The Acquisition of Tense by L1 Arabic Learners of English Language Research Proposal

The Acquisition of Tense by L1 Arabic Learners of English Language - Research Proposal Example One explanation for the difficulty is the Aspect Hypothesis. There is also a Perceptual Salience Hypothesis (Man, 1990). Others have proposed that syntactic knowledge is not impaired, rather that the cause is extra-syntactic (Prevost & White, 2000). Also for Arabic speakers, there is the problem when final consonant clusters occur which are avoided in their L1. Such phonetic differences pose difficulties (Strange, 1995). Confusion of past tenses was one of the main types of errors in tenses reported in a study of Arab learners of English at the University of Sudan (Kambal, 1980). According to the Aspect Hypothesis, â€Å"learners associate forms that mark time with the lexical aspect inherent in the meaning of the verb† (Robinson, 2008:317). Bardovi-Harlig (1998) and Anderson & Shirai (2007) are proponents of the Aspect Hypothesis. Syntactic theory is advocated by the likes of Donna Lardiere (2007) and is a development of Chomsky’s principles. She suggests that the central question is â€Å"how a learner manages to associate the particular featural specifications of the target language – that is, a syntactic representation – with their overt realization in the input† (Archibald, 2000:103). According to the syntactic theory it is either a deficiency in the knowledge of syntax or incorrect mapping of syntactic representations that cause complications in acquiring tense. The difficulty in the formation of verbal inflections in L1 Arabic Learners of English Language is due to the influence of L2 acquisition of verbal inflectional morphemes. The applicability of this Aspects Hypothesis will be tested and the alternative hypothesis offered by syntactic theory will be considered within the context of SLA (Second Language Acquisition). Children in schools are readily available subjects for study and suitable because they are at am active learning age. 30 students will be sought at 3 different proficiency levels whose first language is