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4
translation options, thus developing their sensitivity to language issues. The aim of
the activities is to help students work through the chapters and get acquainted with
the main terminology required to become independent readers in the field. It also
provides ideas for small-scale research to introduce students to the techniques and
different instruments to conduct research on contrasting German and Macedonian.
1. Introduction
I
come from Macedonia, a small country with a long name, which has always been a
traditional center of mutual meetings and agreements, communication and co-
existence of the people on the Balkan Peninsula, as well as one of the most dynamic
regions where many of the socio-economic activities in South-East Europe and wider
developed.
Macedonia is a multilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural country and
long time ago it was the scene of many wars and conflicts and thus was the subject
of attacks, which were sometimes solved with military and sometimes with diplomatic
means.
Today, the official languages in the Republic of Macedonia is the
Macedonian language. The Macedonian language belongs to the South Slavic
languages and is spoken by 2-3 million people who live in the country and in the
diaspora (especially in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, the USA, Australia and
Canada). On the other hand, the Albanian language belongs to the Indo-European
languages and does not belong to any other existing branch. In Macedonia people
generally speak two or more than two languages (Macedonian/Albanian or Turkish)
or even three languages /Xhaferi, B. & Xhaferi, G., 2012/. The modern standard
written version of Macedonian appeared in 1945. Since then many literary works
have been published in Macedonian. Literary Macedonian is based on the dialects of
the west central region (Prilep, Kiþevo, Bitola, Krusevo and Lerin). (Kostadinovska-
Daskalovska K. 2005).
The structure of this paper is as follows: section 1 discusses relevant data about the
contrastive linguistics and contrastive analysis; section 2 describes the determiners
in German language and the previous research on articles in this language system.
The next section presents the representative information about the definiteness in
Macedonian language system and how it is actualized in this language system. The
methodology of the received results is presented in the next section, followed by the
results and concluding remarks of our analysis in the following section.
5
In the present study we try to analyze when the Macedonian speakers of German
use the definite, the indefinite or null articles, and what these articles mean in the
context of the utterance or in the sentence.
I investigate the choice of an article and article omission in the second language (L2)
acquisition of German of native speakers of Macedonian (a language with postfixed
articles), who have previously acquired English to different levels of proficiency.
This paper discusses determiner production in the data from the students whose first
language (L1) is Macedonian, and were admitted as students of German as a foreign
language at the Faculty of Philology; they were all at the age of 18-22, during their
studies in GFL
1
. Various studies of adults learners of a second language (L2) with
article have found that determiner omission and incorrect article use are quite
common and persistent among learners who speak GFS. In the present study, the
L2 learners are adults, e.g. students of German language, e.g. students of German
as a foreign language (DaF-students).
2.
The contrastive analysis (CA) and its relation to foreign
language teaching
The program of "contrastive linguistics" in the narrow sense of the word was
formulated in the sixties and seventies of the last century with the aim of systematic
inclusion of similarities and contrasts between native language and the foreign one,
to predict the learning difficulties in acquiring foreign language and to develop
teaching materials and teaching strategies based on the acquired knowledge, as well
as to make the teaching of foreign languages effectively (see Lado 1957; Nickel,
1971; Aarts 1981 Alatis 1968).
After a few years of enthusiastic work and implementation of this program, the
contrastive linguistics was rather a modest marginal branch within the comparative
linguistics and only in recent years was known under different names, such as
bilingual language comparison, comparative grammar, microscopic typology. Three
reasons were, are to be responsible for this disillusionment:
1
GFL-German as a foreign language students (DaF-students)
6
A) The contrastive linguistics, upon which statements about contrasts and learning
difficulties and strategies of teaching were central themes and elements seen in
the theory of second language acquisition and thus with these unrealistic
expectations has disappointed sooner or later the grammarians.
(B) In the creation of the descriptive bases of the study, i.e. in creating
comprehensive comparative grammars for relevant language pairs, only few
convincing studies have been made. More comprehensive studies on the English
and German (Kufner 1962) contained for the most part well-known, basic
observations, comprehensive contrastive studies on the German and Slavic and
other languages were missing then completely.
(C) The positioning of contrastive linguistics in the context of comparative linguistics
is missing, it is not clear what the possibilities and limitations of this type of language
comparison are.
According to Volker Gast (2011), the contrastive analysis (CA), narrowly defined,
investigates the differences between pairs (or small sets) of languages against the
background of similarities and with the purpose of providing input to applied
disciplines such as foreign language teaching and translation studies. With its largely
descriptive focus contrastive linguistics provides an interface between theory and
application. It makes use of theoretical findings and models of language description
but is driven by the objective of applicability. Contrastive studies mostly deal with the
comparison of languages that are `socio-culturally linked', i.e. languages whose
speech communities overlap in some way, typically through (natural or instructed)
bilingualism.
