Focussed Written Corrective Feedback ofDerivational Suffixes

and Uptake-Facilitating Tasks

0. Introduction

This paper1 examines what student strategies or activitiesmaximise uptake of (focussed) written corrective feedback(WCF) to improve written (and possibly oral) accuracy in thedomain of derivational morphological suffixes (e.g.‘learnability’ (learn + -able + -ity)). The paper focusesfirstly on issues surrounding the WCF of derivationalmorphology as opposed to free or bound grammatical(functional) morphemes (e.g. articles or verbal inflection)and secondly on the nature of tasks to promote uptake of theWCF. After a literature review of the domain the paperanalyses two limitations in this research stream. How theselimitations can be remedied is then addressed beforeconsidering two potential methodological barriers and finallypossible extensions of the research. Appendices and referencesclose the document.

1. Literature review

Truscott (1996) initiated a research program focussing on theefficacy of teachers’ written corrective feedback (WCF) ofstudents’ work. He claimed that WCF was not beneficial to thedevelopment of students’ grammatical accuracy. After someyears of debate with Dana Ferris (Ferris, 1999; Truscott,1999; Ferris, 2004), a number of empirical studies wereconducted with the hope of evidencing the claims one way or

1 This document originated as a proposal for doctoral research (hence references to ‘the study’ throughout the text. The project was eventually considered unworkable. Further publications from the author on the second language teaching of derivational morphology are in progress.

1

another. While results regarding unfocussed WCF (i.e. feedbackon a number of grammatical features) suggested Truscott mayhave been right, other studies (e.g. Bitchener & Knoch, 2008;Frear, 2010; Ellis, Sheen, Murakami & Takashima, 2008) dosuggest that groups of students given focussed correctivefeedback (i.e. feedback on only one grammatical feature) doexperience a significant improvement, at least in the shortterm, over groups which are not given such feedback.

2

2. Analysis of the work to date

2.1. The focus on grammar

The work so far has focussed on grammatical features oflanguage. Such features include past tenses (Frear, 2010),certain functions of articles (Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Ellis,Sheen, Murakami & Takashima, 2008) and third person ‘–s’(Pawlak, 2008). However, the research program so far leaves anumber of questions unresolved. One question that remainsunresolved is what other types of errors benefit from WCF.Although attempts have been made to categorise errors (e.g.Ferris, 1999; Ferris & Roberts, 2001 who propose a distinctionbetween treatable and untreatable errors), there has beenlittle investigation of whether errors other than narrowgrammatical phenomena benefit from feedback. This pre-proposalextends the research program to morphologically complexderivational suffixes (e.g. ‘learnability’).

Other relevant (if less central for this pre-proposal)unresolved questions include: how many errors can beeffectively focussed on in one piece of writing; and whatrange of difference can attain between them (e.g. a ‘narrow’difference between two uses of the article ‘the’ versus a‘broad’ difference between, for example, an aspect of wordorder versus the use of the semi-colon).

2.2. The uptake factor

A further limitation of the research program thus far is theemphasis on the teacher’s feedback (its manner, timing etc.)as opposed to the student’s uptake of that feedback. Ferris(op. cit.) considers the possible types of teacher feedback insome detail. However, more germane to the current writer isthe nature of the processing which students (should) thenengage with to achieve a benefit from the feedback.

3

WCF has often made the implicit assumption that the writtenmode is more conducive to long term acquisition than theoral/aural mode because of the period of reflection andformulation that it allows. This ‘reflection’ may be the locusof certain cognitive dynamics which mediate explicit andimplicit knowledge of L2 and allow the overriding of L1knowledge (N. Ellis, 2007). However, given research into thebenefits of output (Swain, 1985 and later work) in languageprocessing, the specific question of what the student does withthe feedback is arguably far more germane that methodologicalconcerns of how the feedback is given (Ferris, 2004). Thispre-proposal therefore contrasts a range of uptake methodssuggesting that student-produced clozes with a morphologicalfocus may be of benefit. This, then, has implications forcurrent language teaching pedagogy. The next section willaddress these two limitations in terms of the currentproposal.

