DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES OF NEGATION BY LEARNERS OF EFL:A Case Study On Seventh Grade Students Of One Private Secondary School In Bandung.

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the developmental sequence of negation that the seventh grade students of secondary school go through in acquiring English negation. This study is largely qualitative and longitudinal. The participants include 34 seventh grade students of one private secondary school in Bandung. However, only 24 students constantly produced negation. Their utterances containing negation gathered through the observation, the picture description test and essay writing were used as the main data of the study. All data obtained from all sources is analysed through the theories of developmental sequence of negation by Ellis (1996), Lightbown & Spada (2011), and Meisel (2011). The sequence includes four stages, i.e. stage 1 (external negation), stage 2 (internal negation 1), stage 3 (internal negation 2), and stage 4 (target-like negation). The findings show that the students are able to produce negation. The total occurences of the negation in a period of approximately six months include 1271 utterances, which consist of grammatical and ungrammatical productions of negation. Further, this study confirms that the four stages in previous studies are evidenced in

students’ negation. However, this study finds some variation in the order of the stages across periods, although in the last period the order evidenced in the previous studies are confirmed.

DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES OF NEGATION BY LEARNERS OF EFL:

A CASE STUDY ON SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF ONE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BANDUNG

A THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master’s Degree in English Education

by

RISA TRIARISANTI NIM: 1006916

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA

DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES OF NEGATION BY LEARNERS OF EFL: A CASE STUDY ON SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF ONE PRIVATE

SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BANDUNG

By Risa Triarisanti

1006916

Approved by Supervisor

Iwa Lukmana, M.A., Ph.D. NIP. 196611271993031002

Emi Emilia, M.Ed., Ph.D. NIP. 196609161990012000

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this thesis entitled “Developmental Sequences of Negation by Learners of EFL: A Case Study on Seventh Grade Students of One Private Secondary School in Bandung” is completely my own work. I am fully aware that I have quoted some statements and ideas from various sources. All quotations are properly acknowledged.

Bandung, July 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL SHEET ... i

DECLARATION ... ii

PREFACE ... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... iv

ABSTRACT ... v

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vi

LIST OF TABLES ... viii

1. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1

1.1Background ... 1

1.2Research Questions ... ₄

1.3Significance of the Study ... 4

1.4The clarification of main terms ... 5

1.5Thesis Organization ... 6

2 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ... 7

2.1Learner Language ... 7

2.2Acquisition Orders and Developmental Sequences ... 11

2.3The Acquisition of Syntactic Structure ... 15

2.3.1 The Acquisition of Negatives ... 16

2.3.1.1Negation ... 16

2.3.1.2The Development of Negatives ... 19

2.3.1.2.1 Stage 1-External Negation ... 22

2.3.1.2.2 Stage 2-Internal Negation 1 ... 23

2.3.1.2.3 Stage 3-Internal Negation 2 ... 24

2.3.1.2.4 Stage 4-Target-like Negation ... 25

2.4 The Historical Overview of The Developmental Sequence Studies in Second Language Acquisition ... 27

2.5 The Influential Factors of Development of Second/Foreign Language Acquisition .. 34

2.6 Conclusions ... 40

3 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 42

3.1 Research Questions ... 42

3.2 Research Design ... 42

3.3 Participant ... 44

3.4 Data Collection ... 45

3.4.1 Observation ... 46

3.4.2 The Picture Description Test ... 47

3.4.3 Writing Composition Documentation ... 48

3.5 Data Analysis ... 49

3.6 Conclusions ... 50

4 CHAPTER IV FINDING AND DISCUSSION ... 52

4.1 Negative Forms ... 52

4.1.1 Stage 1-External Negation ... 52

4.1.1.3 NEG +N(P) ... 56

4.1.2 Stage 2-Internal Negation 1 ... 58

4.1.2.1 X+no+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 58

4.1.2.2 X+not+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 60

4.1.2.3 X+don’t+V(P)/N(P)/Adj(P) ... 62

4.1.3 Stage 3-Internal Negation 2 ... 64

4.1.3.1 X+modal+no/not+Y ... 65

4.1.3.2 X+aux+no/not+Y ... 67

4.1.4 Target-like negation -Restructuring of unanalyzed forms, do auxiliary ... 69

4.2 The Development in the Acquisition of Negation ... 71

4.2.1 Realization of Negation per Period ... 71

4.2.1.1 First Period ... 71

4.2.1.2 Second Period ... 73

4.2.1.3 Third Period ... 74

4.2.2 The Developmental Sequences of Negation across Periods ... 75

4.2.2.1 The Development ... ₇₆

4.2.2.2 Factors that Potentially Affect the Development ... 80

4.3 Conclusions ... ₈₃

5 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ... 85

5.1 Conclusion ... 85

5.2 Recommendation ... 86

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 88

APPENDICES ... 94

LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Summary of general stages in the sequence of acquisition in L2 English negation (Ellis, 1996:100) ... 19

