Investigating Second Language Acquisition [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9783110812831, 9783110151503

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Investigating Second Language Acquisition

W DE G

Studies on Language Acquisition 12

Editor

Peter Jordens

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Peter Jordens and Josine Lalleman (Editors)

Investigating Second Language Acquisition

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin - New York

1996

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

The series Studies on Language Acquisition was formerly published by Foris Publications, Holland.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Investigating second language acquisition / Peter Jordens and Josine Lalleman, editors. p. cm. — (Studies on language acquisition ; 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-015150-2 1. Second language acquisition. I. Jordens, Peter. II. Lalleman, Josine A. III. Series. P118.2.I58 1996 418-dc20 96-13686 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data Investigating second language acquisition / Peter Jordens and Josine Lalleman / (ed.). — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1996 (Studies on language acquisition ; 12) ISBN 3-11-015150-2 NE: Jordens, Peter [Hrsg.]; GT

© Copyright 1996 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Printing: Arthur Collignon, GmbH, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin.

Preface This publication originated from a course in second language acquisition held in June 1991 at Leiden University. Under the auspices of the Dutch Association of General Linguistics AVT (Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap) we designed a course which provided both an overview of the field and an in-depth discussion of the most important issues within the different areas of our discipline. Looking at the large number of participants, we concluded that such a course apparently served a genuine need among second-language students and professionals. From our own experience in teaching second language acquisition to university students we also felt that up to now there was no relevant book available in which specialists in a particular research area dealt with the main issues of second language acquisition. We therefore thought it would be a promising endeavour to bring together a group of colleagues whom we knew were able to deal with their particular field of second language acquisition in a stimulating way. We asked these scholars to write an article on their area of research interest in a way that would provide insight into the main issues, problems and findings, both to students in second language acquisition and to professionals and scholars working in related areas of applied linguistics. The present publication that evolved from this initiative is designed to serve the interests of MA and PhD students in linguistics, applied linguistics and language acquisition, teachers of second languages to native speakers of minority languages, teachers of foreign languages to secondary-school pupils, language therapists working with pupils suffering from language disorders, language developmental problems and/or speech problems, and curriculum designers developing methods and syllabuses. Our aim is to provide the reader with an acquisitional perspective on processes of second or foreign language learning. Chapter 1 of the present book has two introductory sections. The first is by Josine Lalleman who provides a state of the art in second language acquisition research. She notes as typical of second language research that if a number of researchers consider something proven, such as for example the 'universal route

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Preface

of acquisition', it is denied by others. From the perspective of language teaching methodology one might consider this a depressing situation. On the other hand, however, it shows that second language acquisition is a fundamental research discipline geared towards understanding the processes of second language acquistion in the first place. The second section of the introductory chapter is by Michael Shanvood Smith on the prime topic of all second and foreign language research, formerly called 'language transfer' but recently more appropriately referred to as 'cross-linguistic influence'. Sharwood Smith demonstrates that while at one point in the history of second language research language transfer seemed to be a dead issue it is now, from the point of view of modern linguistic and cognitive theory, more alive than ever. In Chapter 2, Gitus Extra and Roeland van Hout discuss the main methodological issues that any second language researcher working with production data has to deal with. They report their experiences participating in a large-scale project on the spontaneous acquisition of some five Western European languages by adult immigrant learners. As part of this project, funded by the European Science Foundation, Extra and van Hout carried out a longitudinal study of the acquisition of Dutch by native speakers of Turkish and Moroccan Arabic. The study aimed to interpret learner utterances with respect to the complexity of the learning task. Chapter 3 deals with matters of processing in second language acquisition from two different perspectives. Cor J. Koster examines a number of psycholinguistic techniques used in the study of word recognition. The results of this type of word recognition study contribute to theories of second language processing. Nanda Poulisse reports on typological and empirical issues relevant to processing input both in learners who use learning strategies in order to acquire L2 competence and in learners who apply communication strategies in situations in which their L2 competence fails. Particular attention is paid to the study of compensatory strategies within the framework of The Nijmegen project'. In Chapter 4 Vivian J. Cook discusses principles of universal grammar (UG) that are of relevance to second language acquisition research. Starting from the assumption that the acquisition of a second language is normal rather than peculiar, Cook presents a revised UG model of language acquisition. This model accounts for what he calls 'multi-competence'. Paul van Buren raises the question of whether there are principles of UG that do not apply to second language acquisition. He discusses the most intriguing question of how it is possible for Japanese learners of English, coming from a language with a 'wider' grammar (i.e. a grammar with no adjacency) to acquire a grammar that is 'narrower' (i.e. a grammar with strict adjacency, as is the case in the English verb phrase).

Preface

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In Chapter 5 Bonnie D. Schwartz discusses the relevance of the notion of parameter setting and resetting in second language acquisition. She reanalyses the results of the well-known Clahsen, Meisel and Pienemann study on the acquisition of L2-German word order by speakers of Romance languages. Her reanalysis in terms of a clustering of grammatical characteristics provides evidence for the fact that at one particular point in the developmental process the headedness parameter is reset from head-initial to head-final. In her study on the acquisition of w/z-questions in L2 French, Aqfke Hulk also looks at the acquisition of word order phenomena. In this case the LI is a Germanic language (Dutch) while the target language is a Romance language (French). In her study Hulk describes a particular interlanguage stage at which the grammar of Dutch learners shows evidence of residual V2 properties and SPEC, HEAD agreement. Chapter 6 has three contributions on the L2 acquisition of phonology. In her section on a new research programme, Martha Young-Scholten outlines questions that are of particular relevance to the acquisition of an L2 phonology by learners who already possess the phonological system of their LI. In addition to this, Alan James provides a theory of L2 phonology that accounts for L2 phonological data. Henning Wode, furthermore, shows how L2 phonological data can be explained in terms of speech perception. In Chapter 7, Paul Bogaards argues that the acquisition of lexical knowledge by L2 learners necessarily involves the acquisition of grammatical knowledge. Hence, knowledge of the language is knowledge of the lexicon. Dik's Functional Grammar is presented as an example of a model of lexical representations which aims to account for the fact that language is primarily used for communication. Rene Appel focusses on the relation between the acquisition of lexical knowledge and the development of an L2-semantic system. He also examines in what way theories of L2 acquisition deal with the acquisition of the lexicon. Finally, in Chapter 8, Peter Jor dens discusses the relation between formal instruction on the one hand and the development of interlanguage systems on the other. Looking at the nature and the complexity of interlanguage systems and evaluating the relevant empirical research, it is argued that for the acquisition of grammatical knowledge to be used in spontaneous production, formal instruction has no value other than being a rather deviant way of providing input.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank Bart Bossers who carried out all the text processing, layout and graphic work, Wilma Elsing who helped us in completing the bibliography and Adriaan Brugman of the Free University Language Centre who was always available for questions on correct English. Also, many thanks to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, where we were always welcome to discuss matters of content and logistics with regard to this project. Amsterdam / Leiden, January 1, 1996

List of contributors RENE APFEL, Department of General Linguistics, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 210, nl - 1012 vt Amsterdam PAUL BOGAARDS, Department of French, Leiden University, Van Wijkplaats 2, nl - 2300 ra Leiden PAUL VAN BUREN, Department of English, University of Utrecht, Trans 10, nl 3513 jk Utrecht VIVIAN J. COOK, Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, uk - Essex co4 3sq GUUS EXTRA, Research group on Language and Minorities, University of Tilburg, Postbox 90153, nl - 5000 le Tilburg ROELAND VAN HOUT, Research group on Language and Minorities, University of Tilburg, Postbox 90153, nl - 5000 le Tilburg AAFKE HULK, Department of French, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 134, nl - 1012 vb Amsterdam ALLAN JAMES, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universitätsstraße 65-67, a - 9022 Klagenfurt PETER JORDENS, Department of Applied Linguistics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, nl - 1081 hv Amsterdam COR J. KOSTER, Department of Applied Linguistics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, nl - 1081 hv Amsterdam JOSINE LALLEMAN, Institute of Dutch Studies, Leiden University, P. N. van Eyckhofl/3, nl - 2300 ra Leiden NANDA POULISSE, Department of English, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 210, nl - 1012 vt Amsterdam BONNIE D. SCHWARTZ, Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, uk - Durham dhl 3jt MICHAEL SHARWOOD SMITH, Department of English, University of Utrecht, Trans 10, nl - 3513 jk Utrecht HENNING WODE, English Department and Center for Bilingualism and Language Contact, Kiel University, Olshausenstraße 40-60, d - 24098 Kiel MARTHA YOUNG-SCHOLTEN, Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, uk - Durham dhl 3jt

Contents General introduction Josine Lalleman The state of the art in second language acquisition research Michael Sharwood Smith Crosslinguistic influence with special reference to the acquisition of grammar

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Methodological issues Gnus Extra and Roeland van Hout Second language acquisition by adult immigrants: A multiple case study of Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch

87

Processing Cor J. Koster Some experimental tasks in the study of word recognition

117

Nanda Poulisse Strategies

135

Syntax: Principles Vivian J. Cook Universal grammar in second language acquisition

167

Xlv

Paul van Buren Are there principles of universal grammar that do not apply to second language acquisition?

Contents

187

Syntax: Parameters Bonnie D. Schwartz Parameters in non-native language acquisition

211

Aafke Hulk Parameter setting and the acquisition of w/7-questions in L2 French 237

Phonology Martha Young-Schölten A new research programme for the L2 acquisition of phonology . . 263 Allan R. James Second language phonology

293

Henning Wode Speech perception and L2 phonological acquisition

321

The lexicon Paul Bogaards Lexicon and grammar in second language learning

357

Rene Appel The lexicon in second language acquisition

381

Acquisition and learning Peter Jordens Input and instruction in second language acquisition

407

Index

451

General introduction

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

Josine Lalleman

1.

Introduction

Although the term Second Language Acquisition (SLA or L2 acquisition) seems self-evident to linguists working in this particular field, on many occasions I have been confronted with the fact that outsiders do not grasp its meaning. While preparing for a summer school on SLA in 1991, I was telephoned by someone who asked which languages were being offered. I was reminded of the linguist who was asked how many languages he spoke. What is meant by the field of Second Language Acquisition? SLA is 'the study of the process of learning a language other than one's native language'. Within the field of SLA, one differentiates between second language acquisition and foreign language acquisition. Second language acquisition means the acquisition of a language in the country where this language is the dominant language. As, for example, an English-speaking person who learns Dutch while working for a company in The Hague. The term is still somewhat inaccurate, because this person may already have a command of languages other than his native language. A further distinction is made between second language acquisition and second language learning. Learning is a conscious process that usually takes place through formal education. Acquisition occurs spontaneously and can be compared to the way in which a child acquires its first language.

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Nevertheless, this distinction is not made consistently in the field, and many researchers speak of instructed second language acquisition when referring to the learning of a language (at least partly) through formal instruction. Foreign language acquisition (FLA) is considered to be the learning of a second (third, fourth, etc.) language outside of its own language area. Dutch students learning French at a school in The Netherlands would be one example of this. Such situations almost exclusively involve learning rather than acquisition. Both types of language acquisition, SLA and FLA, differ from bilingualism. This term is appropriate when two or more languages are acquired simultaneously - in other words, when a child acquires two first languages instead of one. Taking the cue from the majority of researchers working in the field, I will mainly use the term Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and I will only differentiate between learning and acquisition, or between SLA and foreign language acquisition (FLA) if the differences between the processes are important within a particular context. Applied linguists study all types of SLA. Spontaneous SLA is the most similar to first language (LI) acquisition and as such, research of spontaneous SLA can lend us insight into the similarities and differences between these two processes. Instructed SLA is often studied for pedagogical aims, such as improving the quality of language education or developing adequate learning materials. The ways in which spontaneous and instructed SLA differ from each other is yet another area of study. In recent years, there seems to be yet another reason to study aspects of instructed SLA. There is an increasing interest in the features of advanced acquisition. Since people who hardly have had any type of formal education often show a stagnation in the acquisition process, features of advanced acquisition have to be sought in speakers who have followed some sort of formal education during the course of their SLA process. In this introduction I will provide more detailed information on the various aspects of SLA mentioned so far. In the next paragraph I will indicate different possible points of departure for studying SLA, and introduce three main questions with which this field is concerned. In paragraph 3 some methodological considerations in SLA research will be introduced, and in paragraph 4 I will discuss what is known today about developmental phases in SLA, focusing especially on universal aspects. Paragraph 5 deals with research in factors influencing L2 development, and 6 and 7 provide overviews of L2 learning theories and theories of L2 development. I will try to sketch the state of the art in SLA research in paragraph 8, and 9 summarizes some introductory works and the main periodicals on SLA.

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

2.

5

Perspectives and questions in SLA research

SLA is studied by psycholinguists, linguists, sociolinguists and pedagogues. In each of these four fields the goal of SLA research is different: a. process as central

SLA can be studied from a psycholinguistic perspective, providing insight into the working of the human mind. The goal is to contribute to the development of a theory of language acquisition. b. language theory as central SLA can be studied from a theoretical perspective. The acquisition of different languages provides insight into the nature of language. The goal is to find evidence that supports a particular linguistic theory. c. society as central SLA can be studied from a sociolinguistic perspective. Sociological factors influencing the language acquisition process are studied. An important goal is to help L2 learners to integrate in the L2 society. d. instruction as central SLA can be studied from an educational perspective with the aim of developing appropriate educational tools. In this introductory chapter I will not go into the sociolinguistic (c) and pedagogical (d) aspects of SLA, but will restrict myself to the linguistic and psycholinguistic dimensions. Topics in sociolinguistic SLA studies include the relationship between language proficiency and attitudes, often based upon the model of Schumann (1978) or Krashen (1981), language attrition (SSLA 1989, 11; de Bot - Clyne 1989), code-switching (Nortier 1989), bilingualism (Hamers - Blanc 1989) and the relationship between language proficiency and success in school (Kerkhoff 1988). An interesting overview of studies dealing with the relationship between education and the SLA process can be found in Stern (1983); a more recent work is Ellis (1990). There is no consensus about what the effect of formal instruction on the SLA process is. Most researchers hold the view that education influences the tempo and proficiency level finally achieved, but not the order, or the route, of the process. Krashen (1981, 1985) and Long (1983) do not believe that education has any effect on the acquisition process. From Lightbown - Spada (1990) and articles in Rutherford - Sharwood Smith (1988), we can conclude that language education does have a positive effect on acquisition as long as it follows the correct method: They conclude that authentic texts should be used as a basis for grammatical exercises.

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This section deals with psycholinguistic and linguistic aspects of SLA. Although the points of departure of psycholinguists and linguists differ, these researchers do raise and try to answer the same questions. We will now briefly deal with these questions, and then go deeper into each of them in the following sections. What are the universal features of SLA? The first task a researcher sets himself is the description of the acquisition process. Which features of the development are learner or group specific, and which are universal (true in all cases)? Suppose learner X is a Moroccan who had never learned a second language. At the age of 40 he left his family in Morocco to come and work in the Netherlands where he lives in a boarding house with other Moroccans. He watches Moroccan video tapes and reads Moroccan newspapers. Learner Υ is a 25 year old English woman who has studied German and French at school. She fell in love with a Spanish graduate student and moved to Spain to stay. She is enrolled at a university and wants nothing more than to speak flawless Spanish. To what extent may the acquisition processes of learner X and learner Υ be similar or even comparable? Are any generalizations possible? What are the variable factors of SLA? It is common knowledge that succesful learning of a second language depends heavily upon the learner and the circumstances under which the learning process takes place. In other words, nobody would be surprised to hear that learner Υ mentioned above is more successful than learner X. But which factors really play a role in SLA, and which factors only seem to play a role? For instance, a researcher may find that Turkish students are successful L2 learners of Dutch, and Japanese students are not. He concludes that one's native language is the main factor in determining success in SLA, but it is possible that some intervening factor has caused the differences between the groups. In this case, motivation could have caused the group differences if, for example, all the Turkish students turn out to be married to Dutch partners and all the Japanese students plan to return to Japan as soon as possible. Another important question to be answered is why the final goal, total command of the language, is rarely achieved in SLA, and is always achieved in native language acquisition. What is the theoretical relevance of SLA research? How can universal features of the SLA process be described and explained within a theoretical framework? In trying to answer this question, researchers take one of two approaches. The goal of psycholinguists is to acquire knowledge of the very process of SLA. They are interested in the linguistic as well as in the

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

7

non-linguistic aspects influencing this process. In a theoretical linguistic approach specific aspects of SLA are studied with the aim of finding empirical evidence for a (linguistic) theory, which will be adjusted, if necessary, to explain language acquisition data. They are not particularly interested in the acquisition process per se, or in an explanation of this process, but restrict themselves to those parts of the process which are relevant for linguistic theory. In other words, psycholinguists try to develop a language acquisition theory, mainly or solely based upon data of (second) language use, whereas theoretical linguists seek to build a linguistic theory for which acquisitional data may serve as circumstantial evidence. Each of the questions raised here concerning universal features, variable features and theoretical relevance will be dealt with in successive paragraphs. However, first we need to know more about the way in which SLA is studied. 3.

Methodological issues

Researchers collect data of L2 learners in order to be able to answer the questions raised in the previous section: What is the nature of the SLA process? Which aspects of the process are learner specific or group specific? Which aspects are universal? Methods of collecting data and the methodology of analyzing these data are the topics of the present paragraph. An SLA researcher is dependent on what learners do, and has to ascertain learners' knowledge of a second language mainly from their verbal output in that language. Of course, this situation holds for many fields of research in the social sciences, but the fact remains that generalizations based upon performance could turn out to be wrong or too simplistic when compared to the knowledge upon which performance is based. An L2 learner may knowa lot more (or a lot less!) about the L2 grammar than can be gathered from a conversation with him. And a researcher may be just as easily misled by the results of an experimental task in which an informant has to assess the grammaticality of certain L2 constructions: An incorrect answer may be caused by a limited knowledge of the vocabulary as well as by a limited grammatical knowledge. Perdue (1982) discerns five phases in the methodological cycle of SLA research (for a more extensive survey on this issue, see Perdue 1982 and Larsen-Freeman - Long 1991): 1. gathering data 2. processing data 3. analyzing data 4. generalizing data 5. interpreting data In each of these phases a researcher is confronted with a number of problems and decisions to be made.

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Josine Lalleman

Data gathering

Spontaneous versus experimental data Data can be gathered from spontaneous speech and from experiments. Spontaneous speech includes all language spoken by subjects, not directed in advance. Nevertheless, the degree of spontaneity can vary between interviewing a subject freely ('talk about this, that, and the other') and for example asking a subject to retell the story of a film he has just been shown (see Perdue 1982 for more details). This latter speech sample is of course much less 'spontaneous' than the former. In contrast to spontaneous speech, linguistic experiments can be seen as attempts to elicit a specific kind of language behaviour. Examples of these are imitation tests and fill-in exercises. In imitation tests, a subject has to literally reproduce sentences or texts. In fill-in exercises, a subject is often asked to complete a sentence. For instance, if a researcher wants information about knowledge of the plural suffix, he could ask the informant to provide the plural form in sentences such as: (1)

On this picture we see a dog, and on this picture we see two .... [DOGS].

Especially in the last ten years the elicitation of grammatical intuitions has been a commonly used type of experiment. It is a form of introspection. The learner is being asked whether or not he thinks a particular sentence is grammatically correct. Unfortunately, there are problems with this kind of data. Several researchers have cast doubts upon the conclusions to be drawn from this method. Bever (1970) believes that they do not necessarily reflect grammatical competence, or at the very least are influenced by extra-linguistic factors. For example, a complicated but correct sentence such as The horse raced past the barn fell, is usually considered to be ungrammatical by native speakers of English. Other sentences with the same grammatical structure (for instance, The horse hit by the bar broke a leg) are considered as correct. This discrepancy can be explained by the fact that in the first sentence, The horse raced past ... is processed as an agent-event sequence, whereas in The horse hit by ... this is not possible. Schachter - Yip (1990) discuss this problem taking the following type of sentence into account: (2) (3)

Who do you think John told Mary he fell in love with? Who do you think John told Mary fell in love with Sue?

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

9

Both of the above sentences are grammatical, yet native speakers of English often judge (3) to be ungrammatical. This is the result of processing restrictions on this type of sentence. According to Sorace (1988), intuitions are influenced by training: Students who often participate in experiments in which intuitions are asked, perform better than students who never participate in that type of experiment, although the level of proficiency in both groups does not differ. Intuitions are also influenced by the context in which sentences are presented; after five clearly correct sentences, the chance of a judgement of ungrammaticality is much larger than after five questionable sentences. With second language learners, this problem is magnified. Unlike first language competence, knowledge of a second language is unstable and constantly changing. L2 learners are often asked to give grammaticality judgements when they have no opinion at all, resulting in (random) guessing. This is why Sorace advises against merely asking if a sentence is either correct or incorrect and suggests including a 'don't know'category. Schachter (1990) draws attention to the following phenomenon: The more proficient an L2 learner is, the more capable he is of recognizing grammatical sentences as such. This ability increases and is linear, but the ability to recognize «^grammatical sentences does not increase linearly. This is easily explained: If an L2 learner does not know a particular construction, he may either conclude that it is ungrammatical or that it is a grammatically correct construction with which he is not yet familiar. Therefore, his intuitions are less reliable. In practice, it appears to be difficult to set up an experiment with an appropriate data-gathering method. In the next section (3.2.), however, we will see that, provided the set-up was sound, experimental data are easier to deal with than data taken from spontaneous speech. Longitudinal versus cross-sectional data Data can be collected either longitudinally or cross-sectionally. In a longitudinal study one subject (or a few) is kept track of over a period of time, while in cross-sectional studies a (generally large) number of subjects are studied at one moment in time, and these subjects are classified in different developmental phases based upon their level of proficiency. The disadvantage of studying only a few test subjects in longitudinal settings is that generalizations are often impossible: The developmental features that are found may be specific for the (small group of) individual speakers. The most important drawback of crosssectional studies, on the other hand, is that we do not know for certain whether different levels of proficiency really represent different phases of the acquisition process. An example of this comes from Bley-Vroman - Chaudron (1990), who argue that in Flynn (1984), subjects of different developmental phases were placed in one group leading to an incorrect interpretation of the results. The

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danger of wrong or insufficient classification in cross-sectional studies can be made clear by the following hypothetical example. Suppose that we have data of three L2 learners, and that an analysis has been made of features of negation, word order and verb morphology, resulting in the following classification: DEVELOPMENTAL negation learner A learner B learner C

word order

3 2 2

3 2 1

STAGE verb morphology 3 3 2

1 = initial developmental stage 2 = intermediate developmental stage 3 = advanced developmental stage If these three learners were classified on the basis of word order phenomena only, they would be placed in three different developmental stages, while in reality their levels of proficiency vary much less. It appears then that the most reliable data are from longitudinal studies with many subjects. However, the gathering of this type of data is generally too timeconsuming. 3.2.

Data processing

The next step to be taken after the data are gathered, is the processing of the data. Spontaneous speech has to be transcribed and divided into units. Since performance is not a direct reflection of competence, performance features have to be filtered out in some way. For example, false starts, self-adjustments, hesitations and copying the interviewer verbatim are all considered to be performance phenomena and do not form part of a linguistic analysis. In a discourse analysis, on the other hand, these phenomena could be the topic of research. Therefore, it is customary that such speech phenomena be put between brackets instead of being left out of the transcriptions. The data-processing phase of experiments is a lot less time-consuming and generally easier than the processing of spontaneous speech. This is probably the reason why many researchers nowadays choose to do experiments with L2 learners.

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

3.3.

\\

Data analysis

One of the main pitfalls in the analysis of spontaneous data is not taking the context of a specific utterance into account. For instance, assume that an L2 learner asked to describe a picture, says: (4)

boy hit

This utterance can be interpreted as the boy hits, in which the boy is the agent of the action and the error made by the learner is of a morphological nature. However, it may also be interpreted as the boy is hit, in which the boy is the patient of the action, and the learner actually tries to use a passive construction. In many cases, therefore, the context of the utterance must be taken into account. Another problem is that a number of researchers see acquisition as a yes/noquestion: They are only interested in the exact moment when a structure is fully acquired in relation to other structures. If a certain linguistic feature is spontaneously produced in at least 80% of the obligatory contexts, this implies that the feature is acquired, and that in any other case the feature is not yet acquired (e.g. Dulay - Burt 1973, 1974). In fact, however, the various stages leading to the mastery of a particular construction may be more important than the establishment of the exact moment of mastery. A major problem in data analysis is how to deal with different types of variation in spoken language (Tarone 1988). Variation may exist between learners or types of learners, and within learners. According to Clahsen (1984), variation between L2 learners can largely be explained by the fact that there are two types of learners: the 'simplifiers' (who can be compared to LI learners) and those who are more target language-oriented. The variation is then the result of different processing strategies. Variation may also exist within one person. A person may consistently use an incorrect structure, or make an error as the result of the complexity of the sentence in which the error occurs. An error may also be the result of the complexity of the subject of conversation, because at that moment the speaker is not interested in correctness. In an empirical study, Crookes (1989) found that variation within a learner can be explained by the factor of planning; the more time taken to plan, the better the subject performs. For more information on variation, see Ellis (1985), Schachter (1986) and Larsen-Freeman - Long (1991). With respect to experiments, a researcher has to have a fair amount of statistical knowledge in order to be able to analyze and process the results appropriately. Examples of course books in this area are Butler (1985), Hatch Farhady (1982) and Woods et al. (1986).

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Josine Lalleman

3.4.

Generalization of data

From both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies researchers make generalizations. Both types of data have their own drawbacks. Different types of variation occurring in spoken and written language complicate matters to a large extent. In fact, it seems necessary to have insight into the data of very many studies before generalizations can be made. One of the ways to accomplish this, is that researchers exchange their data. An example of a project from which a large corpus of SLA data can be used by other researchers (under specific conditions) is the ESF project (see Extra - van Hout, chapter 2). 3.5.

Interpretation of data

It is quite often the case that data can be explained in different ways, and very often it depends on the theoretical background of the researcher in which direction he thinks the best explanation is to be found. Ellis (1985) illustrates this with one of the generally recognized stages in the development of negation, where the negator is external to the rest of the sentence (No speak Portugese). He mentions four possible explanations. The first is provided by Cancino et al. (1978), who think it is the result of transfer from the first language (Spanish). The second explanation, simplification as production strategy, is provided by Wode (1976). According to the third explanation (Felix 1984), no X is an example of a general acquisition strategy, that is, a universal strategy used in a specific phase of development. Finally, in the fourth interpretation it is an interactional strategy: the learner uses part of the previous speaker's sentence: Shall we read a book? No read book. Ellis himself suggests that the phenomenon may be the result of an interaction between several of the strategies mentioned here. It is therefore not always possible to decide which of various potential explanations is the 'best' one. Still, researchers can go quite far in believing their own analysis to be the best one. See, for example, the conclusion of Schwartz (chapter 5, 227-228): [ ] when comparing possible analyses of L2 data, one that falls within the limits of Universal Grammar is in principle of greater theoretical import than one that does not. A researcher who does not believe in the existence of Universal Grammar or in the autonomy of the linguistic module in the mind would certainly not agree with this.

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

3.6.

13

Conclusion

All in all, the methodology of second language acquisition research is rather complicated, firstly because so many factors play a role in the process, and secondly, because it is difficult to assess an L2 learner's competence. Analyses based on intuitions do not seem to be more reliable than analyses based on spontaneous speech data, and the best way to arrive at the right conclusions is to take different types of language material of many types of learners into account (see for a similar conclusion, Carroll - Meisel 1990: 204-205). In the eighties and early nineties we may distinguish two 'types' of L2 researchers: Researchers who formulate hypotheses based upon cross-sectional research, and test these hypotheses longitudinally, and researchers who ignore spontaneous speech data and focus on results of experiments. In this latter type of research, hypotheses are formulated on the basis of a specific linguistic theory, and these hypotheses are 'verified' by means of experiments. 4.

Universal features of second language acquisition

The first step in acquiring knowledge about the universal features of the SLA process is to collect data - a lot of data. It is important to discover the phases a second language learner goes through in acquiring an L2, for the knowledge of various stages and of transitions from one phase to the next is essential in the formulation of a general model of SLA. Also, once a sound description of the L2 acquisition process is available, it can be compared with the phases in native language acquisition. During the seventies especially, a great deal of SLA data were collected. Research was carried out in four areas: Syntax and morphology, and to a lesser extent, lexicon and phonology. The main results of these studies will be discussed below. In the eighties SLA data were often collected in a more integrated way by studying the acquisition of various types of functions (4.5) and by identifying various kinds of strategies (4.6). 4.1.

Syntactic development

Some examples of large-scale investigations into the syntactic SLA process are the Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt (Dittmar et al. 1975; Klein - Dittmar 1979) and the ZISA-project (Meisel - Clahsen - Pienemann 1981; Clahsen - Meisel Pienemann 1983). In the Heidelberger Project, a mainly cross-sectional study, the syntactic development in German of 48 Italian and Spanish workers in Germany was mapped according to certain syntactic criteria (presence or absence of the subject and verb; complexity of the verb morphology, of the verbal complement, of the nominal constituent, etc.). The informants were then ranked,

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based on these criteria. An implicational scale was drawn up between the different syntactic variables. In this way, developmental stages could be formulated. More or less the same method was followed in the ZISA project, but in this project both cross-sectional and longitudinal data were collected. Meisel et al. came up with the following developmental phases in Spanish and Italian foreign workers' word order acquisition in German: Stage I:

SVO

Marie küßt Hans 'Mary kisses Hans'

Stage II: ADVERB PREPOSING (*) Vielleicht ich bleibe hier 'Maybe I stay here' Stage III: PARTICLE

(= movement of the non-finite lexical verb to the end of the sentence)

Ich kann nichts bezahlen I can nothing pay can't pay anything' Sie ruft mi an She calls me up 'She phones me'

Stage IV: INVERSION

Vielleicht bleibe ich hier

Stage V: ADVERB IN VP

Ich bin da oft gewesen I have there often been have been there often'

Stage VI: V-END (in subordinate clauses)

Ich weiß nicht wer das gesagt hat I know not who that said has don't know who said that'

Another longitudinal study into the syntactic developmental phases of SLA was carried out in the United States (Cancino et al. 1974, 1978; Schumann 1979) on the English of six native Spanish speakers. The developmental stages of negation and interrogative sentences in particular were described extensively. The stages of negation Cancino et al. found are:

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

1. 2. 3. 4.

no 4- VERB don't + VERB aux + NEG analysed forms of don't

/ / / I I

15

no can see don't can see can't see don't see didn 't see

Recently, attempts have been made to relate the acquisition of various syntactic and morphological phenomena to each other. Clahsen (1988) connects the acquisition of inflection to verb placement. Bongaerts - Jordens (1985) demonstrate that the transition from an SVO- to an SOV-structure in German as a second language, occurs due to the acquisition of the Particle rule (the rule that moves all non-finite verb forms to the end of the sentence). For instance, a speaker in phase II (see above) utters incorrect sentences such as: (5)

Mein vater hat sekaufen ein buch 'My father has bought a book'

In a next phase, he uses correct structures such as: (6)

Deutsche leute haben mir hier gebracht German people have me here brought 'German people brought me here'

Bongaerts - Jordens argue that first this particle rule is acquired by the learner, and that later he restructures his interlanguage from SVO to SOV. From that moment on, the learner is capable of acquiring the V2 rule (the rule which moves the finite verb to sentence-second position). The acquisition of the V2 rule implies that the subject of the sentence correctly appears after the finite verb, if a constituent other than the subject appears in sentence-initial position: (7)

Jetzt kann sie mir eine frage machen 'Now she may ask me something'

There seems to be evidence for the assumption that a number of aspects of the interlanguage stages which an L2 learner goes through in acquiring specific syntactic rules, are universal in the sense that they are not characteristic for individual learners nor dependent on the native language of the speaker or the way in which he learned the L2, i.e. spontaneously or with formal instruction. The results of Ellis' study (1989) in particular seem to support this conclusion. He investigated the stages in English university students' word order acquisition in instructed L2 acquisition of German, and found the same order of acquisition as the ZISA researchers did with foreign workers who acquired German without

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formal instruction. However, we ought to remain cautious to draw general conclusions too quickly. The results mentioned are based on research using only a small number of source and target languages, namely Italian, Spanish (source), English (source and target), and German (target). 4.2.

Morphological development

The most well-known investigations into morphological development in SLA are those of Dulay - Burt (1973, 1974). Dulay - Burt studied the acquisition of eleven different inflectional features in ESL (English as an L2) in two groups of second language learners, children with Spanish and children with Chinese as a native language. The results of the study showed that the features were acquired by both groups in the same order, or at least they were applied with the same degree of accuracy according to Dulay - Burts' Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM). This BSM is an elicitation method that determines to what degree a second language learner has command of certain morphological features in his (semi-)spontaneous speech. The order Dulay - Burt discovered was later affirmed in many other studies and has remained intact after an intensive reanalysis of many other morpheme studies (Krashen 1981). The sequence is as follows: 1. Pronoun case

He doesn 't like her.

2. Article

The cat.

3. Progressive -ing

He is studying.

4. Contractible copula

Hej. fat.

5. Plural -s

Cars

6. Contractible aux 's

He'_s_ been here.

7. Past regular -ed 8. Past irregular 9. Long plural -es 10. Possessive 's

He passed the car. We went away. Kisses Johnj_ father

\ \. 3rd person -5

He talks too much.

The type of research in the tradition of Dulay - Burt has received a lot of criticism. The most important objection is that almost no attempt has been made to give either a linguistic or a psycholinguistic explanation for the sequence found, with the exception of Hatch (1974) and Larsen-Freeman (1976), who came up with formal complexity and input frequency as explanatory factors. Furthermore, there has been a lot of criticism of the methodology used in these studies (see paragraph 3.3).

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\7

In the eighties relatively few studies on the acquisition of morphology appeared, and those few restricted themselves to either noun or verb morphology, incorporating semantic aspects in the analysis. Breeder - Extra (1988), for example, studied word formation procedures in the spontaneous speech of adult L2 learners of Dutch. They conclude that these learners acquired compounds sooner than derivational nouns. For instance, compounds such as ongeluk-auto ('accident-car'; correct: auto-ongeluk 'car-accident') and baas\vinkel ('boss-store'; correct: winkeleigenaar 'shopkeeper') and even nonexisting compounds such as brood-auto ('bread-car'; correct: bakkerswagen 'baker's cart') occur regularly in the speech of these learners, whereas derived nouns such as stichting ('corporation') and belasting ('taxes') occur infrequently. With respect to the acquisition of morphology we may conclude that a number of inflectional affixes in English as an L2 are acquired in the same order by L2 learners with different native backgrounds. However, the linguistic and methodological basis of these studies is rather narrow. Furthermore, research into L2 acquisition of derivation and compounding is scarce. 4.3.

Lexical development

Relatively little research was done in the seventies on the lexical development in SLA. According to Levenston (1979), this is because lexical development only becomes interesting in the advanced stages of SLA, and in the seventies, attention was paid primarily to the early phases of the process. Levenston discusses the relevant questions: 1. To what extent are the LI and L2 lexical acquisition processes the same? 2. Which stages can be discerned in L2 lexical development and which external factors influence these stages? 3. Does receptive acquisition of words always precede productive use? Although in 1987 one of the main journals on SLA, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, dedicated a special volume to the issue of lexical SLA (SSLA 9,2), it has been only recently that the study of the lexicon and as a consequence, the L2 acquisition of the lexicon, has really been taken seriously. Two sections of chapter 7, by Bogaards and Appel respectively, go into this issue. 4.4.

Phonological development

In the area of phonology, research done in the seventies was primarily of a contrastive nature (Tarone 1978). There were almost no studies on the development of phonological forms. This kind of research got going in the eighties. Wode (1981) describes the phonological development of four German

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children learning English. He concludes that the second language learner will use a form from his first language when it is similar enough to the form in the second language. On the other hand, when an LI form differs greatly from its L2 counterpart, it is not used, leaving the way clear, as it were, for a 'firstlanguage-like' development. James (1987) discusses Dutch students' acquisition of prosodic features in English. He concludes that the acquisition of prosody can be described in terms of different interlingual stages. In the present volume, the state of the art in second language phonology is discussed by James and Young-Scholten; Wode presents a model of (LI and L2) speech perception. It is rather telling that in a recent course book on SLA research (Larsen-Freeman - Long 1991) lexical and phonological development were ignored completely. 4.5.

Pragmatic development: The functional acquisition

approach to language

Syntactic, morphological and phonological studies all have in common that they are primarily concerned with linguistic form. Lexical studies are often concerned with the acquisition of semantics. Functionally oriented studies focus on how linguistic forms are linked to the context in which they occur (see Tomlin 1990 for an overview). Klein (1990) describes the direction this type of research should take. For instance, a study into the acquisition of personal pronouns should differentiate between anaphoric and deictic pronouns. Both types of pronouns differ fundamentally with regard to their function in the sentence and are therefore acquired in different ways. Anaphoric pronouns (e.g. he, she, it, they) refer to a specific referent or to specific referents, while deictic pronouns (/, you, we) identify, and may refer to different persons in the same situation. When using anaphoric pronouns, the person or thing referred to is not necessarily visually present, whereas presence is essential in using the deictic pronouns you and /. The question is not: 'Which stages does an L2 learner go through when acquiring pronouns?', but: 'Which stages does an L2 learner go through when he has to refer to a speaker/addressee vs. to others?' According to Klein, one of the most important insights gained from the descriptive SLA research of the eighties seems to be the insight that research into stages of language acquisition should not be based on linguistic, but on functional criteria. It is not so much the development of syntactic, morphological or lexical variables that need to be studied as the development of possible ways of expression which a given situation demands. This approach to SLA data has clearly been taken in Huebner

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(1983), and in the ESF-project on adult SLA (Klein - Perdue 1992). In this volume, Extra - van Hout describe this latter project in detail. Another approach which could be called functional, is Givon's (1984, 1985). His basic claim is (Givon 1979) that SLA - as well as native language development, the development of pidgins and Creoles, and the process of language change - moves from a pragmatic mode to a syntactic mode. In the initial stage of the SLA process, speakers use utterances with topic-comment structure, they use simple verbs and nouns, they delete copulas, they do not apply morphological rules and they speak rather slowly. An example of an utterance with topic-comment structure is: (8)

Los Angeles, it big city. - topic -

- comment -

The process of 'syntactization' implies that the speaker starts to make subjectpredicate utterances with different types of structure (including relativization), to use complex verbs and nouns, to apply morphological rules and to speak more rapidly. The trouble with this approach is that it seems to be too broad: It is very difficult to capture differences in proficiency level of L2 learners by means of the devices used. 4.6.

Strategies

The study of strategies used by L2 learners in their acquisition process can be viewed as a separate issue in the description of L2 data. In this volume, Poulisse offers an overview of the strategies that have been isolated so far, and the way strategy research is being carried out. McLaughlin (1987) distinguishes learner strategies (simplification, derivation, avoidance and hypothesis-seeking strategies), production strategies (planning strategies and (self-)correction strategies) and communication strategies (reduction strategies and performance strategies). Avoidance is an example of a (cognitive) learner strategy. Research into the avoidance of verbal expressions by Dutch second language learners of English shows that subjects are not consistent in their avoidance of all verbal expressions, only those sounding too Dutch are not used (Jordens - Kellerman 1981; Hulstijn - Marchena 1989). According to these latter authors, learners follow a play-it-safe strategy by using the more general terms that they knew to be correct, for example, improve instead of brush up (Dutch Oppoetsen'), stop instead of give up (Dutch Opgeven') and start instead of break out (Dutch 'uitbreken')· Communication strategies are resorted to when a learner is not able to carry out his original plan of production (due to a lack of L2 knowledge). One

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example of a communication strategy is using a description of a concept the learner doesn't know the word for (dress-maker or someone who makes dresses instead of tailor). In order to carry out an empirical study of these strategies, both language data and introspection are used (see Poulisse, this volume). McLaughlin - Nayak (1989) studied the strategies L2 learners use in the processing of information. They investigated the question whether these strategies are the same for all learners or whether it is possible for learners to take different paths. They tried to determine whether there is a difference in the information processing of beginning second language learners and people who have already learned many 'second' languages. They found that experienced language learners learn grammar much better than beginners when no explicit grammatical rules are given, but that there is no difference between experienced learners and beginners if explicit rules of grammar are presented. They concluded from this that the experienced learners recognize patterns more automatically, because they already have routines from learning other languages, whereas the beginners have to pay more attention (controlled processing, see section 6.1). 4.7.

Conclusion

As to the collection of relevant data from which universal and specific features of the SLA process can be deduced, we must conclude that so far there have been rather few large research projects in which longitudinal data from a relatively large number of informants have been gathered. Most descriptive data concern either syntactic or morphological development only, and do not try to link multiple areas of language development. It is, for example, virtually unknown as yet whether the acquisition of a particular morphological feature influences or triggers the acquisition of word order features. An exception seems to be the relatively recent functionally oriented research (Klein - Perdue 1992), and research on strategies (Poulisse 1987). The problem with cross-sectional studies, and longitudinal studies with a small number of informants, is that results cannot be easily generalized. Still, in the past three decades the amount of material collected is enormous, and many new questions, or rephrased questions, can be addressed nowadays using Old' material. It is generally agreed upon that there are set orders of acquisition whereby certain structures can be learned only after others have been acquired. The acquisition order of a number of (unrelated) morphological features and (related) syntactic features has been shown to be universal to a large extent (Krashen 1981, Dulay et al. 1982). Most researchers, therefore, conclude that the available material has been sufficiently analyzed to consider the 'universal route of acquisition' proven.

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

5.

21

Variable features of the SLA process

There are a number of factors influencing SLA. The native language plays a crucial role in the process. Most researchers assume that other, non-linguistic factors such as motivation and formal education do not influence the nature of the process, but only the speed with which a language is learned, and the ultimate result, i.e. the final distance that remains between the language of the L2 speaker and that of the LI speaker, whether excellent, near-native or deficient. This paragraph deals with the ideas put forward with respect to the role of the following factors in the SLA process: The native language, input, social and situational factors, and psychological and biological factors. 5.1.

The native language (LI)

Recently, Odlin (1989) has given an overview of results from studies of transfer. Transfer, also referred to as cross-linguistic influence, is defined as: "The influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired" (Odlin 1989: 27). Odlin emphasizes that primary language playing a role in the acquisition of a second language does not imply that people must think behaviouristically (as authors like Krashen, Dulay and Burt have suggested). He discusses transfer in the areas of syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, pragmatics and the lexicon. Transfer plays a clear part in all of these areas. Since this volume contains a chapter on transfer (see Sharwood Smith's section in this chapter), I will restrict myself to discussing an example from pragmatics, semantics and the lexicon. As for pragmatic transfer, Odlin discusses the work of Hinds (1983, 1984) who researched the amount of information which groups of experimental subjects of different nationalities can remember from newspaper articles (written in the primary language). It seems that the Japanese could remember more information than Americans when the article was written in the so-called ki-shoo-ten-ketsu form, a writing style that can be traced to Chinese poetry. In this form a change of subject occurs suddenly, something that is seen as a change in style by most westerners, but which is considered very refined in the Japanese culture. On the subject of semantic transfer, Odlin discusses the work of a number of people, including Bloom (1981), who found that Chinese are far less capable of discerning the correct (fictional, non-reality) meaning of a story than are English speakers. Bloom explains this by pointing to the fact that Chinese has no way of expressing modality; the non-reality that is expressed in sentences must be derived from the context. He sees proof in his findings of Whorf's theory (1956) that one's thought processes are influenced by the language that one speaks.

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Although many objections have been raised against the methodology and interpretation of Bloom's research (Au 1983), it is nonetheless undeniable that semantic transfer can occur. Jordens - Kellerman (1981) investigated conditions of lexical transfer. They found that Dutch subjects do not use idiomatic expressions in English if the expressions have equivalents in Dutch, for fear that these expressions do not really exist in English (see also Hulstijn - Marchena 1989, and section 4.6). Obviously, L2 learners hypothesize that idiomatic expressions are not transferable, because they are language-specific. 5.2.

Language input

Language input is the language addressed to the language learner by native speakers of the target language. Language addressed to L2 learners is referred to as Foreigner Talk, if the input is simplified and sometimes even ungrammatical in an informal setting, and as Teacher Talk, if the input is simplified in an educational setting (Ellis 1985). Like transfer, input is a linguistic factor that influences the SLA process. Researchers vary in their views on the importance of input. Some argue that part of the input, the intake or the comprehensible input, fully determines the SLA process (Krashen 1985; Chaudron 1985), others think that input only triggers internal mechanisms (White 1989a; Flynn 1984), and some researchers take a position in between these extremes (Schachter 1986). The most extreme viewpoint is that input is the crucial factor in the linguistic development of both the LI and L2 learner. This is because the learner makes inductive generalizations based on the most frequently occurring input data (Wong-Fillmore 1976). This approach has a behaviouristic orientation. Weaker claims supporting the role of input in LI acquisition, and especially concerning the role of correction, can be found in Nelson (1987) and Rondal (1981). Rondal discusses research done on the features of the input children receive and reaches the conclusion that parents actually 'teach' language to their children. That is, children actually receive negative feedback: Parents correct children either implicitly or explicitly when they make a mistake. According to Rondal this clearly has effects on language development. Tomasello - Herron (1989) have studied the effect of negative feedback in SLA. They conclude that here too correction is a crucial factor. Other researchers argue that the largest part of a learner's knowledge is not gained through input, but is part of his innate language capability. This point of view basically rests on two claims: 1. Input offers insufficient, unsystematic information. This is known as the 'poverty of stimulus' standpoint.

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23

2. L2 learners are not corrected systematically, and if they are, it does not have an effect on the acquisition process. This is referred to as the 'no-negative evidence' standpoint. The claim that corrections do not play a role in L2 acquisition, conflicts with the ideas of Tomasello - Herren (1989), and is originally based on a study by Brown - Hanlon (1970), who studied corrections of parents of (LI learning) children. Brown - Hanlon found that children do not receive metalinguistic input from their environment. However, they only studied corrections and not other possible clues for children that what they say is wrong, such as misunderstandings, laughing and not answering. Pinker (1989) concludes that negative feedback does not play a role in (native) language acquisition, since it is neither equally nor unambiguously available to children. If this also holds for SLA, that is, that negative evidence does not influence the acquisition process, this would mean that error correction does not influence the course of SLA. At this point, it is impossible to say who is right and who is wrong in the (no-) negative evidence issue; most researchers, however, tend to agree with Pinker's ideas. The third position researchers tend to take with respect to the role of input in the SLA proces, is that language acquisition is the result of the linguistic surroundings and the mental capabilities of the learner. Schachter (1986) believes that input plays an important part in the acquisition process. She argues that, in addition to the linguistic form and the way it is offered, the metalinguistic input is important: Correction (direct), not understanding, requests for clarification, misunderstandings, laughing, not answering, etc. are all important parts of the linguistic input. Klein (1986) points out that input cannot be seen as separate from the nonverbal context in which the input is given. When I was trying to find out what exactly my daughter (aged 10 months) understood of what I said to her, I took a crumpled piece of paper in my hands and, pointing to the dustbin said: Go sit in the dust bin. She took this to mean Go throw that in the dust bin and she took the piece of paper out of my hands, crawled to the dust bin and threw it away. She had understood the word dustbin correctly and body language - in combination with her knowledge of the world - did the rest. Swain (1985) claims that comprehensible input is not enough for successful SLA. The learner must be given the opportunity to produce comprehensible output. In other words, according to her, acquisition is not only dependent on understanding, but also on being understood. This idea was studied experimentally by Pica et al. (1989). They found that the second language learner's production was greatly influenced by the linguistic demands of native speakers: The greater the native speakers' demands, the more L2 learners learned how to deal with native speakers' difficulties to understand them.

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5.3.

Josine Lalleman

Social factors

The most significant social factors playing a role in SLA are the environment in which the learning process takes place, the degree to which a person is 'acculturated' in the L2 community and the amount of instruction he has had in the L2. Demographic factors It is evident to anyone studying SLA, that there is generally a large difference in tempo and final result between a person learning Dutch in the United States and someone learning Dutch in The Netherlands. But it is improbable that this demographic factor itself influences the acquisition process; it seems more likely that the difference between these persons is caused by other factors, e.g. differences in motivation and differences in the amount of L2 input. Acculturation Schumann (1978) supports the idea that a person's failure to achieve a high level of proficiency in the target language is caused by his inability to adapt psychologically and socially to the target language community. Someone who maintains his own culture (if it differs greatly from that of the target language community), who feels inferior to the members of the target language community, who lives in his own closed community (social distance), who has minimal motivation to learn the target language, who suffers from language and culture shock and who has a rather inflexible ego (psychological distance), will not learn the target language as well as someone who can adapt in these respects. This is because these factors influence the amount of target language input that the learner receives. Meisel (1980, 1983), elaborating further along these lines, made the distinction between two sorts of social-psychological orientations: Segregative (self isolation) and integrative. He showed that these different orientations result in different learning strategies: The first type of learner mentioned above simplifies its language use by omitting many language elements (e.g. Jeanne nice instead of Jeanne is nice; He -want girl instead of wants etc.); the second type of learner tries to form hypotheses about the rules of the target language. These learners produce sentences such as He kitted me and Theys want to come. Since this last strategy is more successful, this type of learner progresses more rapidly. Instruction In a recent work on this issue, Ellis (1990) concludes that formal instruction has a positive effect on the rate but not on the route of the SLA process (see also Long 1983), but he adds that instruction may have a delayed positive effect on

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

25

acquisition, that is, instruction once given may result in learning at some future date. Some linguists, however, assume that formal instruction does not have any positive influence on the learning process (compare Jordens, chapter 8). It is often difficult to separate the effect of formal instruction from the effect of the additional input it provides, and motivation probably plays an interfering role here as well. 5.4.

Psychological and biological factors

In general, there are five psychological and biological characteristics in which learners can differ from each other (see Bongaerts 1986; Bogaards 1988; Van Hout et al. 1990 for overviews): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

attitude and motivation aptitude for languages age cognitive style personality traits

Motivation and attitudes Anyone who has learned a second language at some point in his life, knows how advantageous it is to be highly motivated to learn the language. Motivation may be defined as the need to engage in a particular activity, which is, in this case, the need to use the L2. Attitudes refer to the (learned) beliefs, feelings and intentions of a learner with respect to an object or class of objects. This Object' may be the target community, but also the L2 itself. A positive attitude towards the target community seems to positively affect the learning process. The question, again, is whether the route or only the rate of the SLA process is affected by these psychological factors. Regretfully, this is not the question which has been asked by researchers in this field. Instead, the goal of most studies in motivation has been to determine and explain the predictive value of motivation in the success rate of learning a second language. The pioneers in this area are Gardner - Lambert (1972). They differentiated between motivation that is integrative (based on the desire to become a more valued member of a society) and instrumental (based on the goal of attaining a good job and social recognition), and showed that, at least in the specific situation in Canada which they had studied, the first type led to a better command of the language. The division of motivation into two types has been disregarded in recent years as it is considered too general. Ramage (1990), in a study of secondary school pupils in the United States, found that students who were interested in the culture and had the desire to be able to read, write and speak the language were the ones who continued with their language studies.

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Attitude research indicates that the hypothesis that positive attitudes have a positive effect on SLA is incorrect. It has been demonstrated that positive attitudes towards a target language community may correlate negatively with integrative motivation and success in SLA (Lalleman 1986; Knops 1987). Lalleman explains this inconsistency by claiming that the need for integration causes people to be more sensitive to experiences of discrimination than people who prefer to live in a small LI community within the L2 community. In other words, a successful L2 learner may well have developed a (partly) negative attitude towards the target community. An objection of a methodological nature to research in motivation and attitudes done so far is that it has mostly been correlational and based on oneway influence (motivation influences language success). Longitudinal research, however, has shown that success in learning can have a positive influence on the motivation and attitudes of second language learners. Language Aptitude The influence that language aptitude has on the SLA process has only been measured in terms of the predictive value of language aptitude tests for language learning success at school. Researchers in this area are e.g. Carroll (1981) and Bogaards (1988). Carroll defines aptitude as the capability of learning an L2, this capability depending on a combination of more or less enduring characteristics of the learner. There are four independent abilities: Phonetic coding ability, grammatical sensitivity, rote learning ability for foreign language materials and inductive language learning ability. Carroll also developed a language aptitude test, the Modern Language Aptitude Test, which consists of five subtests. In these tests the subjects have to perform in the different areas mentioned above; for example, they have to memorize names for certain numbers, associate graphic symbols and English speech sounds, and identify the phrase in one sentence that functions the same way as a phrase in another sentence. Schneiderman - Desmarais (1988) studied (language) talent, a factor related to language aptitude. They researched whether talented second language learners' brains are organized differently from those of 'normal' second language learners. Their conclusion is interesting. They suggest that the right hemisphere of talented learners plays a greater role in processing an L2 than in other learners. Normally, the function of language is localized in the left hemisphere. Age Research on the role of age in the SLA process began with the biologist Lenneberg's work (1967). Lenneberg argued that the lateralization of the brain (whereby the function of language in most cases becomes localized in the left

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

27

hemisphere), together with a decrease in its plasticity, is responsible for the fact that young children can and older people cannot gain complete command of a second language. He calls the time in which a language can still be learned well the critical period. The critical period is short and ends abruptly, has lasting consequences and is genetically determined. The process is thought to begin after birth. Two main objections have been raised against Lenneberg's arguments. First of all, it has since been shown that the critical period does not extend into puberty, as Lenneberg thought, but can end as early as the sixth year (Long 1990). Long, and others, propose to call the period a sensitive period. In the second place, empirical research has shown that younger second language learners are not always better (but also not worse!) than adult learners. Although children generally learn to overcome the 'foreign accent', older people progress in morphology and syntax more quickly in the early stages of the acquisition process (Snow 1983, 1987). Children seem, however, to catch up very quickly. Long (1990) concludes that the second language learner's age influences the initial tempo of the process (older learner advantage) as well as the ultimate level reached (younger learner advantage). Cognitive Style Learning style, or cognitive style, refers to the way in which people process information, that is, how they learn. A number of cognitive styles have been identified, such as field independence versus field dependence, reflectivity versus impulsivity, and analytic versus holistic learning styles. Field independence is the ability to isolate an element from its context, and a field-independent learner is hypothesized to be a more successful L2 learner than a field-dependent L2 learner. Most of the studies into field-(in)dependency support this hypothesis (Naiman et al. 1978). A reflective language learner takes more time to make a decision than an impulsive learner, but he tends to make less errors (Doron 1973). Analytic learners, trying to formulate rules based upon the input they get, are less fluent but more accurate than holistic learners, who tend to be 'data-gatherers' (Hatch 1983). It is as yet difficult to draw conclusions about the effect of a predilection for a particular cognitive style on the SLA process. So far, research results are mixed, and even more importantly, there are serious doubts as to the adequacy with which particular cognitive styles are measured (Missler 1986), and whether certain cognitive styles, such as field (in)dependence, are distinct from general intelligence (Roach 1985). Personality Traits The methodological problems surrounding the research into learning styles are applicable to the research into the influence of personality factors on the SLA

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process. Guiora et al. (1975) studied the relationship between empathy (the ability to project oneself into a role) and language learning success, but found no unequivocal connection. In Larsen-Freeman - Long (1991) an up-to-date survey is given of the research done in this area. 5.5.