The contrastive linguistics (analysis) is based on a behaviorist conception of
language acquisition, insofar as it is based on the assumption that foreign language
learners constantly resort to the "habits" they acquired in the process of first
language acquisition:
7
"The basic problems [when learning a second language] arise not out of any
essential difficulty in the features of the new language themselves but
primarily out of the special 'set' created by the first language habits." (Charles
C. Fries in: Lado 1957)
In later research, CL has been linked to aspects of applied linguistics, e.g., to avoid
interference errors in foreign-language learning, to assist interlingual transfer in the
process of translating texts from one language into another, and to find lexical
equivalents in the process of compiling bilingual dictionaries. This involved
describing the languages (using structural linguistics), comparing them and
predicting learning difficulties.
Contrastive descriptions can occur at every level of linguistic structure: speech
sounds (phonology), written symbols (graphology), word-formation (morphology),
word meaning (lexicology), collocation (phraseology), sentence structure (syntax)
and complete discourse (textology). Various techniques used in corpus linguistics
have been shown to be relevant in intralingual and interlingual contrastive studies,
e.g. by 'parallel-text' analysis. Contrastive linguistic studies can also be applied to the
differential description of one or more varieties within a language, such as styles
(contrastive rhetoric), dialects, registers or terminologies of technical genres.
The grammars of the Contrastive Structure Series as many of the early contrastive
studies were concerned with major areas of `core grammar', in particular phonology
and syntax, a number of more specific studies were published in the 1970s and
1980s (e.g. König 1971, Rohdenburg 1974, Plank 1984). These studies were
characterized by more specific topics and they had an increasingly theoretical
orientation. Applicability in second language acquisition was a desirable, yet
secondary aim, and the focus was shifted to the more abstract question of why
languages differ in the way they do. This epistemological objective was closely
related to the programme of linguistic typology, and contrastive linguistics came to
be regarded as a "limiting case of typological comparison" (cf. König 1992, 1996,
forthcoming), or a "junior partner" of linguistic typology (Kortmann 1996). While in
linguistic typology many languages are compared with respect to a single variant
property, contrastive studies compare only two (or very few) languages, but take a
8
broad range of phenomena into account, ideally all areas of grammar. Even though
the distinction made by Fisiak (1971, 1981), among others, between `theoretical' and
`applied' contrastive analysis is probably not categorical, it provides a useful
dichotomy for the characterization of the main objectives pursued by contrastive
linguists. The typologically inspired research as sketched above is certainly located
towards the theoretical pole of the continuum, but it has been shown to be not
entirely irrelevant to language teaching (cf. Mair 2005 on `spin-offs for language
teachers'). For example, the typological notion of `markedness' has played an
important role in research on language acquisition (cf. Kortmann 1996, James 2005),
and `typological distance' has been claimed to correlate with difficulty of learning (cf.
Kortmann 1996, referring to Schachter 1974 on the acquisition of relative clauses).
We consider the contrastive analysis (CA) as an linguistic approach which aim is to
describe the differences and similarities between two languages. In this paper we
examine the language pair German-Macedonian and try to find similarities and
differences in the field of definiteness. Krzeszowski (1990) defining the contrastive
analysis writes:
"When two or more languages are compared, it is possible to focus either on
similarities or on differences. When a learner learns a new language, he
usually focuses attention on differences and remains largely unaware of
similarities. If he discovers some similarities, he is amused and surprised
since he ordinarily does not find them. Grammarians, on the other hand, quite
early became interested in discovering what various languages have in
common, in the belief that making such similarities explicit for the learner may
facilitate the process of foreign language learning. (Krzeszowski, 1990, p. 9)
Linguists focus most often on the language differences rather than similarities. Their
results always have practical application. That is why CA is often linked to some of
the fields of applied linguistics: foreign or second language learning, translation and
compiling dictionaries. These explain why CA is often put in connection with Second
Language Acquisition (SLA), translation theories and lexicography. As Gómez-
González and Doval-Suárez (2003) have put it in their article On contrastive
linguistics Trends, "every aspect of linguistic analysis can be approached from a
9
contrastive perspective, and accordingly research in the field flows from numerous
academic disciplines that are very different from one another" (2003: 41). As a result
contrastive descriptions can be applied in all fields of linguistics: speech sounds
(phonology), written symbols (graphology), word formation (morphology), word
meaning (lexicology), collocation (phraseology), sentence structure (syntax) and
complete discourse (discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics).
