SPN 6735: Acquisition of Spanish L2 Morphosyntax Spring 2012 Place: Turlington 2353, Tuesday Periods 9-11 Prof. Jason Rothman Office hours: Office: 240 Dauer Hall T, 11:00-1:00; W, 1:45-2:45 e-mail: [email protected]or by appointment Course Description: This graduate level seminar offers an introduction to the generative study of Second Language Acquisition (GSLA) theory, specifically of morphosyntax. Generative language acquisition sits at the cross-roads of formal linguistic theory, cognitive science and psychology. GSLA endeavors to understand how non-native languages acquired in adulthood are represented and processed in the mind/brain of individual speakers. We are interested in both the similarities and differences at the initial stages of representation (i.e. the role of transfer), developmental sequencing and ultimate attainment of adult L2 learners as compared to monolingual child acquisition. No one denies that there are robust differences between adult and child acquisition, the question we seek to understand more completely is WHY and what this means for the mental representational capacity of language in adulthood. This course is divided in three main parts: (a) a concise introduction to morphosyntactic theory needed in empirical formal acquisition, (b) the history, development and current state of GSLA theorizing and (c) L2 acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax under this paradigm. Graduate level seminars are meant to be student-focused and driven, assuming some level of background knowledge in basic concepts of linguistic theory and acquisition theory. Minimally, you will have taken Introduction to Graduate Level Linguistics and ideally you will have had a previous course in acquisition. Textbooks (required):
Transcript
SPN 6735: Acquisition of Spanish L2 Morphosyntax
Spring 2012Place: Turlington 2353, Tuesday Periods 9-11
Prof. Jason Rothman Office hours: Office: 240 Dauer Hall T, 11:00-1:00; W, 1:45-2:45 e-mail: [email protected] or by appointment
Course Description:
This graduate level seminar offers an introduction to the generative study of Second Language Acquisition (GSLA) theory, specifically of morphosyntax. Generative language acquisition sits at the cross-roads of formal linguistic theory, cognitive science and psychology. GSLA endeavors to understand how non-native languages acquired in adulthood are represented and processed in the mind/brain of individual speakers. We are interested in both the similarities and differences at the initial stages of representation (i.e. the role of transfer), developmental sequencing and ultimate attainment of adult L2 learners as compared to monolingual child acquisition. No one denies that there are robust differences between adult and child acquisition, the question we seek to understand more completely is WHY and what this means for the mental representational capacity of language in adulthood. This course is divided in three main parts: (a) a concise introduction to morphosyntactic theory needed in empirical formal acquisition, (b) the history, development and current state of GSLA theorizing and (c) L2 acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax under this paradigm. Graduate level seminars are meant to be student-focused and driven, assuming some level of background knowledge in basic concepts of linguistic theory and acquisition theory. Minimally, you will have taken Introduction to Graduate Level Linguistics and ideally you will have had a previous course in acquisition.
Textbooks (required):
Montrul, S. (2004). The acquisition of Spanish: morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
White, L. (2003). Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
(Highly) Suggested:
Zagona, K. (2002). The syntax of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Course Requirements/Grading assessment
Classroom presentations 50% (35% leading class discussion, 15% final project)Final Research Paper 50%
Please refer to the following link for information on University policy for grading:tp://www.aa.ufl.edu/Data/Sites/18/media/policies/syllabi_policy.pdfGrade Scale
The final grade scale is as follows: A = 100-93 C(S) = 76-73 A- = 92-90 C-(U) = 72-70 B+ = 89-87 D+ = 69-67 B = 86-83 D = 66-63 B- = 82-80 D- = 62-60 C+ = 79-77 E = 59-0
Attendance and Participation: Attendance is mandatory. You are allowed one absence for any reason you wish. Please use this absence wisely since any further absence unless excused by the professor will result in your grade being lowered one level (e.g. from an A A-).
All students are required to actively participate and contribute to class discussions of the readings. This is especially important on the days that you are NOT presenting. Each student must bring to class at least one TYPED QUESTION related to the readings to be discussed as your student colleagues take charge of the class each week. Since this is to be expected as a minimum requirement you receive no credit for this, however, failure to do so consistently will result in the lowering of your overall grade, at the professor’s discretion, as much as a full grade level (e.g. from AB).
Presentations: Each week, two/three students will be responsible for leading the discussion based on the topic of the readings we have for that week (2 hours for the group; 1 hour for Professor Rothman). As part of this task, you will prepare notes as a group to be distributed in class that BRIEFLY summarize the main tenets of the chapter/article read (maximum of 2 pages) and provide a list of discussion questions you will use as the primary teaching tool in class. On a separate sheet, you will provide the professor with the answers to your discussion questions that reflect the thoughts of the group who is charged with presenting. You will design activities and the like that challenge your colleagues to demonstrate their understanding while also showing your acquired expertise in the area via your group’s extra preparation. It is crucial that you present a discussion of the methodology that is used empirically; this WILL require your working as a group outside the confines of the chapter being summarized within authentic texts and/or secondary sources that give you the means to fully understand, teach and critique these methodologies. You need not agree with particular methodological tenability. In fact, a good discussion will include criticisms and suggestions for improvement. DO NOT summarize everything in the chapter/article (we will have all read it) and DO NOT provide a script to read. Your responsibility is to LEAD a thoughtful discussion. Be prepared to ask questions of your classmates and know the answers. Everyone will do this twice throughout the semester.
Final Project: For your final project, you will design a study investigating the acquisition of a grammatical domain in which you can test the predictions of at least two opposing theoretical positions covered in class. Within the first four weeks of the semester, you need to have had an appointment with Professor Rothman in which your topic is finalized. We will DISCUSS the possibility of joint projects the first day of class. **If you are an ABD student, you can and perhaps should, work on a project closely related if not a subsection of your dissertation study. In such a case, it still must be presented in the same 10-20 page format inclusive of an empirical study as described and under a generative acquisition perspective.**
Project Summary: This is to be a professional style abstract of your final project (i.e. suitable for submission to a call for papers) to be turned in on the fourth class meeting (Feb. 2nd). It cannot be over two pages (1 inch margins, 12 pt. Times New Roman single spaced).
Final Paper: Due April 24th. Paper should be between 10-20 pages double spaced.
Formatting and Style Guide: All written assignments must follow APA style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, latest edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. http://apastyle.apa.org/. No other format will be accepted.
Other information:Please turn off cellular phones during class and please make every effort to arrive on time to class ready for discussion. Being more than 7 minutes late to the start of the course will count as an absence on each third occasion of such tardiness.
UNIVERSITY POLICIESAcademic IntegrityAll students are required to abide by the Academic Honesty Guidelines which have been accepted by the University. The UF Honor Code reads:
We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.
On all work submitted for credit by students at the University of Florida, the following pledge is either required or implied: “On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment.” For more information please refer to http://www.dso.ufl.edu/studentguide.
AccommodationsStudents requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation. For more information see http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drc.
4/10 The Acquisition of Left Peripheral Structures
Slabakova, Rothman and Kempchinsky (2011)
Rothman and Iverson (2011) in BUCLD 35
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4/17 Paper Presentations 1)______________2)______________3)______________4) ______________5) ______________6) ______________
4/24 Paper Presentations 1)______________2)______________3)______________4) ______________5) ______________6) ______________7) ______________8) ______________
Universal Grammar and L1 Acquisition
2.0 Description
This chapter presents a general overview of the generative linguistic view of L1 acquisition. While only an entire anthology would accurately do justice to this broad topic, this chapter presents a fair amount of research that outlines the overall process in an effort to justify the rational behind the nativist theory of UG. A comparison of L1 and L2 language acquisition in terms of the accessibility to UG is implicit to the research agenda of this book. Therefore, it is imperative that we first understand the nature and role of UG in L1 acquisition, where its presence is uncontested, so as to make a fair comparison. Additionally, this chapter will highlight what properties of language are regulated by UG and what must be otherwise learned by children.
2.1 Components of L1 Acquisition
In an endeavor like this, one of the very first issues that must be addressed is answering the seemingly simple question: what is language acquisition? In fact, the word acquisition in regards to primary language acquisition may be a misnomer of sorts since it most often denotes the obtaining of something that was previously not present, usually occurring in a conscious fashion. Within the generative paradigm, when one speaks of L1 acquisition there is an implicit reference to two main components: (1) that which is biologically innate and by extension equally available to all humans and (2) that which is language specific and hence must be learned/obtained by the child via the available input. Component (1), UG, constitutes the initial state of primary language acquisition (S0), whereas a coupling of components (1) and (2) ultimately result in an end-state grammar (Ss). Herein, the general term language acquisition refers to the manner in which one triggers, gains, and automates linguistic knowledge, whether biologically through a genetic apparatus or through learning strategies and effort.
L1 acquisition occurs cross-linguistically in an observably predictable and uniform fashion, without exception (barring pathology) and without any conscious external intervention. In the next section, we will address these observable facts by examining how linguistic theory accounts for them.
2.2 L1: UG Theory and the Language Faculty
The concept of Universal Grammar (UG) is a pervasive theory stemming from the Chomskian theoretical revolution of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and since fundamental to linguistic inquiry in general. Prior to this time, language acquisition was thought to be a process of habit formation subject to the influences of a supportive environment. Under the behaviorist theory of language, the habits that comprise language acquisition were indeed recognized as being complex and were not well understood in terms of their emergence. Nonetheless, they were considered to be mere habits; a complex form of mimicry. This orthodoxy was challenged and effectively refuted by Chomsky (1959) in his review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957) in which he proposed a diverse notion of language, which called for linguistic nativism. Under this analysis, children are theorized to approach the acquisition of their native language equipped with a biological endowment of innate cognitive structures specific to language housed in what has come to be known as the language faculty, which, when coupled with ample exposure to linguistic stimuli, result in a mature mental grammatical schema. UG is a set of general yet specific innate principles and parameters that govern all natural human language. The available input of any L1 language acquirer interacts freely with the principles and parametric values (see section 2.2.4) enumerated within the language faculty resulting in the core grammar of an individual. The
principles of UG are genetically determined and unique to Homo sapiens. In fact, many evolutionary linguists, including Pinker (1994, 1999) and Bickerton & Calvin (2000), argue that UG itself, having favored and facilitated broad communication, may be one of the saving graces for the Homo sapiens species. Indeed, if communication was in some way tantamount to survival a biologically determined ability to communicate may have spared our direct ancestors from the fate of other human-like species that became extinct.
In any case, UG is a set of principles in the theorized form of a genetic blueprint encoded within the genome of Homo sapiens that specifies and governs the realizations of all human language and enables all humans to efficiently and rapidly acquire, at the very least, one native language, or as many languages to which one has sufficient exposure at a very young age. It is, however, practical to point out that while the principles of UG are universal and thus equally available to every child, this fact does not entail that all operate in the particular grammar of every natural language. It is possible that a universal principle of language, equally available to everyone at S0, never becomes instantiated into the developing grammar of the child. This occurs when the principle is not pertinent given the language to which the child has exposure. Shortly, in section 2.2.4, we will look more closely at the notion of UG-constrained parameterization which is linguistic theory’s answer to the obvious question of how one universal genetically based system is able to result in the cross-linguistic diversity that comprises the particular grammars of the world’s languages. In the next section, we will look at the motivation behind theorizing the existence of UG and why the theory is indeed so explanatory and accounts for the acquisition of a complex linguistic system.
2.2.1 The Logical Problem
At this juncture, we will examine the first of two basic problems that must be addressed if one desires to unscramble the proverbial puzzle of language acquisition. The first problem to be considered is known as the logical problem of language acquisition or the poverty of the stimulus (POS) problem. This phenomenon has also been referred to as Plato’s Problem (Chomsky, 1986) given it semblance to the question that Plato posed to himself about knowledge in general. The POS argument is, in Wexler’s (1991) words, “Chomsky’s most unique argument” and “the most powerful theoretical tool that we have available to us.”1 In essence, the logical problem of language acquisition pertains to how one is able to explicate the sophistication and complexity of
1 Since the notion of the POS was first introduced, it has met with scrutiny and negative criticism. The most prominent of its opponents include Goodman (1967, 1969) and Putnam (1967, 1980 a & b) who claim that the POS argument is incoherent, unsubstantiated and a result of misconceptions about the nature of language and its acquisition. More recently Pullman (1996) and Cowie (1999) among others have continued to question the validity of the POS argument. In Cowie’s words, the POS argument ‘fails abysmally on both empirical and conceptual grounds to support nativism about language learning” and that “ [the POS argument] doesn’t offer the least reason to think that there is a special faculty for language acquisition (Cowie 1999 [310-11]). I will refer the reader to Laurence & Margolis’s article entitled “ The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument” in which they systematically review and critique the claims that are made by Cowie and others . Essentially they argue that “none of their criticisms provide any serious reason to question the argument’s cogency” since they claim that “ [these arguments] frequently distort the logic behind the [POS]argument and consistently underestimate the evidence in its favor (Laurence & Margolis 20 : ). The issues between nativists and empiricists are in part ideological as Cowie (1999: 308) herself concedes “Only when psychology is ‘finished’ or only when we have on hand a workable theory of how languages are learned will we be in a position to say with any certainty whether or not nativism in this domain is correct.” This present study is undertaken having heralded the warnings of empiricist researchers and proceeds with confidence in the fact that the POS argument is not only sound, but moreover still deserving of a guiding role in the study of language acquisition research for both L1 and L2 empirical acquisition studies.
our shared linguistic knowledge notwithstanding the limitations of available data from natural input, which, by all accounts, contains no negative evidence (Baker, 1979). Chomsky elaborates:
A consideration of the character of the grammar that is acquired, the degenerate quality and narrowly limited extent of available data, the striking uniformity of the resulting grammars, and their independence of intelligence, motivation and emotional state, over wide ranges of variation, leave little hope that much of the structure of language can be learned by an organism initially uniformed as to its general character. [Chomsky, 1965: 58].