Conclusion

Research on the influence of social and psychological factors on the SLA process is characterized by methodological problems such as how factors like language aptitude and cognitive style ought to be measured and how the influence of different factors should be weighed. Since L2 learners can differ from each other with respect to their LI, the kind and amount of input they receive in the L2, and with respect to a number of social and psychological factors such as motivation, language aptitude and age, it should be viewed as a miracle that they show any common development. It seems plausible to conclude that this is due to the working of the human mind. Nevertheless, external factors do influence the SLA process, although it is as yet unknown to what extent and in what manner. The majority of researchers in SLA are convinced that external factors only influence the rate, but not the route of the L2 process. I believe it is too early to take this latter point of view, seeing as the relevant issues have only begun to be researched. These undecided issues are of the following type: Are the developmental stages of learners who are highly motivated identical or comparable to the stages learners with a low motivation go through? Is the order of acquisition the same in an L2 learning child as in an L2 learning adult, given that all other circumstances are identical? And according to Odlin (1989), even if it were proven that the route of acquisition was minimally influenced by external factors, the variation between various L2 learners within certain phases could still be explained by external factors. 6.

Theories of L2 learning

Theories in the field of SLA can be divided into two areas, depending on the question that one wishes to answer: 1 What are the linguistic prerequisites for learning an L2 and how is linguistic knowledge represented in the mind? 2 What determines the development over time and how can L2 development be explained?

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In the first area of research, the main question is what exactly has to be learned (as opposed to what is innate) and how does a learner accomplish this learning task. In the second area, the researcher tries to establish how learning processes are deployed in the language acquisition process. Of course, both areas often overlap, but I will try to deal with them separately. In this paragraph I will go further into the first area of research; I will present the assumptions concerning the working of the human mind and discuss the type of research that is done based upon these various assumptions. In paragraph 7 the second area of research will be discussed; there I will go into the findings of theories of L2 language development. Theories of L2 learning basically differ from each other on the following two points: (a) (b)

The innateness question: Is linguistic knowledge to some extent innate? The separate language module question: Is the linguistic ability of a completely different nature than other intellectual abilities, or is it part of them?

Many linguists assume that people are born with innate linguistic knowledge. This knowledge is thought to be different from other genetically (or otherwise) determined knowledge. Proof for this belief can be drawn from the fact that children learn their mother tongue in the same tempo, via the same developmental phases and with the same result, regardless of differences in culture, input (deaf children also learn sign language), social class or general intelligence (Curtiss 1988). A point often made against the innateness assumption is that the acquisition of grammar, as part of the linguistic system, appears to be a learning process, because it occurs relatively late. A child learns to walk, but also to run, jump, ride a bike and sometimes even ski before he acquires the ability to correctly apply all grammatical rules of his native language. Nativists conclude from this fact that grammar is innate, but is not drawn on until a later stage of general development (Wexler 1981). Voices against the innateness hypothesis have been coming from a neurobiological corner lately. Consider Jacobs' (1988) conclusion: In fact, the neurobiological evidence suggests that the environment brings much more to the primary language acquisition process than generative linguists traditionally acknowledge; they vastly underestimate, if not altogether ignore, the flexible capacity of the developing brain (329).

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With respect to (b) above, most generative linguists argue that the knowledge of language is of a different nature than non-linguistic knowledge. Cognitivist linguists, on the other hand, argue that language learning ability is part of a general cognitive learning capacity. Induction and hypothesis testing are thought of as the most important learning mechanisms. An argument in favour of this position is that the development of many linguistic abilities is interwoven with the development of non-linguistic abilities. Take, for example, the ability to form associations. At 9 months, my daughter said \vaf ('woof') to all sorts of dogs: Large, small, with and without hair, no matter the colour or whether the dog was walking or sleeping, but she never referred to other animals with waf. The formation of the concept DOG in her mind was clearly the onset of the production of the word waf. It could perhaps be argued that concepts are innate, along with the ability to associate, rather than or next to grammatical principles, because children younger than 12 months seem to be able to correctly understand and apply rather complex concepts. The opinions on these two issues cannot be easily divided into two groups. There are cognitivists who have nativistic sympathies, such as O'Grady (1987), who argues that linguistic knowledge is determined by innate principles that are not just linguistic, but of a more general, cognitive nature. And some researchers who believe in a separate language module are not dyed-in-the-wool nativists. Wexler (1981), for example, argues that linguistic abilities mature in early childhood. In the remainder of this section I will first discuss the learnability issue from a general cognitive perspective (section 6.1) and subsequently from the mainly nativistic perspective of a separate language module (section 6.2). 6.1.

Cognitive Theories of Learning

Cognitive theories of language learning have the assumption in common that language acquisition is a learning process and not a (partially) innate capacity. The mental processes that play a role in language learning are thought to be the same as those that play a role in other complex cognitive skills (for LI acquisition: O'Grady 1987; Slobin 1973, 1985; for SLA: Anderson 1980, 1983). Cognitivists try to explain how information is stored in memory and how new information is gained. The distinction is made between short term memory (STM), where small amounts of information are held for a short period of time, and long term memory (LTM), where information is stored in a network. According to O'Malley et al. (1987) and O'Malley - Chamot (1990) new information is gained in four stages:

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selection:

the learner selects certain information from the environment and transfers it to the working memory (STM) acquisition: information is transferred from the STM to the LTM construction: the learner lays internal connections between ideas in the STM; the LTM helps by supplying frameworks that the ideas fit into integration: the learner actively seeks knowledge in the LTM in order to use it in the STM to further build construction (compare stage 3) processes.

Another cognitive model of language acquisition is put forward by McLaughlin (1987). According to him, features of (L2) development can be attributed to two distinct processes, automaticity and restructuring. The learning of a language is seen as the acquisition of a complex cognitive skill which requires that different components become automatic and that internal representations (regarding vocabulary, grammar and pragmatic conventions) are restructured. Based on ideas from cognitive psychology (Shiffrin - Schneider 1977, for example), a distinction is made in the SLA process between two types of cognitive tasks: Those which demand much processing capacity, and those which require little processing capacity. It is assumed that a task which at first takes a lot of processing capacity can eventually, through practice, become a less capacityconsuming one. Like the model of O'Malley et al. (1987), this model assumes that the learning process involves transferring information to the Long Term Memory. Activation of the LTM can be either automatic or controlled. When the LTM is activated automatically, the learner does not have to pay attention as he does when activation is controlled: "Automatic processing involves the activation of certain nodes in memory every time the appropriate inputs are present. This activation is a learned response that has been built up through the consistent mapping of the same input to the same pattern of activation over many trials" (McLaughlin 1987: 134). The language acquisition process advances when more procedures are automated, so that controlled processes are able to take on new tasks. The human ability to process information is restricted. At a given moment, attention can be paid to a certain number of tasks. When less attention is needed for these tasks (when processing becomes more automatic), more attention can be paid to new tasks. The other mental process at work in language acquisition is restructuring. Restructuring is the process of imposing organization and structure upon the information that has been acquired. According to Karmiloff-Smith (1986) restructuring consists of three phases. In phase 1 the task components are learned based on input data, in phase 2 the components are organized, and in phase 3 new data are integrated into the system. Learning implies a constant changing of structures. This is achieved by adding to and adjusting internal representations. An analysis of the restructuring process is offered by Stauble (1978). She

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describes the development of negation in the English of two second language learners in terms of a series of transitional grammars that gradually approach that of the target language. In approaching the cognitive task of language learning from the learner's point of view, Klein (1986) distinguishes four stages in the "task of the learner", which are to a certain extent comparable with those of O'Malley et al. (1987), but he emphasizes the linguistic aspect of the process: analysis: synthesis: embedding: matching:

acoustic signals are broken up into constituents words are combined context is used to understand what is being said, often with the help of non-verbal means learner's own output is compared with the target language norm.

Klein illustrates these tasks as follows. A Japanese person visits Germany without any knowledge of the language. During breakfast a German asks: axkoenanzi: mi :rma: Idaszaltsral93nblt3 /oe: n The task of analysis is that the person has to identify the units (constituents) in this sound stream and has to learn the meaning of these units (Ach, können Sie mir mal das Salz reichen, bitte schön?, Oh could you please pass me the salt'): "The process of understanding speech comprises innumerable cycles of formulating a hypothesis, testing it, and drawing a conclusion - all based on the knowledge available to the learner" (1986: 60). Once a learner knows some words in the L2, he has to try and put them together: The task of synthesis. This task is a prerequisite for production, but is on a different level also relevant for comprehension. In returning to the example of the Japanese tourist in Germany, it is clear what Klein means with the task of embedding. The German who asks for the salt is obviously searching for something, probably has an egg in front of him and may make gestures accompanying the acoustic event. In addition to parallel visual information, the linguistic context also helps the learner with his embedding problems. And lastly, matching involves the learner improving his command of the L2 by comparing his utterances with those of native speakers. This process is comparable with the process of restructuring described above. "Where the two languages (the learner's native language and the target language) differ distinctly in structure, the problem is relatively easy to solve: the learner can readily discover the discrepancy between his variety and the target [...]. However, structures of some similarity present much more of a problem: The learner may either remain completely unaware of or be unable to identify them with ease and with adequate precision" (1986: 62). For instance,

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many L2 learners of English never realize the phonetic difference between bed and bet. Some linguists consider Slobin (1973, 1985) as one of the most important cognitive linguists. According to him, children acquire their primary language by using certain cognitive principles, operating principles (OP). He calls these principles self-instruction rules. Some examples of these principles are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

pay attention to the end of words words' phonological forms can be changed systematically pay attention to the order of words and morphemes avoid interrupting or regrouping linguistic units underlying relations must be stated openly and clearly avoid exceptions use of grammatical markers must be significant

Clahsen (1984) found empirical evidence for two of these principles in L2 data. He claims that the acquisition of word order in German as an L2 (compare section 4.1) is explained by the application of the following two strategies by L2 learners: A canonical order strategy (COS) and an initialization/fmalization strategy (IPS). The COS predicts, for example, that "the separation of a particle from the verb requires processing capacity because the underlying unit cannot be mapped directly onto the surface structure" (Clahsen 1984: 222). For instance, in a certain phase of development, L2 learners of German tend to say Ich -will arbeiten in Deutschland instead of Ich will in Deutschland arbeiten, thus avoiding interrupting linguistic units (OP 4). The IPS predicts that movement from a sentence-internal position to sentence-initial or sentence-final position requires less processing capacity than vice versa, because initial and endpositions are perceptually more salient. 6.2.

Nativist Theories of Language Learning

It is assumed in the field of Generative Grammar that the language learning ability is at least partially innate: A number of principles, that impose restrictions on the form of the grammars of natural languages, are already fixed in a child's brain at birth. The innate principles are universal, in the sense that they are independent of the features of the language which the child will eventually learn. The whole of these principles is called Universal Grammar (UG). According to generative linguists, the fact that a child learns a language in a short period of time, with a restricted and even deficient language input, can be explained only by the existence of UG. One example of a universal principle is structure dependency. When a child learns interrogative sentences, it learns to place the finite verb in sentence initial position:

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(9) a. b.

The doll is pretty Is. the doll pretty?

(10) a. b.

The doll is gone Is_ the doll gone?

If children lacked insight into structure dependency, it should follow that they make errors such as (lib), since they would not know that the doll is pretty is the sentence to be put in the interrogative form: (11) a. b. c.

The doll that is gone, is pretty. *Is the doll that (0) gone, is pretty? Is the doll that is gone (0) pretty?

But children do not seem to produce incorrect sentences such as (lib), and nativist linguists therefore conclude that insight into structure dependency must be innate. Although examples of this kind convincingly indicate that a child has insight into structure dependency at the moment he is producing sentences such as (9b and lOb), it does not necessarily follow that this knowledge can not be learned (see Jordens 1990: 27f). Jordens argues that (lie) can be learned by substitution. Children initially learn how simple sentences such as (9) and (10) can be put in the interrogative form. At a later stage they will learn that NPs such as the doll can be substituted by more complex constituents. The question of the innateness of linguistic knowledge remains unsolved. It is necessary to realize that UG is a theoretical construct; it is possible that something comparable to UG exists, but then as part of a general cognitive system (compare Klein 1986, 1990). One of the main goals of nativist theory with respect to research in SLA is to test the psychological reality of specific UG principles as defined in linguistic theory. Nativists, however, are also interested in the mechanisms of language learning, that is, in the learnability of aspects of language. In the following, I will first discuss the ideas of Krashen, which can be viewed as a starting point in nativist learning theory, and then turn to current ideas within Generative Grammar on the question of the learnability of language. 6.2.1.

History of nativist learning theory: Krashen

Krashen's ideas about the innateness of linguistic knowledge in SLA are broader than is usual for a nativist in the sense that he does not restrict himself to syntactic principles. But his views are in agreement with the idea of many

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nativists that older learners have this ability at their disposal to the same degree as younger learners do. Krashen's (1981, 1982, 1985) model is based on five hypotheses, which I will summarize here: /. Learning versus Acquisition Hypothesis Adult second language learners have two means at their disposal for achieving competence in a second language: Acquisition (comparable to LI acquisition) is a subconscious process and comes about only through interaction in a situation where there is natural conversation. Learning is a conscious process: Rules are consciously applied. Acquisition and spontaneous production do not automatically nor necessarily follow from learning. This idea contrasts with cognitivist views such as those of McLaughlin (1987), who argues that acquisition (automaticity) occurs only after learning (controlled processing; compare paragraph 6.1). 2. Monitor Hypothesis Performance is steered by the acquired knowledge, and conscious application of rules is either absent or may only have an editorial function: Right before or after speaking an utterance can be put 'under the monitor'. Conscious learning processes are not used in comprehension, only in production. 3. Natural Sequence of Acquisition Hypothesis Language rules are acquired in a set sequence, regardless of the native language or the order in which rules are presented in an educational setting. 4. Input Hypothesis A learner makes progress in the SLA process by understanding input that is just beyond his own level (i+1, also: intake, or comprehensible input). 5. Affective Filter Hypothesis Comprehensible input is only used by a second language learner when he does not have a 'mental block' hindering him: His motivation, attitudes and/or emotional state. This is called the affective filter. The affective filter also determines the speed (and premature arrest, i.e. fossilization) of the SLA process. In general, Krashen's ideas have been received enthusiastically by foreign language teachers, but linguists have shown reservations. One example is White (1987), who takes exception to Krashen's focus on comprehensible input; according to her, /«comprehensible input often stimulates progress. For instance, sentences such as (12) stimulate the acquisition of the passive construction, whereas sentences such as (13) do not, as they can easily be interpreted incorrectly as being active:

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The food is eaten by John. Melissa was hit by John.

Since (12) is incomprehensible if interpreted as an active sentence, the passive meaning is more easily triggered than in sentences such as (13). According to McLaughlin (1987), Krashen's model fails on all points. McLaughlin's main point of criticism concerns the fact that this model cannot be tested empirically. For instance, the concept of comprehensible input, and the idea of what is "just beyond (above) the learner's level" are not defined and so cannot be tested. Furthermore, there is no information about how different parts of the affective filter work, i.e., how individual differences can be explained. In spite of the fact that Krashen received a lot of criticism, parts of his model are still being used and studied. 5.2.2.

Recent developments in nativist learning theory

In the introduction to this chapter we saw that nativist theory claims that linguistic principles and parameters are (partly) innate, and autonomous of other cognitive abilities. This does not mean that nativists have ignored the aspects of language which have to be learned, or ignored the issue of the relationship between language acquisition and other cognitive abilities. In this section I will successively go into the ideas on these two issues. How is language learned? In the eighties, nativists philosophized about how language learning occurs. Globally, we can make a distinction between two perspectives: 1. The language learning process occurs through maturation (Wexler 1981); not all linguistic principles are present at birth; they mature as the child grows. 2. All linguistic principles are present and available at birth, but a child does not always recognize the relevant data: input does not equal intake (White 1987). What do children and second language learners do exactly when they acquire a language? Based on what they hear, the input, they have to construct a grammar. There are two types of input that learners can use to build a grammar: Positive evidence and negative evidence. Positive evidence is what the learner actually hears: The input. Negative evidence indicates correction: When a learner makes a mistake, he may receive '(negative) evidence' that the structure is wrong. Nativists argue that a child is not provided with negative evidence, and if he is, he does not make use of it. When a parent or guardian rephrases a child's incorrect utterance in a grammatically correct form, it may or may not be

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considered by the child to be a correction, because rephrasing itself is not an indication of a mistake. In conversations, people rephrase each other's utterances all the time. Notwithstanding these arguments, some researchers have recently asserted that negative evidence in the form of corrections may exist (Schachter 1986; Hirsh-Pasek et al. 1984), but the majority of researchers still believe that children learn to adjust their own incorrect hypotheses about language phenomena based solely on positive evidence. The question, of course, is: How do they do this? Baker (1981) provides an answer. According to him, children learn conservatively. At first they do not say more than what they have heard. This idea is worked out into the Subset Principle (SP) (Wexler - Manzini 1987). The SP can be visualized as follows:

Assume grammar A contains structure X but not structure Y. The Subset Principle claims that a child starts to work with the most restrictive grammar that agrees with the input, i.e. X. That is, when confronted with this particular grammar A, children will never produce Υ because they never hear it. If a language contains Y, a child will hear examples of it and based on that will take on the broader grammar. If a child were to initially assume the broadest grammar, he would need to receive negative evidence (i.e., be corrected), but this is thought to be either absent or ignored by the child. The operation of the Subset Principle can be illustrated by an example from Baker (1979): (14) a. b. (15) a. b. (16) a. b.

The child seems to be sleepy. The child seems sleepy. The child appears to be sleepy. The child appears sleepy. The child happens to be sleepy. *The child happens sleepy.

The fact that children do not produce sentences such as (16b) can be explained by the fact that they initially assume a restrictive rule of grammar: To be can be

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deleted if combined with the verbs to seem and to appear, and not a broader rule such as: To be can be deleted in combination with all modal verbs. A counterexample in this context is the so-called double object construction in English. This construction is possible with verbs like give, but not with verbs like demonstrate: (17) a. b.

/ gave a present to Anthony. / gave Anthony a present.

(18) a. b.

/ demonstrated my affection to Anthony. */ demonstrated Anthony my affection.

Since children never hear constructions such as (18b), the Subset Principle predicts that they never produce this type of sentence. A major problem with this, as shown by Bowerman (1988), is that children do use this type of construction rather often. Comrie (1990) shows how the Subset Principle may be used in the acquisition of the \vh-extraction rule. There are roughly three possibilities in languages with respect to extraction: a. no extraction occurs, as in Chinese You saw -who? b. extraction occurs only within the clause, as in Russian Who did you see (-)? c. extraction occurs beyond clause boundaries, as in English Who did you say [that John saw (-)]? The Subset Principle "requires that children first assume that only extractions of type (a) are possible, and that only if and when faced with sentences of type (b) will the parameter setting be relaxed to allow such extractions. Further, it requires that only if and when extractions of type (c) are encountered will the parameter setting be further relaxed to allow them" (Comrie 1990: 213). According to Comrie, it may be necessary to appeal to the subset principle to account for LI development with respect to extraction phenomena, but it remains uncertain whether it also applies in L2 acquisition. Is the Subset Principle also available to second language learners? Research in this area shows that second language learners often do not initially assume the least constrained grammar, but make overgeneralizations that are often guided by the first language. Based on these results, White (1989a: 169; 1989b) and Van Buren (this volume) suggest that the Subset Principle is not available to L2 learners.

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What is the relationship between language and other cognitive abilities? Generative grammar assumes a separate language module which functions autonomously, i.e., independent of other cognitive domains. The language module processes linguistic input and the output is then passed on to central processors which are not domain-specific. The language module itself consists of different sub-domains (also called modules or units), that to a certain extent function independently of each other, but which also interact. According to White (1989a: 178), the language module consists of UG, language learning principles (such as the Subset Principle), a language-specific grammar, and a language analyst (parser). An explanation for the differences between first and second language learners could be that changes occur in the modular interaction later in life, or that second language learners transfer certain modular interactions from the primary to the target language. For example, it is possible that in L2 acquisition the Subset Principle is no longer available, and that 'there is a breakdown between two of the sub-domains that form part of the language module' (White 1989a: 178). In his Competition Model', Felix (1984) proposes yet another form of modular interaction. He tries to link language acquisition with the acquisition of other cognitive abilities. According to him, the human mind is not made up of a finite set of learning principles that go to work on every intellectual task, but consists of a limited number of independent (yet interacting) cognitive subsystems for (mostly) very specific mental tasks; for language this is a language specific system. In addition to this, we have at our disposal a cognitive subsystem that executes general problem-solving tasks. These two systems start to compete with each other at puberty: The problem-solving sub-system causes the second language learner not to reach his goal, i.e.", he is using the wrong system. This model fits in with Jacobs' (1988) neurobiological findings (cf. The introduction to section 6). 6.3.

Evaluation of cognitive and nativist theories of learning

Although cognitive theory is intuitively attractive to many people, so far it is of a general descriptive nature (e.g. Clahsen 1984). Few explicit linguistic predictions have been made which can be tested empirically. According to this theory, for instance, transfer occurs when a learner incorrectly uses an automatic routine from his first language in his second language, but the theory cannot predict when transfer will or will not occur. This shortcoming is not present in nativist theory of language learning. The trouble here lies in the assumptions. Hence, a number of questions remain, like whether the principles of Universal Grammar are empirically tenable. Secondly, as long as it is not empirically proven that correction does not play a role in language acquisition (see section 5.3 and 6.2.2), the no-negative evidence-

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hypothesis is a theoretical construct as well. And lastly, the Subset Principle, a learning principle in LI acquisition, often does not seem to work in adult L2 acquisition. If the Subset Principle is a learning mechanism, it seems hard to believe that people lose it with age. In practice, the differences between cognitive and nativist theory are much smaller than may seem. The restructuring process in cognitive theory is to a large extent comparable to the theory described by Felix (1984): Second language learners 'restructure' their existing interlanguage by activating a new UG principle. Clahsen (1988: 49, for example) goes so far as to explicitly use the term restructuring when referring to children's fixing of parameter values. One could argue that with respect to SLA, the innateness question is relatively unimportant: In seeking to explain the L2 process, it is important to identify the principles at work; the question whether these principles are either innate or learned can perhaps better be answered by neurobiologists. 7.

Theories of L2 development

In paragraph 2 three questions were raised concerning SLA research. They were: a. What are the universal features of SLA? b. What are the variable factors of SLA? c. What is the theoretical relevance of SLA research? This paragraph deals with this latter question. 7.1

Contrastive analysis, creative construction and interlanguage

The first testable hypothesis that was postulated about SLA is the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH) (Fries 1945; Lado 1957), which says that the SLA process can be explained and even predicted by comparing the grammatical system of the first language with that of the second language. Where the two languages differ from each other structurally, second language learners will experience problems. The hypothesis did not hold long in its original form. Analyses of the mistakes that learners made revealed that predicted mistakes were not always made and mistakes that were made could not always be traced back to the first language- i.e., they weren't interference errors, resulting from transfer (Dulay Burt 1973; George 1972). Secondly, it appeared that many errors L2 learners made could not easily be classified as either being caused by interference from the native language or by some other mechanism, for instance, by a general developmental constraint (Felix 1980). Furthermore, it was argued that L2 errors

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were not the only indication of learner problems: Learners tend to avoid structures they do not master. And lastly, it was not clear how to compare languages with each other: Does the native language interfere in grammar only, or also in meaning and communicative functions? Despite these points of criticism, the contrastive analysis hypothesis has contributed to current theory formation by revealing the important role of the native language in the SLA process (see also paragraph 5.2). The creative construction hypothesis (CCH) (Dulay - Burt 1974) sprang up in reaction to the original form of the CAH. This hypothesis suggests that the SLA process is creative as it is almost completely uninfluenced by the first language and is, in most regards, identical to the first language acquisition process. This hypothesis has only historical importance: It was rejected for the same reasons as the CAH; it could not explain, and made incorrect predictions about, many aspects of the L2 process. The CCH, however, led to a very important insight, namely, that in the process which a second language learner goes through, each stage is guided by an underlying coherent system and as such is equivalent to other 'normal' natural languages. This system was labeled interlanguage (Selinker 1972). From that moment on, the development of second language learners was no longer described in terms of mistakes (in comparison with what a native speaker would do), but in terms of developmental phases. Subsequently, many data were collected in order to be able to identify the various developmental phases in SLA (see paragraph 4 for research findings of this type). The degree to which the SLA process is similar or at least comparable to the first language acquisition process is still a point of contention between researchers, as is the transfer question. Schachter (1989) writes very lucidly about this. She wonders how someone could be so naive as to believe that the two processes are the same, seeing as second language learners never acquire a complete command of the L2 grammar (even the very good ones avoid complex constructions). All children learn their native language to about the same degree, regardless which one it is, while the differences between for example a German and a Chinese L2 learner of Dutch are enormous, especially in the early phases of the learning process. That is, the phenomenon of transfer attests to the diversity of learning processes. Also, L2 learners with the same native language often show large differences in performance. And lastly, fossilization is a phenomenon frequent in SLA, but does not occur in native language acquisition. 7.2.

Language universals

Research on language universals involves the study of similarities and differences between the languages of the world. Comrie (1990) and Carroll - Meisel (1990) discuss the relevance of research on language universals for SLA research. In

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their survey, Carroll - Meisel (1990) deal with typological universale among other things. They refer to the work of Eckman (1985, 1991), who explains phenomena in L2 learners' interlanguage based on this type of universal. Eckman shows that German L2 learners of English have problems learning voiced obstruents at the end of a word, but English L2 learners of German do not have problems with the absence of voiced obstruents at the end of German words. For instance, Germans often incorrectly pronounce kid and rib with a voiceless I\J and /p/ respectively, whereas in general English L2 learners correctly pronounce das Pferd with a voiceless /t/. The following typological universal explains this fact: It is true for all languages that if a voiced obstruent (d, b, g) can occur in a word final position, a voiceless obstruent (t, p, k) can also occur in a word final position. Zobl (1984) also explains certain SLA phenomena typologically: Dutch and German learners never make transfer errors in English of the type, / have the man not seen, even though this is a literal translation from the LI. This is because this sequence is the result of a rather atypical rule (verb-second); the Dutch and the Germans seem somehow to 'know' this. 7.3.

Cognitive explanations of the SLA process

In the ESF project (compare Extra - van Hout, chapter 2) SLA is studied from a cognitive point of view. The theoretical assumptions behind it can be found in Klein (1986) and in Von Stutterheim - Klein (1987), among others. The general cognitive point of departure is reflected in the main research issues of this study: The development of cognitive-semantic concepts like reference to space, time and place. As adult L2 learners, unlike first language learners, have basic concepts like temporality, modality and locality already at their disposal, it is assumed that first and second language acquisition cannot be compared. The way of analyzing SLA data in the ESF project can be viewed as functional and therefore may be classified as belonging to functional linguistics. Tomlin (1990) gives a survey of the kind of SLA research that has been done in recent years under the heading 'functional'. One of the most essential features of functional linguistics is that it is assumed that an element of language not only has a grammatical form, but also a semantic and a pragmatic function. Native speakers have knowledge of these functions just as they have knowledge of the grammatical forms. Every native speaker of Dutch, for instance, knows that the personal pronoun hij can refer to things or to male beings, while the feminine pronoun zij refers mainly to female beings. This has nothing to do with

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grammatical form. Both elements behave almost completely the same syntactically. Research on SLA has already produced evidence for the usefulness of a functional approach. Klein - Perdue (1988) and Tomlin (1990) conclude that children, as well as L2 learners who learn the target language spontanously (without formal instruction), acquire deictic pronouns (/, you) sooner than anaphoric pronouns (he, she, if). This fact can only be explained in functional terms. Klein - Perdue (1988) argue that the way in which second language learners acquire the system of referring, determines to a large extent the acquisition of the nominal constituent and even influences the acquisition of word order, showing the explanatory power of a functional approach. Some doubts must be cast on this latter point: The introduction of the concept function into a model of language acquisition does not have an explanatory value per se: The question of why L2 learners acquire one function or structure before another has not yet been answered. In an attempt to explain development in terms of functions, Lalleman (1993) proposes that a relationship of markedness may exist between the functions of one or more grammatical features and not between the features themselves. Input plays an important role in this model: The function which native speakers use more often than its alternative, and which is therefore heard more often by L2 learners, is unmarked. Markedness is thus determined by the frequency with which a specific function is heard by the learner. The facts concerning the acquisition of personal pronouns may then be explained as follows. Anaphoric and deictic pronouns belong to the same grammatical class. There is a difference between the pronouns, however; their pragmatic functions are not identical. The function of anaphoric pronouns is to refer whereas deictic pronouns identify. When anaphoric pronouns are used, the person or thing is not or does not have to be visually present, whereas this is obligatory with deictic pronouns. This means that deictic and anaphoric pronouns are not related to each other with regard to their pragmatic function. Anaphoric pronouns do have a functional relationship with nouns and are the marked partner in this relationship: They occur less frequently than nouns and in many contexts are sooner thought of as unnatural or confusing than are nouns. For instance, analyses of foreigner talk (FT) and baby talk (BT) show that native speakers consider naming easier than referring (Werkgroep Taal Buitenlandse Werknemers 1978; Snow 1972). The primary function of deictic pronouns is the indication of a person who is present, and this is even for young children cognitively less difficult and more natural than naming the person. Deictic pronouns, therefore, do not have a relationship of markedness with noun phrases. If two people are watching television together, the following conversation is hard to imagine:

44

Josine Lalleman

Tom: What does Isabel think of this film? Isabel: Isabel thinks it's exciting. And Tom? Parents begin using deictic pronouns very early when talking to their children, although they also talk about themselves in the third person ('Will mommie do that for you!'). They often avoid, however, using anaphoric pronouns. The same holds for language spoken to immigrants (Werkgroep TBW 1978). In the frequency data of Uit den Boogaard (1975) the pronoun ik occurs four times as often in spoken Dutch as the pronoun hij ('ie). Since the input of beginning L2 learners, if acquiring Dutch without formal instruction, is mainly spoken Dutch, they hear deictic pronouns much more often than anaphoric pronouns. The fact that foreign workers in the Netherlands acquire deictic pronouns within the same period that nouns are acquired, but sooner than anaphoric pronouns, is indirectly explained when relationships of markedness are taken into account: Deictic pronouns do not relate to nouns in terms of markedness, anaphoric pronouns are marked with regard to nouns. 7.4.

Nativist explanations of the SLA process

Within the past ten years, generative linguists have become interested in SLA and especially in the question whether the generative model can explain the SLA process. This means that they are aiming for a linguistic explanation of the data. Extralinguistic factors (age, motivation, cognitive style, etc.) are not included in the model. Only the factors of input and the native language play a role in the models proposed (see paragraph 5.2 and 5.3). I will discuss the following two areas where generative linguists have contributed to SLA theory: 1. The comparison of the process of SLA and LI acquisition 2. The influence of the LI on the acquisition of the L2 The first question relates to the fundamental question in Generative Grammar concerning the division between what is genetically present in the human mind and what has to be learned. Furthermore, does the knowledge of a first language influence the balance in this division, in the sense that an L2 learner's task is biologically different from the LI learner's task? This issue is dealt with in paragraph 7.4.1. As researchers were aware of the LI influence on the acquisition of an L2, they became interested in how this difference could be explained within the theoretical framework of Generative Grammar. This issue is dealt with in paragraph 7.4.2.

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45

The difference between L2 and LI acquisition in terms of UG

Assuming that humans possess an innate linguistic ability in the form of Universal Grammar, the following question has been raised: Do L2 learners have this 'knowledge' at their disposal also, or do only children have access to it during the first language acquisition process? That is, are the grammars which L2 learners adopt during their learning process, possible grammars in terms of UG? This question can be seen as a sharper formulation of the same question, known in the seventies as the L2 = LI? question (Ervin-Tripp 1978). According to Ritchie (1978) and Flynn (1987), among others, UG is accessable to L2 learners. Arguments in favour of accessibility of UG can also be found in two chapters of this volume, in the contributions by Schwartz and Hulk. Bley-Vroman (1988), on the other hand, argues for a general problemsolving capability as a surrogate for UG in adult SLA. Similarly, Clahsen Muysken (1986) and Clahsen (1988) do not believe in the accessibility of UG to L2 learners. Clahsen (1988) points out that in several cases, the properties of a parameter, that by definition are set by children simultaneously, are proven to be acquired over a period of time in L2 development (see below for a definition of parameters). Felix (1985) proposes a middle course with his competition model (see also section 6.2.2.B). His reasoning is that the human mind consists of a certain number of independent sub-systems for specific cognitive tasks and a system that executes general cognitive tasks, among which problem-solving tasks. These two systems start to compete at puberty. The problem-solving sub-system prevents the second language learner from reaching his goal; he is using the wrong system. Felix argues then that UG is only partly accessible to L2 learners. In the second half of the eighties, parameter theory (Rizzi 1978; Chomsky 1981) was introduced in SLA research, and the original L2 = LI? question was again rephrased. A parameter is a set of reciprocally related characteristics; these sets of characteristics form part of UG. Every parameter receives a certain value in a language; most parameters are binary (plus or minus). Languages differ systematically from one another in the values that the different parameters receive. For instance, the pro-drop parameter divides languages into two categories, each with a number of compatible properties. The + values are for languages having pro-drop, and the - values for languages which do not have it:

46

1. 2. 3.

Josine Lalleman

+ PRO-DROP

- PRO-DROP

null Subject Vino a casa inversion Vino Juan thai-trace Quien dijiste que vino?

lexical Subject He came home no inversion * Came John no thai-trace * Who did you say that came?

This last property is not accepted as being part of the parameter by all researchers; Hyams (1986), for inslance, considers only Ihe first two properties to be part of the parameter. Parameter theory predicts that when a child hears sentences with a particular property, for instance Subject-inversion, this is a trigger not only for this specific word order phenomenon, but also for thatfrace-constructions. In other words, children need positive evidence for only one of the properties of the parameler to be able to set all properties. For language acquisition theory, parameter theory provides an explanation for how children learn: Children have to learn to set the appropriate parameter values (see, for example, Clahsen 1988: 48 and Travis 1988: 90). The question for SLA to be researched is then: Are second language learners capable of discovering which values the different parameters have in the L2 and are they capable of reselling Ihe parameter, if necessary? I will discuss Ihe answer to this question, using the head-parameter (Flynn 1987; Hulk 1991; Clahsen - Muysken 1989) as an example. In verbal constituenls, the head parameter has two options: 1. Verb-Object (VO) vs. Object-Verb (OV) ordering 2. Inflection Verb-Object (IVO) vs. Object-Verb Inflection (OVI) ordering (the inflected verb can be either a lexical or an auxiliary verb) Hulk (1991) studied whether LI speakers of Dutch (OV; OVI) were able to adopt the opposite head parameter value from thai of Iheir nalive language in L2 French (VO; IVO). She worked wilh four groups of subjecls, each represenling a different developmental stage. Hulk concluded that these learners started out with an SOV word order in French before they reset the head parameter, which they did at the second developmental slage. Sludies such as Hulk's show lhal ihere is some evidence for Ihe reselling of parameters by L2 learners, and ihus, that L2 learners have access to UG principles in adulthood. Opinions on the relevance of the notion of parameter vary however. Klein (1990: 223) feels thai the entire generative framework musl be abandoned if UG principles should prove unavailable lo L2 learners, a view nol endorsed by Ihe

The state of the art in second language acquisition research

47

generativists (White 1990: 132) nor by many others (cf. Jordens 1990). Jordens argues that whether or not linguistic knowledge is innate, generative grammar provides an adequate representation of the linguistic knowledge of LI and L2 learners. Nonetheless, there is not enough evidence to assume complete UG accessibility for L2 learners, and thus to answer the L2=L1? question unequivocally in a positive manner. 7.4.2.

The influence of the LI on SLA

The second issue dealt with in generative grammar studies on SLA concerns the influence of the LI on the acquisition of the L2. I will discuss this issue using markedness theory and parameter theory. Markedness Theory The concept of markedness has been defined in various ways within the generative framework of L2 research (White 1989a) as well as in theoretical linguistics. The concept of markedness in SLA research is used to adapt the contrastive analysis hypothesis. As we saw in paragraph 7.1, differences between languages do not always lead to difficulties for L2 learners. Markedness theory offers a solution to this problem. The basic idea is that, if there are two ways to express the same meaning, one of the possibilities has a special status, or is marked. SLA research has revealed that marked structures in the target language are more difficult to learn than unmarked structures, and that marked structures in LI are seldom transferred to L2, if at all. Chinese students learning Dutch, for example, seem to avoid indefinite articles more than definite ones when the noun has the function of subject, because the use of an indefinite subject often requires a marked structure (compare: het meisje loopt, 'the girl walks' and er loopt een meisje, literally: 'there walks a girl') (Lalleman 1993). Eckman (1977, 1985) offers a hypothesis concerning relationships of markedness based on language typology: Typologically marked elements of the target language are the most difficult elements to learn, especially if these elements are unmarked in the native language of the L2 learner (see 7.2). Zobl (1980), for example, discovered that French L2 learners of English almost never incorrectly place object pronouns in front of the verb (*/ her see), but that English learners do incorrectly place object pronouns after the verb in French (*Je vois eile instead of Je la vow). This can be explained by the fact that in French, the preverbal position of the pronoun is marked. French learners do not transfer this marked structure.

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Principles and Parameters For parameter theory (see paragraph 7.4.1), the relevant question concerning the influence of the LI on the L2 is: Do second language learners initially assume the LI parameter values to hold in the L2 as well? This question is a further generative refinement of the original question on the role of the native language in L2 acquisition. It concerns the question of how the second language is influenced by the structure of the first language on an abstract level. I will discuss the relevant research, using the pro-drop parameter as an example (see also the previous paragraph). It is generally assumed that -^prodrop represents the unmarked value of the parameter. White (1985) has carried out one of the relevant L2 studies on this issue. She investigated whether Spanish L2 learners of English transferred the LI value of the pro-drop parameter to the L2. The control group consisted of French speakers (French is a non pro-drop language, like English). The subjects had to give judgements about the grammaticality of sentences which contained the properties of the pro-drop parameter. However, the Spanish and the French L2 learners only differed from each other with respect to the use of null-subjects. This is a rather disappointing result, since Old fashioned' contrastive analysis would have predicted the same outcome. According to White, either the pro-drop parameter is not correctly defined or the parameter itself, as part of UG, is not accessible for adults. As White admits herself, however, it is possible that the results are not completely reliable, since sentences with inversion in Spanish occur mostly with ergative verbs and this type of sentence is not used in English. Furthermore, sentences with thai-trace were too difficult for most of the learners. And lastly, the factors of word choice and sentence length were not controlled for in this study: There were less sentences with thai-trace than sentences of the other types. This, of course, also negatively influences the reliability of the experiment. Since parameter theory is rather new and parameters are subject to many readjustments, is seems to be premature to conclude from this type of research that UG is, or is not, accessible for adults. 7.5.

Evaluation of cognitive and nativist theories of L2 development

Cognitive theories, as discussed in paragraph 6.1, have been primarily occupied with defining the way in which learning in general takes place (O'Malley et al. 1987), and how L2 learning can be described in terms of this general process (Klein 1986; McLaughlin 1987). Carroll - Meisel (1990), in their discussion of Gasser (1990), criticize the broad descriptions of L2 development resulting from a connectionist model. It seems that this criticism holds for many cognitive approaches to L2 development:

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Unfortunately, his presentation [....] leads us to the conclusion that [...] much of (psycho)linguistic research is irrelevant to explaining language acquisition. There are no mental representations of sentences, words or sounds that encode primitives like complementizer, head, or strong branch. Consequently, the operations of the learning theory cannot be sensitive to these notions. On the basis of the present results, we are not inclined to abandon the ship of grammatical theory (205). This type of criticism, however, does not hold for studies such as Klein - Perdue (1988) and Bhardwaj et al. (1988), in which concepts such as temporality are basic concepts in the description of spontaneous L2 acquisition. In this functional approach to language acquisition, attention is paid not only to grammatical relations but also to functional relationships in a language. However, it remains unclear whether this approach offers a solid framework for the explanation of L2 development. In recent years, generative grammarians have studied certain linguistic concepts such as principles and parameters. Research has been done to find out if L2 learners initially transfer the parameter value of the LI to the L2 and then reset the value later, and whether UG is still accessible to L2 learners. This type of research is interesting, for the theory of Generative Grammar provides a clear theoretical framework within which hypotheses can be tested. But many linguists cannot go along with all the assumptions made in this theory. For instance, a number of linguists believe that learning does take place on the basis of corrections from the environment and that input plays a crucial role in L2 acquisition as well as in LI acquisition. Another point of criticism refers to the methodology used (see for example paragraph 3.1, 3.3 and 3.5). According to a number of researchers, generative theory is overly complicated, while alternative explanations are often relatively easy to formulate (Bley-Vroman - Chaudron 1990; Jordens 1986). Furthermore, research is done into syntactic variables only. And lastly, the conclusions that various researchers draw from their results often contradict each other with respect to the main questions asked: It remains unclear whether UG is accessible to L2 learners and whether L2 learners are capable of resetting values of parameters. 8.

What is known today about second language acquisition?

In this paragraph, I will summarize what has been learned about processes in SLA through the years, and what is still unclear. It is divided up into the description of the process, the weighing of external factors and the explanation of the process.

-^

8. L

Jos ine Lalleman

The description of the process

We have a fairly complete picture of the way in which L2 learners acquire particular grammatical constructions in English and German as an L2, and to a lesser degree in some other languages, like Dutch. The main grammatical constructions researched are negation, word order phenomena and interrogative sentences (for an overview, see Larsen-Freeman - Long 1991: 92-96). The native languages of the learners involved are rather restricted as well; most studies have used learners with Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Turkish or Arabic as a native language. It is generally assumed that there are set orders of acquisition whereby certain structures can be learned only after others have been acquired. Ellis (1989), for instance, found that English L2 learners of German, who had learned German in an educational setting, showed the same order of acquisition for different word order rules as immigrants who had learned German spontaneously (Meisel et al. 1981, see also paragraph 4.1): 1. particle movement

2. inversion

3. verb-end

Ich kann nichts bezahlen. I can nothing pay Ί cannot pay anything' Vielleicht bleibe ich hier. maybe stay I here Ί will probably stay here' Ich weiss nicht wer das gesagt hat. I know not who that said has Ί don't know who said that'

Also, the acquisition order of a number of (unrelated) morphological features has been shown to be universal to a large extent (Krashen 1981; Dulay et al. 1982; see paragraph 4.2). So far, more research has been done on the acquisition of morpho-syntactic properties than on the acquisition of phonology and L2 lexicon or functional aspects of SLA. Many authors feel that the available material has been sufficiently analyzed to consider the 'universal route of acquisition' proven. But there are a number of researchers who express some doubt. Lightbown (1983, 1984), for example, suggests that it has not been proven that input, LI and degree of social integration have no influence whatsoever on the route of acquisition. Furthermore, Hakuta - Cancino (1977), McLaughlin (1984), Ellis (1985), Wode (1981) and Zobl (1979) feel that the very existence of a natural sequence of acquisition has not yet been sufficiently proven. Ellis' (1985) conclusion is:

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[...] until some means of reconciling these differences can be agreed upon, it must be acknowledged that, despite our increasing knowledge of what takes place in SLA, we are not yet able to produce a description that is both generalizable and reliable (286). 8.2.

Influences on the process

Many applied linguists believe that research into the influence of factors such as motivation and formal education on the SLA process is of little interest, given that language acquisition is mainly determined by Universal Grammar. Ellis (1985: 99), however, states that the influence of these non-linguistic factors on the nature or route of the acquisition process has rarely been studied seriously (see Skehan 1989 and Odlin 1989 for the same argumentation). For instance, it would be revealing to know whether developmental transitions of learners who receive a lot of input, differ from those of learners with a small amount of input. The problem is that this type of research is often practically impossible. Cazden (1965, 1972) studied the influence of adults' expansions of children's utterances by exposing one group of children to systematically more expansions than another group. She found no measurable effect on the acquisition of grammar. It would be interesting (but somewhat immoral and unnatural) to find out whether consistent Verb-Object input would have an effect on Dutch LI and L2 acquisition (in Dutch Verb-Object order is possible but restricted). Would these learners set the head parameter incorrectly? If so, what kind of effects would this have? Even if it were proven that the route of acquisition was minimally influenced by external factors, the variation between various L2 learners within certain phases could still be explained by these factors (Odlin 1989). 8.3.

Explanations of the process

As pointed out in the paragraphs 6 and 7, there are two more or less distinct areas of research in which explanations of the SLA process are offered. In the one, the main question is: What exactly has to be learned and what is innate? Moreover, how does the learner carry out this learning task? In the other area, the researcher tries to explain developmental stages in SLA. Theories of Learning The proposed learning theories center around the nature of linguistic knowledge (is linguistic knowledge to some extent innate?), and around the nature of linguistic processing (do humans have a separate language module at their disposal?).

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Cognitive theories assume that all linguistic knowledge is learned, without any predispositions in the human mind that predetermine the course of this process. Language processing is thought to be a mental activity comparable to other intellectual tasks. Central issues in the learning process are automatization and restructuring. Nativist learning theories generally assume that language acquisition is a partly biologically predetermined process, and that language processing is a separate mental activity, which is in many respects different from other mental activities. For this, a number of assumptions are made. The existence of Universal Grammar is the central assumption. Secondly, the role of input is assumed to be restricted: Correction of errors by parents or teachers is not thought to influence the learning process. And lastly, learning principles such as the Subset Principle are assumed to be at work in language learning. It could be argued that too little attention is paid to neurological research in SLA literature. We know that the main properties of the language system are located in the left hemisphere, but also that its mirror image in the right hemisphere is biologically identical and that some left-handers, aphasia patients and very able learners seem to process language in this hemisphere (Schneidermann - Desmarais 1988). It should be possible to reach conclusions on the neurological differences between children and adults and between slow and talented L2 learners. Or, as Travis (1988) suggests, research should be done on aphasia patients' SLA. If these patients show behaviour in the L2 predicted by UG, this could provide evidence for UG accessibility for L2 learners. More important is the biological research of the structure of the brain's 'language center'. Jerne (1985) believes that it should somehow be possible to infer from the DNA of our chromosomes that language is innate. So far, medical studies conflict with regard to neurological and biological information about the language center, and linguists contradict each other in the conclusions they draw from biological facts. Lust (1988: 312) cites a study which indicates that the anatomy of the brain is already set at birth (Nauta - Feirtag 1986), and argues this is evidence for the existence of a prenatally determined language center in the brain. Kean (1988: 62), on the other hand, concludes that the nervous system undergoes extensive postnatal change (Conel 1939-1959). She argues that it is plausible to assume that the language capacity also changes during this development. According to her, UG is no longer available to adult L2 learners. Theories of learning should be viewed as a means to set up a profile for theories of development. In recent years the sharp edges between cognitive and nativist theories of learning have softened to some extent. Insights of cognitive theory have been applied by nativists (Wexler 1981; Felix 1984; Clahsen 1988), and vice versa (O'Grady 1987) (see paragraph 6.3).

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Theories of development The majority of researchers feel that the universal order of acquisition has been sufficiently proven, although some critical voices can still be heard (Skehan 1989; Odlin 1989). A major problem is that there are often many possible explanations for one phenomenon. An example is a sentence such as eat apple, uttered by a Spaniard, meaning / am eating an apple (as an answer to What are you eating?). This utterance has at least two interpretations. First, it may be the result of transfer from the first language (Spanish), or, in nativist terms, the result of transferring an unmarked value of the pro-drop parameter from Spanish into English. Another interpretation is that it is the result of a general acquisition strategy, identical to what young English children do in acquiring the pronominal system. With respect to theories of L2 development, nativist theory seems to be more fruitful than cognitive theory in the sense that more well-defined hypotheses, based on the assumptions and restrictions of the theoretical framework, can be and have been tested. However, the questions concerning the accessibility of UG to L2 learners and transfer from the native language have not produced clear answers, and thus, we cannot conclude that this theory has brought us nearer to an acceptable explanation of universal developmental stages. In this respect, generative grammar has provided an interesting theoretical construct still in its infancy, with still many growing pains. Researchers of SLA who are sometimes somewhat depressed by so many conflicting results should find comfort in the idea that being wrong in this field in not lethal, as it can be in medicine or chemistry. 9.

What are the main books and periodicals on SLA?

General Introductions:

Thematic Introductions:

Periodicals:

Ellis (1985) Larsen-Freeman & Long (1991) Klein (1986) Dulay, Burt & Krashen (1982) (Creative Construction, Input Hypothesis) Odlin (1989) (transfer) White (1989a) (Universal Grammar) McLaughlin (1987) (Cognitive Theories of SLA) Ellis (1990) (Instructed SLA) Cook (1993) (Linguisics and SLA) Applied Linguistics Language Learning Second Language Research Studies in Second Language Acquisition

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References Andersen, Roger W. (ed.) 1979 The acquisition and use of Spanish and English as first languages. Washington DC.: TESOL. 1983 Pidginization and creolization as language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. 1984 Second languages. A cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Anderson, John R. 1980 Cognitive psychology and its implications. San Francisco, CA.: Freeman. 1983 The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Au, Terry 1983 "Chinese and English counterfactuals: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis revisited", Cognition 15: 155-187. Bailey, Kathleen M. - Michael H. Long - Sabrina Peck (eds.) 1983 Second language acquisition studies. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Baker, Carl Lee 1979 "Syntactic theory and the Projection problem", Linguistic Inquiry 10: 533-581. 1981 "Learnability and the English auxiliary system", in: Carl Lee Baker - John J. McCarthy (eds.), 296-323. Baker, Carl Lee - John J. McCarthy (eds.) 1981 The logical problem of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Bever, Thomas 1970 "The cognitive basis for linguistic structures", in: John Hayes (ed.), 279-362. Bhardwaj, Mangat - Reiner Dietrich - Colette Noyau 1988 Temporality; second-language acquisition by adult immigrants: Final Report. Volume V. Strasbourg, Paris, Heidelberg, London. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1988 "The fundamental character of foreign language learning", in: William E. Rutherford - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.), 19-30. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. - Craig Chaudron 1990 "Second language processing of subordinate clauses and anaphora - First language and universal influences: A review of Flynn's research", Language Learning 40: 245-285.

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Bloom, Alfred 1981 The linguistic shaping of thought: A study in the impact of language and thinking in China and the West. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bongaerts, Theo 1986 "Onderzoek naar determinanten van tempo en structuur van tweede-taalverwerving: Een overzicht van enkele resultaten en Problemen", Gramma 10: 257-282. Bongaerts, Theo - Peter Jordens 1985 "Ontwikkelingen in tussentaal. Tweede-taalontwikkeling als herstructureringsproces", Interdisciplinair Tijdschrift voor Taal- en Tekstwelenschap 5: 231-245. Boogaards, Paul 1988 Aptitude et affectivite dans l'apprentissage des langues etrangeres. Paris: Hatier. Bornstein, Marc H. (ed.) 1987 Sensitive periods in development: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bot, Kees de - Michael Clyne 1989 "Language reversion revisited", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 167-177. Bowerman, Melissa 1988 "The 'no negative evidence' problem: How do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar?", in: John A. Hawkins (ed.), 73-101. Breeder, Peter J.F.J. - Guus Extra 1988 "Woordvormingsprocedo's bij verwijzing naar objecten in de tweede-taalverwervingsprocessen van volwassenen", Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen 30: 105-117. Brown, Roger - Camille Hanlon 1970 "Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech", in: John Hayes (ed.), 11-54. Butler, Christopher 1985 Statistics in linguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cancino, Herlinda - Ellen Rosansky - John Schumann 1974 "Testing hypotheses about second language acquisition: The copula and negative in three subjects", Working Papers on Bilingualism 3: 80-96. 1978 "The acquisition of English negatives and interrogatives by native Spanish speakers", in: Evelyn Hatch (ed.), 207-230.