Table 2 Acquisition sequence of negation in L2 English (Meisel, 2011:81) ... 20

Table 3 Developmental Sequence for ESL Negation (Larsen-Freeman & Long 1991:94) ... 21

Table 4 Summary of Developmental Sequence Studies in Irvine (2005:17-18). ... 29

development of sentence structure formation of the negative (Hanania &

Gradman, 1977 in Irvine, 2005:41) ... 33

Table 6 The summary of developmental sequence of acquisition in L2 English negation by Ellis (1996), Lightbown & Spada (2011) and Meisel (2011) ... 40

Table 7 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the First Period ... 72

Table 8 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the Second Period ... 73

Table 9 The Frequency and Percentage of Negation in the Third Period ... 74

Table 10 The Development of Students’ Negation accross Period ... 76

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the general issues related to the present study. These include background, research questions, significance of the study, the clarification of main terms, and thesis organisation.

1.1Background

A number of theories regarding language development in human beings have been proposed in the past and are still being proposed in the present time. Such theories have generally arisen out of major disciplines such as psychology and linguistics (Kiymazarslan, 2002).

One of the theories concerns ordered sequence in first and second language acquisition which is particularly significant to the theory of language development (Meisel, 2011). Much of the early research focused on the order of acquisition while subsequent research has increasingly paid attention to sequence of stages evident in the acquisition of a single feature as well as order (Loewen & Reinders, 2011).

Furthermore, Loewen & Reinders (2011) stated that the order of acquisition represent a developmental of L2 learning similar to developmental sequence. However, the order of acquisition relates to the learning of different syntactic and morphological structures, whereas developmental sequence relates to the stages of acquiring one specific morphosyntactic features, such as English negation or question formation. As mentioned by Irvine (2005) the

morphosyntactic features studied include negation, question formation, relative clauses, and word order.

Some studies concerning negatives acquisition in English and German provide evidence of a clear sequence of development (Meisel, 2011). Each of these sequences is defined in terms of grammatical properties, such as negation, which have been acquired during the period. Furthermore, Ellis (1996) mentioned that the acquisition of negation shows clear transitional structures which involve a series of forms that learners use to master the target language form. Examples of English:

no swim (the negative article is placed at the beginning of the utterance–

external negation)

I no can swim (the negative article comes inside the utterance- internal

negation 1)

I can’t swim (negative is attached to modal verbs-internal negation 2)

These forms are indicative of the developmental stages that learners pass through on the way to target language (TL) competence. Clear examples of developmental sequences in L1 acquisition are those found in the acquisition of English negatives and interrogatives (Ellis, 1994). Wode (1997:100 in Meisel 2011:80) suggested three universal stages in the development of L1 negative structures:

Stage I is one word negation for example no, non

Stage II is multi-word negation that is Neg placed in external position which consists of, anaphoric negation and non-anaphoric negation

Stage III is clause-internal negation

The question to be asked now is whether second language learners succeed equally well in acquiring negative construction. At the beginning of the 1980s,

according to Meisel (2011), negation was perhaps the most frequently studied feature of second language learners’ interlanguage. The majority of these studies, however, focused on English as a TL (e.g. Ravem 1968; Milon 1974; Cazden et al. 1975; Hanania&Gradman1977; Cancino, Rosansky and Schumann 1978; Stauble 1978; Schumann 1979 in Meisel 2011). In spite of disagreement in detail, there was a consensus in assuming that learners follow an invariant acquisition sequence. Most authors also agreed that the same sequence holds for child and adult L2 learners. Based on those studies mentioned above, Meisel (2011:81) summarized the stages in the development of L2 negative structures:

Stage I is anaphoric negation

Stage II is non-anaphoric external negation

Stage III consists of internal negation, neg preposed with main verbs, neg postposed with auxiliaries

Stage IV is target-like negation.

