married twice, and had one daughter. In later years he lived with his wife Helen Wismer, a magazine editor, at West Cornwall, Connecticut. He suffered from alcoholism and depression, but Helen's devoted nursing enabled him to maintain his literary production. His drinking companions included the actor Humphrey Bogart, who read more widely than just the scripts. Bogart had Thurber's THE MIDDLE AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE on his bookshelf and cartoon "Jolly Times" on the wall in his Hollywood home. In 1958 the editors of Punch magazine gave a luncheon in Thurber's honor. James Thurber died of a blood clot on the brain on November 2, 1961, in New York.

II- Analysis:

Success is the main goal of every one in this very complicated world. If someone reaches the summit of success, he classifies his life greater and better than the other. On the other hand, if he failed to accomplish his goals, it makes him down.

           

But is there any other way to overcome our failures? Some say, “don’t give up because every day is a new day and success can be in our way.” In our life there is always a new beginning, new opportunities, and of course new problems to overcome.

           

Dreams, specifically day dreams have a big influence in the life of man. Teenagers are the most prone to daydreams, they daydreams about their love life, their favorite sports, their want to be some day, their favorite actors and actresses, and most of the time they daydream that they are a super hero like superman, batman, some girls like  wonder woman, Cinderella, Snow white, etc. Those day dreams give them a minute to an hour pleasant time. They feel what they want to be even for a short time or in just daydream. They are always a successful individuals and the main character in their own dream.

           

Walter Mitty in the story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber has a behavior of making lots of daydreams. His everyday life is composed of different daydreams from early morning in his home to the outside world or in his work. He had made daydreams to put an excitement in his life. In daydreams he became satisfied in every work he did.

The first phrase in the story “We’re going through” is Mitty’s daydream of being a fearless soldier’s commander, commanding his men their task. In that dream he plays the role of a commander who is brave, fearless, strong and not afraid to die, characters that are hard to find in a typical man. “I’m not asking you” signifies that Mitty is afraid of nothing, he alone can make decisions and no one could contests his commands.

“You were up to fifty,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty.” These phrases tell that in Mitty’s dream he doesn’t want to become older, as many people aspire to keep their mind and body young as teenage years.  

Mitty also has daydream of being a suspect undergoing for questioning in a court. “This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80,” That phrase is Mitty’s acceptance of his guilt. It tells that Walter Mitty is not afraid of the punishment, because in his mind, it makes him famous one.

Walter Mitty also has daydream of being specialist doctor that can cure severe deceases that other famous doctors can’t cure. Mitty is the man who knows everything about medicine. “A brilliant performance, sir.” he is dreaming for the recognition of other doctors, in his dream he writes the book on streptothricosis. He also knows every place in America that tells that he is in high class of society.

But there is one who always breaks his daydreams and that is his wife. “Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” “What are you driving too fast?” “Something struck in his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs. Mitty. “Why you have to hide in this old chair?”

His wife's nagging voice awakens him from his dreams. It tells that Mitty always awaken by many circumstances in his dreams

As conclusion, Walter Mitty is an ordinary character who fills his mind with fantasies in which he plays the hero, saves lives, navigates enemy territory, and proves his masculinity. In Mitty’s daydreams, he can do everything, can go wherever, and can be whatever and whoever he wants to be. “Walter Mitty the undefeated,” reminds us that in our dreams we are always the winner and not the loser one. We can find satisfaction and it can escape us to the failures and problems because in our dreams there are lots of answers in the trials we face.

For me, daydreams are good but we should not relay our success to them. We need to work on and accomplish our dreams in real world. Lessen our daydream and put ourselves in a situation that we will achieve our goals in a good way, because success in a daydream has always an ending, but success in real life remains especially if we achieved that in a good way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

©

2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

Volume 4, February 2010

Foreword

Rochelle Irene Lucas

A Study on the Intrinsic Motivation Factors in Second Language Learning

Among Selected Freshman Students

Rochelle Irene G. Lucas, Dennis Pulido, Edna Miraflores, Aileen Ignacio,

Manuelito Tacay and Janifer Lao

“

Although if is more frequent than whether...”: An Analysis of the Uses

of Adverbial Clauses in Philippine English Research

Leah. E. Gustilo

Accuracy Order of Selected Grammatical Morphemes in the Monitored

Written Compositions of Filipino Adult Language Learners

Jessie S. Barrot

The Language Attitudes of Students of English Literature and D3 English at

Maranatha Christian University toward American English, British English

and Englishes in Southeast Asia, and their various contexts of use in Indonesia

Fenty L. Siregar

The Effects of Joint Reference and Mutual Exclusivity on the Application

of Whole-Object Assumption in Filipino Preschoolers

Diana Ilishera A. Go and Edna S. Miraflores

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

©

2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

The Philippine ESL Journal: Volume 4, February 2010

Published by the Asian EFL Journal Press

Asian EFL Journal Press

A Division of Time Taylor International Ltd

TTI College

Episode Building 68-2

Daen Dong, Pusan, Korea

http://www.philippine-esl-journal.com

© Philippine EFL Journal Press 2008

This E-book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception no reproduction

of any part may take place without the written permission of the Linguistics

Journal Press.

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written

permission of the Asian ESP Journal.

linguisticsj@yahoo.com

Editors: Dr. Paul Robertson and Dr. John Adamson

Journal Production Editor: Marcus Otlowski

The Philippine ESL journal is indexed in the Asian Education Index, Social Science

Research Network, Summons Serial Solution Index by Proquest, Google Scholar,

Open J-Gate, NewJour,

The Philippine ESL journal (ISSN 1718-2298) is published two times a year by Time

Taylor International.

This journal is part of the Asian EFL journal services. Access to on-line table of

contents and articles is available to all researchers at http://www.philippine-esljournal.

com/index.php for details.

Ulrich’s web, and EBSCO.

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

©

2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

THE PHILIPPINE ESL JOURNAL

Volume 4, February 2010

Articles

Foreword

Rochelle Irene Lucas, Editor, Philippine ESL Journal

…………...................1

A Study on the Intrinsic Motivation Factors in Second Language

Learning Among Selected Freshman Students

Rochelle Irene Lucas, Dennis Pulido, Edna Miraflores, Aileen Ignacio,

Manuelito Tacay and Janifer Lao

…………………………………………...3

“

Although if is more frequent than whether...”: An Analysis of the Uses

of Adverbial Clauses in Philippine English Research

Leah. E. Gustilo

.………………………………………………….………...24

Accuracy Order of Selected Grammatical Morphemes in the Monitored

Written Compositions of Filipino Adult Language Learners

Jessie S. Barrot

……….…………………..………………………………...45

The Language Attitudes of Students of English Literature and D3

English at Maranatha Christian University toward American English,

British English and Englishes in Southeast Asia, and their various

contexts of use in Indonesia

Fenty L. Siregar

………………...........................................……………....66

The Effects of Joint Reference and Mutual Exclusivity on the

Application of Whole-Object Assumption in Filipino Preschoolers

Diana Ilishera A. Go and Edna S. Miraflores

…………………...………..93

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

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2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

Foreword

The current edition of the Philippine ESL Journal features very

interesting articles from faculty members and students from De La

Salle University-Manila and Mahidol University, Thailand. The

Philippine ESL journal is greatly honored to be a new venue for

submissions from teachers and students of their various research on

language teaching, second language acquisition and learning.

The first article from Lucas et al. presents the intrinsic

motivations that compel students in learning the English language in

selected tertiary institutions in Manila. It was found that students are

intrinsically motivated to learn speaking and reading skills via IM

knowledge and accomplishment. The results suggest that these

learners are motivated to learn these communicative skills because

they find these skills interesting and relevant to their learning.

Moreover, the knowledge of these communicative skills seems to help

them achieve their learning goals from which they will benefit from

the future.

The second article written by Gustilo looks into the

distribution and the functions of the semantic classes of adverbial

clauses in the different organizational sections of L2 research articles

in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching. The paper

recommended that more studies be done such that the utilization of

adverbial clauses in different genres of discourse can be explored and

comparisons of findings can be done across genres and across

languages.

The third article presented by Barrot examines the accuracy

order of selected grammatical morphemes in students’ narrative and

expository essays and its implications for language teaching. The

results suggest that the accuracy order of selected morphemes in the

monitored written compositions of Filipino adult language learners

presented variation from the established accuracy order in

unmonitored language use (Villiers and de Villiers, 1973, Dulay and

Burt, 1973/1974, and Bailey, Madden and Krashen, 1974). Moreover,

the study presents some pedagogical implications of the accuracy

order for syllabus design and national curriculum development.

Siregar’s article investigates Indonesian students’ attitudes

toward American English, British English and Englishes in Southeast

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

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Asia (Philippine English, Singaporean English, and Malaysian

English), and their various contexts of use in Indonesia. The result of

the study which seems to agree with previous studies (Giles 1970,

Ryan et al. 1984, Garrett et al. 2003, Hiraga 2005), suggests that

learners have more positive attitudes toward types of English which

have a more prestigious status.

The fifth article written by Go and Miraflores, focuses on how

the whole object assumption is superseded by mutual exclusivity.

These are some language learning constraints that aid young children

in their development of speech. The results of the study yield very

interesting results such as: (1) striking colors and brightly colored

patterns are observed to influence young children’s perception of

whole objects; (2) mutual exclusivity is only applied to novel word

learning which is salient depending on the cognitive maturity of

children and finally, joint reference is less significant in word learning

as children develop verbally and are less dependent on linguistic

cues.

I wish to thank Dr. Paul Robertson for bringing to the country

this very important online journal as a new venue to showcase the

research done by teachers and students. Kudos to Dr. Carlo Magno,

the Editor of this journal, for his commitment to the propagation of

research in second language acquisition and learning and language

teaching in the Philippines.

Dr. Rochelle Irene Lucas

Associate Editor

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

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2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

A Study on the Intrinsic Motivation Factors in Second

Language Learning Among Selected Freshman Students

Rochelle Irene Lucas

Dennis Pulido, Edna Miraflores, Aileen Ignacio, Manuelito Tacay and

Janifer Lao

De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Abstract

The paper focused on intrinsic motivation factors that may help

identify what specific L2 communicative skill students are more

motivated to learn. The study involved 240 freshman college students

from different universities and colleges in Metro Manila. A 48-item

questionnaire was administered to the selected respondents. The

results of the study showed that students are intrinsically motivated

to learn speaking and reading skills and that they are intrinsically

motivated via knowledge and accomplishment. These may suggest

that students are motivated to learn these linguistic skills due to the

very nature of the skills which they find interesting and relevant to

them. The mastery of these linguistic skills somehow helps them

achieve their learning goals which may bring benefits to them in the

future.

Introduction

Background of the Study

Motivation is an important factor in learning a second and

foreign language (Gardner, 1985b; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). It is

defined as the individual’s attitudes, desires, and effort (Gardner,

Tremblay & Masgoret, 1997). Moreover, Ryan and Deci (2000) define

motivation as concerning energy, direction, persistence and

equifinality-all aspects of activation and intention.

In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), motivation

has been identified as one of the key factors that determine L2

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achievement and attainment. It serves as an impetus to generate

learning initially and later as a sustaining force to the tedious process

of acquiring a target language (Cheng & Dornyei, 2007).

Several studies have been undertaken in order to investigate

second language learning motivation ever since Gardner and Lambert

(1959) instituted this concept. They perceived the L2 as a mediator

between the various ethnolinguistic communities and as such, the

motivation to acquire the language of the other L2 community was

seen to play a vital role in either promoting or hampering

intercultural communication.

Around the 1990s, there was a noted shift in the manner many

L2 researchers conceptualized motivation and this was reflected in

the number of researches produced for a more education-centered

approach that was more in congruence with the mainstream

educational psychological research (e.g. Crookes & Schmidt, 1991;

Dornyei, 1990 & 1994; Oxford & Shearin, 1994; Tremblay & Gardner,

1995; Williams & Burden, 1997). The new paradigm expanded the L2

motivation studies by (1) promoting cognitive aspects of motivation,

especially those related to the learner’s “self” (e.g. need for

achievement, self-confidence/efficacy, self-determination); (2)

integrating various influential theories that were already prevalent in

mainstream psychology (e.g. goal theories and attribution theory);

and (3) focusing on situational factors relevant to classroom

application (e.g. characteristics of the language course and language

teacher) (Cheng & Dornyei, 2007).

The study investigated which specific intrinsic motivation

factors influence young adult students to learn the four

communicative skills-writing, reading, speaking and listening.

Moreover, the research also examined what macro skill they are more

likely to be motivated to learn.

Nature of Motivation

Motivation is one of the main determinants of second/foreign

language (L2) learning achievement. In the last thirty years, there had

been considerable amount of research done that explores on the

nature and role of motivation in the L2 learning process.

Canadian psychologists Gardner and Lambert who with the

help of their colleagues and students grounded motivation research

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in a social psychological framework have initiated the bulk of these

researches. They also established scientific research procedures and

introduced standardized assessment techniques and instruments thus

bringing L2 motivation research to reach its zenith in the field of

research (Dornyei, 1994).

In their early institution of L2 motivation, Gardner and

Lambert (1959; 1972) suggested that an individuals’ motivation to

learn an L2 is nurtured by both attitudes toward the L2 community

and the goals, or orientations, sought through the acquisition of the

L2. These researchers identified two classes of motivation. First,

integrative motivation

contact with, and perhaps to identify with, members from the L2

community. This orientation can be contrasted with the

orientation

practical goal, such as job advancement or course credit (Noels,

Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand, 2000).

Ryan, Kuhl and Deci (1997) introduced the Self-Determination

Theory (SDT) which they defined as an approach to human

motivation and personality that utilizes traditional empirical methods

while employing a metatheory that highlights the importance of

human’s evolved inner resources for personality development and

behavioral self-regulation. This approach examines people’s inherent

growth tendencies and innate psychological needs that are the basis

for their self-motivation and personality integration, as well as for the

conditions that foster those positive processes.

Ryan and Deci (2000) further looks into motivation in the light

of SDT. Because of the functional and experiential differences

between self-motivation and external regulation, a major focus of SDT

has been to supply a more differentiated approach to motivation, by

asking what kind of motivation is being exhibited at any given time.

By considering the perceived forces that move a person to act, SDT

has been able to identify several distinct types of motivation, each of

which has specifiable consequences for learning, performance,

personal experience, and well-being. Moreover, by articulating a set

of principles concerning how each type of motivation is developed

and sustained, or forestalled and undermined, SDT at once

recognizes a positive thrust to human nature and provides an account

of passivity, alienation, and psychopathology.

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refers to a desire to learn the L2 in order to haveinstrumental, which refers to a desire to learn the L2 to achieve some

Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

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Perhaps due to this conceptual impasse, there has been much

discussion about the nature of language learning motivation and a

shift among some of the scholars to consider alternative models.

These models are not meant to replace the

integrative-instrumental

motivation paradigm but rather to complement it. One alternative

that has been introduced is the distinction between intrinsic and

extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

According to the self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan,

1985; 1995), there are two general types of motivation, one based on

intrinsic interest in the activity per se and the other based on rewards

extrinsic to the activity itself. These types of motivation are not

categorically different, but rather lie along a continuum of selfdetermination.

Intrinsic motivation (IM) refers to motivation to engage in

activity because it is enjoyable and satisfying to do. Ryan and Deci

(1985) believe that intrinsic motivation is founded upon innate needs

for competence and self-determination. They hypothesize that when

people are free to choose to perform an activity, they will seek

interesting situations where they can rise to the challenges that the

activity presents. By striving to meet these challenges, learners

develop a sense of competence in their abilities.

Ryan and Deci (2000) posit that no single phenomenon reflects

the positive potential of human nature as much as intrinsic

motivation, which is defined as the inherent tendency to seek out

novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to

explore, and to learn. Developmentalists acknowledge that from time

of birth, children, in their earliest and healthiest states, are active,

inquisitive, curious, and playful, even in the absence of rewards. The

whole construct of intrinsic motivation describes this natural

inclination toward assimilation, mastery, spontaneous interest, and

exploration that is so essential to cognitive and social development

and that represents a principal source of enjoyment throughout life

(Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1993; Ryan, 1995 in Ryan & Deci,

2000).

Ryan, Kuhl and Deci (1997) also argued that despite the fact

that humans are liberally endowed with intrinsic motivations, it is

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clear that the maintenance and enhancement of this inherent

propensity requires supportive conditions, as it can be readily

disrupted by various nonsupportive conditions. Thus, their theory of

intrinsic motivation does not concern what causes intrinsic

motivation, but rather, it examines the conditions that elicit and

sustain, versus subdue and diminish this innate propensity.

Thus, Deci and Ryan (1985) presented the Cognitive

Evaluation Theory (CET) as a subtheory within SDT that had the aim

of specifying factors that explain variability in intrinsic motivation.

CET was conceptualized in terms of social and environmental factors

that facilitate versus undermine intrinsic motivation, being inherent,

will be catalyzed when individuals are in conditions that conduce

toward its expression. The study of conditions that facilitate versus

undermine intrinsic motivation is an important step in understanding

sources of both alienation and liberation of the positive aspects of

human nature. Furthermore, CET specifies that feelings of

competence will not enhance intrinsic motivation unless accompanied

by a sense of autonomy (Fisher, 1978; Ryan, 1982 in Ryan & Deci,

2000).

To sum, CET framework suggests that social environments can

facilitate or forestall intrinsic motivation by supporting versus

thwarting people’s innate psychological needs. Strong links between

intrinsic motivation and satisfaction of the needs for autonomy and

competence have been demonstrated. It is critical to remember that

people will be intrinsically motivated only for activities that hold

intrinsic interest for them, activities that have the appeal of novelty,

challenge, or aesthetic value (Ryan and Deci, 2000).

Although intrinsic motivation is an important type of

motivation, it is not the only type of motivation (Deci and Ryan,

1985). According to SDT, these different motivations reflect differing

degrees to which the value and regulation of the requested behavior

have been internalized and integrated.

The term extrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an

activity in order to attain some separable outcome, and thus, contrasts

with intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing an activity for the

inherent satisfaction of the activity itself.

In contrast to intrinsically motivated behaviors, extrinsic

motivation (EM) are those actions carried out to achieve some

instrumental end, such as earning a reward or avoiding a

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punishment. This type of motivation does not necessarily imply a

lack of self-determination in the behaviors performed. Ryan and Deci

(1985) and Vallerand (1987) maintained that different types of

extrinsic motivation (EM) could be classified along a continuum

according to the extent to which they are internalized into the selfconcept

(i.e., the extent to which the motivation is “self-determined”).

Intrinsic Motivation in Learning

Vallerand (1997) created the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS)

on the basis of the self-determination theory instituted by Deci and

Ryan (1985). The intrinsic motivation is divided into three types:

intrinsic motivation to know (IM-Knowledge), intrinsic motivation

toward accomplishment (IM-Accomplishment), and intrinsic

motivation to experience stimulation (IM- Stimulation). IMknowledge

refers to motivation for doing an activity for the pleasure

related to developing knowledge and new ideas. IM-accomplishment

however, is the feeling associated with attempting to realize a goal or

master a task. And IM- stimulation refers to motivation based on the

sensations stimulated by doing a task, i.e. fun and excitement

(Carreira, 2005).

Related Studies

Several studies have been conducted on the importance of

intrinsic motivation in second language learning.