3. The current proposal

3.1. A response to 2.1.

As regards 2.1 above, one next logical step for this researchprogram would be to ask what other areas of grammaticalaccuracy might benefit from WCF. One such area is that ofmorphologically complex word forms e.g. pairs or sets of wordswith similar roots and (often but not always) similar coremeaning, but different morphology and different grammaticalfunction. For example:

Adjective Verb Abstract / State noun

1. Real Realise Realism

2. Global Globalise Globalism

3. Conservative Conserve Conservatism

4

This short paradigm illustrates one element of derivationalphenomena in English: paradigmatic irregularity. As can beseen, the de-adjectival verb for ‘conservative’ does not take‘-ise’, contra the other two examples. This is a commonfeature of English derivational paradigms. Appendix 1 at theend of this pre-proposal offers many other examples ofparadigms.

However, this feature of paradigmatic gaps is only onelinguistic feature which defines derivational morphology. Inan attempt to go beyond the previous rather vague distinctionsbetween different types of error (e.g. Ferris 1999’s‘treatable’ and ‘untreatable’ errors), some of these featureswill now be considered with the aim of demonstrating thecomplexity (and thus interest) of these forms for research.

Firstly, structurally, these are derivational affixes notindependent grammatical morphemes (like ‘a’ or ‘the’) orinflectional morphosyntax (such as past tenses or third person‘-s’) but instead stand at the interface of morphology, syntaxand lexis: they are inherently linguistically complex. Interms of morphology, the learner must know what the meaningand form of a given suffix is as well as any irregularitiesassociated with it. The learner must also select the correctform for the grammatical context i.e. must know thegrammatical category associated with the form as well as thegrammar of the phrase into which the word is to be inserted.Finally, for completely accurate and appropriate use, thelearner must know the collocation and formality restrictionson the word.

Secondly, in cases where a paradigm is formally fairlypredictable there may be semantic idiosyncracies. This is seenin the ‘conceive’ ~ ‘conception’ alternation where the twomeanings are available throughout the paradigm (i.e. ‘tofertilise an egg such that pregnancy results’ and‘intellectually create or invisage’). In a neutral,decontextualised reading of the words, some of the words

5

(strongly) favour the former reading (‘conception’) whereasothers (‘inconceivable’) favour the latter.

Thirdly, many of the studies thus far have focussed on asingle function of a very limited range of grammaticalmorphemes. Bitchener & Knoch (op. cit.), for example, look attwo items (indefinite ‘a’ and definite ‘the’) but in terms ofonly one function of these items. This highly restricted focusis partially a feature of their research but also falls out ofthe nature of the grammatical markers in question. The‘dispersed’ nature of derivationally complex morphology, bycontrast, is that a given rule operates over many differentlexemes and these lexemes occur infrequently in any giventext. This fact implies that the nature of learning in thecase of, say, deverbal adjectives with ‘-ive’ (e.g. ‘pass’

‘passive) is somewhat more ‘abstract’ than a single use of thedefinite article in that the match between the rule and theform is one-to-one whereas in the former case the match isone-to-many.

Fourthly, in terms of possible L1 transfer, although all humanlanguages can be said to possess a broad class of ‘grammar’words, not all human languages make use of derivationalmorphology. Chinese and Vietnamese are classic examples of so-called analytic languages in which morpheme and word are(largely) identical (Spencer, 1991:38). Thus, in terms oftransfer, it may be that certain L1s are more resistant to thelearning/acquisition of derivational phenomena. This proposalintends to use (at least) two separate groups of students, oneMandarin L1 and one, say, Hungarian L1 (Hungarian being alanguage with considerable word-forming morphology (Spencer,1991:34-5)). With such an approach, the study hopes tocontribute to the ongoing L1-transfer debate.

3.2. A response to 2.2.

6

As regards the uptake question, this pre-proposal will examinea range of productive tasks in an attempt to ascertain whichmay be of more/ most value. These suggestions are made in viewof the role of output in promoting language acquisition. Swain(1985 and later work) is clear that output is at least useful,perhaps necessary, in second language acquisition and there isno reason to suppose that error correction is an exception.Indeed, intuitively, it may be the context par excellence foroutput as, given that an output error has been made in theoriginal text.

At this point it is suggested that (a selection of) (at least)the following five uptake tasks might meaningfully becompared:

a) Text rewriting in which the student recreates the same ora similar text.

b) Students creating form-focussed exercises for others to practice or the teacher to mark.

c) A running email exchange between teacher and student (Fotos & Hinkel, 2007).

d) An oral interview with the teacher / a peer in whicherrors are discussed and commented on.

e) Error logs in which the student makes written notes on their own errors.

Item b), above, is an intended major focus of the study. Thefollowing technique will be suggested as an uptake catalyst. Anumber of exams (e.g. Cambridge FCE, CAE) and University testsuse an open or closed cloze task with a focus on selecting anappropriate exponent of a stem. This can be done either inseparate sentences or as part of a longer text in which manyforms are used. An (original) example of the latter is nowgiven for illustration:

A cursory (0)examination of human history reveals

that every human culture has evolved a (00)belief

(0) exam

(00) believe

7

system that attempts to explain the origins and

the universe and the (000)significance of humanity

within it. Such systems can take a wide

(1)__________ of forms and can influence society

and shape individual behaviour in a number of

different ways. It is believed by most

(2)__________ working within this field that

until very recently, all of these systems had

some kind of element which might be

(3)__________ as ‘religious’. Although this term

itself is open to a wide range of

(4)__________ , most scholars agree that it must

contain some (5)_________ to an entity or force

which lies beyond or behind physical

(6)__________ . Examples of this include ….

(000)

signify

(1) vary

(2) academy

(3) define

(4)

interpret

(5) refer

(6) real

This study intends to make use of this well-known languagetask to promote uptake of derivationally complex lexemes.

4. Research questions

Two research questions can now be formulated:

RQ1: Does the provision of written corrective feedback forderivationally-complex lexemes have a similar impact onlearner development as previously researched grammaticalwords?

RQ2: Does the type of uptake task following a controlled typeof written corrective feedback have a systematic effect ondevelopment of accuracy in derivationally-complex lexemes?

8

5. Linguistic and methodological barriers to overcome

This development of the research agenda faces two immediatechallenges. The first concerns which functional morphemes toselect and the second concerns what texts to use for theelicitation of writing.

5.1. Which morphemes to use and three linguistic considerations

Logically, a range of formal possibilities presents itself:

a) a single alternation caused by one functional suffix e.g. ‘describe’ (verb) ‘descriptive’ (adjective) (also: ‘submit’ ‘submissive’, receive receptive).

b) two alternations with the same function e.g. ‘-ity’ and ‘-ness’ or which both change adjectives to nouns in English.

c) two (or more) unrelated alternations

d) a set of semantically connected words showing a range of morphological alternations (e.g. ‘high’ ~ ‘height’ ~ ‘to heighten’; ‘light’ ~ ‘light’ ~ ‘to lighten’; ‘narrow’ ~ ‘narrowness’ ~ ‘to narrow’ …).

Further reading will help inform this choice. Intuitively, itmay be the case that this choice depends on the level oflearners which in turn may be dictated by practicalities. More‘scientifically’, the above taxonomy is itself a sub-researchprogram. At this point, an Appendix is offered at the end ofthis pre-proposal which lists some possible families of words.

The above also raises three further initial concerns of alinguistic nature: ‘regular and irregular’ (or, alternatively,‘productive and non-productive’) derivational affixes; gaps inthe paradigms; and collocational restrictions.

9

5.1.1. Regular and irregular suffixation

The deverbal adjectives with ‘-ive’ instantiate bothorthographic and phonetic alterations to their base (which areidiosyncratic even within this paradigm) (‘receive’

‘recep-’; ‘submit’ ‘submiss-’) as against much more regularor productive suffixes such as deadjectiaval nominalisation ‘-ness’ (‘green’ ‘greenness). The significance of this isthreefold. Firstly, non-productive suffixes often have smallerparadigms i.e. there would be less material to choose from interms of student rewriting. Secondly, the meanings of manysuch words, being from a French/ Latin base, are more formaland their uses restricted than more ‘Germanic’, regularaffixation. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly from thelearner point of view, being irregular, there is the extracomplexity of the base modification for the learner tointernalise.

Taken together, this productive/unproductive asymmetry poses amethodological selection problem for the research which can bephrased thus: not all derivational morphemes are equal interms of linguistic regularity, learnability and register. Asa preliminary response to this, the study proposes a focus onthe more regular patterns.

5.1.2. Formal and semantic gaps

In addition to the above complexities regarding irregularbases, there are gaps of both a formal and a semantic naturein the paradigms of derivationally complex words. These havealready been discussed to some extent in 3.1. above.

5.1.3. Collocational restriction on derivationally complex forms

The third linguistic complexity falls out of the lexicalnature of the phenomenon. Derivational affixes as parts of(sometimes complex) word are subject to collocational

10

restrictions which may vary from exponent to exponent. Forexample, ‘conceivable’ in its ‘intellectually representable’sense often occurs in a impersonal construction ‘it isconceivable’ or in close proximity to some pre-modifier suchas ‘perfectly’, ‘just about’ or ‘only’ (Lextutor). Knowledgeof such collocations is inherent to the usage andcommunicative efficacy of such words.

5.2. Section summary

As a summary to this section, this research will follow acomparative methodology in making use of the cloze task andsome other yet-to-be-specified methods of facilitating uptake.The use of the cloze task is hypothesised to be the mostefficacious as it offers a possible way to integrate thecollocational dimension of many this linguistic inherency intolearning; by using a concordancer, students engage themselvesin meaning making, with a focus on form. Furthermore, they doso with purpose of creating output (Swain, 1985).

5.3. What texts to use

The second challenge is methodological. This concerns how toelicit the morphological patterns i.e. what written texttype(s) to use in order for subjects to produce a sufficientnumber of forms. This is more complex at first sight thattexts using, for example, past tenses, articles, third person‘-s’ and so on.

In the case of a past tense focus, for example, the onlyinstruction for the texts is for them to recount informationin the past. This is a ‘simple’ and intuitive idea which alsolicenses a range of ‘new’ texts (c.f. the literature on WCF inrevised ‘old’ texts versus ‘new’ (i.e. not revised) texts):the student simply writes about any of a wide range of closedtime subjects. The same is true for referential uses of

11

articles in which different pictures can create differentpieces of writing using ‘a dog’ ‘the dog’.

It is less easy to see how to construct a writing task whichallows the production of a yet-to-be-determined family orsingle instantiation of a derivational paradigm. At thisstage, the researcher proposes the use of the followingpossible text-types:

A: Short answers to prompts which contain the stems of thetarget words

B1: Longer pieces of writing which request the use of a longerlist of stems

B2: Longer pieces of writing which request the use of actualexponents from a list

C: An email exchange in which the researcher feeds in relevantword types

These have different strengths and weaknesses. One initialaspect of the study will be to research which one(s) may havethe greatest value in promoting uptake of derivationallycomplex lexemes although by experiment, the study also hopesto contribute answers to this question.

There are other methodological questions to bear in mindincluding:

a) What kind of pre-exposure to the forms should learnershave

b) What kind of feedback to provide

These will be left without further examination at this stage.

6. Possible extensions to the study

12

6.1. Structural extensions

Should this initial extension produce results which agree withthose obtained so far, other morphosyntactic areas presentthemselves for study:

a) prefixes including classical prefixes (‘neo-’ , ‘hyper-’, etc)

b) apostrophe ‘s’ for possessive

c) comparatives and superlatives (‘-est’ and ‘–er’)

d) infinitives and ‘-ing’ (both in verb + verb constructione.g. ‘want to do’ and ‘consider doing’ and in non-noun phrasesubject (‘To be or not to be [, that] is the question’ and‘Drinking and driving costs lives’)).

e) phrasal verbs

The linguistic nature of these phenomena might require the useof different text types as input and output-uptake tasks.

The research agenda might also be taken into phrasal and syntactic domains.

a) noun-noun compounds

b) comparatives and superlatives

c) basic syntaxes such as adjective-noun ordering or multiple adjunct phrases after verbs (e.g. ‘I meet him [with other] [inthe same place] [everyday] [if I can]’).

6.2. Second language acquisition extensions

As per 3.1 above, this proposal has relevance for the domainof transfer of training in second language acquisition in thesense of Benati & Lee (2002:22) i.e. contributing to thequestion whether ‘learning to process one grammatical formhelp[s] learners become better processors of other grammatical

13

forms’. This falls out of the ‘dispersed’ nature of complexmorphological forms as discussed above and allows a usefulconnection with the long tradition of input processing(VanPatten, 1996 and later work).

6.3. Pedagogical extensions

The author’s career as a language teacher, during which he hasprovided WCF totally many thousands of words, has led him toconsider this issue in depth. It is hoped that one extension /application of this research may be a possible shift inwriting feedback practice in the ELF industry such that itbecomes the case that WCF leads into the undertaking ofrelevant uptake tasks which may enhance learning. In theauthor’s view and experience, this is currently not the caseand it is hoped that researchers, teachers and institutionsmay be encouraged to reframe WCF uptake as an intrinsic partof the writing process.

14

Appendix 1: Possible derivational paradigms for research

Appendix 1 offers a range of possible derivational families. Briefcomments are offered as to their suitability for the study. Makingthe decision on principled linguistic, pedagogical andmethodological grounds will be part of the research content.

Pattern Type 1: N + ‘-ic’ Adj

This pattern forms adjectives from nouns. The addition of ‘-ic’triggers a stress shift and (with most vowels) a vowel reduction(e.g. robot robotic). The grouping into two categories is my own.

PERSON / PLACE / ENTITY Noun

CONCEPT / THINGNoun

Realist Realistic Pathos Pathetic

Robot Robotic Poetry Poetic

Idiot Idiotic Cosmos Cosmic

Olympus Olympic Numeracy Numeric

Parasite Parasitic Telephone Telephonic

David Davidic Syntax Syntactic

Comments:

This pattern contains a large number of technical words and/ or rarewords. It is not immediately obvious how they might be integratedinto a long text or how they might allow repeatability in subsequent

15

texts after feedback and uptake-promoting activities. Thus, this setforms an example of an unlikely alternation in this context.

16

Pattern Type 2: using 6 exponents of a given lemma

Pattern 2.1

N N V -ify

V A -able

V N -cation

Identity Identify Identified Identifiable

Unidentified

Identification

Magni- Magnify Magnified Magnifiable

- Magnification

Gentry Gentrify Gentrified

Beauty Beautify Beautified ?Beautifiable

?Unbeautifi-able

Beautification

Glory Glorify Glorified ?Glorificable

Glorification

Comments

Although there are more forms in this paradigm, again the roots which appear in this paradigm are not basic vocabulary.

17

Pattern 2.2

The forms are listed in families according to the connection betweenthe verb and the noun.

V V+ en V + ing V N V-able Other

Excite (Un)Excited

(Un)exciting

Excitement Excitable -

Interest Interested Interesting

Interest - -

To appeal Appealed Appealing Appeal - -

To worry Worried Worrying Worry

To terrify Terrified Terrifying Terror Terrible Terrorize

To frighten

Frightened Frightening

Fear - -

To annoy Annoyed Annoying Annoyance -

Amuse Amused Amusing Amusement

Comments

A prepositional grammatical collocation occurs with these words:‘frightened of’, ‘excited by’, ‘interested in’, ‘annoyed with’.

Some words have more than one prepositional option yielding adifferent meaning each: ‘annoyed with somebody’ versus ‘annoyedabout a negative event’.

18

Pattern 2.3

Describe

Descriptive

Descriptively

DescribedUndescribed

(In)describable

Description(s)

Submit Submissive

Submissively

Unsubmitted

SubmissableInsubmissable

Submission(s)

Receive

Receivable

- Received Receivable Reception

Conceive

Conceivable

Conceivably

ConceivableInconceivable

Conception(s)

Act Active Actively ActedInacted

Actionable?Inactionable

Action

Pass Passive Passively PassedUnpassed

Unpassable -

Constrain

Constrictive

Constrictively

ConstrainedUnconstrained

Constrainable Constraint

Restraint

Restrictive

Restrictively

Restrainable Restraint

Elect Elective Electively

ElectableUnelectable

Election

Select Selective

Selectively

Selectable*Inselectable

Selection

Protec Protecti Protectiv Unprotected Protection

19

t ve ely

Destroy

Destructive

Destructively

Destroyable?Undestroyable

Destruction

Comments

This may be the most apposite of the families considered so far.

References

Benati, A. & J. Lee (2008). Grammar Acquisition and ProcessingInstruction. Bristol, Multilingual Matters.

Bitchener, J. & U. Knoch (2008). ‘The value of a focusedapproach to written corrective feedback’. ELT Journal, 63(3)

Ellis, N. (2007). ‘The weak interface, consciousness and form-focused instruction: mind the doors’. In Fotos, S. & H.Nassaji (eds) (2007). Form-focused instruction and Teacher Education.Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis. Oxford: OUP.

Ellis, R., Y. Sheen, H. Takashima & M. Murakami (2008). ‘The effect of focused and unfocus-ed corrective feedback in an English as a foreign language context’. System, 36, 353-371.

Ferris, D. (1999). ‘The case for grammar correction in L2writing classes: a response to Truscott (1996). Journal of SecondLanguage Writing, 8:1-10

Ferris, D. (2004). ‘The ‘‘Grammar Correction’’ Debate in L2 Writing: Where are we, and where do we go from here? (and whatdo we do in the meantime . . .?)’. Journal of Second Language Writing,13:49-62.

Ferris, D. & B. Roberts (2001) ‘Error feedback in L2 writingclasses: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of SecondLanguage Writing, 10, 161–184.

20

Fotos & Hinkel (2007). ‘Form-focused instruction and outputfor second language writing gains’. In Fotos, S. & H. Nassaji(eds) (2007). Form-focused instruction and Teacher Education. Studies inHonour of Rod Ellis. Oxford: OUP.

Frear, D. (2010). ‘The Effect of Focused and Unfocused DirectWritten Corrective Feedback on a New Piece of Writing’.

Lextutor Online Concordancer. Available athttp://www.lextutor.ca/ Accessed on 28/08/12

Pawlak, M. (2008) ‘The Effect of Corrective Feedback on theAcquisition of the English Third Person –s Ending’. In Gabryś-Barker, D. (2008). Morphosyntactic Issues in Second Language Acquisition.Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Spencer, A. (1991). Morphological Theory. Malden, Blackwell.

Swain, M. (1985) Communicative competence: Some roles ofcomprehensible input and comprehensible output in itsdevelopment. In Gass, S. & C. Madden (eds.). Input in SecondLanguage Acquisition. New York: Newbury House.

Truscott, J. (1996) ‘The Case against Grammar Correction in Writing Classes’ in Language Learning, 46(2).

Truscott, J. (1999) ‘The case for ‘‘the case for grammarcorrection in L2 writing classes’’: A response to Ferris.Journal of Second Language Writing, 8:111–122.

VanPatten, B. (1996). Input Processing and Grammar Instruction: Theoryand Research. Norwood: Ablex.

21