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Carroll, John B. 1981 "Twenty-five years of research on foreign language aptitude", in: Karl C. Diller (ed.), 83-118. Carroll, Susanne - Jürgen M. Meisel 1990 "Universals and second language acquisition: Some comments on the state of current theory", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 201-208. Cazden, Courtney 1965 Environmental assistance to the child's acquisition of grammar. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University] 1972 Child language and education. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Chaudron, Craig 1985 "Intake: On models and methods for discovering learners' processing of input", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7: 1-14. Chomsky, Noam 1981 "Principles and parameters in syntactic theory", in: Norbert Hornstein - David W. Lightfoot (eds.), 32-75. Clahsen, Harald 1984 "The acquisition of German word order: A test case for cognitive approaches to L2 development", in: Roger W. Andersen (ed.), 219-242. 1988 "Parameterized grammatical theory and language acquisition: A study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults", in: Suzanne Flynn - Wayne O'Neill (eds.), 47-75. Clahsen, Harald - Jürgen M. Meisel - Manfred Pienemann 1983 Deutsch als Zweitsprache: Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of UG to child and adult learners", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. 1989 "The UG paradox in L2 acquisition", Second Language Research 5: 1-29. Comrie, Bernard 1990 "Second language acquisition and language universale research", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 209-218. Conel, J. Leroy 1939-59 The postnatal development of the human cerebral cortex. Vols IVI. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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Crookes, Graham 1989 "Planning and interlanguage variation", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 367-383. Curtiss, Susan 1988 "Abnormal language acquisition and the modularity of language", in: Frederick J. Newmeyer (ed.), 96-116. Davies, Alan - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.) 1984 Interlanguage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dechert, Hans W. - Manfred Raupach (eds.) 1989 Interlingual processes. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Diller, Karl C. (ed.) 1981

Individual differences and universals in language learning aptitude. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Dittmar, Norbert - Wolfgang Klein - unter mitarbeit von Angelika Becker Gertrud Meyer - Bert-Olaf Rieck - Wolfgang Steckner - Elisabeth Thielicke Petra Ziegler 1975 "Untersuchungen zum Pidgin-Deutsch spanischer und italienischer Arbeiter in der Bundesrepublik. Ein Arbeitsbericht", in: Alois Wierlacher - Dietrich Eggers - Ulrich Engel - Hans-Jürgen Krumm - Alois Palzer - Robert Picht - Gerhard Wahrig - KurtFriedrich Bohrer (eds.), 170-194. Doron, S. 1973 Reflectivity-impulsivity and their influence on reading for inference for adult students of ESL. [Unpublished Paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.] Dubuisson, Colette - David Lightfoot - Yves Charles Morin (eds.) 1978 Montreal Working Papers in Linguistics II. Montroal: L'association linguistique de Montroal, Canada. Dulay, Heidy - Marina Burt 1973 "Should we teach children syntax?", Language Learning 23: 245258. 1974 "Natural sequences in child second language acquisition", Language Learning 24: 37-53. Dulay, Heidy - Marina Burt - Stephen D. Krashen 1982 Language Two. New York: Oxford University Press. Eckman, Fred R. 1977 "Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis", Language Learning 27: 315-330. 1985 "Some theoretical and pedagogical implications of the markedness differential hypothesis", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7: 289-307.

5°

Josine Lalleman

1991

"The structural conformity hypothesis and the acquisition of consonant clusters in the interlanguage of ESL learners", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13: 23-41. Eckman, Fred R. - Lawrence H. Bell - Diana Nelson (eds.) 1984 Universals of second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Ellis, Rod 1985 Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989 "Are classroom and naturalistic acquisition the same?", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 305-328. 1990 Instructed second language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell. Ervin-Tripp, Susan 1978 "Is second language learning like the first?", in: Evelyn Hatch (ed.), 190-206. Felix, Sascha W. 1980 "Interference, interlanguage, and related issues", in: Sascha W. Felix (ed.), 1984 "Maturational aspects of Universal Grammar", in: Alan Davies Clive Criper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.), 133-161. 1985 "More evidence on competing cognitive systems", Second Language Research 1: 47-72. Felix, Sascha W. (ed.) 1980 Second language development: Trends and issues. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Ferguson, Charles A. - Dan I. Slobin (eds.) 1973 Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Flynn, Suzanne 1984 "A universal in L2 acquisition based on a PBD typology", in: Fred R. Eckman - Lawrence H. Bell - Diana Nelson (eds.), 7587. 1987 "Contrast and construction in a parameter-setting model of L2 acquisition", Language Learning 37: 19-62. Flynn, Suzanne - Wayne O'Neil (eds.) 1988 Linguistic theory in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Fries, Charles 1945 Teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

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Gardner, Robert - William Lambert 1972 Attitudes and motivation in second language learning. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Gass, Susan - Carolyn Madden (eds.) 1985 Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Gass, Susan - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.) 1989 Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gasser, Michael 1990 "Connectionism and universale of second language acquisition", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 179-199. George, H.V. 1972 Common errors in language learning: Insights from English. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Gingras, Rosario (ed.) 1978 Second language acquisition and foreign language teaching. Washington D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Givon, Talmy 1979 "From discourse to syntax: Grammar as a processing strategy", in: Talmy Givon (ed.), 81-112. 1984 "Universals of discourse structure and second language acquisition", in: William E. Rutherford (ed.), 109-136. 1985 "Function, structure and language acquisition", in: Dan I. Slobin (ed.), 1005-1128. Givon, Talmy (ed.) 1979 Syntax and semantics, Vol. 12: Discourse and syntax. New York: Academic Press. Guiora, Alexander - Maria Paluszny - Benjamin Beit - John C. Catford Ralph E. Cooley - Cecilia Dull 1975 "Language and person: Studies in language behavior", Language Learning 25: 43-61. Hakuta, Kenji - Herlinda Cancino 1977 "Trends in second language acquisition research", Harvard Educational Review 47: 294-316. Hamers, Josiane - Michel Blanc 1989 Bilinguality and bilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hatch, Evelyn 1974 "Second language learning universals?", Working Papers on Bilingualism 3: 1-17.

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Psycholinguistics. A second language perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Hatch, Evelyn (ed.) 1978 Second language acquisition: A book of readings. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Hatch, Evelyn - Hossein Farhady 1982 Research design & statistics for applied linguistics. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Hawkins, John A. (ed.) 1988 Explaining language universals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hayes, John (ed.) 1970 Cognition and the development of language. New York: John Wiley. Hinds, John 1983 "Contrastive rhetoric: Japanese and English", Text 3: 183-195. 1984 "Retention of information using a Japanese style of presentation", Studies in Language 8: 45-69. Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy - Rebecca Treiman - Maita Schneiderman 1984 "Brown and Hanlon revisited: Mothers' sensitivity to ungrammatical forms", Journal of Child Language 11: 81-88. Hornstein, Norbert - David W. Lightfoot (eds.) 1981 Explanations in linguistics: The logical problem of language acquisition. London: Longman. Hout, Roeland van - Jan H. Hulstijn - Guus Meijers 1990 "Individuele verschillen in het leren van talen: ontwikkelingen in theorievorming en onderzoek", Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelenll: 5-14. Huebner, Thorn 1983 "Linguistic systems and linguistic chance in interlanguage", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 6: 33-53. Hulk, Aafke 1991 "Parameter setting and the acquisition of word order in L2 French", Second Language Research 7: 1-34. Hulstijn, Jan H. - Elaine Marchena 1989 "Avoidance: Grammatical or semantic causes?", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 241-255. Hyams, Nina 1986 Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel.

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Jacobs, Bob 1988 "Neurobiological differentiation of primary and secondary language acquisition", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 10: 303-337. James, Alan R. 1987 "Prosodic structure in phonological acquisition", Second Language Research 3: 118-140. Jerne, Niels 1985 "The generative grammar of the immune system", Science 229: 1057-1059. Jordens, Peter 1986 "Production rules in interlanguage: Evidence from case errors in L2 German", in: Eric Kellerman - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.), 91-109. 1990 "Linguistics and second language acquisition", Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen 36 (Balance & Perspective: 25 years of Dutch Applied Linguistics)'. 16—44. Jordens, Peter - Eric Kellerman 1981 "Investigations into the 'transfer strategy' in second language learning", in: Jean-Guy Savard - Lome Laforge (eds.), 195-215. Karmiloff-Smith, Ann 1986 "Stage/structure versus phase/process in modelling linguistic and cognitive development", in: Iris Levin (ed.). Kean, Mary-Luise 1988 "The relation between linguistic theory and second language acquisition: A biological perspective", in: James Pankhurst Michael Sharwood Smith - Paul van Buren (eds.), 61-70. Kellerman, Eric - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.) 1986 Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Kerkhoff, Anne 1988 Taalvaardigheid en schoolsucces: De relatie tussen taalvaardigheid Nederlands en schoolsucces van allochtone en autochtone leerlingen aan het eind van de basisschool. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Kettemann, Bernhard - Wilfried Wieden (eds.) 1993 Current issues in European second language acquisition research. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Klein, Wolfgang 1986 Second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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"A theory of language acquisition is not so easy", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 219-231. Klein, Wolfgang - Norbert Dittmar 1979 Developing grammars. Berlin: Springer. Klein, Wolfgang - Clive Perdue 1988 Utterance structure. Second-language acquisition by adult immigrants: Final report. (Vol. IV). Strasbourg, Nijmegen. 1992 Utterance structure. Developing grammars again. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Knops, Uriel 1987 Andermans en eigen taal: Een inleiding in de sociale psychologic van taal. Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff. Krashen, Stephen D. 1981 Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1982 Principles and practices of second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1985 The Input Hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: Longman. Lado, Robert 1957 Linguistics across cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lalleman, Josine 1986 Dutch language acquisition of Turkish children born in the Netherlands. Dordrecht: Foris. 1993 "A functional approach to markedness: Possible uses in the description and explanation of features in the Dutch of advanced second language learners", in: Bernhard Kettemann - Wilfried Wieden (eds.), 28-45. Larsen-Freeman, Diane 1976 "An explanation for the morpheme acquisition order of second language learners", in: Language Learning 26: 125-134. Larsen-Freeman, Diane - Michael H. Long 1991 An introduction to second language acquisition research. London: Longman. Lenneberg, Eric 1967 Biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley. Levenston, Edward 1979 "Second language acquisition: Issues and problems", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin Utrecht 4: 147-160. Levin, Iris (ed.) 1986 Stage and structure: Reopening the debate. Norwood, NJ.: Ablex.

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Lightbown, Patsy 1983 "Exploring relationships between developmental and instructional sequences in L2 acquisition", in: Herbert W. Seliger - Michael H. Long (eds.), 217-243. 1984 "The relation between theory and method in SLA research", in: Alan Davies - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.), 241252. Lightbown, Patsy - Nina Spada 1990 "Focus-on-form and corrective feedback in communicative language teaching: Effects on second language learning", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12: 429—448. Long, Michael 1983 "Does second language instruction make a difference? A review of the research", TESOL Quarterly 17: 359-382. 1990 "Maturational constraints on language development", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 251-285. Lust, Barbara 1988 "Universal Grammar in second language acquisition: Promises and problems in critically relating theory and empirical studies", in: Suzanne Flynn - Wayne O'Neil (eds.), 309-328. McLaughlin, Barry 1984 Second language acquisition in childhood. Volume I: preschool children. Hillsdale N.Y.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 1987 Theories of second-language learning. London: Edward Arnold. McLaughlin, Barry - Nandina Nayak 1989 "Processing a new language: Does knowing other languages make a difference?", in: Hans Dechert - Manfred Raupach (eds.), 5-16. Meisel, Jürgen M. 1980 "Linguistic simplification", in: Sascha W. Felix (ed.), 13-40. 1983 "Strategies of second language acquisition. More than one kind of simplification", in: Roger W. Andersen (ed.), 120-157. Meisel, Jürgen M. - Harald Clahsen - Manfred Pienemann 1981 "On determining developmental stages in natural second language acquisition", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 3: 109-135. Missler, Richard A. 1986 *'Analytic and synthetic cognitive functioning: A critical review of evidence bearing on field dependence", Journal of Research in Personality 20: 1-33. Naiman, Neil - Maria Fröhlich - Hans H. Stern - Angela Todesco 1978 The good language learner. (Research in Education Series 7) Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

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Nauta, Walle J.H. - Michael Feirtag 1986 Fundamental neuroanatomy. New York: Freeman. Nelson, Keith E. 1987 "Some observations from the perspective of the rare event cognitive comparison theory of language acquisition", in: Keith E. Nelson - Anne van Kleeck (eds.), 239-331. Nelson, Keith E. - Anne van Kleeck (eds.) 1987 Children's language, Volume 6. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Newmeyer, Frederick J. (ed.) 1988 Linguistics: The Cambridge survey, Volume 2. Linguistic theory: Extensions and implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nortier, Jacomine 1989 Dutch and Moroccan Arabic among Moroccans in the Netherlands. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Amsterdam.] Odlin, Terence 1989 Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. O'Grady, William 1987 Principles of grammar and learning. Chicago: Chicago University Press. O'Malley, J. Michael - Anna Chamot - Carol Walker 1987 "Some implications of cognitive theory to second language acquisition", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 9: 287-306. O'Malley, J. Michael - Anna Chamot 1990 Learning strategies in second language acquisition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pankhurst, James - Michael Sharwood Smith - Paul van Buren (eds.) 1988 Learnability and second languages: A book of readings. Dordrecht: Foris. Perdue, Clive (ed.) 1982 Second language acquisition by adult immigrants: A field manual. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. Pfaff, Carol W. (ed.) 1987 First and second language acquisition processes. Cambridge, Mass.: Newbury House. Pica, Teresa - Lloyd Holliday - Nora Lewis - Lynelle Morgenthaler 1989 "Comprehensible output as an outcome of linguistic demands on the learner", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 63-90. Pinker, Steven 1989 Learnability and cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

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Wexler, Kenneth - Rita Manzini 1987 "Parameters and learnability in binding theory", in: Thomas Roeper - Edwin Williams (eds.), 41-76. White, Lydia 1985 "The pro-drop parameter in adult second language acquisition", Language Learning 35: 47-62. 1987 "Against comprehensible input: The input hypothesis and the development of L2 competence", Applied Linguistics 8: 95-110. 1989a Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1989b "The adjacency condition on case assignment: Do L2 learners observe the subset principle?", in: Susan Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 134-158. 1990 "Second language acquisition and Universal Grammar", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 121-133. Whorf, Benjamin 1956 Language, thought and reality. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Wierlacher, Alois - Dietrich Eggers - Ulrich Engel - Hans-Jürgen Krumm Alois Palzer - Robert Picht - Gerhard Wahrig - Kurt-Friedrich Bohrer (eds.) 1975 Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Vol.l). Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag. Wode, Henning 1976 "Developmental sequences in naturalistic L2 acquisition", Working Papers on Bilingualism 11: 1—31. 1981 Learning a second language, I: An integrated view of language acquisition. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Wong-Fillmore, Lily 1976 The second time around: Cognitive and social strategies in second language acquisition. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.] Woods, Anthony - Paul Fletcher - Arthur Hughes 1986 Statistics in language studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zobl, Helmut 1979 "Systems of verb classification and cohesion of verb-complement relations as structural conditions on interference in a child's L2 development", Working Papers on Bilingualism 18: 43-57. 1980 "The formal and developmental selectivity of LI influence on L2 acquisition", Language Learning 30: 43-57.

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Crosslinguistic influence acquisition of grammar

with

special

reference

to

the

Michael Sharwood Smith

1.

Introduction

Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) is an important phenomenon in second language acquisition studies having to do with the way language systems interact in the learner's mind. It has also often been referred to as language transfer although language transfer generally refers to just one form of CLI, namely the carrying over of mother tongue patterns into the target language. CLI can also refer to changes in the reverse direction, i.e. from the target language into the mother tongue, in language loss situations. It also covers situations where learners are suspicious of transferring patterns to the target language even where transfer would actually result into a perfectly correct L2 pattern. CLI is a typically bilingual phenomenon. Clearly, one striking difference between first and second language acquisition (SLA) is that the former involves, by definition, the learner's very first encounter with evidence of a given language system. CLI cannot be an issue, at least where we are talking about monolingual situations. Where evidence from more than one language system is available and especially where one language system has already been acquired, we can speculate about whether the learner treats the data from L2 as different from or related to the LI. This is a major area of controversy in SLA and this section will review the different ways in which Crosslinguistic influence has

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figured in theoretical thinking since the sixties. To briefly itemise the major issues here, the question is, assuming CLI to be a fact of life: 1. How is CLI constrained? 2. Where does CLI fit into various theoretical views about language and second language learning? I want to begin with a brief historical survey of CLI. I will look more specifically at the notion as it has been used in second language acquisition studies (see Kellerman - Sharwood Smith 1986; Odlin 1990). 2.

Historical Background

Briefly we can talk about three basic schools in the development of ideas about CLI in second language acquisition studies: 1. Behaviourism (Lado). 2. Creative construction (Dulay, Burt, Krashen). 3. Interlanguage (Selinker, White, etc.). The first school dominated until the end of the sixties. The second and third school were both the product of the seventies although the second (creative construction) initially made the most impact in the international literature of the time. Lado, following the psychological theories of behaviourists, especially that of Skinner (1957), claimed that all language learning was essentially habitformation. The learner transferred LI habits into the L2. Second language learning was therefore overcoming LI habits where those habits diverged from L2 norms. Divergence was called interference or negative transfer. It followed from this that a careful comparative/contrastive analysis of a given L1/L2 pair, e.g. German and English, would reveal areas of difference and areas of similarity: this information would therefore allow us, for the most part, to predict what would be difficult and what would be easy for a learner with one of those languages as LI and the other as a target L2. This went for everything ranging from phonetic to cultural aspects. Learners would tend to transfer sound patterns from LI, resulting in accents characteristic of learners with a given mother tongue. And they would, for example, use L2 vocabulary in the same way in which they would use LI equivalents, that is, assuming that given words or phrases would be appropriate or inappropriate in just the same situations as their equivalents would have been in the LI. This would lead a Dutch person to behave as though a cafe in France served the same drinks as a cafe in Holland, or that vous and tu were used in the same way in French as U and jij in Dutch. Since this was hard-core behaviourism, no mention was made of such 'vague

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and unscientific' notions such as LI or L2 knowledge: The model simply allowed us to predict learning behaviour observable from the outside. Behaviour reflected habits, and habits being frequent, observable events could be directly measured with precise instruments. Knowledge was something abstract, hard to measure in any direct and straightforward way, and therefore, in the eyes of behaviourists, beyond the scope of proper science. Even accepting this very limited view of what science is, there were a number of problems. It was a psychologist, J.B. Carroll, who pointed out an embarrassing theoretical problem with this application of behaviouristic theory Carroll 1968): As the L2 learner became conditioned to produce the desired L2 behaviour, how come the equivalent but different LI habits were not extinguished? This at least was the idea behind standard experiments carried out by behaviourist psychologists working on non-linguistic behaviour. Then, early studies looking at actual learner behaviour led to an empirical problem. They revealed that learner errors could not, after all, be neatly captured by the rubric 'transfer from LI' (see various contributions to Alatis 1968). Many reported errors did not seem to reflect the structure of the mother tongue. Some seemed rather to be simplifications or regularisations of the target language as though the learners were treating those rules as simple and exceptionless. The classic example is using the regular past tense form for verbs which are irregular in this respect, saying goed instead of went. As a consequence of the Chomskyan revolution and the discrediting of behaviourism in linguistics, the seventies brought along two approaches to SLA, interlanguage theory and creative construction, which allowed reference to concepts that could not directly be observed and measured like knowledge and competence. For example, it became accepted that learning could not be accounted for by simple association of forms that 'went together' (happened at exactly the same time or were placed exactly next to each other): Learners must be able to associate forms that did belong together but were physically (in time or space) distant from one another such as Have the nasty men in the green uniforms ever approached you? They must learn that have + approached forms a linguistic unit. This requires subtle mental processing that goes far beyond the simple laws of association that the behaviourists wanted to restrict themselves to. It seemed inevitable that the notion of science had to include treating the mind as a mechanism that organises incoming data in complex ways and creates systems that do not always faithfully reflect the outside world that it has experienced. How to measure and understand such internal events is of course a problem but not one which can be ignored by dismissing them as 'beyond science'. The creative construction school, saw CLI as basically a performance phenomenon. If you manifested LI-like behaviour in L2 performance it was

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because you were falling back on the LI system where L2 failed to meet your communicative requirements. More crucially, SLA was a process of creating a new underlying language system based on an interaction between (a) the kind of mechanisms used to acquire mother tongues, and (b) the L2 data. Hence, L2 learner knowledge might be simpler than native-speaker knowledge but it had no traces of LI in it. Clear evidence of LI patterns in observed learner behaviour was therefore dismissed as a sign that the learner was just making the best of a bad communicative job. It was not seen as reflecting what they really believed to be part of L2. In the same way, if someone were to hiccup when trying to speak French, we should not assume the hiccup to be part of the developing L2 French system. The same goes for LI words popping into L2 French. They are linguistic hiccups and of little theoretical interest. In an emergency, the L2 user goes outside the developing L2 system and grabs hold of anything that comes to hand to express the intended meanings. One resource that is readily available is the LI system. In other words, grammatical transfer, CLI, even when it occurred, was theoretically trivial for those seeking to describe the developing system. The interlanguage school treats L2 development as a succession of interim stages (language systems) through which the learner passes. These stages may well comprise certain features borrowed from the LI. They are integral parts of the learner's special version of L2, or interlanguage as Selinker (1972) called it. In fact, they may sometimes not be interim but become permanent features (whether or not they happen to contain LI features). Selinker talks of this as a case of fossilisation, a crucial, characteristic feature of SLA. The nature of the sequences in the development of particular interlanguages was not much elaborated on. The focus was more on analysing learner language and working out what processes had led to the systematic aspects in the data. This entailed, for example, working out whether a given learner construction was due to a rule being transferred over from the LI system or to some process of overgeneralisation whereby an L2 rule that had not yet been completely acquired, was being used to widely or without the appropriate exceptions. Selinker argued that learner language (interlanguage) be treated as reflecting a system in its own right and not as some bastardised version of the L2. 3.

CLI and Universal Grammar

Recent developments have included various applications of generative linguistic theory to SLA, especially Chomsky's parameter-setting framework. One basic question is whether the second language learner's hypotheses about the target language fall within the constraints of universal grammar (UG). UG, after all, is designed to compensate for the confusing nature of (at least some of) the

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evidence provided by the outside world and used by the first language learner to attain native competence. Can the second language learner also build up mental representations of the L2 using the evidence available and never stray beyond the confines of what UG allows as a 'possible language'? What implications are there in being a second language learner? Perhaps the most widely discussed position is the one taken by Lydia White (1991) who argues that the mother tongue acquisition device still operates, in this case within the limits of Universal Grammar (UG), but that learners assume LI parameter settings will work for L2 unless evidence turns up to disconfirm this assumption. In other words, the learner begins with an initial hypothesis that is different from the child's. The L2 learner starts by transferring to the new grammar certain choices made when creating the mother tongue grammar. Those choices, parameter-settings, are supposed to be ones made available by Universal Grammar. The task is thus to readjust or reset the new system when the evidence requires it. The question is what counts as evidence in L2 acquisition. LI learners are not supposed to need or be sensitive to grammatical correction. This is because their adherence to the principles of UG is such that they learn conservatively, that is, assuming the most restricted options (parameter-settings) are correct until the input, the LI evidence, allows them to relax the restrictions and choose another option (still allowed for by UG). If L2 learners do not respond to correction and L2 data never tell them the LI settings are wrong, then certain aspects of L2 will never become native-like. Problems arise when the LI settings result in a more generous, less constrained system and when the L2 equivalent is actually more restricted. In other words, when acquiring the mother tongue, the learner had learned to relax his grammar in some way because the input provided by his parents and others had shown this to be possible. Now, the same learner has to somehow understand that the L2 system does not work in the same way. For example, suppose the LI grammar has a parameter setting which, under certain circumstances, allows subject pronouns as in He is here; ti is true to be either supplied or left out (Is here; is true). This means that the grammar of that language is, in this respect, less strict than an L2 which forbids the dropping of these pronouns. A learner who carries over subject pronoun dropping will never encounter L2 evidence that directly suggests it is forbidden. The evidence from L2 is, by definition, always positive. In other words, it shows the learner what you can do and not what you cannot do. The learner would have (amongst all the hundreds of other things he has to perceive) have to notice the absence of subject dropping. Learners are notoriously insensitive to such evidence. Hence, White argues, the learner needs negative evidence, something that a child apparently has no need of and does not respond to when he gets it. If the L2 learner is as insensitive to negative evidence (e.g. correction by a teacher) as the LI learner, then complete learning of L2 becomes an impossibility (see

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Cook 1988, 1993; White 1991). In sum, there is a kind of crosslinguistic influence which involves the adoption, into L2, of a relaxed setting of the LI parameter where the L2 actually requires a more restricted one. This has the effect of making it impossible for learners to recover from error unless a) they are informed that they are making that error and b) they are really able to reset the parameter and restrict their system in response to that correction. The problem of CLI remains one of the big theoretical areas of interest in SLA and the only definite outcome so far is that there are no easy answers: The various ways in which L2 learners are affected by the LI presents us with a picture of fascinating complexity quite unsuspected and unpredicted by the behaviourists of the sixties. The so-called creative construction model of second language learning was more radical than its Eastern (Michigan) counterpart, the IL model. Despite the fact that it did not have the linguistic sophistication that came later with the parameter-setting model, the creative construction approach was to have a great impact on the field at the time. It led to a series of experimental investigations which also attracted the attention of the language teaching world since a particular role for the teacher was implied that was at odds with more formal traditional views (see Dulay et al. 1982). The basic idea behind creative constructionism was that second language development was as far beyond the direct control of the teacher as mother tongue development was beyond the intervention of parents. Teachers, like parents, should provide the right learning environment. Development must then proceed automatically without any direct manipulation from outside, i.e. following its own internal schedule. The nature of that schedule was, indeed, the prime object of research. Early findings indicated surprising similarities between LI and L2 development. 4.

Three early models summarised with respect to transfer

The three positions that were developed in the early seventies, the contrastive analysis one, the interlanguage one and the creative construction one, are best thought of as competing hypotheses about what drives the acquisitional process: CAH versus ILH versus CCH, as it were. One way in which we could compare these hypotheses would be to see what predictions emerged from them as regards mother tongue influence. The original Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), best expressed in the works of Robert Lado (1968), explained second language learning as the development of new sets of habits. His prediction was that virtually all errors will be explainable as interference from LI. Ease of learning was guaranteed where first language habits led to correct L2 performance. The learning task was

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essentially reduced to overcoming the 'bad' habits, the ones that led to incorrect L2 patterns. The Interlanguage Hypothesis (ILH) saw learners operating with their own set of rules, some of which reflected the LI rules. Hence learners built new rule systems which were sometimes at odds with the native-speaker's rules. Sometimes, but by no means always, these learner systems showed that the learner had mentally associated the native and target rule systems. Hence the process of transfer was not the only learning process, it was not one that accounted for virtually all systematic errors. The Creative Construction Hypothesis (CCH) relegated LI influence to a very minor position. Apart from accent, L2 learners would not show very much LI influence in their spontaneous performance. Even where they did appear to show LI influence, it could be explained away in some way that did not involve the mechanisms driving L2 development. Another way of contrasting the 'big three' would be in terms of the differences or similarities as regards LI learning. Here the CAH and the CCH agreed in just one respect: all language learning could be explained as the working of a single set of underlying mechanisms although they differed on the nature of those mechanisms. In the case of the CAH, the mechanisms drive nonlinguistic learning as well. In the case of the CCH, the mechanisms were specific to language development. The ILH, on the other hand, involves the claim that L2 learning is different in kind: it is not driven by the same mechanisms that drive LI development. The most obvious evidence for this is the fact that, unlike LI learning, L2 learning does not bring with it the absolute guarantee of complete success. To take the concrete example of a Spanish speaker learning English, the following learner utterance might be explained in quite different ways. What is of interest here is the placement of the negator no in front of the main verb (compare this with post-verbal placement in English: do not/is not, etc.) No is true! Supporter of CAH: "Here, the Spanish word order pattern (No es verdad: literally 'No is true') is quite clearly behind this utterance. The learner has simply given us evidence for a Spanish habit used in producing an English utterance. Since this automatic, habitual transfer of Spanish patterns to English here leads to error, we are talking of negative transfer. Virtually all of the errors we encounter should fall into this category." Supporter of ILH: "I don't agree with the last statement. But, I do agree we have compelling evidence for Spanish LI influence here. The learner has revealed an interlanguage rule that may well be the result of his transferring LI Spanish rules (subject pronoun dropping and negative placement) into the

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developing IL system. It is difficult to imagine how this could have been the result of another central process - I'm thinking of overgeneralisation of an English rule. Maybe I'm stupid but I can't think of much in English that would provoke the learner to incorrectly drop a subject pronoun or indeed put not before rather than after the main verb. So, here we have evidence for just one of the processes that underlie IL, not the only one, as my colleague has incorrectly suggested. Not all of the errors will be explainable like this in terms of transfer." Supporter of CCH: "Well, you are both wrong. Despite appearances, the placement of the negator before the finite verb is in fact evidence of the same language acquisition mechanisms that help the young English-speaking child develop LI competence. The proof of this is that English children produce exactly the same construction when they are developing their knowledge of negation. This is a sign that we are dealing here with natural, universal orders of development which have nothing to do with LI interference from Spanish and which may be expected from learners coming from all kinds of different language background. I cannot really explain it as overgeneralisation. It might be but for me, the fact that it appears in early LI English is more important. The same goes for missing subject pronouns. This, too, can be found in the early speech of English children learning their LI. No, definitely not transfer from Spanish. The similarities between these natural stages in the acquisition of English and what happens to be correct Spanish are quite coincidental!" In this way, the same product is explained as the outcome of different processes. Supporters of each of the three theoretical positions interpret the selfsame observable behaviour in a different way. The first talks of an automatic transfer of habits, operating blindly, as it were. The second speaks of a more complex forming of rules inside the learner's head whereby some aspects of L2 are related to LI and others are not. The third talks of transfer having nothing to do with L2 development. The L2 grows according to a fixed internal programme that makes no reference to the learner's mother tongue. 5.

Linguistic-theoretical issues

It should be noted, at this juncture, that questions of a strictly linguistic type only emerge when one has a very specific theoretical model in view. We cannot describe the linguistic aspects of learner behaviour with any sophistication unless we have a good linguistic theory. You cannot study the development of, say, determiners without having an account of what determiners are and how they operate in a given language. In this limited sense, any respectable linguistic theory is better than none. The great advantage of using Chomskyan theory and associated concepts in the study of IL is that one can go further along the way to actually explaining what you describe. This is because you have a sophisticated

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linguistic model which also has some explicit link with the problems of language acquisition (albeit LI acquisition). Explanations of linguistic phenomena are treated as part of a wider explanation of how a child can use the evidence provided by the environment to build up a complex language system in its head. The Chomskyan model was not intended to shed light on L2 acquisition but, since similarities between LI and L2 development have subsequently come to light, the model has been shown to have great potential for the study of L2 phenomena, that is, in the area of syntax. The three main views on the roles of LI and UG as outlined above can be re-expressed as (working) hypotheses for IL investigations, i.e., respectively, the Resetting Hypothesis, the Fossilised UG Hypothesis and the Recreation Hypothesis. These can be seen, broadly speaking, as falling within the various 'traditions' begun in the seventies and discussed above. The Resetting Hypothesis is the one described above and attributed to White. It can be classified as falling generally within the scope of the original IL hypothesis (Selinker 1972) if only in the sense that CLI plays an important part in the building of the new L2 grammar. At the very least the learner starts with knowledge structures carried over from LI and has the task of finding out how the two systems differ. This does not mean a wholesale transfer of LI grammar to L2 (as claimed in the contrastive analysis hypothesis) but a selective one, in this case as determined by theories about what UG is. Many areas of the language may still be acquired without reference to LI including UG-related aspects of L2 that have no equivalent in LI: An LI that does not use wordorder as a syntactic device will not bias the learner when they come to learn an L2 like Dutch or English that does. Note that the resetting hypothesis still claims that L2 acquirers can access mechanisms that were active in mother tongue acquisition. This is something that Selinker explicitly denied. The Fossilised UG approach says there is no access to UG any longer (BleyVroman 1988; Clahsen - Muysken 1986; Schachter 1990). Second language learning will always be incomplete because the learner cannot profit from the subtle guidance of UG. If the interlanguage of the learner appears to contain characteristics of natural languages, and these characteristics would normally be attributable to the operation of UG, these are simply traces of the LI transferred to the developing L2 system. L2 learners' UG-like intuitions about the L2 will therefore be special cases of CLI. In other respects, the learner will be guided by the kind of strategies he uses in acquiring other kinds of (non-linguistic) knowledge. The Recreation Hypothesis, which is not generally held now, holds that L2 development mirrors LI development (Mazurkewich 1984). Learners go 'back to UG' and do so, as it were, blindly. That is, they block out any UG settings that may have been made to build the mother tongue. Given that each child uses the incoming LI data to 'recreate' the language in its own head, so the L2 is, in

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principle, also recreated in the L2 learner's head using L2 input and a UG unaffected by mother tongue (LI) settings. So, not only are the learner's LI acquisitional mechanisms still in place and working but there is no crosslinguistic influence. The learner does not have to reset parameters because the LI parameter settings are ignored. The L2 learner only pays attention to the L2 input. This, then, follows in the footsteps of the creative construction school which dismissed a large measure of crosslinguistic influence as indicating purely performance (not competence) phenomena. Hence, any differences in outcome, i.e. between LI and L2 success, must be accounted for by external influences like low motivation, anxiety about making errors, etc. In the updated version, which makes explicit reference to UG parameters, the L2 learner recreates the L2 grammar in his head using the input and using UG wherever UG is relevant, only adopting relaxed settings of parameters when the input signals it is appropriate to do so. 6.

Psychotypology

It would be inappropriate to close this brief look at crosslinguistic influence research without mentioning at least two more ideas that originated in the seventies. The first interesting notion which was introduced in the seventies following research in the Netherlands carried out by Kellerman and Jordens was psychotypology (see Jordens 1977; Kellerman 1977; Jordens - Kellerman 1978; Kellerman 1984). For example, Kellerman tried to uncover the various factors that affect a learner's readiness to transfer a given meaning to the equivalent lexical item in the target language. He looked at such factors as frequency and markedness: Some meanings of a given word like heart being somehow more basic, less idiomatic than others; compare the anatomical heart with the heart of the lettuce or the heart of the matter). Furthermore, Kellerman looked into the general tendency of learners to avoid attributing two different meanings to a given item, for instance, past tense forms indicating past time, as in they were there yesterday, or hypothetical events, as in // they -were rich, even where their own language possessed these distinctions. One factor that seemed to play a role here was the learner's perception of the distance between languages such that learners would be more generous in what they would be prepared to transfer into L2 if they say their LI and L2 as close (Dutch and German, for example). The term psychotypology indicates that it is the learner's perception of language distance that is the relevant factor and not the linguist's classifications. It still remains to be seen to what extent the notion of psychotypology is of value in areas outside lexical semantics, for example in grammar (see Jordens 1977, Jordens - Kellerman 1978).

Crosslinguistic influence

7.

8]

Eckman's Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH)

Another idea which excited interest in the late seventies was the idea that CLI could be constrained where learners had a marked form in their LI. Marked, here, refers very roughly to an option that is relatively less usual in the world's languages. Eckman (1977) called this the Markedness Differential Hypothesis such that, with respect to a particular feature, a move by the L2 learner from marked (LI) to unmarked (L2) was easy whereas a move from unmarked (LI) to marked (L2) was not. In this way, English or French learners, who do generally voice final obstruents, would have no problem picking up the regular final obstruent devoicing in German, or Dutch or Polish, say, because this is designated as an unmarked feature. So, this means it will be easy for English and French learners to acquire, where appropriate, the final [t] in [hant] for German Hand, i.e., instead of [d]. Many languages possess this devoicing option. The implication is that this is because it is more learnable. German, Dutch or Polish learners, however, have great difficulty in learning to voice final obstruents. They have to unlearn devoicing and learn the marked version, i.e. voicing. This appealing explanation, which can also apply to grammatical acquisition, has not gained general currency since subsequent research showed that the situation was more complicated than the MDH would predict. It also underscores the importance of the particular linguistic theory used in framing questions about acquisition. Marked is a term which is important in discussing theories of acquisition but its meaning depends crucially on which linguistic theory you select. 8.

Conclusion

To sum up, the notion of crosslinguistic influence has been considerably revived in the last ten years by associating modern linguistic theory with the psychology of second language learning. This has allowed researchers to investigate crosslinguistic effects in a subtle and sophisticated manner while at the same time not having to espouse the simplistic view provided by behaviorism. What is clear is that the processes by which learners put together LI and L2 systems in their 'heads' or indeed avoid doing so constitutes a serious theoretical challenge for SLA research in the years to come. In the mid-seventies, given the disapproval lavished on it by creative constructionists, it seemed that no more serious words would ever be written about language transfer. In fact, the real story has only just begun.

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References Alatis, James E. (ed.) 1968 Contrasüve linguistics and its implications for language pedagogy. Report of the 19th annual round table meeting on linguistics and language studies. (Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics 21.) Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1988 "The fundamental character of foreign language learning", in: William E. Rutherford - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.), 19-30. Carroll, John B. 1968 "Contrastive linguistics and interference theory", in James E. Alatis (ed.), 113-122. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of UG to child and adult learners", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. Cook, Vivian J. 1988 Chomsky's Universal Grammar. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1993 Linguistics and second language acquisition. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Davies, Alan - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.) 1984 Inter language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dulay, Heidy - Marina Burt - Stephen D. Krashen 1982 Language two. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eckman, Fred R. 1977 "Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis", Language Learning 27, 315-330. Jordens, Peter 1977 "Rules, grammatical intuitions and strategies in foreign language learning", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2: 5-76. Jordens, Peter - Eric Kellerman 1978 "Investigations into the 'transfer strategy' in second language learning", in: Jean-Guy Savard - Lome Laforge (eds.), 195-215. Kellerman, Eric 1977 "Towards a characterization of the strategy of transfer in second language learning", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2: 58-145. 1984 "The empirical evidence for the influence of LI on interlanguage", in: Alan Davies et al. (eds.), 98-122. Kellerman, Eric - Michael Sharwood Smith 1986 Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.

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Lado, Robert 1968 Linguistics across cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Mazurkewich, Irene 1984 "The acquisition of the dative alternation by second language learners and linguistic theory", Language Learning 34: 91-110. Rutherford, William E. - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.) 1988 Grammar and second language teaching: A book of readings. New York: Newbury House. Savard, Jean-Guy - Lorgne Laforge (eds.) 1978 Proceedings of the 5th congress of I'association internationale de linguistique appliquee, Montreal August 1978. Quebec: Les Presses de ΓUniversito Laval. Schachter, Jacquelyn 1990 "On the issue of completeness in second language acquisition", Second Language Research 6: 93-124. Selinker Larry. 1972 "Interlanguage", International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10: 209-231. Skinner, Burrhus F. 1957 Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Odlin, Terence 1990 Language transfer: Crosslinguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, Lydia 1991 Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Methodological issues

Second language acquisition by adult immigrants: A multiple case study of Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch Guns Extra and Roeland van Hout

1.

Introduction

The main objective of this contribution is to review some important methodological aspects of an empirical study on second language acquisition by adult immigrants and to outline the analytic approach used. More specifically, we deal with longitudinal data collected on two Moroccan and two Turkish adult immigrants who acquired Dutch spontaneously, i.e., (mainly) in social interaction with native speakers of Dutch. The data were collected within the framework of a larger, international research project on spontaneous, untutored second language acquisition processes of adult immigrants in Western Europe. This project was set up as a longitudinal and cross-linguistic multiple case study, and it was carried out simultaneously in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Sweden. The project was carried out under the auspices of the European Science Foundation, established in Strasbourg (France). The Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) was responsible for central coordination. Source and target languages (SL and TL respectively) were represented pairwise in the following way:

88 TL SL

Guus Extra & Roe land van Haul Swedish French Dutch German English / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Finnish Spanish Arabic Turkish Italian Punjabi

The source languages chosen belong to the major immigrant languages in the Western European countries under consideration. Four of the five target languages are Germanic, and three of the six source languages are non-Indo-European. For each pair of source and target languages, four kernel informants were followed from the initial stage of second language acquisition for almost two-and-a-half years, with approximately one month intervals between data collection points (Ntotal = 10 χ 4 = 40 informants). Each informant regularly took part in a comparable variety of language activities. Data collection resulted in an extensive computer-stored databank which is situated and maintained at the Max Planck Institute (cf. Feldweg 1991); more information is given in the Appendix. A detailed description of the project design was given in a Field Manual (Perdue 1984). We first discuss methodological aspects of the project as it was carried out in the Netherlands. In Section 2 the goals and design of the project are summarized. More specific information on the methods of the project is given in the subsequent three sections. In Section 3 the selection of informants and their socio-biographic profiles are considered. The collection of the data is discussed in Section 4. Section 5 gives information on the final computerized database. Our second aim is to show how the transcribed data can be used for analytic purposes. First, we discuss the data analysis approach in general in Section 6. Next, in Section 7, we point out how a transcript can be used to analyse the second language performance of an informant in relation to specific domains of acquisition. We use a sample of spontaneous language of Mohamed, a Moroccan informant to show how different domains of acquisition can be investigated. We want to demonstrate the complexity of the learning task and the way(s) in which Mohamed handles telling a narrative about past events. 2.

Goals and design of the study

The major objective of the project was to give a detailed account of selected domains of second language acquisition by adult learners who acquire the language of their country of immigration in social interaction with native speakers of that language. This untutored condition of spontaneous learning by doing is a common experience for many of those who immigrate(d) from other parts of the world to industrial areas of Western Europe. Moreover, it is a common experience to start second language acquisition from scratch. Most immigrants do not understand or speak the dominant language of their new social environment at the moment of arrival. Second language acquisition typically

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starts at point zero, and may slow down or even stop at a level that is far removed from the target language variety of the daily environment. From a scientific point of view, a careful and systematic analysis of processes of spontaneous language acquisition can give us valuable insights into factors that determine the order in which elements of the target language are acquired and the speed with which this occurs. The language learner is involved in a process of dynamic reconstruction based on a continuous formulation, evaluation, and revision of hypotheses about the structure of the target language. Most of the time, the language learner is not consciously aware of these activities. Moreover, these activities can not be directly observed by the researcher, but only be inferred from, for instance, discrepancies between learner and native varieties, self-repairs, misunderstandings of native speakers of the target language, or metalinguistic comments of the learner upon his own or someone else's utterances. The learner's process of reconstruction is both accumulative and multidimensional. It goes from initial to advanced or native-like learner varieties, and it does so at different levels of the target language system. For two reasons, the project focused on adult language learners. First, this is a rather neglected area of research compared to the work on both first and second language acquisition by children. Although there is a growing interest in universal principles of language acquisition, most of the research deals with cross-linguistic evidence on children (cf. Slobin 1985). Secondly, studies on adult language acquisition can make an essential contribution to our understanding of universal principles, given the fact that in such a condition language development and cognitive maturation are no longer indissolubly interwoven. On the basis of such studies, developmental characteristics can be taken into account that are independent of a specific target language, source language or age of acquisition. Developmental characteristics on independent dimensions would obviously provide the strongest indication of universal principles. Given our primary interest in in-depth, micro-analytical insights into processes of language development over time, the project was set up as a longitudinal design. Only such a design can offer a real-time perspective on successive L2 learner varieties. The project aimed at collecting a large amount and variety of data on a limited number of informants rather than the reverse. Given the investment in time of data collection and data storage, the study focused on the initial L2 acquisition of four kernel informants. In addition, the project was set up in a cross-linguistic way by taking into account different source language backgrounds in order to have a closer look at LI-specific characteristics in L2 acquisition. Given the fact that Turks and Moroccans belong to the major Mediterranean immigrant groups in the Netherlands, the Dutch part of the project focused on two Turkish and two Moroccan learners of Dutch.

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Three major related studies on adult L2 acquisition carried out in the seventies should be mentioned here*. All three studies aimed at a description of successive L2 learner varieties and at finding possible causes for (lack of) success in L2 acquisition. The first study, known as the 'Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt', focused on the acquisition of L2 German by 24 Italian and 24 Spanish adult immigrants in the Heidelberg area of Germany. An overview of the design and outcomes of the study was given by Klein - Dittmar (1979). Data collection was based on participant observation and interviews. The focus of the project was on the development of specific syntactic categories (proposition, verbal/nominal/adverbial complex, subordinate clauses) and the development of word order principles (verb placement in main and subordinate clauses). On the basis of cross-sectional data, a cumulative syntactic index was proposed for defining a particular level of L2 proficiency. Moreover, personal and environmental factors determining the success of syntactic development were studied. In contrast to the Heidelberg project, Schumann (1978) gave a longitudinal description of the acquisition of L2 English by one Puerto Rican informant named Alberto. Schumann's single case study of Alberto's development during nine months was aimed at a description of negative, interrogative and auxiliary structures, and the development of possessive, past tense, plural and progressive morphemes. In order to explain Alberto's low rate of L2 acquisition, Schumann developed a multiple concept of social and psychological 'distance' between dominant and dominated groups. The third study, known as the ZISA project and carried out by Clahsen - Meisel Pienemann (1983), had a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal design, and focused on the development of phrase structure rules, interrogation, negation, and word order principles in the L2 German of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese adults. The major research parameters of these three are given and compared to the present one in Table 1.

Table 1: Major parameters in four studies on adult L2 acquisition

Time Informants LI L2

Klein - Dittmar

Schumann

Clahsen et al.

ESF study

cross-sectional 24+24 Italian+Spanish German

longitudinal 1 Spanish English

cross-sect+longit. 20+19+6 Ital.+Span.+Port. German

longitudinal 2+2 Turkish+Arab. Dutch

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The value of the present study derives from its longitudinality (27 months of initial L2 development could be tracked), the typological distance between the two source languages and the distance of each of them to the target language, and the variety of language activities and topics of analysis under consideration. 3.

Informants

The value of a longitudinal multiple case study first of all relates to the characteristics of the informants selected. The few informants selected must provide valid data on the spontaneous acquisition of a second language and they need to be comparable on characteristics which are supposed to determine the acquisition process. Therefore, a careful selection strategy is required which definitely cannot be based on random selection procedures. The selection strategy required must be focused on finding informants matching a profile which outlines the 'prototypical' or 'ideal' informant in relation to the objectives of the project. In formulating criteria for an informant profile, factors which may influence the process of second language acquisition should obviously be taken into account. It is self-evident that informants should have no (clear) speech production or perception impediments. The factors of age, language instruction, and previous formal education seem to have an impact on acquisition, although their precise relationships with acquisition are not particularly well-founded (cf. Perdue 1984: 253). Such factors should therefore be incorporated in the profile to safeguard against too much variation between informants, and to obtain conditions which foster the spontaneous character of the second language acquisition process. Other criteria in the profile should ensure that the acquisition process is traced as close from its outset as possible, and, moreover, that the language acquisition prospects of the selected informants are relatively favourable. On the basis of these considerations, a longitudinal learner profile was formulated in the earlier mentioned Field Manual which consists of a list of nine criteria (cf. Perdue 1984: 255-256). Tailored to the Dutch situation, the 'ideal' informant should be someone who: -

is aged between 18 and 30; has legal status in the Netherlands; has no native Dutch-speaking spouse and no children of school age; has a limited level of education; is preferably working class, with a job or some other activity providing contacts in Dutch; has extremely limited proficiency in Dutch at the start of the investigation;

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-

has been living in the Netherlands for only a short period (preferably less than one year); does not receive regular tuition in Dutch; is preferably monolingual at the time of arrival in the Netherlands and is acquiring Dutch as his/her second language.

The criterion of legal status has a pragmatic background: The chance of losing an illegal immigrant as an informant during a period of more than two years of data collection is rather high. In the procedures for approaching and selecting informants two subsequent stages were distinguished: (1) (2)

approaching potential informants who (broadly) match the ideal profile; assessing their Dutch proficiency and their readiness and motivation to participate in the project for more than two years.

In regard to the first stage, there are basically two strategies for searching for potential informants. The most obvious strategy can be qualified as top-down: One starts by visiting Turkish or Moroccan community centers and asking for names and addresses, or one goes to offices that are frequently visited by immigrants, explains the purpose of the project, tries to find out whether Turks or Moroccans fit the profile and, if so, asks them to participate. Despite a great deal of effort, the top-down approach turned out to be rather unfruitful. A laborious bottom-up strategy based upon a personal approach of informants turned out to be the best alternative for motivating people to join the project. Besides the 'target language researchers' (Peter Breeder, Jos6e Coenen, Guus Extra, Korrie van Helvert, Roeland van Hout), the project team had two source language researchers (for Turkish Aladin Akyurek, for Arabic Rachid Zerrouk). The source language researchers of the project team tried to establish contact with potential informants by personally approaching them at public meeting places, at their homes, in the street, on shop floors, and in factories. The source language researchers were able to give optimal information about the project and managed to inspire confidence in potential informants. Their unremitting efforts made this bottom-up strategy successful. In the first stage of selection it was checked whether candidate informants matched the informant profile. Their proficiency in Dutch and their motivation to participate were judged in the subsequent second stage of selection. Selective pre-interviews were held. These interviews were used to get basic information about personal background variables, living conditions, and the like. The interviews were audio-taped and the proficiency in Dutch of the informants was rated by 5 judges (2 native speakers and 3 non-native speakers of Dutch) in a

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common session. Only those informants were accepted who had a very limited or almost zero level of productive skills in Dutch (they used only one-word utterances and a few two/more word utterances). With the finally selected 16 informants clear arrangements were made. Their commitments were to take part in monthly sessions of data collection, to do so for a period of approximately two-and-a-half years, and to agree that these sessions were audio-taped and sometimes video-taped. This latter requirement had to be explained over and over again, because some learners showed great resistance to having themselves videotaped. For all these commitments a payment of 50 guilders after each session was offered. Moreover, it was promised to help the informants with filling in forms, looking for a job, and assisting them in their incidental conflicts with authorities to the extent the informants wanted to be helped. Moreover, their anonymity was guaranteed in the process of data storage, and it was made clear that the data would only be used for scientific purposes. It was clear from the start that not all data of these sixteen informants could possibly be transcribed. Right from the beginning some informants were treated as reserves, given the risk of losing informants over a period of two-and-a-half years. Data were collected from them, just as from the others, but the audioand video-tapes were put aside. The selection steps related to the number of informants in data collection, transcription, and analysis are spelled out in Table 2. Data collection was divided into three repetitive cycles of nine monthly encounters (see Section 4).

Table 2: Number of informants in subsequent stages of selection N of Turkish informants

N of Moroccan informants

initial sample

8

8

data collection cycle 1 cycle 2 cycle 3

6 5 4

7 5 4

data transcription

4

4

extensive data analysis

2

2

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The four Moroccan and four Turkish informants of whom the data collection was completed and of whom all data were transcribed are: -

Moroccan: Fatima, Mohamed, Hassan, Housein Turkish: Ergün, Mahmut, Osman, Abdullah

From these eight informants, four kernel informants were selected for extensive data analysis. In the final stage of selecting these four kernel informants, our global prognosis on their rate of L2 acquisition was taken into account. Fatima and Mahmut were selected as relatively slow learners, whereas Mohamed and Ergün were selected as relatively fast learners. The rationale behind this decision was to get a database representing a spectrum of different types of development and a wide range of developmental stages. If we compare the profiles of our four kernel informants to the nine ideal informant profile criteria, the following evaluation can be made: -

all informants are aged between 17/18 and 30; all informants have legal status in the Netherlands; no informant has a Dutch-speaking spouse or children over six years of age; Mohamed is the only informant who has had some secondary schooling (two years); all informants have working class social status and contacts in Dutch; all informants had very limited proficiency in Dutch at the beginning of data collection; all informants had been living in the Netherlands for less than 13 months at the beginning of data collection; Fatima received limited Dutch tuition during part of the data collection period; Ergün attended a vocational school during his unemployment; the Turkish informants and Fatima had no proficiency in any other language, whereas Mohamed had only very limited proficiency in French.

This evaluative list shows that our informants all closely resemble the ideal informant profile. Looking back we must conclude that keeping the informants motivated to cooperate in the project for almost two-and-a-half years required a great deal of effort on the part of the team of researchers. The source language researchers played a crucial role. Some informants were hard to motivate to come to the sessions near the end of data collection. They had to be persuaded and sometimes a moral appeal was made to them. With other informants, however, a strong relation was built up over time, and they even regretted the fact that the project was over. None of the informants turned out to be a-typical

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or had serious physical or psychological defects that would make them unsuitable for a study like the present one. The final sample of kernel informants seems to constitute a solid basis for an in-depth analysis of spontaneous second language acquisition by adults. 4.

