The expression of temporality in the written discourse of L2 learners of English: Distinguishing text-types and text passages

The interlanguage discourse hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, 1995, 2000) predicts that language learners use their developing systems of temporal expression to distinguish the main route (known as foreground) from side routes (known as background) in a narrative text, as is found cross-linguistically in L1 narratives (Labov & Waletsky, 1967; Hopper, 1979). Questions have been raised, however, as to whether this phenomenon is an artifact of narrative discourse structure (Hopper & Thompson, 1980; Caenepeel & Moens, 1994, Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), or whether grounding distinctions are made in non-narrative texts as well. If learner non-narrative text-types do not reveal temporally distinct main and side structures in the discourse, the interlanguage discourse hypothesis may need to be restated as the interlanguage narrative hypothesis.; The current cross-sectional study of 270 essays from 90 learners writing two non-narrative essays and one narrative essay indicates that learners produced texts with temporal profiles that distinguished the narrative from the two non-narratives, and the two non-narratives from each other as indicated by use of past or nonpast time orientation, stative or dynamic verb-types, modality, and a variety of other linguistic resources with temporal features. In addition, learners at all levels of proficiency used temporal expression to produce two types of side passages in the non-narrative texts. Thus, the addition of non-narrative text-types results in broader support for the interlanguage discourse hypothesis.; The analysis of learner narratives has provided greater evidence for the development of the perfective than the imperfective (Kumpf, 1984; Veronique, 1987; Trevise, 1987; Flashner, 1989; von Stutterheim, 1991; Bardovi-Harlig, 1995), but this too, may be an artifact of narrative discourse structure, since the foreground of narratives privileges the use of the perfective.; Although there was development of some temporal features (modal types, stative inventories, passive, perfect, and adverbial repertoires) with greater proficiency, overall there was little evidence for the development of the imperfective. Be and can dominated the stative and modal types; the progressive, passive, and perfect were seldom used, and except for more passives in the higher proficiency argument essays, the narrative text-type promoted their use more than the non-narrative text-types.