Noels (2001a) investigated the relations between perception of

teachers’ communicative style and students’ motivation. The results

suggested that the teacher’s behavior affects the students’ generalized

feelings of autonomy and competence. That is, the more the teacher

was perceived as controlling, the less the students felt they were

learning Spanish spontaneously and the lower the students’ intrinsic

motivation. In contrast, the more the teacher was perceived as being

actively involved in the students’ learning by giving informative

praise and encouragement, the more the students felt competent in

learning Spanish. Noels also found that the integrative orientation

was strongly correlated with intrinsic motivation and identified

regulation. However, this is not to indicate that intrinsic and

integrative motivations are identical (Noels, 2001a).

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Schimdt, Boraie and Kassabgy (1996) used the dichotomy of

extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for their questionnaire. A

questionnaire for motivational factors includes 50 items: Intrinsic

motivation, 5 items; extrinsic motivation, 15 items; personal goals, 5

items, expectancy/control components, 9 items; attitudes, 4 items;

anxiety, 6 items; and motivational strengths, 6 items. The factor

analysis produced nine factors: determination, anxiety, instrumental

motivation, sociability, attitudes to culture, foreign residence,

intrinsic motivation, beliefs about failure, and enjoyment. Schimdt et

al. defined extrinsic motivation as motivation to obtain an external

reward and intrinsic motivation as motivation to get sufficient

rewards from the activity itself. They stated that intrinsic-extrinsic

distinction is similar to integrative-instrumental distinction, but not

identical. Both instrumental and integrative motivation can be seen as

subtypes of extrinsic motivation, because both are related to goals

and outcome. They also concluded that instrumental and integrative

motivation are not a dichotomy and that there are some learners who

are both instrumentally and integratively motivated to learn a foreign

language and those who are neither instrumentally nor integratively

motivated.

Jacques (2001) developed a questionnaire based on Schmidt et

al. 1996. There are three types of student questionnaires. One of them

includes 52 items concerning motivation: integrative orientation,

interest in foreign language and cultures, language requirement,

heritage requirement, instrumental orientation, intrinsic motivation,

etc. After factor analysis, six factors were extracted: value

components, expectancy components, motivational strength,

competitiveness, heritage languages and cooperativeness.

Noels, Clement and Pelletier (1999) investigated how students

perceptions of their teachers’ communicative style, particularly the

extent to which teachers are perceived to support student’s autonomy

and to provide useful feedback about students’ learning progress, are

related to students’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivational orientations.

The study also examined the link between these variables and various

language learning outcomes, including effort, anxiety, and language

competence. Students registered in a summer French immersion

program (N=78) completed a questionnaire that was used to assess

the constructs described above. Correlational analyses determined

that stronger feelings of intrinsic motivation were related to positive

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language learning outcomes, including greater motivational intensity,

greater self-evaluations of competence, and a reduction in anxiety.

Moreover, perceptions of the teacher’s communicative style were

related to intrinsic motivation, such that the more controlling and the

less informative students perceived the teacher to be the lowest

students’ intrinsic motivation was. The implications of perceptions of

teacher communicative style for motivation and language learning

outcomes are discussed.

By and large, these studies on motivation have presented

pertinent discussions as to the importance of motivation in language

learning. It has been shown that teachers are influential in their

students’ motivation towards their own learning competencies.

Although some studies also presented that students do not need to be

motivated to learn certain skills. Another study presented additional

variables not found in the existing standardized questionnaires on

motivation, as other interesting indicators may stimulate learner’s

motivation to learn pertinent skills. And finally, an investigation of

how intrinsic motivation influence positive learning outcomes of the

learners has given an added dimension to the growing number of

studies done on motivation.

The Research Framework

Figure 1

Schematic Representation of Intrinsic Motivation in L2 Communicative

Skills Learning

Writing Reading

Speaking Listening

Intrinsic Motivation-Knowledge

Intrinsic Motivation – Accomplishment

Intrinsic Motivation- Simulation

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The study investigated if students are intrinsically motivated

to learn L2 communicative skills such as writing, reading, speaking

and listening. It also examined the factors of intrinsic motivation that

may help determine why and why they are not motivated to learn

those macro skills. This study adapted Deci and Ryan’s (1985) selfdetermination

theory and Vallerand’s (1997) Academic Motivation

Scale (AMS).

According to Deci and Ryan’s (1985) self-determination

approach to motivation, intrinsic motivation refers to motivation to

perform an activity simply for the pleasure and satisfaction that

accompany the action. These feelings of pleasure are derived from

fulfilling innate needs for competence and self-determination (Deci &

Ryan, 1985; Deci, Vallerand, Pelietier & Ryan, 1991).

Vallerand (1997) on the other hand, identified three types of

intrinsic motivation:

motivation toward accomplishment (IM-A)

experience stimulation (IM-S).

doing an activity for the feelings associated with exploring new ideas

and developing knowledge. IM-accomplishment refers to the

sensations related to attempting to master a task or achieve a goal.

Finally, IM-stimulation relates to motivation based simply on the

sensations stimulated by performing the tasks, such as aesthetic

appreciation or fun and excitement. The common basis of these

subtypes is the pleasurable sensations experienced during the selfinitiated

and challenging activity (Noels, Pelletier, Clement &

Vallerand, 2003).

The study examined if freshman college students are

intrinsically motivated to learn their L2. Moreover, the research

explored possibilities, if there is a tendency for the students to learn a

particular communicative skill because they are intrinsically

motivated to do so.

The relations between intrinsic motivation and the other three

orientations vis a vis learning the L2 macro skills maybe interesting to

note. Learning a target language may give rise to positive feelings

through the promotion of autonomy, self-perceptions of competence

or both. Hence, to integrate self-determination theory into current

discussions on L2 learning, it is imperative to explore the relations

between these orientations and the motivational constructs described

by Deci and Ryan (1985) and Vallerand (1997).

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Intrinsic motivation to know (IM-K), Intrinsicand Intrinsic motivation toIM-knowledge is the motivation for

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Significance of the Study

The study would be very helpful in explaining why students

are more motivated to learn one communicative skill over the other.

This research might be helpful to teachers and curriculum designers

to make improvements on the current English program their

respective schools are implementing specifically to address concerns

why students are not well rounded in the development of all four

macro skills in the L2.

Statement of the Problem

The study intends to obtain answers to the following

questions:

1. Are students intrinsically motivated to learn the four

macro-skills in the English language?

2. What intrinsic motivation factors influence students to

learn the L2 communicative skills?

Scope and Limitations

The study included six classes from various tertiary

institutions in the NCR namely: DLSU-Manila, San Beda College , Las

Piñas City, UST, PNU, Rogationist College and FEU. The research

employed the use of a questionnaire adapted from Mori (2002);

Vandergrift (2005) and Noels, Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand (2000) to

examine the perceptions of freshman students regarding the

communicative skills that they are more motivated to learn. A total of

240 students were the target respondents of this study.

The research did not examine other variables such as gender

and age in the examination of the intrinsic motivation of the students

as these variables cannot be identified from the questionnaires.

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Method

Research Design

The study is descriptive in nature. The researchers conducted a

survey involving freshman college students from different tertiary

institutions in the NCR. The 48-item survey questionnaire was

designed by the researchers but was adapted from previous

questionnaires devised by Mori (2002), Vandergrift (2005) and Noels,

Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand (2003) in their respective studies.

Participants

The participants were freshman college students from different

colleges and universities in Manila. The schools included are: De La

Salle University-Manila, San Beda College Las Piñas City, Philippine

Normal University, University of Santo Tomas, Far East University

and Rogationist Seminary in Parañaque City. 40 students from 1 Basic

English One class were the respondents of the 48-item questionnaire

designed by the researchers, which was adapted from Mori (2002),

Vandergrift (2005) and Noels, Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand (2003).

A total of 240 students were the target respondents of this study.

Instrument

The proponents of this study used only 1 type of scale, which

is a 5-point agree/disagree scale. Although the idea for this study

came about from Noels, Pelletier, Clement, and Vallerand’s (2000)

study, the proponents did not fully adapt the questionnaire used in

that study as it involved several variables namely Intrinsic

motivation, Extrinsic motivation and Amotivation and it used several

types of scale to measure the aforementioned variables. The modified

questionnaire covered items on the different intrinsic motivation

types (IM-stimulation, accomplishment and knowledge) and the

corresponding L2 macroskills (listening, speaking, reading and

writing). The table below presents the distribution of the items in the

questionnaire:

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Communication Skills

IM Type Listening Speaking Reading Writing

Stimulation 1, 13, 25,37 10, 22, 34, 46 7, 19, 31, 43 4, 16, 28, 40

Accomplishment 5, 17, 29,41 2, 14, 26, 38 11, 23, 35, 47 8, 20, 32, 44

Knowledge 9,21, 33, 45 6, 18, 30, 42 3, 15, 27, 39 12, 24, 36, 48

Given that the focus of this proposed study was only intrinsic

motivation, the proponents used an agree/disagree scale which Noels

et al. used in studying this particular variable in their study. The only

difference is that Noels et al. made use of a 7-point scale whereas the

proponents used a 5-point scale. The researchers decided on a 5-point

scale as this would be simpler for the respondents to understand

compared to a 7-point scale.

A copy of the proposed questionnaire is found in the

appendix. The phrasing of the statements was patterned after Noels

et al.’s study. The proposed scale has the following response-option

definitions:

5- Strongly Agree

4- Agree

3- Neither Agree nor Disagree (this is considered neutral)

4- Disagree

5- Strongly Disagree

The definitions of each of the numeric value in the scale are

reflected on the questionnaire to serve as a guide for the respondents

while answering the paper.

Procedure

Researchers prepared survey questionnaires before they were

distributed to the target respondents. Since some of the teachers in

this research team taught in the identified schools, the research

proponent wrote a letter to the English department chairs/college

deans to seek permission to conduct the survey. The letter included

the objective of the research and a sample questionnaire.

The teacher then conducted the survey once the department

head or the college dean had approved the request. As explained

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earlier, the teacher would only involve 40 college freshman students

from 1 section of the identified institution.

Data collected were tallied and subjected to non parametric

statistical analyses of the data, the main proponent wrote the report.

Some of the members of the research team were requested to assist in

the writing and editing of the final paper.

Method of Analysis

Scores obtained from the questionnaire were checked for

reliability by doing the Cronbach-alpha coefficient test, which is

typically used to test reliability or consistency. It is considered that a

reliability coefficient of .70 or higher is considered “acceptable.” As

for validity, this was checked by running a Pearson-moment

r

correlation coefficient test. A correlation of 0.15 or higher is

considered a significant indicator of test validity.

Aside from running these tests, the scores were expected to be

reliable and valid based on the following conditions:

1. The information requested was known to the respondents

since the statements were about their motivations in

learning L2 macro skills.

2. The questions were phrased clearly and unambiguously.

3. The questions referred to current perceptions of these

students.

4. The questions were non-threatening, not embarrassing, and

did not violate the privacy of the respondents.

The scores were tabulated and were subjected to a nonparametric

statistical analysis since the data did not yield very

significant results. This analysis was used because there were several

response variables (referring to the motivations) that were employed

to explain a single classification variable (referring to a specific L2

macro skill).

To ensure the quality of the analysis and interpretations,

consultations with statisticians were made.

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Results

Table 1

Means and Standard Deviations of the Different Types of

Intrinsic Motivation on Various English Language Tasks

Listening Speaking Reading Writing

M SD M SD M SD M SD

Stimulation

3.813 0.617 3.822 0.612 3.792 0.610 3.77 0.679

Accomplishment

3.905 0.589 4.094 0.543 4.047 0.564 3.712 0.629

Knowledge

3.822 0.587 4.037 0.578 4.081 0.582 3.785 0.718

Table 1 shows that students are intrinsically motivated to learn

certain communicative skills depending on what type of intrinsic

motivation they more or less use.

who are intrinsically motivated by

Speaking is preferred by studentsaccomplishment (IMAccomplishment)

(M=4.093) and also those who are intrinsically

motivated by

followed by students who are interested in

intrinsically motivated by

knowledge (IM-Knowledge) (M=4.037). Moreover, this isreading who areaccomplishment (IM-Accomplishment)

(M=4.047) and

freshman students seem to be intrinsically motivated as they utilize

their

motivated to listen through

knowledge (IM-Knowledge) (M=4.081). Furthermore,listening skills. The results indicate that students are intrinsicallyaccomplishment (IM-Accomplishment)

(M=3.905) and also

knowledge (IM-Knowledge) (M=3.822).

Discussion

The findings suggest that the students who participated in the

survey are intrinsically motivated to learn the four macro-skills in

their L2, English. Specifically, students are found to be

preponderantly motivated intrinsically in the three macroskills such

as speaking, reading and listening via

accomplishment and knowledge.

Vallerand (1997) refers to IM-Accomplishment as the sensations

related to attempting to master a task or achieve a goal. Whereas, IMKnowledge

is the motivation to perform an activity for the feelings

associated with exploring new ideas and developing knowledge.

These two sub-types of intrinsic motivation found in the respondents

would suggest that these learners are willing to learn the second

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language to attain certain goals may it be the new knowledge or skill

they may acquire or even the mastery of certain skills, in this case

speaking, reading and listening.

Moreover, the results yield a positive relationship between the

students’ intrinsic motivation and their L2 which is not surprising

since English plays a major role in the academic and the social

environment where the students move. This can be accounted for by

the fact that the Filipinos are exposed to a bilingual environment.

Furthermore, the findings seem to undermine a perceived autonomy

and competence on the part of the learners as this exposure to the

English language in their early stages of learning assists them in their

learning of the second language. This inherent propensity to learn

English through the use of the macroskills (reading, speaking and

listening) is due to our learners’ inclination towards assimilation,

mastery and spontaneous interest to this language as a result of their

early exposure to the language. Moreover, it can also be assumed that

learning this language may bring tangible rewards to the learners

such as opportunities for self direction and acknowledgement of

learners’ success in learning the language which were found to

further enhance intrinsic motivation as suggested by Ryan and Deci

(1985).

The college students who took part in the study are required to

enroll in nine units of English subjects (Writing, Research Writing and

Speech) and three units of Literature in English (CHED

Memorandum Order No. 59 Series of 1996). The other General

Education Curriculum subjects (Mathematics and Natural Sciences,

Humanities and Social Sciences, and Mandated Subjects) have

materials that are mostly printed and taught in English. Although

these may be considered as extrinsic factors, it appears that the

learners have taken it upon themselves the responsibility for their

learning in the L2.

The social environment of the students also encourages their

ability to use their L2. The proliferation of western media and the

internet (Oliva, 2008; Romualdez, 2009) may be considered as a factor

that intrinsically motivates them to learn English. This then suggests

that learning the L2 fulfills the needs for competence and selfdetermination

of the students who participated in the survey vis-à-vis

their academe and society.

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As far as the preferred macroskills are concerned, the current

study also found that

students who are intrinsically motivated by

speaking is the most preferred macro-skill by theaccomplishment and

knowledge

that an utterance in the L2 is spontaneous, its immediate production

may indicate a learner’s competence in the language. The reply to the

utterance and the discourse that ensues are possible evidence of

ability in the L2 (Brouwer, 2003). The reactions of the interlocutors

showing whether the communicative target has been achieved or

otherwise as manifested by agreement or disagreement (verbally or

non-verbally) (Huang, 2007) can possibly motivate the learner to

develop communicative competence in speaking. The opportunity to

converse (formally or informally) in what is considered as a prestige

language might also be a reason why speaking is preferred by the

students. The possibility of job advancement (Vandergrift, 2005)

because of the requirement of their major and course to speak in

English might also be a driving factor for students to master this skill.

The results also produced surprising findings as reading (via

which may be attributed to the nature of the skill. Given

accomplishment

followed by listening. In the current time, reading is said to be the

most neglected skill by our students among the four macroskills.

What is interesting is the fact that a lot of Filipino learners are still

interested to read. This can be due to the fact that our young students

now are very attuned to on-line activities such as social networking

(blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, Multiply and MySpace), emails

and net surfing which somehow promote the use of reading. These

computer mediated activities are indeed helpful venues that may

allow inherent interest in the use of the skills and also the use of the

second language. Undeniably, listening becomes the third most

utilized language skill as this accompanies speaking.

By and large, the results suggest that Filipino freshman

students are intrinsically motivated to learn English as a result of

their exposure to the language. Moreover, these learners are

inherently motivated to use English in speaking, reading and

listening due to the nature of these skills and the tangible rewards

that these skills may bring the learners.

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and knowledge) becomes the second preferred skill

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Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusions

The study clearly showed that freshman students are

intrinsically motivated to learn specific language skills such speaking

and reading in their second language, English. This can be explained

by the students’ interest in speaking using the L2 with their peers and

even inside the classroom as it is a requirement in all English courses

that the L2 should be widely spoken. Also, due to the proliferation of

foreign media, computer mediated activities and reading materials in

the country, reading also becomes one of the linguistic skills that

students are intrinsically motivated in.

Moreover, it was found that students by and large, are

intrinsically motivated via accomplishment and knowledge. These

findings suggest that these learners are attempting to master their

skills in speaking and reading as manifested in their intrinsic

motivation towards the accomplishment of these goals and also

manifest an intense appreciation in learning these linguistic skills as

shown in their intrinsic motivation towards knowledge. These would

show that students still put premium in learning the L2 as this would

be their key for their success for possible future employment. Also,

their appreciation and enjoyment in using the English language stem

from their early exposure to the English language.

The study puts forward the reality that indeed, English is a

prestigious language and that students will always be interested to

learn this language due to the many benefits it may bring. Their

bilingual exposure at a very early stage in their lives puts the Filipino

young language learner to an advantage over their Asian

counterparts.

Recommendations

Since there have been only few research done on motivation,

specifically in L2 learning in the Philippine setting, there are several

recommendations as regards the direction that studies on this topic

should take. First, L2 intrinsic motivation studies might be extended

to students coming from other levels of education, i.e. high school

and graduate students. Further insights might be gleaned from them

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by asking these groups of participants to take part in the study since

the use of English is prevalent among them. Second, L2 extrinsic

motivation studies might also be conducted to provide a holistic point

of view as to what motivates Filipinos to learn and use their L2.

Consequently, the results of these kinds of studies might be beneficial

to English language teachers since they can incorporate the findings

in the planning and execution of their lessons. Third, although

amotivation appears to be the common nemesis of the two kinds of

motivation aforementioned, still it would be beneficial to delve into

research on the lack of motivation since in doing so it might be

possible to make amotivated students fully engaged in their learning

an L2 specifically and learning per se generally.

Without a doubt, there are still so many things to be done

when it comes to conducting research on motivation. In the end, the

voluminous amount that might come from studies related to the said

topic would further enhance how teachers practice their profession

and how students acquire and process knowledge in general.

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Vallerand, R. J. (1997). Toward a hierarchical model of intrinsic and

extrinsic motivation. In Zanna, M. P. (Ed.).

Experimental Social Psychology

CA: Academic Press.

Vandergrift, L. (2005). Relationships among motivation orientations,

metacognitive awareness and proficiency in L2 listening.

Advances in(Vol. 29, pp. 271-360). San Diego,

Applied Linguistics, 26

, 70-89.

About the Author

Dr. Rochelle Irene Lucas is presently the Vice Dean of the College of

Education of De La Salle University. She belongs to the Department

of English and Applied Linguistics. Her specialization includes

Psycholinguistics, Bilingualism, and Language and Gender.

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“

An Analysis of the Uses of Adverbial Clauses in

Philippine English Research Articles

Although if is more frequent than whether...”:

Leah. E. Gustilo

De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the

functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different

organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied

linguistics and language teaching. Compared with nouns and verbs,

the study of adverbs and adverbials is less popular because of the

notion that they are not the main elements of sentence meaning.

