The Relation between the Level of Target Language Proficiency in English and German and the Choice of Preferred Temporal Concepts, Grammatical Structures and Aspectual Perspective

Abstract

Die Relation zwischen dem zielsprachlichen Niveau und der Wahl der bevorzugten temporalen und grammatikalischen Strukturen sowie der aspektuellen Perspektive bei Nichtmuttersprachlern in Englisch und Deutsch

The aim of this article is to examine event construals and aspectual perspective in English and German preferred by the study participants. There are presented and discussed selected theoretical aspects of Second Language Acquisition, such as error analysis, contrastive analysis, fossilization, stabilization and interlanguage, which were taken into consideration in terms of the present study. The research investigates relations between the level of L2 proficiency in English and German and the choice of preferred temporal concepts and grammatical structures among the study participants – non-native adult speakers of both languages. Moreover, it attempts to examine whether the output language (aspectual and non-aspectual) influences the choice of aspectual perspective.