1,721,311 research outputs found
Low proficiency does not mean ab initio: A methodological footnote for linguistic transfer studies
No full textThe goal of this brief article is to highlight a specific methodological consideration pertaining to the examination of linguistic transfer in sequential language acquisition: When and how can transfer be meaningfully disentangled from issues pertaining to developmental trajectories of the target language? While this methodological issue is relevant for all transfer studies irrespective of learner type or linguistic domain of inquiry, herein we focus on a set of third language acquisition data. We examine the domain of negative quantifiers nobody/nothing and negative polarity items anybody/anything by Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals learning English as the L3 in adulthood. We offer two group analyses. The first is the superset of low beginner proficiency speakers (all participants taking part in a specially designed English course) and then a subset group (only those who were true ab initio L3 learners—that is, with no previous study of English). The analyses combine to show that exposure matters beyond proficiency—even when proficiency is held constant at very low levels, low proficiency L3 learners who have had some instruction/exposure to an L3 pattern differently from truly ab initio L3 learners. We discuss how this reality complicates isolating L3 transfer proper from effects of L3 development/acquisition and thus, by extension, to all cases of transfer such as adult and child L2
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Discourse-sensitive clitic-doubled dislocations in heritage Spanish
Full text linkThis experimental study tests the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011 and Sorace, 2012) using two constructions whose appropriateness depends on monitoring discourse information: Clitic Left Dislocation and Fronted Focus. Clitic Left Dislocation relates a dislocated and clitic-doubled object to an antecedent activated in previous discourse, while Fronted Focus does not relate the fronted constituent to a discourse antecedent. The Interface Hypothesis argues that speakers in language contact situations experience difficulties when they have to integrate syntactic with discourse information. We tested four groups of native speakers on these constructions: Spanish monolinguals, bilinguals with more than 7 years residence in the US, intermediate and advanced proficiency heritage speakers. Our findings suggest that attrition has not set in the adult L2 bilingual speakers, and that the heritage speakers perform similarly to the monolingual and the adult sequential bilingual natives
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Clitic-doubled left dislocation and focus fronting in L2 Spanish: a case of successful acquisition at the syntax-discourse interface
No full textThis experimental study tests the Interface Hypothesis by looking into processes at the syntax–
discourse interface, teasing apart acquisition of syntactic, semantic and discourse knowledge.
Adopting López’s (2009) pragmatic features [±a(naphor)] and [±c(ontrast)], which in combination
account for the constructions of dislocation and fronting, we tested clitic left dislocation and
fronted focus in the comprehension of English native speakers learning Spanish. Furthermore,
we tested knowledge of an additional semantic property: the relationship between the discourse
anaphor and the antecedent in clitic left dislocation (CLLD). This relationship is free: it can
be subset, superset, part/whole. Syntactic knowledge of clitics was a condition for inclusion in
the main test. Our findings indicate that all learners are sensitive to the semantic constraints.
While the near-native speakers display native-like discourse knowledge, the advanced speakers
demonstrated some discourse knowledge, and intermediate learners did not display any discourse
knowledge. The findings support as well as challenge the Interface Hypothesis
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The mind-context divide: on acquisition at the linguistic interfaces
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L3 morphosyntax in the generative tradition: the initial stages and beyond
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The generative approach to SLA and its place in modern second language studies
Get PDFThis article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state-of-affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), thirty-five years into its history. This discussion brings the readership of SSLA up-to-date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key questions/debates/shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman & VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova et al., 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman, 2014) — especially in light of their different foci and research questions
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A rare structure at the syntax-discourse interface: heritage and Spanish-dominant native speakers weigh in
Full text linkThe present study examines knowledge of the discourse-appropriateness of Clitic Right Dislocation (CLRD) in a population of Heritage (HS) and Spanish-dominant Native Speakers in order to test the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (IH; Sorace 2011). The IH predicts that speakers in language contact situations will experience difficulties with integrating information involving the interface of syntax and discourse modules. CLRD relates a dislocated constituent to a discourse antecedent, requiring integration of syntax and pragmatics. Results from an acceptability judgment task did not support the predictions of the IH. No statistical differences between the HSs' performance and that of L1-dominant native speakers were evidenced when participants were presented with an offline task. Thus, our study did not find any evidence of “incomplete acquisition” (Montrul 2008) as it pertains to this specific linguistic structure
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Early or late acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese? Evidence from spontaneous production data
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