1 Citation
The data have been used in an investigation for a PhD thesis in English Linguistics on similarities and differences in the use of the progressive aspect in two different language systems, English and Persian, both of which have the grammaticalised progressive. It is an application of the Heidelberg-Paris model of investigation into the impact of the progressive aspect on event conceptualisation. It builds on an analysis of single event descriptions at sentence level and re-narrations of a film clip at discourse level, as presented in von Stutterheim and Lambert (2005) DOI: 10.1515/9783110909593.203; Carroll and Lambert (2006: 54–73) http://libris.kb.se/bib/10266700; and von Stutterheim, Andermann, Carroll, Flecken & Schmiedtová (2012) DOI: 10.1515/ling-2012-0026.
However, there are system-based typological differences between these two language systems due to the absence/presence of the imperfective-perfective categories, respectively. Thus, in addition to the description of the status of the progressive aspect in English and Persian and its impact on event conceptualisation, an important part of the investigation is the analysis of the L2 English speakers’ language production as the progressives in the first languages, L1s, exhibit differences in their principles of use due to the typological differences. The question of importance in the L2 context concerns the way they conceptualise ongoing events when the language systems are different, i.e. whether their language production is conceptually driven by their first language Persian.
The data consist of two data sets as the study includes two linguistic experiments, Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. The data for both experiments were collected by email. Separate forms of instructions, and language background questions were prepared for the six different informant groups, i.e. three speaker groups and two experimental tasks, as well as a Nelson English test https://www.worldcat.org/isbn/9780175551972 on the proficiency of English for Experiment 2 was selected and modified for the L2 English speaker group.
Nelson English tests are published in Fowler, W.S. & Coe, N. (1976). Nelson English tests. Middlesex: Nelson and Sons. The test battery provides tests for all levels of proficiency. The graded tests are compiled in ten sets from elementary to very advanced level. Each set includes four graded tests, i.e. A, B, C, and D, resulting in 40 separate tests, each with 50 multiple-choice questions. The...