A Picture-Book Based Corpus Study on the Acquisition of wh-words in Japanese

Glottotheory ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Natsue Ito ◽  
Katsuo Tamaoka ◽  
Michael Patrick Mansbridge
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Social Factor ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
And Function

AbstractClancy (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16(2), 323–47) claims that the developmental order of wh-questions in first language acquisition follows the order: what = where<who<how=why<when. Forner (1979. The mother as LAD: interaction between order and frequency of parental input and child production. In A. Hastings & F. R. Eckman (Eds.), Studies in first and second language acquisition (pp. 17–44). New York, NY: Newbury House Publishers) further argues that a mother’s order of introducing wh-questions might be influenced by her assumption of a child’s cognitive development. Similarly, the target age for picture books might also reflect an adult’s assumption of the child’s cognitive development. Accordingly, this study investigates a Japanese picture book corpus to determine whether the order of appearance for wh-words mirrors that of Clancy’s developmental order. As a result, the appearance of Japanese wh-words in the picture books were similar to Clancy’s (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16(2), 323–47) order except for the question dou ‘how’. Because dou and the English ‘how’ have different ranges of meaning, the data were reanalyzed which resulted in an order more similar to Clancy’s. These results suggest that the target age of picture books reflect the adult’s assumption of a child’s cognitive development. Picture books might also influence a caregivers’ order of introducing wh-words. In conclusion, this study implies external social factor such as picture books, together with other factors, might influence the children’s wh-developmental order.

Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Clancy
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Korean Children ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Acquisition Order ◽  
And Function ◽  
Selection Of

ABSTRACTIn this paper the order in which wh-questions are acquired in the production and comprehension of two Korean children, aged 1;8–2;8 and 1;10–2; 10, is analysed and compared with the available crosslinguistic data. Consistencies in acquisition order are hypothesized to be based on universals of cognitive development, which constrain the comprehension and production of wh-forms and influence the order in which mothers introduce them, and on functionally based similarities in the input of form/function pairs across children and languages. Discrepancies in acquisition order are attributed to differences in interactive style across caregivers and children, leading to different input frequencies of particular forms and individual children's selection of different forms for use.

Dummy auxiliaries in the second language acquisition of Moroccan learners of Dutch: Form and function

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke van de Craats ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
And Function ◽  
Germanic Languages

This study examines an interlanguage in which Moroccan learners of Dutch use non-thematic verbs in combination with thematic verbs that can be inflected as well. These non-thematic verbs are real dummy auxiliaries because they are deprived of semantic content and primarily have a syntactic function. Whereas in earlier second language (L2) research only patterns with ‘be’ were found for learners of three Germanic languages with various first language (L1) backgrounds, an alternative dummy auxiliary pattern was observed with ‘go’ in the data of the Moroccan learners of Dutch. We argue that the auxiliary pattern with ‘go’ is bootstrapped by the unique similarities between Dutch (L2) and Arabic (L1). The emergence of dummy auxiliaries precedes movement of the thematic verb, and it turns out that adult L2 learners can be plainly focused on expressing syntactic properties.

Exploring the upper limits of the Aspect Hypothesis

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Vraciu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
L2 Development

This paper explores coalitions between tense-aspect morphology and the aspectual class of predicates in second language acquisition (the Aspect Hypothesis) on the basis of 36 oral narratives elicited with a picture book from French L1 adult learners of English. The observed distributional patterns are analysed in relation to the prototypical inflection/predicate coalitions observed both at early stages of L2 development and in English L1. While advanced learners are expected to make a productive use of tense-aspect morphology within all predicate classes, our data indicate that the prototypical coalition between the progressive form and activity predicates remains strong until very proficient stages of English L2, when the distribution of verb morphology within this class eventually becomes more flexible and activities as a class are predominantly encoded in the non-progressive present or past form. Non-grammaticalisation of the progressive in the learners’ L1 may interfere with the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis for this form in English L2.

Emergence of the Unmarked in Indian Englishes with Different Substrates

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline R. Wiltshire
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
First Languages ◽  
And Function ◽  
Insight Into

This study uses data from Indian English as a second language, spoken by speakers of five first languages, to illustrate and evaluate the role of the emergence of the unmarked (TETU) in phonological theory. The analysis focusses on word-final consonant devoicing and cluster reduction, for which the five Indian first languages have various constraints, while Indian English is relatively unrestricted. Variation in L2 Indian Englishes results from both transfer of L1 phonotactics and the emergence of the unmarked, accounted for within Optimality Theory. The use of a learning algorithm also allows us to test the relative importance of markedness and frequency and to evaluate the relative markedness of various clusters. Thus, data from Indian Englishes provides insight into the form and function of markedness constraints, as well as the mechanisms of Second Language Acquisition (SLA).

Development of forms and functions of interrogatives in children: a longitudinal study in Tamil

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Vaidyanathan
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Child Interaction ◽  
Children First ◽  
Case Markers ◽  
And Function

ABSTRACTThe development of the forms and functions of interrogatives in parent-child interaction in the early stages of language acquisition is discussed with illustrative examples from data relating to two Tamil-speaking children and their parents. The analysis of the data reveals that children first acquire and use intonation questions followed byenga‘where’,enna‘what’ andyaari‘who’. Yes/no questions using the interrogative marker-aaare acquired in the next stage when the children are able to use verb endings. Similarly question words that take case markers are acquired in the next stage. It is emphasized that interrogatives serve a multiplicity of communicative functions and are not restricted to the information-seeking role. Children, when they begin to use interrogatives, model their usage of them on the adult behaviour patterns to which they have been exposed, both in terms of form and function.

scholarly journals ACQUISITION OF WH-QUESTIONS BY SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH IN PAKISTAN

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1078-1088
Author(s):  
Azhar Pervaiz ◽  
Abdul Ghaffar Ikram ◽  
Naima Batool ◽  
Sadia Saeed
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Wh Questions

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the current study is to investigate the acquisition of Wh-questions of English by Urdu L1 speakers in Pakistan. Acquisition of different syntactic structures has been an attractive area of interest for the scholars working in the area of second language acquisition. The study draws on approaches of Universal Grammar (UG) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). The researchers aim at finding out whether the second language is acquired in the same way as the first language or not. Both Urdu and English allow Wh-questions formation but the placement of the Wh-word is completely at a different position. Urdu is an in-situ language that does not allow Movement of the Wh-word, and English allows the Movement of the Wh-word. So, this study highlights whether speakers of Urdu can acquire the structures of Wh-questions or not. Methodology: The study uses a mixed-method research design, and the data was collected from the speakers of Urdu who speak it as their native language in order to draw the findings. The current research employs a questionnaire that is divided into two parts: elicitation task and grammatical judgement task. For the elicitation task, the students were provided with the statements with the underlined words of which they had to form Wh-questions and for the second, a task was designed on the basis of the lickert scale and it was designed to judge the grammar of the students. The population of this study is limited to speakers of Urdu who speak English as their second language and the sample was selected from the vicinity of Sargodha city of Pakistan. Main Findings: The results of this mixed-method study reveal that students face problems while forming and identifying Wh-questions, despite compulsory education in English. The findings of the current study supported the partial access hypothesis. Applications of this study: The study is very important in the area of second language acquisition and informs how the speakers of the English language as a second language acquire the Wh-question structure. The study can be applied in designing teaching materials for the learners of English as a second language besides informing the language software modulation in order to ease the language learning process.

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