Data collection

The language behaviour of a learner is in fact the most direct and tangible proof of a language acquisition process taking place. Language behaviour, however, is not simply available to the researcher but has to be elicited. Because spontaneous second language acquisition takes place in everyday interaction with native speakers in a social environment, data should be sampled which are representative of normal, daily communication. On the other hand, the data collected should be representative of the language ability and communicative competence of the learners. The different requirements with respect to the representative nature of the data can only be met by exploiting a variety of data elicitation tasks which provide various entries into the developing language systems of our learners. Because it was unrealistic to audio- or videotape 'authentic communication' of our informants in their daily environment, we had to construct semi-authentic conditions which reflect their real life communication as much as possible. The data collection techniques should also keep the informants motivated, not only to contribute to the interaction during the planned encounters but also to finish the whole data collection period. When particular changes of developmental language varieties are to be observed, intervals in data collection must be chosen in such a way that these changes can hardly be missed. This aspect determined the frequency of planned encounters. Moreover, the size of speech samples in each encounter should be large enough to get a reliable picture of the language abilities of our informants and to validate comparisons between successive samples. For our kernel informants, data collection took place over a period of 27 months starting in September 1982 and ending in December 1984. Apart from summer holidays and other disruptions, there were regular intervals of 25-35 days between each moment of data collection, resulting in 27 sessions of one to two hours per informant. These 27 sessions were organized in three successive cycles, each cycle consisting of nine sessions. These nine sessions each contained the same set of speech elicitation tasks. By repeating speech elicitation activities in the form of cycles, comparable data over time become available for analysis. Recurrent speech elicitation tasks offer a good perspective on linguistic details of the second language acquisition process. Various types of elicitation tasks were used: Free conversations, pre-structured play acting, commenting on or retelling video fragments of films (in particular silent movies), and small-scale experiments. Free conversation

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included both interactive and narrative data; whereas the interactive parts in conversation are a good source for studying question-answer sequences, narratives are more suitable for the study of, e.g., reference to time. Play acting contained more planned and guided discourse, although there was some room for free conversation. Play scenes yield interesting data for the study of (mis)understandings and feedback in interethnic communication. Given its degree of stimulus control, film commenting and retelling is the most promising technique in providing comparable data. Moreover, the clear set of possible referents given by a film fragment, enhances the reconstruction process of what informants actually want to express. The experiments created extremely structured conditions in which a very specific language use was elicited. The informants had to translate words, name pictures, fill in verbs, etc. Some experiments had a less pre-structured design, such as instructing someone to act according to a given script or describing a route through the town to show someone the way to a specific place. Most daily L2 conversations of our informants took place in rather formal situations, for instance paying a visit to a doctor, applying for a job, asking for a house or applying for a benefit. In cases like these our informants had a disadvantageous status, for two reasons: They did not speak the language of interaction very well, and they wanted something their interlocutor could give access to or not. Pre-structured play acting seems to be the most suited way to get some insight into the way our informants could handle such kinds of situations over time. All play acting scenes were administered three times, once in every cycle. The following four play acting scenes were administered: (1)

post office (PO):

(2) (3) (4)

bakery plant (BP): housing office (HO): migration office (MO):

transferring money by post (cycle 1), sending a parcel by post (cycles 2 and 3); applying for a job; applying for housing accommodation; applying for family reunion (cycle 1) remigration (cycles 2 and 3).

All play scenes were well prepared beforehand. Preparation included, among other things, a scenario in Dutch based upon information about housing regulations, post regulations, laws for family reunion, remigration, etc., and a translated version which served as instruction for the informant. Furthermore, a list with possible questions for the interlocutor was prepared plus a list of key words in Moroccan-Arabic and Turkish which was used when necessary. All play scenes were video-taped in a studio. Apart from specific props and keywords for each play scene, a table and two chairs were placed in the studio serving as an official desk.

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In Table 3 we summarize different evaluation criteria with respect to the techniques applied.

Table 3: Evaluation of data collection techniques (+ = high, - = low, 0 = inbetween) conversations

play acting PO BP HO MO

feasibility authenticity comparability productivity

+ + +

+ + + -

+ + + +

0+ + + 0 + +

film

ret./com. silent + + + + 0

experiments

spoken + +

+ 0 + +

Going from left to right in Table 3, the data collection techniques range from very spontaneous to strongly stimulus-controlled types of activities. We are convinced that this variety of techniques made our analyses more powerful. Moreover, the repetition of specific tasks made the analysis of developmental trends more feasible. Most informants cooperated well within the diversity of data collection techniques. It offered them both variation and structure. This clearly had a positive effect on their motivation to participate. 5.

Database

The resulting database is so extensive that the analyses had to be derived from (various) subsets of the data, depending upon the particular topic of analysis. The problem in the project was not to get enough data, but not to be overwhelmed by them. To give an impression of the size of the database, the estimated number of word tokens over all cycles is given in Table 4 both for the informants and their native interlocutors.

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Table 4: Estimated number of word tokens over all cycles for informants and their native interlocutors informant Fatima Mohamed Ergun Mahmut Total

native speaker

total

31500 56000 64000 61000

44500 48500 55000 45500

76000 104500 119000 106500

212500

193500

406000

Table 4 shows that the number of word tokens for Fatima is rather low. The number of word tokens in the utterances of the native speakers seems to be rather constant over the informants. The total number of word tokens is fairly high for a database of spoken language. For instance, the database used in De Jong (1979) for counting word frequencies in spoken native Dutch only contains 120.000 tokens. It is self-evident that the quality of the analyses relies directly on the quality of the transcripts. Two crucial criteria for the quality of transcripts are consistency and explicitness. Explicitness is needed in order to minimalize context-dependency upon encounter-specific features when the data are interpreted and analysed, and to maximalize accessibility for other researchers. The criterion of consistency relates to the condition that procedures and guidelines chosen should be applied in a consistent way. Three principles underlie our transposition of spoken language into transcripts. First, as no strictly phonetic analysis was intended, an orthographic representation was used with minor adaptations given both spoken and developmental nature of our data. Consequently, many phonetic details do not appear in the transcripts. Secondly, two structuring concepts have been applied in dividing the speech stream, i.e. the concept of utterance at the speaker level and the concept of speech group at the interactional level to mark turn taking. In choosing transcription conventions we followed the guidelines as described in Perdue (1984). Data of the whole ESF project have meanwhile become available as a separate databank (cf. Feldweg 1991).

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Data analysis

Second language acquisition research has been limited in the past by a tendency to focus on product rather than process, form rather than function, single rather than multiple levels of linguistic analysis, and isolated utterances rather than conversational context. For good reasons, Long - Sato (1984) have argued that an explanatory theory of L2 acquisition should consider interactions between and among all four approaches. The shift from product-oriented to process-oriented research paradigms has resulted in the replacement of form-only analyses, which are best exemplified by the early morpheme studies, to function-to-form and form-to-function analyses. Sato (1989) made a strong plea for these combined analyses in order to understand the functional distribution of particular forms in L2 learner varieties. Within any area or domain of acquisition, language learners will not start with all relevant properties of the target language at the same time. For various reasons, a distinction should be made between linguistic devices and referential functions. First of all, referential functions can be expressed in learner varieties without any overt linguistic marking, cf.: (1) (2) (3)

he down 'he went down' they go away 'they went away' then back Morocco 'then he went back to Morocco'

In these examples, there is no overt marking of motion (1,3), time (1,2,3) or person (3). Given the fact that the learner will try to use whatever expressive devices he can, such zero-markings can obviously not be qualified as 'deletions'. Secondly, referential functions can be expressed in learner varieties with non-standardlike linguistic devices, cf: (4) (5) (6)

he at home 'he went home' he at home 'she is at home' tomorrow 'this morning'

The mismatches between learner utterances and intended expressions in the target language can lead to misunderstandings in referring to direction (4), person (5) or time (6). Finally, the distinction between referential function and

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linguistic device is especially important in cross-linguistic studies of learner varieties in which different source and/or target languages are taken into account. Similar functions may be expressed by widely divergent linguistic devices in different languages. Major questions on any linguistic area of investigation have been: -

Which referential functions are expressed by which linguistic devices in early learner varieties? How are these linguistic devices and referential functions expanded over time?

It is assumed that the amount of language contact, with attitudinal and motivational factors as intervening variables, is a major contributor to the speed and success of second language acquisition. In this domain, the basic question has been: -

What regulates the overall acquisition tempo?

A salient feature of second language acquisition by adult immigrants is the fact that it results in quite different stages of target language proficiency. Some learners achieve a near-native variety, whereas others will never go beyond a small vocabulary of words and a few syntactic or idiomatic constructions. This phenomenon is in strong contrast to first language acquisition. The classic approach in studying (second) language acquisition is to concentrate on selected phenomena at the level of phonology, morphology, syntax or lexicon. In this project, a number of research areas were explored which do not correspond to such traditional domains. From the learner's point of view, two major problems have to be solved, i.e. the problem of analysis and the problem of synthesis (cf. Klein 1986: 59-109). The focus has been on the latter. As a point of start in the analysis, however, we also paid some attention to the former. The focus of our study is on L2 acquisition in social interaction with native speakers of the target language. In such a context of learning, the learner is faced from the outset with a basic problem of understanding. A continuous stream of unknown acoustic signals has to be segmented into smaller units that make sense (the problem of analysis). Contrary to common-sense views, this analytical task is highly complex, since there are few pauses in spoken language that would provide clues for word or word group boundaries. The learner's decomposition of the ongoing flow of speech may be guided by a combination of suprasegmental clues such as pauses, intonation contours or stressed syllables, segmental clues such as identified words for reference to entities or activities, and nonverbal contextual clues. This process of continuous decomposition may

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lead to partial or complete understanding, but it may also result in misunderstanding or even complete communicative breakdown. Both the native speaker and the L2 learner may indicate non-understanding by means of, e.g., simple feedback items like uh? or metalinguistic comments like what do you mean? As a follow-up of such trouble indicators, each of the two may try to solve non-understandings, for instance by a repetition or reformulation of the earlier message. After having accomplished his analytical task up to a certain level and during a certain period of time, the learner will eventually have to solve the even more complex task of getting his own message across. Here, the task consists of the selection of a set of meaningful and coherent words, and the linear arrangement of these words in related utterances (the problem of synthesis). The learner's composition of his own speech flow may be guided by similar clues as mentioned before, i.e., segmental, suprasegmental, and contextual clues. In the project we have focused on how adult L2 learners accomplished the following tasks: -

reference to entities, activities, and properties reference to space reference to time word order.

In many languages, including the target language under consideration, the first task has to be accomplished by utilizing specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives respectively. In Germanic languages, entities and activities have to be put in place and time by utilizing, among other devices, grammatical morphemes such as 'function words', e.g., on the roof, into the garage, before Monday. Finally, all utilized devices have to be arranged linearly with the help of specific word order rules. All languages have a variety of means for reference to entities, activities, and properties, and for the anchorage of these devices in place and time. In contrast to children learning their first language, the task of our adult second language learners is not primarily to find out that these concepts can be referred to in an unknown language, but to find out how this actually should be done. 7.

An illustration of the learner's complex task

In this section we illustrate the complexity of the learner's synthetic task with a narrative of one of the informants about a series of events in the past. What adds to the complexity of producing such a narrative is that the monologue character of reporting on past events forces the language learner to maintain the past

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temporal frame all alone, utterance by utterance, instead of having the option to rely on occasional temporal anchoring by his conversational partner. After a stay of ten months in the Netherlands, Mohamed, one of our Moroccan informants (at that time 22 years old), told a story (in cycle 1, session 4) about his problems with buying liquor at Christmas time. Below we present a transliterated version of his narrative, accompanied by the following set of conventions: EJ Eint Ej_ext Ej-rep BG (= —) 01-49

= = = = = = =

Eint

01 in de feest jouw (= jullie) feest deze kerst uh in the feast your feast this Christmas eh 02 allemaal die bar en disco dicht all that bar and disco closed 03 alleen een koffie (= cafe) voor die die jongens qui (= die) only one coffee (= pub) for those those boys qui (= who) 04 roken hasjiesh en uh en uh voor hippies uh een koffie smoke hashish and eh and eh for hippies eh one coffee 05 een koffie voor hippiese jongens one coffee for hippy boys 06 ik om uh om uh negen uur om uh half negen ik ga naar uh I at nine o'clock at half past eight I go to eh 07 ik ga met die jongen familie (= neef) naar die naar die I go with that boy family (= nephew) to those to those 08 twee broers marokkaans two brothers moroccan 09 ik ga naar hem I go to him 10 dan alles en dan wij alles gaan naar tilburg then everything and then we everything go to tilburg

BG

E,

E,_ ext E2

BG E3

story line of reported events; i indicates number of event introduction of events (establishment of temporal frame) extension of event i repetition of event i background information (apart from the storyline) text annotation line numbers

that moroccan caf6 12 marokkaans cafd is open uh tot uh tot uh tot half tien moroccan cafe is open eh till half past nine 13 en dan ik uh ik praten met een jongens

Second language acquisition by adult immigrants

E 3) E 32 E 33

BG

E 34

E3.5 E4

BG

and then I eh I talk with one boys 14 hij zegt "hier is uh winkel uh altijd open" he says "here is eh shop eh always open" 15 "il y a whisky alles" "il y a whisky everything" 16 "ik wil" ik zegt me met hem "ik wil uh die die rouge" "I want" I says with him "I want eh that that rouge" 17 (= rode wijn) (= red wine) 18 veel uh veel marokkaans mensen veel rouge drinken many eh many moroccan people drink much rouge 19 jij weten? you know? 20 uh ik zegt van die "die die winkel kopen (= verkopen) eh I says of that "that that shop buy (= sell) 21 die rouge?" that rouge?" 22 hij zegt "ja" he says "yes" 23 en dan ik ga met hem and then I go with him 24 hij hij kan niet zeggen die deze uh rifmensen he he can not say those these eh rif people 25 hij kan hij kan niet die rouge he can he can not that rouge 26 deze boermensen hij kan niet drinken of/ hij kan niet these farmer people he can not drink or/ he cannot 27 alleen uh hier in marokko die die alleen casablanca only eh here in morocco those those only casablanca 28 marrakech ik denk mohammadia rabat langer die agadir marrakech I think mohammadia rabat langer those agadir 29 jadida marrakech fes die mensen niet zelf als die jadida marrakech fes those people not same as those 30 die ander mensen those other people 31 hier in uh in noord-marokkaans geen caf£ geen uh/ here in eh in north-moroccan no cafo no eh/ 32 maar in grote stad allemaal disco but in big city all disco 33 die jongens drinken roken those boys drink smoke 34 maar die ander alleen alleen roken

\ 03

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E4_rep E5 E6 E, Eg E, BG

E10 BG Eio-rep En E12 E13 E,4

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but the other ones only only smoke 35 ik ga met hem I go with him 36 dan ik zegt "ik wil rouge" then I says "I want rouge" 37 "nee"/ hij zegt uh "rouge niet duur" "no"/ he says eh "rouge not expensive" 38 "ik wil uh vijf liter of uh zes liter met rouge" "I want eh five liter or eh six liter with rouge" 39 en dan hij hij uh hij niet verstaan "rouge" and then he he eh he not understand "rouge" 40 hij pakken een uh een glas (= fles) he take a eh a glass (= bottle) 41 die die/ een vrouw werk in de winkel woont daar that that/ a woman work in the shop lives there 42 et (=en) werkt de winkel and works the shop 43 hij (= zij) om tien uur hij zegt "een jongens een Jong" he (= she) at ten o'clock he says "one boys one boy" 44 wij is uh drie jongens we is eh three boys m ze 45 J ßt die vrouw zegt "een een jong binnen" he says that woman says "one one boy inside" 46 en dan hij/ ik geef hem een uh vijftig guld and then he/1 give him a eh fifty guild 47 dan hij uh hij pakken een whisky then he eh he take a whisky 48 en dan hij terug and then he back 49 ik zegt "deze niet uh rouge, deze is whisky" I says "this not eh rouge, this is whisky"

Mohamed's story can be commented upon from a variety of perspectives. Some basic principles of lexical specification, word order, and reference to person, place and time will be taken into account respectively. Given the complexity of the learning task in the domain of temporal reference to past events, we will focus on Mohammed's performance of this task in greater detail. Lexical specification Mohamed, who has a minimal knowledge of French, shows evidence of borrowing from that language in L-03 (qui) (L-03 is line number 03 in

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\ 05

Mohamad's story), L-15 (il-y-a), L-42 (et), and passim (rouge). Evidence of misleading phonetic similarity emerges in L-03 (kqffie; French cafe is equivalent to both cafe 'pub' and kqffie 'coffee' in standard Dutch), and in L-40 (glas pro fles). Lexical underspecification can be observed in L-10 (alles) for reference to both person (allemaal) and object (alles), and in L-20 kopen for reference to both kopen 'buy' and verkopen 'sell'. Word order principles The basic word order in Dutch is SOV with verb second in main clauses. In main clauses the order of subject and finite verb is either subject-verb or verbsubject when there is a proposed constituent. Mohamed sticks to the order of subject and verb, no matter whether a constituent is preposed (L-06, L-10, L13, L-23, L-36, L-39, L-47), and even in questions (L-19, L-20). The order in L-13, for instance, is X-S-V (dan ik praten ... 'then I talk ...'), where Dutch requires the order X-V-S (dan praten ik ... 'then talk I ...') because of verb second. Reference to person At the word level of reference to person both nominal and pronominal devices can be taken into account. Examples of innovative compounds (N-t-N) can be observed in L-07 (jongen familie = neef 'nephew'), in L-18 (marokkaans mensen = Marokkanen 'Moroccans'), and in L-26 (boermensen = boeren 'farmers'). Innovative, transparent compounds seem to emerge prior to standardlike, opaque derivations. Pronominal reference is based on a small set of linguistic devices for expressing a variety of referential functions. Singular forms are used for plural reference in L-01 (jouw = jullie 'your'), in L-09 (hem = hen 'them'), and in L24-26 (hij = zij 'they'). Masculine forms are used for female reference in L43-45 (hij = zij 'she'). At the level of connected discourse, standard Dutch has a specific order of reference for introducing entities (with indefinite devices) and for maintaining reference to entities (with definite devices including pronouns). Mohamed, however, makes use of definite die for introducing entities in L-07 (3x), L-ll, L-16, and L-41. The latter example is particularly illuminating, because it shows his awareness of the distinction under discussion in the self-repair die die/ een vrouw .... Awareness of the non-introductory status of pronouns also emerges in repairs in L-24 (hij .... deze rifmenseri) and L-45 (hij ... die vrouw). Reference to space Spatial dimensions may be referred to implicitly or explicitly in early learner varieties. As far as spatial reference is concerned in the given story, zero-marking of reference to location (in L-27, L-28, L-29, L-42) and

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direction (in L-ll, L-45) can be observed in contexts where standard Dutch would require an explicit marking by means of the spatial prepositions in 'in, into' and naar 'to' respectively. Reference to time Every speaker makes frequent reference to space and time. At least some domains of the temporal devices across languages have an underlying spatial base, e.g. prepositions like in, on, over. For various reasons, temporal devices constitute a more complex and abstract learning task, and they show, therefore, a pattern of later differentiation in processes of language acquisition: (1)

(2)

(3)

whereas spatial reference commonly relates to the embedding of concrete objects or activities in space, temporal reference relates to the embedding of abstract events in the past, present, or future; spatial devices are commonly expressed by lexical means (e.g., prepositions, verbs, adverbs), and they can be taken into account at the utterance level; temporal devices, however, are expressed by both lexical means (e.g., temporal adverbs or prepositions) and morphological means (especially complex systems of verb tense and aspect), and they should be taken into account both at the utterance and discourse level; at the level of discourse, four major principles have to be taken into account: - events may, but need not be referred to in their chronological order; the Principle of Natural Order (PNO) relates to the condition that events are commonly told in chronological order; - events may, but need not be linked in time through the expression of temporal connectors; in the case of PNO, events may be linked through implicit or explicit temporal connectors (cf. and vs. and then respectively); in the case of violation of PNO, events should be linked through specific explicit temporal connectors (e.g., but first or before); - events are commonly referred to with a storyline (foreground information) and asides (background information); the latter is commonly referred to with a different temporal marking and/or a different intonational pattern; - events may finally be referred to by quoted speech which should be introduced by a verbum dicendi (e.g., he said...).

The complexity of Mohamed's task in producing a monologue is most clearly demonstrated by the specific condition of telling a narrative about past events. This task forces him to introduce and continuously maintain the past temporal frame on his own in successive utterances.

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At the level of single utterances, there is no explicit (obliged) past tense marking of verbs whatsoever. Most commonly, present tense forms are used for reference to past events, e.g. in L-06 ga 'go' or L-10 gaan 'go'; the same holds for the introduction of quoted speech with verbum dicendi zeggen 'say' (passim). Incidentally, no verb forms are used in cases where reference to states or activities is indicated otherwise, e.g., in L-02 by dicht 'close' or in L-^8 by terug 'back'.

Table 5: Storyline of Mohamed's narrative; E,-E14 = series of events, BG background information, DS = direct speech order of events ο d e t ο f m e n t i ο η

EM In d* feast... deze k«st

Xi«gl*DS [B } (E«) «n dan ""

(E*)danieglX+DS (Ee)Xzegl+DS

X I'E τ) DS " \.

(Et)endan

" (El^Xz«et+DS '. Eiorep ' ;

(Eil enden . (Et2) dan \. (Eis) »n den Λ further completely In accordance with PNO

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Table 5 contains a storyline representation of Mohamed's narrative. The temporal framework of the story is introduced by calendric and deictic means respectively (in de feest and deze kersi). The table makes clear that Mohamed sticks basically to PNO in telling his story, apart from his reference to events E10 and E,, (where PNO violation is explicitly marked by temporal om tien uuf). Whereas standard Dutch makes a frequent use of (en) toen vs. (en) dan for connecting reference to successive past vs. non-past events respectively (a distinction which does not exist in English), Mohamed shows an undifferentiated use of (en) dan for reference to past events in combination with present tense verb forms (cf. L-10, L-13, L-23, L-36, L-39, L-46, L-47). Moreover, both foreground and background information are given; there are switches to background information in L-03-05, L-12, L-18-19, L-24-34, L-41-42, L44. Mohamed makes use of the principle of repeating reported events after the long background information in L-24-34 and after L-44. Reference to quoted speech in standard Dutch requires (a) the introduction of a quotation, accompanied with reference to the speaker, the addressee, and the verb of addressing (the earlier mentioned 'verbum dicendi'), and (b) the direct or indirect quotation itself. The procedural options are illustrated in Table 6.

Table 6: Reference to quoted speech in standard Dutch Reference to Interlocutors Speaker hij he hij he

Verbum Dicendi

ι

zei said zei said

Quotation

Addressee I

I

tegen to tegen to

haar: her: haar her

''net is tien uur" (direct quote) "it is ten o'clock" dat het tien uur was (indirect quote) that it was ten o'clock

In standard Dutch, indirect quotations (which are very common) would ask for a substitution of verb tense (past instead of present) and verb position (final instead of midst). Given these added complexities, it is no wonder that Mohamed sticks to direct quotations (passim). In L-16, the absence of an introduction to the quotation leads to the self-repair "ik \vil" ik zegt met hem: "ik ml...". Moreover, the addressee is not referred to with standardlike tegen, but with met 'with' in L-16 or van Of in L-20.

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\ 09

In sum, Mohamed shows evidence of utilizing all major discourse principles for temporal reference mentioned before: PNO plus one temporally marked violation of PNO, temporal connectors (dan or en dan), switches between foreground and background information, and quoted speech (i.e., direct quotations). Our illustration of these and other principles is meant as an eye-opener to the complexity of the learning task, as a demonstration of our microscopic approach in analysing this task, and as an indication of Mohamed's skills in handling a multitude of aspects of telling a narrative about past events after a period of ten months of second language input. 8.

Further reading

In the wider cross-linguistic context of the European Science Foundation project final reports have been written on each of the areas of investigation mentioned in Section 6 of this paper: Bremer et al. (1988) and Allwood (1988) on (feedback in) misunderstanding, Breeder et al. (1988) on processes in the developing lexicon, Becker et al. (1988) on reference to space, Klein et al. (in press) on reference to time, and Klein - Perdue (1992) on word order. Each of these reports included cross-linguistic evidence on the acquisition of the target language and the informants under consideration. Various studies have specifically been carried out on the acquisition of Dutch by Turkish and Moroccan informants. Reference to space and time were studied by Breeder et al. (1985), Extra - Van Helvert (1987a, 1987b) and Extra - Van Hout (1992). Coenen - Van Hout (1987) and Klein - Perdue (1992) focused on word order characteristics. Aspects of the developing lexicon were dealt with in a number of studies. Breeder - Extra - Van Hout (1987), Breeder - Extra (1988, 1991) and Breeder (1991) studied pronominal and nominal devices for reference to entities; topics addressed were first, second and third pronominal reference, reference to possession and kinship, and the establishment and maintenance of reference to people. Various measures of lexical richness and variety were discussed by Breeder - Extra - Van Hout (1987). Both a macroand micro-perspective on the developing lexicon was given by Breeder et al. (1986) and Breeder - Extra - Van Hout (1989). Deen - Van Hout (1991) did pilot-analyses on learner strategies for indicating and solving problems of understanding in interethnic discourse.

Notes * There are other relevant studies of course, for instance Jansen - Lalleman Muysken 1981.

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Appendix ESF Databank Data collected in the context of the whole ESF project on spontaneous second language acquisition by adult immigrants are available in a databank. The databank contains three main categories of files: data files:

the files containing the raw transcript of the encounters with the informants, the accompanying files such as protocols of the encounters, and informants' socio-biographies. programmes: programmes and procedures to facilitate analysis on the data. documents: documentation of data, programmes and procedures. Detailed information is given in Feldweg (1991). The databank is accessible to academic institutions or individual researchers for research and for language training programmes. Because of the intimate nature of the transcribed longitudinal data users are required to sign an agreement to insure data privacy. There are no direct charges for use of the databank other than for coverage of postage and storage media for data transfer. Data is transferred to users by means of electronic networks or on computer diskettes or tapes rather than distributed in paper form. The easiest way to retrieve data is by requesting it from a file-server installed on one of the computers at the Max-Planck-Institute in Nijmegen. Usage of this device presumes that you have access to an international electronic network such as bitnet or internet allowing you to send messages to use the file transfer protocol (FTP). The electronic address of the file-server and detailed instructions on how to use it are available upon request from the central data co-ordinator of the databank. A more conservative method to gain access to data of the databank is by requesting parts of the data on machine readable media such as computer diskettes or magnetic tapes. Requests should be directed to the central data co-ordinator by mail, phone, or electronic mail. Central data co-ordinator of the ESF databank Marianne Starren Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik Postbus 310 NL-6500 AH Nijmegen The Netherlands phone: e-mail:

31-80-521307 internet: [email protected]

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References Allwood, Jens (ed.) 1988 Feedback in adult language acquisition. Final report to the European Science Foundation II. Göteborg. Becker, Angelika - Mary Carroll - Ann Kelly (eds.) 1988 Reference to space. Final report to the European Science Foundation IV. Heidelberg. Beukema, Frits - Peter Coopmans (eds.) 1987 Linguistics in the Netherlands 1987. Dordrecht: Foris. Blanc, Hoda - Michele Le Douaron - Daniel Voronique (eds.) 1987 S'approprier une langue etrangere: Perspectives et recherches. Paris: Didier orudition. Bremer, Katharina - Peter Breeder - Celia Roberts - Margaret Simonot Marie-Thorese Vasseur (eds.) 1988 Ways of achieving understanding: Communicating to learn in a second language. Final report to the European Science Foundation I. London. Breeder, Peter 1991 Talking about people. A multiple case study on second language acquisition by adults. Amsterdam/Lisse: Swets - Zeitlinger. Breeder, Peter - Josoe Coenen - Guus Extra - Roeland van Hout - Rachid Zerrouk 1985 "Spatial reference in L2 Dutch of Turkish and Moroccan adult learners. The initial stages", in: Guus Extra - Ton Vallen (eds.), 209-252. 1986 "Ontwikkelingen in het Nederlandstalige lexicon bij anderstalige volwassenen: Een macro- en micro-perspectief', in: Jos Creten Guido Geerts - Koen Jaspaert (eds.), 39-57. Breeder, Peter - Guus Extra 1988 "Woordvormingsproc£d£'s bij verwijzing naar objecten in tweede-taalverwervingsprocessen van volwassenen", Toegepaste Taalweienschap in Artikel en 30: 105-117. 1991 "Acquisition of kinship reference. A study on word formation processes of adult language learners", International Journal of Applied Linguistics 1: 209-227. Breeder, Peter - Guus Extra - Roeland van Hout 1987 "Measuring lexical richness and variety in second language use", Polyglot 8: 1-16. 1989 "Processes in the developing lexicon of adult immigrant learners", AILA Review 6: 86-109.

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Breeder, Peter - Guus Extra - Roeland van Hout - Sven Strömqvist - Kaarlo Voionmaa 1988 Processes in the developing lexicon. Final report to the European Science Foundation III. Tilburg/Göteborg. Clahsen, Harald - Jürgen M. Meisel - Manfred Pienemann 1983 Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Der Sprachenverb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Coenen, Jose"e - Roeland van Hout 1987 "Word order phenomena in second language acquisition of Dutch", in: Frits Beukema - Peter Coopmans (eds.), 41-50. Creten, Jos - Guido Geerts - Koen Jaspaert (eds.) 1986 Werk-in-uitvoering: Momentopnamen van de sociolinguistiek in Belgie en Nederland. Leuven: ACCO. Davies, Alan - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.) 1984 Interlanguage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Deen, Janine - Roeland van Hout 1991 "Clarification sequences in native - non-native interaction", in: Roeland van Hout - Erica Huls (eds.), 121-138. Extra, Guus - Ton Vallen (eds.) 1985 Ethnic minorities and Dutch as a second language. Dordrecht: Foris Extra, Guus - Roeland van Hout - Ton Vallen (eds.) 1987 Etnische minderheden. Dordrecht: Foris. Extra, Guus - Korrie van Helvert 1987a "Rofirence temporelle dans I'acquisition d'une seconde langue par des adultes", in: Hoda Blanc - Mich£le Le Douaron - Daniel Veronique (eds.), 143-155. 1987b "Verwijzing naar tijd in tweede-taalverwervingsprocessen van volwassenen", in: Guus Extra - Roeland van Hout - Ton Vallen (eds.), 117-139. Extra, Guus - Roeland van Hout 1992 "Spatial reference in adult language acquisition. A multiple case study on Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch", in: Bernhard Ketteman - Wilfried Wieden (eds.), 352-367. Feldweg, Helmut 1991 The European Science Foundation second language databank. Nijmegen: Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik. Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt Pidgin-Deutsch 1978 Zur Erlernung des Deutschen durch ausländische Arbeiter. Arbeitsbericht 4. Heidelberg: Germanistisches Seminar.

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Hout, Roeland van - Erica Huls (eds.) 1991

Artikelen van de Eerste Sociolinguistische Conferentie. Delft: Eburon. Jansen, Bert - Josine Lalleman - Pieter Muysken 1981 "The alternation hypothesis of Dutch word order by Turkish and Moroccan foreign workers", Language Learning 31, 315-336. Jong, Eveline de 1979 Spreektaal. Woordfrequenties in gesproken Nederlands. Utrecht:

Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema. Ketteman, Bernhard - Wilfried Wieden (eds.) 1992

Current issues in European second language acquisition. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Klein, Wolfgang 1986 Second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Klein, Wolfgang - Norbert Dittmar 1979

Developing grammars. The acquisition of German syntax by foreign workers. Berlin: Springer. Klein, Wolfgang - Clive Perdue, in co-operation with Mary Carroll - Josee Coenen - Jos£ Deulofeu - Thorn Huebner - Anne Trevise 1992 Utterance structure. Developing grammars again. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Klein, Wolfgang - Rainer Dietrich - Colette Noyau in press Temporality in second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Long, Michael H. - Charlene Sato 1984 "Methodological issues in interlanguage studies: An interactionist perspective", in: Alan Davies - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.), 253-279. Perdue, Clive (ed.) 1984 Second language acquisition by adult immigrants. A field manual. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Sato, Charlene 1989 The syntax of conversation in interlanguage development. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Schumann, John 1978 The pidginization process: A model for second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Slobin, Dan I. 1985 The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, (two volumes). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Processing

Some experimental tasks in the study of word recognition

Cor J. Koster

1.

Introduction

"In view of the complexity of the process of speaking and listening it is amazing that so much is understood of what is said." This thesis, appended to a Dutch dissertation on intonation in speech (Van Geel 1983), seems too optimistic in view of a familiar problem presented in the cartoon below. It shows a policeman telling the way to someone who is unfamiliar with the area. The policeman knows exactly what route the man has to take. The 'picture' the policeman has in his mind is, however, a far cry from the picture evoked in the man's mind and it is very doubtful that the man will find his destination by the route indicated.

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Drawing by Stevenson: © 1976 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.

The underlying assumption in the cartoon is that a listener recreates the same information ('picture') that the speaker has in mind. This, of course, is never the case. The problem here, apart perhaps from the limited memory capacity of the listener, is that the policeman, because he is so familiar with the area, omits a lot of information which is essential for the listener. Furthermore, not only is a certain amount of information that is conveyed by the speaker not picked up or not integrated in the listener's framework of knowledge, the information interacts with already available information to create a 'picture' that does not coincide with what the speaker has in mind. In this section we will concentrate mainly on one aspect, viz. word recognition, mainly because this subject is fairly limited and because quite a bit of research has been done on the subject. In doing so we will discuss a number of psycholinguistic techniques used in studying word recognition, because they illustrate the various approaches taken towards language processing and the variety of theories that is available.

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Levels of processing

Transmitting information obviously involves a change in information (loss as well as addition). The sense which a speaker or writer attaches to a word or phrase is not always similar to the meaning it has for a listener or writer (or translator). A word does not always mean what it usually means. But of course there is more to language processing than analyzing the meaning of words. Word recognition is involved, as well as the combination of words into meaningful phrases and sentences. But also letter or sound recognition, the linking of a proposition to a previous one or to the body of knowledge that has been accumulated by the listener or reader. A simple model for language processing in this case for listening only - is presented below.

Figure I: Levels of processing

i—+/

pragmatic

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One may distinguish various levels of processing in listening: the acoustic, phonetic, phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic level (Figure 1). One has to 'hear' something (acoustic level) before one can know that what one hears is speech (phonetic level). Then one identifies speech sounds (phonological level), combining phonemes to words (lexical level) and words to sentences (syntactic level), assigning meaning to a sentence (semantic level) and linking these sentences to previous and following sentences (pragmatic level). This, of course, is a rather simplistic description of the way we process language. The processing of speech does not necessarily take place in this order, nor are all these levels always involved in speech processing. "Indeed, some levels may well be skipped, and the order is not necessarily fixed. Sometimes it is even possible to understand a speaker without his having produced any 'noise' at all, for instance when we anticipate what he is going to say on the basis of what he has said. The order of processing is not always from bottom to top in the sense that for instance we first have to identify the phonemes before the word can be recognized" (Koster 1987: 2). One level may overrule another level. There may be return to a lower or previous level or a level may be skipped entirely. Schlesinger (1977), for instance, showed that a semantic analysis may take precedence over a syntactic one. Acting upon the assumption that a certain relation holds between two or more words and that sentences are easier to understand than when these 'matchings' are not found, he presented subjects with the sentence as in (1). (1)

This is the hole that the rat, which our cat, whom the dog bit, made, caught.

Very few subjects noticed that this sentence is completely nonsensical, since it says that the cat made the rat and the rat caught the hole. What they thought it meant was that the dog bit the cat, that the cat caught the rat and that the rat made the hole. That, after all, makes sense, and that basically is what people try to do when listening or reading: making sense of it. The processing of speech, then, cannot be captured in a simple hierarchical bottom-up model. Koster (1987) therefore proposed the highly interactive model shown in Figure 1 (cf. Levelt 1978). 3.

Word recognition

Word recognition is no doubt one of the major problems in listening to speech in a foreign language. It often happens that one listens to a series of speech sounds which one finds it impossible to combine into meaningful words. The two main reasons for the inability to recognize words are problems with the phonetic

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variability of the speech signal and with the segmentation process. We will not go into the phonetic variability of (combinations of) speech sounds, caused by variation in length, vowel and consonant reduction, assimilation phenomena, etc. Instead we will look a little bit more closely at the segmentation problem, trying to find out what it is that makes identifying and recognizing words so difficult. One of the main differences between listening and reading is the fact that in written texts words are separated from one another by spaces, whereas in speech words run into one another. There are no 'spaces' in spoken language, which makes it very difficult to decide where one word ends and the next one begins. An example is the English phrase A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you? or, in ordinary English, A kid'U eat ivy too, wouldn't you? (from the well-known ditty Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey). This phrase is very difficult to understand, because it is almost impossible to identify where one word stops and the following word begins. There is, of course, also another possibility, and that is that a particular phrase can be segmented into more than one sequence, depending on the context. Examples of English phrases that, when spoken in isolation, allow at least two different segmentations, leading to different meanings, are: (2) a. b. c.

He gave her a dress He saw the cargo / know it 's old

He gave her address He saw the car go I know it 's sold

More common, especially in listening to a foreign language, are cases in which the segmentation process fails because of the incorrect assignment of specific speech sounds to a particular word, leaving the listener with a series of sounds he cannot combine into words. The examples in (3) are taken from the transcriptions of spoken English by Dutch first-year students:

(3) a. b. c. d. e.

utterance

written down as

weights and measures sorted the person out the magazine 'Which' it's ready for you to collect dearest you

wage emerges sorted them press and out and make a switch it's ready few to connect dear stew

These examples represent conscious attempts to find words that match at least to some extent a number of the acoustic elements identified in the utterance. What is remarkable is that the difference between the utterance and what is in fact perceived is often so small. Cf. dear stew (for dearest you) and it's ready few (for it's ready for you). This, indeed, suggests that the main problem in listening

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to a foreign language is located not so much at the phonological level, but at the lexical level. It seems to suggest that non-natives often fail to make use of higher level constraints, i.e. of the indications that are present in the context. This, however, is not the case. It has been shown that both native and non-native listeners are susceptible to the effect of context, and that the latter in fact may make greater use of context than native speakers, provided they have enough time for processing and provided the words are well-known (Koster 1987). And yet, non-natives, as the examples above show, apparently often fail to segment the speech signal properly, in spite of clear indications present in the context. This means, in fact, that the phonetic variability of the speech sounds plays a large role after all. Not being familiar with the (often rule-governed) sound adaptations that may take place, non-natives sometimes fail to map the sound patterns onto the lexical items they do know. In other words, they fail to recognize words, not knowing where a word ends or begins. Below we will look at some of the tasks that are available for studying these phenomena, reporting on some experiments that have been carried out with native and non-native listeners. 4.

Techniques (tasks) in studying language processing

How does one find out how people process language? In school, the traditional way is to present listeners with a text and ask questions about it to find out whether they have understood the text. This is very much an off-line task because it cannot say anything about what happens, as it were, on the spot. It gives no information about the way in which processing takes place. It only indicates, at least to some extent, whether the information, or some of it, has been assimilated. The same holds for recognition or verification tasks. In a typical recognition task, for instance, the experimenter presents subjects with a number of sentences, either in writing or on tape. After some time he presents the subjects with words, phrases or whole sentences of which they have to indicate whether they have come across them before in the experiment or not. This task is typically used in studies of the way propositions are stored in memory. The great drawback is again that it is an off-line task and addresses the question how processed information becomes available (in long term memory). Obviously that is not quite the same as finding out what happens while one listens. In psycholinguistic experiments other, more valid tasks are used. We will discuss four of the most common ones, viz. lexical decision, monitoring, the gating technique and shadowing.

Some experimental tasks in the study of word recognition

4,1.

\ 23

Lexical decision tasks

Words are, of course, virtually always used in context. The effect of context on word recognition has most often been studied by means of a lexical decision task. It has, for instance, been used to answer the question whether there is any difference between natives and non-natives in the use they make of context. In a lexical decision task subjects have to indicate whether a particular string of characters is or is not a word. This string of characters may be presented in writing as well as on tape, depending on whether one is interested in the reading or the listening process. The term context is used in a variety of senses. The most general use of the term refers to those parts of a sentence that precede and/or follow a particular word (the target word, to which experimental subjects have to respond in one way or another). This function of the context may be - purely acoustic (sounds/words preceding a particular word you are interested in, as in phrases like The next word is a 'X', in which X represents the target word which subjects have to respond to). From various studies it appears that a word used even in an almost meaningless carrier phrase like the one given is easier to understand than when it is presented in complete isolation. - or it may refer to semantic aspects (The doctor talked to the patient, doctor being the context of patient and vice versa). Most of the studies concerned with the semantic constraints of context - mainly carried out in the field of visual word recognition - have focused on the semantic association between two words, using a cue stimulus that the subjects have to attend to (e.g. doctor), followed by a target stimulus (e.g. nurse) about which a decision ('word' vs 'non-word') has to be made. The two stimuli are or are not semantically related. When not related, the cue stimulus provides no information, as for instance in a pair like boat - night. The usual finding in this sort of experiment is that subjects use less time to decide that a target stimulus like nurse is a word when it is preceded by a semantically related cue stimulus like doctor than by an unrelated word like table. Apparently a cue word like doctor activates a large number of related words, such as hospital, ill, nurse, etc. This priming appears to occur very rapidly - reaction times in the case of related pairs being less than a second from the onset of the display containing the target word - and the differences in reaction times between related and unrelated words were about 30 to 60 milliseconds. Not very long, but very replicable (Schuberth - Eimas 1977; Fischler - Bloom 1979; Becker 1980). This priming effect holds for antonyms like hot and cold as well as for other kinds of semantic relations as, for instance, between the hyperonym furniture and its hyponym chair. Various theories try to account for the effect of context on word recognition. The main cause of the

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facilitating effect of context is generally assumed to be lexical priming based on three processes, viz. automatic spreading activation, prime induced attentional processing, and post-lexical coherence checking. It is assumed, in the case of automatic spreading activation, that any word that is encountered automatically activates all sorts of semantically related words. In the case of prime induced attentional processing a listener consciously directs his attention to the words that the speaker is probably going to use. An example would be the word leg when one hears the phrase Never mind. He's just trying to pull your .... The third process will not be discussed here. For a detailed discussion see Koster (1987: 23f). An example of a simple lexical decision experiment is the following. In this task subjects listened to a recording of 60 word pairs. The first word of each pair functioned as the priming cue, the second was the target word about which a lexical decision had to be made. The target words in 40 word pairs were existing English words, those in the remaining 20 word pairs were non-words. Among the forty targets which were real words there were 20 that were strongly associated with their cues (smoke - pipe) and 20 without any direct semantic relation to their cues (use - pipe). All target words were monosyllabic and ended in a stop consonant. The subjects were asked to press a button if the second word was an existing word (such as lock), and to do nothing if it was a non-word (such as fut). Pressing the button put a pulse on the tape which served to stop a timer which had been started by another pulse on the tape, located at the plosion of the final stop of the cue. Examples of related and unrelated pairs are given in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Related and unrelated pairs.

related

unrelated

cue

target

cue

targel

key bishop dark smoke

lock fut light pipe

pin architect bar widow

lock fut light pipe

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The results indicated that native listeners were 83 msec faster when the target was strongly related than when there was no semantic relation between the cue and the target, whereas non-natives were 168 msec faster. Of course, even in this condition natives were faster than non-natives; their mean reaction times for strongly associated words were 292 msec as opposed to 419 msec for non-native subjects. Koster (1987: 139) interpreted the results as follows. "If [...] a non-native listener has enough time to create an expectancy set (essentially a list of predictions about the identity of a possibly related word) he is, relatively speaking, faster than a native speaker in making use of the information contained in the cue, i.e. in the prior context." Other experiments, however, suggest that very often a non-native speaker simply has not enough time to create such an expectancy set, which makes it difficult for him to make the most of context (Koster 1987). 4.2.

Monitoring tasks

In a monitoring task subjects have to react to a particular linguistic item (phoneme, syllable, word), usually by pressing a button which allows the experimenter to measure reaction times. The most common item to which subjects have to respond in the speech signal is a phoneme, for instance the /p/ of probably in (4) a.

The drunk concealed his aching eye probably without realizing he was doing it.

Subjects' reaction times (RTs) are assumed to reflect variations in word and sentence processing, longer RTs being associated with a greater processing load. The task has been used to get information about - the contextual factors affecting the processing of the word preceding the target-bearing word (eye in the example above), - the effect on word recognition of the inherent characteristics of the word preceding the target (eye in the example), such as length and frequency, and - the factors that play a role in the processing of the target-bearing word itself (probably). The basic assumption is that recognition of a word-initial phoneme requires that the (end of the) preceding word (eye) has been identified. The longer this takes, i.e. the greater the processing load required for this, the longer the reaction time will be. Blank - Foss (1978), using sentences like the example above, hypothesized that the word eye would be easier to process when it was preceded by bloodshot than by aching (bloodshot and eye being more closely related than

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aching and eye), and that this would be reflected in shorter RTs to the phoneme /p/ of probably. The word eye should be even easier to process when the prior context was given an even more predictive nature by using the verb wink instead of conceal. This is exactly what was found: RTs to the /p/ of probably were shorter in (5b) than in (5a). (5) a. b.

The drunk concealed his aching eye probably without realizing he was doing it. The drunk winked his bloodshot eye probably without realizing he was doing it.

Inherent characteristics of a word preceding the target also affect RTs. Shorter latencies have been found (Cutler - Morris 1979) when this word - is long as opposed to short - has a high frequency as opposed to a low frequency - is a real word as opposed to a non-word. The studies referred to above all established that the detection of a word-initial phoneme is affected by certain characteristics of the preceding word. In addition, certain characteristics of the target-bearing word itself also affect RTs. This is the case (Cutler - Norris 1979) when the target-bearing word - has high contextual probability - bears stress or focus - is short. Phoneme monitoring is used as a task in research into word recognition. This raises the question of the relation between the recognition of a word and the recognition of the phonemes it consists of. The question here is whether we first have to recognize the phonemes of a word before we can recognize the word itself, or whether we first recognize a word, after which we can identify the phonemes it consists of. At first sight, the first position seems the logical one, because how can one understand a word if one hasn't heard the sounds (or seen the letters) it consists of? In the literature one comes across three hypotheses concerning this relation, which may be termed the top-down, the bottom-up and the dual-code hypotheses. The top-down hypothesis states that a phoneme is detected and responded to after lexical access has occurred, i.e. after the word it forms part of has been recognized. The bottom-up hypothesis says that phoneme recognition is a necessary prerequisite for word recognition. The dual-code hypothesis tries to reconcile the first two hypotheses and states that word recognition sometimes precedes and sometimes follows phoneme detection.

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There is evidence for a top-down approach in speech processing. In an article on the psychological reality of the phoneme Foss - Swinney (1973) reported that subjects were 77 msec faster in a word monitoring than in a syllable monitoring task, and 117 msec faster responding to syllables than to phonemes. Furthermore, Morton - Long (1976) showed that the initial phoneme of a word that is predictable from the context elicited faster responses than the comparable phoneme in unpredictable words. Thus the /p/ of patient in the doctor told the patient to listen carefully should lead to faster reaction times than the /p/ of porter in the doctor told the porter to listen carefully. These authors interpreted their findings by suggesting that a phoneme is responded to after the word has been recognized, i.e. that smaller units are identified by fracturing larger ones: Phonemes are detected in a top-down fashion. In other words, one only 'hears' a particular phoneme in a word when one has identified the word in question. There is some anecdotal evidence to support this. If one asks subjects to indicate whether they hear a /t/ in a series of words, they respond not only when they hear words like water, trash and rightful, but also when they hear words like postman when the /t/ is not pronounced, and even nation, in which no /t/ is pronounced at all. Evidence for the alternative bottom-up hypothesis, which says that a word is recognized after the phonemes have been recognized, comes from experiments manipulating the frequency and the lexical status of the word containing the phoneme to be monitored. Foss - Blank (1980) noticed that the frequency of the target-bearing word (the target being the word-initial phoneme) did not influence RTs, as should have been the case when lexical access precedes phoneme identification. More interestingly, these same authors argued that if lexical access occurs before phoneme identification, RTs to targets in nonsense words would necessarily be longer than to targets in real words. This did not turn out to be the case. These two hypotheses are not, of course, mutually exclusive. In fact, they have been reconciled in what Foss et al. (1980) call the dual-code hypothesis and what Dell - Newman (1980) call the parallel-access hypothesis (see also Cutler - Morris 1979). According to Dell - Newman (1980) the point at which the phonetic representation occurs is prior to the point at which the word is recognized. When the lexical item has been accessed, all the phonological information becomes available to the listener. In a phoneme-monitoring task a listener may respond to either the phonetic representation or to the phonological representation, depending for instance on the specification of the phonetic code. If this code is not completely specified, which would be the case if certain aspects of a phoneme are not realized, as when a voiceless stop is not aspirated, the listener will respond after lexical access of the whole word, i.e. he would use the phonological code. In other cases a response may be based on the phonetic realization of the target phoneme, so that a response may occur before lexical

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access of the target-bearing word. In those cases he would use the phonetic code. An example of the use of this phoneme-monitoring task is the following. Koster (1987) let non-native (Dutch) subjects react to the occurrence of III in time in phrases like (6a) and (6b). (6) a. b.

Looking at the man he said it was time for us to go. Looking at the clock he said it was time for us to go.

In sentences like (6b) the context provides a clear indication of the upcoming target word (the preceding context contained the cue word clock), creating a sort of expectancy that a word like time may follow, which presumably makes it easier to recognize that word. The context is neutral in sentences like (6a), so that the listener is not prepared as it were for time. Reaction times in sentences like (6b) were 52 msec faster than than in sentences like (6a), which is of the same order of magnitude as found for native listeners (Morton - Long 1976; Dell - Newman 1980), indicating that native and non-native listeners alike make use of contextual information under real-time conditions. 4.3.

The gating technique

The so-called gating technique was developed by Grosjean (1980), who used it to operationalize Marslen-Wilson's word-initial cohort theory (see below) and to replicate studies of word-frequency effects and context effects. It consists of a repeated presentation of parts of the speech signal in such a way that a longer portion of the waveform is made available with each successive presentation. This task is eminently suitable in experiments studying cohort-type theories or any other left-to-right processing models, because it allows the researcher to establish the contribution to word recognition of each subsequent portion of the waveform as it is added to those that have already been presented. A brief discussion of Marslen-Wilson's cohort theory (Marslen-Wilson Welsh 1978) will indicate how this technique can be used to get information about word processing. The central tenet of the cohort theory is that, when a word is presented in isolation, the initial part of the acoustic sequence activates all the lexical representations in semantic memory that are compatible with this particular sequence. For instance, when the acoustic sequence in English begins with /s/, all the representations corresponding to the words beginning with /s/, such as saint, sickle, sledgehammer, spoil, syllable, and possibly zinc and Zulu etc., whose initial consonant differs from /s/ by only one feature, are activated. This cohort of word candidates is reduced in steps as more of the input becomes available for processing, because additional elements (for instance when the /s/ is

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followed by a /p/) eliminate word candidates that do not agree with the specifications in the input signal. Thus the initial part /sp/ eliminates saint, sickle, sledgehammer, syllable as well as zinc and Zulu and many others, leaving only words like spit, spoil, spry etc. as possible candidates (Figure 3). The recognition of the following phoneme /r/ reduces the cohort still further to those 20-odd words in the language beginning with /spr/. When the following vowel is /a?/, the cohort is reduced to two candidates only, sprang and sprat, which means that the next speech sound /t/ uniquely identifies the word sprat. (Here we disregard the difference in quality of the central vowel). The phoneme that distinguishes the word in question from all other words in the language is called the recognition point. In other words, not until the final /t/ has been heard can a decision be made as to the identity of the word sprat. Of course, the recognition point does not have to be the final phoneme. In a word like elephant the recognition point is /f/ (spelled ph) because the continuation of eleph- can only be -ant.

Figure 3: Elimination of word candidates as more phonemes become available.

sp 3000 word candidates saint sickle sledgehammer spit spoil sprain sprat sprang spry

200 word candidates

spr 20 word candidates

word candidates

f i *»\·η + OvRTTv

slegdehammer spit spoil sprain sprat sprang spry

ffi\± LJLF1L

sprain sprat sprang

eyzinc ? Zulu? s

sprae

sp.

spr.

e>v*fr*\n

U LSI UIX1

sprat sprang

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The cohort theory predicts that the part of the word following the recognition point has no effect on the recognition of the word in question, because the word will already have been recognized. The theory has no explanation for the recognition of words the initial sounds of which are not pronounced properly, nor for the fact that for instance in the word can the recognition point /n/ which uniquely identifies it precedes the recognition points in words that have can as a part of it, like candy, candid and candidate. These may be among the reasons that the cohort theory seems to have lost its appeal. The gating technique closely follows the cohort theory in presenting from left to right ever increasing portions of a particular word. A subject has to try and identify a word of which he only hears the first segment, to which is then added another segment, and so on, until finally he hears the whole word. Usually he can identify the word long before he has heard the complete word. Unlike phoneme monitoring, which is generally regarded as an on-line procedure, the gating technique is an off-line procedure, allowing subjects a long time to think about what they have heard before responding (usually in writing). Although Salasoo - Pisoni (1985: 225) show that the artifacts of this technique are minimal, it must, however, be pointed out that the 'gates', i.e. the parts of the speech signal that are presented to subjects, are likely to encourage a left-to-right processing strategy and may not do justice to the role of right-to-left processing strategies in normal listening situations (cf. Koster 1987: 70 ff). After all, sometimes it is only possible to identify a phoneme or word when one has heard the following phonemes or words. An example would be the recognition of the word bright in the phrase bright green; if, as is quite normal, the final /t/ in bright is pronounced like a /k/ under the assimilating influence of the following /g/ in green, one 'hears' a word like brike, an 'interpretation' which can only be made sense of after one has heard the following word green. As it has been shown that word beginnings are often important but not necessarily predominant for lexical identification, the use of this technique must be viewed with caution. The gating technique has been used mostly with native listeners of English. One of the few studies to use this paradigm with second language learners is Van Nus (1991), who compared Dutch intermediate and advanced learners of English and English native listeners. She found that non-native speakers need more time to identify English phonemes. More interestingly, she also found that advanced non-native learners of English in most cases correctly identified the initial phoneme of the test word on the first presentation of the first 'gate', i.e. the first 100 ms of a word. Her intermediate subjects were much slower; the first correct identification of the initial phoneme did not appear in their answers until, on average, the fourth segment had been added to the first three (all segments following the first one consisted of 50 ms of the speech signal). As to

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the merits of the cohort model she concluded that the claims of the cohort model were only substantiated in just a few test words (Van Nus 1991: 53). 4.4.

