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1
Olshtain, Elite. "Is Second Language Attrition the Reversal of Second Language Acquisition?" Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11, no. 2 (June 1989): 151–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100000589.
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The study of language attrition, whether it is concerned with first or second languages, focuses on the effects resulting from an individual's reduced use of the attrited language. Such reduction in use can be due to a change in the linguistic environment or to the termination of an instructional program. In either case, some other language (or languages) is or becomes the dominant one.The present article reports on a series of studies, all focusing on individual attrition of English as a second language (ESL) in an environment where Hebrew is the dominant language. The predictor variables discussed are age, sociolinguistic features, input variables, and linguistic variables. The attrition process affecting English as a second language in a Hebrew dominant context seems to exhibit two major trends of change in language use: (a) a greater variability in the application of peripheral and highly marked structural rules, and (b) lower accessibility of specific lexical items. In each of these trends one can identify a limited reversal of the acquisition process, particularly with young children (5–8-year-olds) as well as a typological transfer process from the dominant language.
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Azhar, Shopia. "SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE." ETERNAL (English, Teaching, Learning and Research Journal) 2, no. 2 (December 30, 2015): 331–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.24252/eternal.v12.2015.a12.
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Lotze, Nathaniel. "Second Language Acquisition Applied To English Language Teaching." TESOL Journal 10, no. 1 (March 2019): e00414. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tesj.414.
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Buckledee, Steve. "Motivation and Second Language Acquisition." ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries 5, no. 1-2 (June 16, 2008): 159–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/elope.5.1-2.159-170.
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A feature of Italian universities is the high student drop-out rate in nearly all degree courses. It is likely that among the causes of this phenomenon a significant factor is loss of motivation. This study represents the first stage of a longitudinal research project aimed at monitoring students’ motivation levels over a three-year period. At the beginning of the academic year 2008-2009 a questionnaire was administered to 150 newly enrolled students of English at the University of Cagliari in Italy. The closed-response items were designed to measure the respondents’ instrumental and intrinsic motivation. The responses were then considered in the light of the following variables: age, gender, level of competence in English and choice of degree course. The major finding was that a clear majority of respondents reported a considerably higher level of intrinsic than instrumental motivation, while the most significant variables were shown to be competence level and choice of degree.
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Park, Hyeson. "A minimalist approach to null subjects and objects in second language acquisition." Second Language Research 20, no. 1 (January 2004): 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0267658304sr228oa.
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Studies of the second language acquisition of pronominal arguments have observed that: (1) L1 speakers of null subject languages of the Spanish type drop more subjects in their second language (L2) English than first language (L1) speakers of null subject languages of the Korean type and (2) speakers of Korean-type languages drop more objects than subjects in their L2 English. An analysis of these two asymmetries is conducted within the Minimalist Program framework (MP), which hypothesizes that language acquisition involves the learning of formal features of a target language.I propose, based on Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998), that the licensing of null subjects is conditioned by the interpretability of agreement features. When a language has [+interpretable] agreement features, raising of the verb to T (X-movement) satisfies the EPP requirement: hence, a null subject is allowed. On the other hand, in a language with [-interpretable] agreement features, the subject is obligatory since merger of the subject in the specifier of TP (XP-merge) is required to check the EPP feature. Learning of the obligatory status of English subjects is easier for Korean learners than for Spanish speakers since syntactically both English and Korean have the same feature value [-interpretable] (although null subjects are allowed in Korean for pragmatic reasons). Spanish has the opposite syntactic feature value [+interpretable] and resetting of this is more difficult. Licensing of null objects is hypothesized to be related to the strength of theta-features. Languages with strong theta-features, such as English and Spanish, do not allow null objects, whereas languages with weak theta-features like Korean allow null objects. It takes time for Korean speakers to learn the different value of English theta-features, resulting in the extended null object period in L2 English of Korean L1 speakers.
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Mayberry, Rachel I. "First-Language Acquisition After Childhood Differs From Second-Language Acquisition." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 36, no. 6 (December 1993): 1258–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3606.1258.
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This study determined whether the long-range outcome of first-language acquisition, when the learning begins after early childhood, is similar to that of second-language acquisition. Subjects were 36 deaf adults who had contrasting histories of spoken and sign language acquisition. Twenty-seven subjects were born deaf and began to acquire American Sign Language (ASL) as a first language at ages ranging from infancy to late childhood. Nine other subjects were born with normal hearing, which they lost in late childhood; they subsequently acquired ASL as a second language (because they had acquired spoken English as a first language in early childhood). ASL sentence processing was measured by recall of long and complex sentences and short-term memory for signed digits. Subjects who acquired ASL as a second language after childhood outperformed those who acquired it as a first language at exactly the same age. In addition, the performance of the subjects who acquired ASL as a first language declined in association with increasing age of acquisition. Effects were most apparent for sentence processing skills related to lexical identification, grammatical acceptability, and memory for sentence meaning. No effects were found for skills related to fine-motor production and pattern segmentation.
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Leung, Yan-kit Ingrid. "Verb morphology in second language versus third language acquisition." EUROSLA Yearbook 6 (July 20, 2006): 27–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.6.05leu.
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This paper reports an experimental study on L2 vs. L3 Spanish morphological representation. A total of 19 Spanish learners (10 Chinese native speakers who are upper intermediate to advanced L2 English users as well as 9 English native speakers who do not speak a prior language without overt morphology) participated in the study. A written production task using Spanish nonce verbs was used to elicit regular and irregular forms of Spanish past participles. The study revealed differences between native and non-native Spanish speakers but ones that are still compatible with an approach which posits a dual mechanism for morphological processing. In addition, no principal difference between the L2 and the L3 Spanish learners was identified. A follow-up experiment on L2 English was therefore carried out testing 26 native speakers of Chinese and 17 native speakers of English using a written production task eliciting English regular and irregular past tense forms for both real verbs and nonce verbs. The findings suggested that native and non-native English speakers’ performances pattern similarly. It seems that L2 English plays a crucial role in Chinese speakers’ L3 Spanish morphological representation and in their similar performance to the L1 English-L2 Spanish speakers.
