difficulties of english present perfect to german l1 speakers - implications for teaching

7/22/2019 Difficulties of English Present Perfect to German L1 Speakers - Implications for Teaching

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The difficulty of Present Perfectfor German L1 speakers andimplications for teachingSimona Petrescu

5/1/2013


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ContentsIntroduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3

PART ONE: Overview of PP ............................................................................................................................ 4

Form .......................................................................................................................................................... 4

Meaning ..................................................................................................................................................... 5

Use 6

PART TWO: Sources of difficulty ................................................................................................................... 8

Difficulty of form ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Difficulty of meaning ................................................................................................................................. 9

Difficulty of form-meaning mapping (use) .............................................................................................. 10

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 12

PART THREE: An approach to teaching ....................................................................................................... 13

Is it necessary to teach PP to business people? ...................................................................................... 13

Overall teaching approach ...................................................................................................................... 13

Explicit or implicit? .................................................................................................................................. 14

Main teaching aim ................................................................................................................................... 14

Reactive or proactive? ............................................................................................................................. 15

Inductive or deductive? ........................................................................................................................... 15

Basic lesson structure .............................................................................................................................. 15

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 17

References ................................................................................................................................................... 19

Appendix ...................................................................................................................................................... 21


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Introduction

The aim of this essay is to present the difficulties faced by German L1 speakerswhen learning the English Present Perfect and to propose a suitable, reasoned

approach to teaching it. In the first part of the paper I will use Larsen-Freemans

(2003) framework to examine the Present Perfect form, meaning and use. The

second part of my paper will examine sources of difficulty posed by the Present

Perfect (PP), following the criteria proposed by DeKeyser (2005). Learning difficulties

will be also linked specifically to German L1 speakers. A brief comparative view of

the English PP and the German Perfekt will be integrated at this stage. The last

section of my paper will propose a reasoned approach to teaching PP to German

adult speakers in a Business English course.

I will use the abbreviation PP only with reference to the English Present

Perfect, as well as SP only with regard to the English Simple Past. The term present

perfect is used as a general linguistic label and broadly refers to the perfect form

marked for present, as also available in other languages.

The word form will be used in two senses. First, as a tense-aspect

combination, usually called in grammar books tense(s). In this sense, I will refer to

PP as a verb form, not as a tense. I will also use form in the sense given by

Larsen-Freeman (2003), within the tryad form-meaning-use.

The Present Perfect has been the subject of considerable academic research

within the field of English linguistics. That is mainly because, although it has typical

features of a perfect, especially the form and the core meaning (i.e., anteriority),

there is significant discrepancy between PP and the other English perfect forms

regarding meanings and uses (Portner, 2003). For example, the PPs indefiniteness

is not a characteristic feature of future, past or non-finite perfect. Also, constraints on

the use of time adverbials solely govern the present form of the English perfect.

A similar asymmetry can be noticed across languages, comparing the English

PP to the present perfect forms in other European languages. The German

counterpart of PP, the Perfekt, does not evince the peculiarities of meaning and use

that will be discussed in this essay in connection with PP.


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Meaning

As anticipated in the previous paragraph, the form of the PP can be used as a

starting point in exploring its meaning. De Swart (2007) explains PP chiefly as

referring to a result state in the present (p. 2278). According to her, any perfect form

points to an event+result state, with the tense of the auxiliary have reflecting the

tense of the result (for PP, present). Higginbotham (2010) further details this by

distinguishing between a resultstate, which refers to a visible result in the present

that will not continue for ever, and a resultantstate, starting when the event is over

and going on for ever. Examples like I have broken my leg, respectively I have

travelled all over the worldwill reflect the distinction.

A mention should be made on the use of the terms tense and aspect. There

are various mappings of these concepts proposed in the literature, but examining

such distinctions lies beyond the scope of my essay. I will use the terms as defined

by Comrie (1976, as cited in Bardovi-Harlig, 2000, p. 96); tense is in my essay the

temporal deictic relation between situations and speech time, while aspect is

concerned with the internal structure of a situation, which yields different ways of

viewing a situation (in progress or completed).

PP has been explained in various studies as having mainly an aspectualmeaning, a mainly temporal meaning, or a combination of both. In Radden and

Dirvens view (2007), PP is a combination of tense and aspect, its meaning centred

around a fundamental concept of viewing frame, by which the speaker views the

event from the perspective of the present, in a backward-looking stance (p.212). To

Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002), PP is a combination of the perfect aspect with the

present tense-marker, yielding the meaning ofpast action with present effects (p.

157).