Essentially, there seems to be a discrepancy between what one should be able to learn given the input to which one has exposure and the resulting grammar that one inevitably achieves at Ss. In other words, how does one intuitively know that some of the sentences in example (1)2 are not possible?(1). a. What did Frank think that Mark found?
b. What did Kyle believe that Mary provoked? c.*What did Frank wonder whether Mark found?
d.*What did Kyle believe the claim that Mary provoked?Restrictions of this sort are not explicitly taught nor are they available in the input yet all native speakers converge on an end-state grammar that reflects such knowledge. UG provides an explanation for such intuitions by stipulating that the knowledge required to analyze the examples in (1), namely knowledge of Subjacency3, is provided to the learner genetically and therefore need not be learned. The POS argumnetis a powerful theoretical tool and constitutes a phenomenon that must be accounted for by all theories that claim to address the process of language acquisition. In the next section, we will look at another problem that must be considered in understanding how children acquire language: the developmental problem.
2.2.2 The Developmental Problem
The second acquisition problem that must be considered is known as the Developmental Problem (cf. Hyams 1988 for original argument) and ponders the question of why the process of acquisition is not immediate. According to Hyams:
Linguistic theory treats language development as an “instantaneous” process, which is to say that it idealizes to a situation in which the child has at his disposal all of the principles
2 The sentences in (1 c and d) are ungrammatical due to their violation of Subjacency. Essentially, Subjacency provides constraints on movement and stipulates that any application of movement may not cross more than one bounding node. The relevant bounding nodes for English are S (IP) and NP. Accordingly, it is easy to see how these sentences violate the tenets of Subjacency in that the wh-phrase has been moved to far away from its original position marked by t. c.. Whati [ s did Frank wonder [s’ whether [s Mark foundi ]]]
d. Whati [s did Kyle believe [NPthe claim [s’ that [sMatt provoked ti ]]]]
3 The relevant nodes for Subjacency are not universal. While in English the bounding nodes are NP and IP (S), the relevant nodes for Russian are those of English plus CP. What is universal and not derivable from the input alone is the concept of Subjacency or the notion of not being able to raise lexical elements over two bounding nodes, whatever the relevant ones are given any particular language. The child is able to derive from the input the relevant bounding nodes for their language. Once this parameter is set the principle of Subjacency automatically applies and restricts movement accordingly.
and parameters of UG and all linguistic data necessary to fix those parameters. But of course, language acquisition is not an instantaneous event and thus we must explain the developmental sequence which ultimately terminates in an adult grammar [Hyams, 1988: 3].
Since UG is, by all accounts, rich in specificity as well as innately part of the biological endowment of all children, what then can account for the non-instantaneous nature of grammatical development? There are many contributory issues that factor into answering the aforementioned question.
First and foremost, UG can only be expected to do its regulatory job of streamlining acquisition if all the necessary triggering data is indeed available to the language learner. According to Hyams (1988: 3) and others, children “are selective in the data they attend to at any point of development”. That having been said, while all the germane linguistic data is available in the surrounding input, it is conceivable that not all of the linguistic data is salient to the language learner at all points of acquisition. Accordingly, the available input to children may not always be relevant. The notion of intake, the data that the language learner is able to perceive at any particular instance in the developmental continuum, hence may be of greater explanatory importance.
Additionally, let us remember that UG essentially guarantees eventual convergence on an adult-like grammar assuming that there is something external to be acquired, yet it is the task of the child to learn all of the idiosyncratic features associated with his L1. The lexicon itself, which is laden with any number of distinctive features ranging from sub-categorization restrictions to argument structures likened to individual lexical items, must be learned. This learning process is, by all accounts, a cumbersome task that, simply put, requires time.
Another factor that contributes to the development of grammar is the formal complexity associated with a particular structure. All being equal, if property x is formally less complex than property y; x should be acquired before y. However, as Hyams warns, one needs to be cautious about what one labels as formally more complex since the notion of formal complexity “is a theory internal notion and not an intuitive one” (Hyams, 1988: 5). For example, reasonably one may argue that recursion theory should be incredibly difficult for children acquirers. Certainly, at a similar age children are not neurologically developed enough to comprehend similar structures in mathematics; however, despite the seeming complexity involved, children have little problem acquiring recursive structures. That which is truly formally complex in nature includes structures that are marked or divergent from the core grammar of a particular language. These formally complex structures, which are said to be in the periphery, include variations or relaxations to the settings of the core grammar as well as the abovementioned idiosyncratic features of a particular language that can be likened to individual lexical items. For example, the preposition “ago” in English has a particular word order. While in every other regard it functions like other prepositions it is head-final while the general parametric order in English is head-initial. This idiosyncrasy must be explicitly learned and likened to this particular lexical item.
Depending on one’s particular view of language acquisition, other factors for the developmental problem should also be considered. Those who adhere to a maturational view of language acquisition (MT) will point out that it is conceivable that not all of the principles of UG are available to a language learner at the initial state. Accordingly, certain principles materialize at different moments throughout development (Borer and Wexler, 1987; Felix 1986, Radford 1990). Felix (1986) proposed that the principles of UG emerge in an ordered fashion and moreover, that the emergence of each principle coincides with and thus explains the transition of children to new stages (G0 G1 G2 Gn). For example, Felix argues that the introduction of X-Bar schema
marks the shift from semantically4 driven grammars to syntactic grammars in childhood inter-language (IL) and that the introduction of the theta-criterion will rule out NP + NP structures such as Daddy ball since the arguments will thus be required to have theta-roles which will necessitate a theta assigning predicate. At first, one of the most appealing aspects of a theory of maturation was that it accounted for the transition into IL developmental stages while avoiding the triggering problem (Hyams, 1983). Based on the research available at the time, the triggering problem pondered the question of why children seemingly lagged in their acquisition of certain structures since all of the pertinent data is available in the input that surrounds them. However, in light of more recent research it is not clear that there is, in reality, a triggering problem for L1 acquisition. More contemporary studies have demonstrated that children, in fact, set parameter values at a very young age and thus know the underlying structures of their language even if they optionally fail to produce structures that for an adult are obligatory (cf. the literature on ‘root infinitives’ by Clahsen and Penke 1992, Pierce 1992 and Poeppel & Wexler 1993).
Borer and Wexler (1987) suggest that a theory of UG maturation is a robust innateness hypothesis since maturation does not require any learning to take place to the extent that the maturational principles operate. They also suggest that the theory is deterministic since children are adding to their existing knowledge and will then re-analyze their previous rules/principles given the matured UG. In other words, they will not have to unlearn anything, but merely re-analyze since their grammar will be a subset of an adult-like grammar. Conversely, a theory of continuity (CT) in language acquisition is one that asserts that children come complete with active principles, parameters and all functional categories provided by UG at the initial state of acquisition (Hyams, 1992; Hoekstra and Hyams, 1995, Wexler, 1994). Claiming that children have all the principles of UG active is currently the most accepted view of child language acquisition because it has the advantage of explaining the presence of syntactic structure that children demonstrate (even if not perfectly adult-like) in their speech production as well as their overall comprehension. While it is apparent and anecdotally observable that children do not perform at adult-like levels throughout the developmental years, a theory of continuity would claim that divergences of this kind do not necessarily entail maturation of principles of UG. One could argue that children experience other influences and stimuli that account for why their speech may seemingly not always respect the principles of UG while still assuming that all principles of UG are fully developed and/or available to them. Additionally, one could point out that children often have sophisticated knowledge of their L1 at early stages, but for some reason they have other competing rules making the adult grammar rules at times optional. If indeed all the principles and parameters of UG are available to the language learner from the initial state, it may be that processing deficiencies (Grodzinsky & Reinhart, 1993), perceptual limitations (White, 1982), problems at the syntactic/pragmatic interface (Avrutin &. Wexler, 1992) contribute to the apparent delays of principles of UG and/or that over time children learn that the rules they applied optionally are indeed obligatory in the mature grammar.
Proponents of a theory of continuity would also point out that maturation of UG as a theory of acquisition, as first developed, predicts wild grammars and is an unconstrained theory in that basically one is not restricted to pick the maturation of UG principles ad hoc to explicate any observable change in IL. Additionally, the theory of maturation ignores the intrinsic ordering of UG principles, i.e. case and theta-theory emerge before government. As a result of these intrinsic problems for a maturational theory, Chein & Wexler (1990) introduced UG-constrained maturation. This version of maturation, in essence, is a maturation of structures to which principles apply and not of principles themselves. This distinction is important because if the principles themselves were to mature one would predict the child to admit representations that are
4 More recent research has demonstrated that the initial grammars of children are indeed not semantically driven. For example, the literature on the phenomenon known as “root infinitives” has demonstrated that children set parameter values such as underlying word order at extremely young ages, see Pierce (1992).
fundamentally blocked for adults; however, if the structures to which principles apply mature this will not occur.
Maturation of UG principles is not improbable. It is an established biological fact that some innate properties need external stimuli to emerge and through time develop despite their inherent status within the human genome. For example, all humans (barring those born blind) are born with the ability to see. However, visual stimuli are needed to trigger this built-in ability. Despite the presence of visual stimuli, newborns do not instantly acquire adult-like vision. It takes a course of development that entails several stages before a child is able to see to its full potential.
Linguistic theory is essentially neutral with respect to determining whether MT or CT is correct. Linguistic theory merely stipulates what types of representations must develop and what the innate principles must be to guarantee learning given underdetermined data. Accordingly, maturation is not a stronger nativist theory as Borer & Wexler (1987) suggested since it assumes less learning. It is an observable fact that languages vary. Therefore, all theories of acquisition must address and make allowances for learning of, at the very least, lexical items and all that this entails as well as parameter settings. Learning, by its very nature, assumes a progression of stages and, therefore, all theories of acquisition must realize that this takes time to occur.
The Developmental Problem of language acquisition is adequately explained by taking into consideration the many variables involved in the process of acquisition. The fact that children are born with a genetic predisposition to learn language merely guarantees that through the course of exposure to linguistic stimuli, their brains will be able to construct grammars in accordance with both the linguistic universals a priori provided to them and the a posteriori linguistic knowledge they must learn about the language surrounding them. Given the amount of information that the child must learn, the fact that the process of primary language acquisition is short of immediate is not surprising irrespective of whether or not UG is completely developed from the onset of acquisition.
In the next section, the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) for primary language acquisition will be examined. Understanding the CPH for L1 acquisition is paramount in order to understand the positions held by researchers who investigate the status and applicability of the critical period (CP) for L2 acquisition.
2.2.3 The Critical Period
To this point, some references to the CP of language acquisition have been made without offering a clear definition of what is meant by that terminology. First and foremost, it is prudent to note that the concept of a CP is not a phenomenon likened solely to language acquisition. This term is well-known in the field of biology and refers to a window of time during which exposure to a particular external stimulus from the environment is tantamount to the accurate development of certain species-specific behaviors or traits.
Typically cited as an example of the critical period are chaffinches, which are a species of finch, found throughout the world. If these particular birds are deprived of exposure to a species-specific song in the fourth month of development they loose the ability to learn the song thereafter. While the ability to articulate the song does not surface until the following spring, lack of proper exposure to this song during the fourth month of life will result in their inability to learn this species-specific behavior. Thus, it would appear that exposure before and after this critical period of the fourth month is somehow irrelevant for the acquisition of this behavior.
Based on studies involving language recovery after aphasia, which demonstrate that children are much more successful in recovering language as compared to adults, Lenneberg (1967) makes the claim that there is a similar critical period for language acquisition. He argues that the CP for language acquisition is roughly from birth through puberty. That is, humans must be sufficiently
exposed to linguistic stimuli before puberty, otherwise, normal language acquisition is not possible. The success rate of childhood aphasic language recovery that Lenneberg’s hypothesis relies on does in fact suggest a maturational constraint on language acquisition. However, it addresses most straightforwardly a maturational change in the brain’s ability to reconfigure (plasticity) and hence transfer linguistic functions to areas of the brain that were not preordained for language.
According to Lenneberg, it is not a mere coincidence that the completion of puberty is roughly the time when language acquisition becomes exponentially more difficult if not impossible. He argues that before puberty, languages can be acquired because the left hemisphere of the brain, largely responsible for language, is not fully specialized for language. Consequently, after puberty, a primary language cannot be acquired because lateralization is complete, at which point the brain looses plasticity: the ability to reassign cerebral functions to areas that are not predisposed for such operations. That is, Lenneberg’s hypothesis suggests that language acquisition and lateralization are closely interrelated.
The most common disorders of language acquisition: developmental aphasia, dyslexia, and autism are commonly associated with atypical laterality patterns. On the other hand, the direction of cause and effect concerning these disorders is not so observable. Nonetheless, evidence from these disorders renders the intimate relationship between brain lateralization and language acquisition evident.
Indeed, we do know that if language acquisition is interrupted prior to the critical period proper lateralization is also impeded. The case of Genie (Curtiss 1977) will be examined in greater detail in this section, however, her case provides a perfect example of how disrupted language acquisition results in atypical lateralization and so we will briefly make mention of her here. Genie, who was kept in virtual social and linguistic isolation until the age of 14, attempted to learn English as a young adult. She was able to develop lexical and propositional knowledge, but virtually no grammar. It was determined that the language acquired by Genie was located in her right hemisphere. Hence, she employed the right hemisphere of her brain for both language and non-linguistic processing, while the normal acquisition of language occurs primarily in the left hemisphere. Thus, it is clear to see that the lateralization of her brain was affected by the disruption of childhood language acquisition. Additionally, we know that if lateralization is impeded, e.g. by way of hemispherectomies due to brain lesions in childhood, linguistic delays and disorders for language production ensue.
It is clear that L1 acquisition and cerebral lateralization share a close connection and that that the relationship is bi-directional. This explains biologically the observation that child aphasics are able to recover linguistic ability to a greater degree than adults. The pre-pubescent brain, which has not fully lateralized, is able, when necessary, to activate other areas of the brain that in turn take over the linguistic functions that otherwise would be performed by other areas of the brain which have been damaged. On the other hand, the fully lateralized adult brain has lost plasticity and hence is fossilized in terms of cerebral duties and functions. In other words, other areas of the brain that take over the performance of linguistic functions in child aphasics are no longer as readily able to do the same in mature adult brains.