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Aiking-Brandenburg, Marijke J. T. J., Allan R. James, and Willem J. Meijs. "Suffixation and second Language Acquisition." ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 87-88 (January 1, 1990): 65–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/itl.87-88.04aik.
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The aim of the present paper was to find out which learning strategies secondary school pupils of different ages employ to acquire complex words in English as their second language: either by applying rules and analogies or by learning by heart. As a working hypothesis, it was postulated that younger pupils probably preferred the latter approach and older pupils the former. In order to test this hypothesis, a 122-item complex word derivation test was devised, containing three categories of words: (1) words of which both the base-form and the derived form had been studied, (2) words of which just the base-form had been studied and (3) words of which neither form had been studied. The test was administered to pupils in three grades of secondary school and a group of 1st year university students of English. Statistical treatment of the data neither confirmed nor falsified the original hypothesis, but it showed many correlations and gave rise to a large number of additional conclusions. Amongst other things, it was concluded that the presence of the proposed tentative change-over in learning approach, from learning words as whole entities to applying word-formation rules, may or may not have been present, but if it were, it had been completely obscured. It was evident from several different indications that a dominant influence on the pupils' scores was exerted by exposure. In addition, the data collected revealed numerous correlations concerning the influence of education level, word category, regularity, frequency, etc. Finally, suggestions are given for application of the test results in second language education in secondary school in general.
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Haerazi, Haerazi. "PRINCIPLES OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN CHILDREN." Jo-ELT (Journal of English Language Teaching) Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa & Seni Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris IKIP 3, no. 1 (February 28, 2020): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.33394/jo-elt.v3i1.2424.
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To understand the principles of second language acquisition, we could adopt a variety of perspective. Research on second language acquisition (SLA) by children and adults is characterized by many different subfields and perspectives, both cognitive and social in orientation. Although children feature as participants in this research, it is relatively rare to find reviews or overviews of SLA that deal specifically with child SLA although there are a few important exceptions. This general lack of focus on children’s SLA is somewhat surprising, considering that data from children as first language learners have often provided a basis and impetus for SLA theorizing. Among the best-known first language studies to prove influential was Brown’s seminal work showing a predictable order of morpheme acquisition by children under the age of three. Many early years settings now welcome children and families from different cultures who use languages other than English. Young children who are starting to learn English as an additional language may also be attending a nursery school, pre-school, day nursery or child-minder perhaps for the first time. They will bring with them many skills and experiences from their home culture and will be both anxious and excited about their new situation. A good foundation for learning English as an additional language is embedded in quality early years practice. To know more about the principle of second language acquisition in children, this paper will present some issues related with it such as the nature and the role of language learning and the logical problem in language learning.
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Lowie, Wander. "Exploring a second language." EUROSLA Yearbook 5 (August 2, 2005): 251–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.5.12low.
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A dynamic approach to the acquisition of morphologically complex words assumes that, initially, all words are interpreted holistically. At later stages of acquisition, increasingly more words are analyzed and morphological regularities are discovered. When productivity is defined as the chance that a newly formed word is produced on the basis of a particular affix (Baayen and Lieber, 1991), discovering morphological regularity can be interpreted as discovering productivity. This study finds evidence that contradicts an earlier study (Lowie, 2000) which suggested that morphological productivity starts playing a role only at the most advanced levels of acquisition. The current study used response latencies to test productivity cross-sectionally by comparing English native speaker response rates to those of Dutch learners of English at different levels of proficiency. Using this paradigm, productivity was evident from the earliest stages of acquisition and, at advanced levels, awareness was found even of the productivity of marginally productive affixes.
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Agcam, Reyhan, Mustafa Coban, and Zeynep Karadeniz Cisdik. "Second Language Acquisition of Syntactic Movement in English by Turkish Adult Learners." ÜNİVERSİTEPARK Bülten 4, no. 1-2 (December 30, 2015): 23–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.12973/unibulletin.412.3.
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White, Lydia. "Argument structure in second language acquisition." Journal of French Language Studies 1, no. 2 (September 1991): 189–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959269500000983.
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AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of the first language (LI) on second language (L2) argument structure, in two situations: (i) LI sentences form a superset of those permitted in the L2; (ii) L2 sentences form a superset of those permitted in the LI. An experiment was conducted on 55 anglophone children learning French in Canada. Subject completed a perference task, comparing sentences which varied the types of arguments and adjuncts, and their ordering. Result indicate that the subject differed from a native speaker control group in various ways; English argument structure had effects but learners were also sensitve to properties of French which are distinct from English.
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White, Lydia. "Markedness and Second Language Acquisition." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 9, no. 3 (October 1987): 261–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100006689.
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In this paper, various definitions of markedness are discussed, including the difference in the assumptions underlying psychological and linguistic approaches to markedness. It is proposed that if one adopts a definition derived from theories of language learnability, then the second language learner's prior linguistic experience may predispose him or her towards transferring marked structures from the first language to the second, contrary to usual assumptions in the literature that suggest that second language learners will avoid marked forms. To test this hypothesis, adult and child learners of French as a second language were tested using grammaticality judgment tasks on two marked structures, preposition stranding and the double object construction, which are grammatical in English but ungrammatical in French, to see if they would accept French versions of these structures. It was found that the second language learners did not accept preposition stranding in French but did accept the double object construction, suggesting that transfer takes place only with one of the two marked structures. In addition, the children took tests on these structures in their native language to see if they perceived them as in any sense psycholinguistically marked. Results show that they do not treat marked and unmarked structures differently in the native language. It is suggested that the concept of markedness may cover a range of phenomena that need to be further clarified and investigated.
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Schachter, Jacquelyn. "On the issue of completeness in second language acquisition." Interlanguage studies bulletin (Utrecht) 6, no. 2 (December 1990): 93–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/026765839000600201.
