TESTING THE FLUCTUATION HYPOTHESIS IN THE USE OF ENGLISH DEFINITE ARTICLE BY URDU SPEAKERS

Abstract

The present study examines the acquisition of English articles by Urdu L1 speakers in Pakistan, focusing on the use of definite articles. As seen in Hawkins and Towell (1994), the existing studies highlights the challenges that L2 learners face in case they do not have an equivalent article system in their L1, Master (1995) emphasizes the role of explicit instruction in facilitating article acquisition, and Ionin (2009) examines the role of the quality of input in L2 article learning, concluding that the amount and type of English exposure have a significant effect on how well learners master articles. However, it is found out that acquiring articles can be very difficult for L2 learners when their L1 is does not have an equivalent structure like the article-less languages of Urdu, Japanese and Korean.

The current research explores whether the problem of article learning is similar in different age groups of participants i.e. adolescents (9-19 years old) and adults (20 years old or higher). For this purpose, 100 participants were taken. Following the Fluctuation Hypothesis (FH) by Ionin (2004), as a theoretical framework, the study identified the degree to which learners vary in their patterns of use of articles and how various input patterns influence proficiency. In addition, the research also examined the effect of level and grades of education at which start learning English, no of years of learning English and the effect of Mother tongue on the accuracy of the learners in the articles. The Data were collected by using elicitation test and a judgment task based on Ionin's (2004) methodology to assess learners' accuracy in using definite articles. The findings focus on how the age, educational level, and knowledge of languages interact and influence the acquisition of articles within L2 English regarding the stages when learners develop proficiency overcoming interference, overgeneralization and overuse. The findings not only enrich our understanding of the L2 article use, but also give practitioners, including L2 English teachers and learners, empirically based advisory on instructions design improvements and learning maximization.