What transfers (or doesn’t) in the second language acquisition of English articles by learners from article-less native languages?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ionin ◽  
Sea Hee Choi ◽  
Qiufen Liu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Different Types ◽  
First Languages ◽  
English Articles ◽  
Omission Errors

Abstract This paper examines whether adult learners of English whose native languages (Korean and Mandarin Chinese) lack articles are influenced by transfer from demonstratives and numerals in their acquisition of English articles. To this end, the results of two studies are reported. The first study examines native Korean and Mandarin speakers’ preferences for bare vs. non-bare (demonstrative or numeral) forms in different types of definite and indefinite environments. The results of this study give rise to specific predictions for L1-Korean and L1-Mandarin L2-English learners’ sensitivity to article omission errors in different types of definite and indefinite contexts in English. These predictions are tested in the second study, which uses both an offline task (grammaticality judgments) and an online task (self-paced reading) to investigate learners’ sensitivity to errors of article omission. L1-Korean and L1-Mandarin L2-English learners are found to behave very similarly when tested in English, despite different preferences exhibited by native speakers of Korean and Mandarin.  It is concluded that learners of these article-less first languages do not transfer the semantics of demonstratives and numerals onto articles in their second language.

Second language acquisition and Binding Principle B: child/adult differences

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia White
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Processing Capacity ◽  
Knowledge Processing ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
Value Judgement

L1 acquirers experience considerable delays in mastering properties related to Binding Principle B, performing inaccurately with respect to possible antecedents for pronouns well after the age of 6. Most accounts attribute this delay to performance phenomena (lack of pragmatic knowledge, processing capacity, etc.). In this article, I show that adult learners do not exhibit the same kinds of problems with Principle B. Intermediate-level adult learners of English as a second language (French and Japanese speakers), as well as a native-speaker control group, were tested using a truth value judgement task to determine their interpretations of pronouns. The L2 learners performed like native speakers in disallowing local antecedents for pronouns, suggesting that Principle B is not problematic in adult acquisition, in contrast to child acquisition.

scholarly journals Morphological complexity in written L2 texts

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaclav Brezina ◽  
Gabriele Pallotti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Morphological Complexity

Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers’ proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant.

THE ROBUSTNESS OF APTITUDE EFFECTS IN NEAR-NATIVE SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niclas Abrahamsson ◽  
Kenneth Hyltenstam
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Language Aptitude ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
High Degree

Results from a number of recent studies suggest that nativelike adult second language (L2) learners possess a high degree of language learning aptitude, the positive effects of which may have compensated for the negative effects of a critical period in these learners. According to the same studies, child learners seem to attain a nativelike command of the L2 regardless of high or low aptitude, which has led researchers to conclude that this factor plays no role in early acquisition. The present study investigates the L2 proficiency and language aptitude of 42 near-native L2 speakers of Swedish (i.e., individuals whom actual mother-tongue speakers of Swedish believe are native speakers). The results confirm previous research suggesting that a high degree of language aptitude is required if adult learners are to reach a L2 proficiency that is indistinguishable from that of native speakers. However, in contrast to previous studies, the present results also identify small yet significant aptitude effects in child SLA. Our findings lead us to the conclusions that the rare nativelike adult learners sometimes observed would all turn out to be exceptionally talented language learners with an unusual ability to compensate for maturational effects and, consequently, that their nativelikeness per se does not constitute a reason to reject the critical period hypothesis.

The acquisition of multiple wh-questions by high-proficiency non-native speakers of English

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bley-V roman ◽  
Naoko Yoshinaga
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
High Level

This paper investigates the knowledge of multiple wh-questions such as Who ate what? by high-proficiency non-native speakers of English whose first language is Japanese. Japanese grammar is known to license a wider range of such questions than English – who came why, for example – although the precise theoretical account is not yet clear. Acceptability judgements were obtained on 6 different types of such questions. Acceptability of English examples was rated by native speakers of English, Japanese examples were judged by native speakers of Japanese, and the English examples were judged by high-proficiency Japanese speakers of English. The results for native speakers judging their own language were generally in accord with expectations. The high-level non-native speakers of English were significantly different from native speakers in their ratings of these sentences. However, the ratings were clearly not simply the result of transfer. The consequences of this finding for theories of Universal Grammar (UG) in second language acquisition (SLA) are discussed.

scholarly journals Introduction: The Nordic languages and second language acquisition theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-104
Author(s):  
Ute Bohnacker ◽  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Late Childhood ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Wide Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Second Language Acquisition Theory

The theme of this special issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics was intended to solicit contributions on Nordic languages being acquired as non-native languages as well as work on Nordic-language native speakers learning a second language, not necessarily a Nordic one. We adopted a wide definition of the term ‘second language’ (L2), i.e. a non-native (second, third, etc.) language acquired in late childhood, adolescence or adulthood, in a naturalistic or an instructed setting.