There were thirteen studies performed between 1968 and 1982 which explored developmental sequence in the acquisition of negation in English by speakers of other languages (Irvine, 2005). Furthermore, he stated that the majority of these, or seven of the studies, had subjects who were children from 9

months to 7 years old. These included Ravem’s (1968, 1978) studies of his son

and daughter with L1 Norwegian, Wode’s (1976) study of his son and daughter with L1 German, Milon’s (1972) study of a recent immigrant from Japan with L1

Japanese, Adams’ (1974) study of 10 children with L1 Spanish, Young’s (1974)

study of three Spanish speaking children, Gillis and Weber’s (1976) study of two

seven studies have a total of twenty-one children who were studied and only

Adams’ (1974) study dealt with more than three subjects.

Three studies, according to Irvine (2005) dealt exclusively with adolescents. These were more varied in nature. Butterworth (1972 in Irvine 2005) was a case study of a 13-year old Junior High School student who was a recent

immigrant from Colombia. In Ellis’s 1982 study (reported in Ellis, 1996), he

looked at the SLA of three ESL students in London; two had L1Punjabi and one L1 Portuguese. Felix (1982 in Irvine 2005) did a study involving a classroom of 44 EFL students in Germany.

Based on the aforementioned explanation, studies of developmental sequence of negation in Indonesian context have not been conducted. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the developmental sequence of negation by learners of EFL at the beginner level of secondary school with Indonesian as their L1. It is worth studying because as Meisel (2011) states that it constitutes strong empirical evidence in support of the claim that the stucture of negation is indeed acquired in a strictly ordered fashion.

1.2Research Questions

The research problems of the present study are formulated in the following questions.

(1) What negative structures are evident in the interlanguage produced by EFL

learners at one secondary school in Bandung?

1.3The significance of the Study

Theoretically, this study can give insights into several aspects of negation acquisition of EFL beginner level regarding the case of developmental sequence which can contribute to the development of the theory of applied linguistics, especially to the existing theorization of developmental sequences in SLA.

Practically, this study is also significant for teachers as it can help them to understand why students might produce certain negation whose variety of utterances may be necessary for the learners to hear in order to move to the next

stage. Investigating the learners’ developmental sequences might influence the

teaching and learning process. That is because the investigation provides teachers with the information about how much the learners had learnt and how language was learnt.

1.4The clarification of main terms

1) Second Language Acquisition is generally used to refer to the process in which people learn any language other than the first language (Ellis, 1996:11) 2) Developmental sequence is that learners pass through a series of identifiable

stages in acquiring specific grammatical structures such as negatives, interrogatives and relative clauses (Ellis, 1996:20).

3) Interlanguage is the separateness of a second language learners’ system, a system that has a structurally intermediate status between the native and target languages (Ellis, 1999:201).

4) Negation is an example of transitional structure (Ellis, 1996:99).

5) The scope of negation normally extend from the negative itself to the end of

the clause, or to the beginning of a final adjunct (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1983:187)

1.5Thesis Organisation

This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I introduces the present study, outlining background, research questions, the significance of the study, the clarification of main terms and thesis organization. Chapter II reviews of the related literatures on the topics being studied, i.e. the developmental sequences of

negation which includes learner language, acquisition orders and developmental

sequences, the acquisition of syntactic structure, the historical overview of the developmental sequence studies in second language acquisition and the influential factors of the development of second/foreign language acquisition. Chapter III discusses a set of methodology which covers research questions, research design, participants, data collection and data analysis. Chapter IV presents research

findings and interpretations, while, conclusions and recommendations are

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the methodology of the present study, which covers the research questions, research design, participants, data collection, and data analysis. Each of them will be explained below.

3.1Research Questions

The present study is conducted to answer the following questions:

(1) What negative structures are evident in the interlanguage produced by EFL

learners at one secondary school in Bandung?

(2) How is negation acquired across periods?

3.2Research Design

This study aims to investigate the developmental sequences in acquiring English negation in the learners of EFL; therefore, this study employs qualitative

approach. According to Cresswell (1994:1), “qualitative study is defined as an

inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants and conducted in a natural setting."

