Investigating the ability of Arabic (L1) learners of English language (L2) to identify Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE) in their L2

Abstract

Within the English language, a well-known phenomenon in which a verb phrase is excluded from speech, with its intended meaning being retrieved from the context, is referred to as Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE). The current research explored understanding of this phenomenon by Arabic (L1) learners of the English language (L2). The primary matter being addressed is whether Arabic learners of English can distinguish between different types of VPE in their L2, even though within their L1, VPE does not exist. Originally, 50 participants (aged between 18 and 45; 36 males and 14 females) were recruited via social media applications to participate in a Sentence Completion Judgment Task, which was designed to probe participants’ knowledge of VPE constructions, that differed according to whether they had interpretable or uninterpretable features in the elided clause. Prior to the questionnaire, participants were given a British Council Test to gauge their level of English. The results indicated that overall, participants could identify VPE in English, and most important of all, did distinguish between uninterpretable and interpretable features in the elided clause. These results lend support to ‘The Interpretability Hypothesis’, which predicts that features not available in a speaker’s first language cause consistent problems in their second language, if they start learning their language after a critical period.