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The issue of completeness in adult second language acquisition is critical in the development of a theory of second language acquisition. Assuming the Chomskyan definition of core grammar as being those aspects of the language determined by the interaction of the innately specified Universal Grammar and the input to which the learner is exposed, we need to ask if it is possible for an adult learner of a second language to attain native-speaker competence in the core aspects of the grammar of the second language. This paper examines evidence for presence or absence of one principle of UG, Subjacency, in the grammars of groups of proficient nonnative speakers of English. There are three groups whose native languages - Korean, Chinese, Indonesian - differ from English with regard to Subjacency, Korean showing no evidence of it, Chinese and Indonesian showing partial evidence of it. There is one group whose native language, Dutch, shows the full range of Subjacency effects that English does. If all groups show the same Subjacency effects in English that native speakers do, then it must be the case UG is still available for adult second language learning and completeness in second language grammars is possible; if not, then completeness cannot be included as a possible characteristic of adult second language acquisition. Proficient nonnative university students with the above native languages were given grammaticality judgement tests on a set of sentences containing a variety of structures (islands) and Subjacency violations involving those structures. Analysis showed that though all groups were able to correctly judge grammatical sentences (containing islands) as grammatical, only the Dutch group was able to correctly judge ungrammatical sentences (containing Subjacency violations) as ungrammatical; the Korean subjects performed randomly on this task. This native language effect was shown not to be due to attribute variables, such as age of first exposure to English, number of months in an English-speaking country, number of years of English study, etc. The results support the conclusion that completeness is not a possible property of adult-acquired grammars since adults no longer have access to UG for the second language learning process.
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Slabakova, Roumyana. "The parameter of aspect in second language acquisition." Second Language Research 15, no. 3 (July 1999): 283–317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/026765899674229440.
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The goal of this article is to present a detailed study of the second language acquisition (SLA) of English aspect by native speakers of Slavic languages. A parameterized distinction between English and Slavic aspect accounts for the subtle differences between English and Slavic telic and atelic sentences. Based on a syntax-theoretical treatment of aspect, the article investigates the process of SLA of aspect in Slavic speakers at three levels of proficiency in English: low intermediate, high intermediate and advanced. Second language (L2) learners are found to be capable of resetting the aspectual parameter value to the English setting, thus successfully acquiring a property of language almost never taught in language classrooms. The article also studies the acquisition of a cluster of constructions, which syntactic research relates to the English value of the aspectual parameter, and which have been found to appear together in the speech of English children (Snyder and Stromswold, 1997): double objects, verb–particles and resultatives. Results indicate that each of these constructions forms part of this aspect-related cluster and that knowledge of aspect and knowledge of the cluster co-occur. The results of the experimental study bring new evidence to bear on the theoretical choice between direct access to the L2 value (Epstein et al., 1996; Flynn, 1996) or starting out the process of acquisition with the L1 value of a parameter (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994;1996),supporting the latter view.
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Broselow, Ellen, and Daniel Finer. "Parameter setting in second language phonology and syntax." Interlanguage studies bulletin (Utrecht) 7, no. 1 (February 1991): 35–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/026765839100700102.
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This paper reports on studies of second language acquisition in two domains, phonology and syntax. The phenomena investigated were the acquisition by native speakers of Hindi, Japanese, and Korean of two areas of English: in phonology, the mastery of particular syllable onset clusters, and in syntax, the acquisition of the binding patterns of reflexive anaphors. Both these areas are ones for which multi-valued parameters have been posited to account for the range of variation across natural languages. The paper presents evidence that acquisition in these two areas is quite similar: at a certain stage of acquisition learners seem to arrive at a parameter setting that is midway between the native and the target language settings. This effect occurs both when the target language employs a less marked setting than the native language and when the target language setting is more marked than that of the native language.
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Kalisa, Pasca. "Communication Strategies in English Second Language Acquisition." Language Circle: Journal of Language and Literature 14, no. 1 (October 1, 2019): 93–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.15294/lc.v14i1.21475.
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This research aims to describe and analyze communication strategies used by learners in the acquisition of a second language. In this case, this research analyzes the use of communication strategies in which English is the language of instruction.This study involved 21 students at the Department of English Language and Literature, in one of the state universities in Semarang, Indonesia. These students are second year students in the English Language and Literature Department. This research is a case study in the purpose of investigating the communication strategies used when the participants are engaged when the learning activities take place. The participants are given a conversation project in pairs and exposed to a variety of setting such as in the restaurant, in the professor’s room, and in a company. Data collection was carried out through video and audio recordings. The data obtained are then categorized into 13 categories of communication strategies (Dornyei, 1995) and sorted to obtain the frequency of occurrence. The findings indicate that the students mostly use time-gaining strategy (36%) to overcome the problem in their communication with the interlocutors. It is then followed by the use of meaningless words which occurs very frequently (18%) from all utterances, “repetition” strategy which occurs rather frequently about 16% of the total, literal translation (13%), and “use of non-linguistics means” (10%). In conclusion, choices of communication strategies are highly influenced by the level of the conversation tasks given (Wongsawang, 2001). The occurrence of certain types of communication strategies depends on the tasks given to the students and the level of difficulty of those tasks.
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Park, Hyeson. "When-questions in second language acquisition." Second Language Research 16, no. 1 (January 2000): 44–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/026765800666268444.
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It has been observed that when-questions are one of the last wh-questions produced by children learning English either as a first language (L1) or as a second language (L2). Explanations proposed for the late appearance of when-questions in L1 acquisition have been mostly based on cognitive factors. However, the cognition-based approach to when-questions faces problems in explaining L2 acquisition data, which show that L2 children who are cognitively more mature than L1 children follow the same developmental sequence. In this paper, I propose a possible explanation based on internal linguistic factors. According to Enç (1987), tense is a referential expression and temporal adverbials are antecedents of tense. I develop Enç's theory further and propose that in a when-question, tense is a bound variable, which is bound by the quantificational interrogative when. Thus, in order to produce when-questions, children must be at a stage where they understand bound variable readings. According to Roeper and de Villiers (1991), English-speaking children learn a bound variable reading approximately after 36 months, and the learning continues through the kindergarten years. The age at which a bound variable reading first appears corresponds to the point at which when-questions begin to occur. I propose that the complexity of the interaction between the quantificational when and tense, a bound variable, causes the delayed production of when-questions in developing grammars.
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Oshita, Hiroyuki. "THE UNACCUSATIVE TRAP IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23, no. 2 (June 2001): 279–304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263101002078.