However, adverbs and adverbials are significant because of the roles

they play in discourse. This study used 20 research articles selected

from four journals and a book, which contained research papers

written by Filipino authors. The clauses were manually marked and

classified according to their semantic classes, and were counted

separately according to the four conventional organizational units

identified: Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, and

Conclusion/Recommendations (I-M-R-C). Then their functions in the

different parts of the articles were analyzed. One of the salient

findings is the high incidence of condition and cause clauses in the

introduction and results and discussion sections. In the introduction,

it is extensively used to establish the research territory; while in the

results and discussion section, it plays a role in the explanation of

research findings. It is recommended that more studies be undertaken

such that the uses of adverbial clauses in different genres of discourse

can be investigated and comparisons of findings can be made across

genres and across languages.

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Introduction

Compared with nouns and verbs, the study of adverbs and

adverbials is less popular because of the notion that they hardly

construct the main elements of sentence meaning and they do not

possess various grammatical functions in sentence (Ogura, Shirai, &

Bond, 1997). However, adverbs and adverbials are significant because

of the roles they play in discourse. Among the many types of

contextual indexal devices, adverbs and adverbials are most often

utilized in establishing deictic references of place, time, manner, and

other parameters, which greatly affect the meanings in the texts

(Hinkel, 2003). In his study of the meanings, functions, and roles of

adverbs and adverbials with modals in spoken and written texts,

Hoye (1997) stresses their importance and extraordinary diversity in

the corpora of the English language. Adverbials modify sentence

elements that include adjectives, other adverbs, verbs, and entire

clauses. The diverse semantic functions of adverbials fall into several

classes, and adverbials of place, time, duration, frequency, cause, and

manner are among those that constitute the largest classes.

Some studies have examined the syntactic properties of

adverbials in other languages and compared them with the English

adverbials. An example of this is the work of Devi (2002) in his

analysis of conditionals and concessives in Indian languages.

Kannada, a Dravidian language, is compared with the other two

Indo-Aryan languages in order to find out their similarities and

dissimilarities in forming concessive and conditional clauses. Results

of the analysis of the concessives reveal that the concessive clauses in

these three languages follow that of the English. Kannada, Assamese

and Bengali concessive clauses generally precede the main clause as

in the English language. However, the conditional systems in Indian

languages differ greatly from English. Moreover, there are more

similarities than dissimilarities between the Indo-Aryan languages

Assamese and Bengali. On the other hand, it was found that

Kannada, which is not related to those two languages, differ to a

considerable extent.

Our knowledge of the functions and uses of adverbials is

widened with the development of electronic corpora and computer

aided analysis in the past several years. It made possible the analysis

of large corpora of published written texts as well as in spoken texts,

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not only in the native English varieties but as well as in the context of

English as a second or foreign language. An analysis of the functions

of adverbial clauses in the Kenyan subcorpus of International Corpus

for English (ICE) gleaned interesting findings about adverbial clauses.

Clauses of purpose are mostly expressed by to-infinitives and only a

few by finite clauses, a feature which is found mainly in the

persuasive texts and was interpreted to be a formal feature

particularly characteristic of persuasive writing. Clauses of condition,

mainly finite, are predominantly found in the spoken text and are the

fourth most frequent type in the Kenyan subcorpus. Most clauses are

introduced by

causal clauses are found to be more important in the spoken text,

which are predominantly introduced by

clauses, concessive clauses are also represented in the corpus but

have fewer instances compared to temporal, causal, conditional, and

purpose clauses.

Rich insights into the meanings and uses of adverbs and

adverbials are made available to us in Hinkel’s (2003) study, in which

she presents her quantified analysis of deictic, modifying, and

intensifying adverbials, as well as some semantic classes of adverb

clauses found in academic essays written by first-year native speakers

(NS) and academically-advanced non-native speakers (NNS). The

most striking differences between the two groups are found in the

frequency rates of amplifiers and emphatic adverbs. Those

intensifiers are strikingly more frequent in L2 essays and results in a

colloquial tone in NNS academic writing. In the analysis of adverbial

clauses, Hinkel (2003) found that cause and condition clauses are

more frequent in many NNS texts, a feature which is also found in

informal speech.

Despite the information on the functions of adverbials in

discourse available in previous studies, there is dearth of information

about their uses in academic writing, specifically in L2 research

articles. Among others, we have heard of move analysis within the

genre analysis framework from published works such as those of

Salager-Meyer (1992) on verb tense and modality distribution in

medical abstracts, Brett (1994) on the results section of sociology

articles, Henry and Roseberry (2001) on letters of application, and

Martin (2003) on contrastive analysis of Spanish and English paper

abstracts in experimental social sciences, but we are uninformed

27

if and unless, and other forms are rare. In addition,because. Along with other

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about what genre analysis can reveal about the use of adverbial

clauses in L2 research articles. The word genre refers to a distinctive

category of discourse of any type which can be distinguished by its

features (Salager-Meyer, 1992). Genre analyses have been carried out

in the academic domain (Swales, 1996) and in English for specific

purpose contexts (e.g. Salager-Meyer, 1999; Roseberry, 2001) and have

been proven to be an effective approach in the analyses of the

communicative functions, rhetorical strategies and linguistic features

of texts.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the

functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different

organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied

linguistics and language teaching. This is in response to the usual

call in linguistic studies to analyze linguistic categories using

different genres. Research article is the genre chosen for this study

because of the pivotal role it plays in the dissemination of knowledge.

The findings of the study would prove beneficial not only to

researchers but also to students and teachers of academic writing.

Specifically, the present study aims at providing answers to the

following questions:

1. How are the semantic classes of full adverbial clauses

distributed across four organizational units or sections of

the research articles and across the specific moves?

2. What are the uses of full adverbial clauses in the different

sections of research articles?

Methodology

Selection of the Articles

Convenience sampling was employed for the choice of the

research articles--that is, the articles that were readily available and

served the purpose of the study were chosen. The corpus is made up

of 20 research articles selected from four journals and a book which

contained research papers written by Filipino authors. They were

published in the Philippines in the field of applied linguistics and

language teaching. The following sources constitute the present data:

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Philippine Journal of Linguistics (PJL) – 7 articles

Tanglaw – 4 articles

The ACELT Journal – 5 articles

In Focus, Selected writings in Applied Linguistics – 3 articles

The Philippine Special Education Journal— 1 article

Procedure and Data Analysis

This researcher read the articles in order to identify the full

adverbial clauses, which are introduced by adverbial markers

(reduced adverb clauses are hardly represented in the present corpus)

using the list made available by Eli Hinkel (2003) and Quirk,

Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey, and Svartvik (1985).

The clauses were manually marked and classified according to their

semantic classes, and were counted separately according to the four

conventional organizational units identified: Introduction,

Methodology, Results and Discussion, and

Conclusion/Recommendations (I-M-R-C). Almost all the articles

followed the IMRC structuring. In the articles where functional

headings or content headings were employed by the writers, this

researcher looked at the communicative purpose of those sections to

see which heading belongs to the I-M-R-C units.

The adverbial clauses were examined in two stages: (1) their

distribution and (2) their function in the text. The analysis of the

functions per move in the introduction and results and discussion

sections were based on Swales’ (1990) and Ruiying and Allison’s

(2003) frameworks. The second stage of the analysis was motivated

by the results of the first phase: adverbial clauses were more

frequently used in the introduction and results and discussion

sections. This researcher believes that move analysis of the two

sections might prove useful in our understanding of the uses of

adverbial clauses in relation to the different moves in the sections

being considered. The adverbial clauses identified in the first phase

of the analysis were read several times in order to analyze the

contexts of their use in relation to the different moves. Then they

were coded in the margins of the research articles (e.g. R-M3 explain

results; I-M1 review research) to facilitate location and counting of

their occurrences.

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The frequency of occurrence and percentage of adverbial

clauses were recorded. The computation of percentages is either with

respect to the total number of adverbial clauses per section or with

respect to the total number of adverbial clauses in the whole corpus.

Within each section, the percentage is with respect to the number of

adverbial clauses per semantic class. Frequencies and percentages are

presented in tables. Since figures are short of explaining the functions

of the clauses in the texts, the description of the functions/uses of the

adverbial clauses being considered is done through the examples

randomly extracted from the data. It is not the intention of the present

study to present categories for the functions/uses of the adverbial

clauses under each semantic class. A follow up study using a

concordance software might do well in doing this task since it can

show the contexts of each adverbial clauses in a click of a mouse.

Scope and Limitations

The examination of full adverbial clauses is focused on the

four semantic classes: conditional, cause, concessive, and purpose

clauses. The limitations of the study consist in its (1) small sample

and (2) inability to fully describe the syntactic properties of the

adverbial clauses, although mention of some of the syntactic

realizations of the clauses cannot be avoided in the course of the

discussion.

Results

The findings of the present study will be presented and

discussed as follows: first, I will present the overall distribution of

the full adverbial clauses across the four organizational units and

describe their uses/functions. Next, I will move on to the

investigation of the specific location of the full adverbial clauses in

each move of the introduction and results and discussion sections.

The Semantic Classes of Full Adverbial Clauses

Table 1 presents the semantic classes of full adverbial clauses

under consideration in the different sections of research articles.

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Table 1

Semantic classes of full adverbial clauses in research articles

Taking the overall percentage of the semantic classes of full

adverbial clauses as displayed at the extreme right of Table 1, we find

the condition category with the highest occurrence, constituting

almost 40 percent of the total number of clauses across organizational

units. Coming close is the cause category with almost the same

frequency as the cause class. The concession class trails after the cause

category, and the purpose category comes last. Interestingly enough,

the importance given to condition and cause clauses is revealed when

we look at the extent to which they are used in each section of the

article. The writers of research articles under study utilized more

condition and cause clauses across four organizational units.

The above figures seem to tie up with the results of Eli

Hinkel’s (2003) study of NS and NNS academic essays in which

condition and cause adverbial clauses received more median

frequency rates than concession and purpose clauses did. It should be

pointed out, however, that in the present study, although concessives

did not appear as more salient in comparison to the frequencies of

cause and condition clauses, they had a considerable representation

(22% of the total adverbial clauses) in the sample.

Looking now at the distribution of adverbial clauses per

section, we can see that the clauses tend to cluster around

introduction and results and discussion. This result may be partly

attributed to the length devoted to those two structural units.

Semantic

Class

Introduction Method Results and

Discussion

Conclusion/

Recommendation

s

Total

f f f f f %

Condition 19 14 31 10 74 38

Cause 23 10 30 10 73 37

Concessio

n 15 6 17 4 42 22

Purpose 1 2 1 2 6 3

Total 58 32 79 26 195 100

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Introduction and results and discussion sections are usually lengthier

compared to the methods and conclusion sections. In addition, it may

also be related to the rhetorical functions of the introduction and

results and discussion sections. In the results and discussion, for

instance, writers need to use cause and conditional clauses to explain

why a variable behaves in a particular way. Furthermore, writers

need concessives to present their interpretation in a balanced fashion.

The question now is, how were the full adverbial clauses

utilized in the different organizational units of research articles? To

answer this, the present study identified the adverbial markers and

analyzed how they were used in the clauses. The ensuing discussion

tackles this.

Cause clauses.

introduced cause clauses and their frequencies and percentages.

Table 2

Table 2 lists the adverbial markers that

Frequency and percentage of cause clause markers

Cause

clause

markers

Introduction Method Results/

Discussion

Conclusion Total

Since

Because

For

As

Total

15

4

2

2

23/195

12%

7

2

0

1

10/195

5%

15

12

1

2

30/195

15%

3

5

1

1

10/195

5%

f %

40 20

23 12

4 2

6 3

73/195 37

*Percentage is with respect to the total number of adverbial clause markers

As table 2 shows, there were four causal clause adverbial

markers that figured in the present data. From among them,

since

emerged as the most represented marker; while

predominant marker of cause clauses in Biber et al’s (1999) study of

academic texts and in the Kenyan English subcorpus, came next.

because, theFor

and

as are less common, and the prolix forms such as given the fact that

and

32

due to the fact that did not occur. It seems that the writers of

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research articles being considered here preferred the shorter than the

prolix form because the latter was not represented in the data.

Consistent with the finding about the semantic classes mentioned

earlier, cause clauses are well represented in the results and

discussion section and in the introduction.

According to Hinkel (2003) adverb clauses of cause is used as

“the most direct means of indicating causal relationships between

actions and events in context” (p. 1060). The cause clause gives the

reason for the effect or result in the other clause. They may precede or

follow the matrix clause. Below are examples of cause clauses in the

present study:

(1) The present study is exploratory in nature

show how English teachers take part in the social construction of

knowledge

since it aims to. (Tanglaw Text 2: 23)

Since

known cause--

of knowledge

cause, exploratory nature of the study.

was used in the introduction, was employed to announce the nature

of the study.

(1)

verbal data,

the respondents’ recording (Tanglaw Text 3: 55)

Unlike in (1), the cause clause introduced by

the independent clause. Here, the clause associated with cause is

fronted before the effect, but the same causal sense is achieved as in

(1); it was used to make known a cause for a certain methodological

limitation.

(1) The study also discovered that the use of narration should

be taught to ESL students,

writing argumentative essays

Example (3) is connected by

Similar to the first two examples,

33

introduced a subordinate clause, which expressed athe aim to show the teachers’ part in the social construction—while the matrix clause expressed the effect of theThe cause clause here, whichBecause this research relied mainly on ‘naturally occurring’there was no means of checking the accuracy ofbecause precedesfor it could be an effective style in(PJL Text 5: 21).for, a coordinating conjunction.for connects the action of the effect

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clause with the known cause in the dependent clause. The causal

relations in (3) was used to justify why an approach to teaching

should be adopted.

(4)

features ascribed to news leads in this study are not

reflective of all American and Philippine English

newspapers (PJL Text 6:63).

In example (4) the writer used

study which is the reason for making a claim that the findings in her

study are not representative of all American and Philippine English

newspapers.

Cause clauses were utilized in the different sections of the

research articles to serve the purpose of the writer in establishing

relations between cause and effect situations. In the examples

considered, they were relied on to announce why a certain design,

limitation, approach, and interpretation or claim were pursued by the

writers in their study.

As the data for the study involved only 42 news leads..., theas to point out a limitation in the

Concessive Clauses.

percentages of concessive clause markers.

Table 3

Table 3 summarizes the frequencies and

Frequency and percentage of concession clause markers

Concession

Clause

Markers

Introduction Method Results/

Discussion

Conclusion Total

Even

though

While

Although

Though

Total

0

8

6

1

15/195

8%

0

3

2

1

6/195

3%

3

5

7

2

17/195

9%

0

1

3

0

4/195

2%

f %

3 1.5

17 8.7

18 9.2

4 2.0

42/195 22

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Quirk et al. (1985) lists

while, whilst, when

concessive clauses. As shown in Table 3, only four concessive clause

markers figured in the data.

most frequently used clause markers.

results and discussion section, while

sections but not in the conclusion. Again, the markers tend to

aggregate around the introduction and results section of the articles.

Full adverb clauses of concession can serve as background

information. They indicate that the event in the independent clause is

contrary to expectation with respect to what is said in the concessive

clause (Hinkel, 2002). In academic writing, concessive clauses present

the information in a balanced position and show the writer’s

credibility as they present opposing views objectively (Hinkel, 2003).

Usually, the information in the concessive clause is less crucial than in

the independent clause. Below are the examples of concessive

relations in the present data:

(5)

letters to the editor can provide an interesting situation...

(PJL Text 5:20).

(6)

establishes adversative cohesive relations suggesting the

meaning ‘contrary to expectations’....(PJL Text 4: 7).

(7)

group was slightly lower (1.16%) than that in application,

was found out that the higher order cognitive skill had

been reached in high school (PJL Text 3: 129).

(8)

the news,

56).

if, even if, even though, though, although,, and whereas as subordinators that can introduceAlthough and while appear to be the twoEven though is found only in thethough is present in the threeAlthough such venue is devoid of a face-to-face interaction,Though ‘but’ connects two clauses within the sentence, itEven though the mean percentage in analysis by the high schoolitWhile the two varieties of English show similarity in structuringwe can find instances of differences (PJL Text 1:

Although

respectively, convey contrary expectations. The more emphatic forms

and its more informal though in (5) and (6),

even though

expectations. Expressing contrary expectations may mean that when

the information in the concessive clause has a negative content, the

information in the matrix clause carries a positive meaning, and vice

versa. For example, in (5), the concessive clause carries a negative

35

in (7) and while in (8) express the same contrary

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meaning (the letters to the editor is a venue devoid of face-to-face

interaction); but the matrix clause conveys a positive meaning (it has

something interesting to offer). In (8), this time a positive meaning is

conveyed in the concessive clause, but a negative sense is conveyed in

the matrix clause. Concessive clauses in the above examples seem to

serve as a ’balancer’ in presenting opposing views contrary to what is

expected in the matrix clause in the different sections of research

articles. In doing so, the writers presented facts and opinions in an

objective way because both views were presented, giving the readers

the opportunity to weigh both sides of information.

Conditional clauses.

markers and their frequencies.

Table 4

Table 4 shows the condition clause

Frequency and percentage of condition clause markers

Table 4 lists only two conditional markers

if and whether.

However, as mentioned earlier, this semantic class constitutes the

greatest percentage of the total number of full adverbial clause

markers, a finding which agrees with that of Biber et al.’s (1999)

finding. Biber et al. (1999) claim that conditional adverb clauses are

much more frequently used in English-language academic prose than

any other types of adverb clauses. More interestingly, this semantic

class contains the adverbial marker that has the greatest frequency of

occurrence.

the adverbial clause markers in the data.

The function of conditional clauses is to express a direct

condition on which that action or event in the matrix clause is

If accounts for almost one fifth of the total occurrences of

Condition

clause

markers

Introduction Method Results/

Discussion

Conclusion Total

If

Whether

Total

14

5

19/195

10%

13

1

14/195

7%

25

6

31/195

16%

8

2

10/195

5%

f %

60

14 7

74/195 38

31

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contingent (Hinkel, 2003). Here are examples of conditional clauses

from the data:

(9) This is a big turn from the FTA since the writer uses

another positive politeness strategy by stating the

advantages people (the Arab nation in particular) will get

if the previous suggestions are carried out

In the above example, the action/situation in the

the previous suggestions are carried out”—

which could make the situation “

in particular) will get”

explain a sample analysis in the analytical framework.

(10)

contrasts between the ideas connected. It means “against

or to be against” (PJL Text 4: 13).

The conditional clause in (10

this condition nor that condition matters; the result will be the same.

Hence, in (10), it is equivalent to saying, “If

position, it suggests contrast between the ideas connected. If it is not

in the initial position, it will suggest contrast between the ideas

connected. It does not matter where it is placed.” The conditional

clause here was used to explain a finding.

(PJL Text 5:26).if clause—“ifconstitutes the condition,the advantages people (the Arab nationtrue. The conditional clause here was used toWhether or not it is in initial position, however suggests) expresses the idea that neitherhowever is in the initial

Purpose Clause.

data, a finding which is expected since Biber et al. (1997) has already

made known its rarity both in conversational and written genres. The

adverbial markers of purpose

justify certain propositions or claims conveyed by writers, only

account for 3% (6 occurrences) of the total number of occurrences of

adverbial markers in the data. This may be due to the fact that the

meaning of purpose can also be expressed in adverb phrases with

infinitival constructions (e.g., in order + to), which are much simpler

than the clause construction.

Full adverbial clauses of purpose are rare in theso and such that, which were used to

Functions of full Adverbial Clauses in Relation to the Moves.

mentioned in the methodology, the purpose of the move analysis

undertaken here is to get a specific account of the exact location of the

adverbial clauses in the introduction and results and discussion

37

As

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section of the research articles. In this way, we can investigate how

these adverbial clauses were used in relation to the communicative

function of each move. Table 5 lists the moves which were adapted

from Swales (1990) but modified for the purpose of the present study

in the move analysis of the introduction section and summarizes how

the full adverbial clauses were employed in each move.