When we make the claim that the CP is a tangible reality, we should bare in mind that Lenneberg’s original hypothesis was not based on developmental studies. Indeed, it may seem like an impossible task to actually test the veracity of such a notion within otherwise normal adults, however, by and large, postulating a CP for L1 acquisition is uncontested. Subsequent to Lenneberg’s original argument and observations there have been several studies that corroborate much of his hypothesis while focusing in on the development of an L1 linguistic system. Accordingly, there have been two empirical sources that provide strong evidence for an L1 CP: (1) linguistic isolates and (2) congenitally deaf individuals.
Two seminal studies by Susie Curtiss (1977, 1989 a & b) have offered strong evidence that the CP for language acquisition is, in fact, a reality, at least for L1 acquisition. In the late 1970s, Curtiss demonstrated that Genie, a linguistic isolate from the age of 18 months to 14 years, was
never able to acquire a native L1 grammar for English despite years of speech therapy. This is not to suggest that Genie was unable to learn certain properties of the language such as the lexicon and basic word order. After 5 months, Genie was able to produce her first single word utterances and after a year was able to string as many as four words together to make sentences. This, however, is not necessarily surprising or contradictory to the CPH, since all adults are able to acquire lexical items throughout life. Despite the acquisition of some linguistic properties, Genie was unable to acquire the computational system of the grammar. Her speech lacked inflection, contained virtually no articles or prepositions, lacked rules of movement even when obligatory (question formation), etc. Essentially Genie’s speech was devoid of any real evidence of grammar in that the formal properties of language hypothesized to be provided by UG never surfaced in Genie’s end-state grammar. Consequently, Curtiss (1977) argues that the critical period is valid for the computational aspects of language, and not necessarily for other aspects of language, such as pragmatic skills or the lexicon.
While it was independently determined that Genie was not in any way brain damaged, it still could be argued, however, that the case of Genie does not provide unchallengeable evidence for the CPH. Since she was severely abused, as are most linguistic isolates, it is reasonable to ponder the question of whether they may not be able to acquire language due to other cognitive/psychological type problems that ensued due to the abuse itself. However, in 1989, Curtiss demonstrated another case of an individual, Chelsea, who was a linguistic isolate, but, unlike Genie, she was not abused to any degree. In fact, Chelsea came from a very loving and nurturing environment. In Chelsea’s case, she was a woman who was born deaf but misdiagnosed as being mentally retarded. Therefore, there was never any successful intervention to attempt to teach her sign language nor was she fitted with hearing aids until she was 32. Similar to Genie, Chelsea was unable to develop a mature grammar for English despite several years of speech therapy.
When compared to other studies, the cases of Genie and Chelsea provide compelling evidence that not only support the notion of a critical period for language in general, but also for Lenneberg’s hypothesized timing for the critical period. Isabelle (Ohio, 1935) is another linguistic isolate found and studied in the early part of the twentieth century. Isabelle was the hearing illegitimate child of a deaf-mute who was kept in absolute isolation entirely deprived of linguistic stimuli until the age of 6.6. Once she was found and intervention took place, Isabelle's linguistic development was extraordinary. She went through the natural stages of linguistic development at a significantly accelerated pace. In fact, Isabelle was able to linguistically develop in 2 years what ordinarily takes a normal child 6 years. At the age of 8.6, it became impossible to differentiate her linguistically from other children of her age. Isabelle’s case, in comparison to Genie’s and Chelsea’s, further confirms that the critical period extends through, at the very least, late childhood.
In a series of studies, Mayberry and Fischer (1989, 1991) and Mayberry (1993, 1994) examined the rate of proficiency in signing congenitally deaf people whose age of initial exposure ranged from birth to 18. Keeping in mind that deaf children are often born to hearing parents, it is not uncommon for deaf children to not receive any type of systematic linguistic stimuli until they are of school age (4-6). In Mayberry’s study (1993), there were several groups of participants. Essentially, she was investigating the issue of timing in language acquisition, both L1 and L2. The control group and late language learners, both L1 and L2, were examined using two types of processing tasks: (1) immediate recall and (2) shadowing. Her findings confirmed the results of other similar studies demonstrating a correlation between age of initial exposure and overall accuracy. She found that the older the individual was when first exposed to signed linguistic stimuli, the less accurate he was on recall and shadowing tasks. However, the differences between the two late language groups were insightful in and of themselves. Basically, she found that late L1 learners, having no linguistic system to fall back on, made different types of errors as compared to the late L2 learners. In the recall and shadowing tasks, the late L1 learners were more likely to replace signs with others that were phonologically similar perhaps suggesting that their comprehension was meager. Late L2 learners, however, replaced certain signs with other
semantically equivalent ones suggesting that, at the very least, their comprehension was better. It should be pointed out that Mayberry’s study focused in on processing related abilities (immediate recall) and not linguistic competence per se. We will revisit her results in section 3.4 as we examine the notion of a critical period for L2 acquisition, however, suffice it to say for the moment that it is possible that the effects of age Mayberry reports on L1 vs. L2 acquisition can be attributed to differences in processing abilities in adults and children and not necessarily to linguistic competence.
In a seminal study conducted in 1990, Newport and Supulla tested both congenitally and pre-lingually deaf people, all of whom had only a limited proficiency, if any, in English. The study consisted of three groups: 1) native signers 2) early learners (exposed to ASL between 4-6) and 3) late signers (exposed to ASL after age 12) and was designed to test both comprehension and production of ASL morphology. With the exception of basic word order, which all groups mastered, the results demonstrated clear and consistent effects of age and thus further supported the notion of a critical period for L1 acquisition.
Research of this sort (deaf studies) offers strong evidence to suggest that there indeed is a CP for L1 acquisition. However, it is important to note that all of these studies examine steady-state grammars and thus focus in solely on ultimate attainment. While these results tell us virtually nothing about the intermediary points of language development, they are, nonetheless, very significant. These results underscore the fact that the CP for L1 acquisition entails knowledge of language in general and not the existence of verbal communication.
It seems to be the case that an individual who is not exposed to sufficient linguistic stimuli, audible or visual, before the onset of puberty is precluded from converging on a native grammar thereafter. As we have seen, certain linguistic properties sit in the outer-limits of the CPH. Thus, it is possible to learn lexical items and pragmatic constraints after the onset of the CP. The CPH merely stipulates that individuals who first commence the process of language acquisition after puberty will do so without the guiding nature of UG and therefore the linguistic system they are able to acquire will be devoid of the computational properties provided by UG and hence quite different from that of an adult L1 grammar.
The CP for primary language acquisition is, by and large, an unchallenged fact of language acquisition. The connection between the CP and neurological lateralization as Lenneberg first suggested is, however, not accepted by all. Other researchers have demonstrated that neurological lateralization may occur as early as 5 years of age (Krashen, 1974). If this is true the connection between the CP and lateralization is rendered meager at best. As evidenced by the many studies examined in this section, irrespective of what causes the CP or what the CP is ultimately indicative of, it is, nonetheless, evident that after the age of 12-16, normal primary language acquisition is impeded.
2.2.4 Principles and Parameters
Up to this point, we have seen a number of reasons that favor the idea that all children are born with a genetically determined predisposition to acquire language, otherwise known as UG. Nonetheless, thus far we have not detailed what is hypothesized to be part of this genetic endowment. Certainly, all languages are not identical. Besides the obvious lexical and phonological differences, languages will vary, often greatly, in terms of their syntactic realizations. A logical question thus remains: how is the same UG common in all humans able to account for the acquisition of such a range of syntactic possibilities that comprise the world’s languages? The answer to the aforementioned can be found in the definition of the principles and parameters of UG.
Chomsky (1981b, 1986) proposes that UG consists of a set of innate principles and parameters that are universal. These constitute the initial state (S0) of acquisition. The S0 is the same for all children. At this stage, all universal principles and possible parametric options are available to children as they begin to construct a specific grammar for the particular language to which they have exposure. According to those assumptions, one can logically presume that all natural human languages are thus similar in, at least, a fundamental way. Since language is the product of human speakers and since all human speakers are equipped with the same universal principles then it stands to reason that at some abstract level all languages share basic properties. This much is true; all languages at an abstract level are very analogous. However, on the surface, the world’s languages differ to a great extent.
The fact that the S0 is the same for all children does not mean that all universals apply to every language. For example, there is assumed to be an enumeration of a universal set of phonetic features within UG. This universal set comprises all the possible phonetic realizations for human languages. Individual languages will vary in terms of the sounds that comprise their phonemic inventory. The phonological system of any particular language represents a subset of the full universal superset of phonetic features listed in UG. In other words, the features represented in any given language are not the full range of possibilities but rather draw from it to create its idiosyncratic phonological system. According to Eimas (1992), phonemes that are not heard within the first year of development given their absence in the L1 input will somehow prejudice a person’s ability thereafter to discriminate them, thus explaining the range of accents noted in the speech of non-native speakers (NNS) of an L2. This narrow window of opportunity may very well be an exaggeration, however it is more accepted that the ability to distinguish phonemes other than those from one’s native language begins to decline at the age of six and is, for all intents and purposes, completely lost by the age of 12 (Ellis, 1997).
In the arena of syntax, there are similar differences whereby languages vary syntactically in terms of which of the set of available universals they actually realize. Let us take the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) (Montalbetti, 1984), explained in detail in section 5.4, as an example to make the aforementioned point clearer. Consider the following English and Spanish examples in context:
(2) a. The lamp was broken while Juanito, Carlos, and Javier were alone in the house. The mother knew which child did it, however, when asked nobodyi said
hei/j broke it. b. La lámpara fue rota y Juanito, Carlos y Javier estaban solos en casa. La
madre sabía quien era el culpable. Sin embargo, cuando se les preguntó, nadiei
dijo que él*i/j la había roto.
The OPC stipulates that in null-subject languages, an overt pronoun in the embedded clause of a biclausal sentence cannot corefer with a quantified DP or wh-phrase subject antecedent from the matrix clause. English is not a null-subject language. Subsequently, the OPC is a principle that is not instantiated into the L1 grammar of English. Therefore, in example (2a) the overt pronoun (the embedded subject pronoun in bold) can have both a bound variable5 and a referential6 interpretation, whereas in (2b) it can only have a referential interpretation via the OPC since Spanish is a null-subject language.
The Overt Pronoun Constraint, in essence, is a constraint on coreference for embedded overt pronouns to quantified and wh antecedents in null subject languages and accordingly will not
5 Bound variable interpretation means that the subject of an embedded clause is co-referential with the c-commanding subject of the matrix clause. Therefore, in example 2a, a bound variable interpretation is one where nobody and he are the same person.6 Referential interpretation means that the subject of the embedded clause is not co-referential with the subject of the matrix clause, but rather is co-referential with some other antecedent derivable from the discourse. Therefore, in example 2a, a referential interpretation is one where nobody and he are not the same person.
operate in languages that are [-pro-drop]. In the case that the L1 is not a null-subject language and hence, does not have the OPC instantiated within in its particular grammar, the principle itself is not any less a universal. The OPC is merely not instantiated in the particular grammar of languages that lack the option for null-subject pronouns much like the retroflex ‘r’ phoneme found in English is not activated for speakers of Japanese given its absence in the input despite their availability to its phonetic features at the initial state. Equally, we would not anticipate finding a language that is [+pro-drop] in which the Overt Pronoun Constraint is not operational since it is a universal.
Parameterization is another model designed to explain cross-linguistic variance. That is to say, certain universals differ in the way they operate cross-linguistically. Given the nature of the subtleties of these variations, it must be that these variations are accounted for by permitting a limited number of restricted options into UG. Parameters are therefore those principles that allow for such variance and the different values or options are known as parameter settings. UG specific options afford the child the opportunity to know in advance what the syntactic possibilities are and thus avoid many hypotheses that otherwise would be logical. Using Binding Theory (BT) (cf. Chomsky 1981, Chomsky & Lasnik 1993 (reprinted in Chompsky, 1995) for Standard Binding Theory, and Manzini & Wexler, 1987 for Parameterized Binding) as an example, we note that the distribution of all languages’ anaphors and pronouns are not accounted for by the Standard Binding Theory (SBT) which provides three basic principles:
(3) Principle A: An anaphor must be bound in its local domain (a reflexive must co-refer with a noun in the same clause) Principle B: A Pronoun must be free in its local domain (a pronoun must not co-refer with a noun in the same clause.) Principle C: An R-expression must be free everywhere. (proper nouns must never co-refer)
Languages such as Icelandic and Korean allow for long distance binding of anaphors, which constitutes seeming violations of principle A of the SBT which states that an anaphor must be bound within its governing category, where the governing category is defined as the minimal category which contains the anaphor and has a subject (accessible subject). Consider the following examples of Icelandic taken from Manzini & Wexler (1987: 50):
(4) a. *Jóni segir að [Maria elskar sigi] Jon says that Maria loves REFL
b. Jóni segir að [Maria elski sigi] Jon says that Maria loves (subjunctive) REFL
c. Jóni skipaði Haraldi að [raka sigi] Jon ordered Harald to shave REFL
d. Jóni heyrdu [lysingu Maria af séri] Jon heard María’s description of REFL
SBT predicts that (4a-4d) will be ill-formed since the governing category in (4a-4c) is the embedded sentence and the embedded nominal in (4d) yet sig corefers with Jón outside the originally defined governing category. Nonetheless, only example (4a) is actually ill-formed in Icelandic. SBT is unable to account for the grammaticality of (4b-4d) and thus the distribution of sig. This, however, does not mean that its distribution is not restricted. Sig is most certainly an anaphor since it must be bound to an antecedent somewhere within the sentence. The question then becomes what is the proper binding domain for the reflexive sig. Redefining the concept of governing category by stating that an anaphor must be bound within its governing category, where
the governing category is defined as the minimal category that contains the anaphor and has a subject or has an indicative tense, the distribution of sig is accounted for. However, this new definition, which specifies a two-valued parameter, does not account for all anaphors and pronominals across all languages. Indeed, to account for the distribution of all anaphors and pronominals a five-valued parameter for relevant governing categories was introduced by Manzini and Wexler, 1987 as seen in (5):
(5) γ is a governing category for α iff γ is the minimal category which contains α and
a. has a subject (Spanish, English), orb. has an INFL, orc. has a TNS (Icelandic hann), ord. has an indicative TNS (Icelandic, sig),ore. has a root TNS (Chinese, ziji, Korean, caki)
The idea is that UG biologically provides the learner with the parameter values of 5a-e. The task of the child, therefore, is to set the proper parameter values given the language to which he is exposed. In the case of governing categories, the child must choose parameter value 5a-e for each particular lexical item (anaphor vs. pronominals) since there is not necessarily one definition of governing category per language. While value (5a) is the governing category for both the pronominal ella ‘she’ and the anaphors se/ sí misma ‘herself’ for Spanish, (5d) is the proper definition for the Icelandic anaphor sig ‘SELF’ while (5c) is the proper parameter value for the Icelandic pronominal hann ‘3rd person sing.’. Essentially, parameterization is lexical and this must be learned by the child by mapping the available input over the possible parameters settings until the proper setting, already provided for him via UG, is set.
