What did the child do with the bottle?

1. Compare the learner versions to the way Native Speaker 1 and 2 describe this event.

Overall, the learners’ responses are shorter than the native speakers’. The learners use two or three simple sentences, while the native speakers describe the situation with one more complex sentence containing more vocabulary and connectives. The learners’ vocabulary is not as precise as the native speakers’, and they use the incorrect particle ‘-에서 (from)’ when they refer to a woman’s purse.

Both learners use the correct verb ‘넣다 (put)’ but it needs to be accompanied with the particle ‘-에 (to)’. This indicates that learners might not know the correct collocation ‘-에 넣다’. Also, the learners use the verbs ‘가지고 오다 (bring/carry)’ or ‘가지고 가다 (take/carry)’ when they describe the action of taking a bottle from the shelf, whereas the native speakers use ‘집다 (grab)’ or ‘꺼내다 (take out)’ to describe the same action. In this, the native speakers use more precise verbs to indicate the action of grabbing an object with a hand in a certain location.  

The learners and native speakers also show differences in referring to the purse or bag. When learners first refer to the bag, they start out saying ‘아줌마 가방 (a [middle-aged] woman’s bag)’ without using any determiners. Interestingly, Anna B also says ‘아주마 가방 (*a [middle-aged] woman’s bag)’ although she first refers to the older woman as ‘할머니 (an elderly woman)’. (This seems to be a mistake as she uses the correct referential expression in her written narrative).

Unlike the learners, the native speakers specify the possessor of the bag. Both native speakers use a demonstrative determiner in saying ‘이 노부인의 가방 (this old lady’s bag)’ or ‘처음의 그 중년 여자의 가방 (first that middle-aged woman’s bag)’. The native speakers also use a possessive case marker ‘의 (of)’ in the noun phrase. However, the learners omit the possessive case marker in their spoken narratives.

The native speaker use the same noun to refer to both women in the pictures; they then need to add noun modification to distinguish between them. The NS 1, Kim, distinguishes the two women as ‘노부인 (an old lady)’ and ‘이웃집에 있는 젊은 부인 (a young lady living next door)’, and the NS 2, Lee, distinguishes them as ‘중년의 여자 (a middle-aged woman)’ and ‘아는 여자 (a female (woman) acquaintance)’. Because they use the same noun ‘부인 (lady)’ or ‘여자 (woman)’, the native speakers need to add modifiers to distinguish the women. In contrast, the learners use different nouns when they refer to the women, so they don’t need noun modification to successfully refer to each individual. Anna B uses ‘할머니 (an elderly woman)’ and ‘아줌마 (a [middle-aged woman]’, and Sophia uses ‘아줌마 (a [middle-aged]woman)’ and ‘친구 (a friend)’.

To sum up, the learners communicate their intended referential meanings strategically although they have more limited linguistic resources than the native speakers.

2. Compare the learners’ oral version and written version of this narrative.

In her written narrative, Anna B includes more details of the story. For instance, she mentions when the girl takes the bottle from the shelf. She first refers to the woman with the daughter using a relative clause, ‘시장을 보는 아주마 (*a [middle-aged] woman who is grocery shopping)’. She refers to the purse correctly in her written narrative: ‘할머니의 가방 (an elderly woman’s bag)’. She does use present and past tenses inconsistently in both spoken and written narratives, but this does not seem to interfere with her ability to refer effectively to persons and objects.

Sophia’s learner language varies somewhat in her written and spoken narratives. For instance, Sophia does not omit accusative (object) case markers in her written narrative, though she does in her spoken narrative. She uses accusative case markers in her written sentences such as ‘딸은 와인병을 잡고 (a daughter grabs a wine bottle)’ and ‘아주마는 … 병을 찾을 거예요 (the [middle-aged] woman … will find out the bottle)’. This indicates that Sophia knows where and when to use accusative case markers. The omission of accusative case markers in her spoken narrative might be due to her two-year experience in Korea where she was exposed to colloquial Korean, which often omits accusative case markers.

In sum, the learners’ use of referential expressions differs in their written and spoken narratives, and they tend to produce more complex and elaborated language in their written version. This indicates that learner language can vary depending on the context as well as the mode of language use.