The study used students‟ utterances on observation, pictures description test and writing as the main data. The observation was conducted once a month. The pictures description test, which consists of twenty different items in each test,

was conducted three times. Similarly, the writing composition, of which the

themes were related with students‟ textbooks, was also conducted three times in

one semester academic year. The nature of the analysis merely focused on negation. The participants of this study were 34 students from seventh grade of one private secondary school in Bandung. Both acceptable and unacceptable versions related to the use negation were analysed and presented.

This study is also longitudinal in nature because developmental sequence concerns with the the chronology of language acqusition. Documenting the course of acqusition for some individual appears to be the optimal methodological choice (Meisel, 2011).

Longitudinal studies, according to Rajulton et al. (2000), are meant to uncover the dynamism of language acqusitionby examining both stability and change, and not one or the other. Furthermore, Rajulton et al. (2000) states that the general motivation in longitudinal studies is that they can show the nature of growth, trace patterns of change in an individual, and possibly give a true picture of cause and effect relationships over time. An advantage of longitudinal research according to Loewen & Reinders (2011) is that it can track the developement of a learner‟s interlanguage system, yet a process takes time. According to Iwasaki (2004), to accurately document acquisition orders and developmental sequences,

it is important to capture this dynamic process of language acquisition.However,

even a longitudinal approach requires certain conditions in order for the dynamic process of acquisition to be precisely captured. The data collection needs to be of a sufficient duration of time for the details of the acquisition process to be

accurately documented.In response to these difficulties with accuracy Pienemann (1987:89 in Iwasaki 2004) states:

In principle, every productive usage of a structure is treated as an instantiation of an interlanguage rule. Thus the development of L2 structures is described as a dynamic process, taking the early „deviant‟ interlanguage structures as the starting point rather than defined as some arbitrary criterion for „acquired‟ or „mastered‟.

This study is not purely longitudinal study due to the duration of data collection. Butterworth & Hatch (1978 in Iwasaki 2004) state that three months was the shortest duration for a study of this type and the longest was three years (Huter, 1998). Generally it seems that the duration most commonly used is

approximately one year (Iwasaki, 2004). Therefore, this study can‟t track the

whole process.

This study also has the characteristics of a case study due to the limited number of participants that are involved in it. A case study approach allows this study to be conducted in a small scale, and one single case in a case study causes

it to be defined as “a study of a single case or bounded system” (Stake 1985;

Connole 1993 in Emilia 2008).

3.3Participants

The participants of this study are 34 students of beginner level in the secondary school, but as this study investigates the negation, only 24 students that

constantly produce negation are included in this study. They are in 7th grade. Most

of them are between 11-13 years old. All subjects had studied English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in primary school for at least 6 years before they entered

secondary school. Their first language is Indonesian. However, these students have a different mother tongue e.g., Sundanese, Javanese and Bataknese. They learn English six credit hours a week during second semester in the academic year 2012-2013.

3.4Data Collection

It is generally believed that the data for a longitudinal case study should be spontaneously produced oral language, and that this should be taken from one subject or a small number of subjects over a long period of time (Iwasaki, 2004). In the majority of case studies on child bilingualism, the researchers were linguists using their own children as a subject of investigation (Dopke, 1998). In such cases, spontaneous speech is almost always accessible by these parent linguists, particularly when the subject is too young to go to kindergarten or school. This meant that researchers who are not the parent of a subject are

disadvantaged with regard to the on-going access to a subject‟s natural oral

production. On the other hand, Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991:26) point out that spontaneous speech itself can be, in reality, tricky “natural” data. They list three reasons for this claim:

(1) It often contains too sparse a number of linguistic aspects which

researchers are interested in finding, simply because subjects have no opportunity to produce all of those aspects of language in given contexts during data collection.

(2) Subjects often use an avoidance strategy, where they tend to stay in a

range of easier linguistic aspects which they believe they can handle with confidence. That is, they will rarely show all of their language performance to researchers.

Therefore, to overcome these problems, particularly when a longitudinal approach is used, it is beneficial if researchers use instruments that elicit particular linguistic features (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991:13). As they state:

There is no reason, for example, why the natural linguistic performance data obtained through a longitudinal study could not be supplemented by

data elicited by some controlled, „obtrusive‟ verbal task. Indeed, specific

hypotheses generated by an analysis of the natural data are sometimes concurrently tested by means of data collected through elicitation procedures. Moreover, quantifying the data obtained by either means is standard practice in SLA.