Contrastive analysis studies can also be applied to the differential description of one
or more varieties within a language, such as styles, dialects, registers or
terminologies of technical genres. Gómez-González and Doval-Suárez (2003) also
point out that although the term contrastive has been mainly used when two different
languages or cultures are compared, that is for interlinguistic or intercultural
research, it can also refer to research carried out on different variants of the same
language, that is for intralinguistic research. Ekkehard König (2012) summarizes the
following among the essential characteristics of CA: Synchronic orientation
Contrastive Linguistics has a synchronic orientation ... CA may identify problems
and phenomena worth analyzing from a historical perspective, but it is only in the
case of genetically related languages that such overlap and cooperation are possible
... Granularity CA is concerned with fine-grained, in depth-analyses of similarities
and contrasts that are generally inaccessible to typological generalizations ...
Comparison of language pairs CA is mainly concerned with bilateral language
comparisons, between mother tongue and a foreign language (language teaching),
between source language and target language (translation) or between first
language and second language (bi-lingualism), depending on what kind of
applications are envisaged ... Perspective CA describes one language from the
perspective of another and will therefore reveal properties of languages that are not
easily visible otherwise. In other words, CA has a great heuristic value for the
analysis of highly language-specific properties. Different languages used as
standards of comparison will in all likelihood lead to different descriptions. Different
properties of a language will look remarkable, depending on the language used as
standard of comparison. A contrastive analysis which does not lead to new insights
is pointless. (König, 2012: 21-22)
10
3.
Determiners in German and Macedonian
The class of determiners in German and Macedonian comprises demonstratives
(dieser Mann /
), possessives (DE: meine Tochter /
:
),
quantifiers (DE: alle Bücher /
:
), numerals (DE: drei Hefte /
:
) and articles (DE: eine Schwester /
:
). Articles in their
narrow sense (definite and indefinite) are of a special interest in this study, which are
in fact a subclass of determiners. Therefore I will summarize the use of articles in
German and Macedonian in the following sections.
4.
Determiners in German
a) Definite and indefinite article in German language
German language system has an article comprising a definite article (der, die, das)
and an indefinite article (ein, eine, ein) and null article (the absence of the article).
When we talk (or write) about definite and indefinite article we usually mean the use
of the article in a narrow sense. The articles used in broader sense usually include
pronouns that procede the nouns and can not function and stay alone (dieser, jene,
kein u.a.). The articles in German are inflected. Their form depends on the noun by
which the stay.
Articles decline in gender, number and case with the noun they
modify.
The definite article marks the singular and the plural form of the nouns (das
Kind /sg./, die Kinder /pl./), and the indefinite article is used only in singular form (ein
Kind / ein Kidner*). There is no indefinite article in the plural, and the null article is
used for nouns occurring in plural forms (e.g.: Kinder spielen auf der Strasse.). The
German article system is complex for the Macedonian learners and students, too: it
has a case system (e.g. der Kinder - genitiv plural form, and den Kindern dative
plural form), number (das Kind - nominative, neutral, singular and Kinder
nominative plural), and gender distinction (der Vater, die Mutter, das Kind
masculine, feminine, neutral).
Some grammars of German, among them Helbig & Buscha (1994) and Flämig
(1991), treat articles together with other words (such as certain pronouns) within a
larger group called article words (Artikelwörter). The Duden Grammatik (2009)
differentiates articles in the narrow sense (Artikel im engeren Sinne), to which they
11
count the der-Form, ein-Form and Nullform (i.e. the definite, indefinite and zero
articles), and articles in the broad sense (Artikel im weiteren Sinne), i.e. the whole
class of article words. This classification is justified by claiming that articles and
article words share some common features such as the ability to express
definiteness. The German distinction between articles and article words generally
corresponds with the English distinction between article and determiner. According
to Helbig & Buscha (1994, 357) the set of article words in German contains the
following members: der, derjenige, ein, the zero article, dieser, jener, welcher, welch
ein, jeder, jedweder, mancher, manch ein, alle, all der, all dieser, all jener, all mein,
einige, etliche, mehrere, irgendwelcher, derselbe, dieser selbe, all possessive
pronouns, dessen, deren, wessen, kein, irgendein, ein solcher, solch ein. (In: Articles
and definiteness: https://is.muni.cz/th/56299/ff_d/2_articles_definiteness.pdf)
The German article system has many syncretic forms, which make it non-
transparent, for example: the form die can denote: nominative feminine (die Tasche),
nominative plural (die Taschen) and accusative plural forms (Ich habe die neuen
Taschen gekauft). The paradigm of a definite and indefinite articles are presented in
the following table:
TABLE 1.