Shadowing

In a shadowing task, introduced first by Cherry (1953), subjects have to repeat connected speech verbatim. Marslen-Wilson (1973) used it to find out what subjects did with speech that contained mispronunciations. Some subjects were such fast shadowers that there was only 250 millisecond between the presentation of speech and the repeating of it, although it is much more common to find that subjects lag about 800 msec behind. The interesting thing was that in spite of this speed they often corrected the mispronunciations, which indicates that they analyzed what they shadowed both semantically and syntactically. In later experiments it was found that subjects restored mispronunciations in words with a high transitional probability (i.e. words that are predictable on the basis of the preceding context) more often than in words with a low transitional probability (Marslen-Wilson - Welsh 1978). The shadowing technique has one great drawback, namely that the results are sometimes difficult to interpret. As Ottevanger (1986: 20) points out: "A shadower listens to the message presented (perception), he repeats what he hears (production) and receives auditory feedback from his own production (selfperception). Consequently, it cannot always be simply decided to which of these aspects results should be attributed." 5.

In conclusion

Above only four experimental tasks have been discussed. There are more and presumably others will be developed in future. All share one aspect: They all need 'items' to which a subject can respond in some way. More and more it is being recognized that these items (words, phonemes, syllables, phrases and what not) present the greatest problem of all. It is extremely difficult to find experimental and control items that are matched in all respects (frequency, number of phonemes or syllables, length of enunciation, recency of occurrence, rhythm, intonation, phonetic context, semantic context, etc.). This problem induced Cutler to write an article in 1981 entitled: "Making up materials is a confounded nuisance, or: Will we be able to run any psycholinguistic experiments at all in 1990?" She shows that the task of making completely matched materials is probably impossible. And yet, we are past 1990 and experiments are still being devised and carried out.

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References Becker, Curtis A. 1980 "Semantic context effects in visual word recognition: An analysis of semantic strategies", Memory and Cognition 8: 493-512. Blank, Michelle A. - Donald J. Foss 1978 "Semantic facilitation and lexical access during sentence processing", Memory and Cognition 6: 644-652, Cherry, E. Colin 1953 "Some experiments in the recognition of speech, with one and two ears", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 25: 975-979. Cole, Ronald A. (ed.) 1980 Perception and production of fluent speech. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cooper, William E. - Edward C.T. Walker (eds.) 1979 Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill Garrett. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cutler, Anne 1981 "Making up materials is a confounded nuisance, or: Will we be able to run any psycholinguistic experiments at all in 1990?", Cognition 10: 65-70. Cutler, Anne - Dennis Norris 1979 "Monitoring sentence comprehension", in: William E. Cooper Edward C.T. Walker (eds.), 113-134.

Dell, Gary S. - Jean E. Newman 1980

"Detecting phonemes in fluent speech", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 19: 608-623. Fischler, Ira - Paul A. Bloom 1979 "Automatic and attentional processes in the effects of sentence contexts on word recognition", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18: 1-20. Foss, Donald J. - David A. Swinney 1973 "On the psychological reality of the phoneme: Perception, identification, and consciousness", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 12: 246-257. Foss, Donald J. - Michelle A. Blank 1980 "Identifying the speech codes", Cognitive Psychology 12: 1-31. Foss, Donald J. - David A. Harwood - Michelle A. Blank 1980 "Deciphering decoding decisions: Data and devices", in: Ronald A. Cole (ed.), 165-199.

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Grosjean, Francois

1980

"Spoken word recognition processes and the gating paradigm", Perception and Psychophysics 28: 267-283.

Koster, Cor J. 1987 Word recognition in foreign and native language: Effects of context and assimilation. Dordrecht: Foris. Levelt, Willem J.M. 1978 "A survey of studies in sentence perception: 1970-1976", in: Willem J.M. Levelt - Giovanni B. Flores d'Arcais (eds.), 1-73. Levelt, Willem J.M. - Giovanni B. Flores d'Arcais (eds.) 1978 Studies in the perception of language. New York: John Wiley. Marslen-Wilson, William D. 1973 "Linguistic structure and speech shadowing at very short latencies", Nature 244: 522-523. Marslen-Wilson, William D. - Alan Welsh 1978 "Processing interactions and lexical access during word recognition in continuous speech", Cognitive Psychology 10: 29-63. Morton, John - John Long 1976 "The effect of word transitional probability on phoneme identification", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 15: 43-51. Ottevanger, Ingrid 1986 Speech processing at the level of word recognition and the influence of sentence context. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht.] Salasoo, Aita - David B. Pisoni 1985 "Interaction of knowledge sources in spoken word identification", Journal of Memory and Language 24: 210-231. Schlesinger, I.M. 1977 Production and comprehension of utterances. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schuberth, Richard E. - Peter D. Eimas 1977 "Effects of context on the classification of words and nonwords", Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 3: 27-36. Van Geel, Rudolf G. 1983 Pitch inflection in electrolaryngal speech. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht.]

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Van Nus, Miriam 1991 From Sound to Meaning. A study of the recognition of words spoken in isolation in a foreign language. [Unpublished MS., Free University, Amsterdam.]

Strategies Nanda Poulisse

In this chapter we will deal with second language (L2) learners' use of learning and communication strategies. Put simply, learning strategies (LS) are processes adopted to support language learning while communication strategies (CS) are used to deal with linguistic problems in communication. Some examples of LS are memorization, guessing, practising and creating opportunities for practice (Rubin 1981). CS are of two types: Avoidance strategies, such as topic avoidance and message abandonment, which are used by speakers who seek to avoid problems, and achievement (or compensatory) strategies which are used by those who try to solve problems by using alternative means of expression. Although in the early days of strategy research Corder (1978) had already noted that some L2 learner strategies, e.g. transfer of an LI item, could be used both as LS and as CS, the two kinds of strategies have mostly been studied independently of each other. As a result, there now are two separate research areas for LS and CS, which share little besides having passed through similar stages at roughly the same times in the course of their development. Both research fields originated in the 1970s and then went through a phase devoted to defining and describing the different types of strategies. It was not until much later that empirical research questions were posed, dealing for instance with the relationship between LS use and L2 learning success or the use of CS and the L2 learner's proficiency level. Attempts to relate strategy use to cognitive

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theories of language development and use are more recent still, and it is perhaps on this point that the two research areas may come together again. 1.

The origin of research on learning and communication strategies

The interest in LS and CS originated in the early 1970s as a result of certain developments in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). At that time behaviourist theories of language learning had given way to mentalist theories, which meant that more emphasis was given to the mental processes at work in the learner. This development was further promoted by the empirical evidence that the LI was by no means the only source of L2 learners' errors. As a result researchers also became increasingly interested in the processes which could be held responsible for the production of L2 errors. Selinker (1972) discusses five such processes. Two of these are the use of strategies of learning and the use of strategies of communication. In addition to the theoretical developments in SLA research, the study of strategies has been stimulated by changes in the attitude towards foreign language teaching in the mid 1970s. Teachers were becoming more interested in language learners as individuals and in the ways in which they learned the language. Instead of enforcing their own teaching methods upon the students, they were increasingly willing to adapt these to the students' needs. One way to establish what the students' needs were was to study their language learning strategies. At the same time the study of CS was promoted by the rise of communicative approaches to foreign language teaching. One of the effects of the increased emphasis on communication in' the classroom was that grammatical correctness was no longer considered an end in itself and was frequently sacrificed to communicative effectiveness. A more positive attitude towards the use of CS (which often lead to errors, but do help the learner to maintain communication) was the result. Particularly since teachers came to realize that learners cannot possibly be provided with all the linguistic means they may need for future communication, they have begun to encourage learners to use CS both inside and outside the foreign language classroom. 2.

Learning strategies: Typologies

All of the early studies on LS carried out in the 1970s were exploratory in the sense that they were mainly directed at setting up inventories of LS. Some of the first studies of this kind (Rubin 1975; Stern 1975; Naiman et al. 1978) were directed at identifying the learning strategies used by 'good language learners'. It was hoped that once these strategies were known, they could be taught to less successful learners to improve their language learning skills. With this goal in mind Naiman et al. (1978) interviewed 34 successful adult language learners.

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The interviews, which lasted between one and two hours each, consisted of two parts. First, the learners were asked to describe their own second language learning experiences and second, they were asked to put themselves in a hypothetical language learning situation. Questions related to what aspects of the language (e.g. reading, writing, grammar, pronunciation) they had learnt or would like to learn; how they went, or would like to go about learning the language; and whether they had developed any language study habits (gimmicks, tricks, ways and techniques) that they thought would be useful. On the basis of these interviews Naiman et al. (1978) distinguished five major LS types, which describe the learners' overall approaches to language learning, and a number of more specific language learning techniques. The LS used by the good language learners included 1) active task approach, i.e. seek to become involved in language learning tasks; 2) realization of language as a system, i.e. be aware that languages are systems, consider the differences between LI and L2 systems and exploit these; 3) realization of language as a means of communication and interaction, i.e. use language communicatively to convey and receive messages, focus on socio-cultural meanings of L2 use; 4) management of affective demands, i.e. be able to cope with the affective demands that the language learning task imposes; and 5) monitoring of L2 performance, i.e. revise L2 systems on the basis of new material, ask native speakers for correction. Some of the more specific language learning techniques mentioned by the informants in Naiman et al.'s (1978) study are: -

repeating aloud after a teacher, a native speaker, or a tape inferring grammar rules from texts using new words in phrases listening to the radio, records, TV, movies, tapes, etc.

- not being afraid to make mistakes -

having pen pals reading something every day

In a second part of the study Naiman et al. (1978) tried to validate their findings concerning LS use through classroom observation and teacher interviews, as well as further student interviews. This time both successful and less successful students were involved. As it turned out, however, neither the classroom observations nor the teacher interviews yielded much new information about LS. Basically, they distinguished between participating and non-participating students only. The student interviews mainly confirmed what was already known from the first study. Since the first part of Naiman et al.'s study was restricted to successful language learners, one cannot conclude from it that using the above-mentioned strategies and techniques caused the learners' success. The second part of their

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study showed that less successful language learners tend to use the same strategies. This suggests that there are other interfering factors which prevent these learners from being successful. Another problem with the Naiman et al. study is that one cannot be sure that the LS mentioned by the good language learners are actually used by them as well. It could be that they mentioned certain LS merely because they assumed the researcher would be interested in or pleased about their using such LS. As a consequence, the study does not provide evidence for a causal relationship between the use of certain LS and language learning success. Work on the good language learner was concerned with social, psychological and cognitive aspects of language learning. In a later study Rubin (1981) focussed on the use of cognitive learning strategies only. On the basis of classroom and tutorial observations, as well as directed self-reports (interviews and diaries) from young adult learners in conventional language learning settings, she distinguished between cognitive processes which contribute directly to language learning and which she therefore calls direct strategies and strategies which promote language learning indirectly and which she refers to as indirect strategies. Direct strategies include: -

asking for clarification/verification of unknown words and expressions monitoring and correcting errors in one's own speech as well as that of others - memorization of new items - guessing/inductive inferencing of meaning on the basis of the context, pictures, known structures - deductive reasoning, e.g. by comparing LI and L2, or by looking for and using general rules - practising Indirect strategies can be either the creation of opportunities for practice or the use of communication strategies, which Rubin refers to as production tricks, and which may involve using circumlocutions, synonyms or cognates, using formulaic language or adding context to clarify meaning. O'Malley - Chamot (1990) have criticized these and some later typologies (notably Oxford 1985) for not being grounded in theories of SLA or cognition. They argue that in essence they are not more than lists of those strategies that happened to be mentioned by the informants participating in the research. As a result, they say, "it is difficult to winnow out from the extensive listing of strategies and techniques which ones are fundamental for learning, which ones might be most useful to other learners, and which should be combined with others to maximize learning effectiveness" (O'Malley - Chamot 1990: 5). In short, the typologies do not enable one to explain or predict LS use.

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In their own typological endeavours O'Malley and his associates have tried to remedy the lack of theoretical background. Although they too had originally used student interviews as a basis for their typology (cf. O'Malley - Chamot Stewner-Manzanares - Küpper - Russo 1985a), they later went to great lengths to relate the three categories of meta-cognitive, cognitive and social affective strategies to an overall model of L2 learning based on cognitive psychology. They describe meta-cognitive strategies as "higher order executive skills that may entail planning for, monitoring, or evaluating the success of a learning activity" (O'Malley - Chamot, 1990: 44) and cognitive strategies, such as repetition, grouping, deducing, note-taking and translation, as strategies which "operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning" (44). Thus, one might conclude that cognitive strategies are used to store, order and retrieve declarative knowledge (that is, factual knowledge, e.g. of words and grammar rules), while meta-cognitive strategies, presumably, deal with the procedures that are followed when declarative knowledge is put to use in speech comprehension and production. The social/affective strategies of cooperation, questioning for clarification and self-talk do not fit into this information-processing framework. O'Malley - Chamot maintain them as a category though because social and affective processes have been identified as important factors affecting learning in the literature on cognitive psychology (cf. O'Malley - Chamot 1990: 8). Although O'Malley and Chamot are not entirely successful in their theoretical discussion of LS, they have definitely advanced the field of LS research by their attempts to found their typology in a cognitive theory. Needless to say though, much work remains to be done in this area. 3.

Learning strategies: Empirical research

More recent studies of LS have been directed at answering more specific research questions. Cohen - Aphek (1981) investigated whether making associations while learning vocabulary had any effect on the retention of words. Seventeen English learners of Hebrew were asked to record their associations (if any) while learning lists of words they had originally encountered in a text. Subsequently, their retention of the words was tested on six different tasks carried out over a period of 100 days. Some of these tasks additionally required the subjects to indicate how often they encountered the words on the list outside the classroom. It turned out that students who had produced associations when first learning the words retained these words better. The frequency with which students had reported to have encountered the words outside of class did not affect retention, though. Thus, the study provided evidence for the effect of one LS only.

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Bialystok (1981) used correlational techniques to compare strategy use in functional and formal learning settings, i.e. settings which focus on communication and settings which involve the study of language as a structural system. The subjects, who were 157 English-speaking grade 10 and grade 12 pupils learning French as a second language, were asked to rate how often they used functional practice and inferencing in functional language learning settings and formal practice and monitoring in formal language learning settings. They had to rate their use of these strategies separately for oral and written tasks. Some examples of questionnaire items are: Functional practice-written: Read each of the following because of the meaning - newspapers and magazines, labels on packages, books, brochures and pamphlets. Inferencing-oral: Do each of the following when you do not understand something being spoken - use the general meaning of the speech to figure out the unknown parts, use the gestures or activities of the speaker to help you understand, use objects or cues in the environment to arrive at the meaning. Formal practice-oral: Listen to each of the following sources in order to learn structures or improve pronunciation - radio, television, movies, people. Monitoring-written: Do the following when writing - write only what you know is correct, check for spelling or grammar errors and correct them, rewrite incorrect parts of assignments, examine errors on assignments and correct them in your mind. In addition, oral and written functional and formal achievement tests were administered to the subjects to assess their proficiency in these areas. The results of this study indicated that functional practice strategies correlated best with all four achievement tests, even though strategies of inferencing and monitoring were (reported to be) more frequent. The latter strategies, as well as the strategy of formal practice turned out to be effective in some of the tasks only, partly also depending on the learners' proficiency level. From this Bialystok concludes that if time is spent on teaching LS, functional practice, that is simply reading and listening for meaning, would be the most suitable candidate. In a similar study Politzer - McGroarty (1985) tried to determine the relationship between strategy use and language learning. In this study 37 Hispanic and Asian students of English were asked 51 questions relating to their behaviour in the classroom, their learning behaviour during individual study and their interactions with others outside the classroom. The questions were based on the work by Naiman et al. (1978) and Rubin (1981). To measure their learning ability the subjects were tested just before starting an eight-week intensive English course and again immediately afterwards. Three proficiency tests were

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administered, one measuring aural comprehension, one measuring English grammar, and one measuring oral communicative competence. The results of this study are difficult to interpret because the questionnaire and the proficiency tests proved to be of questionable validity. One clear finding though was that there were cultural differences in LS use. Some of the "good" LS, like correcting fellow students, asking the teacher all kinds of questions, or volunteering were frequent among Hispanic, but rare among Asian students. This is probably due to differences in the subjects' cultural backgrounds, but it could also be due to differences in the type of instruction the subjects had previously received. Quite surprisingly, greater use of these positively valued LS did not make the Hispanic students into better learners. They performed worse than the Asian students on the proficiency tests. In a series of studies O'Malley and his associates investigated the LS used by ESL (English as a second language) students and English speaking foreign language learners of Spanish and Russian. In their first study they questioned 70 Hispanic students of English at two proficiency levels about their use of LS with seven different classroom tasks and two non-classroom tasks (O'Malley et al. 1985a). A comparison of beginning and intermediate ESL learners' (reported) use of LS showed few differences in the type of strategy used. Both groups predominantly used cognitive strategies (beginners 73% vs. intermediates 65%). Interestingly, the cognitive LS that were mentioned most frequently were rather simple ones like repetition and note-taking (i.e. write down the teacher's words literally), which do not involve any analysis or reorganisation of the language material (cf. Table 1). It is possible though that this was the case merely because such simple strategies are easier to describe. The study also revealed that most of the LS were used while performing simple tasks like learning vocabulary, pronunciation and oral drills.

Table 1: The number of ESL learners (N = 70) who mentioned using a particular cognitive learning strategy (based on: O'Malley et al. 1985a)' 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Repetition (66); Note-taking (63) Question for Clarification (57); Imagery (42); Translation (38); Transfer (35); Inferencing (32) Resourcing (18); Contextualization (18) Elaboration (11); Auditory Representation (5); Grouping (4); Recombination (2); Deduction (2); Keyword (1); Directed Physical Response (0)

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These results were largely replicated in a follow-up study with 67 high-school students of Spanish and 34 college students of Russian (O'Malley - Chamot 1990). Again the students used far more cognitive strategies than meta-cognitive and social-affective strategies. Students of Spanish reported frequent use of translation, while repetition and translation were the most popular strategies with beginning students of Russian and note-taking was popular with intermediate / advanced Russian students. As in the first study, 'cognitively active' strategies like rehearsal, grouping, imagery, elaboration and summarizing were mentioned relatively infrequently. Finally, it was found that although both successful and less successful foreign language learners reported using LS, the successful learners did so more often and used a larger variety of LS than did less successful learners. In yet another O'Malley study the differences between effective and less effective foreign language learners were scrutinized further, this time with the help of thinking aloud data, gathered while the students were doing a listening comprehension task. The final analyses were restricted to 5 effective and 3 ineffective listeners, all Hispanic ESL learners at high-school-age. The learners were trained to think aloud in a one-hour practice session. The results of this study indicated that effective listeners more often used self-monitoring (i.e. they corrected their speech in view of the context), and other top-down strategies like elaboration (i.e. relating new information to prior knowledge or to other ideas in the text) and inferencing (i.e. using information in the text to guess at meaning or complete missing ideas), which also rely on the information provided by the context (O'Malley - Chamot 1990: 131). Ineffective listeners focussed on single words rather than the whole of the text, and were often distracted when they heard a word they did not know. Thus, it may be concluded that unlike the effective listeners, who used both top-down and bottom-up approaches, they used a bottom-up approach only. A major problem regarding the empirical research discussed here is that it is not clear whether the use of certain LS causes success in language learning, or whether high proficiency in the L2 (i.e. success in language learning) allows one to make better use of effective LS. This is very much a chicken-egg question then, and to answer it one would have to conduct a longitudinal study. O'Malley - Chamot (1990: 141) do report the results of one such study, but unfortunately no clear pattern emerged from it. Also, one should not discard the possibility that there is one underlying factor, e.g. integrative motivation or aptitude, which determines both the use of LS and learning success, or that all learners use LS to the same extent, but that only those who are verbally skilled (and hence successful language learners) are able to report them. Clearly then, work on LS is by no means completed yet and many much more carefully controlled empirical studies will need to be conducted

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before a clear picture of the relationship between learning strategies and second language learning will emerge. 4.

Communication strategies: Definitions and typologies

Unlike LS, CS are strategies of language use, not learning. Of all definitions of CS that have been offered so far, the one by Faerch - Kasper (1983) is most widely used. They define CS as "potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal" (36). In this definition problem-orientedness is adopted as a primary and potential consciousness as a secondary criterion. In practice, this means that for an utterance to be identified as an instance of CS use, the speaker must a) have a (lexical) problem; and b) be conscious of this problem. In the case of compensatory strategies, that is the category of CS which is directed at achievement rather than avoidance, a third criterion is that the speaker must c) try to solve this problem. The above definition of CS is applicable to CS use in both first and second language communication. And this is as it should be. After all, first language speakers too, are often confronted with lexical problems, e.g. when they have trouble retrieving a particular word, or when they need to refer to things for which they do not know the conventional words. Over the years, many different types of CS have been described. Two of the best-known typologies are those by Tarone (1977) and Faerch - Kasper (1980, 1983). They are reproduced in Tables 2 and 3 respectively.

Table 2: Tarone's (1977) typology of CS 1. Avoidance

- Topic avoidance - Message abandonment, e.g. the water ... ('spills') 2. Paraphrase - Approximation, e.g. pipe ('waterpipe') - Word coinage, e.g. person-worm ('caterpillar') -

Circumlocution, e.g. something ... that's Persian and we use in Turkey, a lot of ('waterpipe') 3. Conscious transfer - Literal translation, e.g. he invite other person to drink ('to toast') - Language switch, e.g. tirtil ('caterpillar') 4. Appeal for assistance, e.g. what is this? what called? ('waterpipe') 5. Mime, e.g. ... and everybody say [claps hands] ('everybody applauds')

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Table 3: Fasrch - Rasper's (1983) typology of CS 1. Formal reduction (reduction of the linguistic system) 2. Functional reduction (reduction of the communicative goal) - Topic avoidance - Message abandonment - Meaning replacement (i.e. change one's message into one that is easier to produce) 3. Code switching, called borrowing if it concerns single words, e.g. do you want to have some ah - Zinsen or do you want to have some more ... (German Zinsen = 'interest') 4. Interlingual transfer - Foreignizing, e.g. knaele (Danish knallert = 'moped') - Literal translation, e.g. green things (Danish gr0nisager, lit: 'green things' = 'vegetables') 5. Inter-/intralingual transfer, e.g. swim-swimmed, regular past tense, because Danish has sw0mme-sw0mmede 6. Interlanguage-based strategies - Generalization, e.g. animal ('rabbit') - Paraphrase (description, circumlocution, exemplification, e.g. Puch ='moped') - Word coinage, e.g. airball ('balloon') - Restructuring, e.g. my parents has ... I have four elder sisters ('daughters') 7. Cooperative strategies, e.g. what's ... colour is this (points to her sweater) 8. Non-linguistic strategies (mime, gesture, sound-imitation) 9. Retrieval strategies

The two typologies share quite a few CS types, even though different names are used to refer to them. Thus Tarone's conscious transfer and Fasrch - Kasper's code-switching and interlingual transfer refer to similar phenomena. The same goes for Tarone's paraphrase and Fa;rch - Kasper's interlanguage-based strategies and for the categories appeal for assistance and cooperative strategies and mime and non-linguistic strategies. Notable differences concern Faerch Kasper's category of inter-/'intralingual transfer, which relate to morphosyntactic rather than lexical problems, their category of retrieval strategies and their subcategory of restructuring. Neither of these last two categories seem to constitute real CS, however. Retrieval strategies, I would say, are different from

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CS, since it is only when retrieval fails that lexical problems arise for which CS may then be used and restructuring, it seems, is an indication that CS use is likely to follow rather than a CS itself. The number of subcategories in Faerch Kasper's typology is also larger than that in Tarone's, which makes their typology more detailed. This tendency to capture more details is also apparent in subsequent typologies. Bialystok - Fröhlich (1980) , for instance, subdivide the category of descriptions into: - descriptions of general physical properties (e.g. colour, size, material) - descriptions of specific features (often starting with: It has ...) - descriptions of interactional/functional characteristics (e.g. It turns round, you use it to kill flies) To -

this Paribakht (1985) added the subcategories of: descriptions of locational properties (e.g. // is found in Turkey) descriptions of historical properties (e.g. It was used in the past) descriptions of other features (a convenient rest-category)

In practice, the large amount of detail has not been of much use. The multitude of CS-types that resulted from it has made it difficult to see the wood for the trees and has obscured generalizations. Another practical problem related to the traditional taxonomies is that they are hard to apply, because of overlapping categories and inconclusive definitions. Word coinage, for instance, is usually defined as the construction of a new interlanguage word and hence, excludes all those words as word coinages which were creatively constructed by the learners but which happened to exist already. Because of the many problems in the application of existing typologies, researchers often adapted them or set up completely new typologies to suit their own data (see e.g. the typology in Paribakht 1985). This has made it difficult to compare the results of empirical studies. The early typologies of CS can also be criticized for lack of theoretical foundation (Poulisse 1990; Kellerman 1991). Many of the distinctions are based on differences in syntactic structure, and means of communication (LI, L2, gestures), but not on differences in the processes underlying the CS. Consider for instance utterances (1) and (2). (1) (2)

hair-cutters ones, who, who erm, could cut people 's hair

Both utterances are CS for 'hairdressers'. According to traditional typologies, they would be classified differently, as -word coinage and circumlocution respectively, because of the difference in linguistic form. In fact, however, (1)

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and (2) are similar in that in both cases 'hairdresser' is referred to in terms of its defining attributes. By assigning two different codes, the generalization to be made with respect to the analytic process underlying these utterances would remain unnoticed. The use of mime as a separate category to distinguish non-verbal from verbal encoding has a similar effect. It would lead to different classifications of utterances encoded by words and utterances encoded by gestures. However, the learner who distinguished a flute from a recorder by moving his fingers sideways first, and then in front of his mouth, would not have employed a different CS, but a different encoding system if he had said: This is a thing which you play sideways, and this is one which you play in front of you. Irrespective of whether he encodes the information verbally or by means of gestures, he is referring to the intended concepts by analysing them into their defining features. Now recall the subcategories of description defined by Bialystok - Fröhlich (1980) and Paribakht (1985). Consistent application of these would lead to the classification of (3) as a description of functional characteristics and (4) as a description of general physical properties and locational properties. (3) (4)

something to, to kill fly flies with an uh animal in the form of a star and uh you find it uh at the sea

However, in both (3) and (4) the criterial properties of the referents are mentioned. That different properties are mentioned does not mean that the CS employed are different. It only means that 'starfish' and 'flyswats' are different. Thus, again an important generalization will be missed, if product-related criteria are employed to distinguish between CS types. Finally, consider examples (5) and (6). Both utterances are related to LI (Dutch) words, viz. boor ('drill') and nep ('fake'). (5) (6)

bore ('hammer drill') nep-hair ('wig')

For this reason they would readily be classified as LI-based or transfer strategies in traditional typologies. This interpretation need not correctly represent the actual problem solving process though, since it is quite possible that in (5) the speaker first replaced the referent 'hammer drill' with a simpler one, 'drill', and resorted to Dutch only when he found out he did not know the word for this referent either. Similarly, the classification of nep-hair as an L l based strategy (Dutch 'nep' = English 'fake') would miss the point that the speaker must have analysed the concept 'wig' into its component features, namely that it is made of hair and that this hair is not real, before he decided to partly encode it in the LI.

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By simply classifying utterances like (5) and (6) as LI-based, one would clearly underinterpret the learners' behaviour. The limitations of the traditional typologies discussed above are largely due to the fact that the different CS-types distinguished in them are not related to a cognitive theory of language use. As a result, the studies that have adopted these typologies cannot provide much insight into the cognitive processes underlying CS use. To accommodate this problem Poulisse (1990) has set up a new typology of CS, which is founded in Levelt's (1989) model of speech production. In this model three processing components are distinguished: The conceptualizer, which generates the message to be conveyed; the formulator, which selects the intended words from the mental lexicon and uses the syntactic and morphophonological information stored with these words to encode the message grammatically and phonologically; and the articulator which turns the message into overt speech. This model suggests that a distinction be made between two major CS types: Conceptual and linguistic. In the case of a conceptual strategy, the speaker who runs into a lexical problem solves it by changing his conceptual plan. Hence, the solution originates in the conceptualizer. In the case of a linguistic strategy, the speaker exploits his linguistic knowledge (of LI and L2 words and morphology and the similarities between them) to solve his problem. Linguistic strategies therefore originate in the formulator. Conceptual strategies are further subdivided into analytic and holistic strategies. The speaker who uses an analytic strategy refers to the intended concept by listing some of its criteria! properties, e.g. It's green, and you usually eat it with potatoes, and Popeye eats it for 'spinach' or talkbirdior 'parrot'. The linguistic form of the utterance is considered irrelevant for its classification: Both a talkbird and a bird that talks are classified as analytic conceptual strategies. In the case of a holistic strategy the speaker refers to the intended concept by using the word for a related concept which shares some of the criterial features, e.g. vegetables for 'peas', a hammer for 'tools' and a table for 'a desk'. Very often holistic and analytic strategies are combined as in big cars, they are not really cars but big and high cars for 'trucks'. Linguistic strategies are either based on processes of morphological innovation or transfer. Examples of morphological creativity are to ironize for 'to iron' and appliances for 'letters of application'. Examples of transfer are /itdlaj/ for 'shopwindow', from Dutch etalage and cuffer for 'hairdresser', from French coiffeur. An additional advantage of this new approach is that it has placed the study of CS in a much broader framework. From a specifically L2 learner-related topic of investigation CS use may now be considered as a topic that is of relevance to speech production and communication in general. Removing the study of CS from the isolated position it has hitherto taken was also Bialystok's purpose. She too adopted a cognitive approach aimed at studying

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the processes underlying CS use and set up a typology which was meant to capture the similarities between children's and adults', learners' and nonlearners' linguistic strategies (Bialystok 1984, 1990). Bialystok distinguishes between two main classes of CS, which she characterizes as analysis-based and control-based. Analysis-based strategies examine and manipulate the intended concept. To use them successfully, the concept must be represented as analysed knowledge. One has to know, for instance, what category the concept belongs to and what its distinctive features are. Examples of analysis-based strategies are what Poulisse (1990) and Kellerman (1991) have called conceptual strategies. Control-based strategies examine and manipulate the chosen form or means of expression. The use of these strategies requires control over linguistic processes, which means that one must be able to direct one's attention towards relevant linguistic information and integrate it to solve the linguistic problem at hand. The most common control-based strategy is language switch (which is similar to Poulisse's transfer). The use of gestures or pointing to the intended referent are another manifestation of it. 5.

Communication strategies: Empirical studies

The first study of the use of CS was a pilot study conducted by Väradi (1973). Nineteen adult Hungarian learners of English at an intermediate level were asked to provide written descriptions of a picture story in both English and Hungarian. For half of the learners the order was English first, then Hungarian, and for the other half it was reversed. A few days later the subjects were asked to translate the Hungarian versions into English and the English versions into Hungarian. This helped the researcher decide what they had wanted to say and where they had had problems. The importance of Väradi's study lies in its initiating character, much more than in its conclusion that various kinds of CS were used to communicate key concepts. Väradi proposed the first typology of CS, certain categories of which are still in use today, and showed how it could be applied to data. Also, his elicitation method, a picture description task, has subsequently been adopted in one version or other by many researchers of CS. Tarone (1977) used a spoken version of an otherwise similar picture story task. Her study involved 9 adult ESL learners of different language backgrounds, namely Spanish, Turkish and Mandarin. All learners were at an "intermediate level" although there was a good deal of variance within that proficiency level. Again the pictures were described by the subjects in both their native language and English, which made it easier to identify where CS had been used. For this same purpose of CS identification Tarone reviewed the task with each subject after she had recorded it. In these retrospective sessions she asked the subjects whether they knew particular forms in English, or why they had used one form

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rather than another. With the help of this kind of information she was better able to determine where problems had been experienced. Tarone's conclusions, which were based on the subjects' performance on 7 of the most difficult target items, were necessarily tentative because of the limited number of subjects in her study. She suggests that there is no relation between LI background and CS performance, but that both personality and L2 proficiency level may correlate highly with CS preference. In the next five or six years or so a number of studies appeared which were primarily directed at defining CS and developing typologies that could be used to classify them. The data which were presented in these studies were generally used to illustrate the definitions of different CS types, although some more specific research questions were also addressed. These mainly concerned the relationship between CS use and learner-related factors such as personality (Haastrup - Phillipson 1983), LI background (Palmberg 1979) and L2 proficiency level (Bialystok - Fröhlich 1980), and the effectiveness (i.e. the comprehensibility) of learners' CS (Ervin 1979; Bialystok - Fröhlich 1980). Besides the picture description task introduced by Väradi, researchers used a variety of other elicitation techniques ranging from semi-natural to strictly experimental. They include conversations (Faerch - Kasper 1983), acting as interpreters (Galvän - Campbell 1979), giving instructions so that others can reconstruct a picture (Bialystok - Fröhlich 1980), solve a puzzle (Hallmann Ras - Swinkels - Verhulst 1979), or build a house from lego blocks (Wagner 1983), story retelling (Poulisse 1981) and referring to photographed objects or drawings of novel graphic designs (Bongaerts 1985). Most of these early studies were exploratory and too small-scale to allow serious quantitative analysis. The studies' greatest value therefore lies in the practical experience gained in using a variety of experimental tasks. The most stable empirical finding was that CS use is proficiency-related. Not only do less proficient L2 learners use more CS than advanced learners, they also make more frequent use of LI-based transfer strategies. Another important finding of the early studies was that CS use appeared to be task-specific. This convinced later researchers of the necessity of using a variety of elicitation methods. For a collection of the most important of these studies see the anthology edited by Faerch - Kasper (1983). The first study in which a serious attempt was made to quantify data is Paribakht (1985). She compared native and non-native speakers' CS use in a task which required the subjects to describe concrete and abstract concepts (e.g. 'a palanquin', 'a hammock', vs. 'fate', 'honesty'). The study involved 60 subjects, 20 native speakers of English, and two groups of 20 Persian learners of English at two different proficiency levels. Paribakht concluded that the differences between the types of CS used by the three groups are minimal. The groups did differ, however, in the relative frequency with which they used a

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number of CS types. In comparison with advanced learners and native speakers, initial learners made more use of their knowledge of the world and paralinguistic knowledge (i.e. mime and gestures) when they had to compensate for the limitations of their linguistic knowledge. This led Paribakht to conclude that CS use and L2 proficiency level are related. A problem with Paribakht's study is that only one type of task was involved, and one that was rather unlike actual communicative situations, too. This, in addition to the fact that she used a typology which was very unlike the then existing typologies, has made it difficult to generalize the results of her study. A third problem arises from the fact that the LI and L2 data in Paribakht's study were elicited from two different groups of speakers. For this reason it is impossible to determine whether differences are due to the language variable or to cultural differences or differences in educational background between the two groups. So far, the most comprehensive study of CS is the one conducted by a group of researchers at the University of Nijmegen (cf. Poulisse 1990). "The Nijmegen project' was set up to investigate the proficiency-effect, the relationship between CS use in LI and L2 and the effectiveness of various CS types. Only compensatory strategies were studied. The project involved three groups of Dutch learners of English at three different proficiency levels. The most advanced group consisted of 15 secondyear university students of English. The two other groups consisted of 15 grade 11 and 15 grade 9 pupils, who had been learning English for five and three years respectively (three hours per week). The subjects were tested on four tasks which required the subjects I) to refer to 20 photographed objects (like a bib and a flyswat) for which they did not know the conventional English names, II) to describe the 12 novel graphic designs depicted in Figure 1 both in Dutch and in English, III) to retell in English four one-minute stories told to the subjects in Dutch (cf. Figure 2) and IV) to have a fifteen-minute conversation with a native speaker of English. The data collected this way totalled 35 hours of speech (= approximately 140,000 words). After the data had been transcribed, the CS in them were identified by two research assistants, who based themselves on problem indicators like pauses, drawls, laughs, a rising intonation and other signs visible on the videorecordings. The identification of the CS in the story-retell task and the interview task was further based on retrospective comments made by the subjects when reviewing their performances immediately after they had been recorded.

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Figure 1: The novel graphic designs used in the Nijmegen project. From Poulisse (1990: 213). Originally from Krauss - Weinheimer (1964)

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Figure 2: One of the stories used for retelling in the Nijmegen project, translated from Dutch. From Poulisse (1990: 217)

There once was a salesman in hair-restorers. Each day he set out to try and sell his products to hairdressers and chemists. Now, this salesman happened to be bald himself, but to improve his business he had bought himself a wig and he led all hairdressers and chemists to believe that he owed his beautiful head of hair to this new product. In this way he sold quite a lot, until, one day, the wind blew off his wig during the annual open-air demonstration. That put an embarrassing end to his profitable business.

All in all, the data of tasks I, III and IV contained 3203 cases of CS. They were divided into superordinate and subordinate CS. The latter are CS which are embedded within other CS, as is the case with little animals, a CS for 'flies', which is embedded within and this thing you use for to kill uh little animals, a CS for 'flyswat'. Table 4 shows how super- and subordinate CS were divided across proficiency groups and tasks. As you can see the most proficient learners (group 1) use the fewest CS. This goes for both super- and subordinate CS. The differences between the two groups of secondary school pupils (groups 2 and 3) were not significant. The number of superordinate CS in task I is virtually equal for all three groups. This is because the number of problems in task I was predetermined. There were 20 photographs of 'difficult' objects, hence 20 problems generally resulting in 20 CS per subject.

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Table 4: The number of super- and subordinate CS per task (I = picture description, HI = story retell and IV = conversation) and per group (1 = students, 2 = grade 11 pupils and 3 = grade 9 pupils). From: Poulisse (1990: 118)

task I super sub

task III super sub

task IV super sub

1 2 3

293 302 302

54 176 157

165 298 339

16 32 61

221 321 392

9 23 42

679 921 1033

79 231 260

total:

897

387

802

109

934

74

2633

570

total super sub

group

Table 5 specifies how often each of the four CS types distinguished in the Nijmegen project was used by each of the three proficiency groups in tasks I), III) and IV). The Table relates to superordinate CS only.

Table 5: The number and percentage of superordinate CS broken down by task (I = picture description, III = story retell and IV = conversation), group (1= students, 2 = grade 11 pupils and 3 = grade 9 pupils) and CS type (analytic conceptual, holistic conceptual, morphological creativity and transfer). Based on Poulisse (1990: 120) CS type

task I

analytic holistic morph. cr. transfer

279 2

2%

94 59 3 4

group 2

analytic holistic morph. cr. transfer

296 99% 0 0 2 = 1%

173 85 6 24

group 3

analytic holistic morph. cr. transfer

291 = 98% 3 = 1% 1 3 = 1%

215 78 5 32

group 1

1 €

task III 97% 1%

= 59% = 37% = 2% = 2% _ 60% = 29% = 2% = 8% _ 65% = 24% = 1% = 10%

task IV 93 = 43% 77 = 36% 1 43 = 20% 161 86 3 57

= 51% = 27% = 1% = 21%

201 = 51% 101 = 26% 1 87 = 22%

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Table 5 shows that most of the CS used by the subjects were analytic conceptual strategies. The use of holistic conceptual strategies is clearly task-dependent. Whereas there are hardly any CS of this type in task I, they occur quite often in tasks III and IV. The same goes for the linguistic strategy of transfer, which is quite frequent in task IV, but rare in task I. The use of morphological creativity is virtually negligible for all tasks and proficiency levels. Table 5 also reveals that the proficiency-effect is more subtle than suggested by the findings of previous studies. Although the least proficient subjects clearly used most CS (cf. Table 4), they do not always use most transfer strategies. In task I, none of the three groups use more than a few transfer strategies, while in task IV all learner groups use transfer strategies in approximately 20% of the cases. Task III does yield proficiency-related differences in the use of transfer though. And proficiency-related differences are also found in the case of holistic strategies; they are used more often by advanced learners in task III and in task IV, but not in task I. The findings presented here confirm the conclusion of previous studies that CS use is task-related. More particularly, Poulisse (1990) has claimed that the kind of CS a learner will use depends on the demands imposed by the task/situation. If it is important to get the message across, as when referring to photographs, the learner will be prepared to expend much effort on making him/herself understood. This explains why almost all the CS used in this task were elaborate and time-consuming analytic conceptual strategies. In the story retell task and the conversation, comprehension of single items was less important, so that holistic strategies and transfer strategies, which require less effort, but are also less likely to be successful, are more frequent in these tasks. Of course the fact that the latter two tasks are also more cognitively demanding, and impose certain time-constraints, has also contributed to this finding. Finally, the complete lack of proficiency-related differences in the use of transfer strategies in the conversation task may also be ascribed to the presence of an interlocutor in this task. This enabled the learners to check whether a CS had been understood, and use a more demanding CS only if necessary. Thus, the conversation task provided an excellent opportunity to achieve maximum comprehension with a minimum investment of effort. All learners, regardless of their proficiency level, appear to have exploited this. With respect to the relationship between CS use in LI and L2 a comparison was made of the referential strategies used by the subjects in the Dutch and English versions of task II, i.e. the task which required them to refer to the pictures in Figure 1. From this, it was concluded that LI and L2 referential behaviour are largely similar. Regardless of the language in which they were operating, the subjects resorted to the same strategies and generally attempted to maintain their preferred strategy (as expressed in the LI) in the L2. These

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findings suggest that L2 speakers transfer their LI strategic skills to L2 situations. Studies of the effectiveness of CS are scarce, probably because effectiveness (usually equated with comprehensibility) is hard to measure. In the first two studies concerning this issue, the effectiveness of particular instances of CS was established by judgement tasks (Ervin 1979; Bialystok 1983). Subjects were asked to rank-order cards with CS typed on them in terms of their effectiveness in conveying the meaning of a particular item, or to indicate the comprehensibility of a particular CS on a five-point-scale. In the Nijmegen project a more objective procedure for measuring the effectiveness of CS was developed. Instances of different CS types were presented to native speakers of the target language within the context of the stories in which they had originally been used. All CS were underlined and the informants were asked to guess the words that had been intended and to indicate how certain they were that their answers were right. A sample of this task is given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: A sample of the guessing task used for measuring the effectiveness of CS in the Nijmegen project. From: Poulisse (1990: 224) There once was an employee' in some spray to make your hair grow faster Each day he set out to try and sell his product to ones who cut people's hair3 and drogists4. Now, this employee happened to be bald himself, but to improve his business he had bought himsejf some hair5 and he led all the ones who cut people's hair and the drogists to believe that he owed his beautiful head of hair to this new product. In this way he sold quite a lot, until, one day, the wind blew off his hair during the annual open-air demonstration. That put an embarrassing end to his profitable business. I think this answer is: 1 2 3 4 5

right right right right right

/ possibly right / pure guesswork / possibly right / pure guesswork / possibly right / pure guesswork / possibly right / pure guesswork / possibly right / pure guesswork

The results of this study showed combinations of holistic and analytic strategies like spray to make your hair grow faster ('hair-restorer'), and analytic strategies like ones who cut people's hair ('hairdresser') to be most, and transfer strategies like to strike ('iron') and holistic strategies like an employee ('salesman') to be least comprehensible. At the same time, however, it was concluded that it is not very sensible to speak of effective and less effective CS types, since the

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comprehensibility of a particular CS largely depends on the amount of specific information contained in the CS itself and on the informativeness of the context in which it is used. Fairly specific holistic strategies like tribunal ('courtcase'), hair ('wig') and to flatten ('to iron') for instance, proved to be much more comprehensible than general ones like animal ('rabbit') or tool ('drill'). The importance of the context is illustrated by the fact that the holistic strategy man was correctly guessed (by 82.8% of the informants) to mean 'judge' when it occurred in the context given under a), while no-one guessed it stood for 'taylor' in context b). a) In the end this even led to a courtcase. Just before that took place the owner of the bicycle factory asked his lawyer which man would be hearing the case. b) Once upon a time there was a man. One day, a rabbit entered his shop. "Good morning" it said, "do you have pleated skirts?" In addition, it turned out that transfer strategies, which in previous studies were judged to be difficult to comprehend, were effective if the transferred LI word and the intended L2 word happened to be morpho-phonologically related as was the case for drogisfs ('chemists/druggists') (Poulisse 1990). 6.

Teaching strategies

One of the observations made by O'Malley et al. (1985a) was that few of the learning strategies (LS) mentioned by ESL and foreign language students were actually used by them when they were performing more complex language learning tasks. From this they concluded that there was room for improvement and hence that training learners to use LS could be useful. For this reason they conducted a study in which they tried to assess the effect of training learners in the use of combinations of certain learning strategies (O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Russo - Küpper, 1985b). Seventy-five ESL high-school students were assigned to one of three groups. Group 1 was trained in the meta-cognitive strategies of functional planning (i.e. organize one's speech in advance) and selective attention (e.g. listen for discourse markers like first, second and so on), the cognitive strategy of notetaking, and the socio-affective strategy of cooperation. Group 2 received training in the cognitive and socio-affective strategies only, and group 3, the control group, did not get any strategy training at all. Training and practice took place in eight fifty-minute class periods. The learning activities engaged in involved listening and speaking. To determine the effect of strategy training, achievement tests covering each of these areas were administered to the students. As it turned out, only the results on the speaking test were significant, group 1 being better than group 2 and group 2 being better than group 3. O'Malley et al. supposed the lack of significant improvement in listening skills might be due to the difficulty of some of the later subtests, since on the first three subtests the

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two treatment groups did outperform the control group. Skehan (1989) suggests various other explanations for the mixed findings on the listening tests. One is that many variables remained uninvestigated. Only few strategy types were included in the training and it is possible that other strategy types or combinations thereof would have yielded more success. It is also possible that the time of training (eight fifty-minute class periods) was too short. Cook (1991: 82) notes that some LS may be teachable to good language learners (like those participating in most LS research), but not to less intelligent ones. Others are less sceptical. Cohen (1990) summarizes a large number of empirical studies on vocabulary learning, attending, speaking, reading and writing and advises language learners on useful strategies to be adopted while attempting to master these skills. When learning vocabulary for instance, it may be useful to think of a picture, an association or a mnemonic keyword. Listening can be improved by exposing oneself to native speaker speech and/or by recording and playing back native speaker interactions. In all cases, however, it is important that the learner himself decides which strategy works best for him. So if it works for you to learn new words by repeating them ten times, that is as good a strategy to follow as any other. Oxford (1990) too is very much in favour of strategy training. Her book contains numerous exercises which can be used in class to make learners aware of LS and to train them in using them. The following exercise is meant to help students practise a variety of strategies for understanding a message. Students are to watch a short suspense film, cartoon or news program in the target language, first without, and then with the sound input. After each run they are asked to indicate (a) what they had understood and (b) what clues they had used to help them understand. Other exercises include Jigsaw Reading (put together pieces of a written text using guessing strategies and other strategies), creating and retelling picture stories (to practise compensation and memory strategies) and creating a language learning notebook (to help learners organize their language learning). Whether or not this kind of training will be effective, is still a moot point though. There is equally little agreement on the role CS should play in foreign language classrooms. Some people have maintained that learners should receive explicit instruction as to what CS are, and what kinds of CS they could use (Willems 1987). Research on the effects of this kind of instruction is scant, however, and contradictory, with some investigators claiming that learners' communicative abilities were greatly improved after they had received instruction in CS use (e.g. Brodersen - Gibson 1982), and others reporting no significant gains in strategic performance (Mosiori 1991). Other people have argued that there is no need to explicitly teach CS, since L2 learners generally know how and when to use CS in their LI, and are able to

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transfer their strategic competence to L2 situations. This position is supported by the findings of the Nijmegen project. As we have seen, the subjects used the same referential strategies in the LI and L2 versions of task II, the task which required them to refer to novel graphic designs. Moreover, the subjects' performances on the other three tasks showed that even though none of them had received any instruction about CS prior to the experimentation, they all managed to solve most of their lexical problems by using CS. L2 learners know what kind of descriptions to give of unknown words and they know that, for instance in the case of international words, transfer strategies are likely to be successful. For the L2 classroom this implies that there is no need to teach subjects about different types of CS, how they can be constructed and when they should be used. This is not to say though that CS should be removed from the curriculum altogether. Most learners would probably benefit from practice in performing CS, i.e. in putting CS together. For this purpose the teacher could provide them with useful phrases and vocabulary and encourage them to put these to use. Encouragement to use CS would also help all those learners who refrain from using CS, because they are afraid to produce one that has an error in it. A good way to get students to use CS is to engage them in information gap activities which require them to solve communicative problems caused by lexical shortcomings. 7.

Conclusion

It has been 20 years since the first studies of learning strategies and communication strategies were conducted. In this time much attention has been given to defining the two phenomena and developing typologies which can be used to describe their use. In both research fields the initial typologies were based on questionnaires, interviews and/or observations. Later typologies have been increasingly related to cognitive theories, so that the two research areas are beginning to be integrated into the more general fields of language development and language production. As yet, it is unclear which directions will be taken in the future. Surely, there is a need for more empirical research investigating the relationship between LS use and individual characteristics like age, aptitude and personality. The effects of teaching and/or using LS on learning success also require further investigation. Studies of CS should first of all investigate whether a minimal level of proficiency is required to use CS, preferably in a longitudinal study. In addition, they should deal with questions related to the communicative situation. Do certain contexts lead to the use of different CS than others? How important is one's knowledge of the audience? To what extent do time constraints play a role? Are problems solved differently when one is writing rather than speaking? Questions like these are relevant to LI and L2 CS use alike and will shed more light on the constraints governing CS use.

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Most importantly, however, it is expected that one will continue to relate the study of LS and CS to current theories of language development and use. If this is done successfully, the scope of strategy research will be greatly enlarged. Notes 1. O'Malley et al. (1985a: 33-34) have defined the cognitive learning strategies in this Table as follows: Repetition: Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent rehearsal. Resourcing: Using target language reference materials. Directed physical response: Relating new information to physical actions, as with directives. Translation: Using the first language as a base for understanding and/or producing the second language. Grouping: Reordering or reclassifying and perhaps labeling the material to be learned based on common attributes. Note-taking: Writing down the main idea, important points, outline, or summary of information presented orally or in writng. Deduction: Consciously applying rules to produce or understand the second language. Recombination: Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language sequence by combining known elements in a new way. Imagery: Relating new information to visual concepts in memory via familiar, easy retrievable visualizations, phrases, or locations. Auditory representation: Retention of the sound or similar sound for a word, phrase, or longer language sequence. Key -word: Remembering a new word in the second language by (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and (2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship with the new word. Contextualization: Placing a word or phrase in a meaningful language sequence. Elaboration: Relating new information to other concepts in memory. Transfer. Using previously acquired linguistic and/or conceptual knowledge to facilitate a new language learning task. Inferencing: Using available information to guess meanings of new items, predict outcomes, or fill in missing information. Question for clarification: Asking a teacher or other native speaker for repetition, paraphrasing, explanation and/or examples.

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References Andersen, Roger W. (ed.) 1979 The acquisition and use of Spanish and English as first and second languages. Washington D.C.: TESOL. Bialystojk, Ellen 1981 "The role of conscious strategies in second language proficiency", Modern Language Journal 65: 24-35. 1983 "Some factors in the selection and implementation of communication strategies", in: Claus Faerch - Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 100-118. 1984 "Strategies in interlanguage learning and performance", in: Alan Davies - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.), 37-48. 1990 Communication strategies. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bialystok, Ellen - Maria Fröhlich 1980 "Oral communication strategies for lexical difficulties", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 5: 3-30. Bongaerts, Theo 1985 "Taalvaardigheidsniveau en het gebruik van compensatiestrategiee"n in tweede-taalproductie. Een bespreking van enkele voorstudies", Gramma 9: 1-25. Brodersen, Dorothea - Kirsten M. Gibson 1982 "Kommunikationsstrategier i folkeskolen", Sproglazreren 7: 2636. Brown, H. Douglas - Carlos A. Yorio - Ruth C. Crymes (eds.) 1977 On TESOL '77. Teaching and learning English as a second language. Washington D.C.: TESOL. Cohen, Andrew D. 1990 Language learning. Insights for learners, teachers and researchers. New York: Newbury House. Cohen, Andrew D. - Edna Aphek 1981 "Easifying second language learning", SSLA 3: 221-236. Cook, Vivian 1991 Second language learning and language teaching. London: Edward Arnold. Corder, S. Pit 1978 "Strategies of communication", in: Matti Leiwo - Anne Räsänen (eds.), 7-12. [1983] [Reprinted in: Claus Faerch - Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 15-19.] Davies, Alan - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.) 1984 Interlanguage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Ervin, Gerard L. 1979 "Communication strategies employed by American students of Russian", Modern Language Journal 63: 329-334. Faerch, Claus - Gabriele Kasper 1980 "Processes and strategies in foreign language learning and communication", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 5: 47-118. Faerch, Claus - Gabriele Kasper 1983 "Plans and strategies in foreign language communication", in: Claus Faerch - Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 20-60. Faerch, Claus - Gabriele Kasper (eds.) 1983 Strategies in interlanguage communication. London: Longman. Galvän, Jose" - Russ Campbell 1979 "An examination of the communication strategies of two children in the Culver City immersion program", in: Roger W. Andersen (ed.), 133-150. Haastrup, Kirsten - Robert Phillipson 1983 "Achievement strategies in learner / native speaker interaction", in: Claus Faerch - Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 140-158. Hallmann, Anneke - Pierre Ras - Maria Swinkels - Hans Verhulst 1979 Giving people a puzzle: The report of an experiment. [Unpublished term paper, Dept. of English, University of Nijmegen.] Kellerman, Eric 1991 "Compensatory strategies in a second language: A critique, a revision, and some (non-) implications for the classroom", in: Robert Phillipson - Eric Kellerman - Larry Selinker - Michael Sharwood Smith - Merrill Swain (eds.), 142-161. Krauss, Robert M. - Sidney Weinheimer 1964 "Changes in reference phrases as a function of frequency of usage in social interaction: A preliminary study", Psychonomic Science 1: 113-114. Leiwo, Matti - Anne Räsänen (eds.) 1978 Publications de l 'association Finlandaise de linguistique appliquee 23. Levelt, Willem M. 1989 Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford Books/MIT Press. Mosiori, Kadia K. 1991 The effects of consciousness raising about communication strategies on the second language strategic performance of adult learners of French as a foreign language. [Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Toronto.]

