Particle placement in English L1 and L2 academic writing : a triangulated learner-corpus and experimental study of weight effects

This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of how syntactic variation is affected by probabilistic factors in English as a foreign language (EFL, L2), exemplified by the effect of weight on the syntactic variation with English transitive verb-particle constructions (e.g. look up, sort out) and transitive verb-prepositional phrase (PP) constructions (e.g. take into account, bear in mind). With these constructions, the particle/PP may occur either adjacent to the verb or separated from the verb by a direct object noun phrase (DO NP). Being highly influenced by the weight of the DO NP in native (L1) English, little is known about the factors, including syntactic weight, that govern this variation in L2 English. Against the background of possible native-language transfer, this study examines whether advanced L1-German EFL learners are sensitive to the probabilistic effect of weight on syntactic choices with verb-particle/PP constructions and whether there are differences when compared to English native speakers. Triangulating comparative corpus data and experimental data, i.e. elicited production and elicited assessment, the study provides converging evidence from language production and intuition that the learners have acquired a near-native awareness of weight effects in verb-particle/PP constructions, with differences indicating a tendency to more conservative choices.