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The distinction of two types of intransitive verbs—unergatives (with underlying subjects) and unaccusatives (with underlying objects)—may not exist at early stages of L2 acquisition, both being syntactically represented as unergatives. This idea, referred to here as the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis, provides an elegant developmental account for a variety of seemingly unrelated syntactic phenomena in L2 English, Japanese, and Chinese. Target language input, structural constraints on natural language linking rules, and linguistic properties of a learner's L1s shape stages in the reorganization of the lexical and syntactic components of interlanguage grammars. Although nonnative grammars may initially override the structural constraints postulated as the Unaccusative Hypothesis (Burzio, 1986; Perlmutter, 1978) and the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (Baker, 1988), at later developmental stages some may still achieve conformity with the norms of natural languages.
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Smith, Daniel. "Spanish and English contact and morpheme acquisition." Normas 7, no. 2 (December 20, 2017): 297. http://dx.doi.org/10.7203/normas.v7i2.11166.
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Regarding the order of morpheme acquisition in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisiton there appears to be a so-called 'natural order' of acquisition. In addition, there are peculiarities which are part of the morphosyntax of any language influencing the order of morpheme acquisition in L2, whether it be from the L1, or as in the case of simultaneous bilinguals, another L1. We use Myers-Scotton's (2002) 4-M model to help us analyze and discuss the data. The analysis shows a tendency for speakers to acquire language morphology in a natural order, regardless of the L1, but with special reference to Spanish and English we show that the two languages can influence each other and make changes in the order of acquisition.
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White, Lydia, Alyona Belikova, Paul Hagstrom, Tanja Kupisch, and Öner Özçelik. "Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition." Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 2, no. 1 (February 10, 2012): 54–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lab.2.1.03whi.
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In this paper we investigate whether learners of L2 English show knowledge of the Definiteness Effect (Milsark, 1977), which restricts definite expressions from appearing in the existential there-insertion construction. There are crosslinguistic differences in how restrictions on definiteness play out. In English, definite expressions may not occur in either affirmative or negative existentials (e.g. There is a/*the mouse in my soup; There isn’t a/*the mouse in my soup). In Turkish and Russian, affirmative existentials observe a restriction similar to English, whereas negative existentials do not. We report on a series of experiments conducted with learners of English whose L1s are Turkish and Russian, of intermediate and advanced proficiency. Native speakers also took the test in English, Turkish, and Russian. The task involved acceptability judgments. Subjects were presented with short contexts, each followed by a sentence to be judged as natural/unnatural. Test items included affirmative and negative existentials, as well as items testing apparent exceptions to definiteness restrictions. Results show that both intermediate and advanced L2ers respond like English native speakers, crucially rejecting definites in negative existentials. A comparison with the groups taking the test in Russian and Turkish confirms that judgments in the L2 are quite different from the L1, suggesting that transfer cannot provide the explanation for learner success.
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Rescorla, Leslie, and Sachiko Okuda. "Modular patterns in second language acquisition." Applied Psycholinguistics 8, no. 3 (September 1987): 281–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s014271640000031x.
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ABSTRACTAnalysis of data from the first six months of acquisition of English as a second language by a 5-year-old Japanese girl illustrates the role of modular “chunking” and coupling in the second language acquisition process. This process was apparent in the child's pre-copula and copula referential utterances. She produced a large number of creative and novel referential sentences by using a small number of patterns or modules. The same small set of patterns was seen in both adult and peer sessions, although advances in acquisition usually appeared in peer conversation before they were evident in adult session data.
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Aitsiselmi, Farid. "Second language acquisition through email interaction." ReCALL 11, no. 2 (September 1999): 4–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0958344000004900.
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This paper deals with the analysis of a communicative activity involving English learners of French, its advantages and drawbacks as well as the outcome that teachers can expect of such an activity. The first part examines some reasons, both theoretical and practical for using communication technology, particularly electronic mail, for promoting language acquisition and developing learner autonomy. The second pan of the paper deals with the theoretical framework within which the activity was carried out, that Is, Stephen Krashen's language acquisition theory which establishes a distinction between language acquisition and language learning. Email interaction offers the possibility of addressing both processes.
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Aljumah, Fahad Hamad. "Second Language Acquisition: A Framework and Historical Background on Its Research." English Language Teaching 13, no. 8 (July 31, 2020): 200. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v13n8p200.
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Research shows many problems and ambiguities of second language acquisition (SLA), which have made learners and readers worldwide unsatisfied. Therefore, this study attempts to highlight theories and research that have comprehensive explanations of the problems and ambiguities of second language acquisition, which learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) face while learning a second or foreign language. After that, the study discusses a framework discussion on second language acquisition (SLA). It discusses the historical background of SLA research on different decades and the most notable views of different scholars throughout the past decades on second language acquisition. This study is a longitudinal research that identifies the advantages that could be an assist to English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Longitudinal research is always based on the qualitative method. This study's data is based on the qualitative method that collects views, opinions, materials, and earlier studies on second language acquisition (SLA). It reveals the most significant theories which precisely connected to second language acquisition (SLA) and largely to applied linguistics. The study resulted in that: (i) second language acquisition still has several doubts and ambiguities in its many different aspects, (ii). In this study, the researcher summarizes second language acquisition (SLA) research's main goals and draws comparisons on the scholars' dissimilarities between language learning and second language acquisition (SLA) on different perceptions that could give insights towards learning of second and foreign languages easily by the English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners.
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Gil, Kook-Hee, and Marsden Heather. "Existential quantifiers in second language acquisition." Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 3, no. 2 (May 17, 2013): 117–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lab.3.2.01gil.
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Lardiere’s (2005, 2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly Hypothesis proposes that L2 acquisition involves reconfiguring the sets of lexical features that occur in the native language into feature bundles appropriate to the L2. This paper applies the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis to findings from recent research into the L2 acquisition of existential quantifiers. It firstly provides a feature-based, crosslinguistic account of polarity item any in English, and its equivalents — wh-existentials — in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. We then test predictions built on the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, about how learners map target existential quantifiers in the L2 input onto feature sets from their L1, and how they then reassemble these feature sets to better match the target. The findings, which are largely compatible with the predictions, show that research that focuses on the specific processes of first mapping and then feature reassembly promises to lead to a more explanatory account of development in L2 acquisition.
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Wakabayashi, Shigenori. "Lexical learning in second language acquisition: optionality in the numeration." Second Language Research 25, no. 2 (April 2009): 335–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267658308100293.