In this section, we have seen how children are purported to acquire the syntactic system of their primary language. We have outlined the role of UG and how is it theorized to stream-line the process of acquisition. The notion of universal principles and parameters was discussed. Through examples of both, the interaction of the biological linguistic endowment and the process of learning particular language features were demonstrated. In doing so, the question of how a single common UG of all language learners is able to culminate in the varied grammars of the world’s languages was satisfactorily answered. While it has been previously mentioned, it is important to reiterate the role of learning in L1 acquisition. UG provides the child with a blueprint of how language works in general. It is, nonetheless, the task of the child to acquire the building material from the environment that will ultimately culminate in the edifice that is a mature grammar. The fact that children are able to do this without explicit negative evidence is a testament to the veracity of nativist theories.
We know that principles of grammar pertain to all language where applicable. Some principles are fundamental and seemingly require zero stimulus (Freidin & Quicoli 1989), while others (e.g. the OPC) are instantiated into a grammar given the setting of clustered parameter values. A subsequent logical question should be put forward. Since parameter values, by definition, provide options how can children learn the proper parameter setting for their language without negative evidence? In the next section, we will look at how this is hypothesized to occur when the concept of the Subset Principle is introduced.
2.2.5 The Subset Principle: A Theory of Learnability
L (Z)
L(Y)L (X)
Referring back to the discussion of parameter value setting for governing categories in (5), the question still remains as to how children set parameter values in general with only positive evidence available from the input. In the L1 acquisition community, it is well accepted that learning principles and constraints avert L1 learners from formulating over-inclusive grammars. Based on the suggestion by Berwick (1986) that children are extremely conservative language learners, the Subset Principle states that given a choice of a number of competing parameter settings children, will initially choose the one that produces the smallest grammar (Manzini & Wexler, 1987). If necessary, given conflicting data from the input, the child will be forced to modify his grammar by progressively expanding it until he encounters a setting that neither over-determines nor underdetermines the L1 input, always choosing among the values along a UG specified continuum.
In the case of the parameter values for governing categories for Binding Theory, as seen in (5), you can see how each (5a-5e) are in a subset/superset relationship relative to each other. The input of (5a) will always be included in (5b) because all clauses that have INFL also have a subject and the input data of (5b and 5a) will always be included in (5c) because all clauses that have TNS also have INFL and a subject, and so on. Accordingly, the subset principle ensures learning of parameter settings without negative evidence if stipulated that children are predisposed to select the smallest parameter value first and that the Subset Condition is met. For example, let us assume that language X has a subset relation to language Y and equally Y to Z for parameter A.(6)
If a child were presented with input data belonging only to language (Z) but not to language (Y) or language (X), they could directly select value (Z) for parameter A. Conversely, presented with input that belongs to all three, the learning function must initially select value (X). If indeed the child selects the smaller grammar (X) the child has the option to stay with this value or else select value (Y) given more data and then (Z) given even more data. If, however, a child selects value (Z) initially he will have no recourse to select values (Y), much less (X), instead since the values are already subsumed under the larger grammar. Only negative evidence7, which is not available to the child (Baker, 1979), would enable him to reduce the larger grammar to the smaller. Therefore, a child presented with English or Spanish input will be able to keep the initial parameter setting of
7 When linguists claim that children do not receive negative evidence or linguistic correction they are not claiming that adults never correct the speech of children. However, when children are corrected it is most often for errors in truth-value rather than grammatical well-formedness. Certainly, no one explains to a child that he has chosen an incorrect parameter value or that the type of syntactic movement he has attempted violates Subjacency or Binding Theory. This is what is meant when we say that children receive no negative evidence. Moreover, correction of this type is not necessary since children almost never make errors that violate the principles or possible parameter settings of UG.
(5a), as the input will not contain conflicting data requiring the child to reorganize the value to (5b). However, an Icelandic child that comes in contact with conflicting data to the values (5a-c) will have to expand the grammar gradually along the same continuum of possible parameter settings until he achieves the correct value of (5d) for the anaphor sig.
In order for the Subset Principle to work, it is necessary to stipulate that the grammars derived from two values of a parameter are a subset of one another for every given parameter and every two values of it (Manzini and Wexler, 1987). This is known as the Subset Condition and explains why in (5) all the values of the governing category parameter are indeed in a subset relation. Given the Subset Condition, the learnability function of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) can map the input data to the parameter setting that comprises the smallest of the languages compatible with the data, and the Subset Principle, being a universal learning strategy enables children, to gradually expand the value of the parameter until it corresponds to their available input.
2.2.6 L1 Acquisition: a Review of the Overall Process
As we have already examined, a theory of innateness assumes that there are innate biological principles that govern the acquisition of, at the very least, one’s native language. As we have seen, the claim that children are born with a genetic propensity (UG) to acquire their L1 is not only corroborated by the uniformly cross-linguistic patterns of L1 acquisition, but also is the only reasonable explanation for how children acquire their L1 with underdetermined input and a lack of negative evidence. LAD is the hypothesized neurological apparatus or cerebral system with which humans are born that houses UG and provides the universal learning strategies that enable parameter settings to take place. LAD enables all individuals who have no severe mitigating developmental problems to rapidly acquire a native language with relative ease and lack of instruction. The Chomskian model, aside from being the most accepted account of language acquisition, is both satisfying and illustrative in that this theory explains why (Hyams, 1986) (i) L1 acquisition is early, rapid, and without any explicit coaching, (ii) barring any mitigating pathology, children are uniformly successful, (iii) children demonstrate POS effects or rich knowledge despite incomplete and variable experience, (iv) there is cross-linguistic invariance in terms of natural language’s compliance to the principles of UG, (v) Critical Period effects are substantiated and (Curtiss 1977, 1989 a & b) determine capacity of overall attainment, (vi) there is a dissociation between linguistic development and general cognitive development (Curtis, 1977,1989), (vii) there is a uniformity of developmental stages and errors in acquisition across children and languages as well as the absence of many logically possible errors.
While a theory of innateness makes the claim that humans are born with default syntactic settings/rules as part of one’s biological endowment, it also assumes ample and sufficient exposure to input so that the proper principles can be instantiated into and the proper values of parameters set for any particular grammar. As we have seen, parameter settings represent specific rules of a given language, which are subsets of larger principles enumerated within UG. In other words, children hear the language that is spoken in the community around them. The input that they hear contains the specific lexical items of the target language. LAD permits children to set particular language grammar rules by matching the lexical items in the input with the principles and parameter values that are already ingrained in their brains. Therefore, language acquisition is not a mere mimicry of adult-like language but rather it is a developing system that results through a coupling of lexical items, general syntactic rules and UG-constrained parametric values.
Using the relationship of dependency between the proper application of SBT and the accurate setting of the Governing Category Parameter, we were able to highlight both the process of parameter setting and its importance in explaining the gamut of cross-linguistic differences. Let
us take for example again the principles of the Standard Binding Theory8 (BT) (Chomsky, 1981b, Chomsky and Lasnik 1993, Chomsky 1995) to review the process of how children are hypothesized to acquire language in general and how knowledge of universal principles is tantamount to one’s native intuitions in their L1. As we have already seen, Binding Theory involves issues of disjoint reference and co-reference for anaphors (reflexives), pronouns, and referential expressions (proper nouns). The Standard Binding Theory details three basic principles named Principles A, B and C (already seen in (3) and restated here in (7)).
The Principles state:(7) Principle A: An anaphor must be bound in its local domain (a reflexive must co-refer with a
noun in the same clause) Principle B: A Pronoun must be free in its local domain (a pronoun must not co-refer with a noun in the same clause.) Principle C: An R-expression must be free everywhere. (proper nouns must never co-refer)
Principles A and B attempt to account for the distribution of anaphors and pronouns cross-linguistically, and, in the case of English and the Romance languages, they essentially do so without further consideration. As a part of UG, these principles are subconsciously known to the L1 learner and therefore enable the child to apply these complex concepts effortlessly.
It has been determined that in Romance languages, traces of clitic pronouns (traces of weak monosyllabic proforms such as lo, la, los, le, me, te nos, etc.) are considered to be anaphoric and therefore should follow principle A of BT (Kayne, 1975; Quicoli, 1976). In Spanish, for example, a native speaker knows that sentence (8) is incorrect since it violates Principle A of BT.(8) *¿A quién le vio al barbero cortar el pelo? “To whom IO 3rd-person-clitic saw the barber to cut the hair?” (9) *¿+wh A quiéni cp [lej vio Pepe al barbero] cp [ ti cortar-tj el pelo?]
As can be seen in sentence (9), the clitic le has been extracted out of its local binding domain (the lower clause) separating it from the verb ‘cortar’ and the anaphoric clitic trace it leaves once extracted. Since anaphoric elements must be bound to a c-commanding NP within the same governing category (e.g., the clitic trace must form anA-chain with the pronoun within the local domain), the sentence crashes and is deemed incorrect or unintelligible by native speakers due to their unconscious knowledge of Principle A. Obviously, knowledge of this type is not discernable for the input alone and children are clearly not explicitly taught such knowledge. Nevertheless, all L1 speakers of Spanish arrive at an end-state grammar which reflects such knowledge. Assuming UG, children are able without explicit instruction to map the pertinent lexical items properly so as to not violate principles of UG.
This is not to say that as soon as children become verbal, they are perfect speakers. Quite the contrary is the observable truth. However, many of these ostensible violations of UG, such as the
8 Binding Theory (BT) is being used here as an example because it provides a paradigm that is easily followed by people who are perhaps not so familiar with theoretical linguistic theory. However, it should be acknowledged that BT is not, to date, a perfectly defined theory, especially under minimalist accounts. Since Minimalism has called for the merger of D-structure and S-structure into one level of syntax, a debate in regards to how to properly define and explicate BT from a minimalist perspective has ensued. Many have written on the topic including Chomsky and Lasnik (1995), Heycock (1995), Epstien et al. (1998) and most recently Quicoli (in press). Regardless of how BT is reconciled theoretically to fit the Minimalist model of inquiry or any other future linguistic theoretical model, the fact remains that conditions A,B, & C apply universally and must be accounted for.
Delay in Principle B effect, are artificial and motivated by pragmatic and semantic issues that are acquired/developed later (Avrutin & Wexler, 1992, McKee 1992).
This process described in the above section satisfactorily explains the rapid rate of acquisition, the relative ease, and the ultimate perfection that children are guaranteed notwithstanding the arduous task of language acquisition. The presence of a biological language faculty that promotes and streamlines acquisition also explains how all native speakers converge on relatively the same grammar despite real life differences in exposure and type of input. 2.3 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have examined how children are hypothesized to learn their native language from a generative perspective. It has been argued and supported that children must be born with general yet specific knowledge as to how natural human language works given the cumbersome task that L1 acquisition is and the ultimate perfection that all children have in this regard, independent of other cognitive abilities. It has also be argued that the POS effects seen in L1 acquisition represent unassailable evidence for hypothesizing an innate language faculty in as much as they constitute aspects of language that could not have been learned by any other means. In fact, non-nativist theories of language acquisition find themselves in a precarious situation of explanation in reference to the presence of POS effects. Indeed, there may not be any other satisfactory explanation for POS effects short of accepting that language acquisition is regulated by an internal and equally innate neuro-mechanism.
It has also been established that while children are assumed to have a genetic predisposition to learn their L1, which streamlines immensely the process of acquisition, they, nonetheless, must obtain knowledge of the language specific features and properties of their L1 through learning. Before we attempt to analyze the process of L2 acquisition we should make this last point very clear. Language acquisition, albeit first, second, third, or as many as one has the potential to achieve, is synonymous with learning. Children, or any language learner for that matter, are required to learn all of the idiosyncratic aspects of their target language, which includes, but is not exclusive to, the lexicon and all the syntactic and sub-categorization requirements associated with it. Children will thus have to learn all of the language specific morphology as these entities are lexical, the language specific phonological system, as well as social prudence that is encoded in their language use, whether grammatical (as in the honorific systems of Asian languages) or pragmatic.
Initially, Chomsky provided the field of generative linguistics with two basic questions: (1) What constitutes knowledge of language? and (2) How is knowledge of language acquired? Linguistic theory, concerned primarily with the first of the two questions, changes as we come to know more about the properties of language we analyze. Proposals for UG affect the answer to the first question put forth by Chomsky and are investigated continuously by generative theorists. However, those properties of language that fall under the umbrella of UG are not the only linguistic aspects that comprise an individual’s knowledge of language and thus this fact has ramifications for the second question. Linguistic competence is indeed a coupling of UG principles and parameter settings as well as the idiosyncratic linguistic knowledge that is learned with the assistance of these principles. Therefore, the importance of learning in language acquisition is paramount to say the very least. We have seen that children are aided with universal learning strategies such as the Subset Principle (Manzini & Wexler, 1987) that enable them to maximize LAD as well as their linguistic learning potential.
