Acquisition and expansion of noun groups by newly immigrated adolescent learners

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Jana Gamper
• Subject Area: Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527339472

The project is devoted to the question of how attribution is acquired as a means of nominal group elaboration by newly immigrated adolescents in preparatory classes. Nominal groups (NGr) are the focus of the project because they are representative for those structures in the context of school learning that are classified as complex or literate. Although the subject area for school-based learning and thus perspective, central to successful integration processes, there is a lack of basic research on the acquisition of complex structures as well as on more advanced learner varieties for the group of newly immigrated youth. Using a quasi-experimental elicitation procedure, the project, which is based on learner corpus linguistics, aims to determine whether the acquisition of attribution as such and of specific attribution types in particular follows a supraindividual and gradual course and is dependent on precursor competencies in the area of verbal language development. Given the high heterogeneity of learner-internal and learner-external variables in preparatory classes, a high inter- and intra-individual variance is expected in the form of different acquisition rates and trajectories. Elicited with the help of descriptions and reports (both oral and written) using a three-step procedure in which the degree of distance linguistic ability is successively increased. The data will be collected longitudinally (18 months; n=15). The learner corpus resulting from the survey will be made available in edited form (transcribed, annotated) for subsequent use. The project is based on the assumption that language development processes in L2 acquisition first develop along verbal categories (here mainly in the area of verb position) and then along nominal categories (here mainly NGr development). The basic findings to be generated in the project are to contribute to the systematic extension of existing acquisition models, which mainly comprise verbal categories. It is assumed that the NGr is a central indicator of complexity that can be used to systematically measure language levels in advanced learner varieties. The project thus enables the modeling of L2 acquisition beyond known basal grammatical structures and can systematically capture the intertwining of verbal and nominal expansion processes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants