LING212Second Language Acquisition

Florencia Franceschina

Terminology

Second language acquisition Foreign language acquisition Acquisition of additional languages Bilingual language acquisition

L2 grammars

A.k.a. interlanguage grammars (ILGs)

Example: L2 speaker on Botticelli

Route of acquisition

U-shaped learning

Example: Myles et al. (1999)

Myles et al. (1999)

L1 English/L2 French

16 adolescents

Recorded 6 times over 2 years

Initially drilled in using ‘chunks’:

Quel âge as-tu?

Comment tu t’appelles?

Qu’est qu’il aime faire?

etc.

Myles et al. (1999)

Findings:

Three question types:

1. Qs formed from chunks they had been drilled on.

2. Novel questions lacking verbs

Où la piscine?

3. Novel questions with verbs

Myles et al. (1999)

Q type Sample

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chunk 143/18677%

264/41863%

47/11142%

214/48344%

261/62242%

40/26415%

V-less 41/18622%

129/41831%

53/11148%

235/48349%

287/62246%

182/26469%

With V 2/1861%

25/4186%

11/11110%

34/4837%

74/62212%

42/26416%

Route of acquisition

Fixed stages of acquisition

Example: Pienemann (1998)

Pienemann (1998)

Stages of acquisition of word order in L2 German:1. SVO

Die kinder spielen mim ball (the children play with the ball)

2. Adverb pre-posingDa kinder spielen (there children play)

3. Verb separationAller kinder muss die pause machen (all children must the pause make)

4. Verb second (V2)Dann hat sie wieder die knoch gebringt (then has she again the bone brought)

5. Verb final in subordinate clausesEr sagte dass er nach hause kommt (he said that he to home comes)

Rate of acquisition

Some learners are faster than others

Example 1: Snow and Hoefnagel-Hole (1978)

Example 2: Dulay and Burt (1974)

Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle (1978)

L1 English / L2 DutchImmersionTasks: Pronunciation, auditory discrimination,

morphology, sentence repetition, sentence translation, sentence judgement, story comprehension, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

Findings: After 3 months’ residence: adults and adolescents

outperformed children on tests After 10 months’ residence: the children caught up

Dulay and Burt (1974)

L1 Chinese (Cantonese) / L2 English (replication of D&B, 73, L1 Spanish / L2 English children)

115 6-8 year-olds in the US

Task: BSM

Dulay and Burt (1974): Bilingual Syntax Measure

Dulay and Burt (1974): results

Variable attainment profile

Fossilization High levels of individual variation

Example 1: Franceschina (2001)

Example 2: Johnson and Newport (1989)

Franceschina (2001)

L1 English, L1 Italian / L2 SpanishNearnatives Task: Spontaneous speech productionFindings: All learners were equally accurate (totally

target-like) on number agreement The Italian speakers were more accurate than

the English speakers on gender agreement

Johnson and Newport (1989)

L1 Chinese, L1 Korean / L2 English

46 participants

AoA: between 3-39

Minimum residence in the US: 5 years

Task: GJT testing a range of grammatical properties

Johnson and Newport (1989) (1)

Johnson and Newport (1989) (2)

Summary

ILGs are:

Systematic (e.g., route, within L1 groups)

Variable (according to age of acquisition, L1, in terms of rate of acquisition and outcome)

What determines the variable L2 outcomes?

Learner-internal factors– Age (Singleton and Lengyel, 1995; Birdsong, 1999)– L1 (Odlin, 1989; Gass and Selinker, 1992)– Aptitude (Sawyer and Ranta, 2001)– Motivation (Dornyei and Schmidt, 2001)– …

What determines the variable L2 outcomes?

Learner-external factors– Type of input (Carroll, 2001; Norris and Ortega,

2000)– Type of interaction (Gass, 1997)– …

What determines the variable L2 outcomes?

Caveat: SLA researchers do not all agree on the exact role that the previously mentioned factors play in determining L2 outcomes.

References

Birdsong, D. (ed.) 1999: Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Carroll, S. E. 2001: Input and evidence. The raw material of SLA. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dornyei, Z. and R. Schmidt. 2001: Motivation and second language acquisition. Manoa: University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

Dulay, H. and M. Burt. 1974: Natural sequences in child second language acquisition. Language Learning 24, 37-53.

Franceschina, F. 2001: Where lies the difference between native and non-native grammars? Evidence from the L2A of Spanish, in S. Foster-Cohen and A. Nizegorodcew, eds. EUROSLA Yearbook 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pp. 143-158.

Gass, S. M. 1997: Input, interaction and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Gass, S. M. and L. Selinker. (eds.) 1992: Language transfer in language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

References

Myles, F., R. Mitchell and P. J. Hooper. 1999: Interrogative chunks in French L2: a basis for creative construction? Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21, 49-80.

Norris, J. and L. Ortega. 2000: Effectiveness of L2 instruction: a research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning 50, 417-528.

Odlin, T. 1989: Language transfer: cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pienemann, M. 1998a: Language processing and L2 development. Processability theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

---- 1998b: Developmental dynamics in L1 and L2 acquisition: Processability Theory and generative entrenchment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1, 1-20.

Sawyer, M. and L. Ranta. 2001: Aptitude, individual differences and instructional design, in P. Robinson, ed. Cognition and second language instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 319-353.

Singleton, D. M. and Z. Lengyel. (eds.) 1995: The age factor in second language acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Snow, C. E. and M. Hoefnagel-Hohle. 1978: The critical period for language acquisition: evidence from second language learning. Child Development 49, 1114-1128.

Administrative

Reading: White (2003: chapter 1). You will find some study questions on the course website. You can also read chapter 2, which contains more advanced discussion.

Empirical study summary forms Glossary cards This term seminars will take place in weeks 2,

3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in Bowland B61