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Table 5

Uses of Adverbial Clauses in Each Move in the Introduction Section

As can be seen in Table 6, the adverbial clauses are distributed

unevenly in three moves: M1 establishing a research territory, M3

occupying the niche, and ‘Others’ describing the source of data. The

Adverbial

clause markers

in each

semantic class

Move 1: Establishing a

research territory Move 2:

Establishing

a niche:

indicating a

gap in

research

Move 3: Occupying the niche

‘Others’

Describin

g source

of data

Showing

the

importance

Reviewing

Previous

research

Stating

nature

of

present

study

Announcing

Principal

findings

Indicating

structure

of RP

CAUSE

Because

For

Since

As

Sub-total

0

0

3

1

4

4

2

9

1

16

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

2

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

CONCESSION

Although

Though

While

Sub-total

0

1

0

1

5

0

8

13

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

CONDITION

If

Whether

Sub-total

4

0

4

10

5

15

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

PURPOSE

Such that

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

TOTAL 9 45 0 2 0 0 2

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adverbial clauses appear to be heavily used for the purpose of M1

establishing research territory. Taking the percentages of the clauses

in the two sub-moves of M1, we get over 90% of the total adverbial

clauses that are distributed in the introduction section. Another point

of interest is that the full adverbial clauses were extensively used in

the sub-move reviewing previous research of M1.There are only two

instances in which the adverbial clauses were used to state the nature

of research and two occurrences for the description of the source of

the data for the study. Lastly, quite revealing is the fact that full

adverbial clauses did not occur at all in M2 establishing a niche and in

the two sub-moves of M3 occupying the gap.

Table 6 presents the moves in the results and discussion

section and summarizes how the clauses were used in each move.

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Table 6

Uses of Adverbial Clauses in Each Move in the Results and Discussion

Section

As shown in Table 6, two moves appear to be particularly

salient with respect to the distribution of adverbial clauses: M2

reporting results and M3 commenting on results, the latter

constituting the greatest percentage if we sum up all the sub-moves

under it. The adverbial clauses employed in M2 reporting results

constitute a little more than one fourth of the total adverbial clauses

in the results section. What is more striking is that, within the

category of M3, the adverbial clauses were heavily used in

interpreting/explaining the results of the study, most of which come

from the cause clauses (24.05%) and conditionals (16.5%). It is

Adverbial

marker

M1

Preparatory

Background

information

M2

Reporting

Results

M3

Commenting on Results

M4

Summarizing

the results

or study

M5

Evaluating

the

study

M6

Deduction

from

Research

Explain/

interpret

Compare

results to

literature

Account

for results

Evaluate

results

Cause

since 0 2 10 2 1 0 0 0 0

because 1 2 7 1 1 0

as 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0

for 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 4 19 3 2 1 0 0 0

Concession

although 0 3 3 0 1 0 0 0 0

though 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0

even

though

0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

while

1 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0

1 7 6 1 1 0 1 0 0

Condition

if 2 8 10 2 1 0 1 0 1

whether 2 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0

4 8 13 2 2 0 1 0 1

Purpose

so 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 6

20 38 6 5 1 2 0 1

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interesting to note that the adverbial clauses were hardly used in

other moves such as M1 preparing background information, M4

summarizing results, and M6 deduction from research. Adverbials

were not used in evaluating the study as a whole.

Discussion

The present study demonstrates the usefulness of genrespecific

discourse study and move analysis in identifying the

rhetorical function of each research section move. The move analysis

provided a rich linguistic context for and facilitated the location and

identification of the functions of adverbial clauses in discourse.

Furthermore, the present study highlights the importance of

adverbial clauses—that they have significant roles to play in the

construction of meaning. The analyses of the present study show how

the four semantic classes of adverbial clauses aided the writers in

conveying their messages that served different functions. Cause

clauses in the research articles investigated in the study appear to be

important in that they lend support to writers when the latter need to

justify the nature of a study, interpret data, and point out a limitation

of a study or a certain method. In the examples considered, cause

clauses, which are mostly marked by

justification for the writers for holding certain claims. Conditional

clauses help in explaining a finding and a data analysis framework.

Concessive clauses are useful when the writers need to present

balance perspectives regarding their findings. They serve as

background information for the readers so that the latter can weigh

the claims of the writers when they discuss their findings. Purpose

clauses aid in justifying claims made by the writers.

One of the salient findings is the high incidence of condition

and cause clauses in the introduction and results and discussion

sections. In the introduction section, the move analysis revealed that

they were extensively used in establishing the research territory,

especially in reviewing previous studies. The differences in the

distributional frequencies of adverbial clauses in the different

communicative moves of the results and discussion section seem to

suggest that while the writers of research articles considered in the

study did not place more importance on adverbial clauses to convey

causal, conditional, concessive, and purpose relations in the four

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since and because, provided

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other moves, they had a greater need for adverbial clauses in

explaining/interpreting and reporting their findings. Adverbial

clauses played a role in establishing claims of knowledge associated

with the results and discussion section.

Due to the restrictions imposed on the data which were drawn

from a small sample, the present study cannot make generalizations

concerning the uses of adverbial clauses in research articles.

However, it demonstrates the significance of adverbial clauses in

discourse and the usefulness of genre analysis in locating the

adverbial clauses and pointing out their uses in relation to the

different moves in the structural units. Also, the present study can

make suggestions concerning language teaching and future research.

First, why a specific linguistic variable is salient in a particular

structural unit and is not in another is not something accidental. It

tells us of its importance, and, therefore, should be given emphasis in

teaching especially in academic writing. Second, so far, most of the

linguistic variables that have received attention in research articles

are tenses, modals, lexical markers of modality, and other

metadiscoursal markers. Published articles on adverbial clauses in

academic research writing are scant. Hence, it is suggested that more

studies be undertaken such that comparisons of findings can be

made. It would also be beneficial if other genres involving different

disciplines can be examined to give new and more insights about the

uses of adverbial clauses in discourse. Lastly, since the findings of the

present study were drawn from a limited sample, it is suggested that

more inquiry be done to verify these findings using larger sample.

Computer-aided investigation (e.g. through concordance softwares)

may be a practical step since computers can handle large amounts of

data.

References

Adverbial Clauses.

http://www.tuchemnitz.de/phil/english/chairs/linguist/rea

l/ independent/eafrica/Diss_Diana/dissch2.htm#2.

Biber, D

(n.d.). Retrieved July 2003, from., Johanson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999).

Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English

Brett, P. (1994). A Genre Analysis of the Results Sections of Sociology

Articles.

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. Essex: Pearson.English for Specific Purposes, 13, 47-59.

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2009 Time Taylor International ISSN 1718-2298

Devi, P. (2002).

Assamese, Bengali, and Kannada

http://www.languageinindia.com/oct2002/basantidevil.html.

Hinkel, E. (2002).

Rhetorical Features

Hinkel, E. (2003). Adverbial markers and tone in L1 and L2 students’

writing.

Henry, A. & Roseberry R. (2001). A Narrow-angled corpus analysis of

moves and strategies of the genre: ‘Letter of Application.’

A Study of Conditional and Concessive Clauses in. Retrieved January 2004, fromSecond Language Writers’ Text: Linguistic and. Lawrence Erlbaum. Mahwah, NJ.Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1049-1068.

English for Specific Purpose, 2

Hoye, L. (1997).

Martin, P. (2003). A Genre Analysis of English and Spanish research

paper abstracts in experimental social sciences.

Specific Purposes, 22,

Ogura, K., Shirai, S., & Bond, F. (1997).

Japanese-to-English Machine Translation

http://www.ked.ntt.co.ip/icl/mtg/members/bond/pubs1997

-tmi-adverbpdf.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985).

0, 153-167.Adverbs and Modality in English. London: LongmanEnglish for25-43.English Adverb Processing in.

Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.

London.

Ruiying, Y. & Allison, D. (2003). Research Articles in Applied

Linguistics: Moving from results to conclusions.

Specific Purposes

Salager-Meyer, F. (1992). A Text-Type and Move Analysis Study of

Verb Tense and Modality Distribution in Medical English

Abstracts.

Swales, J. M. (1990).

Setting

LongmanEnglish for, 22, 365-385.English for Specific Purposes, 11, 93-113.Genre Analysis: English In Academic and Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

About the Author

Dr. Leah Espada Gustilo received her PhD in 2007. Since then she has

been on the full-time faculty of the Department of English and

Applied Linguistics at De La Salle University-Manila, Philippines,

teaching English communication, discourse analysis, qualitative

research, translation and editing, and foundations of language. Her

research interests concern contrastive rhetoric, computer-mediated

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discourse analysis, and ESL writing. She has published articles on

contrastive rhetoric and online self-presentation.

45

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Accuracy Order of Selected Grammatical Morphemes in

the Monitored Written Compositions of Filipino Adult

Language Learners

Jessie S. Barrot

De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Abstract

Studies about morpheme have excited researchers in discovering a

“built-in syllabus”. Although accuracy order on the “unmonitored

language use” has been established, some variations were obtained

depending on the task where the data was elicited (Ellis, 1994). This

article asserts that there might be an accuracy order for the

“monitored language use”. Very few have tried to identify and

establish an accuracy order for the “monitored language use”

particularly of the adult Filipino language learners. Thus, an

investigation such as this was conducted. Specifically, this paper

presents the accuracy order of selected grammatical morphemes in

the students’ narrative and expository essays and their implications

for language teaching. Data elicitation was through text

reconstruction. In this procedure, the participants watched a movie

and were asked to retell the film producing a narrative essay and to

write a film review producing an expository essay. These essays were

then analyzed with focus on specific grammatical morphemes in

obligatory context. The criterion level of “acquired” accuracy for each

grammatical morpheme is 80 percent which was based on the

definition that Brown (1973) used in L1 acquisition research (Ellis,

1994). The results reveal that the accuracy order of selected

morphemes in the monitored written compositions of Filipino adult

language learners displayed variation from the established accuracy

order in unmonitored language use (Villiers and de Villiers, 1973,

Dulay and Burt, 1973/1974, and Bailey, Madden and Krashen, 1974).

Further, this paper presents the pedagogical implications of the

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accuracy order for syllabus design and national curriculum

development.

Background of the Study

A morpheme is the smallest unit of grammar consisting either

of a word or part of a word. Morphemes are divided into two basic

categories: free and bound. Bound morphemes consist of two kinds of

affixes: derivational and inflectional morphemes. On the other hand,

free morphemes with lexical content represent the major parts of

speech, which include nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs while the

free grammatical functional morphemes include articles, prepositions,

and conjunctions (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999).

Studies about morpheme have attracted and excited the

researchers in trying to discover a “built-in syllabus” (Corder, 1967);

The concept of “built-in syllabus means that learners not only work

on the input with processes such as generalization, transfer,

simplification, and imitation, but are also disposed to develop their

internal grammar in natural, predictable sequences. Furthermore,

these same sequences have been observed even in the spontaneous

output of classroom learners who have been taught the correct target

forms, suggesting that the internal syllabus often overrides the

external syllabus which the teacher or coursebook tries to impose

(Littlewood, 1984). One of the pioneers in studying English

morphemes is H.D. Brown (1973) and Cazden (1968). They looked at

14 morphemes in the English language. Their study revealed that

children acquiring English as first language show a similar order of

acquisition for grammatical morphemes in obligatory contexts. The

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same order of acquisition was revealed in de Villiers and de Villiers’

(1973) cross-sectional study of 20 children. This order is shown in the

following table:

Order Morpheme Examples

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Present Progressive

Preposition “in”

Preposition “on”

Plural

Irregular Past Tense

Possessive

-s

Uncontractible Copula “be”

Articles “a”/”the”

Regular Past Tense

-ed

Third Person Present Tense,

regular

-s

Third Person Present Tense,

irregular e.g. has/does

Uncontractible Auxiliary “be”

Contractible Copula “be”

Contractible Auxiliary “be”

I driving

The ball is in the box.

The pen is on the

table.

balls

broke, fell, threw

daddy’s chair

This is hot.

a, the

She walked.

He works.

She does.

The horse is winning.

He’s a clown.

She’s drinking.

Source: A First Language: The Early Stages

1973; and

Harvard University Press, 1978.

by Brown, p.275, Harvard University Press,Language Acquisition by J.G. de Villiers and P.A. de Villiers, pp.86-88,

Further studies on how English morphemes are acquired were

conducted by Dulay and Burt (1973, 1974). They found out that 250

Spanish- and Chinese-speaking children, aged six to eight, learning

English in the United Stated exhibited significantly related acquisition

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order using Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) through picture-cued

description. These are as follows:

Order Morpheme

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Plural ‘-s’

Progressive ‘-ing’

Copula forms of ‘be’

Auxiliary form of ‘be’

Definite and indefinite articles ‘the’ and

‘a’

Irregular past tense

Third person ‘-s’

Possessive ‘-s’

Similarly, Bailey, Madden and Krashen (1974) conducted a

grammatical morpheme study with adult second language learners

(ESL students) at Queens College. The findings show an order for the

eight grammatical morphemes similar to that found in child second

language acquirers by Dulay and Burt. Thus, after reviewing several

English morpheme studies, Krashen (1977) hypothesized a “natural

order’ as shown in the following figure:

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According to Long and Larsen-Freeman (1991), accuracy order

and developmental sequences have been established empirically in

various second languages for different grammatical domains. One of

these studies includes the Zweitsprachenwerb Italienisher und

Spanischer Arbeiter (ZISA) project in Germany (Larsen-Freeman and

Long, 1991). This project started in the late 1970s. It was made up of a

major cross-sectional study of 45 adults and a two-year longitudinal

study of 12 adults that looked at German as a second language (GSL)

acquisition by speakers of Spanish and Italian. Word-order was the

main focus of this study. The project discovered a set of constraints

that “are claimed to control all developmental sequences in ILs, not

just word order, and to work for any SL, not just GSL” (Larsen-

Freeman and Long, 1991, p. 275), and formed the basis for the

Multidimensional Model proposed by Meisel, Clahsen, and

Pienemann (1981). This theory predicts that instruction will only

succeed in teaching a new developmental structure if the learner is

“ready” to acquire it. This notion led to the advancement of

Pienemann’s (1985)

instruction can only promote language acquisition if the

teachability hypothesis which “predicts that

-ING

PLURAL

COPULA

AUXILIARY

ARTICLE

IRREGULAR PAST

REGULAR PAST

3

POSSESSIVE

RD SINGULAR

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interlanguage is close to the point when the structure to be taught is

acquired in the natural setting.” This hypothesis was supported by

Lightbown’s (1983) study which shows that formal instruction only

temporarily succeeded in altering accuracy orders and can possibly

delay the start of the learner’s passage through the natural sequence.

Another study on the effects of instruction on accuracy orders and

developmental sequence was conducted by Perkins and Larsen-

Freeman (1975). They compared the accuracy orders of the subjects’

morphemes before and after an intensive two-month ESL instruction.

Based on the results, they interpreted that instruction does not change

the order of accuracy. Other studies produced the same findings

(Fatham, 1978; Makino, 1980; Pica, 1983).

A number of researches during the 1980s argued that grammatical

items can be sequenced into a series of stages, each more complex

than the last. However, this complexity is determined by the

demands made on short-term memory (Nunan, 1999). However, not

enough is known about the learnability or students’ readiness to

“learn” (conscious effort in learning the language) a particular aspect

of the target language which has significant implications for the

selection and sequencing of the content for ESL/EFL classes.

Although accuracy order on the “acquired language” (as defined by

Krashen) has been established, some differences in the order

happened as shown in the study conducted by Larsen-Freeman in

1975. She tested 24 adults, six speakers from four different L1

backgrounds (Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and Farsi) using BSM, a

picture-cued repetition test, a listening comprehension test, a

modified reading cloze passage, and a writing test. The results show

an order significantly similar to the “accuracy order” in the BSM,

listening, and repetition tasks. However, a different order was

obtained from the reading and writing tasks. Plural

s and thirdperson

s

of input might be one of the factors for these variations. However, it is

contradicted by the fact that articles are the most frequent item in the

input but posted a lower score in the accuracy order (Long and

Larsen-Freeman, 1991). Further, Ellis (1994) on his article entitled

Variability and the Natural Order Hypothesis postulated that two

different accuracy orders may arise depending on the performance

where the data was elicited. The first is the order taken to be

“natural” which is associated with unmonitored language use. The

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rose in the accuracy rank. She hypothesized that frequency

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second is the order for monitored language use also known as the

“learned competence.”

With this, the researcher has hypothesized that there might be an

accuracy order for the “monitored language use” which is different

from that of the “acquired or unmonitored language use”. Very few

have tried to identify and establish an accuracy order for the

“monitored language use” particularly of the Filipino language

learners. Thus, this gap has instigated the researcher to conduct an

investigation on the accuracy order of selected grammatical

morphemes in a monitored language use specifically in the written

compositions of Filipino adult learners. This study would partly

answer which grammatical items have higher “learnability” and thus

higher teachability. The results of this study would have an enormous

impact on the sequencing of grammatical structures to be taught.

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to determine the accuracy order of selected

grammatical morphemes in the written compositions of Filipino adult

learners and its implications for the teaching of grammar.

Specifically, this study sought to answer the following

questions:

1. What is the accuracy level of selected grammatical items in

the students’ narrative and expository essays?

2. What is the accuracy order of selected grammatical items in

the students’ narrative and expository essays?

3. What are the implications of the accuracy order for the

teaching of grammar?

Method

The participants of the study included twenty-five (25) Level 3

Nursing students at De La Salle Health Sciences Institute (DLSHSI).

Level 3 students were selected because this group does not have

English classes anymore that might affect their writing performance.

The researcher used a purposive sampling. The subjects were selected

through the following criteria: (1) are adult Filipinos, (2) took their

elementary and high school education in the Philippines, and (3)

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underwent at least two years of formal college English education

including grammar and writing.

The researcher used a descriptive type of research. Descriptive

research involves the description of a given state of affairs as fully

and as carefully as possible. It is an attempt to describe existing

conditions without analyzing relationships among variables (Fraenkel

& Wallen, 2000). Thus, manipulation, influence, and control of

variables will not be attempted (Wiseman, 1999).

Data Collection

This study involves performance analysis (PA). Data elicitation

will be done through text reconstruction also known as story retelling

(Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991). Text reconstruction was chosen

because it is the most successful in drawing the learners’ attention to

a range of grammatical items (Storch, 2001). In this data elicitation

procedure, the participants watched a movie and they were asked to

retell or reconstruct the story in writing producing a narrative essay

and a film review producing expository essay. After viewing the film,

they were given ample time to write and edit their narrative and the

expository essays at home to be submitted the next session which is

after one week.

The movie used for viewing was the Chinese film “The Road

Home.” It was selected because of the following reasons: (1) the story

represents Asian culture which the participants can better relate; (2)

the dialogue is in Chinese to avoid direct translation which encourage

a word-for-word rendition that yield a higher proportion of errors

which can be traced back to the influence of L1 (Burmeister and Ufert,

1980). However, an English subtitle is provided for better

comprehension; (3) the content and theme of the story were what the

participants were familiar with, so that the participants would have

fewer barriers in retelling the story.