Whether mainly aspectual or temporal, the semantics of PP seems to rely

fundamentally on a few defining concepts: backward-looking stance and

indefiniteness (Radden & Dirven 2007), current relevance (Radden & Dirven 2007,

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik 1985, Comrie 1976 and Dowty 1979, as cited

in Bardovi-Harlig, 2000, p. 106), extended now(McCoard, 1978, as cited in Portner,

2003), result & resultant state (Portner 2003, Higginbotham 2010), topic time (Klein

1992), or the tryad event time speech time - reference time (based on


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Reichenbachs 1947 theory, also explained in Radden & Dirven 2007 and adopted

by many researchers).

The meaning of PP is partly derived from the core meaning of the perfect,

which regards the situation afterit is over; as such, a present perfect refers to an

event that precedes the present moment. However, due to the overlap between

before present and the temporal domain of SP, i.e. the past, an explanation of PP

meaning would need to account for the net distinction between the two verb forms. In

this way, a concept like the extended nowwould explain why PP is fundamentally a

present tense, since the mental space (Radden & Dirven, 2007) involved by PP is

centred around the present, and not around a past moment.

Reichenbachs theory accounts for the difference between PP and SP by

means of the event time, speech time and reference time. The tryad would explain

the singularity of PP, by postulating a reference time identical with the speech time

(present), while SP involves a past reference time, identical with the event time

(Radden & Dirven, 2007, chapter 9). Klein (1992) criticizes the concept of reference

time for being vague and introduces the concept oftopic time, which is the time

interval for which a claim is made (p.535). In the case of PP, topic time is after the

situation time and includes the speech time; in the case of SP, the topic timeincludes the situation time and precedes the speech time.

To sum up, a great deal has been written in an attempt to explain the

singularity of PP, mentioned in the Introduction. The PP meaning could be

summarized as past situation + current relevance (with or without a palpable

present result) + indefinite placement in time. Another key element of the PP

meaning, resulting from all such definitions, is its subjective character: virtually all

concepts put forward to explain the PPs specificity have to do with the speakers

view of the event.

Use

PP uses will reflect the above-mentioned meanings as contextualised mainly by

the specific verb meaning and by the time adverbials. Lexical aspect, reviewed for

example by Bardovi-Harlig (2000), is the aspectual meaning inherent to a specific

verb. It underlies the aspectual categories of verbs (state, activity, achievement,

accomplishment or act), as well as aspectual features such as duration or telicity


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(Radden & Dirven, 2007) and it will determine a certain reading of PP in a given

sentence.

Portner (2003) reviews common PP uses in the literature as follows :

the resultative (orexperiential) PP, e.g. Mary has read Middlemarch,

the existential(orcurrent relevance) PP, e.g. The Earth has been hit by

giant asteroids before,

the continuative PP, e.g. Mary has lived in London for five years, and

the hot news PP, e.g. The Orioles have won. (p. 459-460)

Radden and Dirven (2007) examine these uses in relation to the lexical aspect

of verbs and of the predicate as a whole. The resultative PP corresponds to anterior

events (viewed in the post-time, or after the event is over) that are bounded

(completed) and telic (with a definite end-point). In Portners (2003) example above,

the predicate reading Middlemarch fulfils the three conditions. This use of the PP is

usually not accompanied by time adverbials. Speakers use this PP to talk about

situations that are relevant now, either due to a result or to a resultant state.

An inferentialPP, which can also be called indefinite, occurs in a configuration

anterior bounded atelic situations, for example I have lived in Baghdad. This

reading of the PP would correspond to Portners (2003) existential PP and is mainly

used to suggest a resultant state. A so-called recentPP also refers to anterior recent

atelic situations, similar to the inferential PP in its configuration, but distinct through

the choice of verb; if inferential PP occurs with both states and events, the recent

PP occurs with events. This use corresponds to Portners hot-news PP and is

obviously deployed to convey current relevance of the past event. Time adverbials

that are compatible with these readings are ever, before, orjust, recently, so faretc.

Radden and Dirvens (2007) continuative PP occurs with anterior phases of

states or habits (p. 216); the states or habits (activities) include the present time, so

what is anterior is only their starting point. The verb belongs aspectually to the

category of states, whether permanent or temporary, as in I have worked for this

company for 10 years now. The speaker uses such continuative PP to refer either to

the starting point of the situation, or to its duration. Typical time expressions will be

based on since and respectively for.


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As can be noticed, PP uses are not solely a matter of meaning actualised in a

lexico-grammatical context. They also reflect the speakers pragmatic intention, e.g.

giving news, talking about life experience etc. Yule (1998) discusses the PP uses in

connection with discourse moves between background and foreground, with the PP

being deployed for foregrounding effects, especially in news reports (p. 68).

