Is it Even Also about Only?: An Experimental Study of the Acceptability of Focus Adverb Placement in L1 speakers and EFL Learners

Abstract

This thesis presents and discusses the results of two experiments conducted to study the acceptability of Focus Adverb placement in English in two groups of English speakers. The two groups investigated were Italians holding an advanced or proficient level of English as a foreign language (EFL) and a group of native speakers (L1) of English, primarily from California. The first experiment was designed to explore the acceptability of grammatical and traditionally ungrammatical word orders in L1 English speakers using grammaticality judgement tasks featuring the Focus Adverbs only, even and also. The purpose of the second study was to investigate whether the EFL subjects behaved differently from L1 speakers when responding to the same grammaticality judgement tasks. This thesis also aims to propose strategies in order to implement more effective ways of teaching adverb placement to students of English. Teaching strategies will be discussed with hopes of perfecting Focus Adverb placement in order to help non-native speakers reach a near-nativelike level.