Specifically, this study focused on the following grammatical

morphemes in obligatory context. An obligatory context is where a

morpheme is needed in order for the utterance to be grammatical. For

example the utterance, “More shoes are in the closet” requires a

plural morpheme on the word ‘shoe’ otherwise the utterance would

be ungrammatical (Cloutier, 2002):

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1. Subject-Verb Agreement

a. Copula

be

b. Auxiliary verbs

c. Third person singular present

2. Past Tense

a. Simple Past Regular

b. Simple Past Irregular

3. Articles (a, an, the)

4. Pronoun Reference

a. Subjective

b. Objective

c. Possessive

d. Relative

5. Past Participles

The selected grammatical items were selected based on their

frequency in the selected written compositions. The criterion level of

acquired accuracy for each grammatical morpheme is 80 percent

which was based on the definition that Brown (1973) used in L1

acquisition research (Ellis, 1994).

Results and Discussion

Problem No. 1. What is the accuracy level of selected grammatical

items in the students’ narrative and expository essays?

The following table shows the accuracy level of selected

grammatical items in the students’ narrative and expository essays.

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Table 1

Accuracy Level of Selected Grammatical Items

Grammatical Morphemes Correct

Usage

Incorrect

Usage

Subject-Verb Agreement

Copula

Auxiliary verbs 95.57 4.43

Third person singular present 76.66 23.34

Past Tense

Simple Past Regular 76.08 23.92

Simple Past Irregular 71.17 28.83

Articles

A/An 88.69 11.31

The 97.90 2.10

Pronoun Reference

Subjective 98.04 1.96

Objective 96.23 3.77

Possessive 98.63 1.37

Relative 91.11 8.89

Past Participles 93.26 6.74

Based on Brown’s (1973) criterion level, Table 1 shows that the

Level 3 Nursing students of DLSHSI attained accuracy on the

following grammatical items: Copula

Auxiliary Verbs with 95.57 percent accuracy, Articles

percent accuracy, Article

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be 96.61 3.39be with 96.61 percent accuracy,An/A with 88.69The with 97.90 percent accuracy, Subjective

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Pronoun with 98.04 percent accuracy order, Objective Pronoun with

96.23 percent accuracy, Possessive Pronoun with 98.63 percent

accuracy, Possessive Pronoun with 91.11 percent accuracy, and Past

Participles with 93.26 percent accuracy.

However, the grammatical items that did not reach the

accuracy level were the following: Third Person –s with 76.66 percent

accuracy, Simple Regular Past with 76.08 percent accuracy, and

Simple Irregular Past with 71.17 percent accuracy. This means that

the Level 3 Nursing students of DLSHSI committed errors most

frequently in Simple Irregular Past with 28.83 percent inaccuracy

followed by Simple Regular Past with 23.92 percent inaccuracy and

Third Person –s with 23.34 percent inaccuracy.

It was observed that the students frequently committed errors

in the use of

which can be attributed to L1 interference as shown in the following

examples:

be verbs and modal auxiliaries in a form of conditionals



respectful.

They have a child named Yusheng who is very obedient and



When the men in the village is building the school.



back to the remote village by foot.

His mother is asking him about the tradition of carrying the coffin



There is a problem about the funeral of his father.



years old.

There is a girl who is the most beautiful in her town, she is only 18



the dishes.

Changyu don’t really remember but out of respect he says that he like



that she can catch a glimpse of the teacher.

She even use the old well near the school in fetching water hoping



her dish.

She always prepares foods for the worker but hoping he will choose



A sign of promise that he will return.



She always hoped that her dish will be picked by Changyu.



back, Di waited.

Changyu was gone for a long and when it was rumored that he’ll be

Errors in the use of regular and irregular main verbs were also

recorded. However, errors were more frequent in regular verbs. Some

of these are as follows:

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Regular Verbs



He rush to go back to his hometown.



Di passes everyday at the school just to hear Changyu’s voice.



She always prepares food.



Di expresses her feelings to Changyu.



dead father.

He return to their house just to help his mother about burying his

Irregular Verbs



father was the teacher for 40 long years.

His mother spend the day sitting in front of the school where his



He saw her mother Zhao Di at the school where her husband teaches.



last night.

She immediately goes to schoolhouse for she knew that he visited her



Their love leads them to marriage.



Di feels love at first sight.

In some instances, overuse of past tense was observed

particularly when attached to infinitive

shown in the following examples:

to and auxiliary verb did as



She just want to had a glimpse to the young teacher.



But he didn’t came.



The hired men did not accepted the money.



Di learned about it and tried to ran.

In the use of third person

affect the production of correct subject-verb agreement. That is, the

farther the subject from the verb, the higher the tendency to commit

errors in subject-verb agreement. This phenomenon frequently

appears in the relative-clause antecedents and adverbial phrase as

shown in the following examples.

–s, it shows that proximity does



She is a kind of girl who never give up.



She still continue what she is doing.



The movie proves me that first impression really last.

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

side.

Because it not only show the romantic side, it shows an educational

In some instances, overuse of morpheme ‘s was observed as

shown in the following examples:



film.

I recommend all those people who loves movies movies to watch the



There are some points that catches my attention.



simplicity of the movie.

Simple gestures, smiles, and actions greatly contributes to the



and dedication to serve others.

It does not only focuses on romantic love but also the parental love



Women this time really sacrifices everything for love and family.



There were more houses that presents high population.

The accuracy in the use of

agreement was also affected by the proximity of the subject from the

verb, when a sentence has compound subjects, and when the subject

being referred to by the verb is cataphorically present, that is, the

subject being referred to is written after the verb.

be verbs in relation to subject-verb



The men in the village is building the school.



had to go back to the city.

This courtship and love between them was then tested when Changyu



much old-Chinese community.

The views or scenes and places where they shot the film was very



to the things, decisions, and choices of the characters in the movie.

The best part of the movie is the symbolisms used to give importance



traditions showed in the scenes.

I also like about is the different Chinese cultures, practices and

Problem No. 2. What is the accuracy order of selected grammatical

items in the students’ narrative and expository essays?

The following table shows the accuracy order of selected

grammatical morphemes in the written compositions of Level 3

Nursing students of DLSHSI.

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Table 2

Accuracy Order of Selected Grammatical Morphemes

Rank Grammatical Morpheme Accuracy

Level

1 Possessive 98.63

2 Subjective 98.04

3 The 97.90

4 Copula

5 Objective 96.23

6 Auxiliary verbs 95.57

7 Past Participles 93.26

8 Relative 91.11

9 A/An 88.69

10 Third person singular present 76.66

11 Simple Past Regular 76.08

12 Simple Past Irregular 71.17

Table 2 shows that the possessive pronouns are on the top of

accuracy order with 98.63 percent accuracy. It is followed by

subjective pronouns with 98.04 percent accuracy, article

percent accuracy, Copula

accuracy, objective pronoun with 96.23 percent accuracy, auxiliary

verbs (S-V agreement) with 95.57 percent accuracy, past participles

with 93.26 percent accuracy, relative pronouns with 91.11 percent

accuracy, articles

singular present with 76.66 percent accuracy, simple past regular with

76.08 percent accuracy, and simple past irregular with 71.17 percent

accuracy.

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be 96.61the with 97.90be (S-V agreement) with 96.61 percentA/An with 88.69 percent accuracy, third person

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By comparing the accuracy order of selected grammatical

morphemes in a monitored language use specifically in the written

compositions of Filipino adult learners, it shows that the monitored

and unmonitored language post variations in their accuracy order.

However, these variations are only minimal. Further, the findings of

this study and of Villiers and de Villiers’ (1973), Dulay and Burt (1973,

1974), and Bailey, Madden and Krashen (1974) show that the Third

Person –s, Simple Regular Past, and Simple Irregular Past are in the

lower rank of the accuracy order, whether monitored or

unmonitored.

Problem No. 3. What are the implications of the accuracy order for

the teaching of grammar?

Based on the findings of this study, the following implications

for the teaching of grammar were drawn:

1. The findings of this study can provide insights in revising

the syllabus to be implemented in a grammar-based class.

By arranging the contents of the syllabus following the

accuracy order generated from this study, learning could

better be facilitated.

2. Teachers of intermediate and advanced language learners

may exclude those grammatical items that obtain high

accuracy level. Hence, they may start from those

grammatical items that are near the desired accuracy level.

3. Based on the error analysis made in this study, the teachers

can focus on structures where grammatical errors are

frequently committed such as in the case of past tense and

third person –

instructional materials focusing on such structures and

spending more time on writing tasks.

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s. This could be achieved by developing

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Conclusions

Based on the finding of the study, the following conclusions

were drawn:

1. The Level 3 nursing students attained accuracy level on

pronoun usage, articles, past participle, and subject-verb

agreement excluding the third person

low accuracy on the use of third person

tense whether regular or irregular.

2. The accuracy order obtained from this study displayed

minimal variations compared to the established accuracy

order on unmonitored language use.

3. The results of this study have great implications for the

teaching and learning of grammar.

–s and have posted–s and simple past

Recommendations

Based on the findings of the study and the conclusions drawn,

the following recommendations are offered:

1. Future researchers may conduct similar studies using the

same or different writing genres, and different contexts and

modalities to falsify the results of this study.

2. Future researchers may conduct a follow-up study on the

same subjects to ensure that these subjects had acquired a

particular structure.

3. A syllabus following the accuracy order stated in this study

may be developed and experimented if learners have longterm

retention on the grammatical items taught to them.

4. Further studies should be conducted using wider scope in

terms of covered grammatical items, student’s educational

institution both public and private, student age group,

proficiency level, and geographical locations. This would

be helpful in formulating generalizations useful for

national curriculum development.

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References

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Appendices

Appendix A

Detailed Table on the Student’s Level of Correct Usage on Selected

Grammatical Items

No. Subject-Verb

Agreement Past Tense Articles Pronoun

Past Participle

Copula

be

Auxiliary Verbs

3

Simple Regular

Simple Irregular

An/A

The

Subjective

Objective

Possessive

Relative

rd person -s

1 100.00 50.00 63.16 68.00 71.43 76.19 97.83 97.50 90.48 100.00 100.00 100.00

2 97.96 84.62 40.63 38.46 58.33 58.33 97.78 100.00 96.67 91.67 100.00 83.33

3 96.30 100.00 55.56 75.00 76.67 66.67 98.21 100.00 97.67 94.12 81.82 81.25

4 92.86 100.00 80.00 80.00 69.57 73.33 98.39 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

5 98.15 100.00 57.14 100.00 91.67 82.61 96.91 98.08 90.91 100.00 100.00 100.00

6 89.19 100.00 48.00 68.42 61.90 94.44 98.15 100.00 95.45 100.00 80.00 100.00

7 93.94 100.00 62.50 76.47 60.00 90.00 98.53 100.00 88.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

8 100.00 90.91 88.24 66.67 63.33 94.44 96.30 100.00 93.33 100.00 87.50 100.00

9 100.00 100.00 95.45 88.89 90.63 94.74 97.00 100.00 96.15 100.00 92.86 100.00

10 97.14 100.00 100.00 100.00 87.10 96.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

11 100.00 100.00 25.00 100.00 96.77 89.47 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

12 94.59 100.00 82.61 91.67 72.22 93.10 94.57 98.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 92.31

13 90.00 100.00 100.00 88.89 86.96 100.00 100.00 94.74 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

14 100.00 88.89 100.00 90.00 88.46 89.29 100.00 96.00 100.00 80.00 92.31 100.00

15 94.74 100.00 70.59 28.57 11.11 91.30 95.92 97.06 94.44 100.00 66.67 85.71

16 100.00 100.00 85.00 90.00 69.77 70.00 97.53 100.00 97.44 100.00 83.33 100.00

17 100.00 100.00 66.67 66.67 80.00 100.00 96.55 97.73 95.83 100.00 100.00 100.00

18 100.00 100.00 92.59 66.67 33.33 90.00 98.21 97.50 100.00 100.00 75.00 100.00

19 94.12 100.00 100.00 83.33 75.56 86.67 93.94 100.00 96.00 100.00 66.67 100.00

20 95.24 100.00 100.00 80.00 80.00 100.00 98.11 84.85 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

21 93.55 92.86 80.00 88.24 88.89 94.44 100.00 97.50 90.32 100.00 100.00 93.33

22 93.55 96.15 91.67 83.33 57.14 92.00 98.73 93.55 96.67 100.00 100.00 95.45

23 93.88 100.00 86.67 72.73 90.32 100.00 100.00 98.39 95.24 100.00 77.78 100.00

24 100.00 100.00 100.00 86.36 77.55 94.29 96.39 100.00 96.67 100.00 93.75 100.00

25 100.00 85.71 45.00 23.53 40.63 100.00 98.44 100.00 94.44 100.00 80.00 0.00

AVE 96.61 95.57 76.66 76.08 71.17 88.69 97.90 98.04 96.23 98.63 91.11 93.26

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Appendix B

Detailed Table on the Student’s Level of Incorrect Usage on Selected

Grammatical Items

No. Subject-Verb

Agreement Past Tense Articles Pronoun

Past Participle

Copula

be

Auxiliary Verbs

3

Simple Regular

Simple Irregular

An/A

The

Subjective

Objective

Possessive

Relative

rd person -s

1 0.00 50.00 36.84 32.00 28.57 23.81 2.17 2.50 9.52 0.00 0.00 0.00

2 2.04 15.38 59.38 61.54 41.67 41.67 2.22 0.00 3.33 8.33 0.00 16.67

3 3.70 0.00 44.44 25.00 23.33 33.33 1.79 0.00 2.33 5.88 18.18 18.75

4 7.14 0.00 20.00 20.00 30.43 26.67 1.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

5 1.85 0.00 42.86 0.00 8.33 17.39 3.09 1.92 9.09 0.00 0.00 0.00

6 10.81 0.00 52.00 31.58 38.10 5.56 1.85 0.00 4.55 0.00 20.00 0.00

7 6.06 0.00 37.50 23.53 40.00 10.00 1.47 0.00 12.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

8 0.00 9.09 11.76 33.33 36.67 5.56 3.70 0.00 6.67 0.00 12.50 0.00

9 0.00 0.00 4.55 11.11 9.38 5.26 3.00 0.00 3.85 0.00 7.14 0.00

10 2.86 0.00 0.00 0.00 12.90 4.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

11 0.00 0.00 75.00 0.00 3.23 10.53 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

12 5.41 0.00 17.39 8.33 27.78 6.90 5.43 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.69

13 10.00 0.00 0.00 11.11 13.04 0.00 0.00 5.26 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

14 0.00 11.11 0.00 10.00 11.54 10.71 0.00 4.00 0.00 20.00 7.69 0.00

15 5.26 0.00 29.41 71.43 88.89 8.70 4.08 2.94 5.56 0.00 33.33 14.29

16 0.00 0.00 15.00 10.00 30.23 30.00 2.47 0.00 2.56 0.00 16.67 0.00

17 0.00 0.00 33.33 33.33 20.00 0.00 3.45 2.27 4.17 0.00 0.00 0.00

18 0.00 0.00 7.41 33.33 66.67 10.00 1.79 2.50 0.00 0.00 25.00 0.00

19 5.88 0.00 0.00 16.67 24.44 13.33 6.06 0.00 4.00 0.00 33.33 0.00

20 4.76 0.00 0.00 20.00 20.00 0.00 1.89 15.15 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

21 6.45 7.14 20.00 11.76 11.11 5.56 0.00 2.50 9.68 0.00 0.00 6.67

22 6.45 3.85 8.33 16.67 42.86 8.00 1.27 6.45 3.33 0.00 0.00 4.55

23 6.12 0.00 13.33 27.27 9.68 0.00 0.00 1.61 4.76 0.00 22.22 0.00

24 0.00 0.00 0.00 13.64 22.45 5.71 3.61 0.00 3.33 0.00 6.25 0.00

25 0.00 14.29 55.00 76.47 59.38 0.00 1.56 0.00 5.56 0.00 20.00 100.00

AVE 3.39 4.43 23.34 23.92 28.83 11.31 2.10 1.96 3.77 1.37 8.89 6.74

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About the Author

Jessie S. Barrot is a faculty of De La Salle University – Manila,

Philippines. He obtained his MA in Teaching English from De La

Salle University – Dasmariñas and is taking up Ph.D. in Applied

Linguistics at Philippine Normal University. Currently, he works as

the Chief Editor at Rex Publishing. His research interests include

language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and

instructional materials development.

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The Language Attitudes of Students of English Literature

and D3 English at Maranatha Christian University toward

American English, British English and Englishes in

Southeast Asia, and their various contexts of use in

Indonesia

Fenty L. Siregar

Maranatha Christian University

Abstract

It is known that a wide array of Englishes are spoken and used

worldwide; therefore, knowing and using only American English or

British English will not always be effective in many international

contexts. The present study investigates Indonesian students’

attitudes toward American English, British English and Englishes in

Southeast Asia (Philippine English, Singaporean English, and

Malaysian English), and their various contexts of use in Indonesia.

The results of some previous studies (Giles, 1970; Ryan et al. 1984,

Garrett, et al. 2003, Hiraga, 2005) show that there are more positive

attitudes toward types of English which have a more prestigious

status. The participants of the study are 108 students of English

Literature and D3 English at Maranatha Christian University in

Indonesia. The study employed a semi structured interview and

questionnaires. The questionnaires were written in English and were

adopted from Lasagabaster’s (2004) questionnaire.

Key words: language, attitude, English

Introduction

The increase in the use of English in Asia is awe-inspiring

(Kachru, 1997) and currently the number of Asian population who

uses English has reached 350 million people. Since English is

currently employed by numerous countries as their official language,

it has resulted in more numbers of non-native speakers of English

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than the number of native speakers of English and several varieties of

English in Asia such as in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

This phenomenon suggests that English foreign learners in Southeast

Asia have to be familiar with the non-native varieties of English

because it is likely that they have more chances to engage in English

communication with non-native speakers of English than with native

speakers. Moreover, all the new Englishes have their own contexts of

function and usage, and they also, in their turn, might affect the

attitude of foreign language learners of English toward the native

varieties of English, such as British and American English. Therefore,

conducting some research on foreign language learners’ attitudes

toward different varieties of English will certainly help researchers

and English language teachers understand how different language

groups’ opinions and their usage of a certain language are.

This paper aims at knowing Indonesian students’ language

attitude toward British English (BE), American English (AE),

Malaysian English (ME), Singaporean English (SE) and Philippine

English (PE), and their various contexts of use in Indonesia. In order

to be able to gain information about the language attitudes, I

conducted a language attitude survey among Maranatha Christian

University students. Moreover, the survey was only conducted

among students of Faculty of Letters majoring in English literature

and D3 English (three-year diploma in English) who are taught in AE

and BE and have never attended or had a class regarding the

Southeast Asia Englishes. With this background in mind and

limitation of participants of the survey, I had two hypotheses to

assess:

1. The students will show more positive attitudes toward

British English and American English than toward

Southeast Asia Englishes.

2. There will be a relationship between the attitudes toward

British English and American English, and Southeast Asia

Englishes.

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Literature Review

Englishes in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines

The status of English in Southeast Asia can be classified into

two groups: as a second language and as a foreign language. The

former consists of countries that were once colonies or protectorates

of an English-speaking power (Britain in the case of Malaysia, and

Singapore; the US in the case of the Philippines); and the latter

contain some countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and

Vietnam (McArthur, 1998). Despite its status type, according to

McArthur (1998), English plays very important roles as an Asian and

international lingua franca, the means of communication in tourism, a

reading language for technical subjects, and a token of modernity. In

addition, in societies such as Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines,

which were earlier the colonies of English-speaking powers, English

has developed into new varieties as it blends with the local

languages.

The following paragraphs present the Englishes in Singapore,

Malaysia, and the Philippines, and in Indonesia respectively.