Cross-linguistic evidence for the nature of age effects in second language acquisition

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT DEKEYSER ◽  
IRIS ALFI-SHABTAY ◽  
DORIT RAVID
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Steep Decline ◽  
Considerable Controversy ◽  
Exact Shape ◽  
Early Learners ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

ABSTRACTFew researchers would doubt that ultimate attainment in second language grammar is negatively correlated with age of acquisition, but considerable controversy remains about the nature of this relationship: the exact shape of the age-attainment function and its interpretation. This article presents two parallel studies with native speakers of Russian: one on the acquisition of English as a second language in North America (n= 76), and one on the acquisition of Hebrew as a second language in Israel (n= 64). Despite the very different nature of the languages being learned, the two studies show very similar results. When age at testing is partialed out, the data reveal a steep decline in the learning of grammar before age 18 in both groups, followed by an essentially horizontal slope until age 40. This is interpreted as evidence in favor of the critical period. Both groups show a significant correlation between ultimate attainment and verbal aptitude for the adult learners, but not for the early learners. This is interpreted as further evidence that the learning processes in childhood and adulthood not only yield different levels of proficiency but are also different in nature.

Verb-argument constructions in advanced L2 English learner production: Insights from corpora and verbal fluency tasks

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Römer ◽  
Stephen C. Skalicky ◽  
Nick C. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
International Database ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
English Verb

AbstractThis paper draws on data from learner and native-speaker corpora as well as psycholinguistic data to gain insights into second language speaker knowledge of English verb-argument constructions (VACs). For each of 34 VACs, L1 German and L1 Spanish advanced English learners’ and English native speakers’ dominant verb–VAC associations are examined based on data retrieved from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), the Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage (LINDSEI), their respective Native Speaker (NS) reference corpora, and data collected in verbal fluency tasks in which participants complete VAC frames, such as, ‘she _______ with the…’ with verbs that come to mind. We compare findings from the different data sets and consider the strengths and limitations of each in relation to questions in usage-based second language acquisition and Construction Grammar.

A CASE STUDY OF NL INFLUENCE IN UNIS FKIP ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS' INTERLANGUAGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
Irmala Sukendra ◽  
Agus Mulyana ◽  
Imam Sudarmaji
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Similar System ◽  
The One ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Regardless to the facts that English is being taught to Indonesian students starting from early age, many Indonesian thrive in learning English. They find it quite troublesome for some to acquire the language especially to the level of communicative competence. Although Krashen (1982:10) states that “language acquirers are not usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication”, second language acquisition has several obstacles for learners to face and yet the successfulness of mastering the language never surmounts to the one of the native speakers. Learners have never been able to acquire the language as any native speakers do. Mistakes are made and inter-language is unavoidable. McNeili in Ellis (1985, p. 44) mentions that “the mentalist views of L1 acquisition hypothesizes the process of acquisition consists of hypothesis-testing, by which means the grammar of the learner’s mother tongue is related to the principles of the ‘universal grammar’.” Thus this study intends to find out whether the students go through the phase of interlanguage in their attempt to acquire second language and whether their interlanguage forms similar system as postulated by linguists (Krashen).

Plural marking in the second language: Atomicity, definiteness, and transfer

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Sea Hee Choi ◽  
Tania Ionin
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Plural Marking

Abstract This paper examines whether second language (L2)-English learners whose native languages (L1; Korean and Mandarin) lack obligatory plural marking transfer the properties of plural marking from their L1s, and whether transfer is manifested both offline (in a grammaticality judgment task) and online (in a self-paced reading task). The online task tests the predictions of the morphological congruency hypothesis (Jiang 2007), according to which L2 learners have particular difficulty automatically activating the meaning of L2 morphemes that are incongruent with their L1. Experiment 1 tests L2 learners’ sensitivity to errors of –s oversuppliance with mass nouns, while Experiment 2 tests their sensitivity to errors of –s omission with count nouns. The findings show that (a) L2 learners detect errors with nonatomic mass nouns (sunlights) but not atomic ones (furnitures), both offline and online; and (b) L1-Korean L2-English learners are more successful than L1-Mandarin L2-English learners in detecting missing –s with definite plurals (these boat), while the two groups behave similarly with indefinite plurals (many boat). Given that definite plurals require plural marking in Korean but not in Mandarin, the second finding is consistent with L1-transfer. Overall, the findings show that learners are able to overcome morphological incongruency and acquire novel uses of L2 morphemes.

scholarly journals Studying individual differences in the social environment to better understand language learning and processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Lev-Ari
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
The Social

AbstractPeople learn language from their social environment. Therefore, individual differences in the input that their social environment provides could influence their linguistic performance. Nevertheless, investigation of the role of individual differences in input on performance has been mostly restricted to first and second language acquisition. In this paper I argue that individual differences in input can influence linguistic performance even in adult native speakers. Specifically, differences in input can affect performance by influencing people’s knowledgebase, by modulating their processing manner, and by shaping expectations. Therefore, studying the role that individual differences in input play can improve our understanding of how language is learned, processed and represented.

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