One last mention goes to the restriction on the time adverbials to use with PP.

Due to its indefinite meaning, to its focus on the present and on the present result,

PP cannot take specific time adverbials, typically last... or ...ago. The only time

adverbials that are acceptable are either indefinite (just, so far, yet, already) or point

to intervals of time that include the present (today, this week, ever / neveretc).

PART TWO: Sources of difficulty

This section analyses the main sources of difficulty posed by learning the PP.

The type of difficulty that I will focus on is functional (Krashen, 1982, R. Ellis, 1990,

as cited in DeKeyser, 2005, p.3) and I will view it from the perspective of learning as

acquisition ofprocedural knowledge. In what follows I will use DeKeysers criteria to

analyse the difficulty of learning the PP, mainly (but not exclusively) from the

perspective of German L1 adult learners, in a professional context.

Some examples of over- and underuse of PP presented by Bardovi-Harlig

(1997) provide palpable evidence for the PPs difficulty. PP is overused instead of

SP or Past Perfect (p.399) and is typically underused when learners produce

Present, SP or Past Perfect instead of PP (p. 410), as seen in the examples below:

Overuse:

I have met him long ago. (instead of SP)

When I arrived at the office, she has already left. (instead of Past Perfect).

Underuse:

Im working here since 2005. (Present Progressive instead of PP)

Dont worry about the contract. I signed it and emailed it already. (SP instead

of PP)


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I love travelling but I had never been to another continent. (Past Perfect instead

of PP).

Below I will look at detailed aspects of difficulty in learning PP.

Difficulty of form

Complexity

PP is a relatively complex form, as it is a compound with inflection on both

elements. A first difficulty might lie in selecting the right past participle of an irregular

verb. Another might be the inflection of the auxiliary, resulting for example in no third-

persons marking, or oscillation between have and had.

Particularly for German L1 speakers the word order could pose further difficulty,

as the German Perfekt places the lexical verb on the last place of the sentence, on

the model I have him lately several times met.

However, the complexity of the PP form would not be a real challenge to

speakers of German, as the compound has an identical structure in both languages.

Difficulty of meaning

Abstractness

The concepts involved in the meaning of PP, which I reviewed in Part One, are

all highly abstract. Current relevance, the extended now, indefiniteness, even the

notion ofresultrequire a high level of abstraction, which means that the L2 learners

are expected to make quick decisions, while monitoring their output, over ontological

questions such as what is the present?, what can count as a result or as a

resultant state?, what is currentrelevance? The distinctive aspectual features, like

boundedness, telicity, state versus event, or the Reichenbachian distinction between

speech time and reference time are also abstract parameters that play a significant

role in understanding, and hence correctly using the PP. Klein (1992) criticizes, for

example, the concepts of current relevance (p. 531) or that of reference time (p. 533)

for being fuzzy, which makes them hard to define and therefore hard to grasp.


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Novelty

The meanings of PP are very novel to a German L1 speaker, whose Perfekt

looks identical but does not impose the fine restrictions of the PP. Let us look at a

brief contrastive analysis of the two perfect forms in terms of meanings.

Meanings PP German Perfekt

Present reference time Yes No

Current relevance Yes Not necessarily (Klein

2000 p. 359)

Lexical aspect of verbs

taking the form

Both states and events,

telic or atelic

Mostly telic events (Klein

2000 p. 362)

Scope of the POST-

operator (Klein 2000 p.

369): Post-timethe time

after

Only over the predicate:

the speaker is within the

post-time of the event

It has snowed(POST-

snow: the streets are

white)

over the predicate (see

PP)

or

over the whole sentence:

the speaker is in the post-

time of the whole situation

It has snowed heavily that

winter. (POST-snowing

heavily that winter)

Indefinite Yes No

Difficulty of form-meaning mapping (use)

Frequency in the input

The frequency of PP in the input is quite low, according to Biber, Conrad and

Leech (2002, p. 158) but it may be significantly higher in professional

communication, where the need to give news or express events impacting on the

current business situation may often arise.

Wulff, Ellis, Rmer, Bardovi-Harlig and Leblanc (2009) find that there is a

certain, limited category of verbs, mostly with pronounced telicity, that tend to appear

most often with the perfect aspect, which would facilitate the use of the perfect by L2

learners, at least with the respective verbs. However, the authors point out that the

apparent high frequency of such verbs in the perfect does not in itself guarantee


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accelerated learning, since the verbs can occur in other tense-aspect combinations

too. In analysing the effect of frequency on learning one also needs to consider the

frequency of the distinct and of the prototypical occurrences of lexical aspect (p.