In Singapore the first languages of most Singaporeans are

Mandarin, Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Teochew, and

Cantonese, Malay, and Tamil. Besides these languages, English also

plays a major role in both the public and private life of Singaporeans

in Singapore (Gupta, 2001). In its practice, some elements of the first

languages of Singaporeans such as Chinese, Malay and Tamil, have

influenced the form of “English” into a new variety which is currently

employed as the inter-ethnic lingua franca among the ethnic groups

in Singapore. It is known as Singapore Colloquial English (Rubdy,

2001) or Singlish. This variety of English is spoken by a large number

of Singaporeans. It is used when one is speaking with intimate

persons; while, when talking to superiors and most foreigners, he or

she uses SSE (Standard Singapore English) (Harada, 2009). Moreover,

the image of Singlish, especially in public seems to have suffered in

the last decade due to the pressure applied by the government

(Cavallaro and Chin, 2009). Thus, in spite of its function as a link

language between the three cultural groups living there, Singapore

government has considered Singlish a "bad English" and has

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promoted a "Speak Good English movement" since 1999 (Yoneoka,

2001). The Singaporean government sees the phenomenon of the use

of Singlish among her people as a serious problem to deal with. In

2000 the Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong states his

government’s view on SSE and Singlish. He says that it is important

to gain the ability to speak good English for doing business and

communicating with the world especially for a hub city and an open

economy like theirs (Harada, 2009). Moreover, it will be

disadvantageous if they keep speaking Singlish, since speaking poor

English will make Singaporean people looked less intelligent and less

competent (Harada, 2009).

Similar to Singapore, the Philippines has used English as its

second language for a long time. Besides, it has preserved its status as

one of the two official languages of the Philippines and been widely

spoken among the population. According to Gonzales (1998) 74% of

the Filipinos are reported to able to understand spoken English.

However, there are more people who use English as a second

language than those who speak it as a first language (“Philippine

English”, 2009). Despite the condition, English is still taught in

schools as one of the two official languages of the country, together

with Filipino, an official and liberalized form of Tagalog. Not only is

English used for education but it is also employed in, “religious

affairs, print and broadcast media, and business” (“Philippine

English”, 2009). English is highly believed to be able to increase the

status of one who speaks it including respectability and marketability

(Espinosa, 1997). Similar to what occurs in Singapore, there is also

Philippine English or Taglish in the Philippines. This variety of

English is employed as the medium of communication of the media

and the vast majority of educated Filipinos (“Philippine English”,

2009). As is the case for Singlish in Singapore, some educated

Filipinos consider Taglish as an inferior form of English while others

recommend its promotion, at least as a source of social cohesion

(Lambert, 2005)

.

In Malaysia, English is used to access the vast amount of

information currently available in English. Malaysian government

views English,” as vital for the nation’s growth. Although it may not

be the medium of instruction in public universities, accessing key

information in a great variety of fields is often dependent on having

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reading ability in English” (Othmana, 2005). Moreover, the Malaysian

Prime Minister states that, “skill in English is one of the prerequisites

for achieving Vision 2020 which he authored- a vision which contains

thoughts on the future course of our nation and how we should go

about attaining our objective of developing Malaysia into an

industrialised country” (David, 2000, p.41). In other words, the

Malaysian government considers English as an important means for

gaining information and industrialization and also for existing in

international world. In addition, the Malaysian national education

policy has stated that the main medium of instruction of education is

Malay with English as a compulsory taught second language. It can

also be noticed that English plays a role as a medium of

communication among English educated people from various ethnic

groups in Malaysia (David and Kuang, 1999). The Malaysians are

found to code switch from Malay or some other local languages to

English (David, 2000). Furthermore, Malaysian writers such as Lloyd

Fernando, Edward Dorrall, K.S. Maniam, Shirley Lim and Adibah

Amin who are Malaysian creative writers in English have emerged

Malaysian English as a characteristic ingredient in their writings

(Baskaran, 2002).

The English language situation in Indonesia cannot be

compared with the status of English in Indonesian’s neighbours such

as Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines (Lauder, 2008). Indonesia

has not been a colony of either the U.K. or the U.S.A. in the way these

countries have; therefore, there is no foundation for the use of English

in official or public life (Dardjowidjojo, 2003). Athough English might

have no wide use in Indonesian society such as used as a medium of

communication in official domains like government and the law

courts is not accorded any special status in the country’s language

legislation, it is still given a special status in education field

(Simatupang, 1999). Moreover, English is used as medium of

instruction in some schools and universities (“Languages”, 2006) and

it is the only compulsory foreign language in public schools (Kweldju,

2004). Furthermore, it is noticeable that nowadays English

competence is needed to enter a good school, to get a better job, or to

be promoted to a higher position in the workplace although English is

rarely used in the daily life of Indonesians. However, English is also

widely used in business filed in Indonesia since there are currently a

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lot of Indonesians who have an export and import business with

foreigners from Asian continent such as China, Japan, Korea,

Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Therefore, there is a big possibility

that when Indonesian bankers sit down to discuss business with their

Filipino or Thai counterparts, they will use English to communicate

(Kirkpatrick, 2006). This situation has indirectly increased the

demand of the use of English in schools. On top of that, knowledge of

English has become a symbol of modern identity and the mark of an

educated person in Indonesia (Renandya, 1999).

Regarding the Englishes taught and learned in Indonesia, the

Englishes are British or American English, both “inner circle”

varieties. There is also a presence of Australian English; however,

compared to American and British English, Australian

English has less prestige except perhaps with students

returning from study there (Lauder, 2008). Regarding the possibility

of teaching other varieties of English such as Singaporean or

Malaysian English, there has been relatively little discussion among

local scholars about them. Besides, “unlike Malaysia, Singapore, and

the Philippines, a new variety of English has not been promoted or

tolerated in Indonesia” (Dardjowidjojo, 2000, p. 27). However, since

there are some countries of the “outer circles” such as Malaysia,

Singapore and the Philippines which are emerging as major

competitors in providing education in English for international

students (Graddol, 1997), there are lots of international and billingual

schools and universities in Indonesia which have extensively

recruited foreign teachers from those countries to be the teachers of

English or other subjects. In addition, regarding the new variety of

English in Indonesia, Kirkpatrick (2006) states that an Indonesian

variety of English is not similar to what has happened in Outer Circle

countries such as Nigeria, India or Singapore since the type of

interlanguage errors that are found among the Indonesian speakers of

English are not consistent enough to be regarded as a new variety.

Simatupang states that the English use variation among Indonesian

speakers of English takes place since there is interference of many

different mother tongues or indigenous regional languages such as

Javanese, Batak, or Balinese (1999).

In conclusion, the spread of English in Singapore, Malaysia,

the Philippines, and Indonesia are needed in their efforts to be strong

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countries in their education, economics and technology fields. McKay

(2002) states that the wide use of English in various political and

intellectual areas makes it crucial for any country to have an access to

English and use their English competence to have an access to the

global community for economic development. In addition, the real

example of how English has played a great role as a lingua franca in

these countries and some other countries in Southeast Asia is its use

as the only working language of ASEAN since its foundation

(Krasnick, 1995, Okudaira, 1999).

Language attitudes and previous language attitude studies

According to Starks and Paltridge (1996), learning a language

is closely related to the attitudes toward the languages. Attitude

refers to “a hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and

persistence of human behaviour” (Baker, 1992, p.10). In other words,

it can represent internal thoughts, feelings and tendencies in

behaviour across a variety of contexts. Although an attitude is

individual, it has origins in collective behaviour. Moreover, some

characteristics of attitude are: it is learnt, it is not inherited, it is also

likely to be relatively stable, and it has a tendency to persist. Attitudes

also play a vital role in language growth or decay, restoration or

destruction. In other words, the status and importance of a language

in society and within an individual can be adopted and learnt (Baker,

1988, p. 112- 115). Crystal (1992) states that, language attitudes are the

feelings people have about their own language or the languages of

others. Moreover, there are five implications of language attitudes,

including: 1. it usually entails attitude to the speakers of the particular

language or dialect. 2. it influences sound change, 3. it may influence

how teachers deal with pupils, 4. it may affect second language

learning, 5. it may affect whether or not varieties are mutually

intelligible” (“language attitudes”, 2007)

attitudes toward a language are often the reflection of attitudes

toward members of various ethnic groups and people’s reactions to

language varieties reveal much of their perception of the speakers of

these varieties (Edwards, 1982). “Speakers of standard varieties are

often valued while speakers of non-standard varieties are often

disparaged because of their speech” (Renoud, 2007). Language

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. Fasold (1984) argues that

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attitudes are rarely static and it may change due to personal

introspection experience to or exposure to social influence to benefit

humanity (Giles and Powesland, 1975; Ryan and Giles, 1982 ;

Trudgill, 1983) .

Furthermore, studies have shown (see, for example, Gardner,

1985) that when studying language attitudes, the concept of motives

is important. In the language learning context, motivation (to learn

the language) refers to the combination of effort plus the desire to

achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes

toward learning the language (Gardner, 1985). According to Gardner

(1985) there are two basic motives called instrumental and integrative

motives. If a foreign or second language learner considers L2

acquisition as instrumental, it means that he or she learns a language

as a “passport to prestige and success”. On the other hand, if the

learner learns a foreign language and the culture of the speakers of

that language in order to, perhaps, be able to become a member of the

group, the motivation is called integrative. In addition, it is argued

that integrative motivation might be more important in a formal

learning environment than instrumental motivation (Gardner and

Lambert, 1972, cited in Ngeow, 1998, p 1). However, there is still a

tendency that instrumental reasons are more frequently chosen by

foreign and second language learner; than integrative reasons for

studying a particular language variety.

Moreover, since “The study of attitudes is an essential part of a

world Englishes approach to language use” (Friedrich, 2000, p. 216), it

is not surprising that currently there have been a number of research

on language attitudes toward English or varieties of Englishes. The

following paragraphs present some previous research on language

attitudes toward English or Englishes in Asia.

Heaney’s (2005) study on English among the students in

Malang, a city in East Java, Indonesia showed that students in Malang

had positive attitudes toward English and English had a prestigious

status among the youths. English was employed as the medium of

communication between the students in informal situation and

sometimes it was combined with Indonesian language.

Kim (2007) investigated 43 Korean adults’ attitudes toward

native and non-native varieties of English in relation to the

perspective of EIL (English as an international language). The three

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main findings of this study were first, the participants preferred

American English as a model for guidance and did not discriminate

native and non-native varieties of English, the second one was they

regarded English as an international language to communicate not

only with native speakers but also with non-native speakers of

English, and showed positive attitudes to non-native varieties of

English, and the third was they were not well aware of varieties of

English.

Shim’s (2002) study in 1995 among Korean university students’

showed that the participants had a preference for American English.

The survey showed that the participants wanted to learn American

English and be identified as a female American’s accent. Moreover,

some students stated that there was no need to understand Indian,

Singaporean, or Filipino English and they could not distinguish these

varieties.

Tan (1994) studied the use of English in selected domains

among undergraduates at a local university in Malaysia. The study

found that in the education domain, students used less English most

of the time and only use it for reading purposes. Moreover, English

was employed more in entertainment and mass media. Her study

indicated that young Malaysian students perceived English to be

important for the fulfilment of their personal and academic needs. In

other words, English played an important role for the ones who were

about to embark upon careers or to engage in academic pursuits.

Siregar (2009) studied the study of the features of

communicative competence which were believed to be important by

the selected foreign graduate students studying at DLSU. The

findings suggested that all features of communicative competence

were crucial including the intercultural competence. Besides, the

participants were found to have an interest in knowing the varieties

of English and wanted to know other varieties of English beside the

American and British English for intercultural communication

.

Siregar (2009) investigated 60 students of English Literature

and D3 English at Maranatha Christian University regarding their

attitudes toward the English language in Indonesia and toward the

language education policy in Indonesia. The findings showed that

generally the students had a positive attitude toward English and

toward language education policy in Indonesia. Furthermore, the

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students were found to have more positive attitudes both toward

English as a language and English as medium of instruction than

toward other Indonesian and local languages as languages and as the

media of instruction.

Nair-Venugopal (2000) investigated Malays, ethnic Chinese,

and Indians in two Malaysian business organizations. The

participants were found to favour localized variety of English more

than the Standard English even though the Standard English is

expected as the normative code in Malaysian business settings. Thus,

the study implied that some World English users in Malaysia prefer

the more practical, localized variety of English to the impractical

Standard English in every day life.

Friedrich (2003) investigated MBA students’ attitudes toward

English in Argentina. His findings showed that most of the

participants were concerned with the relationship between English

and employment possibilities. Besides, among the varieties of

English, they consider American English more useful than other

varieties.

Method

Method and Instrument

This study employed a semi-structure interview and a direct

measurement technique. The questionnaire used was adopted from

David Lasagabaster’s research titled

Basque Autonomous Community

translated into Indonesian because all participants are majoring in

English. The first part of the questionnaire asked the students

regarding their personal data and the second part of the questionnaire

asked the students about their attitudes toward use of BE, AE, ME, SE

and PH.

Moreover, the scores were ranged from 1 to 5; the “strongly

agree” statement would be recorded 5; “agree” statement would be

recorded 4; “neither agree nor disagree” statement would be recorded

3; “disagree statement” would be recorded 2; and “strongly disagree”

statement would be recorded 1; except for questions number 4 and 5

of each language (Indonesian, local language, and English) the

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Attitude toward English in thein 2004. The questionnaire was not

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answers were recorded reversely: 1=5, 2=4, 3=3, 4=2, and 5=1. Those

questions were recorded differently since the expected positive

attitudes were just the opposite of the answers to the rest of the

statements.

Participants

Maranatha Christian University is a private university in

Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. It has more than 7300 students, 500 of

whom are majoring in English Literature and English (a D3 English

program or a three-year diploma of English).

A total of 108 students, 56 undergraduates and 52 D3 English

program students in the age range of 18 to 25 years old participated in

the survey. There were 31 males and 77 females and only 12 of them

were interviewed.

Procedures

The questionnaires were distributed to six different classes;

namely

Gist Listening B

and

minutes for each participant to answer the questionnaire. The

statistical analysis of the questionnaires was conducted using SPSS.

English for Tourism, Selective and Gist Listening A, Selective and, Classical Poetry, Learning Strategies and Learning Styles,Vocabulary for Social Interaction. It took approximately about 25

Findings and Discussion

Students’ attitudes toward American English, British English,

Malaysian English, Singapore English, and Philippine English

Figure 1 shows the participants’ attitude toward the Englishes

(British English (BE), American English (AE), Malaysian English

(ME), Singapore English (SE), and Philippine English). It can be seen

that only AE and BE that gain mean scores above 3.50. It is not

surprising since they are the most taught and learned Englishes in

Indonesia, especially in the Faculty of Letters at Maranatha Christian

University (MCU). Besides, the most favourable attitude is obtained

by AE with almost 3.7 mean score while BE only takes the second

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position with a mean score slightly more than 3.5. This result differs

from Yook’s (2005 cited in Kim, 2007) study among his Korean

participants who show more favor toward BE than AE. The result is

also different from the quantitative result which presents most of the

interviewees’ statements of the great importance of English for them.

It might happen like that because the participants are taught to gain

competence in BE. Thus, although they favour AE more, it is still

more crucial to learn BE than AE for their academic grades.

Moreover, Indonesian students might tend to favor more AE since

there are a lot of exposures of AE through the television and movies.

It is supported by the typical statement of the interviewees which say

that, “American English is often heard in Indonesia, as they usually

encounter English in the television and movies. Besides, that

statement is similar to the findings of Lamb’s (2004) and Siregar’s

(2008) studies among Indonesian participants which show that the

informal exposures of English in Indonesia are mainly gained from

movies and television. Furthermore, regarding the other Englishes,

the mean scores of these Englishes are not even as big as 3.0. Thus,

this finding validates the first hypothesis that the students will show

more positive attitudes toward BE and AE than the Southeast Asia

Englishes. It also indicates that EFL students still have a higher

favourable attitude toward BE and AE which are “categorized” as

two of the standardized English than other Asian Englishes. This

finding also supports Lauder’s (2008) statement that, “Normdeveloping

varieties such as Malaysian and Singaporean English may

have practical or utilitarian value, but do not show signs yet of the

prestige for them to be adopted as models for Indonesia.” The

qualitative result also shows that most of the interviewees have never

heard PE before and only few have heard SE and ME. Besides, there

seems to be a lack of awareness of the existence of other varieties

besides AE and BE among the students. This might happen due to the

fact that the current participants, in general have very little, if any,

contact with individuals who speak SE, ME, and PE.

Therefore, participants probably base their answers on two

factors: the variety spoken and exposed by their teachers and the

variety found in their textbooks (AE or BE).

Moreover, it can be clearly seen that five of ten AE items gain

the highest mean scores while BE only gains the highest mean scores

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in three items. ME is considered as the easiest language to learn. It

might happen like that since Malay language is similar with

Indonesian. Thus, the Indonesians might be able to learn it more

easily than learning other Englishes. The participants state that PE is

considered as the least important language to learn. This tendency

might happen since there are not many Filipinos who come or live in

Bandung; therefore, there is no significant reason for the participants

to understand PE.

Figure 1

Language Attitudes Toward Englishes

Item Statement AE BE ME SE PE

1 Hear 4,02 4 2,25 2,73 2,46

2 Pupils 3,73 3,52 2,09 2,29 2,24

3 Speak 3,81 3,76 2,03 2,47 2,17

4 Diffict 3,19 2,53 3,42 3,37 3,12

5 Useful 2,69 2,68 3,03 2,72 2,91

6 Taught 3,48 3,54 2,07 2,25 2,14

7 Enrich 3,74 3,84 2,74 2,96 2,90

8 Marry 3,39 3,28 2,56 2,88 2,60

9 Worth 3,81 4,01 2,40 2,70 2,67

10 Children 3,78 3,94 2,11 2,36 2,31

Mean scores

3,56 3,51 2,47 2,67 2,55

Note.

(N= 108)

Legend:

AE = American English

PE=Philippine English

SE= Singaporean English

BE = British English

ME = Malaysian English

As can be seen from Figure 2, the participants are found to

have a positive attitude toward American English (AE) in almost all

items. The most favourable attitude is gained by item, “I like hearing

AE spoken” (4.02). According to some interviewees, they like AE

since, compared to “BE, it is easier to understand in pronunciation

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and in listening”. Thus, the participants might like hearing AE for its

pronunciation is not too difficult to comprehend. Besides that item,

there are five other items which gain mean scores more than 3.5. They

are, respectively items, “I like speaking AE” (3.81), “AE is a language

worth learning (3.81), “I would like my children to be also AE

speakers” (3.78), “Learning AE enriches my cultural knowledge”

(3.74) and “AE should be taught to all pupils in Indonesia” (3.73). The

least favourable attitude is obtained by item, “There are more useful

languages to learn than AE” (2.69). The rest of the items shows a quite

high positive attitude, since their mean scores are around 3.10 and

3.50. Thus, it indicates that most participants think only BE that is

more useful than AE and the participants tend to highly favour the

use of AE in educational and social contexts. Moreover, the

qualitative study shows that the learners’ patterns of English

language use are in accordance with findings from previous studies

by Tan (1994). The participants use AE in their daily activities to

socialize with friends and for entertainment purposes like watching

television and movies. For academic activities, a large percentage of

the participants use English in class during the learning process. Since

the respondents of this study are majoring in English, most of the

classes that they attend are conducted in English with some possible

short utterances in Indonesian except for the other subjects that they

have to take beside the English courses such as “

or Indonesian which are of course taught only in Indonesian.

Moreover, although most of the lectures in MCU employ BE at least

in grammar, the AE is exposed to the participants through lecturers

who speak in AE since they are graduated from universities in the

US, and some classes such as

English program students)

Literature, and American Culture Institution

students).