Case
Singular
Plural
indefinite/definite
article
indefinite/definite
article
Nominative ein/der
eine/die
ein/das
/die
Genitive eines/des einer/der eines/des
/der
Dative
einem/dem einer/der
einem/dem
/den
Accusative einen/den eine/die
ein/das
/die
The definite and indefinite article in German are independent prosodic words that
can occur on their own. In spoken German indefinite articles are often reduced and
in that case they are clitics (they can not occur on their own, but must be attached to
12
the preceding or following word) /see Selkirk 1996)/. In standard written German and
in spoken German, the definite article may combine with certain monosyllabic
prepositions into one form (an dem am). In spoken German language the
concatenated forms are possible, too (auf'm auf dem).
The German articles are complex from a morphological but also from a prosodic
point of view. My main concern will be the use of articles and the presence or
absence of articles (and determiners) and whether they are used appropriately. The
articles occur usually together with a noun (die Blume), and they usually follow a
noun phrase (die/eine schöne Blume). When we use the term determines we usually
mean articles in narrow sense.
In German language, definiteness is grammaticalized in the article system. Hawkins
(1978) maintains, definiteness depends on whether a unique referent can be
identified in the discourse. The definite article can be used anaphorically following a
previous introduction of a new referent in the discourse (Ich habe einen Mann in der
Stadt gesehen. Der Mann heisst Peter.) The definite article can be used in a form of
"absolute uniqueness", if a noun refers to something that occurs only once in the
exciting world of speaker and listener, it is with the definite article (Der Eiger ist ein
Berg in der Schweiz./
:
. Der Mond dreht sich um
die Erde/
:
. Der Papst besucht Polen
2
/
:
. Relative uniquiness is more often in these cases
the definite article is used with nouns (Die Apotheke ist neben der Kirche. Wo ist der
Bahnhof? /
:
.
?).
The definite article is used with a proper noun, when it is determined with an attribute
(Dort rennt der Hund unserer Nachbarn/
/
.).
When a noun is made definite by the context (or by other means), it is normally
accompanied by the definite article. A noun can be made definite in different ways:
Definite by uniqueness;
Definite by context;
Definite by pre-information;
2
With the meaning: es gibt nur einen lebenden Papst, der Länder besuchen kann.
13
Definite by generalization;
Definite article in fixed expressions;
Articles with proper names
.
A speaker/writer can use the definite article without using the antecedent by using
the situational context (Kannst du das Fenster zumachen? /
:
?) via association (Ich war im Krankenhaus. /
:
. Die Patienten waren sehr aufgeregt. /
:
e
.) or via word factual knowledge (Die Erde dreht sich um die Sonne /
:
.).
The indefinite article is used when the referent is not identifiable by the hearer,
speaker or both of them (Ich habe heute eine Tasche gekauft. /
:
.). In this case, the noun occurs for the first time. The indefinite article is
used also in German when the substantive is not closer described (Der Professor hat
einen Regenschirm bei sich /
:
/
.), as a
representative of a certain class of nouns (Sie ist Lehrerin. /
:
. Das ist ein anstrengender Beruf /
:
.).
When the noun presents a certain class of animate (humans or animals) is usually
used with an indefinite article (der Hund ist ein Haustier /
:
ø
).
When a noun is used as a whole (elliptical) sentence expressing comments, then in
exclamation or by addressing people, it is usually used with null article: (Professor!,
:
! Guten Tag! /
:
! Feuer! /
:
!)
The abstract nous are usually used without an article when they refer to property, to
a state or to a procedure (Diese Aufgabe erfordert Intelligenz und
Durchsetzungsvermögen.
:
.
Endlich herrschte Ruhe. /
:
).
14
-Definite by uniqueness
A noun can be definite because what it refers to is unique, the only one of its kind.
The uniqueness can be either "absolute" or relative.
-"Absolute" uniqueness:
When the noun denotes something that is unique in the (perception of the)
environment of the speaker and the listener, it is accompanied by the definite article:
Der Mond dreht sich um die Erde. (MK:
)
Der Papst besucht England.
:
. (Only one pope,
the current pope, can visit countries).
Relative uniqueness:
Relative uniqueness is much more frequent. It is also marked by the use of the
definite article. The sentences
Der Schopping centre ist neben dem Theater. (MK:
)
Wo ist des Kino? (MK: a
?)
refer to the shop, the theater and the cinema of a particular town in which there is
probably only one shopping centre, one theater and one cinema.
The sentence:
Stell die Vase auf den Tisch! (
:
/
)
is uttered in an environment in which, at the moment of speaking, there is only one
vase and only one table. A noun can be also made definite by its context:
Definite by previous mentioning:
The definite article is used with nouns that have been mentioned previously, and that