Recent research on the acquisition of aspect: an embarrassment of riches?

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roumyana Slabakova
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Future Aspect

This review article surveys recent research on the first and second language acquisition of temporal and aspectual properties of natural languages.Three recently published books are discussed in the context of the primacy or aspect hypothesis and the prototype, the connectionist and the discourse explanations for the attested acquisition sequences. A potentially misleading terminological issue is highlighted: Deictic tense, grammatical and lexical aspect are often conflated in acquisition studies. Recent research from the (innatist) generative perspective (e.g., Olsen and Weinberg, 1999) is also examined. An alternative explanation of the skewed acquisition sequences in terms of processing costs is proposed. Some important topics for future aspect research are identified.

THE ASPECT HYPOTHESIS AND THE ACQUISITION OF L2 PAST MORPHOLOGY IN THE LAST 20 YEARS

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1137-1167
Author(s):  
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig ◽  
Llorenç Comajoan-Colomé
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
The Third

AbstractTwenty years ago, a state-of-the-art review in SSLA marked the coming of age of the study of temporality in second language acquisition. This was followed by three monographs on tense and aspect the next year. This article presents a state-of-the-scholarship review of the last 20 years of research addressing the aspect hypothesis (AH) (Andersen, 1991, 2002; Andersen & Shirai, 1994, 1996), the most tested hypothesis in L2 temporality research. The first section of the article gives an overview of the AH and examines its central tenets, and then explores the results of empirical studies that test the hypothesis. The second section considers studies that have investigated four crucial variables in the acquisition of temporality and the testing of the AH. The third section discusses theoretically motivated areas of future research within the framework of the hypothesis.

Prototypical influence in second language acquisition: What now for the Aspect Hypothesis

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin McManus
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
L2 Development ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Sentence Interpretation

AbstractThis paper presents empirical evidence on the development of aspect by English- and German-speaking university learners of French L2 collected from a spoken narrative task and a sentence interpretation task. Contrary to the Aspect Hypothesis's predictions, this study's results suggest that increased use of prototypical pairings goes in hand with increased L2 proficiency. Following a small but growing number of studies, this study questions the route of L2 development proposed by the Aspect Hypothesis.

Arabic learners’ acquisition of English past tense morphology

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Zhao ◽  
Yasuhiro Shirai
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Learner Corpus

Abstract The current study investigates the roles of lexical aspect and phonological saliency in second language acquisition of English past tense morphology. It also explores whether the effects of these factors are affected by data elicitation tasks and learners’ L2 proficiency. We created a learner corpus consisting of data from oral personal narratives from twenty Arabic EFL learners from two proficiency groups (low vs. intermediate/advanced), which were transcribed in CHAT format, tagged, and included in the TalkBank corpora. We also administered a written cloze task. Despite task variations, we find strong evidence that supported the influence of lexical semantics in Arabic learners’ acquisition of past tense marking, confirming the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis.

Review article: Three new complementing second language acquisition textbooks

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-379
Author(s):  
Claire Foley
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Processing Approach ◽  
Information Processing Approach

Three new textbooks in second language acquisition (SLA) differ in their aims. Saville-Troike (2006) offers a concise introductory text with an interdisciplinary approach. De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor (2005) provide a more comprehensive and more advanced introductory text with excerpts from the scholarly literature. Sanz (2005) presents an edited volume representing research in various subfields within an information-processing approach to SLA. All three offer valuable material for instructors to draw on, and they complement one another in interesting ways.

Initial acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in an artificial language

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles M Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Initial Acquisition ◽  
Early Acquisition

Various explanations have been put forth for the asymmetrical acquisition of tense and aspect morphology across categories of lexical aspect. This experiment tested the adequacy of a subset of such accounts by examining English native speakers’ ( n = 40) use of progressive and past tense morphology within activity and accomplishment verb frames during their early acquisition of a miniature artificial language. Participants completed a lesson in which types and tokens of lexical aspect and past and present morphology were balanced. Although significant effects at p < .05 were found for lexical aspect and morphological marking, the interaction between these factors, expected by the aspect hypothesis, was non-significant. The experiment suggests that the effects of lexical aspect may be absent during the earliest phases of second language acquisition or may be due to factors methodologically excluded in this study such as distributional biases in second language input.

Informed consent in research on second language acquisition

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Thomas ◽  
Nicole Pettitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Review Article ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Low Profile

The practice of securing informed consent from research participants has a relatively low profile in second language (L2) acquisition research, despite its prominence in the biomedical and social sciences. This review article analyses the role that informed consent now typically plays in L2 research; discusses an example of an L2 study where complex issues of informed consent surfaced; and summarizes debates about informed consent that are underway in other disciplines, but which so far have been little recognized in scholarship on L2 acquisition.

Review article: Second language acquisition of Bantu languages: A (mostly) untapped research opportunity

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patti Spinner
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Research Opportunity ◽  
Noun Class

This review article presents a summary of research on the second language acquisition of Bantu languages, including Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa and Lingala. Although second language (L2) research on these languages is currently very limited, work in morphosyntax and phonology suggests promising directions for future study, particularly on noun class, tense and aspect.

Review article: A tree in the wood: A review of research on L2 Chinese acquisition

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Review Article ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Considerable Research ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
Research Findings

There has been considerable research in Chinese as a second language (L2) in recent years, particularly in its morphological and syntactic aspects. This article reviews research in these aspects with reference to the broader discipline of second language acquisition (SLA) and suggests that L2 Chinese research has contributed to SLA through verification, modification or posing challenges to research findings in the L2 acquisition of other languages. On the basis of these studies, the author points out the limits of current L2 Chinese research and discusses the prospects for future development, arguing that L2 Chinese is to be investigated against hypotheses based on other L2s so that theoretical contributions can be made to the discipline of SLA.

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