SECOND LANGUAGE EPISTEMOLOGY

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Dekydtspotter
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Domain Specificity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Language Knowledge

This article presents evidence that supports the claim that second language (L2) grammars arise in a domain-specific, informationally encapsulated module with contents provided by Universal Grammar and enriched by native language knowledge, as entertained by Schwartz (1986, 1987, 1999) contra Bley-Vroman (1990). I consider state-of-the-art evidence representative of a body of research on the poverty of the stimulus (POS) that argues for the domain-specificity of L2 representations, with a main focus on interpretation. Then I examine interpretive evidence relevant to the role of informational encapsulation and compositionality in SLA. I seek to demonstrate that the acquisition of syntax-linked interpretive properties where the POS is severe provides opportunities for a type of fingerprinting of mental organization that can inform a variety of epistemologically relevant questions.

Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research

1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel David Epstein ◽  
Suzanne Flynn ◽  
Gita Martohardjono
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
Explanatory Theory ◽  
Parameter Values ◽  
Theoretical Issues

AbstractTo what extent, if any, does Universal Grammar (UG) constrain second language (L2) acquisition? This is not only an empirical question, but one which is currently investigable. In this context, L2 acquisition is emerging as an important new domain of psycholinguistic research. Three logical possibilities have been articulated regarding the role of UG in L2 acquisition: The first is the “no access” hypothesis that claims that no aspect of UG is available to the L2 learner. The second is the “partial access” hypothesis that claims that only LI instantiated principles and LI instantiated parameter-values of UG are available to the learner. The third, called the “full access” hypothesis, asserts that UG in its entirety constrains L2 acquisition.In this paper we argue that there is no compelling evidence to support either of the first two hypotheses. Moreover, we provide evidence concerning functional categories in L2 acquisition consistent with the claim that UG is fully available to the L2 learner (see also Flynn 1987; Li 1993; Martohardjono 1992; Schwartz & Sprouse 1991; Thomas 1991; White 1989). In addition, we will attempt to clarify some of currently unclear theoretical issues that arise with respect to positing UG as an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition. We will also investigate in some detail certain crucial methodological questions involved in experimentally testing the role of UG in L2 acquisition and finally, we will present a set of experimental results of our own supporting the “Full Access” hypothesis.

Exploiting native language interference for native language identification

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Ilia Markov ◽  
Vivi Nastase ◽  
Carlo Strapparava
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Emotion Expression ◽  
The State ◽  
Language Identification ◽  
Independent Features ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Native language identification (NLI)—the task of automatically identifying the native language (L1) of persons based on their writings in the second language (L2)—is based on the hypothesis that characteristics of L1 will surface and interfere in the production of texts in L2 to the extent that L1 is identifiable. We present an in-depth investigation of features that model a variety of linguistic phenomena potentially involved in native language interference in the context of the NLI task: the languages’ structuring of information through punctuation usage, emotion expression in language, and similarities of form with the L1 vocabulary through the use of anglicized words, cognates, and other misspellings. The results of experiments with different combinations of features in a variety of settings allow us to quantify the native language interference value of these linguistic phenomena and show how robust they are in cross-corpus experiments and with respect to proficiency in L2. These experiments provide a deeper insight into the NLI task, showing how native language interference explains the gap between baseline, corpus-independent features, and the state of the art that relies on features/representations that cover (indiscriminately) a variety of linguistic phenomena.

DISCUSSION

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Juffs
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Lexical Representation ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
Crosslinguistic Variation

In this article I discuss some key points that are raised in the papers in this special issue. The first issue is that a variety of theoretical tools are necessary for a complete understanding of the issues raised in these papers. Second, although the methodology that is used in studies of second language knowledge has improved, it is clear we still lack an agreed-on set of protocols that will permit reliable comparisons across studies. In spite of these challenges, we are making progress in using complementary theories of the role of lexical representation, predication, and crosslinguistic variation to get a full picture of this complex area of lexico-morphosyntactic knowledge.

Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Eckman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Typological Approach

This paper considers the question of explanation in second language acquisition within the context of two approaches to universals, Universal Grammar and language typology. After briefly discussing the logic of explaining facts by including them under general laws (Hempel & Oppenheim 1948), the paper makes a case for the typological approach to explanation being the more fruitful, in that it allows more readily for the possibility of ‘explanatory ascent’, the ability to propose more general, higher order explanations by having lower-level generalizations follow from more general principles. The UG approach, on the other hand is less capable of such explanatory ascent because of the postulation that the innate, domain-specific principles of UG are not reducible in any interesting way to higher order principles of cognition (Chomsky 1982).