A variety of tasks have been used in FLA and SLA studies, including reading tasks such as “read aloud” (e.g., Beebe, 1980; Flege, 1980 in Iwasaki 2004), writing tasks such as “free composition” (e.g., Andersen, 1976 in Iwasaki 2004) and oral production tasks such as “oral interview” and “role play” and so on (for a full explanation of these twelve different types of tasks, see Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991, pp. 27-30). The present study employs observation, negation test and writing composition documentation to collect the data. The observation, negation test and writing composition documentation are used to gain data about the negation produced by the research subjects.

3.4.1 Observation

Observational research, but not necessarily research conducted in the classroom, according to Allwright (1993), has provided language teacher training with some new input. It has also pursued fundamental issues in the field, still stimulated mostly, if not exclusively, by work in second language acquisition

(now frequently referred to as interlanguage studies, see Davies, Criper and Howatt, 1984 in Allwright, 1993)

The observation aims to observe the occurrences of the negation. The observation was conducted once a month from January 2013-May 2013. The observation was done five times altogether. Each observation was recorded then transcribed. Taking notes was also conducted during the observation. The observation looked into the ways the participants communicated among themselves and with their teacher to see how they produced negation.

3.4.2 The Picture Description Test

Brown (1973:255 in Chen 2004) introduces the concept of obligatory context to provide the framework that can be used to show the child‟s acquisition of grammatical structures:

….so one can set an acquisition criterion not simply in terms of output but in terms of output-where-required. Each obligatory context can be regarded as a kind of test item which the child passes by supplying the required morpheme or fails by supplying none or one that is not correct. This performance measure, the percentage of morphemes supplied in obligatory contexts, should not be dependent on the topic of conversation or the character of the interaction.

Furthermore, Dulay and Burt (1974:39 in Chen 2004) develop an instrument called the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) which consists of “seven

color cartoon-type pictures and a set of 33 questions”. It meant to elicit certain

grammatical structures. As an instrument, it requires that the administrator asks rather specific questions in order to elicit the grammatical structures.

The present study applies picture description tests. According to Rispens et al. (2001), the tests help to investigate the production of negative sentences in more details. Furthermore, Baker (2012) states that the picture description task is a language intervention provided through individual sessions with the purpose of eliciting growth in language production.

Each test consists of twenty different pictures. The short oral explanation and question of each picture before the test was hoped to help participants in constructing utterances containing negation. The examples of oral question are as follows. 1) What do you see in the picture? 2) Why is she/he do it? 3) How do they do it? 4) Where do this event take place? 5) When do they do it? After the students answer the questions, then they were asked to make a sentence based on their answers. The test has been tried out to the similar level of participants to examine the occurrences of negation. The test was given 3 times in one semester to investigate the development of negation in the participants. The first test was conducted on 14 February 2013, the second test on 15 April 2013 and the third test on 13 May 2013.

3.4.3 Writing Composition Documentation

The writing composition assignments from the teacher, as part of teaching and learning process in school, were also used to investigate the occurrences of negation and the developmental sequences of negation in the EFL learners. The students were asked to write three essay in one semester of academic year

favorite cloth” and the third theme is “My hobby”. For the specific purpose of the study, it is hoped that those writing instruments could be more accurate in producing many well-defined, structured negatives than any of the possible spontaneous oral prompts that may just elicit unclear responses for analysis. In order to achieve that purpose, the clues are given before the students write the essay. The clues for the first theme are as follows, 1) I have one brother, 2) My father is a teacher, 3) My house is big, etc. The clues for the second theme are as follows, 1) I have a lot of clothes, 2) Most of my clothes are shirt and jeans, 3) I wear it every time, etc. The clues foe the third theme are as follows, 1) what is hobby? 2) My hobby is music, 3) I do my hobby every day, etc. The first writing assignment was conducted on 11 March 2013, the second assignment on 16 April 2013 and the third assignment on 14 May 2013.

3.5Data Analysis

The data in this study include the utterances from the recorded observations, the picture description test and writing composition document. The essential step in qualitative analysis is reading the observational notes and documents that were analyzed (Dey, 1993; Smith, 1979; Tesch, 1990 in Maxwell, 1996).

