Modification of English Complex Noun Phrases in Undergraduate Students' Theses: A Case Study of Native and Non-Native Writers  

Oleh:

Mutiara, Rika

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: CONCORPS: The 3rd Atma Jaya Conference on Corpus Studies, Gaining Better Insights Into Language Through Corpora, Jakarta, August 21, 2015, page 141-150.
Topik: complex NPs; academic prose; native and non-native writers
Fulltext: Rika Mutiara-141.pdf (184.51KB)

Isi artikel

The complex noun phrase (NP) has been one of the frequently used language features in academic register since a lot of information is conveyed through it (Biber, et al., 1999; Oakey, 2010). Some studies have been conducted to investigate NPs in English academic prose. Academic prose written by authors with different linguistic backgrounds may result in different use of language features including NPs. Using the theoretical framework adapted from the previous study (Biber, et al., 1999), this study explores the kinds of modification in NPs produced by native writers and non-native writers (Indonesian writers) and the differences among them. The first step in conducting the study is making a word list from each of the corpora (the native writer corpus and the non-native writer corpus). Then, the (potential) nouns in each of the word lists were set apart. Next, the concordance lines for each of the potential nouns in their respective corpus were obtained. Close scrutiny of the concordance lines was then carried out to discard non-noun occurrences and non-headword noun occurrences. The remaining concordance lines were examined to identify any modifiers to the nouns. Differences occur in the use of adverb (phrase) as postmodifiers, adjective (phrase) as postmodifiers, relativizers, prepositions, appositives, and multiple modifiers whether premodifiers or postmodifiers. In multiple premodifiers and postmodifiers, native and non-native writers produce different numbers of modifiers. Native writers produce 2-4 premodifiers to build NPs while the non-native writers only use 2 or 3 premodifiers. In multiple postmodifiers, one of the native writers produces 5 postmodifiers and the other one makes 9 postmodifiers as the longest NPs. One of the non-native writers forms the NPs with 5 postmodifiers while the other one builds the NP with 8 modifiers as the longest NP. The other difference is the kinds of modifier to build the complex NPs. Nonnative writers never produce adverb (phrase), adjective (phrase), and reflexive pronoun as modifiers in NPs with multiple postmodifiers. In the NP produced by one of the non-native writers, appositive plays an important role that influences non-native writers’ ability to produce NPs with 8 multiple postmodifiers. The non-native writers could make longer and complex NPs because they modify the noun with a number of appositives. In this case, differences might have been caused by L1 interference. L1 interference also can be seen in the use of adjective (phrase), adverb (phrase), and reflexive pronoun in postmodifier. The non-native writers produce restricted variation of modifiers. The implication for language teaching is to include the modifiers that were never produced by non-native writers as a language material in the syllabus of academic writing course. By doing so, it is expected that non-native learners will be able to use this kind of NPs. In addition, special attention can be given in developing sentences with complex syntax structure.

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