Making Use Of Students’ Native Language Potential Strategy To Increase Second Language Acquisition

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Gultom
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Alternative Learning ◽  
Potential Strategy

<p>Alternative learning strategies, in the concept of second language acquisition (SLA), concern more on the identification of second language students’ characteristic. One of the alternative learning strategies that will be discussed in this paper is about the role of native language (L1) with a demonstration of Papuan Malay language possessive pronouns and noun phrases in the context of teaching English as a foreign language (FL) in Jayapura, Papua. The discussion about the structure of Papuan Malay language possessive pronouns and noun phrases might give insight for second language (L2) teachers in Papua on making use their students’ L1 as a potential strategy to help them to increase their second language acquisition.</p>

scholarly journals The Role of Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition from the Perspective of Chinese Acquiring English Reflexives

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. p284
Author(s):  
Jing Song
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Chinese And English

In China, the second language learning has always played an important role in primary and higher education. The issue of how children acquire the second language has experienced a boom in China over the past decade as the proficiency of a person’s English level mainly depends on its acquisition in primary stage. The main focus of this paper is to examine the role of UG in the second language acquisition and to what extent it plays in the process. To illustrate this, the four access hypotheses were given firstly. In addition, the role of UG from the aspect of Chinese learners’ acquiring the English reflexives was discussed. In this section, the importance of analyzing the reflexives and the different features of them in Chinese and English were exhibited.

Acquisition of Morphology and Syntax

1988 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 42-53
Author(s):  
Bogdan Krakowian
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Early Development ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
The State ◽  
Research Questions

The early development of second language acquisition [SLA] research in the area of morphology and syntax can be traced in some excellent publications both exemplifying and evaluating the state of the art in this area (e.g., Anderson 1981, Davies, Criper, and Howatt 1984, Hatch 1983, Wode 1981b). The research questions identified and pursued at that time have continued to occupy researchers. (The ones which are the most important and relevant for the discussion here are as follows: 1 the problem of regularity in interlanguage [IL] morphology and syntax; 2) the contribution of Universal Grammar to SLA, and 3) variability in IL performance. The problems enumerated above will provide a framework for the discussion of the acquisition of morphology and syntax. Some additional comments on other, related issues will be included.

Learning to assign stress in a second language: The role of second-language vocabulary size and transfer from the native language in second-language readers of Italian

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-136
Author(s):  
Giacomo Spinelli ◽  
Luciana Forti ◽  
Debra Jared
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Stress Assignment ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Distributional Information ◽  
Written Word

AbstractLearning to pronounce a written word implies assigning a stress pattern to that word. This task can present a challenge for speakers of languages like Italian, in which stress information must often be computed from distributional properties of the language, especially for individuals learning Italian as a second language (L2). Here, we aimed to characterize the processes underlying the development of stress assignment in native English and native Chinese speakers learning L2 Italian. Both types of bilinguals produced evidence supporting a role of vocabulary size in modulating the type of distributional information used in stress assignment, with an early bias for Italian's dominant stress pattern being gradually replaced by use of associations between orthographic sequences and stress patterns in more advanced bilinguals. We also obtained some evidence for a transfer of stress assignment habits from the bilinguals’ native language to Italian, although only in English native speakers.

scholarly journals Quelque chose … de remarquable in English-French acquisition: mandatory, informationally encapsulated computations in second language interpretation

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Dekydtspotter ◽  
Jon C. Hathorn
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Language Knowledge

We discuss the results of an experiment that investigates English-French learners’ interpretation of quantifiers with detachable restrictions. Such quantifiers are ungrammatical in English. We investigate aspects of interpretation that rely on a highly idiosyncratic interface between grammar and general principles of conversational cooperation in native French. We show that a learning-theoretic challenge of the most severe kind arises in English-French acquisition unless second language acquisition is constrained by very specific relations between syntactic, semantic and pragmatic modules. We therefore argue that the emergence of knowledge of interpretation in English-French interlanguage suggests mandatory, informationally encapsulated computations. This supports Schwartz’s (1986; 1987; 1999) contention that inter-language knowledge is constrained by a mental organization in which Universal Grammar provides the contents of a largely universal processor devoted to language.

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