Άρθρα

Ifigeneia Dosi*, Selini Kamoura

Democritus University of Thrace*

There has beena long debate whetherElicited Imitation Tasks (EITs) measure linguistic skills, or they are more based on the rote memory skills. Some studies have noted that the role of memory (either working memory or short term memory) is crucial for the performance on EITs (Alloway and Gathercole, 2005; Alloway, Gathercole, Willis and Adams, 2004). Few studies have claimed that the contribution of memory is more important than the contribution of language to EITs performance (Hamayan, Saegert, and Larudee, 1977). Nonetheless, other studies have not observed the impact of memory on the performance in EITs (Okura and Lonsdale 2012, Dosi, Papadopoulou and Tsimpli, 2016). There ishowever,a great number of recent studies which maintain that EITs draw on both language ability and cognitive resources,primarily from working memory (Riches, 2012; Klem, Melby-Lervaog, Hagtvet, Lyster, Gustafsson and Hulme, 2015), especially when the sentences are quite short (Fattal, Friedmann and Fattla-Valevski, 2011), since language processing is less demanding in short sentencesand memory abilities are more possible to affect the participants’ performance (Alloway et al., 2004). Language proficiency also seems to affect the performance on the task (Bley-Vroman and Chaudron, 1994; Munnich, Flynn and Martohardjono, 1994). Limited is the evidence about Greek native speakers, who learn English as a second language (L2), such data would be useful for the educators to plan a more targeted lesson.

The present study investigates the language and working memory skills of native speakers of Greek, who learn English as a L2. Additionally, it also takes into account the aforementioned issues in order to test whether (a) EITs measure both linguistic and (verbal) working memory abilities and (b)language proficiency hasanyimpact on participants’ performance. Hence, in the present study eight participantstook part; half of them (n=4) were intermediate learners of English and the other half (n=4) were advanced learners of English.

Mavrommatidou Stavroula

Demociruts University of Thrace

 S.I.E.D.U. (Strategy Inventory for Electronic Dictionary Use) is a valid and reliable electronic instrument designed for assessing users’ skills in electronic dictionary searches. It can be used for research purposes mainly for the detection of users’ profiles in order to design appropriateintervention programs in classrooms. In the present paper,it has been used for collecting empirical data onusers’ dictionary skills, which is an important but poorlyresearched topic in language learning contexts.700 people (students from high schools and universitiesas well asteachers) participated in the investigation and completed the online questionnaire S.I.E.D.U.,reflecting on their own digital dictionary use. It was found that not all users are familiar enough with the strategies required when using digital dictionariesand some of them lack the right skills to fully benefit from this useful source of information. In addition, there are differences in the skills applied by usersdepending on their level of education butnot between university students in different study fields.

Anna Anastassiadis-Symeonidis*, Elisavet Kiourti** & Maria Mitsiaki*

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki*,
University of Cyprus**
Democritus University of Thrace*

Η εργασία αυτή αποσκοπεί α) στην περιγραφή και ανάλυση του κλιτικού συστήματος των ονομάτων (ουσιαστικών και επιθέτων) της κοινής αστικής κυπριακής με βάση τις αρχές της Μορφολογίας των Παραδειγματικών Συναρτήσεων και β) στην παρουσίαση του μορφολογικού λεξικού ΚΟΜοΛεξ, η σύνταξη του οποίου βασίστηκε στο προαναφερθέν θεωρητικό πλαίσιο.

Elina Chadjipapa & Lena Papadopoulou

Democritus University of Thrace

The present study investigates the Greek student’s skills and strategies in dictionary use such as attitudes, habits and techniques adopted from the dictionary users. The first version of the Strategy Inventory for Dictionary Use (S.I.D.U) was given to 177 students attending in two different departments of the Democritus University of Thrace during 2012-2013. The results showed that students seem to use dictionary strategies effectively; especially lemmatization strategies are the most frequently reference skills.

Ifigeneia Dosi*, Ianthi Tsimpli**, Despina Papadopoulou***

Democritus University of Thrace*
University of Cambridge**
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki*

The present study investigates the comprehension of perfective and imperfective aspect in Greek-English bilingual children. Previous work on L2 acquisition of aspect indicates that imperfective aspect appears later than perfective aspect in the marking of past events across various languages (Andersen & Shirai 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 2000) and that the [+ habitual] feature of imperfective aspect, appears later than the [+ continuous] feature (Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Shirai 2002); the same pattern also holds for adult learners of L2 Greek (Mattheoudakis et al. 2011; Papadopoulou 2005). Sixty children, thirty Greek-English bilinguals and thirty Greek monolinguals, completed a forced choice oral task, in which they had to select between the perfective and imperfective aspect of a specific verb. The task consisted of short stories which tested three ex-perimental conditions: perfective, [+ continuous] imperfective and [+ habitual] imperfective; for each condition individual stories with and without temporal conjunctions were provided. The results revealed that the perfective aspect was successfully acquired, while problems with the imperfective aspect are evident, especially when the imperfective sentences denote habituality. The participants’ performance suggests no association between the presence of conjunctions and the decoding of aspect. Interestingly, a significant correlation was found between children’s vocabulary level and their performance on aspect.