EXPRESSION OF TEMPORALITY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

1.1Background to the Study

The English language has become an international medium of communication among people on earth. The mastery of good English is deemed necessary for bringing a lot of advantages in many ways. This international language is not only used for communication purposes but also in the fields of technology, commerce, education and many other aspects of life. The English language has its own grammar structures which have to be followed in order to understand how it is spoken and written fully. As Pollock puts it, the problem arises when someone comes to understand and learn English without having the basics been taught before, or translating his own language into English, to start a conversation (Pollock 365-424). One of such basics is the expression of temporality.

Students learning a foreign language meet with many kinds of learning problems dealing with its sound system, vocabulary, structure, etc. In the EFL (English as a foreign language) context, knowledge of grammar, particularly tense, is considered to be the most crucial and difficult part for non-native learners to master properly. The errors committed by the learners also indicate what the second language learners do not master and what they have internalized of the interlanguage grammar. Linguists try to find out the causes of the problems and methods to be applied in language teaching, to minimize the problems. They propose contrastive analysis, error analysis and interlanguage theory as means of tackling learners‘ problems. A key finding of error analysis is that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the

new language. Richards distinguishes two types of errors, they are interlanguage errors and intralanguage errors. Interlanguage errors are those that are caused by the interference of learners‘ mother tongue (native language). Whereas, intralingual errors are those that reflect the learners‘ competence at a particular stage, and illustrate some of the general characteristics of language acquisition (173). These intralingual errors can be said to derive from some factors which Richards subdivided into four categories: Overgeneralization, Ignorance of rule restriction, Incomplete application of rule and False concepts hypothesized.

Overgeneralization: According to Jacobvist quoted in Richards (174), overgeneralization or transfer is the use of previously availabe strategies in new situations. In second language learning, some of these strategies will prove helpful in organizing the facts about the second language, but others, perhaps due to superficial similarities, will be misleading and inapplicable. Overgeneralization covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures in the target language. Based on the above statement, one can say that the cause of error in this case is not   the influence of the mother tongue alone, but the influence of the target language which they have already learnt for example: ―He runs fastly‖. In this sentence, the learner produces an error because he/she generalizes that adverbs of manner must always be formed by adding ‗ly‘ to the adjectives.

Ignorance of the Rule Restriction: This kind of error is closely related to overgeneralization. The learners fail to observe the restrictions of certain structures. They apply a rule in the context of the sentence where actually it is not necessary. E.g., ‗The man whom I saw him yesterday‘. The student does not know that it is impossible to mention the person referred to by the relative pronoun and by another pronoun as well.

Incomplete Application of Rules: This means that the learners apply a rule in the context of a sentence, although the rule is not yet complete. The student may use a statement for a question by adding a question mark at the end of the sentence. For example, ‗He goes to school?‘

False Concepts Hypothesized: False concepts hypothesized refer to faulty rule learning at various levels. There is a class of interlingual errors which derive from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the target language. These are sometimes due to poor gradation of teaching items. Some students get confused and cannot differentiate between ‗go and come‘, ‗bring and take‘, ‗too and very‘, etc. They use the present tense instead of the present continuous tense or the other way round. This might be caused by the learners not paying much attention to the difference between items. They consider ‗too and very‘ the same as well as ‗go and come‘. Igbo second language learners (SLL) of English make faulty inferences about the rules of the English grammar as regards the expression of time (tense and aspect).

The study of temporality in the second language is important because it is a source of L2 learners‘ errors. Importance and difficulties related to the English tense-aspect system are reported to exist in several countries. In other words, the significance of the problems associated with the learning of the tense is universally pervasive throughout the world (Zengin 2). From the very first studies on the acquisition of tenses, Reyes‘s and Bhardway et al (eds), observed that the influence of the mother tongue in the acquisition of L2 tense meanings has always been acknowledged. Reyes found that Tagalog speakers reinterpret L2 English tense and aspect systems according to the systems in their own language (In Villanueva, 159). These learners tend to confuse three groups of English tenses: the present perfect and the past perfect, the future and the conditional and the present continuous and the past continuous. This is so because these pairs are not differentiated in Tagalog. They are also not differentiated in Igbo language.

When we talk about situations, we distinguish them in the past or present. Events also differ in their structures as ongoing or completed. Different languages rely on different means to express these basic concepts about time. The learners transfer the characteristics of the L1 into the learning of the English language. Lado, for instance, proposed that Second Language Learner rely almost entirely on their native language in the process of learning the target language (In Powel 1). The researcher is of the same view with Lado in that second language learners already have an idea of time in their L1 and, consequently, they have to acquire a new set of relationships between forms and functions when learning L2. This idea appears in Bhardwaj et al (eds.) who state that

Our learners acquire a structured repertoire underlying their native language which is a system that generates their utterances within particular contexts. The temporal dimension of the reality they wish to refer to is symbolized to a great extent by the systems they have at their disposal at the time of speaking (84).However, the studies which have been briefly reviewed above, show that this work also deals with the influence of the mother tongue in the acquisition and use of tense and aspect meanings. The focus is on Igbo as L1 and English as a second language. It is hypothesized that the different relationship between form and meaning in Igbo, on the one hand, and English, on the other, may lead learners to apply the patterning in L 1 tenses and aspects to L2 tenses and aspect and thus use the English present perfect in those contexts where a simple past should be used.