In analyzing the data, this study takes several steps. The first is to identify the occurrences of negation. The recorded observation is transcribed. The data from the pictures description test and writing composition are identified into

negative and positive structure construction. Then, only the utterances containing negation are chosen as the data.

The second is to clasify and categorize all the data containing negation obtained from all sources by using the stages of the developmental sequence of negation for L2 proposed by Ellis 1996; Meisel 2011; and Lightbown & Spada

2011. The sequence includes four stages, stage 1 {external negation-NEG + Adj/

V(P)/ N(P)}, stage 2 {internal negation 1- X+no/not/don’t+V(P)}, stage 3

{internal negation 2- X+copula/aux+no+Y}, and stage 4 {target-like

negation-Restructuring of unanalyzed forms, do auxiliary}.

The third is to intepret and explain the data through the interpretation of the order of developmental language acquisition. According to Ellis (1996:111), what constitutes evidence for a developmental pattern?

1) Developmental patterns can be established by looking at either the

order in which different target structures are acquired, or the sequence are acquired, or the sequence of stages through which a learner passes en route to mastery of a single TL structure.

2) In the case of transitional structures, a „stage‟ consists of a period during which learners use a particular form or structure in a systematic manner, although not necessarily to the exclusion of other forms and structures.

3) The forms and structures that a learner produces at different points

during the process of L2 acquisition can be ordered such that one form or structure always precedes another.

4) Learners progress step-by-step along an order or a sequence, mastering

one particular structure-target language or transitional-before another.

5) Strong evidence for developmental patterns occurs when it can be

shown that an order or a sequence is universal (i.e. applies to different L2s and to all learners). Weaker evidence is found if it is shown that an order or a sequence applies only to specific L2s and/or to specific groups or learners.

This study aims to investigate the developmental sequence in acquiring English negation in the learners of EFL. For this purpose, the study employs qualitative approach. As this study attempts to uncover the dynamism, both stability and change, of acquiring negation in an individual, it is a longitudinal one.

The study used students‟ utterances on observation, pictures description test and writing as the main data. The observation was conducted once a month. The pictures description test, which consists of twenty different items in each test, was conducted three times. Similarly, the writing composition, of which the

themes were related to students‟ textbooks,was also conducted three times in one

semester academic year. The nature of the analysis merely focused on negation. The participants of this study were 34 students from seventh grade of one private secondary school in Bandung, but as this study investigates the negation, only 24 students that constantly produce negation are included in this study. Both acceptable and unacceptable versions related to the use of negation were analysed and presented.

In the case of developmetal sequence of negation analysis, students‟

utterances containing negation that obtained from all sources were analysed through identification, description or categorization, and explanation using developmental sequence of negation in L2 learner (Ellis 1996, Meisel 2011 and Lightbown & Spada 2011).

Next chapter will present the findings and the discussion of the study. It

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the conclusions and recommendations of this study. The conclusion section shows how the problem of the present study is answered. The recommendation section presents the recommendation to other researchers who are interested in interlanguage theory and realisations and also to teachers of English as the second language for a beginner level.

5.1 Conclusions

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the development of negation by learners of EFL through observation, the picture description test and essay writing. This study includes two research problems, i.e. (1) the negation that the students produced in the tasks, and (2) the developmental sequence of negation that the students went through across periods.

Regarding the first research question, it is found that the students are able to produce negation. However, their productions reflect an interlanguage. The total number of negative utterances in the first period is 490. Out of them, 241 (49.2%) are accurate or grammaticaly correct. The rest (249 occurrences or 50.8%) are ungrammatical. The total occurrences of negative utterances in the second period are 399 times, 212 of which (53.1%) are accurate or grammatical correct and the rest (187 occurrences or 46.9%) are ungrammatical. The total occurrences of negative utterances in the third period are 455 times, 270 of which

are ungrammatical. It is shown that the development of negation acqusition is evidenced in this study because the acceptable negation slightly improves from the first period up to the third period.

Regarding the second research question, it is found that these students go through all the stages in acquiring English negation. In the first period, the order of stages do not fully confirm the order of stages found in previous studies. Similarly, in the second period, the order of stages still do not fully confirm the order of stages in previous studies. However, in the third period the order of stages confirm the order of stages found in perious studies. It can further be concluded that, overall, the order of stages in negation acquisition in previous

studies (see Ellis 1996, Lightbown & Spada 2011, and Meisel 2011) are finally

evidenced in this study. Furthermore, the acquisition of English negation is influenced by several factors. In this study, the influential factors appear to be EFL setting (input), L1 interference (Bahasa Indonesia), and the longitudinal study which is relatively ‘short’.