366).

In conclusion, the relatively high frequency of the PP in professional

communication cannot be considered in itself a facilitating factor to learning. On the

contrary, this higher frequency within the professional context may reflect an

increased pressure on English learners to use the PP correctly and may limit their

choices in avoiding it .

Salience and optionality

Taking Wulff et al.s (2009) above-mentioned conclusions further , it is the

salience of the distinctive uses that can facilitate learning, rather than raw frequency

of uses. The PP distinctive uses, however, are not particularly salient. The PP mainly

occurs in contexts where the speakers talk about past events, where the subtle

subjective meanings may not become clear to the L2 learners by simple exposure.

Due to this, salience could be linked with optionality: indeed, to many English L2

learners the PP appears as an alternative to SP, as both refer basically to past

events and have the same truth-value (Bardovi-Harlig, 1997, p. 379).

Markedness

In his analysis of the English PP and the German Perfekt, Schaden (2009)

postulates the competition in use between present perfect and simple past forms,

both in English and in German. He argues that the competition is between a default

form and a marked one (p. 133). In English the English PP is the marked form, while

in German the Perfekt is the default one.

This has implications for the PPs difficulty, as a marked form triggers additional

reasoning and sets more limitations. Also, this asymmetry between the two perfect

forms in either language has deeper implications. It is very likely that German L1

speakers will take a Perfekt (default form, broad sense, high frequency) and formally

translate it into an English PP (marked form, narrow sense, low frequency); due to

the very limited overlap between the two perfect forms, the result of this translation

process will in most cases be inaccurate.


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Redundancy

The English PP often conveys meanings that can be also conveyed by suitable

time adverbials or the overall context. Learners often wonder why it is not simply

enough to say

Did you hear the news? They got married!

The context makes it clear, they rightly claim, that the situation has the

character of news and there is no risk that the listeners might miss this implicature.

This redundancy demotivates learners from using PP.

Conclusion

I will conclude by bringing in the SLA perspective. According to Bardovi-Harlig

(2000), the acquisition order is from meaning (semantics) to form (morphology).

Learners will first process content words and only then grammatical words (p.43),

which means that in PPs case learners will first look for support from the lexical

items (the time adverbials) in conveying the meaning of PP. This idea resonates with

Wulff et al. (2009), who discuss the aspect-before-tense theory and the Aspect

Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994, as cited in Wulff et al., 2009, p. 355). The

thrust of these theories is that L2 learners first attempt to express aspect, initially

through lexico-semantic means, later using the grammatical aspect forms, with thefinetuning of tense marking added last. For PP acquisition, this suggests that

learners will first attempt to express anteriority by means of lexical means (e.g.

yesterday), then acquire the SP and only finally integrate PP as a distinct

grammatical form for both tense and aspect.

translating Perfekt into PP

German Perfekt: broad

sense, very frequent

English PP:

narrow sense,

less frequent


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PART THREE: An approach to teaching

In presenting my proposed approach to teaching PP I will follow the framework

provided by Larsen-Freeman (2009).

Is it necessary to teach PP to business people?PP is a relevant verb form for professional communication, due to its pragmatic

uses. As mentioned before, business people often need to give news and updates

on the progress of their projects, talk about the key development of their company

over time, or to present their CV and the significant experiences along their career.

To enable the learners to perform such communicative tasks accurately, also given

the difficulty of the verb form explained in the previous section, it seems indeed

necessary to teach PP in a business English course.

Overall teaching approach

The approach I am proposing focuses on both form and meaning, and

integrates elements of task-based teaching. Form is understood here as language,

i.e. forms and rules, (Doughty & Williams 1998), as opposed to meaning or

message conveyed.

Concerning the focus on form, FonF, Han (2007, p. 77) points out the

inadequacy of a narrow FonF, or focus on forms (Norris & Ortega, 2000), which

neglects the role of learners semantic and conceptual system in interlanguage

development.As Han explains, relying on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (p. 65),

learners cognition is considerably shaped by their L1 conceptual system. L2 learning

will necessarily involve, therefore, not just the study and acquisition of L2 forms, but

re-shaping the existing conceptual system to accommodate the new one. This is also

relevant for my topic: the strong contrast between the German Perfekt and PP does

require such a conceptual re-shaping for German L1 speakers. That is why my

approach starts by focusing on form (identifying PP instances in a meaningful input

text, for example), but constantly resorts to the meaning in the input to facilitate the

desired change within the learners conceptual system. Through this tight dovetailing

of meaning and language form, my approach comes closest to FonF as defined by

Doughty and Williams (1998).