The fact that there are universal principles and a specific set of pre-determined parameter settings which impose constraints on natural grammar formation inevitably enables the child to learn the complex linguistic system that comprises the particular grammar of his environment with
relative ease and rapidity. However, from an acquisition standpoint, we need to be prudent and consistent in what we claim as being a direct result of UG for two important reasons. First, since experimental research is designed around phenomena explained by a then current theory our conclusions, to the extent that they are dependent on the specificity of a particular analysis, run the risk of being nullified as the theory itself progresses and changes. Second, failure to differentiate between what components of language are a priori provided to the language acquirer via UG and those that must be a posteriori learned will result in confusion when/if one attempts to tweak them apart later as a particular analysis requires. This is especially true if the focus of a particular study pertains specifically to a more narrowed question of UG accessibility in isolation, which permits one to shelf other relevant issues that factor into ultimate attainment.
This chapter has provided what I deem to be a significant sampling of the L1 acquisition literature and has adequately detailed how a child is hypothesized to converge on an adult grammar. Of principal importance in this chapter are the description of the theory of UG as well as the presentation of evidence provided by L1 acquisition studies and theories which favor UG’s involvement in language acquisition. Having analyzed UG in the context of L1 provides both a base-line of comparison for the next chapters as well as an overall idea of which parts of acquisition are theorized to be aided by UG and which fall outside its regulatory scope.
Chapter 3
Universal grammar and L2 acquisition
3.0 DescriptionThis chapter presents a general overview of the generative linguistic view of L2 language acquisition. In regards to this dissertation, the most relevant question to be considered is that of whether or not the L2 learner has access to UG. This question is a controversial topic that has been
debated for over two decades. With reference to UG’s involvement in L2 acquisition there are, to date, essentially two views both unambiguous yet equally dichotomous in nature; UG is or is not accessible. It is, nonetheless, important to note that, while an important one, the aforementioned is not the only relevant query for generative L2 research. In fact, the onus of much of the current research within this paradigm concerns itself with defining the quality of the initial state of L2 acquisition where accessibility to UG is one of several variables to be examined. This chapter presents a fair amount of research that outlines the history, goals, and research agenda of the generative field of L2 acquisition while paying close attention to the question of post- pubescent UG accessibility. As was the case in the previous chapter, an effort will be made to highlight what aspects of language must be a posteriori learned by both children and adults alike.
3.1 Introduction: L2 Acquisition Definition and Issues
Since this chapter and dissertation is primarily concerned with understanding the process of second language (L2) acquisition it seems fitting to begin with a clear definition of what is meant by that terminology. First and foremost, it is prudent to discuss the relative components of L2 acquisition since they are conceivably different from L1 acquisition. Within the generative paradigm, when one refers to L2 acquisition, one essentially makes reference to three components that ultimately determine acquisition: (1) access to input, (2) access to UG and (3) the L1 grammar9. We will discuss all of these variables in greater detail in the ensuing sections of this chapter.
The meaning of second language acquisition may, in fact, seem entirely self-evident; however, as Ellis (1997, pg.3) points out it requires “careful explanation.” According to Ellis and many L2 acquisition researchers, the word ‘second’ does not necessarily refer to any linear order of language learning, but rather a ‘second’ language can be any and as many languages learned other than one’s native language. However, it should be pointed out that other researchers, in fact, do distinguish between L2 and Ln acquisition. This distinction, in effect, can be quite important for several reasons. As will be argued in this dissertation, one of the most important and obvious differences between L1 and L2 acquisition is the fact that in the latter, the learner commences the task of language learning equipped with a fully developed mental grammar for his native language; a linguistically savvy brain. L2 learners seem to have some type of intuition pertaining to the grammatical/structural proximity that their L1 has to the target L2. In other words, for better or worse, L2 learners transfer more of their L1’s idiosyncratic properties/structures to the process of L2 learning when they perceive the L2 as being closer in structure to their L1. By extension, an important difference between L2 and Ln acquisition may be that the learner has not only one fully developed grammar, but also another steady-state (Ss) grammar for the L2. The learner thus will have two or more competing linguistic systems from which to transfer structures into the learning process of Ln. Since learners are able to perceive grammatical proximity and distance between their L1 and L2 with consequent effects, it seems reasonable that an Ln learner will be able to do the same and possibly choose from the inventory of language grammars he possesses to transfer that which is more beneficial. In other words, it is conceivable that a successful native German learner of Spanish will be more inclined to transfer components of the Spanish L2 grammar when learning Italian as compared to his L1 grammar if he is able to recognize that the L2 and target L3 are closer in structure. As can be seen, it is not clear that “second” language acquisition should refer to all language learning other than one’s L1, however, it is clear that L2 and Ln acquisition are
9 Of course, those who adhere to the view that L1 and L2 acquisition are virtually identical argue that the L1 grammar is not transferred and thus not a causative factor in L2 IL development. Proponents of this point of view would not be in agreement that variable (3), the L1 grammar, is a valid component of L2 acquisition.
similar and share one important detail in common; both most often result in considerably different grammars than L1 acquisition.
In general, the term second language acquisition is used to refer to the process of language learning irrespective of the environment in which it occurs. In other words, whether the acquisition takes place in a naturalistic way as a result of living in a speech community whose mother tongue is the target L2, by explicit classroom instruction or a compilation of both, the standard term of second language acquisition is applicable. L2 acquisition, therefore, is defined as “the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside and outside of the classroom, and ‘Second Language Acquisition’ (SLA) as the study of this” (Ellis, 1997 pg. 3). It should be noted, however, that many researchers (White, 1989) do make a distinction between naturalistic L2 learners and tutored L2 learners, claiming that the data from naturalistic learners provide better empirical evidence since their acquisition is closer to that of a child.
Of interest to SLA researchers in general is not only describing how an L2 is acquired, but also explaining why learners acquire an L2 in the manner they do. Accordingly, one objective of SLA is the identification of both external and internal factors that shed some light on this process. In the field of SLA, much is theorized and less is definitively known as compared to the field of L1 Acquisition. There is a plethora of reasons that have been argued to account for this discrepancy, ranging from critical period effects to the general cerebral decline of frequency processing and learning capabilities to the development of sharp problem solving skills that adults, unlike children, possess, etc. Suffice it to say, there is a notable difference between the acquisition of an L1 as compared to the acquisition of an L2, at least in terms of the resulting grammars (ultimate attainment). While we cannot indubitably claim to fully understand the differences amongst childhood and post-pubescent ultimate attainment, we can safely say that there are additional factors in adult L2 acquisition that apparently are not an issue in L1 acquisition.
The general consensus in the field of SLA is that L2 acquisition can be best explained by a coupling of external and internal factors. Internal factors that contribute to L2 acquisition are those unconscious means with which the L2 learner comes prepared upon starting the endeavor of learning a target L2. According to Ellis (1997), it is clear that learners possess some type of cognitive mechanism, which permits them to notice information about the L2 from the input. For example, an L2 learner of Spanish may notice the morphology of the verbal paradigms that are associated with the three types of infinitives in Spanish or the gender and number morphological system of nominatives. Some researchers have gone as far as to argue that in L2 acquisition, if a grammatical property is not overtly salient to the L2 learner it will not be properly acquired (Ioup et al. 1994). This contrasts sharply with the child acquirer who most often attains grammatical information of this sort without being conscience of such paradigms. Additionally, it is reasonable to assume that L2 learners maintain accessibility to the unconscious internal mechanisms that provide knowledge of how language operates at a general abstract level. This point of view will be examined more closely in sections 3.5 and 3.6 regarding the role of Universal Grammar (UG) in L2 acquisition.
Furthermore, adult L2 learners begin the undertaking of learning an L2 with a vast amount of general knowledge that we can expect they will resort to throughout the process of learning. First, all L2 acquirers have a fully developed grammar for their native language. As we will see in detail, it has been demonstrated that their L1 is a causative factor in the formulation of an L2 syntactic system (at least in the initial stages of Inter-language development; see section 3.6); however, to what degree we do not definitively know. There are several generative models of the initial state of L2 acquisition that describe the various possibilities. These models will be examined in sections 3.6.1-3.6.5 of this chapter.
In addition, L2 learners have a general pragmatic knowledge about the world, which they can utilize to help them sort through and better comprehend L2 input. Moreover, many L2 learners have communication strategies such as circumlocution that can aid them to more effectively use their L2 knowledge. A final possible internal factor, and perhaps the most important in terms of
individual differences in L2 acquisition, is the so called language aptitude. It has been suggested that people differ in their language aptitude, which is congruent to their natural disposition to acquire an L2. In other words, this language aptitude is responsible for why some people find the task of language learning easier as compared to others. Unfortunately, a clear definition of this purported language aptitude has eluded the field of SLA despite its importance in explicating individual differences in L2 acquisition. One ultimate goal of this dissertation will be to examine a clearer definition of this phenomenon.
The abovementioned issues highlight the internal factors that contribute to the L2 acquisition process; however, we also know that external factors such as motivation, personal attitude and exposure to input weigh heavily on the eventual success of an L2 acquirer as well (Bley-Vroman, 1989, 1990; Carroll, 1981/1990; Crookes and Schmidt, 1989, 1996; Ellis, 1997, Gardner, 1983, 1993, 1999; Schumann 1997, 2001 a and b; Skehan 1986/1990, etc.). The social environment in which the learning process occurs is important not only because social conditions influence the opportunities of exposure to and practice of the target L2 (TL), but also due to the fact that they play an integral role in developing a learner’s mind-set towards the TL (see section 4.2 on the Stimulus Appraisal System).
The input or exposure to the TL learners receive is yet another external factor. Since language learning cannot take place in its absence, understanding its role is also of great interest to SLA. Of equal concern, is determining which type of input (simplified or unabridged authentic native-speaker language) best facilitates learning and why this should be. This begets the question regarding the role of comprehensible input and intake (Gass, 1997) for L2 learners. From a generative perspective of L2 acquisition, exposure to native TL stimuli may be of great importance. Ample exposure to native linguistic stimuli in which all of the relevant information is guaranteed to be present to properly set L2 parameter values may ultimately determine one’s ability to make proper use of UG if indeed such accessibility is still viable. On the other hand, if it is true that L2 learners need to be aware of grammatical properties in order to acquire them, then pedagogical intervention will also be required. Perhaps it is the case that both types of input are needed for adults whereby the unabridged native input serves to facilitate the job of an active UG and the simplified input and explicit instruction of the TL grammar aid the L2 learner in acquiring the language specific aspects of the L2.
Many of the issues presented in this section pertain more directly to the question of individual differences in ultimate attainment as compared to the question of UG accessibility in isolation. Several of these extra-linguistic issues will be further examined in chapter 4, however, to the extent that they factor into the overall process of L2 acquisition, they are worthy of mention at this juncture. Additionally, it should be noted that many, if not most, generative studies of L2 acquisition do not address the social and motivational factors involved in SLA since they are (1) difficult to quantify and (2) are not always relevant given the research questions they aim to address. However, it should not be thus interpreted that variables of these types are not important. Quite the contrary is true, especially if the focus of a particular study is on ultimate attainment. In the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on the literature of L2 acquisition within the generative paradigm as well as the motivation behind claiming a role for UG in the process of adult L2 acquisition.
3.2 The Logical Problem for L2 Acquisition
In section 2.2.1 it was established that POS effects in L1 acquisition arguably constitute the best evidence available to us that favors the theory of UG. Since the presence of POS effects constitute unassailable evidence in L1 acquisition, Schwartz and Sprouse (1994, 1996, 2000) have
argued that a similar phenomenon must be established if one makes the claim that UG is accessible for L2 acquisition post-critical period. In other words, is there a mismatch between the input that the adult L2 learner receives and his resulting L2 grammar? If indeed a parallel for L1 and adult L2 acquisition can be made in this respect this would implicate a role for UG in L2 acquisition. As discussed in the previous section, the L2 learner commences the process of acquisition effected by different internal and external factors than that of a child; however, the task for both is in many ways analogous. Both L1 and L2 learners must cipher through the enormous amount of input data they receive as well as procure a system that will account for this data in order to be able to understand and produce structures of the TL. White (1989a, 2000, 2003), among others (Flynn, 1988, 1996; Kanno, 1998 a & b; Perez-Léroux & Glass, 1999, Salabakova 2000, 2001; Schwartz 2003, Schwartz & Sprouse, 2000; Yuan 1998), has demonstrated that a similar POS occurs in L2 acquisition as well. It seems that for both L1 and many L2 learners, the input they receive is sufficiently underdetermined and lacking of negative evidence when compared to the end result of their internalized grammars.
Assuming the possibility of L2 POS, the most significant factor to be established is the underdetermination of the input given the resulting knowledge of their L2 grammar. There is no reason to believe that natural10 L2 input would be divergent in any way from that of L1 input. In the case of tutored learners, it cannot be claimed that they receive no negative evidence. However, what type of negative evidence do they receive? Most students receive very descriptive, grammatical explanations of the structures they study yet very rarely linguistic analyses. On occasion, grammatical explanations can result in more or less the same rule as linguistic analysis. For example, students receive descriptive explanations about the rich verbal morphology of Spanish via the tense/mood paradigms they learn. This descriptive explanation coincides with the linguistic rule in Spanish that requires verbs to raise out of the VP, whereas in English they remain in VP given its weak verbal morphology. Certainly, students are corrected; however; they are not explicitly taught linguistic principles that account for those properties of grammar that are not learnable or even noticeable from the input alone. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that L2 input, native or from instruction, would contain any explicit information about the kind of properties as found in principles of UG (see 1, section 2.2.1). Therefore, if we reflect on both the chore of acquisition and the implied intricacy reflected in the grammar arrived at by successful L2 learners, we will note that their grammar goes far beyond what was derivable from the input alone and, in the case of tutored learners, explicit teaching. This is true even if their L2 grammars never converge completely on the native L1 grammar. Assuming that the L2 POS knowledge is not transferable from their L1 grammar, as is in the case of the L1 child, we can thus theorize a role of UG as a driving mechanism in L2 acquisition.