Based on the findings above, it can be said that the order of stages in acquiring English negation seems to be universal. This study has proved it, although it is evidenced late in the last period. This late confirmation may result from the fact that the students learn English in a formal classroom context, which differs from the contexts in which previous studies were conducted, i.e. ESL.

5.2 Recommendations

the field of second language acquisition, namely interlanguage. First, since the present study finds that the order of stages in acquiring English negation is not directly confirmed, it seems that more research on negation in EFL context still needs to be conducted with the same or different methodology. Second, since the present study is not able to cover all the syntactical features due to its limitation, i.e. question formation and auxiliary verbs, it is recommended that further studies analyse structures other than negation. Third, since the present study is not purely

longitudinal, it is recommended that further research be undertaken in lengthier

longitudinal studies. Lastly, it is hoped that this study of negation acquistion lends

support to the construct of developmental stages in the acquisition of English negation by second language learners and contributes to the existing theorisation of developmental sequences in SLA.

This study also proposes some practical suggestions for teachers. First, the presence of developmental sequences in learner language might influence the teaching and learning process and therefore teachers should provide exposure on negation in the learning materials. The learning material should be adjusted with

students’ development, but the negation should be produced ‘naturally’. Second,

teachers should be more tolerant to the error correction as part of the language development.

88

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de Bot, K., Lowie, W., and Verspoor, M. 2005. Second Language Acquisition: An Advanced Resource Book. New York: Routledge.

Dopke, S. 1998. Can the principle of ‘one person – one language’ be disregarded as unrealistically elitist? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, vol 21(1), pp. 41-56.

Dulay, Heidi, M. B., and Krashen, S. D. 1982. Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R. 1988. Classroom Second Language Development: A Study of Classroom Interaction and Language Acqusition. New York: Prentice Hall.

Ellis, R. 1996. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R. 1999. Learning a Second Language through Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ellis, R. 2008. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University press. Elrod, J. 2013. The Factors Affecting Foreign Language Learning. Retrieved July

28, 2013. [http://www.ehow.com/info_7959122_factors-affecting-foreign-language-learning.html].

Emilia, E. 2008. Menulis Tesis dan Disertasi. Bandung: CV. Alfabeta.

Gilkerson, J., Hyams, N., and Curtiss, S. 2003. On the scope of negation; more evidence for early parameter setting. Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, Utrecht, the Netherlands, vol 2(1), pp. 1-11.

Retrieved September 19, 2012.

Hakuta, K. 1976. A case study of a Japanese child learning English. Language Learning, vol. 26, pp. 321-351. Retrieved March 15, 2013. [http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/www/research/publications.html] Haynes, J. 2012. Stages of Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved September

12, 2012. [http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php] Huddleston, R. and & Pullum, G. K. 2006. A Student’s Introduction to English

Grammar. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huter, K. I. 1998. The Acquisition of Syntax and Morphology by Learners of

Japanese as a Second Language. Unpublished dissertation, the Australian National University.

Irvine, M. G. 2005. Developmental Stages of Negation in One Learner’s Interlanguage: A Case Study. Unpublised thesis, Portland State

University. Retrieved September 13, 2013.

[http://www.labschool.pdx.edu/research/current/M%20IRVINE%20THE SIS.pdf]

Iwasaki, J. 2004. The Acquisition Of Japanese as a Second Language and Processability Theory: A Longitudional Study of a Naturalistic Child Learner. Unpublished thesis, Edith Cowan University. Retrieved July 10, 2013.[http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=the ses]

Jeffries, L. E. 1989. A Corpus-based Stylistic Study of Newspaper English. Unpublished dissertation, department of Linguistics and Phonetics, the

University of Leeds. Retrieved December 5, 2012.

[http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/498/1/uk_bl_ethos_329011.pdf]

Johnston, J. 2010. Factors that influence language development. Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development, 2010:1-6. Retrieved July 28, 2013. [http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/JohnstonANGxp.pdf].