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Regarding task-based teaching, Hismanoglu and Hismanoglu (2011, p. 49)

clearly set out the benefits of this teaching approach. Among them, the most relevant

to my German business English learners are

the stress on meaning (within the input) over form (language),

encouraging adult learners to use PP by thinking primarily of the

meaning they wish to convey and not of grammar rules;

its consistency with a learner-based teaching philosophy, generating

learner confidence and autonomy.

Also, task-based teaching comes closest to real-life communication, in that

learners i) take charge of communication and ii) focus on a goal that lies beyond

language itself.

Explicit or implicit?

As argued above, the difficulty of the PP meaning and its relevance to

professional communication make it necessary that PP is taught explicitly FonF is

mostly an explicit teaching approach. Norris and Ortega (2000) prove, in their meta-

analysis of relevant research studies, the overall effectiveness, at least statistical, of

explicit instructional treatments.

However, explicitness does not, in my teaching approach, involve any

significant amount of metalanguage. Doughty and Williams (1998) implicit focus on

form (p. 232), prioritizing the communication of meaning while drawing learners

attention to the language form, could be a suitable description of what my teaching

attempts to do. What is explicitly explored is the PPs pragmatic uses, while its

semantic meaning is usually left to implicit learning and may be explored inductively

with groups of more advanced learners.

Main teaching aim

My main teaching aim is to facilitate proceduralization and in the long run

automaticity of PP pragmatic uses. Unlike the common teaching strategies, I focus

not on the mapping of form and semantic meaning, but on that of form and pragmatic

function, i.e. the communicative intention of the speaker. In this way, the lesson

raises awareness of, or practises, pragmatic uses such as give news, evaluateprogress, say how long a situation goes back in time, talk about life / professional


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explored and then attention is given to the form, while Form-meaning means that

the form is practised and drilled with meaning being supplied as a prompt.

Regarding the choice of tasks, my teaching approach usually makes use of

tasks such as comparing and contrasting, ordering and sorting, or sharing personal

experiences (Willis & Willis, 2007, as cited in Rodriguez-Bonces, 2010, p. 171), but

also very often (mini)-presentations or free discussions. Task-utility, task-

naturalness and even task-essentialness (Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993, as cited in

Doughty & Williams, 1998, p.209 ) play a significant role in selecting or designing the

tasks for the free-output stage. Going back to Wulff et al.s (2009) claim that learning

is driven by frequency, distinctiveness and protoypicality (p. 367), useful, natural or

essential tasks will make sure the most prototypical and distinctive uses of PP are

being consolidated. For example, practising PP meaningfully in a lesson on company

history may have learners draw timelines or graphs and then present the visual

information; in a lesson on project reporting they will think of a current project and

put together a to-do list, based on which they have to say which tasks they have

already, and which they have not yet, completed.

I will conclude this section with a final look at some SLA considerations that

seem to support my teaching approach. According to Doughty (2003), declarative

knowledge is a result, and not a premise of acquisition. Declarative knowledge is a

Input processing or other

awareness-raising activity(reading, warm-up

discussion )

MEANING-FORM

Rule

(mind map)

MEANING-FORM

Input enhancement:

interpretation activity -(matching rule to actual

instances)

MEANING-FORM

Controlled output

(rewording, sentencecompletion etc)

FORM-MEANING

Free output

(task)

MEANING-FORM


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past perfect. Although essentially referring to a past situation, the distinction from SP

operates not only on a semantic, but also on a pragmatic and a discourse level.

Cross-linguistically, too, the PP contrasts with the German Perfekt. The latter being a

much more frequent and more permissive form in German than PP in English,

German speakers will tend to use it inaccurately in English.

My teaching approach to German professionals starts, as a result of this

pronounced difficulty of PP, by rendering explicit only the tip of the iceberg, i.e., the

pragmatic-oriented uses. This user-guide approach equips the trainees with a

reasonably simple tool which links PP with the type of message they need to convey.

As learners become more confident, more about the PP meaning can be explored

inductively. The main goal is facilitating procedural knowledge and, as much aspossible, automaticity of use. Declarative knowledge, including metalanguage, is

kept to a minimum. Finally, a balanced combination of focus on meaning and focus

on language is rounded off by using natural tasks, in order to consolidate the

prototypical uses of Present Perfect within a learner-based approach.


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References

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difficulties of english present perfect to german l1 speakers - implications for teaching

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