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Naiman, Neil - Maria Fröhlich - Hans H. Stern - Angela Todesco 1978 The good language learner. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, The Modern Language Centre. O'Malley, Michael J. - Anna Uhl Chamot - Gloria Stewner-Manzanares - Lisa Küpper - Rocco Russo 1985a "Learning strategies used by beginning and intermediate ESL students", Language Learning 35: 21-46. O'Malley, J. Michael - Anna Uhl Chamot - Gloria Stewner-Manzanares Rocco Russo - Lisa Küpper 1985b "Learning strategy applications with students of English as a second language", TESOL Quarterly 19: 557-584. O'Malley, J. Michael - Anna Uhl Chamot 1990 Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, Rebecca 1985 A new taxonomy for second language learning strategies. Washington D.C.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Language and Linguistics. 1990 Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. New York: Newbury House. Palmberg, Rolf 1979 "Investigating communication strategies", in: Rolf Palmberg (ed.), 33-75. Palmberg, Rolf (ed.) 1979 Perception and production of English: Papers on Inter language, (= AFTIL 6). Abo: Abo Akademi. Paribakht, Tahereh 1985 "Strategic competence and language proficiency", Applied Linguistics 6: 132-146. Phillipson, Robert - Eric Kellerman - Larry Selinker - Michael Sharwood Smith - Merrill Swain (eds.) 1991 Foreign/second language pedagogy research. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Politzer, Robert L. - Mary McGroarty 1985 "An exploratory study of learning behaviours and their relationship to gains in linguistic and communicative competence", TESOL Quarterly 19: 103-123. Poulisse, Nanda 1981 Communication strategies: A comparative analysis. [Unpublished term paper, Dept. of Applied Linguistics, University of Nijmegen.] 1990 The use of compensatory strategies by Dutch learners of English. Dordrecht: For is.

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Rubin, Joan 1975 "What the 'Good Language Learner' can teach us", TESOL Quarterly 9: 41-51. 1981 "Study of cognitive processes in second language learning", Applied Linguistics 11: 117-131. Selinker, Larry 1972 "Interlanguage", IRAL 10: 209-231. Skehan, Peter 1989 Individual differences in second-language learning. London: Edward Arnold. Stern, Hans H. 1975 "What can we learn from the good language learner?", Canadian Modern Language Review 31: 304-318. Tarone, Elaine 1977 "Conscious communication strategies in interlanguage: a progress report", in: H. Douglas Brown - Carlos A. Yorio - Ruth C. Crymes (eds.), 194-203. Väradi, Tamäs 1973 "Strategies of target language learner communication: Message adjustment" [Paper presented at the VI Conference of the Romanian-English Linguistics Project Timisoara, May 1973]. 1980 Published in: IRAL 18: 59-71. [1983] [Republished in: Claus Faerch - Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 79-99.] Wagner, Johannes 1983 "Dann du tagen eineeeee - weisse Platte - An analysis of interlanguage communication in instructions", in: Claus Faerch Gabriele Kasper (eds.), 159-174. Willems, Gorard 1987 "Communication strategies and their significance in foreign language teaching", System 15: 351-364.

Syntax: Principles

Universal grammar in second language acquisition* Vivian J. Cook

This paper falls into three sections. The first presents an introduction to the principles and parameters model of Universal Grammar (UG) and to some of the issues it addresses. The second looks at the ways in which this model has been used in second language acquisition research. The third presents an interpretation arising out of the UG model called multi-competence. 1.

Universal Grammar (UG) and the acquisition of the first language

The outline of the Universal Grammar (UG) model of language learning is simple to grasp. The language learner acquires knowledge of the central elements of language in three ways: 1. By instantiating principles of language. The learner has to discover how the language that he encounters fits the universal principles of language already present in his mind, that is to say the constraints that seem to be true of all human languages, to be illustrated below. 2. By setting the values of parameters. The learner has to discover how the language varies within the limits possible in the core elements by setting particular values for parameters in those principles, to be illustrated below. 3. By learning the vocabulary. The learner has to learn large numbers of vocabulary items, each with a specification of the idiosyncratic ways in which it connects with the structure of the sentence.

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An overall analogy can be made to a television set. It arrives from the shop with the capacity to receive any broadcast program using a particular system; before it can be used, the channel settings have to be tuned so that, at the press of a button, the television will choose the channels available from transmitters in that area. The.actual electrical equipment is like the principles of UG. The tuning is the setting of parameters to particular values within the pre-set limits. The TV does not have to learn the principles as they are hardwired into it. The tuning has, however, to be set, or 'learnt', so that the set can work satisfactorily. In language acquisition, the principles are derived from the contents of the learners' minds; the mind needs to encounter sufficient speech and vocabulary to instantiate the principles in the learner's knowledge of language in the appropriate form for that language. The learner also needs sufficient evidence to be able to tell which value of each parameter is needed for a particular language. The vocabulary requires enough examples of each item in sufficient contexts to show its meaning and its syntactic links. Consequently the learning load is unequally distributed among the three aspects: Principles need no attention as they are automatically present in anything the learner does; parameters need sufficient language evidence to enable the learner to decide the value of the setting, but, though crucial, this may be quite small; vocabulary requires year after year of exposure to build up the specifications of thousands of words in the mind. The UG model of learning was first seen in the familiar Chomsky black box diagram of the LAD (Language Acquisition Device) seen below (Chomsky 1964). Input goes in to the black box of LAD, and yields an output consisting of the grammar of a particular language; LAD is "a procedure that operates on experience acquired in an ideal community and constructs from it, in a determinate way, a state of the language faculty" (Chomsky 1990: 69). Nothing is known of the contents of LAD, except what can be deduced by comparing input language data and output grammar.

Figure 1:

The LAD model of LI acquisition

Input > (language data)

Language Acquisition Device

Output (a grammar of a language)

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The development of UG in the 1980s put more detail on this process, namely, using the three constructs introduced above:

Figure 2:

The UG model of LI acquisition

Input > (positive evidence)

instantiation of UG principles setting of values for UG parameters accumulation of vocabulary

a grammar of a language

The input is now required to consist only of positive evidence of what people actually say rather than negative evidence of what is not said, using the argument that children never receive adequate negative evidence in the form of correction from their parents concerning the types of grammar involved in UG. The workings of the acquisition device are seen as the instantiation of principles, the setting of values for the parameters of variation between languages, and the learning of vocabulary, rather than as a mystery concealed in a black box; "acquisition of a language reduces to selection of substantives from a given store and fixing of values of parameters that apply to functional elements and to properties of the lexicon as a whole" (Chomsky 1990: 75). The grammar that results no longer consists of rules but of instantiated principles, specific settings for parameters, and a massive lexicon. But the same relationship still obtains between input and output: into the black box goes the linguistic input, out pops a grammar of English - or of Japanese, or of whatever language the child encounters - which instantiates the principles of UG and has particular values for each parameter of variation. 7.7.

Principles

Principles are general requirements on the form of grammars. Hence they apply anywhere in the grammar that is appropriate. Two examples are: The principle of Structure-Dependency. A human language that has syntactic movement always moves elements that play defined roles in the structure of the sentence rather than elements that do not. Hence the English sentence (la) depends upon the movement of the verb is in the main clause, rather than the is in the subordinate clause (Ib);

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Is Sam the cat that is black? *Is Sam is the cat that black?

The speaker has to know the role that is plays in the structure before it can be moved. The Binding principles. As illustrated in (2) and (3), the structure of the sentence also limits the ways in which anaphors such as herself and pronominale such as her may relate to full noun phrases. (2) (3)

Helen said Mary washes herself. Helen said Mary washes her.

Binding Principle A says that anaphors must be linked within the same local 'domain', that is to say in (2) herself can refer to the same person as Mary but not to the same person as Helen: The binding relationship of herself must be within the domain Mary washes herself. Binding Principle B says that pronominals must be linked outside this local domain so that in (3) her may refer to the same person as Helen, or to someone not mentioned in the sentence, but may not refer to the same person as Mary; the binding relationship of her must be outside the domain Mary washes her. While these two principles form the central ideas of binding, the definition of what constitutes a domain for the principles varies from one language to another, that is to say, is a parameter. A third, more extended, example is the Principle of Subjacency, which further limits syntactic movement in the sentence. When an item moves from one position in the sentence to another, the Subjacency Principle says in effect that it must not be moved across too many barriers of a certain kind on each step that it takes. Take the sentence (4a). (4) a.

Which book did she say that Peter was reading?

Sentence (4a) is analysed as movement of the wA-phrase which book from its original position, via an intermediate position seen in (4b).

(4)b. Step 2 I




instantiation of UG principles setting of values for UG parameters accumulation of vocabulary

>

grammars of one or more languages

This formulation starts from the assumption that the acquisition of second languages is normal rather than peculiar; learning the first language is one type of language acquisition, learning the second another. What language acquisition has to explain is how the mind acquires one or more languages rather than just one. There is not one superior form of language acquisition - LI acquisition -

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lgl

from which others depend. Too often it has been accepted that the knowledge of the LI monolingual is the norm; consequently the typical L2 learner who fails to reach an equivalent standard is seen as a failure. We should treat multilingualism as the norm and commiserate with monolinguals about the impoverishment of their experience rather than deplore the so-called lack of success of L2 learners. The knowledge of the L2 learner is rarely if ever equivalent to that of two monolinguals in one head but is a form of language knowledge of its own I have termed multi-competence (Cook. 1991). If the collapsed Figure 4 is indeed true, we have to see first the nature of the input in both LI and L2, second how the principles are instantiated and the parameter values set in two grammars, thirdly how the grammars are related when there is more than one of them in the mind. To tackle the latter point, are there two grammars in the mind, or is multi-competence a single unified system? I have elsewhere argued that, at least for certain aspects of phonology and the lexicon, the linguistic systems are closely related (Cook, 1992). The position is not settled for the UG syntax we have been considering here. Principles seem straightforward since they would simply apply or not, depending on the language; the variation of parameter values would suggest that instead of a parameter being an on/off switch, it is a dial that can shift between one position and another more or less instantaneously. A second implication concerns the nature of Universal Grammar. Questions such as Is UG accessible in L2 learning? have been put in a way that suggests that UG stands outside the language faculty. But is UG distinct from LAD, something which imposes restrictions on its workings, or is it LAD itself? We can talk about how UG accommodates the grammar of an LI and how it simultaneously accommodates the grammar of an L2; it is meaningless to debate whether UG has access to itself. There is no product of the acquisition process; the language faculty exists in an altered state; UG is its own product. Suppose that UG is transformed by the input into language knowledge; there is not so much a product grammar as a UG holding a particular set of values for parameters. To quote Yeats, "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" UG is not something separate to which the acquisition device has access but is the acquisition device itself. Note A light introduction to UG in second language acquisition on the same lines can be found in: Vivian J. Cook (1989), "Universal Grammar theory and the classroom", System 17, 2: 169-181. A slightly dated introduction to principles and parameters theory in general can be found in: Vivian J. Cook (1988), Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Some of the points made here are developed further in: Vivian J. Cook (to

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appear) "Universal Grammar and the learning and teaching of second languages", in: Terence Odlin (ed.), Perspectives on pedagogical grammar. Cambridge University Press; Vivian J. Cook (to appear), "The metaphor of access to Universal Grammar", in Nick C. Ellis (ed.), Implicit learning of languages. London: Academic Press, and Vivian J. Cook (1993), Linguistics and second language acquisition. Basingstoke: Macmillans. The only book that covers the whole area of UG and SLA (but also is slightly dated) is: Lydia White (1989), Universal grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins. References Anderson, John R. 1983 The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Atkinson, Martin 1992 Children's syntax: An introduction to principles and parameters theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Berwick, Robert C. - Amy S. Weinberg 1984 The grammatical basis of linguistic performance. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1989 "The logical problem of second language learning", in: Susan M. Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 41-68. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. - Sascha Felix - Georgette L. loup 1988 "The accessibility of Universal Grammar in adult language learning", Second Language Research 4: 1-32. Broselow, Ellen - Daniel Finer 1991 "Parameter setting in second language phonology and syntax", Second Language Research 7: 35-59. Carroll, John M. - Thomas G. Bever - Chava R. Pollack 1981 "The non-uniqueness of linguistic intuitions", Language 57: 368-383. Chomsky, Noam 1964 Current issues in linguistic theory. The Hague: Mouton. 1981 "Principles and parameters in syntactic theory", in: Norbert Hornstein - David H. Lightfoot (eds.), 32-75. 1986 Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 1988 Language and problems of knowledge: The Managua lectures. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 1989 "Some notes on economy of derivation and representation", MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 43-74.

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1990 "Language and mind", in: David H. Mellor (ed.), 56-80. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of universal grammar to adult and child learners - a study of the acquisition of German word order", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. Cook, Vivian J. 1985 "Chomsky's Universal Grammar and second language learning", Applied Linguistics 6: 1-18. 1988 "Cognitive processing and second language learning", Polyglot 9. 1989 "The relevance of grammar in the applied linguistics of language teaching", Trinity College Dublin Occasional Papers 22. 1990a "Observational evidence and the UG theory of language acquisition", in: Iggy M. Roca (ed.), 33-46. 1990b "Timed comprehension of binding in advanced learners of English", Language Learning 40: 557-599. 1991 "The poverty-of-the-stimulus argument and multicompetence", Second Language Research 7: 103-117. 1992 "Evidence for multicompetence", Language Learning 42: 557591. Vivian J. Cook (ed.) 1986 Experimental approaches to second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon. DuPlessis, Jean - Doreen Solin - Lisa Travis - Lydia White 1987 "UG or not UG, that is the question: A reply to Clahsen and Muysken", Second Language Research 3: 56-75. Fukui, Naoki 1986 A theory of category projection and its application. [Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.] Gass, Susan M. - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.) 1989 Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Goodluck, Helen 1991 Language acquisition: A linguistic introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Grimshaw, Jane - Sara T. Rosen 1990 "Knowledge and obedience: The developmental status of the Binding Theory", Linguistic Inquiry 21: 187-222. Gross, Maurice 1990 "Lexique - Grammaire LADL" [Paper given at the AILA Congress, Thessaloniki, April 1990].

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Hornstein, Norbert - David H. Lightfoot (eds.) 1981 Explanation in linguistics: The logical problem of language acquisition. London: Longman. Hyams, Nina M. 1986 Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel. Johnson, Jacqueline S. - Elissa L. Newport 1991 "Critical period effects on universal properties of language: The status of subjacency in the aquisition of a second language", Cognition 39: 215-258. McCLelland, James L. - David E. Rumelhart - the PDF Research Group 1986 Parallel distributed processing, Volume 2: Psychological and biological models. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Mellor, David H. (ed.) 1990 Ways of communicating. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Pollock, Jean-Yves 1989 "Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP", Linguistic Inquiry 20: 365-424. Radford, Andrew 1986 "Small children's small clauses", Bangor Research Papers in Linguistics 1: 1-38. 1990 Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Roca, Iggy M. (ed.) 1990 Logical issues in language acquisition. Dordrecht: Foris. Schachter, Jacquelyn 1988 "Second language acquisition and its relationship to Universal Grammar", Applied Linguistics 9: 219-235. 1989 "Testing a proposed universal", in: Susan M. Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 73-88. Slobin, Dan I. - Thomas G. Bever 1982 "Children use canonical sentence schemas: A crosslinguistic study of word order and inflection", Cognition 12: 229-265. Thomas, Margaret 1989 "The interpretation of English reflexive prounouns by non-native speakers", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 281-303. White, Lydia 1985 "The acquisition of parameterized grammar: Subjacency in second language acquisition", Second Language Research 1: 1-17.

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"Implications of parametric variation for adult second language acquisition: An investigation of the pro-drop parameter", in: Vivian J. Cook (ed.), 55-72. Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Are there principles of universal grammar that do not apply to second language acquisition? Paul van Buren

1.

Introduction

I thought it might be interesting for budding language researchers to be taken through a detailed theoretical argument in second language research. This might show something of the way we struggle in this field. But before I get that far I shall have to do some groundwork on metatheory. I apologize if some of this should turn out to be redundant, but I think it is better for my present purpose to err on the side of overexplicitness. Ever since Chomsky introduced his linguistic metatheory to the world the main problem in the study of language acquisition has been: How can human beings acquire a language on the basis of data that are incomplete, defective and utterly opaque in relation to the abstract principles that characterize them? This epistemological problem has become known in the trade as 'the logical problem of language acquisition'. The problem is also called Plato's problem, since Plato was the first to ask the relevant question, namely, how is it that human beings can know so much on the basis of so little overt evidence? Part of the solution to Plato's problem was proposed by Chomsky as a body of innate constraining principles called Universal Grammar. It is important here to stress three things about Universal Grammar.

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First, Universal Grammar is not actually a grammar at all or even a set of possible grammars. Rather, it is a set of conditions that possible grammars must obey, a sort of abstract blueprint for the construction of grammars in other words. Secondly, Universal Grammar allows for variation between languages. Comparing it with biology we might say that UG is the genotype blueprint from which a wide variety of actual phenotypes or core grammars may be constructed. This variety is of course not the same as a free for all. Rather, the degree of variation is controlled by a set of possible parameters. For example a particular language, say English, may allow for the overt movement of syntactic categories, whereas another language, say Chinese, does not have overt syntactic movement at all. This situation is exemplified in (1) below: (1) a. b. c. d.

He said what? What did he say? Ta shuo shemme? He say what *Shemme ta shuo? What he say

The point here is that if a language has syntactic movement then that movement is strictly controlled by the principles of UG.* One of the tasks the learner is faced with is how to set the values of parameters for the language he is acquiring. The setting of a particular parameter may have a number of consequences for the rest of the grammar. For example there is a parameter which allows languages to have zero subjects (compare Italian piove and English *rains). Such languages have auxiliary verb systems that are predictably different from those that are associated with the other parametric value (see Jaeggli Safir 1989). Lastly it is important to stress that Universal Grammar, although necessary, is in no way sufficient as a solution to Plato's problem. What is required in addition to a theory of constraints on the construction of grammars is a theory of how the human organism, given the blueprint, actually manages to construct grammars on the basis of language input. After all a blueprint of a house is not the same as a house. The problem of the relationship between the architect's blueprint and the building of a house is clearly a non-trivial problem, particularly if the building materials are defective and incomplete. What we need, in short is a theory of learnability, a theory that explains how the child comes to acquire a language given Universal Grammar plus exposure to a set of haphazard primary linguistic data.

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Learnability in first language acquisition.

Until recently four basic devices had been proposed to partially account for the relationship between the principles of Universal Grammar and the primary linguistic data to which the organism is exposed. These are, in random order, the parser, the trigger, restructuring and semantic bootstrapping. Since the first three of these concepts are important for my argument I shall briefly discuss their contents. After this brief excursion I shall proceed to a fifth device, namely the subset principle, which has been proposed more recently. What is a parser? A parser is a theory of how a linguistic structure is assigned to a random input of words on the basis of an antecedently given set of rules about possible linguistic structures in a language, in other words on the basis of a grammar. So given a grammar a successful parser will or will not assign a structural description to any input, according to whether the input is characterizable as grammatical or ungrammatical in terms of the grammar to which the parser is related. To give a very brief example, a succesful parser for English will assign the structure (2a) rather than (2b) to the set of input words The boy loves the girl: (2) a. b.

[The boy] [loves the girl] [The [boy loves] the girl]

Note that the relationship between grammar and the parser as sketched here is a one-way dependency: The parser is as successful as the grammar allows it to be. However, this particular characterization of the parser is somewhat misleading in the sense that the parser is an autonomous mental device with its own laws and conditions. The parser is a performance device whereas the grammar has to do with competence; that is, the knowledge store within the limits of which the performance device must operate. But now consider the theoretical possibility that the setting of boundary conditions might be a two-way affair. Suppose for example that parsers have a certain channel capacity (during various stages of acquisition). This might determine, for example, the rate at which input can be analysed. In other words the parser might get Overloaded'. Also suppose that the parser's channel capacity is inherently smaller for children than for adults. In that case the relationship between the grammar and its parser might be such that the parser determines what input can be processed and what input cannot be processed. In that case the roles would be reversed, the grammar would be as good as the parser would allow it to be. Incidentally, this state of affairs has been proposed not only for first language acquisition but also for second language acquisition.

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In my view this has fascinating consequences for second language acquisition research. But this is by the bye. The second hypothesis about the relationship between UG and primary linguistic data I have loosely called the trigger. (A)

Trigger. The set of input phenomena which provide 'evidence' for the presence of a language structure allowed by UG. The trigger sets in motion a process whereby the mental equivalent of a possible grammatical rule or part of a rule 'is added' to the internalized grammar, so that the phenomena in question - which have acted as triggers for the grammar - may, in turn, be generated by the grammar. So, suppose one instance of WHmovement is observed; this triggers move alpha; move alpha is incorporated in the phenotype grammar; the phenotype grammar in turn allows the generation of other instances of move alpha.

I should stress that this notion of triggering is utterly different from that of hypothesis testing. The idea is not that children go around acting like little scientists with a penchant for problem solving. Rather the idea is that they go around like patches of dry soil soaking up any water that makes the seeds grow. This view has three consequences which are listed in (B) below. (B)

Three consequences of the trigger. a. Triggers must be of the input rather than about the input. In other words, triggers belong to the object language rather than to the metalanguage. b. Triggers cannot be directly negative in nature; inherently, the input will provide evidence for grammatical ity but never directly for ungrammaticality. c. Any grammar or rule of grammar that presupposes the existence of direct negative evidence in the input must be rejected as not being licensed by Universal Grammar.

I now come to the last relevant type of relation between UG and primary linguistic data. This is called restructuring and is informally described in (C) below. (C)

Restructuring: May be defined as discarding old grammars for new ones; rules may be added, eliminated, changed etc. The idea behind this notion is that the child is, indeed has to be, maximally parsimonious in constructing

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grammars. It constructs Optimal grammars' for the primary linguistic data it is confronted with at any given time. The grammars are optimal in the sense that they must never be 'too big' for the input. As soon as new relevant data are encountered, the current grammar is restructured to accomodate the new input. The crucial question, which I will not address here, is of course what counts as input for the construction of grammars? That is, the child may well hear an utterance such as : What a lovely little doggie over there and only pay attention to the word doggie. In other words the input is not so much input as intake. The question of why the learner is or, indeed, has to be selective in his intake is of course crucial but I shall not deal with this here. Clearly psychological principles of object-saliency and Gestalt must play a crucial role in the process. I now come to the subset principle and its counterpart the subset condition. Let us start with the latter. In informal terms the subset condition means the following. Suppose we have a parameter P with the values On' and Off; say, the possibility of movement or no movement, as illustrated by the Chinese and English examples in (1). For easy reference let us call On' the plus value of the parameter and Off the minus value of the parameter. Notice one important fact about the examples in (1): The language that has movement also has the possibility of non-movement, but not vice versa. In other words the plus value of the parameter presupposes the minus value of the parameter but not the other way round. Suppose now that this is always the case. Then we can say that the set of structures generated by the plus-value of a parameter is invariably greater than the set of structures generated by the minus-value of a parameter. Conversely, the set of minus structures is a proper subset of the set of plusstructures and therefore smaller. Hence the name subset condition. In slightly more formal terms the definition is as in (D) below. (D)

Subset Condition (= linguistic condition): For every parameter p and every two values i,j of p, the languages generated under the two values of the parameter are one a proper subset of the other, that is L(p(i)) C L(p(j)) or L(p(j)) C L(p(i)).

Note that the notion 'is properly included in' represents a relation of relative 'size' between grammars, where 'size' is defined in terms of the number of possible surface structure types (i.e. distinct surface structure descriptions) generated by a grammar in respect of a particular parameter. Put informally, the input of one grammar over the relevant parameter will be always 'smaller' or 'larger' than the output of its counterpart. For example, a language that allows structures associated with such lexicalized strings as He quickly ate his dinner,

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and He ate his dinner quickly but not He ate quickly his dinner would be smaller (in this relevant respect) than a language in which all three surface structures are permitted. In linguistic terms the first language obeys the 'strict adjacency' principle, the second language does not. This phenomenon of adjacency will be discussed in greater detail shortly (see 4 below). Now the subset condition is postulated as a linguistic condition; it is a condition of Universal Grammar. It says nothing per se about acquisition or about a possible connection with learnability. It is important to grasp this distinction between conditions of UG and conditions of learnability. The fact that UG allows for variation implies that there are (well-defined) differences between languages. But those differences have to be acquired in real-time: A connection has to be created between what is allowed in terms of variation and how the primary linguistic data with which the organism is confronted lead to the structural terms which express this variation. In other words, it is a methodological mistake to equate theories of Universal Grammar with theories of Learnability. In the sense that the former define the constraints on the latter we are justified in making a distinction between theories of competence and theories of performance. To illustrate this distinction in terms of an analogy followed by a rhetorical question: Think of two competence theories of bicycle riding; one includes a sub-theory of the concept 'physical balance', the other does not. All things being equal, which theory would constitute a basis for investigating how children actually learn to ride bicycles? Now the connection between the linguistic subset condition and real-time acquisition has been made in the form of a learnability function called the subset principle, as described in (E) below. (E)

Subset Principle (= learnability condition): The learning function maps the input data to that value of a parameter which generates a language that is a) compatible with the input data; and b) smallest among the languages compatible with the input data.

As discussed earlier, by smallest is meant the lowest number of surface structure types. In essence, then, the subset hypothesis concerns the 'size' of acquired grammars. Given a sample of a language in the form of a set of primary linguistic data, the acquirer will, given the constraints of Universal Grammar, construct a grammar for those data which is the smallest grammar compatible with the data. The question is: Why do we need such a principle in first language acquisition? The answer to that question lies, first, in the central tenet that acquisition proceeds on the basis of positive exemplars only. Secondly, the

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answer lies in the subset condition as formulated earlier. Let me illustrate this with the examples concerning syntactic movement given in (1) and repeated in (3) below. (3) a. b. c. d.

He said what? What did he say? Ta shuo shemme? He say what * Shemme ta shuo? What he say

Suppose you are a child born into an English speaking community and suppose your primary linguistic data consist of simple declarative sentences only. On the basis of those data, does it matter whether you assume, ab initio, that English has syntactic movement or not? The answer is that it does not, given our learnability condition of positive exemplars. Because if the learner starts from the smaller grammar, that is the one without movement, then there will be positive triggers to force restructuring towards a grammar with movement. And if the learner starts from the wider grammar, that is the one with movement, there will be positive data to confirm that particular grammar. But now suppose you are born into a Chinese speaking community and you start with the wider grammar, i.e. the one with movement. Then you would need data such as (3d) to signal that your basic assumption was wrong. But such data would never be forthcoming and you would never develop into a native speaker of Chinese. Hence the subset principle! Because if you were blessed with such a wired-in principle you would simply never be allowed to adopt the wider grammar option as a default grammar for Chinese or indeed for English if movement was not triggered in the initial data. Summing up the discussion so far we see the picture of the first language acquirer as represented in (F) below. (F)

The first language acquirer is driven by two factors: An external one, namely, a permanent stream of haphazard primary linguistic data which obey UG as well as the subset condition, and an internal one, namely, the subset principle. The first factor forces the acquirer to restructure 'inappropriately small' grammars, the second one guides him in restructuring such grammars.

Note that the notion 'inappropriately small' makes sense in terms of real acquisition. For example it allows for a situation where the acquirer of French incorrectly concludes on the basis of the primary linguistic data available at time T that French is a language with 'strict adjacency' but correctly concludes on the

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basis of primary linguistic data available data at time T+l that French is a language without strict adjacency. 3

Second language acquisition, the subset principle and Ockham's razor

The question we now have to address is: Does the subset principle as defined play a role in second language acquisition and if so what precisely is that role? This question needs to be addressed because it is clear from the professional literature that the relationship between first and second language acquisition has become one of the key issues of second language research in the last few years. It follows that plausible learnability hypotheses proposed for first language acquisition should be carefully scrutinized as to their plausibility or, indeed, implausibility for second language acquisition. Let us, from the outset, invoke an ancient methodological principle in science which goes under the name of Ockham's razor. According to this principle hypotheses should not be 'multiplied' - that is added to an argument - unless they are absolutely necessary. Let us, accordingly, start from the proposition that the subset principle does not play a necessary role in second language acquisition. In order to demonstrate the truth of this proposition four things would have to be shown. These are represented in (G). (G)

Refutation of the Subset Principle in SLA has to show that: . 1. There exists, for some language, at least one grammatical area for which learners initially adopt a 'wider', overgeneralizing, grammar; call this grammar Gw. 2. Learners subsequently proceed to a descriptively adequate 'narrower' grammar for the data; call this grammar Gn. 3. The transition from Gw to Gn proceeds without the benefit of direct negative evidence. 4. The transition from Gw to Gn can be explained in terms other than the subset principle.

Note that condition G3 is necessary if the subset principle is to be ruled out. If we allowed direct negative evidence as a significant acquisition factor the subset principle would at once become irrelevant as a condition on acquisition. As good Ockhamists let us wield the great man's razor by attempting to show that the subset principle cannot be a principle of second language acquisition. If our refutation is plausible we shall have made a contribution to the study of second language acquisition, and if it is not we shall have made a contribution to the 'subset-principle-defenders' benevolent fund; both worthy pursuits! The

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question is, what is our strategy going to be in this rather abstract endeavour? Well, one way of doing it is to take somebody who says that the principle does play a part and then prove him or her wrong on their own ground. You then extrapolate from your refutation to the whole of second language learning and embark on a great deal of follow-up research. Barring the minor detail of the follow-up research, that's how I shall proceed. I shall take some relevant data and some conclusions from an extremely interesting article by Helmut Zobl (1988), which was published in the proceedings of the 1986 LARS conference at Utrecht. In this article Zobl reports on an experiment involving Japanese learners of English. The two central assumptions underlying Zobl's investigation are represented in(H) (H)

Two assumptions: 1. English is a configurational language, Japanese is a nonconfigurational language. Roughly speaking, English does not have any overt case markings whereas Japanese does. The main difference between the two languages as types is that English has a much stricter word order than Japanese. 2. Configurational grammars are 'narrower' in terms of the subset condition, and therefore constitute the default case in the acquisition process.

The descriptive area from which Zobl draws his argument is the verb phrase in English. As our two assumptions imply, Japanese, being overtly case-marked, allows for 'free' word order, whereas English word order is strictly hierarchical. That is, the English VP obeys the UG principle of strict adjacency between the verb and its subcategorizing NPs (with one crucial exception), as described in (4) below. (I)

(4) a. b. c. d.

One manifestation of the Strict Adjacency Principle: 'No adverbs between the verb and its subcategorized NPs' (= direct and indirect objects). English observes strict adjacency (with one crucial exception to be discussed); Japanese does not observe strict adjacency. He quickly ate his meal He ate his meal quickly *He ate quickly his meal *He gave him quickly a book

Zobl's article presents two crucial facts. First, Japanese learners of English VP structures initially adopt the wider grammar for the data they have been

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presented with up to that stage in their acquisition of English. They adopt their own grammar in other words. Secondly, the article shows that these learners subsequently - at more advanced stages of proficiency - restructure their wider grammar in favour of the narrower one. Do we have evidence here for our null hypothesis, namely, that the subset principle does not apply to second language acquisition? This would be a premature conclusion. In fact, the evidence in question is so superficial at this stage that it is entirely spurious as an argument against the subset principle. We still have to show how these Japanese learners proceed from the wider to the narrower grammar. Do they proceed with or without the benefit of direct negative evidence? If they do use direct negative evidence we are home and dry of course in terms of these examples. In that case the subset principle could not possibly have applied. But the significant (and attested) fact is that these Japanese learners do not proceed by way of direct negative evidence. So now we find ourselves on the proverbial horns of a theoretical dilemma, which is a very painful place to be. We now seem to have evidence both for and against the subset principle. How do we get off these horns? Zobl provides a very interesting way out. His answer to the question lies in the concept of 'indirect positive evidence', as described in (J) below. (J)

Indirect positive evidence: Allows perceived facts involving phenomena from one linguistic area to count as a trigger for restructuring the grammar of another area.

(Note, incidentally, that this form of evidence is already implicit in our definition of the triggering function of primary linguistic data; that is to say, it is not ruled out by our definition.) What is the indirect positive evidence that Zobl is referring to? Here he makes an original and thought-provoking proposal. The proposal in question has to do with the English passive construction, in conjunction with the parser. However, before we examine the proposal in greater detail we shall need to go on a brief excursion into the English passive construction and the structure of the English verb phrase.

4

The basic structural difference between the verb phrases in English and in Japanese

The difference between the English and Japanese verb phrases may be briefly illustrated by the following three sample structures:

197

Are there principles qfUG that do not apply to SLA?

(5)

a. English:

V

ate

NP

the meal

quickly

b. Japanese:

.. .VP NP «the meal'

AP 'quickly'

v 'ate'

c. Japanese: .. .VP

AP

NP

v

'quickly'

'the meal'

'ate'

Note that 1) Japanese major constituent word order is Subject-Object-Verb and 2) the different word orders shown in (5b) and (5c) are both grammatical (in other words, no strict adjacency in Japanese). We shall come back to the significance of the structural differences between English and Japanese verb phrases below. For the present let us note two things. First, (5a) has 'more structure' than either (5b) or (5c): It contains an intervening node V. I shall refer to (5b) and (5c) as 'flat' structures and to structures similar to (5a) as 'non-flat' structures. Secondly, according to the principles of Universal Grammar, strict adjacency can only be defined in terms of 'non-flat' structures such as exemplified in (5a). Let us now move to the passive construction. The English passive involves movement of the NP in direct object position - which must be directly adjacent to the verb - to subject position, as shown in (6).

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(6) a. b.

Paul van Buren

was kissed Bill by Mary Bill/ was kissed tt by Mary

Legend: tj =

= empty subject slot 'trace', i.e. the place from which the object Billt has moved.

The sentence in (6b) is the result of a syntactic process known as NPmovement. Note that movement in this case creates a phonetically empty category, a so-called 'trace' in the direct object position. In phrase structure terms the source of the movement is as shown in (7): ...VP

(7)

PP V

kissed

Legend:

NP

tt

by Mary

^ = trace left behind by the constituent ('Billj') which has moved into subject position in the sentence. 'VP' is a traditional way to denote 'V-double bar' (= V").

Note that Japanese has no equivalent to the English passive construction. Languages with 'flat' verb phrases do not have movement from under the VP to subject position. 5

What does the Japanese learner have to learn and how does he learn it?

What precisely does the Japanese learner have to learn about the English passive? The answer to this question is specified in (K) below. (K)

Japanese learners have to learn that: 1. English major constituent order is Subject-Verb-Object 2. English has NP movement. 3. There is a trace left behind in the object position of passive constructions. 4. The trace must be adjacent to the verb.

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5. The verb phrase in English consists of a V" node which dominates a 'recursive' V node. The V immediately dominated by V" may dominate an (optional) 'adjunct' node, which may take the form of a prepositional phrase (e.g. the passive 'oy-phrase' in 6, or a phrase such as in the garage) or an adverbial phrase (e.g. quickly in 4) etc. The first three learning tasks are relatively easy, given the overwhelming positive evidence for S-V-O word order and for NP movement in English. But the fourth task involving strict adjacency is much less straightforward, given the initial, incorrect (Japanese) learner assumption of 'free word order under VP', plus the 'invisibility' of the trace or empty category. Just to make sure that we fully understand the location of the problem let us look at (8) below. ...VP

(8) a.

pp v

NP

kissed

t±

...VP

b. V

NP

PP

kissed

£

by Mary

...VP

c. V

kissed Legend:

by Mary

PP

by Mary

NP

ε

\ = empty category in the form of a 'trace' left behind by movement of object into subject position c - empty category

In terms of (8) the question we have to address is: Given the flat structure of the Japanese VP how does the Japanese learner come to 'realize' that the structure for English is as represented in (8a) rather than (8b) or (8c)? Note that the 'terminal strings' of the three structures in question are identical. In other words, the Japanese learner only hears the (relevant) phonetic string '.... kissed by

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Mary'. It is his or her task to associate this phonetic string with the correct phrase structure (8a). As I mentioned before our excursion into the properties of the English and Japanese verb phrases, Zobl's proposed solution to the learner's problem involves parsing theory; in particular one of its basic tenets, namely, that human 'wired in' parsers are deterministic rather than non-deterministic, or random. (L)

Assumption about the parser. The parser is deterministic rather than non-deterministic (i.e. rather than random)

In effect the condition of determinacy means that probability calculations do not play a role in the structure assignment process. The process is totally governed by a corresponding (competence) grammar on a yes/no basis. Now the condition of determinacy is eminently plausible given the speed with which human parsers work. The calculation of transitional probabilities would seem incompatible with what is known about language processing. In fact, it has been known for a long time that such hypothetical calculations would involve time factors much greater than sentence comprehension allows. In other words, syntactic assignment processes would be considerably slower than comprehension processes, which is an absurd conclusion in view of the fact that semantic interpretation depends on correct parsing. Consider in this connection the ambiguity of Old men and •women are not allowed in, which has two different structural descriptions and hence two different semantic interpretations (either old only applies to men or to both men and women). The assumption of parser determinacy is important in the context of our argument since it rules out the possibility of 'random placements' of empty categories within the verb phrase. With regard to (8b) and (8c) above for example, determinacy would entail that the empty category must be permanently fixed in the learner's grammar either in the position adjacent to the verb (i.e. the position in 8b) or in the position non-adjacent to the verb (e.g. the position in 8c) but not both. Notice that this property of the parser also (correctly) entails that non-configurational languages such as Japanese do not have NP movement, and thus no passive construction. What then of the choice between (8b) and (8c) or, to illustrate the problem more graphically, the choices between logically possible positions in (9) below? (9)

.... kissed el in the garden t2 by Mary e3

What might force the learner to adopt position εΐ rather than ε2 or ε3? Note that natural language devices cannot count! That is, they cannot contain numerical

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numerical instructions such as 'insert a trace in position V + 3'. The reason for this is of course obvious (but non-trivial) in a language acquisition mechanism: Counting presupposes language. What this argument amounts to is that the position contiguous to V is the only candidate for the empty category position because it is the only position that is defined in terms of Universal Grammar. For example, theta theory defines position εΐ as the position that is 'directly theta-marked by its governing head' and case theory as the position that is 'adjacent' to the verb. In processing terms εΐ has the important characteristic that, as Zobl (1988) puts it, "[it] eases memory load. The parser does not need to defer the insertion of [the trace] until after other constituents have been processed. In this sense the [....] VP, made up of the verb and its direct argument, exerts pressure to bring about its early closure in parsing a syntactic string" (127). This characteristic of εΐ fits in with the constraint of Universal Grammar that forbids ambiguous paths between an antecedent and its trace. Such a constraint could not operate with respect to 'flat grammars' - the antecedent of ε3 in (9) could be any NP inside or outside to the left of the VP. It implies therefore that NPs in flat grammar predicate cannot undergo NP movement. In short, there exists a 'processing conspiracy' in favour of ε 1 as the extraction site for NP movement in the passive. Finally, what about the fifth item in (K) which the learner has to acquire, namely, an intervening node between VP and the terminal categories of the verb phrase in English? When could we say with certainty that this had been acquired? The answer is that such an intervening node would have to be postulated for the Japanese learner's grammar if and only if the learner had acquired all the manifestations of strict adjacency in English. In such circumstances the learner's competence would be indistinguishable from the English native speaker's competence and, ipso facto, contain a V-single bar node as specified. Let me remind you at this stage of what we are trying to do. We are trying to find out how Japanese learners change from a 'wide grammar' to a 'narrow grammar' in respect of the English verb phrase. By wide grammar I mean a grammar that allows for free word order in the English verb phrase, by narrow grammar I mean one that forces strict adjacency in the English verb phrase. The question we are addressing is: What constitutes the input that allows the wide grammar of the learner to be restructured as a narrow grammar with strict adjacency? What is the trigger? In Zobl's view the acquisition of the English passive, in conjunction with the deterministic properties of the parser, acts as indirect evidence for the process of restructuring. Of course there is plenty of other indirect evidence that the verb object is strictly adjacent to the verb in English; e.g. sentences such / saw him yesterday or She gave a banana to the sick child. But such indirect evidence is

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obviously not conclusive since sentences of this type also occur in languages with non-strict adjacency. What this indirect evidence provided by the passive and the parser does is to provide the learner with what might be called a 'catastrophic' learning experience; that is to say, a sudden insight into the properties of the target language. At the point where the English passive is acquired the Japanese learner 'realizes' that the initial assumption of free word order for direct objects in the English VP is untenable. But what are the consequences of this realization for other NPs in the verb phrase (for example, the indirect object)? Logically speaking the realization could lead to one of three possible hypotheses concerning the status of adjacency in the VP in English. These are presented in (M) below. (M)

Three hypotheses about strict adjacency in the English verb phrase: 1. Strict Adjacency applies to one type of case only (namely, to strings consisting of a verb and an NP as direct object): He ate his dinner quickly I *He ate quickly his dinner. 2. Strict Adjacency applies to at least one other case as well but not to all cases. For example to (underlined) types of strings as in He gave the child a banana I *He gave the child quickly a banana. 3. Adjacency applies strictly across the board.

Note: The first two hypotheses require direct negative evidence for their disconfirmation. Only (c), being the most parsimonious hypothesis, requires positive evidence for its disconfirmation and is therefore compatible with learnability theory in general. Now (3) in (M) above is not only compatible with learnability theory in general. It constitutes in fact the 'narrowest' grammar for the primary linguistic data, which now includes the passive. On the face of it then this learner hypothesis reduces to the subset principle. This conclusion raises two questions. The first one is: Do Japanese learners in fact do a U-turn in favour of the narrowest grammar for the data in question? The second question is: Does the subset principle provide the only explanation for this U-turn in the acquisition process? The answer to the first question is that Japanese learners do as a matter of fact opt for the narrowest possible grammar, once they abandon the wider grammar. This is particularly striking in view of the fact that this choice cannot be induced straightforwardly from the primary linguistic evidence. To illustrate this take what is known as the that-S construction in English. This construction is illustrated in (10) below.

Are there principles of UG that do not apply to SLA?

(10) a. b.

203

He said hoarsely that he had seen her *He said that he had seen her hoarsely

As these examples show, strict adjacency is not an option in English in these constructions, because the adverb intervenes, indeed, has to intervene between the verb and the direct object (i.e. the sentence starting with thai). On the surface then these constructions violate the strict adjacency principle. The interesting fact, as demonstrated by Zobl's research, is that at this stage of acquisition Japanese learners incorrectly adhere to strict adjacency in that-S constructions. The pupils are stricter than the masters! Their utterances include examples such as the one shown in (lOb) above. The learners do abandon this hypothesis of 'too strict adjacency' but only after they have acquired a rule of 'extraposition' that is, a rule which moves the that-S object to the right of the adverb (with the correct result shown in lOa). So much for the first question, concerning matters of fact. What about the second question, concerning matters of theory? Is it really the case that the subset principle provides the only explanation for this particular restructuring phenomenon? In order to answer this question we must return to what I said earlier and go into some linguistic detail. Let us suppose that there are two possible scenarios in the acquisition of the VP in English: A 'wide' grammar strategy (Gw) and a 'narrow' grammar strategy (Gn). The adoption of Gn is straightforward in learnability terms, even if it is not observationally adequate because of obligatory that-S extraposition (as shown a little earlier). In other words Gn overgeneralizes strict adjacency and is consequently 'too small' in terms of the subset condition. However, all that is required to make it observationally adequate is a 'linear' restructuring on the basis of positive evidence; that is, the kind of restructuring that does not involve any U-turns. By contrast, the wide-grammar strategy ignores strict adjacency and, consequently, must sooner or later involve a 'non-linear' restructuring, as we saw in the case of the Japanese learner. Let us now restate the problem we are trying to solve using some technical terms. Let us rename the two strategies the V-double-bar or V-2 strategy (=Gw) and the V-single-bar or V-l strategy (=Gn). This technical renaming is important since the issue can only be stated in technical terms. Now Universal Grammar (UG), in the form of X-bar theory, which is part of Universal Grammar, allows three kinds of V-nodes, namely, V-2, V-l and V-0. Since the last category (V-0) is lexical, and therefore 'visible', it plays no further role in my argument. It follows that the learner of English has two choices as regards the analysis of the English verb phrase. Let us call these the V-2-0 or 'flat' analysis and the V-2-1-0 analysis or 'non-flat' analysis.

204

paui

(l 1) a.

Buren

V-2-0 ('flat') analysis ('wide grammar'). V

b.

van

I

V

NP

ate

the meal

AP

quickly

V-2-1-0 ('non-flat') analysis ('narrow grammar') .. .v

v

NP

ate

the meal

quickly

As can be seen from (11) the difference between the V-2 strategy and the V-2-1 strategy lies in the fact that the wide grammar consists of a V-2 node which (apart from dominating a lexical verb) immediately dominates one or more non-V nodes, whereas the narrow grammar consists of a V-2 node which immediately dominates a V-l node and optionally one or more non-V nodes (plus a lexical verb). The important fact here is that the learner has a binary choice. Suppose that he adopts the flat analysis. As shown, this leads to an overgeneralizing grammar. Suppose in addition, first, that the type of indirect positive evidence of the kind discussed earlier induces the learner to abandon the V-2 strategy (as manifested in 11 a) and, secondly, that the learner adopts the V-2-1 strategy (as manifested in lib). The crucial question is, what precisely directs this second choice? A proponent of the subset principle might say: The subset principle is at work here. Indeed this is Zobl's own conclusion about his findings as we shall see. Now I would contend that this is by no means an inescapable conclusion. In fact, I would argue that resorting to the subset principle would seem to contravene our dear old friend Ockham's razor. Let me elaborate this point and then come back to Zobl's point that his data lend support to the subset principle as a principle of second language acquisition. I want to argue that we already have a perfectly good set of hypotheses to account for Zobl's findings. The set in question consists of the parser, the trigger, restructuring and above all Universal Grammar. The learner's 'desire' to

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restructure - which may be motivated by indirect positive evidence or any other evidence for that matter - is totally constrained by three factors: (a) the binary nature of the choice (i.e. either 'flat' or 'non-flat'), (b) the content of the restructuring analysis, (c) the primary linguistic input. Now the primary input that is part of our discussion includes an exception to strict adjacency in the form of that-S constructions as shown earlier in (22) and consequently an exception to the narrower grammar. But, of course, this exception could never trigger anything else than the wider grammar, or a rule of extraposition. UG has no options available other than either a wider grammar or a maximally narrow grammar plus a movement rule. In short I would argue that the learner has the following choice: Either fossilize and stick with your wider grammar, or adopt the V-l strategy plus movement; you cannot have a grammar that is 'a bit wider than narrowest' or 'a bit narrower than widest'. This amounts to saying that the learner's choice is totally constrained by Universal Grammar. In other words UG is the factor that 'guides' the restructuring from a wide grammar to the narrowest grammar by whatever performance mechanism that effects the change when direct and indirect evidence force such a change. Note that we, of course, need a performance mechanism which 'attaches' the V-l node to a position under the V-2 node in the change from Gw to Gn, but the precise nature of such a mechanism is anybody's guess. We now have to address the crucial question implied by the qualification towards the end of the previous paragraph: "... when direct and/or indirect evidence force such a change". Is the subset principle necessarily part of this 'forcing process' or not? Let me quote Zobl (1988), who seems to take the view that: Our findings lend a measure of support to the subset principle insofar as the narrow VP grammar, attested in the data, represents a necessary antecedent stage in determining [verb] compliment distribution. Once directly theta-marked arguments [i.e. direct objects; PvB], regardless of category membership [i.e. either straight NPs or that-S; PvB] are adjacent to the verb, positive evidence can indicate where rightward movemement must take place [to account for that-S extraposition; PvB]. It should be noted that the narrow grammar is not compatible with the input, generating as it does V-S-Adv [i.e. *He said that his mother was dead hoarsely, PvB], an order contradicted by the input. This circumstance makes it unlikely that the evidence disconfirming the flat VP came from verbcomplement input; on the other hand, it is compatible with our claim that disconfirming evidence is available in other forms [i.e. indirect evidence from the parser etc.; PvB] (130).

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Note that the crucial point in the above quotation is the fact that the Japanese learner's grammar is 'too narrow'. It overgeneralizes strict adjacency by allowing for sentences such as *He said that his mother was dead hoarsely, which are ungrammatical in English. What prompts this overgeneralization? Is the subset principle necessarily part of the 'prompting' process? My answer to this question would be that the subset principle is not necessary in this connection. Zobl's data are certainly not incompatible with the subset principle but they do not lend it support either. In fact, given the binary choice forced by Universal Grammar and assuming the correctness of Zobl's argument about indirect evidence, plus the deterministic nature of the parser, plus the processing constraint of unambiguous path analyses referred to earlier, any appeal to the subset principle would, given our null hypothesis adopted at the outset, violate Ockham's razor in this context. The question that remains is, might we need the subset principle as an acquisition mechanism in some other second language acquisition context involving syntax? To put it differently, could there be an autonomous mental device or performance mechanism that prompts the learner to 'restructure by choosing the narrowest grammar compatible with the data'? That is, without the constraints of UG being the sufficient factors underlying the restructuring process? In my view this can never be the case because this type of restructuring will necessarily involve selecting the unmarked value of a parameter. And that is the same as saying that the choice will always be governed by UG. Note that it is no argument in favour of the subset principle to protest that the second language learner may not be constrained by UG in the same way as the first language learner or indeed that he may not be so constrained at all. This is no argument for the simple reason that the subset principle is defined in terms of UG parameters. Therefore it stands or falls with UG itself. I conclude that the subset principle can neither be a universal nor a particular principle of second language acquisition. Interestingly enough it is the postulation of the subset condition that makes this conclusion possible. Without this linguistic condition Universal Grammar could never act as the guiding principle for restructuring parametric grammars. If my conclusion is correct, namely that the subset principle plays no role in second language acquisition, then we have a clear difference between first language acquisition and second language acquistion; that is to say, if the subset principle is indeed an autonomous principle of first language acquisition. In my view this is arguable on the present definition of the subset principle. However that question deserves another occasion.

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Notes * The term syntactic movement is, strictly speaking, no longer in order, given Chomsky's so-called 'Minimalist' theory (Chomsky 1993). However the essence of the syntactic processes involved is not affected by this latest theoretical revision. References Chomsky, Noam 1993 "A minimalist program for linguistic theory", in: Kenneth Hale Samuel J. Kayser (eds.), 1-52. Hale, Kenneth - Samuel J. Kayser (eds.) 1993 The view from building 20. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jaeggli, Osvaldo - Kenneth J. Safir (eds.) 1989 The null subject parameter. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Manzini, M. Rita - Kenneth Wexler 1987 "Parameters, binding theory and learnability", Linguistic Inquiry, 18: 413-444. Pankhurst, James - Mike Sharwood Smith - Paul van Buren (eds.) 1988 Learnability and second languages. A book of readings. Dordrecht: Foris. Zobl, Helmut 1988 "Configurationality and the Subset Principle: The acquisition of V by Japanese learners of English", in: James Pankhurst - Mike Sharwood Smith - Paul van Buren (eds.), 116-131.

Syntax: Parameters

Parameters in non-native language acquisition Bonnie D. Schwartz

1.