Kellerman, E. 1985. If at first you do succeed…In S. Gass & C. Madden, (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House. Kibort, A. 2008. Morphosyntactic Features. Retrieved September 13, 2012.

[http://www3.surrey.ac.uk/LIS/SMG/morphosyntacticfeatures.html#gloss ingconventions]

Kil, I. 2003. The interlanguage development of five Koreans English learners. The

Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 11 (4), 247-264. Retrieved

September 20, 2012.

Kiymazarslan, V. 2002. A Discussion of Language Acquisition Theories.

Retrieved November 21, 2012.

[http://charttesl.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/a-discussion-of-language-acquisition-theories/]

Komorowska, H. 2004. Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages. Fraszka Education. Retrieved July 28, 2013. [http://www.edukacja.edux.pl/p-1064-crucial-factors-affecting-a-foreign-language.php].

Krashen, S. D. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. California: Pergamon Press Inc.

Larsen-Freeman, D. & Long, M.H. 1991. An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. London: Longman Inc.

Leech, G., Deuchar, M., and Hoogenraad, R. 1982. English Grammar for Today. London: Macmillan Press.

Lightbown, P. M. & Spada, N. 2011. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Linquanti, R. 1999. Fostering Academic Success for English Language Learners:

What Do We Know? Retrieved October 5, 2012.

[http://www.wested.org/policy/pubs/fostering/definitions.htm]

Loewen, S. and Reinders, H. 2011. Key Concepts in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Maxwell, J. A. 1996. Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approah. California: SAGE Publication.

McShane, M. J. 2005. A Theory of Ellipsis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Merriam, S. B. 1988. Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Approach. San Fransisco: Jossey-Boss Inc.

Milton, J. 2009. Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Bristol-Buffalo-Toronto: Multilingual Matters.

Murphy, R. 1987. English Grammar in Use:A self-study reference and practice book for intermediate students. Sixth Printing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Naves, T. 2000. What is Interlanguage? Retrieved October 8, 2012. [http://www.ub.edu/filoan/CLILarticlebyNaves.html]

Mackey, A. 1999. Input, interaction, and second language development: an empirical study of question formation in ESL. Second Language Acquisition, 21, 557–587. Cambridge University Press. etrieved ugust 20, 2013. [eprints.lancs.ac.uk 59850 1 download5.pdf ]

Mahoney, N. 2013. Language and Linguistics. Retrieved July 28, 2013 [http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/learn.jsp]

Przestrzelska, J. 2013. Crucial Factors Affecting a Foreign Language Acquisition. Retrieved July 28, 2013. [http://www.edukacja.edux.pl/p-1064-crucial-factors-affecting-a-foreign-language.php].

Quirk, R. And Greenbaum, S. 1983. A University Grammar of English. Fourteenth Impression. London: Longman Group Limited.

Stromswold, K. & Zimmermann, K. 1999. Acquisition of nein and nicht and the VP- internal subject stage in German. Language Acquisition, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1999/2000), pp. 101-127.

Rajulton, F. & Ravanera, Z. R. 2000. Theoretical and Analytical Aspects of Longitudinal Research. PSC discussion papers series, Vol. 14: ISS 5,

article 1. Retrieved September 20, 2012.

Richards, J. C. 1992. Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. Second Edition. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited.

Rispens, J., Bastiaanse, R., and van Zonneveld, R. 2001. Negation in agrammatism: a cross-lingusitic comparison. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 14 (2001) pp. 59-83.

Saville-Troike, M. 1988. From context to communication: paths to second language acquisition. In Escamilla, Kathy & E Grassi, Elizabeth. 2000. A brief description of Second Language Acquisition. The Professional Development Resource Series, Second Language Acquisition, BUENO Center, University of Colorado, Boulder. Retrieved December 6, 2012.

[http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CIRCLE/Articles/SLA%20Escamil la %2BGrassi.pdf ]

Silverman, D. 2005. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. Second Edition. London: Sage Publication Ltd.

Vazques, C. A. 2004. Age and learning: a study in English negation. Porta Linguarium, 2: 2004, pp 9-30.

Wood, D. 2000. Formulaic language in thought and word: Vygotskian perspectives. Cahiers linguistiques d'Ottawa, vol. 30:2002, pp. 29-48, the Linguistics Department, University of Ottawa. etrieved June, 21 2013. [http: teslcanadajournal.ca index.php tesl article view 9.