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Lardiere suggests that second language acquisition (SLA) researchers should pay more attention to the distribution of a given feature in source and target languages, using the distribution of [plural] in English, Chinese and Korean to illustrate. I argue that the distribution of [definite] in English shows a similar complexity, and that this has largely been ignored in existing second language studies. I propose that it is distributional complexity of this kind that underlies the gradual development and variability observed in second language (L2) performance. A four-stage model is outlined, attributing gradual development/variability (partly) to optionality in the numeration.
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Slabakova, Roumyana. "THE COMPOUNDING PARAMETER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24, no. 4 (October 28, 2002): 507–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263102004011.
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This article presents an experimental study investigating the compounding parameter in the L2 Spanish interlanguage of English and French NSs in light of the Subset Principle and its predictions for the process of L2 development. The compounding parameter (Snyder, 1995, 2001) argues that languages permit complex predicate constructions like verb particles, resultatives, and double objects if and only if they can productively form N-N compounds. English exhibits the plus value of the parameter, allowing N-N compounds and the related constructions, whereas in Spanish and French these compounds and constructions are ungrammatical. Because English also allows periphrastic constructions of the same meaning, which are the only option in French and Spanish, English represents the superset parameter value to the Spanish and French subset value. At issue is whether L2 learners are able to acquire the subset value of the compounding parameter based on the naturalistic input they receive. In this case, the learning task involves realizing that some L1 constructions are unavailable in the L2. Results indicate that the learners initially transfer the L1 (superset) value and do not start with the subset value of the parameter. Findings also inform the debate on whether negative evidence can engage UG-related acquisition. Ten of the 26 advanced subjects were able to successfully reset the whole parameter based on negative data for only two of the four constructions in the cluster. This fact suggests that it is not impossible for negative evidence to be utilized in grammar reorganization.
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Ahmed, Mahdi Aben. "Cross-Cultural Adjustment and Second Language Acquisition." International Journal of Language and Literary Studies 3, no. 2 (June 30, 2021): 290–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v3i2.646.
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The purpose of this study is to examine how the process of cross-cultural adjustment affects second language acquisition for Saudi students in the American universities. The sample consists of a group of Saudi students studying at one of the American universities in the USA. Interviews were carried out to collect data about daily life experiences of subjects, their feelings, and ways of coping in academic and social community, and also what motivates them to study English, and their attitudes toward the English language, its culture and its people.
The findings of this study suggest that there are several factors for healthier adjustment and greater successful acquisition of second language, and there are other factors that keep a number of the interviewees socially and psychologically distant from the target population, and the target culture. From the findings of the current study, a number of implications and recommendations for future research have been developed to help professionals involved with international students and English as a Second Language field better understand Saudis and their journey towards cross-cultural adjustment, and acquiring a second language.
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Ellis, Rod. "Grammatically Judgments and Second Language Acquisition." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13, no. 2 (June 1991): 161–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100009931.
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This article takes a critical look at grammaticality judgment tasks in second language acquisition research. It begins by examining the theoretical assumptions that underlie grammaticality judgment tasks, pointing out that previous studies have reported considerable differences between the results obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks and from other, production-oriented tasks. A description of the design features of grammaticality judgment tasks that have been used to date is then provided. There follows an account of a small-scale study designed to investigate the nature of learner judgments. Twenty-one adult advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to judge sentences designed to test their knowledge of dative alternation. The results indicated that the learners rarely used the “not sure” option in the test. Eight of these subjects were then administered a reduced version of the original test as a think-aloud task 1 week later. The results showed that these learners were inconsistent in 22.5% of their judgments. The think-aloud protocols showed that they resorted to a variety of strategies in making judgments. The article concludes by arguing that grammaticality judgment tasks elicit a particular kind of performance that needs to be understood much more thoroughly before it is used as a basis for investigating second language acquisition.
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Izumi, Shinichi. "THE ACQUISITION OF JAPANESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE.Kazue Kanno (Ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1999. Pp. xi + 181. $72.00 cloth." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25, no. 4 (November 24, 2003): 587–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263103240250.
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This volume, focusing on Japanese as a second language (JSL), is part of the Language acquisition and language disorders series by Benjamins. As the editor points out in the introductory chapter, there is a pressing need to investigate the acquisition of languages other than English and other European languages if SLA claims to be a discipline broad enough to encompass acquisition of any second language (L2). In particular, given the importance of Japanese as one of the most commonly studied languages in Asia and the fact that Japanese has many linguistic features not found in European languages, research on the acquisition of JSL should have important implications for both practical applications in language teaching and theoretical investigation of language universals, innate principles, and the like.
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Juffs, Alan. "Semantics-syntax correspondences in second language acquisition." Second Language Research 12, no. 2 (April 1996): 177–221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/026765839601200203.
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This article investigates knowledge of semantics-syntax correspondences in SLA within the Principles and Parameters framework. A parameter of semantic structure is used to investigate knowledge of two distinct, but underlyingly related, verb classes: change of state locatives and 'psychologi cal' verbs. Chinese and English contrast in terms of the parameter setting. Experimental evidence indicates that adult Chinese learners of English L2 initially transfer parameter settings, but are able to reset the parameter. However, they only acquire L2 lexical properties and concomitant syntactic privileges with ease when L2 input adds a representation to their grammar. When positive L2 input should pre-empt overgeneralizations based on rep resentation transferred from the L1, for some learners L1 influence persists until quite advanced stages of acquisition. The implications of the results for the parameter-setting model of SLA are discussed.
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Carroll, Mary, Jorge Murcia-Serra, Marzena Watorek, and Alessandra Bendiscioli. "THE RELEVANCE OF INFORMATION ORGANIZATION TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION STUDIES." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22, no. 3 (September 2000): 441–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100003065.
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The present cross-linguistic study deals with the relevance of principles of information organization in adult second language acquisition. It looks at typological features of information structure that allow speakers to organize and shape the flow of information when carrying out complex tasks, such as giving a description, and pinpoints factors that lead to the selection of linguistic form. At the focus of our attention are means used in reference introduction, such as existential and locational constructions, the morphosyntactic forms of expressions applied in reference maintenance, and word order. The cross-linguistic comparison shows that the options found in the expression of these functions in German, English, and Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) follow distinct patterns in that the linguistic means used reflect unifying principles of a typological nature. These principles are perspective driven and are associated with patterns of grammaticization. Structures in language that reflect core principles in information organization may be difficult to acquire because learners have to recognize clusters of form-function relations that range over different domains. The nature of the analyses required is described for learners of German with English and Spanish as their source languages. The interlanguages (ILs) of these speakers show a high degree of compatibility with German in formal syntactic terms and are near native in many respects, but the levels at which the IL and target language diverge can be linked to fundamental principles of organization underlying information structure. Although the stage of acquisition is advanced, the languages still retain core principles in information structure typical of those found for English and Romance languages.
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Henderson, Lalitha. "Interference in Second Language Learning." ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 81-82 (January 1, 1988): 73–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/itl.81-82.04hen.
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Abstract This study deals with the acquisition of English and Tamil as a second language and to explain the errors found in the speech of L2 learners caused by the interference from the first language within the frame of reference of the phonological system of the target language (L2) as perceived and produced by the native speaker of the first language (L1). The overall systems are compared so as to highlight the most genera] similarities and differences. The comparison also focuses on the similarities and contrasts between the phonetic manifestations of each phonological unit of L1 and its counterpart in L2. The data from the actual speech of English and Tamil by the L2 speakers are used to bring out the contrast between the two languages and the L1 interference on L2.
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Paradis, Johanne. "Individual differences in child English second language acquisition." Internal and External Factors in Child Second Language Acquisition 1, no. 3 (July 29, 2011): 213–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lab.1.3.01par.
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This study investigated how various child-internal and child-external factors predict English L2 children’s acquisition outcomes for vocabulary size and accuracy with verb morphology. The children who participated (N=169) were between 4;10 and 7;0 years old (mean = 5;10), had between 3 to 62 months of exposure to English (mean = 20 months), and were from newcomer families to Canada. Results showed that factors such as language aptitude (phonological short term memory and analytic reasoning), age, L1 typology, length of exposure to English, and richness of the child’s English environment were significant predictors of variation in children’s L2 outcomes. However, on balance, child-internal factors explained more of the variance in outcomes than child-external factors. Relevance of these findings for Usage-Based theory of language acquisition is discussed.
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Almousawi, Sayed Ahmad. "Examining English Language Learning Apps from A Second Language Acquisition Perspective." International Journal of Higher Education 10, no. 5 (May 18, 2021): 166. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v10n5p166.
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This study set out to explore dedicated language learning apps pedagogically while focusing mainly on aspects of second language acquisition. A total of 20 English language learning apps were collected for analysis. The study took one model of analysing course book materials and another, computer-assisted language learning model and combined them into one analytical framework with bespoke criteria, ensuring the analysis was most suitable for our case. The analytical framework which was developed reached a number of conclusions about dedicated language learning apps (DLLAs). The findings revealed that DLLAs tend to provide mechanical forms-focused practice without facilitating collaborative learning nor focusing on developing users’ communicative competence, which suggests that DLLAs reflect a behaviouristic view of language learning. The conclusion offers some suggestions to improve DLLAs and proposes that, for the time being, educators should look beyond DLLAs and instead investigate how can apps that are not designed for language learning (generic apps) be used in the manner of DLLAs to avoid the issues that this paper identifies with them.
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Uygun, Serkan, and Ayşe Gürel. "Compound processing in second language acquisition of English." Journal of the European Second Language Association 1, no. 1 (August 1, 2017): 90–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.22599/jesla.21.
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Chen, Chen. "A Study on Positive Transfer of Native Language and Second Language Teaching Methods." Theory and Practice in Language Studies 10, no. 3 (March 1, 2020): 306. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1003.06.
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Native language is one of the important factors that affect second language acquisition (SLA). However, compared with the heated discussion about the negative transfer of native language, the positive transfer of native language lacks due attention. Taking Chinese and English as a case study, this paper first reveals the similarities between the two languages, then discusses the positive effects of native language on SLA, and finally explores English teaching methods so as to promote the positive transfer of native language and reduce the negative transfer.
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Zhang, Hang. "Dissimilation in the second language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese tones." Second Language Research 32, no. 3 (June 23, 2016): 427–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267658316644293.
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This article extends Optimality Theoretic studies to the research on second language tone phonology. Specifically, this work analyses the acquisition of identical tone sequences in Mandarin Chinese by adult speakers of three non-tonal languages: English, Japanese and Korean. This study finds that the learners prefer not to use identical lexical tones on adjacent syllables, especially the contour tone sequences. It is argued that the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) was playing a role in shaping the second language Chinese tonal phonology even though it was not learned from these speakers’ native languages, nor found widely applied in the target language. The acquisition order of tone pairs suggests an interacting effect of the OCP and the Tonal Markedness Scale. This study presents a constraint-based analysis and proposes a four-stage path of OCP sub-constraint re-ranking to account for the error patterns found in the phonological experiment.
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Farahsani, Yashinta, Ika Puspita Rini, and Patria Handung Jaya. "YOUTUBE AS A MEDIUM FOR INDONESIAN TODDLERS’ SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (AN ANALYSIS THROUGH CHILDREN SONGS)." HUMANIKA 27, no. 2 (December 14, 2020): 147–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/humanika.v27i2.33793.
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Language acquisition for children is started when they produce words on their own. Children’s language normally develop in line with their age. Usually they can produce sentence and speak their mother tongue language fluently at the age of three. In the same time, children are able to acquire other language which is called second language acquisition (SLA). In Indonesia, English has become second language that has become the main subject at school, from the elementary level to the university level. Toddlers are children at the range of age between 2-3 years. This is the peak time to acquire language, and at this age, children are able to create phrase or simple sentence. Since the technology has developed very rapidly, children also can get more facilities to learn language. One of the media to learn language is YouTube. Using interview method, the writers did interview to 21 respondents as the parents of pre-school students. There were four questions to answer and the answers were described based on the respondents’ opinion. The research results that children can start to learn English through YouTube by watching English songs. Their attraction in watching is followed by imitating the word, the way the characters sing, and also the manner. Parents become guide to improve the children’s process of English learning after they watched YouTube.
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Talebinejad, Mohammad Reza, and Aasa Moattarian. "Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Pedagogy: A Critical View." International Journal of Linguistics 7, no. 4 (August 26, 2015): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v7i4.7826.
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<p class="1"><span lang="X-NONE">Over the past several decades, a substantial body of research on second language acquisition has been provided. The current study was an attempt to investigate language teachers’ views on applying research findings in their every day practice of language teaching through a critical lens. Data for this qualitative study was collected by means of a semi structured interview with 10 language teachers teaching English at different language institutes in Iran. Analyses of data revealed that, although teachers find second language acquisition research a useful tool for their professional development; they do not usually consult bodies of research in their every day teaching practice. They report problems in applying second language research in their practice due to problems with practicality, particularity, and possibility. The findings suggest that language teachers need to be exposed to insight from SLA research and practice.</span></p>
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Tahiri, Shejla. "The Impact of Pictures on Second Language Acquisition." SEEU Review 15, no. 2 (December 1, 2020): 126–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/seeur-2020-0021.
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Abstract The need for worldwide communication has made people learn as many foreign languages as they can in order to be able to send and receive information from all over the world. Realizing this situation, researchers and linguists have carried out a large number of studies in order to find out the best ways for teaching and learning English as a second or foreign language. The terms language learning and language acquisition are not new since in many earlier researches language acquisition is compared to the process of learning the mother tongue whereas language learning is compared to the process when a child learns a second or foreign language. This paper aims to showcase that teaching/learning new vocabulary using pictures is much more effective than the other methods of vocabulary learning. The research also puts emphasis on the language level of learners. It demonstrates that the method of using pictures and illustrations works well with all levels of proficiency and as such, it has brought very useful results. It was carried out at the South East European University (SEEU) in North Macedonia and participants were thirty (30) students from all five Faculties, divided in three different groups based on their language proficiency. Each group consisted of ten (10) students, aged 18 to 22 years. They were of elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate level of English. The research lasted for six weeks, because the students had to be introduced to six different vocabulary topics. Since the experiment was carried out in a real classroom environment, the target vocabulary topics used for this purpose were chosen from their students’ book. Data were collected in three phases. During the first phase, students were asked to complete a questionnaire, consisting of questions regarding the vocabulary learning methods, mainly vocabulary associated with pictures. In the second phase, they were engaged in real activities in a traditional classroom setting, while in the last phase, at the end of the last session, participants took a quiz that was supposed to provide evidence and additional data about participants’ achievements. It is expected that the findings from this experiment will be useful to current and prospective teachers as they show that the method of pictures and illustrations associating the target vocabulary functions well with different levels.
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Yusa, Noriaki, Masatoshi Koizumi, Jungho Kim, Naoki Kimura, Shinya Uchida, Satoru Yokoyama, Naoki Miura, Ryuta Kawashima, and Hiroko Hagiwara. "Second-language Instinct and Instruction Effects: Nature and Nurture in Second-language Acquisition." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, no. 10 (October 2011): 2716–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2011.21607.
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Adults seem to have greater difficulties than children in acquiring a second language (L2) because of the alleged “window of opportunity” around puberty. Postpuberty Japanese participants learned a new English rule with simplex sentences during one month of instruction, and then they were tested on “uninstructed complex sentences” as well as “instructed simplex sentences.” The behavioral data show that they can acquire more knowledge than is instructed, suggesting the interweaving of nature (universal principles of grammar, UG) and nurture (instruction) in L2 acquisition. The comparison in the “uninstructed complex sentences” between post-instruction and pre-instruction using functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals a significant activation in Broca's area. Thus, this study provides new insight into Broca's area, where nature and nurture cooperate to produce L2 learners' rich linguistic knowledge. It also shows neural plasticity of adult L2 acquisition, arguing against a critical period hypothesis, at least in the domain of UG.
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Iakovleva, Tatiana. "Typological constraints in foreign language acquisition." Language, Interaction and Acquisition 3, no. 2 (December 19, 2012): 231–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lia.3.2.04iak.
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This study examines the impact of typological constraints on second language acquisition. It explores the hypothesis of a conceptual transfer from first to foreign language (L1 to L2). Based on Talmy’s (2000) distinction between Verb- and Satellite-framed languages, corpus-based analyses compare descriptions of voluntary motion events along three paths (up, down, across), elicited in a controlled situation from native speakers (Russian, English) and Russian learners at two levels (upper- intermediate and advanced) acquiring English in a classroom setting. Results show that in spite of considerable differences between Russian and English native speakers’ performance, particularly with respect to the relative variability in their lexicalization patterns, idiosyncratic forms and structures produced by L2 learners rarely mirror motion conceptualization in their first language, which suggests the absence of a substantial transfer from L1.
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Crossley, Scott A., Stephen Skalicky, Kristopher Kyle, and Katia Monteiro. "ABSOLUTE FREQUENCY EFFECTS IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEXICAL ACQUISITION." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41, no. 04 (January 31, 2019): 721–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263118000268.
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AbstractA number of longitudinal studies of L2 production have reported frequency effects wherein learners' produce more frequent words as a function of time. The current study investigated the spoken output of English L2 learners over a four-month period of time using both native and non-native English speaker frequency norms for both word types and word tokens. The study also controlled for individual differences such as first language distance, English proficiency, gender, and age. Results demonstrated that lower level L2 learners produced more infrequent tokens at the beginning of the study and that high intermediate learners, when compared to advanced learners, produced more infrequent tokens at the beginning of the study and more frequent tokens toward the end of the study. Main effects were also reported for proficiency level, age, and language distance. These results provide further evidence that L2 production may not follow expected frequency trends (i.e., that more infrequent tokens are produced as a function of time).
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Hashim, Haida Umiera, and Melor Md Yunus. "English as a Second Language (ESL) Learning: Setting the Right Environment for Second Language Acquisition." Tadris: Jurnal Keguruan dan Ilmu Tarbiyah 3, no. 2 (December 30, 2018): 207. http://dx.doi.org/10.24042/tadris.v3i2.2941.
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Early exposure to English is very important as it is crucial for learners to acquire English language at early age as English is a global language that is used not only in the level of primary and secondary school but also in tertiary level of education. Schools can be one of the important roles in influencing second language acquisition, particularly English language. However, most schools did not consider acquiring English from the perspective of learners’ fluency and rarely consider movements or approaches that they can take to improve ESL learning among students. This study intended to investigate the influence of school settings and routines on ESL learning among secondary students. A qualitative method is used in this study as data were collected through the method of observation and interview. The observation period throughout the process of collecting data has been conducted based on a field note specifically prepared for this study. The participants involved in this study were all-girl school students located in Selangor. The gathered data were then interpreted in the findings analysis. Based on this study, it was proven that there are co-relations between the school settings and routines on ESL learning among secondary students. It was found that school settings and routines do influence ESL learning among secondary students. Discussion and recommendations are further explained in this study. Thus, it is hoped for future researchers to conduct further research on related factors that might help to contribute in ESL learning among ESL learners.
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Crossley, Scott, Tom Salsbury, Ashley Titak, and Danielle McNamara. "Frequency effects and second language lexical acquisition." International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 301–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.19.3.01cro.
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Frequency effects in an L1 and L2 longitudinal corpus were investigated using Zipfian distribution analyses and linear curve estimations. The results demonstrated that the NS lexical input exhibited Zipfian distributions, but that the L2 lexical output did not match the NS Zipfian patterns. Word frequency analyses indicated that NS interlocutors modify their lexicon such that frequency scores decrease as a function of time that L2 learners have studied English. In contrast, the word frequency scores for the L2 output increased as a function of time. Post-hoc analyses indicated that differences in frequency scores between NS input and L2 output were best explained by the repetition of infrequent words, but not frequent words by L2 learners in the early stages of language acquisition. The results question absolute frequency interpretations of lexical acquisition for L2 learners and provide evidence for usage-based approaches for language learning.
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Shamsi, Ahmad Fawzi. "The Motivating Factors of Second Language Acquisition for Young Learners." Journal of Studies in Education 9, no. 3 (August 15, 2019): 64. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jse.v9i3.15075.
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Motivation plays a very effective role in teaching foreign languages. It has been suggested that the use of motivation can help in facilitating learning English. This study investigated the motivating factors for young learners in North Cyprus. The researcher aimed to find out the most motivating factor(s) for learning English for grade five pupils at a primary school in North Cyprus. The results show that there are many motivating factors that positively affect the learners’ attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language. Learners are motivated with many different factors: intrinsically, extrinsically, instrumentally, or integratively.
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Yuan, Boping. "The status of thematic verbs in the second language acquisition of Chinese: against inevitability of thematic-verb raising in second language acquisition." Second Language Research 17, no. 3 (July 2001): 248–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/026765830101700302.
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This article reports a study investigating the status of thematic verbs in second language acquisition (SLA) of Chinese by French-speaking, German-speaking, and English-speaking learners. Both French and German are languages which allow thematic verbs to raise. In contrast, thematic verbs in English and Chinese must remain in situ under V at PF. It has been widely reported in the second-language and nonnative language (L2) literature that (optional) thematic-verb raising occurs in SLA, and L2 researchers have accounted for this phenomenon on the basis of some hypotheses proposed for the initial state of SLA. Although these hypotheses differ from each other in explaining the presence of thematic-verb raising in SLA, they all predict that thematic-verb raising is inevitable in SLA by speakers of a verb-raising language. Some go so far as to predict thematic-verb raising in SLA by speakers of a non-verb-raising language. The study reported in this article provides robust evidence that the thematic verb does not raise in SLA of Chinese, which casts doubt on the reliability of these hypotheses in the L2 literature. Both judgement data and oral production data in the study clearly indicate that thematic verbs remain in situ in L2 Chinese. No optionality occurs at any proficiency level. These findings are accounted for in terms of the absence of verbal inflection in Chinese and the evidence in the L2 Chinese input data for the specification of the abstract features associated with the head of IP.
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Zyzik, Eve, and Clara Azevedo. "WORD CLASS DISTINCTIONS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION." Studies in Second Language Acquisition 31, no. 1 (March 2009): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263109090019.
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Although the problem of word class has been explored in numerous first language studies, relatively little is known about this process in SLA. The present study measures second language (L2) learners’ knowledge of word class distinctions (e.g., noun vs. adjective) in a variety of syntactic contexts. English-speaking learners of Spanish from third-semester and third-year courses (N= 240) completed a receptive task that presented contrasting forms belonging to the same word family (e.g.,feliz“happy” andfelicidad“happiness”). The results indicate that learners from both groups are often unable to distinguish among word classes. In particular, learners have significant difficulty in discriminating between adjectives and nouns. Although ambiguous surface morphology contributes to word class confusions, the results suggest that L2 learners do not always recognize derivational suffixes that clearly mark word class. These difficulties are interpreted as stemming from weak syntactic morphological knowledge as well as incomplete knowledge of L2 distributional regularities.
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Verovkina, Olena, and Iryna Vietrova. "CORRECTING MISTAKES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE." Naukovì zapiski Nacìonalʹnogo unìversitetu «Ostrozʹka akademìâ». Serìâ «Fìlologìâ» 1, no. 9(77) (January 30, 2020): 239–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.25264/2519-2558-2020-9(77)-239-242.
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The article deals with the problem of finding out the most effective techniques and strategies of correcting students’ mistakes in the English language teaching process. The research is aimed at the analysis of the concept “mistake” and defining its role in teaching English. It is stated, that communicative approach views mistakes as an inevitable and necessary aspect in studying a second language. Three types of mistakes have been singled out: slips, errors and attempts. It has been found out, that errors are indicators of what should be taught. It is also defined, that the main reasons of making slips are hurrying and carelessness, attempts are caused by students’ desire of achieving the communicative goal, and only errors are viewed as gaps in students’ knowledge. There also have been found out the most productive strategies of correcting mistakes by teachers. Nonetheless, according to the observation, teachers do not use all types equally often, a large number of correction cases is taken by recasts and elicitation, accounting for over a half of all feedback. It is stated, that peer correction and self-correction are not widely used, though the last should be taken into consideration by teachers as the productive and efficient strategies for successful English language acquisition.