80

Pancasila”, Religion,Cross Cultural Understanding (for D3, Selective and Gist Listening, American(for the English literature

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Figure 2

Language attitudes toward American English

4,02

3,73 3,81

3,19

2,69

3,48

3,74

3,39

3,813,78

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

3,00

3,50

4,00

4,50

AE.hear

AE.pupils

AE.speak

AE.diffic.

AE.useful

AE.taught

AE.enrich

AE.marry

AE.worth

AE.children

Note.

(N=108)

In the following figure about BE, it can be seen that the most

favourable attitudes were obtained by items, “I would not mind

marrying a British English speaker” (4.01). Moreover, there are 5

items that have mean scores above 3.50. They are “I like hearing BE

spoken” (4.00), “If I have children, I would like them to be BE

speakers regardless of other languages they may know (3.94),

“Learning BE enriches my cultural knowledge (3.84), “ I prefer to be

taught in BE“ (3.54), and “The BE should be taught to all pupils in

Indonesia” (3.52). It can be seen that the items which gain high mean

scores imply some reasons of the students in learning BE. Most of the

students tend to be both motivated to learn English for practical goals

(for example, future career) and motivated to learn English for

knowing the English culture and people. This finding is similar to the

finding of Siregar (2009) and supports Brown’s (1994) statement that

L2 learners might learn the target language for instrumental and

integrative motivation. The students also tend to support the use of

BE in educational and social contexts. Besides, there are only two

items which gain a mean score below 3.0. The items that are the least

favourable are, “There are more useful languages than BE (2.68) and

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“BE is a difficult language to learn” (2.53). The result indicates that

most of the participants are of the opinion that BE is easy to learn and

there might be no language that is more important than BE.

Figure 3

Language attitudes toward British English

4

3,52

3,76

2,53 2,68

3,54

3,84

3,28

4,013,94

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

BE.hear

BE.pupils

BE.speak

BE.diffic.

BE.useful

BE.taught

BE.enrich

BE.marry

BE.worth

BE.children

Note.

(N= 10)

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The following figure shows the participants’ attitude toward

ME. It can be seen clearly that the participants’ most favourable

attitude is given toward item, “ME is a difficult language to learn”

(3.42). Another favoured item is, “There are more useful languages to

learn than ME” (3.03). The rest of the items only gain mean scores in

the range of 2.0- 2.7. In other words, these findings show that the

participants are not really in favour of ME. This result is supported by

some of the interviewees who also state that they are unlikely to be in

occasions that require them to be able to speak Malaysian English.

That there are a lot of similarities found in Indonesian and Malay

might be the reason of the interviewees’ statements. Thus, there is no

need for Indonesians to learn ME if they would like to communicate

with Malaysians. The participants can simply use Indonesian. It

implies that the use of ME in Indonesian social context is none. In

addition, an interviewee states her preference of talking in ME with

ordinary Malaysians but she will talk in BE with the educated

Malaysian people because she is of the opinion that the “ordinary

Malaysian people” will not really understand BE. It suggests that the

participant is of the opinion that ME is an English variety known of

the less educated Malaysian people.

The qualitative result also shows that the most of the

interviewees think that they can use AE or BE to communicate with

Malaysians if they cannot express their intention in Melayu.

Moreover, there is a possibility that the students have never got any

exposure toward ME from their teachers. According to Kirkpatrick

(2006), Indonesia’s linguistic and cultural are similar to Malaysia’s

linguistic and culture so it might be sensible for Indonesians to make

Malaysian as a model variety; however, it would be difficult to

persuade Indonesians to accept a Malaysian. Despite their

insignificant favour toward ME, there are few interviewees who

explain that they use and read ME in Yahoo Messenger while chatting

with their Malaysian friends or families. It suggests that the internet

and family’s bound might be a potential means to expose the students

to ME and to other variety of Southeast Asia Englishes.

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Figure 4

Participants’ attitude toward Malaysian English

2,25 2,09 2,03

3,42

3,03

2,07

2,74 2,56 2,40

2,11

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

3,00

3,50

4,00

ME.hear

ME.pupils

ME.speak

ME.diffic.

ME.useful

ME.taught

ME.enrich

ME.marry

ME.worth

ME.children

Note.

(N= 108)

Figure 5 reveals students’ language attitudes toward

Singaporean English (SE). The mean scores of the items show that

there are no item with the score above 3.4. The highest mean score is

shown by the item, “SE is a difficult language to learn” (3.37) and the

rest of the items’ mean scores are below 3.0. The 9 items are presented

respectively as the following “Learning SE enriches my cultural

knowledge” (2.96), “I would not mind marrying a SE speaker” (2.88),

“I like hearing SE spoken” (2.73), “There are more languages to learn

than SE” (2.72), “SE is a language worth learning (2.70), “I like

speaking SE” (2.47), “If I have children, I would like them to be SE

speakers regardless of other languages they may know” (2.36), “SE

should be taught to all pupils in Indonesia” (2.36), “I prefer to be

taught in SE’ (2.25). These findings indicates that the participants

have little favour to learn SE for either educational or social purposes.

It might happen like that since the participants have not got any need

to be familiar to SE at least for the time being when they are still

students and have almost no contact with Singaporeans. As Byram,

Morgan and colleagues (1994) state that learners’ attitudes of a

language might be exerted by the power and status relationship with

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the native speakers of the language. In other words, the participants

can be assumed not to have a close relationship with Singlish

speakers. This finding supports Kirkpatrick’s (2006) statement that

Singaporean English may have practical or utilitarian value; however,

it has not gained the prestige yet to be adopted as a model for

Indonesia.

Figure 5

Language attitudes toward Singaporean English

2,73

2,29 2,47

3,37

2,72

2,25

2,96 2,88 2,70

2,36

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

3,00

3,50

4,00

SE.hear

SE.pupils

SE.speak.

SE.diffic.

SE.useful

SE.taught

SE.enrich

SE.marry

SE.worth

SE.children

Note.

(N= 108)

As can be seen from Figure 6, the participants tend not to show

a positive attitude toward PE. It can be seen clearly from the mean

scores of each item. There is only one item of PE that gains a mean

score above 3.0 and it is gained by the item, “PE is a difficult language

to learn“(3.12). This result is similar to the one that is found in ME

and SE. In the following, the items that obtain mean scores less than

3.0 are presented respectively:” There are more useful languages to

learn than PE” (2.91), “Learning PE enriches my cultural knowledge”

(2.90), “PE is a worth language to learn” (2.67), “I would not mind

marrying an Philippine English speaker” (2.60), “I like hearing PE

spoken” (2.46), “I would like my children to be also PE speakers”

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(2.31), “I like speaking PE” (2.17), PE should be taught to all pupils in

Indonesia” (2.14), and “I prefer to be taught in PE” (2.14). The

participants’ low favour of PE indicates that they have not got enough

exposure of PE and concern to learn it for developing their

intercultural competence. It also implies that the participants are not

in favour of using PE in educational or social context.

Figure 6

Language attitudes toward Philippine English

2,46

2,24 2,17

3,12

2,91

2,14

2,90

2,60 2,67

2,31

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

3,00

3,50

PE.hear

PE.pupils

PE.speak

PE.diffic.

PE.useful

PE.taught

PE.enrich

PE.marry

PE.worth

PE.children

Note.

(N= 108)

Figure 7 presents the correlation of among BE, AE, ME, SE, and

PE. It can be seen that ME is correlated with BE, SE, and PE in a

moderate to strong fashion (

Therefore, it indicates that the higher participant’s attitude toward

ME is, the higher his or her attitude toward BE, SE, and PE, and vice

versa. Besides, the highest correlation is found in the correlation of PE

and ME (

correlation between ME with BE (

are not correlated to each other. It indicates that the students who

highly favour AE do not always highly favour BE and vice versa.

There is no correlation found between AE with other Englishes. It

with coefficients range .274- 550, p < .01).r = 550) and the lowest correlation is shown in ther = 274). Surprisingly, BE and AE

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suggests that the participants’ attitude toward AE cannot determine

their attitude toward other Englishes included in this study.

Figure 7

The Correlation of Englishes

BE AE ME SE PE

BE 1 -,073 ,274(**) -,006 ,074

AE - 1 -,101 -,092 -,136

ME - - 1 ,506(**) ,550(**)

SE - - - 1 ,512(**)

PE - - - - 1

Note.

* p< 0.05 level (2-tailed).

** p <.01 level (2-tailed).

Legend:

AE = American English

BE = British English

ME = Malaysian English

PE = Philippine English

SE = Singaporean English

Conclusion

As it can be seen from the findings of the study, it can be

concluded that the first hypothesis of this study is validated.

Maranatha Christian University students show more positive

attitudes both toward American English and British English than

toward other Englishes. The findings of the study seems to support

Friedrich’s (2000) statement that, “in an Expanding Circle country,

where the political and social consequences of speaking a certain

variety are less an issue than in the Outer or Inner Circles.” In other

words, knowing English might be the primary purpose of the

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participants and knowing a particular variety of new Englishes is not

yet their concern. Therefore, although some studies have shown that

most non-native speakers English must be aware and know nonnative

Englishes since they might have more contact with the

speakers more than with English native speakers, the current

participants have not felt the need to. This might be caused by the

lack of teachers’ participation in building the students’ awareness that

English as an international language “belongs to all of its users and

not exclusively to speakers of the inner circle” (Mckay, 2002, p.127).

The low positive attitude of the present participants toward the new

varieties of English in Southeast Asia suggests that English language

teaching (ELT) in Indonesia, especially in Maranatha Christian

University, should emphasize awareness of Englishes in order to help

learners to develop their communicative competence, in particular

“sociolinguistic competence” (Bachman, 1990, p.94) and intercultural

competence which both are sensitive to different varieties of English

and “contexts in which they will use English” (Berns 2006, p.726).

Regarding the correlation between the Englishes, the findings

are not similar to what has been hypothesized. It can be seen that the

correlation are found only in some of the Englishes. ME is found to

correlate with BE, SE, and PE in a moderate to strong fashion

indicating the higher participant’s attitude toward ME is, the higher

his or her attitude toward BE is. However, BE and AE not correlating

to each other indicates the students who highly favour AE do not

always highly favour BE and vice versa. AE is also found not to

correlate with other Englishes, which suggests the participants’

attitude toward AE cannot determine their attitude toward other

Englishes included in this study.

In conclusion, the findings support Kachru’s (1992) statement

that new varieties of English might have to go through a number of

phases to be accepted and, in some cases, this may take many years.

Furthermore, since language attitude studies significantly contribute

to an understanding of sociolinguistic phenomenon and language

learners’ feelings, stereotypes, expectations and prejudices of the

target language, researchers in the Expanding Circle especially, in

Indonesia need to examine learners' and users' attitudes toward new

varieties of Englishes.

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About the Author

Fenty Lidya Siregar is currently teaching at Maranatha Christian

University as a lecturer in D3 English Program and at Institut

Teknologi Harapan Bangsa as a part-time lecturer in Electrical

Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Computer Engineering

department. She attained her bachelor degree from Maranatha

Christian University majoring in English Literature and masters from

De La Salle University majoring in English Language Education.

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The Effects of Joint Reference and Mutual Exclusivity on

the Application of Whole-Object Assumption in Filipino

Preschoolers

Diana Ilishera A. Go

Edna S. Miraflores

De La Salle University - Manila

Abstract

Several studies have been done to analyze language acquisition

among young children and have shown that children initially ascribe

new words to mean whole objects. However, when familiar objects

are presented with novel labels, young children seem take these

labels to mean salient parts or attributes instead of as alternative

names (Markman, 1992; Maher 2004). This study’s focus is on how the

whole object assumption is superseded by mutual exclusivity, along

with Baldwin’s (1989, cited in Markman, 1992) observation of the

value of a joint reference between adult speaker and child in word

learning. Adapting Markman’s (1992) test procedure, five male and

five female Filipino preschoolers aged 3-4 years were randomly

selected and individually presented with three sets of materials that

each tested the validity and occurrences of the whole object

assumption, mutual exclusivity, and joint reference. Using a different

set of instruments originally adapted from Markman’s (1992), the

study yielded unexpected results slightly deviant of Markman’s

claims. Firstly, striking colors and brightly colored patterns are

shown to influence young children’s perception of whole objects in a

more significant manner than initially assumed. Secondly, it seems

that mutual exclusivity is only applied to novel word learning upon

reaching a certain cognitive maturity, which was observed to come

earlier to females than males. Lastly, joint reference might play a less

significant role in word learning as children grow to become more

verbally communicative and less dependent on social cues.

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Keywords

reference, preschoolers, word learning

: whole object assumption, mutual exclusivity, joint

Introduction

For young children, the acquisition of words and the

identification of their meanings do not happen at once. The volume of

stimuli from the environment which children are exposed to further

complicates their acquisition of words. Understanding the meaning of

words and using these words in adult fashion is a slow process. This

process is called semantic development where “children’s strategies

for learning word meanings and relating them to one another change

as their internal representation of language constantly grows and

become reorganized” (Gleason, 1998, p. 116).

In their preschool years, children manifest remarkable facility

and efficiency in learning new words. The rate of learning new words

is at a staggering rate of 5 to 9 words per day between 18 months to 6

years of age (Pinker, 1994, cited in Avram, 2002). Given this rapid rate

of vocabulary development or “word spurt” (Markman, 1992),

children employ certain cognitive and linguistic operating principles

to help them focus and form a hypothesis about the meaning of new

words (Gleason, 1998). Bloom posited that children learn new word

meaning only after they have developed “enough of an

understanding of referential intent to figure out what people are

talking about when they use words” (2000, cited in Avram, 2002).

However, since children of preschool age have as yet a limited

capacity to process information, finding out how they learn the

meaning of new words makes an interesting study.

One of the long-time conundrums in the field of language

acquisition research is how words are learned. Quine’s (1960)

hypothesis on the indeterminacy of translation states that when

presented with a word previously unheard of, one could never

entirely ascertain the exact meaning of that word, as it could pertain

to an infinite number of possible definitions. Quine also referred to

this as the problem of induction which stipulates that there is a wide

range of possible meanings that can be applied to a set of data. It can

even refer to a thing or idea we cannot comprehend (Markman, 1992).

Given that this notion is true, how then, does one decide what a novel

term means?

Several studies have shown that young children initially

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perceive new words to always be referring to whole objects. A label

for an unfamiliar object will be accepted and attached as its name,

whereas a new label for a recognized object will be assigned to a part

or an attribute (Markman, 1987; Markman & Wachtel, 1988, cited in

Markman, 1992). Markman labels this principle as the “whole object

principle” which posits that children have the proclivity to assume

that a word label refers to a whole object rather than to a part or

attribute of an object. This theory helps explain the rapid rate of

vocabulary acquisition in children since, as Markman noted, in

learning new words children most likely focus on the whole object

rather than its parts. Soja, Carey & Spelke (1991, cited in Rabagliati,

2007) carried out an experiment in which an object made of a

distinctive substance was first shown, labeled, and removed in front

of 2 ½ year-old children. Four new objects were subsequently

presented: one having the same shape but consisting of a different

substance, and the other three sharing the same material as the first

but bearing different shapes. The item that shared a similar shape to

the first object presented was overwhelmingly chosen, proving the

existence of the whole-object principle as a word learning constraint

among children.

In a study done by Woodward (1992) on 18-month old female

children, their labeling ability was tested using unfamiliar “boring”

items against interesting novel items. The results showed that

children preferred looking at the interesting items but when an

unfamiliar “boring” item was assigned a name or label, the child’s

attention shifted to it. This attention shift was interpreted as an

assumption of the child that the label referred to the whole object

rather than a salient part of the object.

Still, many words cannot be learned by simply using the whole

object limitation. Markman (1987, cited in Markman, 1992) suggests

that children “override” constraints such as this by using mutual

exclusivity, an assumption stating that there is only one label for each

object, and that a second label would be assumed to pertain to object

parts or attributes. As demonstrated by a study completed by

Markman and Wachtel (1988, cited in Markman, 1992), children

employ mutual exclusivity to acquire labels for parts, and other

attributes such as size and color.

The research done by Markman & Wachtel (1988, cited in

Markman, 1992) presented novel objects to three-year old children.

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The novel objects contained salient parts and a selected few of these

objects were assigned new labels. During the presentation of these

objects to the children, some of the objects were given two different

names. The result was the children “assigned the label to the whole

object if it had not been previously labeled but assigned the label to

the salient part if the object had been previously labeled” (Maher,

2004, p. 14).

In her thesis, Maher (2004) also cited that mutual exclusivity

was an “assumption that has been demonstrated in 16-month olds by

their rejection of second labels for familiar objects” (p.15). The second

label was rejected because the learner assumes that there can only be

one label for an object. The child, at this point, still does not have the

ability to learn multiple names for an object.

Another proposition by Baldwin (1989, cited in Markman,

1992) states that young children observe social cues such as eye

gazing or pointing when there is no salient object around at the time

of labeling. Likewise, in her thesis Maher mentioned that “joint focus

of attention is an important contributor to children’s early word

learning” (2004, p.18). She cited the studies conducted by Baldwin, et

al, (1996) where children, 19 to 20 months of age, were given novel

objects and - following their attentional focus - were presented with a

novel item label. In the first experiment, the examiner sat next to the

child and looked at the object as it was named. In the second

experiment, the child could not see the examiner. The results showed

that the children correctly labeled the objects in the first experiment.

The children had difficulty labeling objects when the examiner was

absent. In his study, Baldwin concludes that the whole-object

assumption could be superseded by the lack of joint focus of

attention.

Maher also mentioned that these studies are consistent with

the social pragmatic theories as they demonstrate that children make

use of the “social cues provided by the communication partner to

learn novel words” (2004, p.18). A child’s word learning is facilitated

when the adult and the child’s attention are in tune (Hirsh-Pasek,

Golinkoff, & Hollich, 2000, cited in Maher, 2004). Research shows that

children who have more frequent parent-child interaction and joint

attention exposures have increased vocabularies (Akhtar, Dunham, &

Dunham, 1991). An elaborated social context makes the likelihood of

correct mapping between a word and its referent more likely to occur

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(Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2000, cited in Maher, 2004).

This study aims to analyze the effects of joint reference and

mutual exclusivity on the application of whole-object assumption in

Filipino preschoolers aged 3-4 years. The specific objectives of this

study were:

1. Is the whole-object assumption the primary factor for children

in learning new words?

2. Does mutual exclusivity override the whole-object assumption

in learning new labels for familiar objects?

3. Does joint reference override the whole-object assumption in

learning new word labels?

Markman’s (1992) claim - that constraints on hypotheses are

needed to help children solve the inductive problem that wordlearning

poses - serves as the main theoretical framework of this

study. Her claim further posits that word-learning constraints such as

whole-object assumption, mutual exclusivity and joint reference

could be necessary for language acquisition.

The whole object principle posits that children have the

proclivity to assume that a word labels or refers to a whole object

rather than to a part or attribute of an object. This assumption could

then be “a direct reflection of the non-linguistic status of objects”

(Markman, 1992) Objects are more easily referred to because they are

salient and concrete. Labels assigned to objects are therefore easily

taken to mean or refer to the whole object. This theory helps explain

the rapid rate of vocabulary acquisition in children since, as Markman

noted, in learning new words children most likely focus on the whole

object rather its parts.

Mutual exclusivity is an assumption that an object can only

have one meaning or have only one name. This assumption can

override the whole-object assumption because children can likewise

employ this hypothesis as they learn a new word. As demonstrated

by a study completed by Markman and Wachtel (1988, cited in

Markman, 1992), children employ mutual exclusivity to acquire labels

for parts, and other attributes such as size and color. Interpretation of

this principle suggests because of their as-yet limited capacity to

process information, children are likewise initially limited in their

ability to learn multiple names for an object.