Nemser argued that what gives rise to interlanguage (IL) is that learners sometimes made the first (L1) or second language (L2) categories equivalent and sometimes they did not. At times, the learner falls back on structures or patterns from the L1 in order to get a message across. This may

lead to transfer which may be positive or negative (116). ‗Transfer‘ is also used by educational psychologists to refer to the use of past knowledge and experience in a new situation, e.g. a literate SLL does not have to learn that written symbols represent the spoken form of the new language. So the learner knowing that written symbols represent his native language will also know that written symbols represent the target language. Similarly, concept such as deixis are already acquired when a learner comes to learn a second language and could be transferred to the target language. The transfer errors will reflect the equivalent structures of the L1. Thus, for example, an Igbo learner of English will reproduce structures like the one below:

O/Ha jere ahia unyahu. He *go to market yesterday.

O na-amu akwukwo ya kwa ubochi He is studying his books every day. Last year, my family *go to America (went).

Many people *come to my birthday party last week (came).

 

Referring to the examples, it is interpreted that these were the result of interference of L1 because in English, verbs are inflected according to time (tenses). These erroneous sentences are as a result of overgeneralization of the tense rules. Error in language learning and knowledge of grammar has become one of the most important aspects that indicate development of second language (L2) learners‘ Interlanguage (ILG) system (Lightbown and Spada 45). Corder has argued that errors are considered to be the features of the learner‘s utterances which are in one way or another different from those of the native speakers (260). He further states that the learners of a target language are not aware of their errors and thus are unable to correct these errors themselves. The process by which these errors are encountered, computed and analyzed is called Error Analysis. Richards

(cited in Tomlinson 96) has contended that Error Analysis includes the study and analysis of the errors made by the learners of a second or a foreign language.

The implication of this view is that errors are a permanent feature in the L2 classroom. Richards et al. define an error in language as follows:

(In speech or writing of a second or foreign language learner) the use of a linguistic item (e.g. a word, a grammatical item, a SPEECH ACT, etc.) in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning. A distinction is sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge and a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness or some other aspect of PERFORMANCE... (127).

Van Els et al have this to say about the occurrence of errors in L2 acquisition: ― Like sin, error is to be avoided and its influence overcome, but its presence is to be expected‖(262) .Students, however, continue to make the same errors which seem to be impervious to treatment and correction. Numerous and varied views have been given to account for why many learners do not master the rules and features of English L2. The reappearance of errors, even after treatment in a classroom situation, continues to mystify language teachers and researchers. The process in which incorrect linguistic features (errors) become a permanent part of the way in which a person uses language is called fossilisation.

According  to  Nakuma,  fossilisation  is  a  ―term  used  to  denote  what  appears  to  be  a  state  of permanent failure on the part of an L2 leaner to acquire a given feature of the target language‖

(247). Nakuma further explains that fossilisation indicates the recurrence during L2 performance of a form that is not only ―deviant‖ from the correct target language form, but also believed to be

―unchangeable‖ to the correct form, no matter the degree of exposure to the target language.

Analyzing the errors made by the learners is the best way to show the true proficiency level of the target language at a particular point in time. Grammatical structure does not only have a morphosyntactic form but also it deals with questions of how is it formed? (Accuracy) It is also used to express meaning (semantics) to answer question of what does it mean? (Meaningfulness) and in context-appropriate use to answer questions of when/why is it used? (appropriateness). These three dimensions are often called form, meaning and use. They are interrelated where a change in one will involve a change in another.

In the English language classroom, priority is given to the communicative language teaching and learning approach, which entails developing the ability of learners to communicate by using the language. Communicative competence, which entails discourse, grammatical, strategic and socio- linguistic competence, is also emphasized. English teachers are also required to integrate teaching by combining the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Communicative language teaching also requires language teachers to use skills which students already possess. The focus is on starting from where pupils are rather than from an idealistic notion of where they ought to be.

The purpose of this work is not to look at the whole Igbo speakers of English interlanguage but rather to take the issue of temporality as expressed in the English language and how it constitutes problems to learners of English as a second language. As a matter of fact, acquisition of tense and aspect systems has been the focus of many descriptive and pedagogical accounts of language and has always occupied an important place in the curricula of many language programmes (Bardovi- Harlig 356). In order to correctly express temporal references in English, a learner must at least

 

have a good command of: (1) the English tense and aspect systems; (2) the interaction of grammatical aspect and inherent lexical aspect; (3) the establishment of temporal relations of events on the discourse level (Bardovi- Harlig 260).