Number marking in L2 English of the speakers of two classifier languages
A learner corpus study
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21458342 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dongchen Yao (Monash University), Dongmei Yao (0000-0001-7613-533X, The University of Queensland), David Wijaya (0000-0001-7247-3569, Saint Louis University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 476-502 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0155-0640 • E-ISSN: 1833-7139 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/aral.24006.yao |
| OpenAlex | W4408549265 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
This paper explores the number marking challenges faced by L2 learners of English whose L1 is one of the classifier languages Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) or Bahasa Indonesia (henceforth Indonesian). It examines whether these groups differ in their marking of English number, and how the speaker’s level of proficiency, as well as linguistic factors including countability, concreteness, and determiner use, interact and influence their performance. The present study differs from previous studies in that it offers unique insights from authentic spoken data. The authors extracted 4000 tokens from the Chinese and Indonesian spoken monolog components in the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE), involving 150 Chinese-speaking and 100 Indonesian-speaking learners across beginner and intermediate proficiency; the tokens were part-of-speech tagged and annotated. Although the analysis, using mixed-effects binomial logistic regression, revealed no performance differences between the groups and no significant proficiency effects, the study found a strong relationship between ungrammatical number marking and count nouns, particularly abstract count nouns (e.g., taking part-time job ), as well as the absence of determiners (e.g., smoking in restaurant ). These findings confirm that learners from classifier languages face significant challenges with count nouns and that inaccurate number marking often occurs where nouns appear unmarked for number in their L1. The paper concludes with pedagogical suggestions
Linguistics · Natural language processing · Computer Science · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Artificial Intelligence
Rethinking linguistic relativity
Crosslinguistic Influence in Language and Cognition
Definiteness
Grammar and Conceptualization
Cognitive English Grammar
Quanteda
Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”
A Comprehensive grammar of the English language
Language Diversity and Thought
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
Plurality in a Classifier Language
Selective Attention and Transfer Phenomena in L2 Acquisition
Feature reassembly in the acquisition of plural marking by Korean and Indonesian bilinguals
Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English
Cross-linguistic influence and plural marking
Judgement of countability and plural marking in English by native and non-native English speakers
L1 Korean and L1 Mandarin L2 English learners’ acquisition of the count/mass distinction in English
A Longitudinal Analysis of the Acquisition of English
System and Variability in Interlanguage Syntax
Plural Semantics, Reduplication, and Numeral Modification in Indonesian
Quantification in Mandarin Chinese
On Reference to Kinds in Indonesian
Clarifying the Scope of Conceptual Transfer
Effects of Textual Enhancement and Topic Familiarity on Korean EFL Students' Reading Comprehension and Learning of Passive Form
Is the Acquisition Order of Grammatical Morphemes Impervious to L1 Knowledge? Evidence From the Acquisition of Plural -s, Articles, and Possessive 's
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |