Corpus-based study of L3 acquisition on Spanish past tense: evidence from learners’ oral production

Abstract

This paper focuses on a corpus-based study on the acquisition of L3 Spanish past tense in oral production through a learners’ corpus. The main findings were: (1) Chinese-speaking learners in Taiwan demonstrated more accurate uses of the Spanish preterit than the imperfect in oral productions, same as the findings in their written productions and those in Englishnative speakers of Spanish; (2) These learners used telic verbs more correctly than those of activity and state in preterit form in both oral and written productions; (3) The developmental pattern of the Spanish past tense in the oral production of Chinesespeakinglearners was similar to that of English-speaking learners of Spanish.

Keywords

• tense
• aspect
• oral production
• corpus
• Spanish acquisition