In the case of L2 acquisition, a distinction must be made between competence and performance. In other words, the output of an L2 learner or performance on a linguistic type task may not only demonstrate his then current state of inter-language (IL), but may also echo performance variables that have nothing to do with his internalized competence level. This same phenomenon happens in L1 as well. To illustrate this point, let us examine a construction employed by White (1989a pg.6) to clarify the same issue. A native speaker of English knows, albeit unconsciously, the UG constraints on the “wanna” contraction for “want to.” The contraction is sensitive to wh-traces and is impossible if a trace intervenes between want and to. For example:
(10) a) Whoi do they want to go to the movies with ti ?b) Whoi do they wanna go to the movies with ti ?c) Whoi do they want ti to go to the movies ?d) *Who do they wanna go to the movies?
10 Natural input refers to input received within a native target language speech community. For the L2 learner this will most typically take place outside the confines of a classroom since the classroom input is received in a rather different way from L1 learners who receive only natural input.
In (10 a, b) the “wanna” contraction is permitted since the coindexed trace left in the original position for who (the object position of PP) does not intercede between want and to. However, the contraction is not permitted in the case of (10c yielding 10d) because the wh-subject of the infinitive has been moved, leaving an interceding wh-trace and rendering sentences like (10d) ungrammatical.
Awareness of such subtleties comprises a native speaker’s linguistic competence; however, as in the case of the above example, there are restrictions or social conditions on its use. The “wanna” construction is optional, and in formal speech, it is much less likely to be used as compared to informal speech. The fact that this construction may not appear in the L1 output does not undermine a native speaker’s knowledge of the language because the rule is part of his competence whereas the conditions in which it is applied is not.
In the case of L2, there is assumed to be similar situations in which L2 learners, for any number of reasons, happen not to employ or even avoid using linguistic knowledge which in fact is represented in their competence level (L2 grammar). The fact that some structure is avoided or less frequently salient in an L2 speaker’s performance does not necessarily entail a deficiency in his competence. For example, Schachter (1988) pointed out that L2 learners often fail to employ structures derived by movement such as raising and topicalization. She claimed that this was an indication to doubt a central role for UG in L2 acquisition. However, White immediately refuted her claim by demonstrating that not only do many L2 learners include movement rules since they are able to form wh-questions, passives and relative clauses, but also that the circumstances cited by Schachter allowed for optional movement. In doing so, the question became why do L2 learners prefer to use these structures less as compared to native speakers. In other words, if L2 learners are choosing not to raise and topicalize elements when there is an option to do so at a rate less than the native speaker’s preference, this is a question of performance and not necessarily competence. After all, lack of a particular structure in L2 output does not necessarily entail that a speaker lacks knowledge of it entirely. If the L2 learners to whom Schachter made reference had no knowledge of topicalized and raised structure, we should expect congruent deficiencies in their ability to interpret as well as produce such structures. It is not clear, however, that this is the case. White observed:
The observation that L2 learners fail to produce certain structures cannot be used to argue that L2 competence is fundamentally different from L1; one needs to know whether they are incapable of producing them (as opposed to choosing not to use them) [White 1989a:42].
It is, therefore, essential that when we examine the production of L2 learners, for reasons of determining their competence level, we are able to tap the actual competence level while deciphering through the remnants of performance phenomena. This, however, can be an extremely daunting task. Notwithstanding the real possibility of performance errors, at the end of the day, we must also ask ourselves, as researchers, if indeed a particular rule can truly be instantiated within an L2 grammar if it is not demonstrated consistently or ever in the learner’s output/performances.
3.3 Developmental Sequence of L2 Acquisition
At this juncture, it is important to discuss the relevancy of a developmental problem for L2 acquisition. As in the case of L1 acquisition, in which a role for UG is uncontested, L2 acquisition
is not an instantaneous occurrence. Obviously, L2 learners will be responsible for all the learning aspects of language acquisition as the L1 child. However, the task of learning is conceivably more difficult for adult L2 learners since their brain is fully developed (e.g. problem solving skills and other mitigating cognitive mechanisms), and they have a fully developed L1 linguistic system. It has been argued that the developmental sequence of acquiring syntactic structures may indeed be a good vehicle to determine the role of UG in L2 acquisition (Clahsen & Muysken, 1986, 1989, Schwartz 1992, 2003). However, before we commence the process of reviewing the literature that does just that, it is sensible to point out that order of acquisition in and of itself may have little to do with UG. That is, UG provides restrictions on the stages of acquisition stipulating that they must adhere to the principles enumerated within; however, this does not necessarily explicate why stages emerge in the particular order they do. Nonetheless, a common developmental sequence order has been observed for both L1 and L2 acquisition of many aspects of language. While this necessitates an explanation of some sort, it is not absolutely clear that the ultimate explanation will be a UG-based one.
In a commonly cited study, Clahsen and Muysken (1986) employed a comparison of the developmental sequence of German word order in L1 children and L2 adults in arguing that UG is not accessible to adult L2 learners. They demonstrated that the adults went through 5 stages of development that differed from L1 acquirers. Moreover, according to their analysis, the adults were never able to converge on the actual word order of German. The claim is that the stages of developmental sequence for the adults differ greatly from the stages that L1 children go through, even in the later stages when, on the surface, the L2 learners demonstrated proper German word order. Clahsen and Muysken maintain that adult L2 learners assume that German word order is SVO given the canonical order in the input instead of the true order of SOV + V2, which, conversely, children determine very early. In later stages, when adult L2 learners are able to demonstrate true German word order knowledge, Clahsen and Muysken argue that the adult L2 learners invent extemporized rules to produce such utterances. For example, they may create a rule that moves infinitives or particles to the end of the sentence which is an unnatural rule since it requires movement from left to right. Du Plessis et al. (1987), however, point out that the initial word order assumption of SVO of the L2 learners in Clashen and Muysken is indeed not a violation of UG and is, in all probability, a function of transfer from their L1; an obvious aspect that Clahsen and Muysken ignored. DuPlessis et al. also point out that the emergence of utterances that exemplify the underlying German word order in later stages of development need only be explained by unnatural, ad hoc rules if you prescribe to the view that the L2 learners preserve their initial assumption that German word order is SVO. If indeed the L2 learners were able to reset the word order parameter to the German value between stages 3 and 4 (the point where they began to switch to German word order), then one need not assume the invention of non-linguistic type rules by the L2 learners. Clahsen and Muysken are, in a way, forced to invent such rules since they fervently assume that the L2 learners are unwavering in their assumption that SVO is the relevant word order for German and that they have no access to UG. Accepting the possibility that the L2 learners were able to reset the word order parameter to the proper German value would assume access to UG, which would undermine the claim they were trying to make in the first place.
While Clashen and Muysken’s observations do not preclude a role for UG in L2 acquisition, they do add to the corpus of data that demonstrates the fact that the developmental sequence of L1 and L2 acquisition is different. However, is this good/sufficient evidence to determine that L1 and L2 acquisition are fundamentally different? Schwartz (1992, 2003) argues that comparing the developmental sequence of L1 and L2 confounds two important factors rendering it impractical to determine what the actual relevant factor for the difference is. By comparing L1 and L2 developmental sequence, one is really examining two issues simultaneously: the question of age and native language (NL) influence. If differences are indeed established, are they a byproduct of age or are they confounded by the L1 system of the adult? In essence, Schwartz draws attention to the fact that studies like Clashen and Muysken are comparing unequal items since L2 learners have
a fully developed L1 grammar and L1 learners obviously do not. Schwartz argues that in order to differentiate the effects of age from the effects of L1 influence one must hold constant the L1 and use a group for which access to UG is not contested. It is largely unchallenged that children L2 learners have access to UG. Hence, should we assume that the developmental sequences of L1 and L2 children learners are the same? Works by Pienemann (1980) and Haznedar (1997a and b) have demonstrated that the developmental sequence for L1 and L2 children is not the same and, moreover, that the L2 child, like the L2 adult, transfers their L1 grammar initially into the L2 learning process. Accordingly, if the developmental sequence of adult L2 learners and children L2 learners are the same even if divergent from the L1 learners it can be argued that adults have access to UG as well. If, however, they were to demonstrate different sequences then it could be argued that acquisition for L2 learners operates with different principles. Schwartz (1992) compared 3 studies on the acquisition of German word order by L1 Turkish speakers (Pienemann 1980, [3 L2 children learners 8 year olds]; Clahsen 1984, [2 L2 adult learners]; and Clashen 1980 [45 adult learners]) as well as studies on the acquisition of English negation by L1 Spanish speakers (Cancino, Rosansky and Schumann, 1978). She observed that the developmental sequence for L2 children and L2 adults were parallel and could not be accounted for by a theory that claims the mechanisms are fundamentally different. Indeed, children are ultimately more successful than adults in acquiring the L2 (ultimate attainment), but are observably slower initially in acquiring (initial performance). Nonetheless, it is possible that the processes are analogous for both. Schwartz’s observations (Schwartz 1992, 2003) lend support to the notion that both the L1 grammar is a causative factor in L2 IL development and that adults, like children, employ the same general principles in developing a syntactic system.
Referring back to the caveat presented before analyzing the literature, Schwartz’s observation that child and adult L2 developmental sequences are the same while both different from L1 acquisition certainly refutes Clahsen and Muysken’s assertion, however, it does not directly prove UG accessibility for adults. Since we do not definitively know the source of universal sequences in acquisition, we cannot make the claim that parallelism in acquisition sequence among a group where UG is uncontested and a group where UG accessibility is in question sheds any light on the question of UG accessibility of the latter. In this case A+B may, in fact, equal C, but we cannot claim to know this with complete certainty. Nevertheless, research of this type is very important since it highlights the fact that divergences in acquisition sequence are not sufficient evidence to claim that UG is no longer accessible post-critical period.
3.4 The Critical Period for L2 Acquisition
There is good evidence to believe that a Critical Period (CP) (see section 2.2.3) for L1 acquisition is a reality. That is, if a human being is not sufficiently exposed to linguistic stimuli before the age where neurological lateralization is complete, more or less corresponding to puberty, acquiring the computational system of language (grammar) is no longer viable. While Lenneberg’s (1967) initial CPH applied principally to L1 acquisition, it was assumed by him to extend to L2 acquisition as well.
Most individuals of average intelligence are able to learn a second language after the beginning of their second decade, although the incidence of “language-learning-blocks” rapidly increases after puberty. Also automatic acquisition from mere exposure to a given language seems to disappear after this age, and foreign languages have to be taught and learned through a laboured effort. Foreign accents
cannot be overcome easily after puberty. However a person can learn to communicate in [a] foreign language at the age of forty [Lenneberg 1967:176]
It is important to note the language that is used by Lenneberg. According to him, language acquisition after puberty is not impossible, but requires a “laboured” effort whereas for children it obviously does not. Accordingly, it is assumed that adults require intervention by means of explicit teaching to achieve any substantial level of linguistic competence. In light of this implicit requisite, it has been argued that the CPH applies to all language to be acquired after the CP. In other words, adults are not proverbially spared from the effects of the CP by merely having acquired their native language in a normal fashion.
Thus we may speak of a critical period for language acquisition. At the beginning it is limited by lack of maturation. Its termination seems to be related to a loss of adaptability and inability for reorganization in the brain, particularly with respect to the topographical extent of neurophysiological processes [ibid: 179]
Since the terminology of the “critical period” for language acquisition was first coined there has been a plethora of studies designed and executed with the goal of determining if indeed the CP applies to the process of L2 acquisition and, if so, if it is manifested differently as compared to L1 acquisition. To date, there is a rich bibliography within the L2 acquisition research paradigm that has examined the CPH. However, whereas the case for the CPH is supported by the overwhelming majority of the research in L1 acquisition, the L2 research that has sought to address this similar query is not so conclusive.
In this section, we will examine a good amount of this L2 acquisition research. Essentially, the question is the following: is the CP absolute for “Language” or do adults who have acquired their L1 in a normal fashion retain the ability to acquire a subsequent language by means of an accessible innate language faculty and whatever universal learning strategies are employed by children language acquirers? Unfortunately, a review of the existing research will not result in a definitive answer given the dichotomous conclusions that are drawn by individual studies. Additionally, the possibility that there is a CP for L2 acquisition in certain linguistic domains and not in others should be considered. In general, it seems clearer (or is more accepted) that there is an L2 CP for distinguishing phonemic sounds and morphological acquisition than for syntax. Keeping this in mind, we will examine the literature of the CPH in L2 acquisition while highlighting the fact that establishing a CP in the domains of phonology and morphology does not necessarily entail that there is one for syntax.
Since hypothesizing a CP for L2 phonology is less controversial it seems fitting to start with research that addresses just that. First and foremost, it is practical to mention the fact that the domain of phonology is the only linguistic domain that requires neuromuscular as well as cognitive coordination (Scovel, 1988). It is thus possible that the observable difficulty for L2 learners in the domain of TL phonology, especially where the phonemes to be acquired are not part of the L1 inventory, could be a confound of neuromotor skills. It is also possible that L2 phonological acquisition is more difficult because the phonetic system of adults has become steady.
… foreign accents do not arise because speech learning ability has diminished as a result of neurological maturation, but because the phonetic system has developed and stabilized. [Flege, 1992: 591]
Essentially, Flege argues that the development of the phonetic system in children entails a development of consciousness of the segment in speech. It is this very segmental awareness, he argues, that results in L2 perception of TL sounds as the closest sound from their L1 inventory. While possible, this point of view makes two assumptions that are conceivably erroneous. First, it assumes that segmental awareness happens naturally and not as a result of literacy as many believe.
