A learner corpus study of Filipino L2 English definite article use: the way forward for language teachers

Abstract

It is well-documented that L2 English learners from article-less languages, such as Mandarin and Korea, have trouble appropriately marking definiteness in L2 English, causing numerous breakdowns in referential coherence. The status of Filipino / Tagalog as an article or article-less language is also up for debate, with ANG, NG, SA markers all used to signal definiteness and indefiniteness according to context. This paper presents a learner corpus analysis of L2 English definite article use by L1 Tagalog speakers, collected from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICNALE, Ishikawa, 2013), totalling 200,000 words from 800 essays. Using Pica's (1983) Target Language Use as a measure of article accuracy across the production of zero, indefinite and definite articles across four types of obligatory contexts (generic, specific definite, specific indefinite and non-specific indefinite), the results show that Filipino L2 English users struggle with the use of the definite article in generic contexts, much like the findings reported for Mandarin, Korean and Thai in the author's previous research. Based on the results of this analysis, a number of suggestions for pedagogy are presented, looking at how Filipino learners use articles successfully, when they do not, and what can be done to improve Filipino L2 English learners' accuracy and range of definite article use.