Introduction: Universal Grammar and language acquisition

From a fairly superficial view, one can readily come up with reasons to think that non-native language (L2) acquisition and native language (LI) acquisition might be considered to have little in common: While LI acquisition is in all non-pathological cases 'perfectly attained', in L2 acquisition - and particularly in adult L2 acquisition - such 'perfect attainment' is more often the exception rather than the rule (e.g., Bley-Vroman 1990). Likewise, from a different but perhaps equally superficial view, there are reasons to hypothesize that L2 acquisition and LI acquisition indeed hold much in common: Both obviously deal with the acquisition of something that gives rise to linguistic behavior (comprehension and production). Notice, however, that in both LI and L2 acquisition there must be some system of knowledge that underlies the linguistic behavior; only the output of the knowledge system can actually be 'seen', since the knowledge systems themselves are not overtly observable. Thus, it is only on the basis of overt linguistic behavior that the researcher can make inferences about the nature of the underlying systems. The question, then, is whether or not - despite certain apparent and even perhaps gross differences in linguistic behavior - the systems of knowledge that are created in L2 acquisition and LI acquisition are at all truly comparable. In order to answer questions relating to

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the nature of the knowledge systems, we need to consider the precise formulations of grammars that linguistic theory provides, for it is only via these formulations that we can scrutinize the similarities and differences between LI and L2 linguistic behavior and then try to compare the underlying systems of knowledge (for related discussion and elaboration, see e.g., Schwartz 1986, 1993). Within the tradition of generative linguistics, one of the primary motivations for postulating innate, domain-specific, linguistic knowledge (that is, innate knowledge of grammar) is that it offers a conceptually easy answer - as briefly summarized in what follows - to the question of how the knowledge systems underlying native language are acquired. Chomsky (1986b) reformulates the long-standing paradox in terms of Plato 's Problem, the goal of formal linguistic theory being "... to explain how we know so much, given that the evidence available to us is so sparse" (Chomsky 1986b: xxvii). What this paradox underscores is that there is (at least for LI acquisition) an underdetermination problem, in that the linguistic knowledge that all native speakers have extends far beyond what their input, that is, their exposure to language, on its own could logically entail. For instance, all native speakers end up knowing that certain sentences in their language are impossible and they know this without having been explicitly taught or told that such sentences are ill-formed (see, for example, Hornstein - Lightfoot 1981). If the innate linguistic knowledge - that is, Universal Grammar (UG) - is appropriately characterized, such problems fall away: Acquirers will not have to 'learn' which sentences are ungrammatical, for the knowledge they start off with already 'tells' them, quite precisely, that in order for structures in any language to be allowed, they must conform to certain (positive) conditions and must not violate other (negative) constraints. Hence, a string of words in a particular language which either does not meet one of these conditions or does violate one of these constraints will automatically be considered impossible, since in combination with the other specifications of that particular grammar, no well-formed structural description can be assigned to the string. In short, part of UG must consist of principles, in the form of positive conditions and negative constraints, that do not vary from language to language. Universal Grammar is in this sense 'universal', for all grammars of natural human languages prohibit deviations from these principles; UG is also 'universal' in another sense, in that it forms part of the biological endowment of all humans, irrespective of which particular language they come to know. In addition to these invariant principles, the biological endowment called Universal Grammar must also be organized in such a way so as to allow for the known differences among languages across the world. In other words, UG must be such that it can explain simultaneously the acquisition of any one particular grammar and also the acquisition of all natural human language grammars. This dual-pronged burden has in recent years been addressed by the innovation of the

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notion parameter within the Principles and Parameters approach to grammatical knowledge (Chomsky 1981). Parameters are also part of UG, but in opposition to the invariant principles, they define the space of variation across grammars of natural language. Abstractly, a parameter is conceived as a principle of UG that is pre-specified as having certain options (typically two); exposure to language (viz., positive exemplars) relevant to the parameter will tell the acquirer which option it is that exists in the grammar of the language being acquired. Thus, parameters are also part of the innate linguistic knowledge called UG; the difference with respect to principles is that rather than being rigid, a parameterized principle has highly constrained options associated with it. In addition to the need to learn the lexicon of any particular language, part of the acquisition process consists of fixing the parameters to the appropriate value on the basis of experience with the target language, that is, on the basis of positive evidence (Primary Linguistic Data; see, e.g., Hyams 1986 on parameter fixing in native language acquisition.) Parameters, however, are not conceived as merely the enumeration of descriptive differences among languages; in other words, it should not be the case that for each surface difference between any two languages, a parameter is invoked. Rather, the ideal is to capture several differences among languages by virtue of a single parameter. In this way, each parameter of grammar should account for the co-occurrence or clustering of certain surface properties across language, whereby [t]he values assigned to a parameter are the primitive differences between two grammatical systems. Such primitive differences interact with the deductive structure of UG which remains constant and with other parameters, an interaction that determines many derived differences (Rizzi 1988: 10-11). Let us assume for the sake of exposition that in regard to parameter P,, there are only two parametric options, RED and BLUE. Thus, in combination with the other (invariant) principles of UG (and with other parametric options), if the RED value of parameter P, is instantiated in a language, a certain data set is expected to obtain; the range of data thus covered will include grammatical sentences (those that are generable by the grammar) and exclude ungrammatical sentences (those that the grammar cannot generate). Now, if instead the BLUE value of P, is instantiated, then another range of (grammatical and ungrammatical) data is expected. In other words, the particular option to which a parameter has been set will (in combination with the rest of the grammar) be able to explain why in that language certain types of sentences are grammatical and certain other types of sentences are ungrammatical; were a different value of the parameter instantiated instead, then other types of grammatical and

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ungrammatical sentences would be expected (and hence explained). Thus, to the extent that the surface properties of the different languages fall out from the way that a parameter is fixed (e.g., P, to either RED or BLUE), the parameter is then the primitive difference between the grammars that explains the sets of surface distinctions, that is, the different clusterings of properties, between the two languages.1 In sum, UG is the body of innate linguistic knowledge, consisting of principles and parameters, which defines the limits of natural language grammars. Upon exposure to (contextualized) primary linguistic data, the lexicon will be learned and parametric options will be fixed, and this process (grossly) constitutes language acquisition with respect to the acquisition of grammatical knowledge. Whereas we know that the steady-state grammar arrived at in the course of native language acquisition falls within the limits specified by UG, the question is whether interlanguage grammars (or more objectively, interlanguage systems), too, fall within these limits. Viewing L2 acquisition in these terms, then, allows researchers to address the issue of comparability of LI and L2 knowledge systems: Regardless of whether the result of L2 acquisition is a perfect match with the result of LI acquisition (with respect to a particular target language), one can test for whether the linguistic-specific principles and parameters of Universal Grammar operate and in fact constrain the process of L2 acquisition. If they do, then this is evidence that the two knowledge systems are of the same type; if they do not, then some other knowledge source must be the basis of interlanguage. There are, then, (minimally) two ways to test for the operation of UG in L2 acquisition:2 (1) a. (experimentally) determine whether there is an underdetermination problem in L2 acquisition; b. determine whether independently motivated principles and/or parameters can account for a given set of L2 data. Research related to (la) might show, for example, that L2 acquirers (henceforth L2ers), similar to native-language acquirers, exhibit linguistic behavior that goes beyond what was present in the input; in such cases it is thought that no other explanation other than UG could be the cause of the underlying system of knowledge (e.g., Bley-Vroman - Felix - loup 1988; Felix 1988; White - Travis - Maclachlan 1992). Findings suggesting no underdetermination in L2 behavior would be taken to indicate that the knowledge base is something other than linguistic-specific UG. A different way to test for the operation of UG, as in (Ib), is to show that the linguistic behavior on the-part of L2ers stems from a system of knowledge that either violates principles of UG (e.g., Clahsen Muysken 1986; Klein 1993; Schachter 1989) or accords with the known (and independently motivated) principles and parameters of UG - even though the

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interlanguage system may be quite distinct from either the LI or the target language grammars (e.g., duPlessis - Solin - Travis - White 1987; Finer Broselow 1986; Tomaselli - Schwartz 1990). 2.

Another way to test for UG in L2 acquisition: Clustering

Research into the operation of parameters in L2 acquisition can be conceived in such a way as to cut across (la) and (Ib), and it is this that will be the primary focus of this paper: (2)

Can a parameter whose values differ between the LI and the target language switch in L2 acquisition?

In light of the earlier discussion on parameters, one might expect that if UG is operative in L2 acquisition, L2ers would show evidence for the clustering of surface properties in relation to particular parametric differences between the LI and the target language (e.g., Meisel 1991). Let us imagine, for example, that the RED value of P, gives rise to properties A, B and C; in contrast, the BLUE value of P, is responsible for properties Χ, Υ and Z. With respect to (2), a fairly straightforward (if not naive - see discussion below) prediction can be made when the LI instantiates the RED value but the target language grammar is known to have the BLUE value, namely: L2ers who show evidence of property X in their interlanguage should necessarily show evidence of Υ and Ζ as well (and, in fact, no longer allow properties Α, Β and C - this would show that L2 acquisition is also underdetermined). And so if the properties Υ and Ζ are not present in the interlanguage behavior (but property X is), this might suggest that L2 acquisition falls outside the operation of UG. But if Υ and Ζ do also accurately describe the interlanguage (and properties A, B and C are now absent), then the fact that such clustering occurred would be strong evidence that parameter switching is possible in L2 acquisition and would therefore be evidence for UG being operative in non-native grammar construction. As parenthetically implied above, such a depiction of parametric variation and of parameter switching in L2 acquisition might be overly naive, however, for it completely strips away the known interaction that parameter values have with the other principles of UG.3 Indeed, naturalistic and experimental research into the question of parameter switching in L2 acquisition has so far produced mixed results (e.g., Hilles 1986; White 1985; see White 1989 for overview).4 Let us consider why what appears to be the most straightforward way to test for parameter switching, namely, the existence or the absence of clustering in L2 acquisition, is perhaps open to more subtle interpretations.

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The first thing to bear in mind is that on the surface, languages may look very similar as to their properties but that nevertheless the overt appearance of a given phenomenon can be derived by quite different underlying properties of the grammars. For example, many languages allow the subject of tensed clauses to be phonetically empty (cf. note 1); linguistic theory can, however, provide several reasons for this phenomenon crosslinguistically (e.g., Rizzi 1986). Under such circumstances, it is quite simply wrong to expect a unique parameter value to explain all such occurrences of phonetically empty subjects. In short, then, it is not self-evident that maintaining a bi-conditional relationship between the overt appearance of a surface property and an underlying cause (i.e., parameter value) is justifiable. And if this is true of known natural language grammars, then it should also extend to analyses of interlanguage systems; there is no point in making the requirements even stronger (viz., a bi-conditional one) in order to test for the operation of UG in L2 acquisition. Note, furthermore, that primary linguistic data do not come labeled as to which parameter they are intended to be evidence for; it is thus possible that primary linguistic data do not always lead to a unique analysis on the part of grammars. If this is so, then the clustering associated with a specific parameter value would not always be expected to occur immediately - in either LI or L2 acquisition - for a developing grammar may (initially) adopt a different analysis for a type of input data. Again, this suggests that a bi-conditional formulation of parametric variation should not be invoked when testing for the operation of UG in L2 acquisition - despite the most straightforward predictions about clustering that follow from a parameter-switching model of L2 acquisition. On the other hand, when evidence for clustering in LI acquisition (and L2 acquisition) is found, this would seem to provide strong support for the correctness of a particular linguistic analysis. And perhaps more important to the concerns of this paper, when interlanguage behavior shows evidence of clustering, this would seem to constitute fairly unmistakable evidence for the operation of UG in (adult) L2 acquisition.5 The remainder of this paper will focus on a set of L2 data. The stated goal of this paper dictates what we will look at, namely, the evidence for or against clustering when an analysis proposes that parameter switching from the value in the LI grammar has taken place in the course of L2 acquisition. The data concern the L2 acquisition of German - and in particular the acquisition of word order - by native speakers of (pro-drop) Romance languages (e.g., Meisel Clahsen - Pienemann 1981); these data have received much attention in the L2 acquisition literature. In general, only the 'bare bones' of the data and the competing analyses will be provided, in the hope that the overall point will be clear without any misrepresentation of particular theoretical positions. I refer the reader to the many references that will be cited in the upcoming discussion for

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more details. In order to build up to the precise argument, several pieces of background information will first need to be reviewed: In the next section, some syntactic background on German and in particular on the syntax of German verbs will be described. In section 4, a general description of the L2 developmental sequence will be presented, but attention will be given to the relevant stages only; in addition, sketches of the two alternative analyses of these stages will be discussed, the first claiming that an analysis falling outside of UG explains the data (Clahsen - Muysken 1986), the other claiming that parameter switching captures the data (duPlessis et al. 1987). The heart of the argument will be presented in section 5, where the predictions regarding clustering in parameter switching will be discussed (Schwartz 1991). The paper will close with a brief conclusion.

3.

Background: German word order - focus on verb placement

Within generative syntax, there is a general consensus for the analysis of the underlying order within the verb phrase (VP) in German.6 Consider first the data for main clauses in (3) and (4) below, where (3a) and (3b) contain a simple verb (lesen 'to read') and (3c) and (3d) contain a separable prefix verb (anrufen 'to call up'), all in the present tense; the sentences in (4) illustrate the auxiliary-participle counterparts of (3 a) and (3b) and the modal-infinitive counterparts of (3c) and (3d): (3) a. Hans liest diese Romane Hans reads these novels

c. Hans ruft die Frauen an Hans calls the women up

(4) a. Hans hat diese Romane gelesen Hans has these novels read 'Hans read these novels'

b. Diese Romane liest Hans These novels reads Hans 'These novels, Hans reads (them)' d. Die Frauen ruft Hans an The women calls Hans up "The women, Hans calls (them) up' b. Diese Romane hat Hans gelesen These novels has Hans read 'These novels, Hans read (them)'

c. Hans wird die Frauen anrufen d. Die Frauen wird Hans anrufen The women will-3sg Hans up-call Hans will-3sg the women up-call 'Hans will call up the women' "The women, Hans will call (them) up'

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In all of the examples in (3) and (4), the tensed (finite) verb (V[+fin]), which shows verbal agreement with the subject (Hans), occupies the second position of the sentence - it is the underlined word in (3)-(5) -; this is true even when the subject is not the initial element of the clause, as in the (b) and (d) examples. There are two other things to note in the examples in (4). First, it is the auxiliary verb (haben 'have') and the modal verb (werden 'to become') which fill the second position. Second, the (nonfmite) thematic verb does not immediately follow the tensed verb; were the nonfmite verb (ν(_Γιη]) - that is, the participle in (4a) and (4b); the infinitive in (4c) and (4d) - placed in front of the direct object (DO) in (4a) and (4c) or in front of the subject in (4b) and (4d), the sentences would become ungrammatical. Consider now the facts in (5) for embedded clauses: (5)

Hans sagt, da ... 'Hans says that...' a. ... er diese Romane liest ... he these novels reads '... he reads these novels'

b. ... er diese Romane gelesen hat ... he these novels read has '... he read these novels'

c. ... er die Frauen anruft ... he the women up-calls '... he calls up the women'

d. ... er die Frauen anrufen wird ... he the women up-call will '... he will call up the women'

The descriptive generalization about verb placement in German is that while V[+fm] occupies the second position in main clauses, in embedded clauses V[+fm] occupies clause-final position. Facts such as those in (3) - (5) have led syntacticians to posit that the underlying order within the VP in German is OV ([VP NP^, V0]). In order to derive the surface orders found in (3) and (4), there is a general operation that moves the finite verb to the second position (in combination with topicalizing any other maximal projection, XP, to the front of the sentence - but cf. Travis 1984, 1991; Zwart 1991). This is descriptively referred to as Verb Second (V2):

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CP

(6) 1

I 1

1

SPEC

C' 1

XP

IP [+fin]i

1

1

I'

SPEC

NP I

jject)

1

VP I

1-

SPEC

There have been many analyses proposed to motivate Verb Second (e.g., Den Besten 1981; Koopman 1984; Platzack 1985, 1986; Tomaselli 1990; Travis 1984, 1991; Zwart 1991); all that will concern us here is the mechanics of V2: As the tree in (6) indicates, the verb (that will be finite) moves from its base position (under VP) through F, which stands for INFL(ection) and ends up in C°, which stands for COMP(lementizer). The verb, which is a head, can only move to the most immediately dominating head (X°), in accordance with the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984; Chomsky 1986a). In addition to Verb Movement, a maximal projection (e.g., NP, PP, AdvP, etc.) moves to the Spec(ifier) position of CP, as shown by the XP under [Spec, CP] in (6). While there is consensus that the VP in German is underlyingly head-final ([vp Spec [v, NPobject V°] ]), there is less agreement surrounding the headedness of IP. In (6), the tree indicates that IP, like VP, is also a head-final projection ([IP NPsubject [,. VP F] ]) ; see Den Besten 1986; but cf. Travis 1984, 1991; Zwart 1991.7 As for embedded clauses, V[+fm] does not move to C°. Assuming a tree as in (6) for embedded clauses, the verb is blocked from moving to C° because a complementizer such as daß 'that', as in (5), already fills the COMP position. Under this kind of analysis, V[+fm] moves only as far as 1°, as in (7); but see Travis 1984, 1991 and Zwart 1991 for different analyses; and see Schwartz Vikner 1989 and Vikner - Schwartz 1994 for discussion of these and other alternatives:

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(7)

C'

c°

IP

daß

I SP1!C NP

(subject)

r.

] !

I

| VP

1°

v.[+fin]1

1 SPI !C

V 1 I

NP

I

V°

ti

What is important to take away from this brief discussion is that VP is head-final in German, and that via a process of Verb Movement (from V° to 1° to C°), the finite verb ends up in second position in main clauses. It should be noted that the headedness of phrases is parameterized across languages. For example, in the Romance languages, IP and VP are both head-medial ([IP NPsubject [,. 1° VP] ] and [VP Spec [v, V° NP^^J ]), and a general process of Verb Second does not characterize these languages (although verbs do move). These major differences will prove crucial when considering the alternative analyses of the L2 data. We now turn to the description of these data. 4.

Developmental data: LI (pro-drop) language German

SIVO Romance,

target

The L2 data come from cross-sectional (e.g., Meisel - Clahsen - Pienemann 1981, N=45) and longitudinal (e.g., Clahsen 1984, N=3) studies on the acquisition of German in a naturalistic setting by native speakers of Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. The subjects were children (e.g., Pienemann 1980, 1981, N=3) and adults (see also Clahsen - Meisel - Pienemann 1983; Clahsen Muysken 1986, 1989; Jordens 1988). A description of the six stages found for the children and adults in the longitudinal studies and confirmed by the cross-sectional study is given in (8):

Parameters in normative language acquisition

(8) a. S (Aux/Modal) VO b. Adv/PP S (Aux/Modal) VO c. S V[+fin] Ον^^ d. XP V[+fin] S ... e. SV[+fm] (Adv) Ο f. ..., da SOV[+fin]

221

Object follows thematic verb Adverbial in clause-initial position Particles, participles and infinitives clause-finally 'Subject-verb inversion' [verb second] Adverb intervenes between finite verb and direct object (DO) Finite verb in clause-final position in embedded clauses

The data that we will be concerned with are those in the first three stages (the first two of which actually having been later collapsed into a single stage - see Clahsen 1984; Clahsen - Muysken 1989). (9) provides an example from the L2 data representative of each of the first three stages: (9) a.

mein vater hat gekaufen ein buch 'My father has bought a book' (Jordens 1988: 151)

b.

sonntag autopolizei sun da Sunday car-police are there On Sunday, the police cars are there' (Jordens 1988: 151)

c.

alle kinder muss die pause machen All children should the pause take 'All children should take a break' (Jordens 1988: 152)

Notice that the L2 acquirers start off with a very un-German-like word order: sentences like (9a), in which the participle (V(_fin]) follows the auxiliary and precedes the DO, are completely ungrammatical in German. By the third stage, however, this order falls away, as the example in (9c) shows, in which the infinitive (V[_fin]) follows the DO. We now look at two of the accounts that have been proposed for this development. 4.1.

L2 developmental data: No UG access (Clahsen - Muysken 1986, 1989)

Clahsen - Muysken's (1986) important article provides an analysis of these data that assumes the base order of all stages to be SVO - that is, VP is never head-final. So, for example, the schematized analysis of the first three stages is as in (10) from Clahsen - Muysken 1986: 114:

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(10) a.

S -> NP VP VP -> V . . .

b.

The PS rules in (lOa) + Adv-Prep PP

Υ =>

Χ

e Y

L Adv.

c.

The rules in (lOb) + Particle i. X[ v . Particle V[+tense]] Υ => X[v, e V(+tense]] Υ + Particle

fV-inf Ί (V-inf 1 u. X tv V[+tense] | [] Υ => X[v-V[+(ense) e] Υ + | I V-participle J I V-participle J In the first stage, there are rules that specify that a sentence is made up of a subject plus a verb phrase, and importantly, that the verb precedes all other material in the VP. This forms the basis of all other stages. At the second stage, there is an additional rule (Adv-Prep) that preposes adverbials and PPs to the front of the sentence (e stands for the trace of a moved element). At the third stage, two additional rules are specified in order to capture the data both for separable prefix verbs (cf. (3c) and (3d)), as in (lOc.i), and for auxiliaryparticiple and modal-infinitive constructions, as in (lOc.ii). Notice that with respect to the underlying order, in (lOc.i) the particle precedes the tensed verb but in (lOc.ii) the participle or infinitive follows the tensed verb. The rule Particle rightward moves the particle or the participle/infinitive to sentence-final position in (lOc.i) and (lOc.ii), respectively, thereby deriving the surface orders described in (8c). Clahsen - Muysken (1986) include the following discussion on their analysis of this third stage:8 The rule Particle shifts (complexes of) particles, participles and infinitives to clause-final position, both in main and subordinate clauses. Since particles are generated before the tensed verb and participles and infinitives after the tensed verb, it cannot be stated as one rule [emphasis BDS], unless nonlinear restrictions are allowed in the statement of the rule. It cannot be a root transformation, in Emonds' (1976) terminology, since it occurs in all types of clauses. Neither can it be a structure-preserving transformation, since the phrase structure rules do

[

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not provide a special verb/particle position at the end of the clause. Contrary to the English rule of Particle Shift (...) it cannot be formulated as a local rule either, since the elements have to be moved over an indefinite number of constituents. In total, it cannot be defined as a transformation in Emonds' (1976) framework, which is representative in this respect of current theory (More recent frameworks are, if anything, even more restrictive.) (Clahsen - Muysken 1986: 114-115). Clahsen - Muysken's point is that since the fix-up rules in (lOc) cannot be collapsed and do not conform to the constraints on Movement (these claims could be reformulated in an updated syntactic theory), then (lOc) is not definable in terms of Universal Grammar. (Clahsen - Muysken make similar claims for their analyses of the fourth and sixth stages as well; see Schwartz - Tomaselli 1990 for critical discussion.) Therefore, Clahsen - Muysken conclude, adult L2 acquirers do not have access to UG. 4.2.

L2 developmental data: UG access (duPlessis - Solin - Travis - White 1987)

A very different conclusion, based on a very different analysis of this third stage, is found in the reanalysis by duPlessis - Solin - Travis - White (1987). DuPlessis et al. (1987) start off similarly to Clahsen - Muysken by hypothesizing that the underlying order for the first stage includes a VP in which the verb precedes the DO. However, they also posit an INFL° position between the subject and the VP. Thus, according to their analysis, the underlying order is SIVO - as in the LI grammars9 - and this also reflects the derived surface order, as given in (8a). At the second stage, again similar to Clahsen Muysken's analysis, duPlessis et al. analyze the facts of (8b) by attributing a rule that allows the adjunction of (non-argumental) AdvPs and PPs to IP in the interlanguage grammar. The partial tree with the relevant adjunction is provided in (11):

(Π) AdvP/PP SPEC

This type of adjunction, they claim, also exists in the grammars of the LI of the subjects. They therefore argue that this stage, though very different from the grammar of German, is the product of known, possible rules of grammar as defined by UG.

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The third stage is where the analysis of duPlessis et al. radically differs from Clahsen - Muysken's account. DuPlessis et al. propose that at this point in the L2 development, the VP no longer has the underlying order VO but rather is now head-final. Consider the tree in (12), which represents their analysis:

(12)

IP I

SPEC NP (subject)

I' 1

E°

VP

V [+ f inl i 1\

1

SPEC

V"

!

Ί

1

VP

V°

!

t

SPEC

V NP

V°

As depicted in (12), duPlessis et al. are hypothesizing that the headedness parameter has been switched to the value that matches the grammar of German (OV). In addition, they posit a rule that moves the finite verb from its underlying position to F. It is important to note that by moving only V[+fin] from its base-position, the data for separable prefix verbs as well as for auxiliary-participle and modal-infinitive constructions can all be captured by a single move, from V° to 1°, which also adheres to the Head Movement Constraint. (We will look at this in more detail below.) In sum, duPlessis et al. claim that the third stage, too, although still not the grammar of German, conforms to the specifications of natural language grammars as given by the constraints of UG. All of the properties of grammar attributed to the interlanguage have, moreover, independent motivation, since known natural language grammars incorporate them.

Parameters in normative language acquisition

5.

225

Evidence for parameter switching: The headedness of VP

Let us now consider again Clahsen - Muysken's analysis of the third stage. Recall that under an analysis with a base order of VO, they claim that two distinct, uncollapsable rules need to be specified. The relevant parts of these rules are given in (13): (13)

a. Particle + V[+fm] O b. Aux/Modal V,_fm] Ο

=> t, V[+fin) O Particle, => Aux/Modal tj O V,.^

In (13a), it is the particle, which precedes the finite verb, that moves right, across the whole predicate (its place of origin being marked by a trace, /,·). In (13b), in contrast, it is the nonfmite verb, which follows the auxiliary or modal, that moves to the right across the DO (its place of origin being marked by /,). Notice that while (13b) moves a head from its base position, in (13a) it is only an affix to the head, namely, the prefix of the (thematic) verb, which is dislocated. Now, it is perhaps not apparent what the two rules would produce if both a separable prefix Verb and an auxiliary-participle or modal-infinitive were in the same sentence. Under Clahsen - Muysken's formulation of the rules, the result could be all the possibilities in (14):'° (14)

a. S Aux/Modal V^ Ο Particle b. S Aux/Modal Particle O VKin] c. S Aux/Modal O VK,n] Particle

d. S Aux/Modal Ο Particle V,_fin] Example derivations for the orders in (14) are given in (15) and are described in what follows: (15) a.

*Hans hat tj gerufen die Frauen an, Hans has called the women up

b.

*Hans hat an tj die Frauen gerufent

c.

i. *Hans hat t{ tt die Frauen gerufen; an, ii. *Hans hat tk die Frauen /if, + gerufen]k an{

d.

i. Hans hat t{ t} die Frauen an, gerufenf ii. Hans hat tk die Frauen [an + gerufen]k

Among (14a) - (14d), only the order of (14d) is grammatical in German main clauses - cf. (4c). In (14a), the particle moves to sentence-final position (15a).

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Thus (14a) would result if it was thought that only (13a) were the relevant rule. Applying the rule in (13b) subsequent to (13a) would produce the order in (14d), since V^,,] would be shifted to sentence-final position (15d.i). What would happen if only (13b) were thought relevant? (14b) would result (15b) as the nonfmite verb is moved to sentence-final position, stranding its prefix. Or perhaps Clahsen - Muysken would in this instance claim that the particle plus its thematic verb ([ prefix + VKm] ]) forms a single unit (a head) which moves to the right of the DO. In this case, applying (13b) would result in (14d) and (15d.ii). But (14c) is also possible if we reverse the order of rule application: if (13b) applies first, which can give either (14b) or (14d), and (13a) is subsequently applied, then the particle would surface sentence-finally, as in (15c.i) and (ISc.ii), respectively. It might of course be possible to exclude some of the possibilities in (14) by specifying more precisely the formulation of the rules; nevertheless, under the assumption that VO is the base order, as Clahsen - Muysken note, it is difficult to see how to collapse (13a) and (13b) such that the result is a single movement rule and, moreover, only the data that are attested are captured." But if there are indeed two distinct rules of movement, then a simple question arises: Why, if there are two rules, are all three phenomena (viz., constructions with particles, auxiliary-participles and modal-infmitivals) acquired at the same stage?; and why do the L2ers not mistakenly produce utterances with orders as in (14a) (14c)? If there really are two independent rules, as in (13a) and (13b), then one might expect sentences with particles to differentiate themselves from sentences with participles and infinitivals. In other words, one might expect the two rules to be acquired at different points in development (in which case word-order errors as in (14a) - (14c) would be expected), rather than at the same stage. Hence, on an analysis that posits VO as the underlying order, there is no reason for the simultaneity of these data. As noted in Schwartz (1991), under an analysis like that in duPlessis et al., in contrast, clustering, as evidenced by the simultaneity of the three phenomena, is entirely expected since the headedness parameter is claimed to have switched the VP to OV; this order combined with a single rule which moves V(+fin] to INFL captures all the attested L2 data of this stage and correctly predicts the absence of the orders in (14a) - (14c). In regard to this important point of simultaneity, Clahsen (1984), in his longitudinal study of three adult L2ers, notes that the acquisition of the relevant phenomena of the third stage happens very quickly: "The relative frequencies [of the word order patterns defining the third stage BDS] increase rapidly from 0 to approximately 90 percent within two or three interviews" (Clahsen 1984: 228). Indeed, in an OV analysis it would be difficult to explain a lack of simultaneity between, on the one hand, separable prefix verbs where the prefix is stranded under head-to-head movement of V[+fin], and, on the other, auxiliary-participle and modal-infinitive sentences, where again,

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head-to-head movement moves only V[+fm]. Thus, under a parameter-switching account, the data of this stage are predicted - even though (14d) is not grammatical in German embedded clauses (cf. (5)) - and, moreover, the fact that all three sentence types pattern together (that is, cluster) receives a unified analysis, which, importantly, explicitly rules out the other three (unattested) possibilities in (14). 6.

Conclusion

The point of this paper has been to provide an example from L2 data in which the clustering effect that is thought to be the defining characteristic of parameter fixing seems to show up in (adult) L2 acquisition. Moreover, regarding the third stage, a fairly critical assessment of Clahsen - Muysken's competing account, which not only eschews a parameter-switching analysis but also attributes rules to the L2 system which violate Universal Grammar, was presented. Their proposal was argued to be unsatisfactory on both empirical and conceptual grounds: Empirically, a VO analysis with two rules of rightward movement permits far more possibilities for word order variation than have been reported in the L2 acquisition data; conceptually, such an analysis must view the simultaneity of these data as at best a very intriguing coincidence. In light of the discussion in section 2, in contrast, these findings of clustering should be taken as rather suggestive evidence for the analysis claiming that with respect to VP, the headedness parameter has been fixed to head-final and thus that UG is accessible in (adult) L2 acquisition. Before closing, it is worthwhile, I believe, to emphasize a somewhat more methodological point. It should be apparent that the entire discussion was made possible only by examining the specifics of particular analyses as provided by current syntactic theory. The question of whether interlanguage knowledge is epistemologically comparable to native-language knowledge can only be properly addressed via the formal characterization of UG: The precise formulations of UG principles and parameters are needed to explain known natural language grammars and their acquisition; thus, one cannot speculate on the underlying systems of interlanguages without determining the extent to which these principles and parameters accurately capture non-native linguistic behavior. That clustering (and hence parameter switching) has been claimed to characterize L2 acquisition, then, is potentially a highly significant result, for it suggests that the nature of interlanguage 'grammars' is comparable to the nature of native-language grammars. With this in mind, the following quote seems an appropriate way to end:

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[NJotice that for any set of L2 facts it will obviously be possible to give an analysis that relies on rules and assumptions that are not definable in terms of UG. In other words, any data - even native-speaker data - could be analysed that way. Thus it seems that, when comparing possible analyses of L2 data, one that falls within the limits of UG is in principle of greater theoretical import than one that does not (Tomaselli - Schwartz 1990: 26-27). Notes 1.

To illustrate the notions parameter and clustering with a more concrete example, consider one proposal concerning the pro-drop parameter: under Rizzi's (1982, 1986) analysis, the following surface characteristics (inter alia) are claimed to stem from the [+] and [-] values of the parameter (space limitations preclude discussion of how each of these properties is derived): [+] PRO-DROP (e.g. Italian)

[-] PRO-DROP (e.g. English)

i. Missing subject possible in tensed clause

Missing subject impossible in tensed clause

a. io mangio la mela Ί am eating the apple' b. φ mangio la mela Ί am eating the apple'

a. / am eating the apple

ii. Subject possible after the VP mangia la mela Andrea is eating the apple Andrea 'Andrea is eating the apple' iii. (Apparent) violation of the 'that-trace filter' ij credi... who think-2sg...

b. *0 am eating the apple

Subject impossible after the VP *is eating the apple Andrea

No violation of the 'that-trace filter' •who, do you think...

Parameters in normative language acquisition

a. ...ehe f mangia la mela? ... that is eating the apple? 'Who do you think is eating the apple?' b. *...φ/ mangia la mela?

229

a. *...that φί is eating the apple?

b. ...φ, is eating the apple?

2.

See also Schwartz (1992) for a different argument for UG accessibility in adult L2 acquisition.

3.

For example, property (iii) of the pro-drop parameter described in footnote 1 is not a self-contained property of the pro-drop parameter; this property in actuality is linked to an invariant principle of UG, namely, the Empty Category Principle (ECP). The English variant of (iiia) is ungrammatical because it violates the ECP; in contrast, the Italian variant - which also appears to violate the ECP - is grammatical due to the [+] value of the pro-drop parameter. (See Rizzi, e.g., 1988, for a clear exposition of how in Italian (iiia) derives from (ii) which derives from (ib).) In short, the particular values of parameters work in conjunction with the rest of the grammar either to generate well-formed sentences or to rule out certain other strings of words.

4.

Hilles (1986), for instance, analyzed the longitudinal (naturalistic) L2 English data by a native speaker of Spanish ([+] pro-drop). Employing Hyams' (1986) account of pro-drop, Hilles found a point in the L2 development that showed the clustering that would be expected had the L2er switched the parameter from the LI [+] value to the English [-] value. By contrast, White's (1985) cross-sectional L2 acquisition study, framed within Rizzi's (1982) account, compared native speakers of French ([-] pro-drop) and of Spanish in their (tutored) acquisition of English. While there were differences between the two groups of L2ers (pointing to LI influence), the clustering that would seem to be predicted by a parameter-switching analysis was not observed; the native Spanish speakers had individual properties associated with the [-] value rather than an 'all or nothing' pattern. However, the idea of simultaneous emergence is perhaps better taken as an idealization, and so this lack of clustering is not necessarily evidence against a parameter-switching hypothesis (see discussion below as well).

5.

A reviewer points out that taking this perspective on parameter switching in L2 acquisition seems to render the hypothesis unfalsifiable: Clustering is evidence for the operation of UG, whereas the absence of clustering is not evidence against the operation of UG. This is not correct. With

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respect to a particular parameter value, the absence of clustering in L2 acquisition does not constitute evidence against the operation of UG only in so far as there is at least one alternative UG-based analysis for the given surface phenomenon (bearing in mind that the simultaneous emergence of the phenomena associated with a parametric value is an idealization, cf. footnote 4, some of which may in part be tied to other aspects of the grammar as well, cf. footnote 3). In any case, there is still another way to falsify the hypothesis being put forward here: If an alternative analysis is available, then this should itself entail certain (other) predictions, which can subsequently be tested for. This again supports the overall point being offered in the text: Testing for the operation of UG in L2 acquisition is complicated - much more complicated than what initially seems to be suggested by the [+]/[-] metaphor of parameter theory - and so one should not assume a bi-conditional relationship between the overt appearance of a phenomenon and an underlying grammatical analysis. 6.

The analyses below for German generally hold for Dutch as well, with minor adaptations.

7.

Thus, in (6), the left-to-right order is COMP-Subject-O-V-INFL (CSOVI).

8.

With respect to the quote below, here is the general meaning of the following terms: i. Root transformation: a transformation whose application is restricted to main clauses. ii. Structure-preserving transformation: a transformation in which an element is allowed to move only to pre-existing positions in the tree. iii. Particle Shift: an example of a local transformational rule, relating the following kinds of sentences in English: a. b. c. d.

John handed down John handed *John handed *John handed

the the the the

tools tools down tools tools

to to to to

Mary Mary Mary down Mary

(quickly) (quickly) (quickly) (quickly) down

In (b), the particle down was said to move (locally shift) across the DO only; hence the ungrammaticality of (c) and (d)).

Parameters in normative language acquisition

9.

231

As the base order in these Romance languages is SIVO, the tree would therefore be as in (i):

i)

IP SPEC

I'

NP

|

(subject) "Ι I"

Γ VP I SPEC

I V

V

10.

NP

Although not specifically addressed in Clahsen - Muysken, I will assume here that the prefix must be base-generated adjoined to the thematic Verb. If such were not the case, than even more derivations would be possible under (13a) and (13b), for instance: i) S Particle Aux/Modal O V^,

11.

While one might be able to devise a rule which technically collapses (13a) and (13b), the intuition that two different processes are at work would nevertheless be hard to overcome. Consider the following, for example: Γ (Particle +) V[+rin) 1 < \ ([(Particle+) V(.fin)]) Ο => (tj)0 ^ AuxModal J

((t.) + V|tfml(Particle|) ^ (^ Aux/Modal([(Particle +) V,.rral]

It is quite clearly the case that two rules of movement are in evidence, one applying to particles, the other to nonfmite verb forms. References Abraham, Werner - Wim Kosmeijer - Eric Reuland (eds.) 1990 Issues in Germanic syntax. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Andersen, Roger W. (ed.) 1984 Second languages: A cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Belletti, Adriana - Luigi Rizzi (eds.) 1994 Parameters and functional heads: Essays in comparative syntax. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1990 "The logical problem of foreign language learning", Linguistic Analysis 20: 3-49. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. - Sascha W. Felix - Georgette L. loup 1988 "The accessibility of Universal Grammar in adult language learning", Second Language Research 4: 1-32. Chomsky, Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. 1986a Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 1986b Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger. Clahsen, Harald 1984 "The acquisition of German word order: A test case for cognitive approaches to L2 development", in: Roger W. Andersen (ed.), 219-242. Clahsen, Harald - Jürgen M. Meisel - Manfred Pienemann 1983 Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of Universal Grammar to adult and child learners. A study of the acquisition of German word order", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. 1989 "The UG paradox in L2 acquisition", Second Language Research 5: 1-29. Den Besten, Hans 1981 "On the interaction of root transformations and lexical deletive rules", Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik 20: 1-78. 1986 "Decidability in the syntax of verbs of (not necessarily) West-Germanic languages", Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik 28: 232-256. DuPlessis, Jean - Doreen Solin - Lisa Travis - Lydia White 1987 "UG or not UG, that is the question: A reply to Clahsen Muysken", Second Language Research 3: 56-75. Emonds, Joseph E. 1976 A transformational approach to English syntax. New York: Academic Press. Eubank, Lynn (ed.) 1991 Point counterpoint: Universal Grammar in the second language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Felix, Sascha W. 1988 "UG-generated knowledge in L2 acquisition", in: Suzanne Flynn - Wayne O'Neil (eds.), 277-294. Felix, Sascha W. (ed.) 1980 Second language development: Trends and issues. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Finer, Daniel - Ellen Broselow 1986 "Second language acquisition of reflexive-binding", Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistic Society 16: 154-168. Flynn, Suzanne - Wayne O'Neil (eds.) 1988 Linguistic theory in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Reidel. Freidin, Robert (ed.) 1991 Principles and parameters in comparative grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Gass, Susan M. - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.) 1989 Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Hellan, Lars - Kirsti Koch Christensen (eds.) 1986 Topics in Scandinavian syntax. Dordrecht: Reidel. Hilles, Sharon 1986 "Interlanguage and the pro-drop parameter", Second Language Research 2: 33-52. Hornstein, Norbert - David W. Lightfoot 1981 "Introduction", in: Norbert Hornstein - David W. Lightfoot (eds.), 9-31. Hornstein, Norbert - David W. Lightfoot (eds.) 1981 Explanation in linguistics: The logical problem of language acquisition. New York: Longman. Hyams, Nina 1986 Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel. Jordens, Peter 1988 "The acquisition of word order in L2 Dutch and German", in: Peter Jordens - Josine Lalleman (eds.), 149-180. Jordens, Peter - Josine Lalleman (eds.) 1988 Language development. Dordrecht: Foris Klein, Elaine C. 1993 Toward second language acquisition: A study of Null-Prep. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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Koopman, Hilda 1984 The syntax of verbs: From verb movement rules in the Kru languages to Universal Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris. Meisel, Jürgen M. 1991 "Principles of Universal Grammar and strategies of language use: On some similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition", in: Lynn Eubank (ed.), 231-276. Meisel, Jürgen M.- Harald Clahsen - Manfred Pienemann 1981 "On determining developmental stages in natural second language acquisition", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 3: 109-135. Pienemann, Manfred 1980 "The second language acquisition of immigrant children", in: Sascha W. Felix (ed.), 41-56. 1981 Der Zweitspracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiterkinder. Bonn: Bouvier. Platzack, Christer 1985 "A survey of generative analyses of the Verb Second phenomenon in Germanic", Nordic Journal of Linguistics 8: 49-73. 1986 "COMP, INFL, and Germanic word order", in: Lars Hellan Kirsti Koch Christensen (eds.), 185-234. Rizzi, Luigi 1982 Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. 1986 "Null objects in Italian and the theory of pro", Linguistic Inquiry 17: 501-557. 1988 The new comparative syntax: Principles and parameters of Universal Grammar. [MS, University of Geneva.] Schachter, Jacquelyn 1989 "Testing a proposed universal", in: Susan M. Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 73-88. Schwartz, Bonnie D. 1986 "The epistemological status of second language acquisition", Second Language Research 2: 120-159. 1991 "Conceptual and empirical evidence: A response to Meisel", in: Lynn Eubank (ed.), 277-304. 1992 "Testing between UG-based and problem-solving models of L2A: Developmental sequence data", Language Acquisition 2: 1-19. 1993 "On explicit and negative data effecting and affecting competence and linguistic behavior", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 147-163.

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Schwartz, Bonnie D. - Alesandra Tomaselli 1990 "Some implications from an analysis of German word order", in: Werner Abraham - Wim Kosmeijer - Eric Reuland (eds.), 251-274. Schwartz, Bonnie D. - Sten Vikner 1989 "All verb second clauses are CPs", Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 43: 27-49. Tomaselli, Alessandra 1990 La sintassi del verbo fmito nelle lingue Germaniche. Padua: Unipress. Tomaselli, Alessandra - Bonnie D. Schwartz 1990 "Analysing the acquisition stages of negation in L2 German: Support for UG in adult SLA", Second Language Research 6: 1-38. Travis, Lisa 1984 Parameters and effects of word order variation. [Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.] 1991 "Parameters of phrase structure and verb-second phenomena", in: Robert Freidin (ed.), 339-364. Vikner, Sten - Bonnie D. Schwartz 1994 "The verb always leaves IP in V2 clauses", in: Adriana Belletti Luigi Rizzi (eds.). White, Lydia 1985 "The pro-drop parameter in adult second language acquisition", Language Learning 35: 47-62. 1989 Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. White, Lydia - Lisa Travis - Anna Maclachlan 1992 "The acquisition of w/i-question formation by Malagasy learners of English; evidence for Universal Grammar", Canadian Journal of Linguistics 37: 341-368. Zwart, Jan-Wouter 1991. "Clitics in Dutch: Evidence for the position of INFL", Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik (GAGL) 33: 71-92.

Parameter setting and the acquisition of ^//-questions in L2 French1 Aq/ke Hulk

1.

Introduction

In this section we try to account for a set of L2 data by using independently motivated principles and parameters of Universal Grammar (UG). Following Schwartz (this volume) we assume that the systems of knowledge of grammar created in LI acquisition and in L2 acquisition are comparable and that L2 grammars can be analysed as possible grammars in terms of the principles of UG. We agree with Cook (this volume) in considering that the interesting question to be raised is how grammars are related when there is more than one of them in the mind and more specifically, how UG may accommodate multiple grammars. Parameters, defining the space of variation across grammars, are part of UG and as such part of the acquisition process. Children acquiring language have to discover which options are selected by their language: They have to 'set' the parameters in response to positive triggers. L2 acquisition, like LI acquisition, can be viewed as the setting of parameters at their appropriate values. However, the L2 learner, contrary to the LI learner, already has a set of fixed parameters in his mind. One may ask, as Cook does, to what extent this influences L2 learning. In this article we adopt the hypothesis that a parameter whose values differ between LI and L2 can 'switch' in L2 acquisition. The L2 learner initially assumes the LI values of the parameters to be valid in L2,

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resulting in transfer effects in the interlanguage. Eventually, the learner will reset the parameters to their appropriate L2 values. The trigger for such a resetting can be the positive evidence he is confronted with in L2 (see Schwartz, this volume, and references cited there, for a more general discussion). In this section we discuss a small experiment which involves the acquisition of w/z-questions in French by Dutch native speakers and which is based on predictions made by the parameter resetting hypothesis. First, we give a very brief survey of the word order differences between French and Dutch with respect to w/z-questions. Second, we present an account of these differences in terms of UG principles and parameters. Third, we try to establish which predictions this linguistic analysis makes concerning the acquisition of French by Dutch native speakers. Fourth, we describe the experiment and the results. Finally, we discuss the consequences of this experiment in relation to the predictions made earlier. 2.

Word order in Dutch and French: Full V2 versus residual V2

Dutch is generally characterized as an SOVI language with V2, just as German. The underlying word order in both main- and embedded clauses is head-final: V follows its object (OV) and INFL follows the VP (OVI), as in structure (2). Main and embedded clauses differ in the surface position of the finite verb: In main clauses the finite verb moves (via INFL) to C, the second position in the sentence. This is the well known V2 rule. In declarative sentences V2 combines with a Topicalization rule, which moves any XP (the subject, the object or an adverbial constituent) to the first position in the sentence, the SPEC,CP position (see Schwartz, this volume, for more details), resulting in structure (2). (1)

Jan heeft aardbeien gegeten Jan has strawberries eaten 'Jan has eaten strawberries'

239

Parameter setting and the acquisition of \vh-questions in L2 French

(2)

CP SPEC

Jan aardbeien gegeten

heeft

The combination of V2 and Topicalization creates the impression of inversion, when a constituent other than the subject has been topicalized and the subject appears in post V[+fm] position (cf. 3-6). (3)

Aardbeien lust Jan niet Strawberries likes Jan not 'It is strawberries which Jan does not like'

(4)

Gisteren heeft Jan aardbeien gegeten Yesterday has Jan strawberries eaten 'Yesterday Jan ate strawberries'

(5)

Wat lust Jan niet? What likes Jan not 'What doesn't Jan like?'

(6)

Wanneer heeft Jan aardbeien gegeten? When has Jan strawberries eaten? 'When did Jan eat strawberries?'

Rizzi (1990) calls languages such as Dutch and German full V2 languages, contrasting them with Modern French and English, which he calls residual V2 languages. In earlier stages French and English also were full V2. Nowadays, however, they only allow V2, i.e. V[fm] movement to C, under restricted circumstances, most typically in interrogatives:

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(7)

Pourquoi as-tufait cela? 'Why have you done that?'

(8)

At -what time has John left?

In these sentences the finite verb has moved from its base position2, via INFL, to C and the wA-constituent has been topicalized to SPEC.CP, resulting in the following structure:

(9)

V

tu

as fait

ll

NP

cela

pourquoi

I

Modern French and English differ, however, in various ways. First, simple inversion with an NP subject as in (8) is impossible in French (10)3. Instead, French uses the so-called complex inversion construction, as in (11), which does not exist in English: (10)

*A quelle heure est Jean parti?

(11)

A quelle heure Jean est-il parti? At what time Jean has he left

The complex inversion construction is often analysed as also involving V2, movement of the finite verb to C, and topicalization of the w/z-constituent to SPEC.CP. Moreover, the NP subject has been fronted and a subject clitic appears in post V[+fin] position. The exact analysis of complex inversion does

Parameter setting and the acquisition of \vh-questions in L2 French

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not interest us here (see e.g. Rizzi - Roberts (1989) for a recent proposal). What is important, though, is that it appears to involve the rule of V2. A second difference between French and English concerns the optionality of V[+fm] movement in main interrogatives in colloquial French (but not in English). In the following sentences the w/z-constituent has been moved to SPEC.CP, but the finite verb has not moved to C: (12)

A quelle heure Jean es t parti? At what time Jean has left? 'At what time has Jean left?'

(13)

Pourquoi tu as fait cela? Why you have done that? 'Why have you done that?'

(14)

v tu

as fait

NP cela

pourquoi

At first sight, the word order in these sentences is similar to the one we find in sentences with a preposed adverb, such as the following: (15)

Hier Jean a mange des fraises Yesterday Jean has eaten strawberries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries'

However, these sentences do not have the same structure as the ones in (12) and (13). ^-constituents are generally analysed as operators, which have to move

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to a scope position such as SPEC.CP. In languages such as French (and English) the SPEC,CP position is an appropriate landing site only for wA-operators. In full V2 languages, such as Dutch, all kinds of XPs may move to SPEC,CP, not only w/z-constituents (cf.(l)-(6)). Adverbs generally are not considered to be w/j-operators; therefore they may not move to SPEC,CP in French, whereas they may do so in Dutch. (16)

Gisteren is hij vertrokken Yesterday has he left 'Yesterday he left'

(17)

*Hier est-il parti Yesterday has he left 'Yesterday he left'

When adverbs appear in the first position of the sentence in French and English, as in (15), they are generally assumed to be adjoined to IP, and the finite verb has moved to I but no further, as represented in the following tree:

(18)

hier

11

est

In Dutch, by contrast, fronting of the adverb in main clauses is analysed as movement to SPEC.CP in combination with movement of the finite verb to C (cf.2): (19)

[CP adverb [c. V[+fm] [IP subject ...]]]

Parameter setting and the acquisition of wh-questions in L2 French

3.

243

UG principles and parameters

Recently, Rizzi (1990, 1991) has proposed an interesting analysis of the similarities and differences between full V2 and residual V2 languages in terms of principles and parameters of UG. We will discuss this analysis briefly here and see what predictions it may make in relation to parameter resetting involved in French L2 acquisition by Dutch native speakers. It has often been suggested in the literature that the node C(OMP) in full V2 languages has a number of crucial properties that in non-V2 languages are characteristic of I(NFL). Rizzi proposes to represent this by assuming that in full V2 languages, such as Dutch, C may be characterized not only by the abstract (categorial) feature [+C], but also by the abstract feature [+1], characteristic of INFL. Other linguists, e.g. Platzack, have expressed the same idea by calling C in full V2 languages CONFL. In languages such as French and English, C only has the [+C] specification, the [+1] specification being exclusively reserved for INFL. (20)

Dutch French

C = [+C,+I] C = [+C,-I]

According to Rizzi, this [+1] characteristic of C is also responsable for the fact that movement of the finite verb to C in full V2 languages is obligatory. He refers to a general principle involving the realization of tense: (21)

The tense specification must be realized on the highest [+1] category4

In Dutch C is the highest [+1] category; consequently, the finite verb after picking up its tense specification in I, has to move on to C to bring this tense specification to the highest [+1] category5. In French however, I is the highest [+1] category and therefore (21) does not trigger V[+fm] movement to C. What interests us here, however, is the following question: How is V2 triggered in residual V2 languages? Recall that in French and English movement of V[+fin] to C takes place in questions, where a w/j-constituent has been moved to SPEC.CP6. Rizzi assumes that this w/i-operator in SPEC.CP must 'agree' in an abstract way with its head C: Both must have the feature [+WH]. Whereas w/z-constituents inherently have this feature, COMP, in main clauses, does not. However, Rizzi assumes that in main interrogatives INFL has the characteristic [+WH]. Now, this feature may be brought to C by movement of the finite verb via INFL to C. Rizzi formulates the abstract agreement requirement between SPEC,CP and C in questions as follows:

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(22)

Aajke Hulk

wh-criterion a. a w/z-operator must be in a SPEC,HEAD configuration with an X° [+WH] b. an [+WH] X° must be in a SPEC,HEAD configuration with a w/z-operator

To satisfy the requirement of (22b) the finite verb in a main wA-clause, having picked up a [+WH] feature in INFL, must move on to C. In this way, the V2 rule in residual V2 languages is dependent upon w/z-movement to SPEC,CP7. However, we saw that in French sentences such as (12) and (13) are grammatical, contrary to what is predicted by the w/z-criterion so far8. In these sentences the w/z-phrase has been moved to SPEC.CP, but no V2 movement to C has taken place. How then is the w/j-criterion satisfied in these sentences? Rizzi proposes an extra mechanism which he calls Dynamic Agreement. This mechanism is available in French, but not in Dutch or in English. It is formulated as follows: (23)

w/z-operator X° => w/z-operator X°[+WH]

By dynamic agreement a w/z-phrase in SPEC.CP is able to 'give' a w/z-feature to the head C. In that way, the wA-criterion is satisfied without V[+fm] movement to C. In languages that do not have dynamic agreement, such as English, the V2 rule applies obligatory in wA-questions, in order to satisfy the w/z-criterion. In a recent article with Roberts on Complex Inversion (Rizzi - Roberts 1989), Rizzi relates the ungrammaticality of sentences such as (10) to another parametric difference between French on the one hand, and Dutch and English on the other, concerning the way in which nominative case is assigned in these languages. According to these linguists, in French nominative case may only be assigned under SPEC.HEAD agreement by INFL to SPEC,IP. Consequently, (10) violates the Case Filter, since the subject NP Jean cannot get nominative case in this structure. The finite verb est (V+INFL) has moved to C and its trace in INFL does not suffice to assigne nominative case under agreement. In Dutch and in English, on the other hand, nominative case may be assigned under government by (V+)INFL in C to SPEC,IP. Therefore, the Dutch and English equivalents of (10) do not violate the Case Filter and are grammatical: (24)

Hoe laat is Jan weggegaan? 'At what time has Jan left?'

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However, the French sentence with a subject-clitic instead of a subject NP is grammatical: (25)

A quelle heure est-il parti? At what time has-he left? 'At what time has he left?'