If this is true, then illiterate speakers of an alphabetic language as well as literates of non-alphabetic languages (e.g., Chinese) should process phonology segmentally as well. Second, Flege essentially argues that L2 learners are unable to perceive L2 TL sounds that are not part of their L1 phonemic inventory. This would entail that an L2 learner of Spanish is unable to perceive the difference between ‘[pero]/but’ and ‘[peRo]/dog’ simply because he is unable to produce a trilled r. Experience as an L2 learner and teacher would lead me to the conclusion that this notion is not correct, but, in fact, many L2 learners are in reality capable of perceiving sounds that are not from their L1 inventory whether or not they are able to realize them.
A seminal study by Werker et al. (1981) tested infants from English speaking environments and English speaking adults as to their ability to perceive Hindi retroflex/dental contrast, which is not phonemic in English. The results demonstrated that infants were able to perceive the difference while adults were not, thus providing strong evidence in favor of a CP for distinguishing sounds that are not phonemic in an individual’s L1.
While not a proponent of the “strong theory” of the CP, which hypothesizes an absolute CP applying in all linguistic domains, Scovel (1988) has argued, based on his own work as well as other relevant literature available at the time that “a critical period is defensible only for phonological learning [Scovel 1988: 59].” Acknowledging that there are exceptions to this generality, Scovel argues that L2 adults who are able to acquire native-like phonological systems are not abundant enough to be anything more than statistical outliers. However, studies involving Chinese L2 learners of English attempting to acquire the phonemic difference between [l] and the retroflex [r] have also demonstrated that adults can be trained to perceive non-native contrasts and thus present a challenge to the notion that there is a CP for L2 in regards to phonemic contrast (Bradlow et al. 1999, Lively et al. 1994). Studies like these that suggest L2 learners can be trained to perceive and produce sounds that are not phonemic in their L1 may follow from Flege’s approach to L2 phonology, which argues that difficulty therein abounds, but not a result of neurological maturation.
The general hypothesis that has motivated our program of speech research over the past decade has been that perceptual and sensorimotor processes that permit children to learn to produce their L1 without an accent remain intact throughout the lifespan, that is, do not deteriorate (or become inaccessible) as a result of neurological maturation [Flege, 1992:591].
For some it is not clear beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a CP for phonology, yet it is apparent that phonemic contrast is very much labored for L2 learners and may be impossible without explicit teaching. Even so, the consensus in the field favors at least the notion of a sensitive period for L2 phonology whereby the ability to attain a perfectly native-like L2 phonological system gradually declines with age.
In the domain of syntax, the question of whether or not there is a CP for L2 acquisition is more debated and somewhat divisive. Of course, those who conform to the idea that L1 and L2 acquisition are fundamentally different (Bley-Vroman 1989, 1990, Clahsen & Muysken 1986, 1989, Schachter 1988, 1989, 1996) assume that a CP, or at least a sensitive period, in this domain exists. On the other hand, citing L2 poverty of the stimulus effects, apparent parameter re-settings, and conformity in adult and child L2 developmental sequence, those that subscribe to theories of L2 acquisition that allow for post-CP access to UG equally assume that a CP for L2 acquisition is not defensible (Kanno 1998, Pérez-Leroux 1997, 1999, Schwartz 1990, 1998, 2003, Schwartz & Sprouse 1996, White 1989, 2000, 2003). Several studies have been conducted that attempt to address this question with varied results. In a widely cited study, Johnson and Newport (1989) tested two groups of Korean and Chinese L2 learners of English. The first group was labeled the “early arrival group” and was comprised of L2 learners that arrived between the ages of 3 and 16. The second group was comprised of individuals who arrived after the age of 16. They examined the
acquisition of language specific features of English syntax and morphology such as the past tense morpheme +-ed+, plural +s+, and word order. In the early arrival group, their results found a linear decline in the learner’s ability proportional to the time of arrival (3-16) to the English environment. Additionally, those individuals who arrived after the age of 16 demonstrated a success level lower than those in the early arrival group and varied greatly. It should be noted, however, that while the items tested by Johnson and Newport support a CP for L2 acquisition, it does not ensue that the CP is for access to UG. All the features examined by them are language specific and ensue from learning alone or learning plus access to UG. Therefore, their results really only demonstrate that there is a CP for learning some linguistic features not necessarily for accessing UG. Let us also keep in mind that the L2 learners from their study were all L1 speakers of a language that is extremely different from English. Since the L1 grammar is assumed to be transferred this factor is extremely relevant.
In 2001, Birdsong and Molis attempted to replicate Johnson and Newport’s results with L1 speakers of Spanish learning English. Unlike Johnson and Newport, Birdsong and Molis did not find a linear decline in performance for the early arrival group, however, they did obtain results that showed a decline in performance for those individuals who arrived after the age of 17. Additionally, they demonstrated evidence for native-like ultimate attainment for some of the individuals in the late arrival group. The Critical Period Hypothesis predicts that this should be impossible. Birdsong and Molis in referring to the postmaturational effects, native language effects, and modest nativelike performances by some late L2 learners claim “Researchers have argued these results would be evidence for falsification of the CPH as it relates to L2 acquisition (248).”
In accordance with Johnson and Newport’s finding, another seminal study by Coppieters (1987) demonstrates a CP as well. The study shows that near native speakers of French perform statistically differently as compared to native speakers on a wide-range of linguistic aspects: morphological, morphosyntactic, and syntactic. Coppieters’s study is especially revealing in view of the fact that he concludes that predictions can be made in terms of what aspects of the L2 target grammar will be more deviant as compared to L1 along a +/- UG continuum. His results demonstrate that L2 learners fall within the outer limits of inter-group variance amongst native speakers for +UG aspects of grammar while well outside these limits for aspects that were –UG. While this research underscores the argument that demonstrating a CP for learning may not entail a CP for UG accessibility, his overall conclusion is, nonetheless, that L2 learners are unable to converge on a truly native-like L2 grammar and thus supports the CPH.
Coppieters’s conclusions are not unchallenged. In fact, due to errors in design and analysis Birdsong (1992) has suggested that Coppieters’s study poses problems for both viability and reproducibility. In 1992, Birdsong sets out to replicate Coppieters’s study with the appropriate methodological modifications and under conditions of tighter procedural control. Birdsong’s results challenge both of Coppieters’s conclusions. First, he finds no predictability of errors in terms of a +/- UG contrast. He further argues that when a proper theoretical analysis is applied to the structures employed by Coppieters, the difference he found between +/- UG structures is rendered statistically negligible. Second, Birdsong concludes that some individuals are able to acquire a native L2 grammar. Thus the overall conclusion is that a CP for L2 acquisition does not exist, at least for some.
A final study by Flege et al. (1999) examined the acquisition of L2 English by over 200 L1 speakers of Korean whose age of arrival varied from age 3 to age 21. The researchers rated the subjects’ L2 pronunciation and, by means of grammaticality judgment tasks, also determined their overall proficiency in L2 English. The initial results demonstrated that foreign accents were more profound and proficiency declined as the age of arrival increased. However, another subsequent analysis found that age of arrival effects were nullified for the grammaticality task results when confounding factors such as age of first exposure to English, years of education in the United States and length of residency in the United States were controlled for and properly taken into
consideration. Therefore, Flege et al. concluded that there is clear evidence that there is a CP for L2 phonology, but there is no CP for L2 syntax.
According to Pulvermüller and Schumann (1994), “if the decrease in grammatical proficiency with greater age in post puberty starters could be confirmed, the present [neurobiologically-based] proposal would have to be modified (723).” However, it can be seen via the above examined studies that the question of whether or not such a decrease in grammatical proficiency exists, at least for all L2 learners, is highly debatable and dependent on what aspects of grammar one is testing. Of course, any generative approach to L2 acquisition that allows for full access to UG and thus theorizes the possibility of attaining a relatively perfect ultimate L2 syntactic system given the best of circumstances assumes that there in fact is no CP for L2 acquisition, at least in the domain of syntax. Moreover, it is possible that L2 divergence in the end-state grammar is not indicative of a CP per se but rather a result of other confounding factors, such as L1 transfer and subset/superset relations.
3.5 The Role of Universal Grammar in L2 Acquisition (History 1980s)
Prior to the 1980s, research in L2 acquisition centered on extra-linguistic factors that were claimed to account for the fact that L2 learners seldom arrive at a level of native-like competence in the target L2. In other words, the emphasis of this research was on the differences between the two processes. Subsequently, little was know at this time about the similarities and parallels that the two processes share in common. Undoubtedly, there are additional factors for L2 acquisition that may indeed account for many of the differences in the end-results of L1 and L2 acquisition; however, it is not at all clear that the processes themselves are considerably different, much less fundamentally so. In the 1980s, the generative tradition/approach to L2 acquisition began in an effort to explain the aforementioned in a way that did not rely on entities difficult to quantify such as motivation, aptitude, and personality. UG was already well defined and deemed responsible for L1 acquisition and hence was considered easier to gauge. Hypothesizing about the accessibility of UG in non-primary language acquisition enabled pioneering L2 acquisition linguists such as Bley-Vroman, Clahsen, Flynn, Muysken, Schachter, Schwartz, and White to devise specific predictions on if and how UG is implicated in the L2 learning process (cf. White 1989a for summary and debate of the literature). The hypotheses varied in this regard. Three hypotheses dominated the field and called for either no access, direct access, or indirect access to UG.
One hypothesis known as the UG is dead or no access hypothesis was favored by such linguists such as Bley-Vroman (1989, 1990), Clahsen & Muysken (1986) and Schachter (1988, 1989) among others. They claimed that L2 grammars show no evidence of UG constraints (Clahsen & Muysken, 1986) or that L2 learners are fixed with principles and parameter values from their L1 (Schachter, 1989). This view first maintains that post-critical period L2 learners have zero access to UG. Under this view, L2 learners are assumed to learn the target L2 through a coupling of cognitive learning strategies and problem solving skills. According to Bley-Vroman (1989), L2 learners employ non-linguistic mechanisms such as: “distributional analysis, analogy, and hypothesis formation and testing to learn (59).” In other words, L2 learners make use of the same problem solving skills one would use to play a game like checkers or chess to analyze L2 input and construct an L2 grammar. This coupled with UG type knowledge derivable from the L1 grammar enables the L2 learner to create some type of pseudo-UG, which they use to analyze linguistic stimuli and come up with rules to categorize them. Bley-Vroman (1990) established the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis, which stipulates that the courses of L1 and L2 acquisition are in effect incongruent cognitive processes since, under his analysis, UG is proposed to be non-operative in adult language acquisition. Several linguists associated with the no access hypothesis, such as Schachter (1989, 1996), Clahsen & Muysken (1989), Bley-Vroman (1990) have come to
acknowledge that UG does have a restricted role in L2 acquisition limited to the principles and in part parameter settings accessible via their L1. Subsequently, an acknowledgement that UG is in some measure implicated by means of the L1 has prompted researchers to refer to this view as partial access in lieu of no access. Whatever the vocabulary used to describe this view, the point is one and the same. This view claims that linguistic mechanisms at the disposal of an L1 learner are no longer available for L2 acquisition.
Another hypothesis that is not altogether unfeasible is, in essence, the antithesis of the no access hypothesis. In accordance with this view, L1 and L2 acquisition are essentially the same process driven and subject to the same innate mechanisms. Those like Kranshen (1981, 1982), with his theory of Acquisition (as opposed to Learning), and Dulay (1982), Flynn (1985, 1987) are proponents of the pure UG hypothesis or direct access. This view not only calls for the strongest and most active role for UG in L2 acquisition, but also marginalizes any influential role for the L1 and its parameter values. Therefore, the fact that L2 learners already have a complete syntactic L1 system is considered, under this view, to be immaterial. As a result, there are assumed to be no effects from the L1. Despite the fact that this contention is a logical position, relatively few have subscribed to it. In all probability, this is the case because it fails to adequately address the very observable L1 transfers noted in the IL of most L2 learners, especially in the initial stages.
The third and final hypothesis considers the possibility that UG is accessible, albeit indirectly, through the L1 syntactic system and thus the terminology UG via L1 or indirect access. This view is an amalgamation of sorts between the two previous hypotheses or, at least, is an attempt to address their implicit binary disparity in failing to acknowledge both the differences and similarities in L1 and L2 acquisition. This view assumes an active role for UG while stipulating a considerably important role for the L1 grammar. Accordingly, the L2 learner is assumed to be in the process of constructing a theory to handle the target language input. During this process, the principles and parameter values from the L1 grammar are assumed to be initially utilized in forming the pro tem stages of IL (Schwartz 1987, White 1986 a & b, 1989a). Unlike the no/partial access view, this view does not assume that the L2 learner is proverbially stuck with the L1 parameter values. As an alternative, this view assumes the possibility of parameter resetting given an active UG interacting with the L2 input.
3.6 The Role of Universal Grammar in L2 Acquisition (Current Models)
By the early 1990’s it was determined that all three of the original hypotheses discussed above, to some extent, wound up being problematic. This is true due to the fact that results from studies intended to favor one view or another were often reinterpreted to give evidence supporting the opposite view. Consequently, other models were offered as a result of research more focused on developing IL grammars as well as looking at the initial and final states of IL knowledge. White (2000) points out that the trouble of the original hypotheses was that they dealt with the role of UG in L2 acquisition in a one-dimensional manner, aiming to merely answer the question of whether or not UG was available and/or in what capacity. This is an important question, one that is still highly debatable today and at the core of the research in this dissertation. However, at the time, implicit claims were being made about the initial state of L2 acquisition and about the development of L2 ILs by considering the question of UG accessibility in isolation when clearly there is another important variable that must be considered. More current models address this issue aiming to answer two distinctive questions. The first quandary considers the role of the L1 grammar in the L2 initial state: to what extent is the L2 learner influenced by his L1 grammar? Is the L2 initial state merely the L1 steady state (Ss) transferred? Are all the aspects of the L1 final state adopted into the L2 initial state? The second quandary takes into account the role of UG in the development of IL stages from the initial state to the L2 steady state: is the full range of UG properties operational and to what capacity in L2 acquisition, and are the universal learning strategies from LAD available
as well? In her review of the current UG models, White (cf. White 2000, 2003 for more methodical discussion) describes the five different perspectives on the L2 initial state that have been identified, which will be outlined in the next few sections of this chapter.
It should be noted that in terms of accessibility to UG, the current models are still binary regarding the second of the two questions presented above. Notwithstanding the shift in attention of the research community from the 1980’s to the 1990’s inclusive of more precise research agendas, the original question of adult L2 accessibility to UG is no more clearly answered today than it was back then. UG accessibility is still hypothesized to be either attainable for all adults or not available to any adults. The fact that the past two generations of scientific inquiry has produced a vast literature of empirical studies and theoretical argumentation that favors both sides has served to strengthen many investigators’ personal views, yet has done little to convince the proponents of the opposite side that one viewpoint is correct above the other. As a result, within the generative tradition of L2 acquisition, unlike the case of L1 acquisition where less fundamental questions divide the soldiers along proverbial battle lines, the central question of UG accessibility is a source of continuous debate and clearly rifts researchers into factions. Essentially, the four of the five models that allow for full access to UG differ in regards to the way the L1 grammar is hypothesized to be implicated in the process of L2 IL formation. In the ensuing subsections, we will take a closer look at each of the current hypotheses/models for the initial state of L2 acquisition as well as the research that supports them.
3.6.1 Full Transfer/Partial Access
Since four of the five models of the L2 initial state are in agreement that adult L2 learners have full access to UG, it seems fitting to start with the one model that refutes adult accessibility to UG. The Full Transfer/Partial Access model of the L2 initial state is a logical and intuitive possibility, perhaps alluring in that it addresses directly the overwhelming lack of native-like ultimate attainment in L2 acquisition and cites inaccessibility to UG as the principal reason for said imperfection. Proponents of the Full Transfer/Partial Access model such as Bley-Vroman (1990), Clahsen & Muysken (1986,1989), Dekeyser (2000), Johnson (1988), Johnson and Newport (1989), Kaltenbacher (2001) and Schachter (1988, 1989,1996) argue that “the L1 grammar constitutes the learner’s representation of the L2 and is used to analyze the L2 input; in other words, the L2 initial state consists of the L1 final state” (White, 2000; 134). That is to say, they contend that the universal properties not incorporated into the L1 grammar are not available to the adult L2 learner. Additionally, this view stipulates that those UG properties instantiated in the L1 grammar can weakly influence the developing L2 grammar. Accordingly, L2 input is filtered solely through the L1 syntactic system and those UG components instantiated within. Under this view, the final state for L2 will equal the L1 grammar plus some local adjustments. Accordingly, a native-like L2 ultimate grammar is rendered impossible to the extent that applicable principles and parameters settings differ between the two languages and a possibility of unconstrained UG IL presents itself.
This model predicts that UG parameter resetting should not be possible and that the instantiation of UG principles into the L2 grammar that are not transferable from the L1 should not take place. Thus, an obvious issue for this model is explaining the POS problem observed in L2 acquisition. The fact that L2 adults exhibit knowledge of grammatical constraints that cannot be ascribed to their L1 grammar, nor directly intuited from the target language input they receive, nor through explicit teaching (refer to section 3.2) constitutes a genuine problem of explanation for this view.
Bley-Vroman suggested (1989,1990) that UG has essentially no role in L2 acquisition, citing the differences in the resulting grammar of most L2 learners as compared to a native grammar. He claimed that L2 grammars differ from L1 grammars in domains that should be restricted by UG. Acknowledging that L2 grammars are not wholly devoid of computational
aspects, Bley-Vroman’s Fundamentally Different Hypothesis allows for a pseudo-UG of sorts, which is an amalgamation of UG properties instantiated in the L1 grammar, problem solving, and pragmatic properties. However, other researchers such as DuPlessis et al. (1987), Ladiere (1998a&b, 2000), Schwartz (1990) and White (1989) have argued and/or demonstrated that claims such as Bley-Vroman’s, which suggest L2 grammar divergence is rampant in all linguistic domains are, in effect, not accurate. They claim that the majority of the differences among resulting L1 and L2 grammars can be likened to language specific entities such as morphology and phonology. In the case that the L2 syntactic system differs, this can usually be explained by a morphosyntactic problem, where the inability to fully or properly acquire the morphology effects the syntax (Schwartz 2003). An example of the aforementioned can clearly be seen in Lardiere’s (1998a, 1998b, 2000) study of a fossilized Chinese learner of L2 English. Patty, the Chinese woman studied by Lardiere, has lived in an English speaking environment for over two decades and is a naturalistic learner of L2 English. Simply stated, Patty has stopped acquiring English and is fossilized at a grammar that has not converged, in many aspects, on a native English grammar. Despite the differences that Patty’s grammar has with respect to L1 English grammars, she has a sophisticated control of English syntax including operations of movement that are not transferable from her native tongue (Chinese). Patty’s principle divergence seems to be mainly in the domain of inflectional morphology and phonology, which of course are language specific properties.
3.6.2 No Transfer/Full Access
A second possibility for the initial state of L2 acquisition labeled the no transfer/full access model specifies that there is no quantifiable difference for L1 and L2 acquisition (Epstein et al. 1998, Flynn & Martohardjono 1994, Flynn 1996) with reference to the learner’s accessibility to a biological linguistic endowment. In other words, this view maintains that the same mechanism, UG, equally mediates both L1 and any subsequent language acquisition. Moreover, it is assumed that the L1 grammar plays no role in the acquisition process. Accordingly, the initial state for L2 and L1 acquisition are one and the same where all UG principles, parameter settings, feature values and functional categories are available to the learner irrespective of whether or not they are specified in the L1 grammar. Thus, L2 input is not filtered to any degree through the L1, but rather solely through UG. As White (2000) summarizes, this account claims that an L2 “is acquired on the basis of UG principles and parameters interacting directly with L2 input” (White 2000, pg. 135). Under this assumption, a predication that all L2 IL stages will conform to UG is implicit. That is, no wild grammars throughout the L2 IL developmental continuum are envisaged. While this prediction is true for all accounts that purport full access to UG, this model differs in that it strongly predicts an ultimate attainment of an L2 grammar that fully mirrors that of an L1 grammar.
There are two main issues with this intuitive and strong theoretical hypothesis. First, since it nullifies any role of the L1 grammar in IL formation it is unable to explain the very observable L1 transfer effects that L2 learners show. Accordingly, it implicitly predicts that L1/L2 specific language pairings should have no effect on the ability to attain perfect or even better ultimate attainment. Some studies have demonstrated that L1/L2 particular language pairings ultimately determine the degree to which the average person will be successful in ultimate attainment (Biaylystok & Hakuta 1999, Bongaerts 1999, Cranshaw 1997, Flege 1999, Rothman, 2004). In Rothman (2004), it was established that highly proficient Hispanic L2 learners of English mistakenly transfer the OPC into their L2 grammar for English (never truly resetting the null-subject parameter) and use it in interpreting complex sentences whose matrix clause subject is a quantified DP or a wh-element. Since subject pronouns are always overt in English and the Hispanic L2 learners have the OPC incorrectly instantiated into their L2 English grammar, they make significantly different interpretations of these sentences as compared to native English speakers. This is true, in many cases, despite discourse pragmatics that heavily favor a bound
variable interpretation. Studies of this type coupled with other studies in which English speaking L2 learners of Spanish were demonstrated to have properly reset the null-subject parameter inclusive of the instantiation of the OPC (Pérez-Leroux & Glass 1997, 1999) highlight the fact that not only is the L1/L2 particular language pairing a determining factor for ultimate success, but also the directionality of the subset/superset relationship of their parameter values. Moreover, these studies establish observable L1 transfer, which is understandably unwavering even in the highest echelon of L2 learners and thus pose a problem of explanation for theories of L2 acquisition contending that the L1 grammar is not a factor for L2 acquisition. Second, the no transfer/full access model predicts that the L2 steady-state grammar should be more or less identical to the L1 steady-state of the same language. This is almost always not the case. Therefore, proponents of this model are forced to explain this discrepancy by claiming that general problem solving skills and other cognitive processes impede UG in some way.
3.6.3 Full Transfer/ Full Access
The third generative model of the L2 initial state to which many L2 researchers prescribe (White 1989a, Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996, 2000, Schwartz 1992, 2003, Yuan 1998, Slabakova 2000, 2001) is known as full transfer/full access. As the name suggests, this model stipulates that the beginning state of acquisition for an adult L2 learner is the final state of L1 acquisition; however, this view allows for access to UG when the syntax of L1 contains inadequate information for mapping the intake input. In other words, it is assumed that L2 learners shift their L1-internal grammars and restructure them accordingly by means of UG when the L2 input cannot be accounted for by the L1 configurations. This means that all options available in the UG inventory for L1 are also available for L2 learners. This account attempts to address the gamut of L2 success levels in several ways. First, it addresses the POS problem of many L2 learners by assuming that parameter resetting will indeed follow once both the available input contains data that cannot be explained by the L1 grammar and this data becomes salient for the acquirer. Second, it allows for ultimate imperfection of the L2 grammar by stipulating that there are cases where parameter resetting will possibly not occur, namely when the L2 constitutes a subset of the transferred L1 and negative evidence is not available. When the L2 constitutes a subset of the L1, it is possible that the difference will never become perceptible to the L2 learner without negative evidence. However, it should be reiterated that this model assumes that when possible L2 parameter resetting will take place through the course of the L2 IL grammar continuum. Since L2 learners are hypothesized to have full access to UG this model predicts that there will be no wild grammars throughout said continuum. Accordingly, ultimate attainment is theoretically possible, but not inevitable. Furthermore, notwithstanding L1 transferred values that are not reconfigured due to subset/superset relationships, this model predicts that the majority of the divergence from the native grammar seen in L2 grammar formation should be in language specific aspects.
3.6.4 Partial Transfer/Full Access (Minimal Trees Hypothesis and Featureless Values Hypothesis)
The fourth and fifth models (Eubank 1994, 1996 Vainikka and Young –Scholten 1996, 1998) specify that “(the) L2 initial state draws on properties of L1 and UG concurrently” (White, 2000, pg. 147). In theory, they are very similar. Both the Minimal Trees account (Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1996) and the Featureless Values Hypothesis (Eubank 1994, 1996; Eubank & Grace 1998) allow for input to be analyzed by both UG and the L1 grammar at any point. In other words, UG is fully accessible to the L2 learner, not only when necessary due to parameterized differences between L1 and L2. Thus, in essence, the input has two simultaneous filters: L1-
internal grammar and UG. Proponents of these models that allow for partial transfer but full access are not in total agreement as to the role of the L1. On one hand, Eubank (1994, 1996; Eubank & Grace 1998) argues that both lexical and functional categories established in the L1 are transferred to the L2 developing grammar and thus UG needs only to specify the feature values which are assumed to not be transferred from their L1. This would entail that Spanish L2 learners of English having transferred all grammatical categories have transferred the functional categories TP/AGR. If indeed the functional category is transferred without the strong Spanish feature strength, the L2 learner should not move the verb out of VP, neither initially nor ever, given the lack of inflectional verbal morphology of English. Accordingly, Hispanic L2 learners of English should not make errors of adjective placement, which result from their L1 idiosyncratic movement rule. It is not clear, however that this is the case. According to the Featureless Value model, L2 feature strength will be acquired in due time as the morphological paradigms of the target L2 are learned.
Conversely, others such as Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1996, 1998) argue that only lexical categories are transmitted into the L2 initial state. Therefore, L2 learners make projections for NP, VP, PP, but not for CP, IP, TP or Neg P. Like the case of children under the weak continuity analysis, functional categories will progressively develop and emerge due to the direct access to UG and as triggered by the L2 input. It is argued that functional projections emerge in a bottom-up relation. This notion, however, is challenged by evidence of L1 influence in early stages of L2 IL that demonstrate L1 transferred functional projections such as Neg P (Cancino et al. 1975, Hazdenar 1997 a &b).
A third possible type of analysis that could fall under the umbrella of partial transfer/full access is a view offered by White (1996), which makes the claim that lexical and functional categories as well as feature values are taken on in the L2 initial state when possible. She argues that there are situations in which the L1 could not possibly provide an initial L2 theory. She claims that L2 acquisition of functional projections which have no realization in the L1 are of relevance here. This has implications for the mastery of the Spanish clitic system by English L2 learners whose native language has no such system. Given the lack of clitics in English, L2 learners of Spanish who successfully acquire clitic projections will have done so by making use of UG-constrained options. Given that her observations entail transfer of virtually all L1 linguistic properties, this analysis can also be classified, as she has later conceded (White, 2000), as full access/full transfer. As is the case for all models that allow for full access, these models predict no wild L2 grammars and the possibility of native-like ultimate attainment.
3.7 Conclusion
In this chapter a good amount of research was examined, which highlights both the research agenda of L2 generative acquisition studies as well as the motivation behind hypothesizing an active role for UG in L2 acquisition. The components of L2 acquisition were enumerated as well as the history of the research tradition. Given the strong evidence that demonstrates POS effects in L2 acquisition, similar to those found in L1 acquisition, it seems reasonable to assume that UG is accessible to L2 learners as well. The role of the L1 has also been discussed and various generative models of the L2 initial state have been examined. Argumentation against many of the L2 initial state models was provided. Given the whole body of L2 acquisition empirical research, it seems that the full transfer/full access model is the most viable. While all of the models are quite logical, only the full transfer/ full access model is able to account for the clear L1 transfer effects in L2 IL of all linguistic categories, evidence suggesting a role for UG, as well as deficiencies in L2 ultimate attainment. The question that still remains, however, is if this model accurately accounts for the quality of the initial state of all L2 learners or only good language learners. It is the goal of the current study to shed some light on this question.
