Effects of learning contexts on knowledge of verbs : lexical and inflectional knowledge of verbs among pupils learning Finnish in northern Norway

• Main Author: Niiranen, Leena
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Subjects: andrespråkslæring; Finno-Ugric languages: 030; Humanities: 000; learning of Finnish; learning of verb; Linguistics: 010; læring av finsk; læring av verb; second language learning; VDP

The aim of the study was to find out how input and interaction influence language learning. Two groups of students learning Finnish as a second language in Norway were compared in the study: 5 simultaneous bilinguals in Norwegian and Finnish (BL-group), and 5 Norwegian students learning Finnish in a traditional language class (L2-group). The knowledge of Finnish verbs was investigated using different language tasks. A questionnaire was used to identify the use of Finnish outside of school. The groups differed regarding the amount of verbs that they knew and the organization of verbs in their vocabularies. Organization was investigated in terms of word frequency, semantics and conjugation. Frequent verbs in Finnish were, with some exceptions, rarely used in the L2-group, but often in the BL-group. Because only few cognitive and modal verbs were used in the L2-group, the students also produced few verb string constructions, but such verbs and constructions were common in the BL-group. The students in the L2-group only knew some of the verb conjugations in Finnish, whereas the BL-group was able to use important verb categories such as tense. Input was a factor in learning verbs for both groups. Modified input in the text book used in the L2-group partly explained their knowledge of Finnish verbs. The BL-group knew the frequently used Finnish verbs well, including the modal verbs, because such verbs are common in everyday language use. Interaction with Finnish speakers explained the differences between the individual informants in the BL-group. The bilingual informant who used Finnish the least was the most like the classroom learners. This result was interpreted to mean that one’s knowledge of language emerges from experiences with language use, as usage-based models of language suggest. Results of the study demonstrated that the development of language skills in traditional language classes is a slow process; bilingualism, on the other hand, is an effective way to learn languages.