engleski

Why Do We Need Articles in English?

It is a commonplace that English has become a lingua franca of today. As a lingua franca, it has acquired new features which do not exist in the language production of speakers of English as L1 (Graddol, 2007 ; Mauranen&Ranta, 2009). Nevertheless, the instruction of the English language for non-native speakers is based on modern English grammars, which only take into consideration various changes within the language production of native speakers (or speakers of English as L1). Modern English grammars point out to the importance and frequency of the articles, mostly using texts from the press to illustrate it. On the other hand, the English articles are one of the features that have been identified in the literature as problematic in the acquisition of the English language by non- native speakers (Grannis 1972, Huebner 1983, Master 1990, Tarone and Parrish 1989, Trenkić 2000, 2002, Humphrey 2007, Zergollern-Miletić 2008, 2010). Non-native learners of English, especially those whose languages do not have articles, tend to omit the English articles, or often use them incorrectly. In our present study we intend to establish to what extent non-native advanced learners of English (university students of English) perceive the semantic information that English articles bring into a text. For that purpose we are planning to conduct a survey based on an English text serving as an instrument. The text will contain no articles, and students will be asked to decide in what parts of the text articles are needed and for what purpose.

English as a lingua franca ; articles ; semantics

nije evidentirano