Rizzi - Roberts make the plausible assumption that clitics may satisfy the Case Filter in another way: They can get case by incorporating into a case-assigning head. Although this explanation raises a lot of questions, we will simply accept it here (see Hulk 1993 for a critical discussion). For Dutch L2 learners of French, it implies that they have to find out several things in order to be able to make correct judgements about these sentences: -

They have to know the difference between a clitic and an NP. They have to know that nominative case assignment (to NP) takes place under SPEC,HEAD agreement in French, but under government in Dutch. They have to know that French clitic-subjects can get nominative case by incorporating into V+INFL in C.

In the next section we wil try to find out what these principles and parameters predict concerning the acquisition of French by Dutch native speakers. 4.

Predictions

4.1.

f+IJ =>[-!]

In Rizzi's theory the obligatoriness of movement of the finite verb to C in a full V2 language such as Dutch is a consequence of the feature characterization of C: Crucially, it has the feature [+1], which is missing in non-V2 languages such as French. Thus, a parametric value has to be reset, from [+1] to [-1]. Dutch L2 learners have to find out that V[+fin] movement to COMP is not obligatory in French; in other words, that in main clauses the finite verb does not necessarily occupy the second position. This should be relatively easy since there is positive evidence for V3 word order in French, as shown for example by sentences such as (15). As soon as the learners are aware of the fact that sentences such as (15) are grammatical in French, Rizzi's theory predicts that they should know that C in French does not have the [+1] characteristic. This does not tell us as yet, however, how the learners will find out on the one hand that V[+fin] movement to C in French takes place in questions only and on the other hand, that Topicalization to SPEC.CP is restricted to wA-constituents in French.

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According to Rizzi's theory presented so far, we would expect the learners to go in one step from a full V2 language to a residual V2 language, where V2 is restricted to wA-clauses, since the only other mechanism to trigger V2 (apart from the [+1] characteristic of C) is the wA-criterion. In the next section we shall argue that this cannot be the case. 4.2.

Topicalization to SPEC,CP and Adjunction to IP

In prior research (Hulk 1991) we found that Dutch L2 learners of French, for quite some time, allow both the following sentence types: (26)

(*)9Hier mangeait Jean des/raises Yesterday ate Jean strawberries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries'

(27)

Hier Jean mangeait des/raises 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries'

The same phenomenon has been observed by duPlessis et al. (1987) in their study of Romance LI speakers acquiring German as an L2. Moreover, in the history of French, which changed from a full V2- into a residual V2 language, we find a period in Middle French (see e.g. Vance 1989 and Hulk - Van Kemenade 1990) in which both types of sentences co-occur. This may indicate on the one hand that in this stage V[+fm] movement to C was optional, and on the other hand that topicalization to SPEC,CP was not (yet) restricted to w/z-constituents. Moreover, fronting of a constituent was done both by adjunction to IP (as in Modern French) and by topicalization to SPEC.CP (as in Old French and Modern Dutch). Actually, this suggests that there is another parameter involved, concerning the feature specification of SPEC.CP10. What learners have to find out for a given language is which elements may, or have to, move to SPEC,CP and which may not. As we have seen above, in Dutch virtually any constituent can be moved to SPEC,CP, whereas in French only a restricted class (containing only Wj-phrases) may do so. We might formulate these differences in the form of a parameter. How then will our Dutch learners be able to find out what is the French setting of this parameter? On the one hand there is positive evidence available for ννΛ-movement to SPEC.CP in French, particularly in subject clitic inversion constructions such as the following:

Parameter setting and the acquisition of \vh-questions in L2 French

(28)

247

Avec qui as-tu danse? With whom have you danced 'With whom did you dance?'

Moreover, in colloquial French, there is some empirical evidence for the position of the πΆ-phrase in SPEC,CP: Viz. the possibility of lexically realizing the complementizer que in the head position C, both in main and embedded w/i-clauses: (29)

(je me demande) comment que tu as fait cela (I wonder) how that you have done that Ί wonder how you did that'

On the other hand, however, there are constructions where the fronted wA-phrase is immediately followed by the subject, as in (13) above, repeated here as (30): (30)

Pourquoi tu as fait cela? Why you have done that 'Why have you done that?'

As we have seen above, these sentences are superficially very similar to the following ones in which an adverbial constituent has been adjoined to IP: (31)

Hier tu as fait une betise Yesterday you have done something stupid 'Yesterday you did something stupid'

If Dutch L2 learners (incorrectly) think that adverbials in French may also land in the SPEC,CP position, we would expect them to judge these sentences in the same way. If, however, they have somehow discovered that adverbials are adjoined to IP, but that w/j-phrases are moved to SPEC.CP, judgements are predicted to be different. 4.3.

Dynamic agreement

When the learners have reached the stage in which they correctly judge sentences such as (30) grammatical and analyse them as involving w/i-movement to SPEC.CP, they must have deduced the existence of a mechanism comparable to Rizzi's Dynamic Agreement. Consequently, we expect them to also judge as grammatical other constructions involving dynamic agreement. Stylistic Inversion is such a construction.

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Aajke Hulk

(je lui ai demande) him have asked

ä quelle heure est parti le train, at what time has left the train'

Stylistic inversion is possible both in main- and embedded clauses and it is generally analysed as involving wA-movement to SPEC,CP, but no V[+fin] movement to C; V[+fin] moves to INFL but no further. The NP subject is postposed, or base generated in a post-VP position (see Kayne - Pollock 1978 and Pollock 1986 for details). The exact analysis does not interest us here. What is important is that it is a construction which involves wA-movement without V[+fm] movement to C (see structure (31)). Therefore, according to Rizzi's theory, it should be a case of dynamic agreement, since there is no other way to satisfy the wA-criterion. (33)

[CP wA-phrase [C,C[IP SPEC [,,V[+fin]V subject]]]]

4.4.

Summary

Summarizing, Rizzi's analysis of the V2 phenomena permits us to make the following predictions concerning the 'switches' Dutch L2 learners of French have to make in their grammars: First, they have to reset the parametric value for the feature specification of C; second, they have to restrict the optional V2 movement to wA-contexts; third, they have to reset the value of the nominative case assignment parameter while simultaneously distinguishing clitics from NPs, and finally they have to acquire the extra mechanism of dynamic agreement. 5.

Experiment

5. /.

Test and subjects

White (1989) notes that L2 learners very often do not to make use of knowledge which is in fact part of their interlanguage competence. To 'tap L2 learners competence', grammaticality judgement tasks are the most effective, according to White, since the experimenter is able to manipulate the sentence types to be investigated and it is possible to abstract away from performance phenomena. Following White's advice, we submitted a list of constructed French sentences to 20 Dutch students of French. They had to mark the sentences as 'good' or 'bad'. These students had been taught French for 5 or 6 years in high school and were presently in their first year at the University, majoring in French. They follow classes in French and are supposed to read as much French as possible, to listen to French radio very frequently, to watch French t.v. etc. Many of them had already been to France several times.

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We expected them to be rather advanced learners of French, in a certain way. Prior experiments on L2 word order acquisition of French (Hulk 1991) had shown that at this stage similar L2 learners make the following judgements, as far as fronting of an adverbial constituent is concerned (the percentages represent the L2 learners who judged the submitted sentence type as grammatical): (34) 10% (*) Hier mangeait Jean des/raises Yesterday ate Jean strawberrries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries' (35) 6% (*) Hier a Jean mange des /raises Yesterday has Jean eaten strawberries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries' (36) 100% Hier Jean a manga des fraises Yesterday Jean has eaten strawberries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries' On the basis of these results we expected the present learners to have already reset the parametric value for the feature specification of C: The judgements show that they know that V2 is not obligatory in French, hence that C is specified [+C.-I] in French. The present test consisted of a grammaticality judgement task of French w/j-sentences with an NP and/or clitic subject, involving correct or incorrect inversion and also w/j-sentences without inversion". 5.2.

Results

Around 60% of our learners incorrectly judged sentences involving w/j-movement of a non-argument and inversion of the finite verb and the nominal subject as grammatical12: (37) 57% (*) Quand ecoute Jean la radio? When listens Jean the radio? 'When does Jean listen to the radio?' (38) 60% (*) Ou a Jean mange des fraises? Where has Jean eaten strawberries? 'Where did Jean eat strawberries?' Moreover, 40% judged (correct) sentences with wA-movement, but without inversion, as grammatical:

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Aqfke Hulk

(39) 40% Pourquoi Jean mange desfraises? Why Jean eats strawberries? 'Why does Jean eat strawberries?' Also 40% judged the following correct sentence involving Stylistic Inversion as grammatical: (40) 40% Quand es t parti le train? When has left the train? 'When did the train leave?' Furthermore, the learners make a very clear distinction between (incorrect) sentences with an NP-subject and (correct) ones with a clitic subject: (41) 100% Quand avons-nous regarde la tele? When have-we looked the television? 'When did we watch television?' (42) 57% (*) Quand a Jean ecoute la radio? When has Jean listened the radio? 'When did Jean listen to the radio?' Finally, they correctly judged sentences involving Complex Inversion, such as the following13: (43) 100% Pourquoi Jean a-t-il ecoute la radio? Why Jean has-he listened the radio? 'Why did Jean listen to the radio?' 5.3.

Discussion

5.3.1.

V2, movement to SPEC, CP and IP adjunction

One of the most striking results is the difference in judgement between V2-sentences with a fronted adverb, such as (44), which were correctly judged ungrammatical by 90% of the L2 learners, and sentences with a fronted Wz-constituent, such as (45), which were correctly judged ungrammatical by only 40%. Clearly the majority of the L2 learners at this stage makes a distinction between fronted adverbials and fronted w/j-constituents in relation with V2.

Parameter setting and the acquisition of wh-questions in L2 French

(44)

*Hier mangeait Jean desfraises Yesterday ate Jean strawberries 'Yesterday Jean ate strawberries'

(45)

*0M a Jean mange desfraises? 'Where has Jean eaten strawberries?'

251

These results suggest that the majority already knows that fronted adverbials and fronted wA-constituents do not have the same landing site (SPEC,CP versus IP-adjunction14) and that in general they know that only constituents in SPEC,CP trigger V2. The hypothesis that w/i-movement and topicalization of adverbials do not have the same landing site and that there is a connection between the landing site and the possibility of V2 is supported by the following results. All of the L2 learners (100%) correctly judged sentences of the following type as grammatical: (46)

Hier Jean a mange desfraises 'Yesterday Jean has eaten strawberries'

In these sentences, an adverbial (hier) has been fronted and no movement of V[+fm] to C has taken place. In contrast, only 40% correctly judged the following sentence type as grammatical, where a w/z-phrase (pourquoi) has been fronted and where no movement of the finite verb- has taken place: (47)

Pourquoi Jean mange desfraises? Why Jean eats strawberries? 'Why does Jean eat strawberries?'

Summarizing, it appears to be the case that our L2 learners are in a stage in which they have already 'switched' the parametric value of the feature specification of C from [+1] to [-1], since they allow main clauses without V2, where the finite verb occurs in the third (INFL) instead of the second (C) position. Moreover, they apparently consider the French SPEC.CP position as an appropriate landing site for wA-operators only, since they appear to restrict optional V2 movement to w//-contexts. Consequently, they have 'switched' a parameter here too, concerning the specification of SPEC,CP.

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5.3.2.

Aajke Hulk

Dynamic agreement and clustering

As mentioned above, 40% of our learners correctly judged as grammatical sentences of the type [w/z-word subject verb ..], such as (46). This indicates that only 40% have inferred the relevance of dynamic agreement in French. This is confirmed by the judgements of the stylistic inversion construction, which we argued involves dynamic agreement and no V2: 40% of the learners correctly judged this construction as grammatical: (48)

Quand est parti le train? When has left the train? 'When did the train leave?'

Moreover, these results correspond with the fact that only 40% of the learners correctly judged sentences such as the following as ungrammatical: (49)

*Ou a Jean mange des/raises? 'Where has Jean eaten strawberries?

The other 60% apparently think that the wA-criterion can only be satisfied in French by moving the finite verb to C. They are not yet aware of the existence in French of dynamic agreement as an alternative mechanism to satisfy the w/i-criterion.15 The question that arises is why this dynamic agreement mechanism is so difficult to acquire. Apparently, these constructions are acquired very late by our Dutch L2 learners of French. Many factors may play a role: Insufficient exposure to spoken French, 'normative' teaching etc. At the same time, it may also indicate the influence of the LI, Dutch, or even of English, their Other' L2, where this construction is impossible and where the dynamic agreement mechanism is not available to satisfy the w/z-criterion. Our learners have to reset the value of a Dynamic Agreement parameter for which they have apparently not (yet) found enough positive evidence. 5.3.3.

NP 's, clitics and Nominative Case assignment

Finally, consider the excellent (100%) judgement of the subject-clitic inversion construction (50), compared to the 43% that correctly judged the corresponding sentence with an NP-subject (51) as ungrammatical:

Parameter setting and the acquisition of v>h-questions in L2 French

(50)

Quand avons-nous regarde la tele? When have-we looked the television? 'When have we watched television?'

(51)

*Quand a Jean ecoute la radio? When has Jean listened the radio? 'When has Jean listened to the radio?'

253

Both sentence types involve movement of the finite verb to C (to satisfy the wA-criterion). Above we argued that the difference in grammaticality between the two sentences can be related to the assignment of nominative case. The judgement of (50) convincingly shows that all the L2 learners have found out that in French, unlike in Dutch, subject clitics behave differently from NPs and that clitics can get nominative case in alternative way. This result is supported by the 100% correct judgement of the French Complex Inversion construction: (52)

Pourquoi Jean a-t-il ecoute la radio? Why Jean has-he listened the radio 'Why has Jean listened to the radio?

According to Rizzi - Roberts (1989), this construction involves movement of the finite verb to C (to satisfy the wA-criterion). The subject clitic receives nominative case by incorporation, just as in (50) and the NP subject receives nominative case under SPEC,HEAD agreement inside the C-projection (see Rizzi - Roberts for details). In French nominative case is assigned to the subject NP under SPEC,HEAD agreement and V2 destroys the context for assigning case this way. Some 40% of our learners appear to know this, since they judge sentences such as (51) as ungrammatical. Apparently they have reset the value of the nominative case parameter from its Dutch value to its French value. For the other 60% nominative case apparently can also be assigned via government from C, just as in Dutch. This suggests that they have not yet completely reset the relevant parameter. However, all L2 learners accept sentences of the type Hier NP-subject V ... (cf. 46) where the only way for the NP subject in SPEC.IP to get case is under SPEC.HEAD agreement with INFL. At the same stage, only 40% of the learners accept sentences of the type wh-word NP-subject V ...(cf. 47). This shows that nominative case assignment is not the whole story. There clearly is interaction with the knowledge of the dynamic agreement mechanism.

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There may yet be another reason for the problems with (51): The French input with which the L2 learner is confronted, is rather confusing. On the one hand there is positive evidence for V2-movement only in constructions with subject clitics. On the other hand, sentences with stylistic inversion in simple tense, such as the following, constitute an ambiguous input, since they have the same linear word order as the corresponding Dutch V2-sentences: (53) a.

b.

A quelle heure partira le train? At what time will leave the train? 'At what time does the train leave?' Hoe laat vertrekt de trein? At what time leaves the train? 'At what time does the train leave?'

French sentences of this type could in principle be analysed in two ways: as V2-constructions with the finite verb in C and the subject in SPEC,IP or as stylistic inversion constructions with the subject right adjoined to VP and the finite verb in INFL. The first analysis is excluded, because the NP subject cannot receive nominative case, since V2 destroys the context for nominative case assignment under SPEC,HEAD agreement. The L2 learners, however, may not yet know that. As a consequence, they could consider sentences such as (53) as positive evidence in favour of the hypothesis that V2 is the only way to satisfy the w/z-criterion in French. How then did 40% of the learners find out that sentences such as (51) are ungrammatical? Did they get some negative evidence? This is always a possibility when acquiring an L2 in a classroom situation. On the other hand, these 40% have deduced that the dynamic agreement mechanism is an alternative way of satisfying the w/i-criterion in French. Therefore, there is no need for them to move the finite verb to C in order to satisfy the wA-criterion. Moreover, they apparently found out that nominative case in French is assigned either under SPEC.HEAD agreement (to NPs), or by incorporation (for clitics). The combined effect of the reset nominative case parameter and knowledge of dynamic agreement could very well be the explanation for their rejection of sentences such as (51). Further research will have to show if this is the correct interpretation of the results.

Parameter setting and the acquisition of wh-questions in L2 French

6.

255

Conclusion

In this section we have tried to tap a part of the syntactic competence of Dutch L2 learners of French in a rather advanced stage, in order to illustrate and to test, on a very small scale, the parameter resetting approach to L2 acquisition. In the stage under consideration, the Dutch L2 learners of French appear to have an interlanguage which can be characterized as far as V2 is concerned neither as Dutch, nor as French: It is definitely not full V2, but the residual V2 properties are somewhat more robust than in standard French. Almost all learners accept French sentences with the finite verb in third position, such as the following: (54)

Hier Jean a mange desfraises 'Yesterday Jean has eaten strawberrries'

We have argued that this shows two things: - the learners have abandoned the 'Dutch' trigger for V2 - the learners have adopted SPEC,HEAD agreement as an (extra) way to assign nominative case to the NP subject If this were the whole story, we would expect them to accept sentences of the following type: (55)

Pourquoi Jean a mange desfraises? Why Jean has eaten strawberries? 'Why has Jean eaten strawberries?

However, this is not the case: 60% of our L2 learners (incorrectly) judges these sentences as ungrammatical. We have explained this in the following way. On the one hand, these learners have found out that as a landing site SPEC.CP in French is restricted to iWz-phrases and that fronted adverbs occupy another position. On the other hand, the same learners are not yet aware of the mechanism of dynamic agreement as an alternative way of satisfying the wA-criterion in French. The latter is confirmed by their (incorrect) judgement of the French stylistic inversion construction. Therefore, the only way for them to satisfy the wA-criterion (when a wA-phrase has moved to SPEC,CP) is to move the finite verb to C, leading to the ungrammatical sentence (56): (56)

* Pourquoi a Jean mange des fraises? 'Why has Jean eaten strawberries?'

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However, the only way for the subject NP Jean in (56) to get nominative case is under government, an option that exists in Dutch and in English, but is excluded in French. Apparently, these learners have not yet reset the nominative case parameter entirely: They allow nominative case assignment both under SPEC,HEAD agreement (54) and under government (56). The remaining 40% of the learners, however, who correctly judge (56) as ungrammatical, also judge (55), involving dynamic agreement, correctly. This confirms our hypothesis that it is the interaction between the resetting of two parameters (Dynamic Agreement and Nominative Case assignment) that plays a role in the judgement of these sentences. Summarizing, we have tried to show that the parameter resetting approach to certain syntactic phenomena in L2 acquisition leads to interesting and testable hypotheses. Our small pilot experiment on the L2 acquisition of French w/z-questions has given support in favour of such an approach, but at the same time new questions for further reseach have been raised. Notes 1.

For useful comments on an earlier version I am grateful to Alan James, E. van der Linden and specially to Bonny Schwartz.

2.

Contrary to Dutch, French is a SIVO language. This difference, however, does not play a role in the experiment discussed in this article.

3.

Stylistic inversion, as in (i), is generally assumed not to involve a V2-like movement: It is possible both in main- and embedded clauses, the subject appears in VP-final position and there are several, not yet well understood, restrictions (see e.g. Kayne - Pollock 1978, Pollock 1986). (i)

(je me demande) ä quelle heure est parti le train I wonder at what time has left the train wonder at what time the train has left'

4.

This is my rephrasing of Rizzi (1991: 17) (see Hulk 1993 for motivation).

5.

We only consider direct questions here. Embedded sentences are left outside the scope of this article.

6.

Other contexts where residual V2 is possible are left outside the scope of this paper (see Rizzi 1991, Hulk 1993).

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7.

There are some complications with sentences having w/j-subjects (see Rizzi 1991, Hulk 1993). Since they do not play a role in the experiment discussed in this article we do not consider them here.

8.

Contrary to Dutch, French also allows w/z-in-situ, as in (ii) (ii)

tu as fait cela comment? Pierre est parti avec qui?

It is generally assumed that these w/j-constituents move at the level of LF and that the requirement that w/j-phrases must be in a left peripheral scope position holds at S-structure in Dutch, but at LF in French. 9.

I indicate by (*) the sentences that are ungrammatical in French, but which are judged grammatical by the Dutch L2 learners.

10.

There is a lot more to be said about this, but that would go beyond the scope of this paper. For one thing, it seems plausible that the feature specification of C has consequences for the characterization of the SPEC,CP position (see Rizzi 1991 about the A I A' distinction in this respect).

11.

We also did a very limited production test, which will be left outside the scope of the present article.

12.

In the production test this type of sentence was also found frequently.

13.

A caveat is necessary here, since only two sentences involving Complex Inversion were tested, the one discussed in the text and the following, which was judged differently: (iii) 56%

Quand Jean mange-t-il When Jean eats-he 'When does Jean eat?'

The fact that the verb in this sentence is used intransitively may have influenced the judgement, since we found a similar difference in the production test. Clearly we need to do further research on this construction. 14.

There is positive evidence in embedded sentences for an IP-adjunction analysis of the adverbials in French, since they may appear in a position

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between the complementizer and the subject: (iv)

Je vous ai dit que hier soir je n 'elais pas chez moi I you have told that yesterday evening I was not at home Ί have told you that I was not at home yesterday evening'

However, embedded sentences have not been included in the present test. 15.

As pointed out to me by Bonnie Schwartz, this is not unlike English, as a residual V2 language: The difference is that in English main verbs do not move to INFL and therefore do not move to C either, only auxiliary verbs do so.

References Cook, Vivian J. 1995 "Universal Grammar in second language acquisition", this volume, 167-185. DuPlessis, Jean - Doreen Solin - Lisa Travis - Lydia White 1987 "UG or not UG, that is the question: A reply to Clahsen and Muysken", Second Language Research^: 56-75. Hulk, Aafke C.J. 1991 "Parameter setting and the acquisition of word order in L2 French", Second Language Research 7: 1-34. 1993 "Residual V2 and the licensing of functional features", Probus 5: 127-154. Hulk, Aafke C.J. - Ans van Kemenade 1993 "Subjects, nominative case, agreement and functional heads", Lingua 89: 181-215. Kayne, Richard S. - Jean-Yves Pollock 1978 "Stylistic inversion, successive cyclicity, and Move NP in French", Linguistic Inquiry 9: 595-621. Mascaro, Juan - Marina Nespor (eds.) 1990 Grammar in progress. Dordrecht: Foris. Pollock, Jean-Yves 1986 "Sur la syntaxe de EN et le parametre du sujet mil", in: Mitsou Ronat - Daniel Couquaux (eds.), 211-246. Rizzi, Luigi 1990 "Speculations on Verb Second", in: Juan Mascaro - Marina Nespor (eds.), 375-386.

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1991

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"Residual Verb Second and the w/z-criterion", Technical Reports in Formal and Computational Linguistics 2. Rizzi, Luigi - Ian Roberts 1989 "Complex Inversion in French", Probus l: 1-30. Ronat, Mitsou - Daniel Couquaux (eds.) 1986 La grammaire modulaire. Paris: Editions de Mimiit. Schwartz, Bonnie D. 1995 "Parameters in non-native language acquisition", this volume, 211-235. Vance, Barbara 1989 Null subjects and syntactic change in Medieval French. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University] White, Lydia 1989 Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Phonology

A new research programme for the L2 acquisition of phonology1 Martha Young-Scholten

1.

Introduction

In the past decade a great deal of attention has been devoted to a principles and parameters approach to the second language (L2) acquisition of syntax. The central issue debated under this approach is whether adults acquiring a second language employ the same domain-specific mechanisms children do in their acquisition of a first language (LI) - or, presumably, in their acquisition of a second language.2 In other words, do adult L2 learners have access to the syntactic principles and parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) thought to guide children in their acquisition? Principles and parameters are held to account not only for linguistic universale and for variation across languages but also for the rapidity and uniformity with which first language acquisition takes place in the face of linguistic data (i.e. input) which underdetermine the underlying syntactic relationships (cf. Chomsky 1981). The child's innate predisposition for language consists of universal, invariant principles and open parameters whose values are yet to be set. The combination of these principles and parameters with the input received by the child determine the course and outcome of language acquisition. However, the input provides only positive evidence for the setting of parameters; that is the utterances the child is exposed to reveal what is possible in that particular language, but not what is impossible.3

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The question then is whether adult second language learners continue to have direct access to the principles and parameters of UG to the extent that the route of acquisition is comparable to that of children learning their first (or second) language and that the end result is complete attainment. The centralization of the issue of adult access to UG has given rise to a climate in which there is communication - if not collaboration - between researchers in second language acquisition and those working on theoretical linguistics and first language acquisition. Not surprisingly, this situation has resulted in the expansion of research in L2 syntax. Seen from this perspective, it is worthwhile asking whether a principles and parameters approach is a useful research direction for the field of L2 phonology to take.4 The benefits to the field of L2 phonology should be apparent: If L2 syntax and phonology researchers work within a common framework this allows the mutual sharing and interpretation of data and analyses. Because few L2 phonologists work within this framework, they and L2 syntacticians are less likely to perceive when their research interests overlap. It is, however, not entirely clear that this is a feasible research direction for L2 phonology to take. James (1990) cautions that the lack of theoretical contributions regarding the exact nature of phonological parameters makes it difficult to apply such a model to L2 phonology.5 Furthermore, there has been relatively little research carried out on the first language acquisition of phonology within a principles and parameters framework (but see Dresher - Kaye 1990). Despite this situation, it certainly cannot be said that Plato's Problem does not apply to phonology; the data base available to the child with respect to the acquisition of phonology is just as sparse in comparison to the end state the child eventually reaches as it is with respect to syntax. The reasons underlying this hesitance can be dismissed once one realizes that (in addition to several recent studies which have adopted this framework) there is a body of L2 phonology research which can be straightforwardly refrained to fit within such an approach. If some of the parameters involved have a tentative status, it could well be that the L2 data on their (re)setting will provide evidence useful to theoretical linguists. 2.

Principles and parameters in second language acquisition

Research on the L2 acquisition of syntax under the principles and parameters approach has concentrated on two questions: 1. Is there evidence that learners have direct access to the principles of UG? Do, for example, learners' intermediate grammars obey the principles of UG? 2. Is there evidence that parameters can be reset?

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These questions suggest that there might be a difference between access to the principles of UG and access to the parameters. However, the earliest work within the principles and parameters framework did not address the possible dichotomous access to principles versus parameters. In fact, several researchers have claimed that because adult L2 grammars presumably do not resemble possible grammars within UG (Clahsen - Muysken 1986), and because the end state reveals incomplete acquisition (Schachter 1988; Bley-Vroman 1989), cognitive mechanisms other than UG are employed by adult learners. Recent contributions to the field of L2 syntax involve the proposal that if adults have access to UG it is solely to the principles (Clahsen - Muysken 1989), and even then access may be indirect, through the learner's LI (see e.g. Schachter 1989). Most important is that under this view no access to the parameters of UG exists. Thus while the intermediate grammars of adult L2 learners might not violate the principles of UG, the relevant parameters in the target language will remain fixed at their native language values. Not yet resolved is the issue of whether parameter resetting does, in fact, occur and whether, if it does not occur, this is related to learnability factors rather than lack of access to UG. For example, if a situation arises in which negative evidence would be required to reset the learner's LI parameter value to the target language value, the theory predicts that this will be impossible since parameters can only be set through positive evidence (see Schwartz 1993).' As we will see below, a careful interpretation of the research on interlanguage phonology reveals that one side of the division between phonological principles and parameters has already been addressed; in representing interlanguage phonologies as natural phonologies, what is really being asserted is parallel to the assertion in syntax: intermediate phonologies do not violate the principles of the phonological component of UG. However, L2 phonologists for the most part have not explicitly addressed the issue of whether adults are able to reset phonological parameters at their target language values, as we will see. 3.

The issue of completeness

As noted above, the issue of completeness figures prominently in the debate on adult access to the syntactic principles and parameters of UG.7 It is interesting to observe that until recently phonology was usually cited as the sole area in which adult L2 acquisition remained incomplete.8 In light of this, it is rather surprising that a principles and parameters approach has not been applied to the L2 acquisition of phonology from the start, since the main thrust of this approach has been to establish whether adults differ from children in the mechanisms they employ to acquire language.

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There was a period of roughly ten years, from about 1974 to 19849, when it was generally assumed that differences in the LI and (adult) L2 acquisition of syntax were largely attributable to the operation of nonlinguistic variables. Up until the point at which L2 researchers started to reexamine possible fundamental differences between first and second language acquisition, adult second language learners were thought to exemplify what has been termed the Joseph Conrad Phenomenon - having acquired all aspects of the L2 to completeness except the phonology. Conrad, a native speaker of Polish who began his acquisition of English at the age of eighteen, is described by Scovel (1969) as having been capable of producing written English which required "almost no grammatical editing" but having retained a Polish accent which "prevented him from lecturing publicly in English" (1969: 247). While the word 'almost' is perhaps an indication of syntactic incompleteness, it is nonetheless evident from this description that Conrad's syntactic competence in English was far more native-like than his phonological competence. Several L2 phonologists have reached conclusions which are similar to those of L2 syntax researchers in the mid-1970s, arguing that no fundamental differences between children and adults exist with respect to the acquisition of phonology.10 This issue has been addressed through a consideration of whether there is a critical period for the L2 acquisition of phonology. Leather - James (1991), for example, maintain that there is little convincing evidence for a critical period (see also Neufeld 1980; Flege 1987). In a reply to Flege's anti-critical period stance, Patkowski (1990) cites convincing evidence leading to the conclusion that completeness in the L2 acquisition of phonology is connected to age at the start of acquisition rather than to any other variables which have been proposed": The handful of studies which examine the effect of age at the start of L2 acquisition on the eventual proficiency attained in L2 under conditions of 'naturalistic exposure' and in 'advantaged' sociolinguistic circumstances all show a strong effect for age, and virtually no effect for other practice or motivational variables (85). Even those researchers who do not attribute the age-related decline in the ability to acquire an L2 phonology to fundamental differences in the mechanisms involved would have to concede that such age-related differences are much more readily observed in the acquisition of phonology than in the acquisition of syntax or morphology.12 If we agree that age differences exist, the next step is to consider whether adult L2 learners have access to the principles and parameters of the phonological component of UG; given that lack of completeness is one argument made for non-access to UG, the investigation of L2 phonology naturally lends itself to investigation under a principles and parameters approach.

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Under such an approach we can search for the linguistic causes underlying the observed age differences, for until we show there is no linguistic basis for the pervasive phonological incompleteness on the part of older L2 learners, we must continue to assume that neurolinguistic factors are involved. Adopting a principles and parameters approach also allows us to consider whether lack of completeness might instead be the result of the learnability factors mentioned in the preceding section rather than a problem in accessing parameters. 4.

Access to the phonological principles and parameters of UG

The general reluctance of L2 phonologists to address the possible existence of fundamental differences regarding the mechanisms employed in child vs. adult acquisition can in part be traced to the gain in legitimacy the field experienced through demonstrating that the acquisition of an L2 phonology is not simply a matter of LI transfer. Research since the 1970s, commencing with Johansson (1973), Tarone (1976) and Eckman (1977), has revealed that, while transfer of LI rules and structures plays a dominant role, developmental and universal factors are also involved. The acquisition of the phonology of a second language can thus be described as the same sort of process as acquisition in the other components of the grammar - in pre-1980s terminology creative construction. Phonological research which implemented the prevailing error analyses of the 1970s led to the conclusion that interlanguage phonologies could be categorized as natural phonologies (see e.g. Eckman 1981). Early discussion on the naturalness of interlanguage phonological rules centered around whether, if processes exhibited by second language learners were not exhibited by first language learners, but nonetheless found in natural (adult) languages, the second language learner's interlanguage phonological rules could still be considered to be within the bounds of a natural language. One case which illustrates this is the use of epenthesis by second language learners to break up initial and final consonant clusters impermissible in their native languages when epenthesis is unmotivated by transfer of any such rules from their native languages. Because epenthesis appears to be a rare phenomenon in first language acquisition, it was held to present a problem for the claim that interlanguage rules are natural (see Weinberger 1988). However, since epenthesis rules are frequently found in the languages of the world, it cannot be said that such rules are unnatural. More problematic would be the discovery that there exist rules in the learner's interlanguage phonology which are not found in any natural language. It is not clear that any such cases actually exist. While Eckman (1981) refers to a rule of schwa paragoge (word-final addition of schwa) in the interlanguage of Mandarin speakers of English as presenting a potential problem, Broselow

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(1988b) confirms the existence of a similar rule in at least one natural phonology (Kannada). Thus there is evidence, as Major (1987) observes, that "interlanguage phonological rules reflect the innate speech capacity of the human organism" (1987: 211). Implicit in the finding that interlanguage phonologies are natural is the claim that adult second language learners have access to the phonological component of UG.13 However, the idea that interlanguage phonologies are natural phonologies has led to the further assumption that there are no fundamental differences in the acquisition of phonology by children and adults, i.e. that adults have access to the entirety of the phonological component of UG. That this is a premature conclusion is underscored by the realization that no satisfactory explanation has as yet been offered for the persistence of certain transfer or developmental errors. What is it that prevents adult learners from completely acquiring a second phonology?14 One possibility is that second language learners have access to the principles of the phonological component of UG, but not to the parameters, as mentioned in the previous section. Persistence of errors would then reflect the adult learner's inability to reset phonological parameters. 4.1.

Access to the phonological principles of UG

While the research referred to above argues that adult learners' interlanguage phonologies can be considered natural phonologies, much of the research does not specifically address the phonological principles which ostensibly act as a metric in determining which phonological rules and structures are universally possible (i.e. natural) and which are impossible. In order to establish whether adults have access to the phonological principles of UG it is preferable to do so using a set of principles which have been independently motivated. In the discussion below we will look at several studies which have investigated the acquisition of phonology in terms of such principles, although what follows should by no means be taken as an exhaustive account of the research which could further be interpreted to illustrate access to the phonological principles of UG.

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Table 1: Access to principles.

Principle

Studies showing evidence of access

Sonority Hierarchy

Tropf (1987) - acquisition of final consonant clusters by Spanish LI / German L2 learners reflects the sonority hierarchy; general rule: C,C2 -» C,, but for violations fes] -> [s]. Broselow (1987) - in initial C cluster simplification Arabic LI / English L2, sensitivity to violations of sonority by [s] overall interconsonantal epenthesis: [silayd] 'slide* when sonority violated preconsonantal: [isku:l] 'school'.

Minimal Sonority Distance

Broselow - Finer (1991) - Japanese and Korean LI / English L2 learners prefer new initial clusters with greater minimal distance: [py] —» [fl].

Maximality of Syllable Structure

K10ve (1992) - LI Cantonese / L2 Norwegian learners exhaustively assign syllable structure when confronted with a more complex syllable structure.

The first principle listed in Table 1 involves the relative sonority of segments within the syllable. Known as the Sonority Hierarchy (see e.g. Selkirk 1984), this principle relates to the tendency of consonants at the edges of syllables (i.e. the onset and coda) to conform to the sequence in (1), whereby at the outermost edges of the syllable the least sonorous elements (obstruents) appear, successively giving way to more sonorous elements until the peak of the syllable (a vowel) is reached.

(1)

stop > fricative > nasal > liquid > glide > vowel

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Thus a word such as [plift] is in conformity with the sonority hierarchy in terms of both its onset and its coda, while a word such as *[lpitf] represents a violation on both counts. Although not articulated in this way, one of the methods of inquiry into adult access to the principles of UG is implicitly followed by Tropf (1987), who analyzed cross-sectional spontaneous data collected from naturalistic learners of German. This method considers whether, if the learner's native language does not fully instantiate a principle which the target language does, the learner still has access to this principle (see e.g. Bley-Vroman - Felix - loup (1988) on access to syntactic principles). Tropfs data come from native speakers of Spanish, a language whose syllable structure does not fully instantiate the sonority hierarchy. In their acquisition of German the learners exhibited a tendency to simplify final consonant clusters by deleting one of the segments - a straightforward case of transfer of the canonical syllable structure of Spanish, which disallows obstruent clusters. What provides evidence that learners have access to the sonority hierarchy is that when two adjacent obstruents in a final cluster did not violate the sonority hierarchy, the second consonant was consistently deleted, yet when the cluster violated the sonority hierarchy (with a less sonorous segment preceding a more sonorous one, as in a word such as [gips] 'plaster') the speakers deleted the first, less sonorous consonant. In addition, these learners frequently simplified initial clusters in words such as [tsvai] 'two' by deleting the least sonorous element (i.e. the stop). Broselow's (1987) Egyptian Arabic learners of English also exhibited sensitivity to the sonority hierarchy, although perhaps in a less straightforward way under Broselow's analysis. Initial clusters in English beginning with an [s] followed by a more sonorous consonant as in slide or sweater underwent epenthesis in the learners' L2 data, becoming-[silayd] and [siwetar]. However, violating clusters, in which the [s] was followed by a less sonorous consonant, such as street or splendid underwent prothesis of the vowel [i], becoming [istirit] and [izbilendid]. While Broselow's learners can be seen as behaving similarly to Tropfs, her interpretation of the data is slightly different: At some level the sequence of [s] + stop is treated as a single unit (similar to an affricate) which is why learners fail to split up the sequence.15 Nonetheless, because neither this sequence nor any other sequence of two tautosyllabic consonants occurs in their native Arabic, their sensitivity to violations of the sonority hierarchy can only be the reflection of knowledge these L2 learners have from some other source, i.e. from the phonological principles of UG. The next principle given in Table 1 is that of Minimal Sonority Distance (cf. Selkirk 1982), which refers to the preference adjacent segments have for being maximally distant from each other in terms of the sonority hierarchy. Broselow - Finer's (1991) findings are most relevant to parameter resetting and will therefore be detailed in full in section 4.2. However, their results can also be

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interpreted as evidence that learners have access to principles of sonority to the extent that the learners showed a preference for sequences of segments which represent a greater degree of sonority distance on the scale, as for example in the word [pyu:s] 'puce' over sequences which represent a lesser degree of sonority distance, as in the word [flit] 'flit'. Finally, as shown in Table 1, recent research carried out by K10ve (1992) on Cantonese learners of Norwegian suggests that second language learners have access to further principles involved in syllabification such as Maximality of Syllable Structure (Itö 1989). This principle dictates that syllable structure be assigned exhaustively, i.e. all segments must be connected to the relevant nodes. K10ve's data show that while these learners did not syllabify the syllable melody in such a way as to arrive at the correct result, they did exhaustively map the consonants involved in the Norwegian target, as in the pronunciation [vEtskEt] for the word [vekst] 'growth'. 4.2.

Access to the phonological parameters of UG

While there is evidence that adult learners have access to the phonological principles of UG, is there any evidence that they have access to the phonological parameters of UG? First we will consider whether phonological parameter settings can, in fact, be said to transfer. There is, of course, considerable evidence of transfer in L2 phonology - evidence which might be recast as the transfer of parameter settings. Some of the studies carried out in the recent past reveal transfer of various prosodic constraints and processes which can be interpreted as involving parameters. Listed in Table 2, Minimal Syllable Weight, Directionality of Syllabification, Rhythmic Timing and Domain of Postlexical Resyllabißcation are all possible binary or multi-valued parameters. Data relating to these (possible) parameters reveals that their LI settings are indeed transferred by second language learners.

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Table 2: Transfer of parameter settings

Parameter

Studies showing evidence of transfer

Minimal Syllable Weight

Broselow (1988a) - Arabic LI / English L2 Arabic minimal word must be superheavy, thus English bus is [baas] or [bass].

Directionality of Syllabification

K10ve (1992) - Cantonese LI / Norwegian L2 right-to-left syllabification transfers.

Syllable vs Stress Timing

Flege - Bonn (1989) - Spanish LI / English L2 learners altered vowel quality but did not reduce vowels; similar findings by Wenk (1986)16, Major (1987), Pokes Bond (1989) and Young-Scholten (1991).

Prosodic domain

Vogel (1991) - Italian LI / English L2 learners adopt the full resyllabification of Italian and transfer intonational phrase as domain of resyllabification: grey towels and great owls are homophonous. Broselow (1988a) - English L2 learners adopt the resyllabification of English [bin.tis.miina] parsed as the 'bintis' and 'miina'.

LI / Arabic ambisyllabic binti#smiina non-existent

The research by Broselow (1988a) referred to in Table 2 serves to illustrate that constraints can be reinterpreted to involve parameters. Expressing the inability of Arabic speakers of English to produce the vowel in 'bus' solely in terms of segments which exist in English but are absent in Arabic fails to capture the generalization expressed by the constraint. This prosodic constraint requires that a word in Arabic minimally contain a long vowel followed by a consonant or a short vowel followed by a long consonant. English words consisting only of a

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heavy syllable with a short vowel followed by a consonant as in the word do not meet the requirement in Arabic that a monosyllabic word consist of a superheavy syllable. This prosodic constraint on the minimum (or alternatively maximum) weight a word must have in a given language can be interpreted as a multi-valued parameter; in a given language the prosodic word would minimally consist of a light, heavy or superheavy monosyllable or more than a single syllable. Given second in Table 2 is Directionality of Syllabification. Syllabification can proceed from right to left, under which process the syllable onset is maximized, or from left to right, where the syllable coda is maximized. Since there are only two choices, the parameter involved is binary parameterization. K10ve's data provide evidence that the LI parameter setting transfers. Cantonese, like Norwegian, appears to map syllable structure from right to left. Transfer of their LI parameter setting must be involved since the learners start with the Norwegian target, yet map the segments involved onto their Cantonese syllable template in a leftward direction. While the studies in Table 2 indicate that transfer of parameter settings occurs, the studies do not reveal whether parameters whose settings differ hi the LI and L2 are ultimately reset at the L2 value by the learner, i.e. whether the phonological parameters of UG remain accessible to the learner. Before continuing our discussion, we need to consider whether it may be the case that the parameters themselves remain accessible, but the interaction of the LI and L2 settings thwarts the learner's attempts at resetting. As mentioned previously, a learnability problem results when the L2 parameter setting is such that the learner would require negative evidence regarding the non-occurrence of certain constructions allowed by the learner's LI parameter setting. The requirement that only positive evidence be involved in parameter setting means that the learner has to start with the most restrictive grammar and expand upon it, if need be. This situation is thought to involve the Subset Principle (Berwick 1985; Wexler - Manzini 1987), which states that when a more general grammar includes as a subset a more restrictive grammar (i.e. when the Subset Condition is met) the child starts with the subset grammar. Taking into account the possibility that the role of negative evidence is equally minimal in second language acquisition, an obvious problem arises when a parameter setting which generates the superset is transferred from the learner's LI and the subset setting is required in the L2 (cf. White 1989a).17 This places the learner in an impossible position since it is only negative evidence which could inform the learner that something he assumes to be grammatical in the L2 is, in fact, ungrammatical. The problem can only be resolved if the second language learner is able to directly engage the Subset Principle in the analysis of the L2 data and thereby adopt the subset parameter setting at the start.

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In investigating whether L2 learners are able to reset phonological parameters, it is important to look closely at such potential learnability problems, and in particular, to take the Subset Principle into account. There are two phenomena listed in Table 2 which seem to meet the Subset Condition. The first phenomenon is that of Rhythmic Timing. Although not without controversy (cf. e.g. Dauer 1983) rhythmic structure can be classified as syllable-timed or stress-timed (Pike 1946). In a syllable-timed language such as Spanish, the intervals between syllables are of equal length, regardless of where stressed syllables occur. Furthermore, vowel quality remains constant under varying stress conditions; there is no reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables. In a stress-timed language such as English, Dutch or German, the intervals between those syllables which are stressed are of equal length. Thus, the duration of individual syllables varies according to the number of syllables in a rhythmic unit. Unlike the vowels in a syllable-timed language, the vowels in stressed syllables in a stress-timed language differ in quality from those in unstressed syllables, where the vowel typically surfaces as a reduced, centralized vowel such as schwa. Rhythmic timing appears to meet the Subset Condition, whereby syllabletiming can be conceived of as the subset and stress-timing as the superset if we take the wider variety of syllable types found in a stress-timed language to include as a subset the syllable types found in a syllable-timed language. There is also evidence from first language acquisition that the more restrictive syllable-timed rhythm is, in fact, the one that children initially adopt. Data from children learning English reveal a general absence of the unstressed syllables with reduced vowels which characterize the stress-timed rhythm of English. This is an indication that children initially adopt a syllable-timed rhythm (Allen Hawkins 1980). While the findings presented in Table 2 offer evidence that this subset setting transfers for second language learners whose first language is syllable-timed, James (1987) observes that syllable-timing is the rhythm that second language learners initially adopt regardless of their native language rhythm. Assuming the two parameter settings involved in rhythmic structure meet the Subset Condition, both first and second language learners who start with a syllable-timed rhythm can be expected eventually to set the parameter value at stress-timing since all this requires is positive evidence. Children learning English do eventually set the parameter value at stress-timed, yet for the majority of studies in Table 2, the question remains open as to whether adult second language learners ultimately adopt a stress-timed rhythm when their L2 requires it. This is clearly an area in which more research needs to be carried out, not only with respect to the acquisition of a stress-timed rhythm by speakers of syllable-timed first languages, but also with respect to the acquisition of a syllable-timed rhythm by speakers of stress-timed languages. It is only in the

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latter situation, when a speaker of a stress-timed language such as English attempts to acquire a syllable-timed language such as Spanish, that the Subset Principle predicts difficulties. If we find that second language learners experience persistent problems in their acquisition of rhythm in both situations, then we must look beyond the Subset Principle for an explanation. The nested domains within which phonological processes apply, as illustrated by the Prosodic Hierarchy (Nespor - Vogel 1986) shown in (2) also appear to meet the Subset Condition. Through a hierarchy of successively more restrictive prosodic domains, from the largest (the phonological utterance) down to the smallest (the syllable), the prosodic hierarchy formalizes the extent to which phonological processes are limited in their application. (2)

Phonological Utterance / \ Intonation Phrase / \ Phonological Phrase / \ Clitic Group / \ Phonological Word / \ Foot / \ Syllable

Research carried out by Vogel (1991) illustrates the operation of prosodic domains. While Vogel's main purpose in conducting her research was to determine the relevant prosodic domain for resyllabification in Italian, the interlanguage data from Italian speakers of English which she used for her study sheds light on the transfer of prosodic domains. In Italian a syllable-final consonant is fully resyllabified into the following syllable if that syllable begins with a vowel. The two sequences shown in (3) are completely homophonous, illustrating that resyllabification takes place within a word (3a), and that the process of resyllabification also occurs across word boundaries (3b), i.e. within a prosodic domain larger than the phonological word. Through the use of interlanguage phonological data (word-final consonants being rare in Italian but not in English), Vogel was able to determine that the intonational phrase is the relevant prosodic domain for resyllabification in Italian.

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(3) a.

b.

adocchio sight ISO Ί sight' ad occhio (nudo) with eye (naked) 'with (the naked) eye'

There is some evidence that second language learners transfer what can be interpreted as a larger domain of rule application when a smaller one obtains in the L2. Table 2 gives as an example of this Vogel's (1991) and Broselow's (1988a) studies regarding the extent to which L2 learners allow resyllabification in the target language. The full resyllabification of Italian can be construed to be the superset of the ambisyllabic resyllabification which both tauto- and heteromorphemic intervocalic consonants undergo in languages such as English. Unlike full resyllabification, ambisyllabic resyllabification does not completely shift the coda consonant into the onset of the following syllable; rather, the consonant remains part of the coda while at the same time acting as the onset of the following syllable, i.e. the consonant is ambisyllabic (Kahn 1980). If it is the case that full and ambisyllabic resyllabification meet the Subset Condition, then Vogel's study reveals a situation in which negative evidence would be required for Italian learners of English to reset the parameter involved. However, while Vogel's data provide evidence that full resyllabification and domain of rule application do indeed transfer, her study gives no indication as to whether transfer persists. Broselow's study examines the reverse situation; that of English speakers acquiring a language in which full resyllabification obtains (Arabic). As in Vogel's study, transfer of type of resyllabification is also in evidence in Broselow's data, revealed by the English speakers' misparsings of Arabic sequences such as the one shown in Table 2.18 If ambisyllabic resyllabification does indeed represent a subset setting, one would expect English learners of Arabic eventually to acquire full resyllabification, but Italian learners of English to have difficulty acquiring ambisyllabic resyllabification. Again, without further research, the matter of the final stage of acquisition these learners eventually reach in these two situations remains unresolved. There is a final set of studies which require no recasting to address the question of whether adult L2 learners have access to the phonological principles and parameters of UG. Listed in Table 3, these studies explicitly address the resetting of parameters.

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Table 3: Parameter resetting Parameter

Studies showing evidence of resetting

Canonical Syllable Structure

Broselow - Finer (1991) - Japanese, Korean LI / English L2 learners adopted a syllable structure midway between the LI and L2.

Domain of Resyllabification

Young-Scholten (1992) - German LI / (American) English L2 learners acquire flapping and adopt a domain of resyllabification larger than in German but not equal to that of English.

Metrical Parameters

Archibald (1990, 1992, 1993a) - Polish, Spanish LI / English L2 learners reset many of these parameters.

The first study listed in Table 3 relates to the determination of canonical syllable structure in a particular language by language-specific requirements on minimal sonority distance (Selkirk 1982). While minimal sonority distance, as was discussed in section 4.1, can be viewed as a principle, it more obviously entails a multi-valued parameter, whereby languages differ in the degree of sonority distance which must exist between two adjacent tautosyllabic segments. Thus, for example, one language might allow onset clusters in which a stop is followed by a fricative while another language might only allow the stop to be followed by a glide. Broselow - Finer (1991) discuss how minimal sonority distance delimits the types of syllables permissible in a given language through.such requirements on minimal sonority distance. The classes of sounds in (4) are each separated from each other by one degree of sonority in one version of the sonority hierarchy.

(4)

stops fricatives nasals liquids glides

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Broselow - Finer propose an elaborated version of the sonority hierarchy in which voiceless stops are less sonorous than voiced stops; i.e. voiceless stops would appear at the top of the scale in (4), followed by voiced stops and then fricatives, etc. As mentioned above, the parameter values involved refer to the minimal sonority distance which must exist between two adjacent segments. A language in which this parameter is set for a small minimal sonority distance will generate a wide variety of syllable types because the existence of onsets for which a small minimal sonority distance obtains (e.g. stop + fricative) implies the existence of onsets for which greater minimal sonority distance obtains (i.e. stop + liquid, stop + nasal and stop + glide). Increasingly larger minimal sonority distance parameter settings result in a decrease in the number of syllable types. Thus languages for which the parameter setting is for a minimal distance of one such as German, contain onsets consisting of a stop followed by a fricative as in [kvadrat] 'square* as well as onsets consisting of a stop + nasal as in [kmk] 'crack', a stop followed by a liquid [klima] 'climate' and so on.19 Alternatively, a language without any onset clusters at all involves a parameter value for a minimal sonority distance of five, while a language with stop-glide onset clusters only involves a parameter value for which the minimal sonority distance is four, and so on. Broselow - Finer sought to investigate whether Japanese and Korean learners, for whom the minimal sonority distance parameter setting allows only obstruent-glide syllable onsets, reset the minimal sonority distance parameter for a smaller value in their acquisition of English. While the parameter setting in Japanese and Korean allows initial stop-glide clusters, as in the sequence [py], this setting does not permit clusters consisting of a stop and a liquid, as in [pi]. Broselow - Finer's predictions relate to the incremental markedness of onsets under increasingly smaller minimal sonority distance between adjacent segments. They predicted that any difficulties confronted by the learners would be manifested with the most marked clusters in English, i.e. those showing the smallest minimal sonority distance. This prediction was borne out in that the learners made fewer errors with the less marked clusters (e.g. [pr] and [by]) than with the more marked clusters (e.g. [br] and [fy]). Broselow - Finer further observed that these learners adopted a parameter setting different from that in their native languages. Broselow - Finer convincingly show that an explanation based on markedness addresses why second language learners prefer new onset sequences with greater sonority distance over sequences with lesser sonority distance. Yet markedness fails to explain why learners succeed in adopting a parameter setting different from the one in their native languages in the first place. Based on markedness alone, a parameter setting which generates onsets more marked than in the learner's native language should be problematic for second language learners (see e.g.

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Eckman 1977). But if we view the parameter values as distinct from the onsets they generate, the learner's task turns out to be quite a different one. In applying the Subset Principle to the minimal sonority distance parameter, the syllable structures generated by the Japanese and Korean parameter values constitute a subset of the syllable types generated by the English value. The resultant prediction for these second language learners of English is that they will be able to reset the parameter through the use of the ample positive evidence available in the input.20 However, the parameter value these learners had adopted at the time of testing was still midway between that of their native languages and that of English. Since the data are not longitudinal and since the learners were categorized as only high intermediate, we can expect them to adopt the English setting, given sufficient input. Without further evidence - from advanced learners - it is difficult to ground such speculations.21 Results similar to Broselow - Finer's in terms of the intermediate parameter setting involved were obtained in a pilot study by Young-Scholten (1992). The German learners of English in this study adopted a parameter setting other than that of their native language in their allowance of resyllabification in English within a larger prosodic domain than is allowed in German (see Figure in (2)). Evidence of their intermediate parameter setting is that, while these Germans had clearly acquired the rule of flapping (see note 18) in American English, they were more conservative than native American English speakers. The Germans consistently flapped in the largest prosodic domains within which resyllabification occurs in German, the clitic group, and in the next largest prosodic domain, the phonological phrase. However, flapping grew increasingly rare for the two largest prosodic domains, within which flapping occurs in American English. Like Broselow - