[Literature Review]

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Chapter II- Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter of the dissertation, we would conduct a comparison and evaluate various studies conducted on our topic. An attempt would also be made to shed light on the different theories and their analyses would be done. The study is comprised of different sections. The first section of the chapter would cover the scope of the present study i.e. subject-verb agreement. Then, arguments related to the concept of “noticing” in Second language acquisition (SLA) will be discussed. Section three would primarily focus on “the input hypothesis and input enhancement”. This leads into section four would focus on “the Input hypothesis and input enhancement.

A thorough discussion would be conducted on how input enhancement tends to facilitate acquisition of second language i.e. role of input enhancement in SLA. In the last section of the dissertation the importance of explicit contrastive instruction in L2 forms would be highlighted. All in all, an attempt would be made to replicate a study on the subject.

2.2 Subject -Verb Agreement in English and Arabic

The subject-verb agreement is one of the most basic grammatical rules in English language. It is taught in the early years of schooling (Arfah, 1988). Despite having a good grasp on subject-verb agreements children often have trouble in understanding sentence structures. According to Murcia et. al (1999), “research on L2 morpheme acquisition indicates that third person singular present tense(s) causes problems for learners even at advanced stages of proficiency” (pp. 53).

Similarly, most Arabic learners face identical issues although Arabic uses a subject-verb agreement as well (El Aswad, 2002). The structure is difficult to execute perfectly in first language (L1); hence second language learners (L2) still have difficulties with the rule (Williams et. al, 1999). Many studies have been conducted to investigate the phenomenon primarily in second language learning.

In languages such as English and Arabic; the subject must agree with the verb. For example, if the subject is singular consequently the verb must be singular and vice versa and if the subject is plural, the verb must be plural as well. Beginner in the language must keep the subject-verb agreement in mind. For a better understanding, let's look at the example below:

A- He writes a letter. B- They write a letter. (English)

A- Hoayaktub a resalah. B- Homyaktubuh a resalah. (Arabic)

If we analyse the example above we can clearly see that in 1A the subject “he” agrees with the verb “writes”. While in 1B the subject “they”, which is a plural, agrees with the verb “write”. Similarly, the verb ends with an -s inflection; while in the second example there is no inflection -s. Compared to Arabic, we can see that the same case occurs for the verb “yaktub” , which means “write”. When the subject is plural, the verb ends with -uh inflection. We can assume that Arabic learners are aware of such differences, but they continue to make the same mistakes in of subject-verb agreement in English.

2.3 Errors in Subject-Verb Agreements

Several studies have been ...