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Another proposition (Baldwin, 1989, cited in Markman, 1992)

suggests that young children observe social cues such as eye gazing

or pointing when there is no salient object around at the time of

labeling. Joint reference of attention is an important contributor to

children’s early word learning. Parents’ and children’s coordinated

attention to each other and to a third object or event – is claimed by

many researchers to play a critical role in early word learning.

Indeed, several studies have shown positive correlations between the

amount of joint attention in which parent–child dyads engage and the

size of children’s early vocabularies (Akhtar and Gernsbacher, 2007).

Given the fact that by 2 years of age, children undergo a spurt

in their vocabulary, it would truly be interesting to find out how they

are able to cope with such a fast and voluminous onslaught of words.

This study’s significance in the area of language learning is it seeks to

find out in what manner children learn new words. The findings may

prove to be useful in the conduct of future research in the same area

which could help develop new strategies to facilitate language

learning in children. Likewise, this study may be of help to the

children’s caregivers to become effective guides to the children in

their linguistic development at the point where their internal

representation of language constantly grows and becomes

reorganized.

Methodology

Research Design

This study is basically experimental albeit small-scale in

nature. A controlling age variable, along with the requisition for an

equal representation of both genders, was set to achieve a greater

control of validity. Pilot testing was conducted with children outside

of the experimental group to gauge the appropriateness of the

procedures and materials to the target participant age, and no prior

training was given to any of the participants in order avoid the

possibility of multiple treatment interference in the data.

Maturational effects like tedium or habituation, if any, were also

noted per participant along with individual responses to the

materials.

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Participants

A total of ten Filipino preschool children from middle to

upper-middle class families of Metro Manila were requested to take

part in the experiments. The target age of three to four years was

initially set as the only criterion for selection. However, due to time

constraints and the limited number of willing participants, this age

criterion was agreed to be allowably extended to children who were

from two and a half years to four and a half years of age.

Five boys and five girls who then met this condition were

selected for participation with the prior approval of their parents. The

youngest participant, a female, was at two years and ten months of

age, while the oldest, a male, was four years and seven months old.

The participants’ collective mean age was at three years and eight

months, with the separate mean age of the female participants

resulting in three years and four months, and the male participants’

mean age falling at three years and eleven months. It is important to

note that this equal representation of both genders was persistently

maintained for this study to determine whether gender factors in the

application of any word learning constraint among young learners.

Setting

Pilot testing of the materials and procedures were conducted

on March 18, 2009 at Merville Subdivision in Paranaque City with

two children – a boy and a girl – both within the 3-4 year old bracket.

Three days later, on March 21

with the first female participant at her grandmother’s house in

Caloocan City. The selection and testing of the nine other participants

was completed the following day, March 22

Play Box, a children’s play facility situated on the third floor of the

Robinson’s Place Mall in Malate City. Permission was secured after

presenting the Play Box proprietor with a letter of intent weeks before

the intended testing date.

st, the first official test was conductednd, within the premises of

Materials and Instruments

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Three sets of materials were prepared in order to test the

respective theories on word learning constraints. The first set, meant

to test the whole object assumption, was comprised of three colored

abstract geometric figures which were presented to the participants

on 4½ by 6-inch cards. Each abstract geometric figure had two

variants – with one exhibiting a part of the original object but

carrying all the same attributes like color and texture, while the other

showing the same whole figure but with a different attribute like

color, size, or pattern. Two more black-and-white figures, along with

their corresponding variants, were added to the set for further data

verification after pilot testing results indicated the possibilities of

color having an overriding effect on the whole object theory. A total

of fifteen card illustrations were prepared and used for this particular

experiment (See Appendix 1: I).

The second set, made to examine the application of mutual

exclusivity, featured three illustrations of familiar-looking objects: a

flower, an apple, and a cat. Slight modifications were made on the

illustrations after pilot testing to highlight the saliency of some of the

parts (See Appendix 1: II).

The third set initially involved a bucket-like container and two

sets of toys to test the hypothesis on joint reference. After pilot

testing, an additional set of three colored illustrations were added

(See Appendix 1: III).

Each participant’s name, exact age, and gender – along with

their responses – were recorded on a checklist. Behavioral and other

observations were noted as well.

Data Gathering Procedure

Each participant was tested individually by the two

researchers. While one researcher administered the test, the other

recorded the observed responses using a checklist. An adult caregiver

was allowed to accompany each child for the duration of the test with

the condition that the companion does not interfere or interrupt in

any way with the proceedings.

Each child was initially tested for the application of the whole

object assumption. An illustration of a whole abstract figure was first

presented to the child and given a label using the statement form

“This is ___” in the child’s first language. The two variant

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illustrations of the whole object were then shown, and the participant

was asked to point out which of the two subsequent pictures can

share the same label as the first. This was repeated for different

illustrations four more times.

Following this was the procedure for testing the mutual

exclusivity hypothesis. An illustration of a familiar-looking object was

presented along with a term which referred to a part of that object.

For example, the label

of a flower. The children were expected to connect the novel label

with a part or an attribute to demonstrate that the mutual exclusivity

assumption can override the whole object theory. Two more pictures

were presented following the same process to check for consistency of

the responses.

Lastly, to test the theory on joint reference, the participants

were first shown a colored picture of an object labeled as a

experimenter handles and gazes at the illustration while labeling

before allowing the child to handle the illustration. Each participant

was asked to repeat the label

from immediate sight. A second picture was quickly set in place of

the

the picture on display and instead looked inside a bucket-like

container as the second label

was then pulled out from the same bucket the researcher was peering

into, along with the first object

participant was asked to identify the

anticipated that a 3-4 year old would recognize the third picture as

the second-labeled object to support the Joint Reference theory. After

the first set, the materials switched from the use of card illustrations

to actual toys, with the same procedure being carried out while the

toys were now labeled with proper names. A total of three card

illustrations and six toys were used for this part of the experiment.

stamen or petal was presented with the picturetoma. Thetoma before the picture was taken awaytoma. This time, the experimenter turned her attention away fromgaver was being given. A third picture. With three pictures on the table, eachtoma and the gaver. It was

Data Analysis

The results gathered were analyzed according to the claims

made by Markman (1992) on the word learning assumptions of whole

object, mutual exclusivity, and joint reference. Simple frequencies and

percentages were employed to quantitatively express the data

gathered. All results gathered from the whole object experiment were

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analyzed for occurring patterns and inconsistencies, and were

compared to previous studies for similarities and possible deviations.

The same procedure was followed for the analysis of the mutual

exclusivity and joint reference tests.

This study, however, does not reflect or identify the learning

acquisition patterns of all three year olds. The sample used in this

study is too small in quantity to be representative of the population.

Also, there are many other types of new word acquisition hypotheses

– aside from whole object, mutual exclusivity, and joint reference –

which were not discussed in this paper. In addition, the materials

used were prepared and devised by the researchers and cannot be

deemed as standard materials for measuring the hypotheses being

investigated, as Markman (1988; 1989; 1992) never made mention of

the exact kind and type of materials used in her experiments, or

whether the test materials she used were brightly colored or not.

Lastly, because this is a simple and small-scale experiment, the setting

itself is not as one could expect from a laboratory set-up with

sophisticated measuring devices.

Results and Discussion

Whole Object Assumption

Figure 1

Whole Object Assumption Experiment. Comparison of results on how well

each gender applied the whole object assumption in word learning

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

3-4 Year Old Preschoolers

FIGURE 1: Whole-Object Assumption

Experiment

Percentage 72% 72%

18/25 18/25

girls boys

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Figure 1 illustrates how well preschool boys and girls both

employed the Whole-Object assumption within the experiment. This

equal percentage shows that both genders acquire new words by

referring to the whole object, which is consistent with Markman’s

(1988; 1989, in 1992) claims that young children have the tendency to

refer to a whole object rather than to a part or an attribute when

associating new labels with new objects.

However, a new finding has emerged that slightly deviates

from previous study claims when the participants were presented

with the first illustration. The first figure was an abstract blue

geometric shape labeled as a

the

different color – red. The other illustration,

part of the original

Table 1

Wug, as seen in Table 1 below. One ofWug’s variants, Wug A, shared the exact same shape but carried aWug B, was just a salientWug but shared the same blue color.

Whole Object Assumption Experiment Object 1, WUG with object variants

A and B

Object 1 WUG Object Variant

WUG A

Object Variant

WUG B

Following Markman’s (1988; 1989, in 1992) theories, the

participants were expected to be inclined towards the red variant,

Wug A

however, both participants surprisingly exhibited a consistent natural

gravitation towards the card bearing the blue salient part –

and totally disregarded the whole object shape. The same occurrence

was consistently observed with another figure that had colored

patterns. As this opposed Markman’s (1988; 1989, in 1992) whole

object assumption claims, the researchers were led to believe that

, to validate the whole object assumption. During pilot testing,Wug B –

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perhaps color plays a more important factor to word learning than

initially assumed by previous studies.

Figure 2

Whole Object Assumption Experiment. Collective percentage of total “correct”

responses deemed in line with the whole object theory

As can be seen in Figure 2, only slightly more than half of the

total responses from the actual experiment were correct for the

Of the ten participants, two girls with a mean age of 3.25 and two

boys with a mean age of 4.25 chose

was similar in result with the second object shown, a yellow

geometric figure with purple dots labeled as the

Table 2

Wug.Wug B because of its color. ThisRazzleI (see Table 2).

Whole Object Assumption Experiment Object 2, RAZZLE with object

variants A and B

Object 2: RAZZLE Object Variant

RAZZLE A

Object Variant

RAZZLE B

FIGURE 2: Whole-Object Assumption

Percentage of Total “Correct “

Responses

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

6 / 10. 5 / 10. 7 / 10. 10 / 10. 8 / 10.

color colored

pattern

size b/w b/w

pattern

WUG RAZZLE SHMOO KOOSHCHUZZLE

Figures with Variants of Differing Attributes

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Five of the children – three girls and two boys, once again with

respective mean ages of 3.25 and 4.25 – consistently pointed to the

object variant

Razzle B, which was just a third of the original Razzle

figure. Again, it seemed that the children were distracted by

B

counterpart without a pattern – half of the time.

To verify the veracity of this new finding, two more geometric

shapes were added prior to the actual experimentation to test the

individual influences of color and pattern. This time, the additional

figures, together with their two variants, were presented as

illustrations devoid of color. If pattern without color was still chosen

over a whole-object shape, then pattern could be claimed as another

attribute that affects whole object assumption.

Table 3

Razzle’s similarly colored pattern, and ignored Razzle A – the whole object

Whole Object Assumption Experiment Object 5, CHUZZLE with object

variants A and B

Object 5: CHUZZLE Object Variant

CHUZZLE A

Object Variant

CHUZZLE B

However, when a black-and-white geometric shape with lined

patterns called the

participants had no trouble in choosing object variant

Chuzzle was presented (see Table 3), most of theChuzzle A,

which had no patterns on it but had the same whole-object shape.

Only one girl at four years of age and one boy at four years and seven

months of age chose

determinant for influencing their decision. It is also notable that these

Chuzzle B, using the pattern as the main

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two participants were the oldest in each of the gender groups.

Mutual Exclusivity

Figure 3

Mutual Exclusivity Assumption Experiment. Comparison of results on how well

each gender applied mutual exclusivity in word learning

Figure 3 indicates how mutual exclusivity can override the

whole object assumption. As shown above, both genders were able to

make use of mutual exclusivity when an unfamiliar label is given to a

familiar object. This supports Markman and Wachtel’s (1988, in

Markman, 1992) assertion that young children still have a limited

ability to learn multiple names for one object, and therefore suppose

that a second label pertains to a part or an attribute.

However, it is notable that girls were able to apply the

constraint more successfully than boys of the same age, which

indicates a possible gender bias in the application of this word

learning constraint among preschool children.

0%

50%

100%

3-4 Year Old Preschoolers

FIGURE 3: Mutual Exclusivity

Assumption Experiment

Percentage 93% 53%

14/15 8/15.

girls boys

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Joint Reference

Figure 4

Joint Reference Assumption Experiment. Comparison of results on how well

each gender applied joint reference in word learning

As can be seen from Figure 4, both boys and girls performed

equally poor in the joint reference assumption experiment. It is

interesting to note that other previous studies like Baldwin’s (1996)

utilized 19 to 20 month old toddlers who rely heavily on non-verbal

cues to understand what goes on around them as participants to

check the importance of joint attention in word learning. This study’s

participants, however, are from the ages of three to four years. The

resulting low rate of application could indicate that the participants’

age and linguistic abilities played a major factor in the use of joint

referencing when learning new words, as three and four year old

children are comparatively more verbal and communicative.

Conclusion

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

3-4 Year Old Preschoolers

FIGURE 4: Joint Reference Assumption

Experiment

Percentage 20% 33%

3/15. 5/15.

girls boys

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The results of this study show that whole object theory is the

primary cognitive assumption applied by preschool children when

learning new word meanings. However, it is also evident from this

study that colors and colored patterns can distract young children

from applying the whole object hypothesis. The presence of striking

colors in the objects easily influenced and diverted attention away

from the whole object, while contrastive black-and-white patterns

hardly affected three-year-old children’s perception of the whole

object regardless of the complexities of the markings. This runs on a

slightly contradictory note from Markman’s (1988; 1989, in 1992)

claim that children learn by generally focusing on the totality of an

object’s shape.

What could perhaps be gleaned from this study is that bright

colors may have a bearing on how young children perceive objects,

and thereby acquire word learning. It seems that the younger the

learners are, the more attracted to colors and colored patterns they

appear to be, rather than to the wholeness of an object. Also,

beginning at four years of age, children start to manifest an

employment of more complex cognitive processes, where they can

perhaps go beyond colors and consider other aspects when

identifying objects, which is in adherence to Quine’s (1960, in

Markman, 1992) indeterminacy of translation theory.

This study also shows that the mutual exclusivity hypothesis

can clearly override the whole object assumption as far as the female

respondents are concerned. Girls are better than boys at identifying

salient parts of an object and are more advanced at processing

information, as also mentioned in the study of Markman and Wachtel

(1988, in Markman, 1992). This also supports the research on a

difference between the language use between boys and girls, which

can be attributed to functional differences in their brains. According

to Gurian, Henley & Trueman (2001), “the resting female brain is as

active as the activated male brain” (p. 29), which indicates that

although not necessarily superior, the female brain is at work more

quickly and more often that it has a learning advantage over the male

brain. The female brain is activated in more places, resulting in more

complex responses and greater memory and sensory intake, which

consequently give females a greater edge over relationship and

communication tasks.

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Finally, this study asserts that joint reference has a lesser

significance as compared with the importance of the whole object and

mutual exclusivity assumptions when learning new words for three

to four-year-old preschoolers. Aside from their inclination towards

the use of verbal communication and less dependence on social cues

such as eye gazing, children of this age have a very short attention

span. Also, the results of the study on joint referencing could also

have been influenced by the participants’ habituation to the use of

card illustrations. When the objects being shown shifted from twodimensional

illustrations to three-dimensional toys, the children

became distracted by the tactile attributes of the toys. However, this is

not to say that the presence of joint attention to an object does not

contribute to a child’s learning. Social cues such as eye gazing and

body movement are still important for children to confidently affirm

their understanding of word meanings. As was noted during the

study, a lot more confusion was observed of the children when they

were asked to identify the second object labeled than for when they

were asked to point out the first.

Recommendations

This study shows much promise for future research in

developing effective teaching strategies for preschool children aimed

at higher vocabulary retention and comprehension. Further research

can also be made on the value of using different types of visual aids

and its impact on preschool word learning. Also, related studies can

be made on similar constraints but expanded in terms of the size of

the sample population to yield more conclusive results. It may also be

necessary to standardize materials and the testing environment, for

that matter.

On a more ambitious note, this study could be duplicated with

an older sample of children to see if these constraints are still

universal to new word acquisition despite age and prior knowledge.

In addition, a separate investigation on how color affects word

learning could be made, as well as an exploration on how gender

affects the application of mutual exclusivity.

Finally, a more controlled environment is recommended for

future investigations especially on the joint reference assumption. As

was observed, three to four year olds are easily distracted by external

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factors like noise and other people in their immediate surroundings,

which could have influenced this study’s resulting low rate of

successful responses.

References

Akhtar, N.and Gernsbacher, M.A. (2007).

development: A critical look.

http//psych.wise.edu//arg/pdf/Akhtar_JointAttention.2007.

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Akhtar, N., Dunham, F., & Dunham, P. J. (1991). Directive interactions

and early vocabulary development: The role of joint attentional

focus.

Avram, L. 2002.

Language Acquisition from a Generative Perspective

Hungary: University of Bucharest. Retrieved from:

http://www.ebooks.unibuc.ro/filologie/avram/51.pdf

Gurian, M., Henley, P., & Trueman, T. (2001)

differently: A guide for teachers and parents

Sons, Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.books.google.com

Gleason, J.B. ( Ed. ). (1998).

Macmillan Publishing Company.

Maher, E.A. (2004).

learning

http://www.phiolink.edu/etd/sendpdf.

cgi/Maher%20Elizabeth.pdf?acc_num-toledo1083594203

Markman, E.M. (1994).

their nature, origins, and domain specificity

2009 from

http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/markma

n.lang.html

Rabagliati, H. (2007).

file]. Retrieved March 8, 2009 from New York University

webpage:

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~har237/WordLearningFall07.pd

f

Woodward, A.L. (1992).

Joint attention and vocabularyRetrieved March 8, 2009 fromJournal of Child Language, 18, 41-49.The acquisition of vocabulary: An Introduction to, Bucharest,Boys and girls learn. USA: John Wiley &The development of language. USA:Children’s modality preference for novel word. Retrieved March 8, 2009 fromConstraints on word learning: Speculations about. Retrieved March 8,An introduction to word learning. [PDF documentThe role of whole object assumption in early word

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learning.

USA: Stanford University Press.

About the Author

Diana Ilishera Go is a faculty member of the De La Salle - College of

Saint Benilde's School of Multidisciplinary Studies, and Edna

Miraflores is a full-time faculty member of the De La Salle University

- Manila's Department of English and Applied Linguistics. Both are

currently completing their Master's Degree in English Language

Education major in Second Language Teaching at De La Salle

University - Manila. Their research interests include

psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and second language acquisition.

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Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4, February 2010

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Philippine ESL Journal Editorial Board

Publisher

Paul Robertson

Australia

Time Taylor International Ltd

International TESOL Advisor

Professor Dr. Z.N. Patil

The English and Foreign Languages University

Hyderabad,

India

International TESOL Director

Pedro Luchini

Universidad Nacional

de Mar del Plata,

ARGENTINA

Senior Associate Editor

Dr. Carlo Magno

De La Salle University, Manila

Philippines

Associate Editors

Professor Dr. Z.N. Patil

The English and Foreign

Languages University

Hyderabad,

India

Editorial team

Dr. Danny Dayag

De La Salle University

Philippines

Dr. Mohammad Ali Salmani-Nodoushan

University of Zanjan

Zanjan, Iran

Dr. Rochelle Lucas

De La Salle University

Philippines

Advisors

Dr. Roger Nunn

The Petroleum Institute,

Abu Dhabi,

UAE

Professor Rod Ellis

University of Auckland

New Zealand

Dr. John Adamson

Shinshu Honan College

Japan

The layout for this volume was copyedited by Vernice Liao, Nestor Riel Cruz, and Ryan Co.