The acquisition of the negative polarity item any by Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language

Other Title(s)

اكتساب المتعلمين الأردنيين للغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية للمفردة المستقطبة للنفي

Dissertant

al-Subua, Talib Mutlaq Najm

Thesis advisor

al-Sarayirah, Atif Ata Allah Id

University

Mutah University

Faculty

Faculty of Arts

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2021

English Abstract

This study aims at investigating whether Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language adopt a conservative widening strategy in their acquisition of the negative polarity item any.

The study subjects were 97 participants studying English at Mutah University.

The Participants were classified as beginners, intermediates and advanced based on a placement test.

A timed grammaticality judgment task was used for data collection.

The theoretical framework of the study was Grammatical Conservatism hypothesis of language acquisition.

The results of the study show that Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language adopt a conservative widening strategy when they learn the negative polarity item any.

In particular, the results show that Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language start their learning of the negative polarity item any conservatively by using it in the more restricted context of antimorphic licensors.

Then, as their proficiency level increases, they widen their hypothesis about the licensing contexts of the negative polarity item any to include less restricted anti-additive and downward entailing contexts respectively.

Moreover, the results provide evidence that supports the presence of Grammatical Conservatism in the learning of English as a foreign language.

Main Subjects

Educational Sciences
Languages

No. of Pages

69

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-1332595