BY JULIE PETERSGROUP B

Case Study of Bassemah

Basic Background Information

Born in Alexandria, Egypt on August 15, 1978

Family is in high-middle class status: father is Ship Architect Engineer (rare and highly-paid), mother has degree in Literature (works for shipping company too), and younger sister is a Communication Engineer.

L1: Arabic with Egyptian dialect

Relatively proficient in English

Educational Background

Did well in all areas of academics Preferences for chemistry and math. Egyptians attend universities for free, but what they qualify

for is based on a score. Student’s grade for their last year of high school determines

their score. Her score = 85-something, needed 86 for pharmacy school

(chemistry). Qualified for engineering, which is also considered high, but

had absolutely no interest whatsoever! Chose accounting (math) and completed a 4 year degree Then worked 7 years in shipping industry (with father) as an

accountant.

Progression of Learning English

Little to no exposure to English prior to 5th grade

English class in middle school Once a week, like any other class Basics: grammar, past, present, vocabulary Opportunities to practice were only during class

English during 3 years of high school Choice of other languages or art

English during years at university None, accounting classes only

Limited opportunities to practice English at work

Languages

Egypt: mostly Arabic, Italian, English, and French (influenced by tourism and manufacturing)

Father: Arabic, English, French, and German

Mother: Arabic, English, and French

Sister: Arabic, English, and French

Bassemah: Arabic, English, and French

Journey

Before meeting husband: shipping accountant in Egypt

Meeting husband: church, courtship, marriage at age 27, paperwork, gave birth to son in ’06.

Arrival in 2006: husband’s perception of American’s culture, husband’s issues with speaking English, husband’s level of fluency in English after 12 years, lack of socialization, Egyptian church members and their level of fluency in English (after 15 years), her beliefs clashing with her husband’s beliefs, abusive/drug addict (pharmacist) husband, no space for her belongings, finds pictures and letters from previous wife and child, impact on English.

Divorce in 2009: trials, husband’s ego -“knock me down”, “knows how important my son is”, “he knows that if he took the custody, I would come begging him”, psychological evaluations taken to combat his image (3 tests, 600 questions each), impact on English.

Life goes on: accounting student to fill in the gap (U.S. does accounting differently than all other countries), impact on son (ex-husband’s push for Egyptian school as well as views about speaking Arabic—contradiction).

23: 24 to 25:14 (audio on YouTube) Beginning on Line 52 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8jnwRV62nM&feature=g-upl

Motivation and Attitude

Instrumental motivation – “functional reason”

Integrative motivation – “are interested in the people and culture represented”

Resultative motivation – “learners who experience success in learning may be more, or in some contexts, less motivated to learn”

Intrinsic motivation – “involves the arousal and maintenance of curiosity”

Ellis, R. (1997), pp. 75-76

Strategies

“Studies have shown, not surprisingly, that successful learners use more strategies than unsuccessful learners.”

Cognitive strategies – “are those that are involved in the analysis, synthesis, or transformation of learning materials.” (eg. What’s up?)

Metacognitive strategies – “are those that are involved in planning, monitoring, and evaluating learning.” (eg. prepositions and saying something wrong)

Social/affective strategies – “concern the ways in which learners choose to interact with other speakers.” (eg. questioning for clarification, “know what I mean” discourse marker)

Ellis, R. (1997), pp. 77

The Overview of Errors

Past Tense Discourse markers Comparative adjectives Conjunctions (coordinating and subordinating) Prepositions Morpho-syntactic Conjugation of auxiliary verb be Pronouns (relative and indefinite) Omission of verb Subject/verb agreement Pronunciation variation (possible L1 transfer error) Misplaced primary stress

Past Tense

The omission of tense marker/-ed/ Line 7 when she explained her ex-husband’s view: “…he does not like the culture here…

it’s so ruin...” Ruined would be the correct form. Line 5: “I was pretty astonish…” instead of astonished. Line 13: “… I stay here from two thousand and six up till two nine…” instead of stayed. Line 37: “My ex-husband want put him in that school…” instead of wanted. It is also

interesting that here she not only omits the /-ed/, but she also omits the word that should come after wanted, which is to.

The irregular form for past tense Line 9: “and he got to…he just make me think we shouldn’t…” In looking at make, I

could consider it an omission error of /-s/ for the 3rd person singular verb. Instead though, I consider the past tense form of got used just prior to this error. I presume from that evidence that she meant to have make in its past tense form: made.

Research on Past Tense

“Thus, when learners begin to use past tense markers (either irregular markers as in ‘ate’ or regular markers as in ‘painted’), they do not do so on all verbs at the same time.”

“Thus, in the case of past tense, at any one time a learner may mark some verbs correctly for past tense, fail to mark others at all, and overgeneralize the regular –ed and the progressive –ing forms with yet other verbs.”

Ellis, R. (1997), p. 24.

Discourse Markers

Discourse Markers (38 times during 5-minute segment) “Ya know” was used 6 times; it can be seen on Lines 4, 6, 17, 27, 59, and 85. “Ya know what I mean” was used 7 times; it can be seen on Lines 5, 8, 29, 55,

59, 61, and 68. “Like” was used 11 times; it can be seen on Lines 6, 16, 31, 38, 56, 70, and

71. “Basically” was used 2 times; it can be seen twice on Line 17. “Alright” was used 1 time; it can be seen on Line 30. “Okay” was used 2 times; it can be seen on Lines 22 and 41. “I mean” was used 6 times; it can be seen on Lines 31, 43, 60, 61, 68, and 69. “I think” was used 1 time; it can be seen on Line 63. “See” was used 1 time; it can be seen on Line 68. “So” was used 1 time; it can also be seen on Line 68.

Research on Discourse Markers

“Three informal functions for discourse markers have also been designated. The three informal functions are: (1) to fill pauses in conversation, (2) to act as nervous glitches in speech, and (3) the markers have become part of our collective lexicon (Davis, 1992). Unfortunately, very little academic research has been done on the three informal functions of discourse markers. Two questions in particular remain to be addressed by linguistic or communication researchers: (1) how often are the markers used? and (2) are markers a conscious of unconscious decision? Furthermore, the impact markers have on perception and credibility has not been addressed. These areas are of keen interest because discourse markers often function informally and are considered a part of the human psyche and intellect (Schiffrin, 1987).” (Emphasis added)

http://www.nationalforensics.org/journal/vol22no2-3.pdf

References

Croucher, S. M. (2004). “Like you know what I’m saying: A study of discourse marker frequency in extemporaneous and impromptu speaking”. www.national forensics.org/journal/vol22no2-3.

Ellis, R. (1997). Second Language Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press.

Filler type: Discourse marker (DM). (2003). In Linguistic Data Consortium online. Retrieved from https://secure.ldc.upenn.edu/intranet/Annotation/MDE/guidelines/2003/dm1.html

Shiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.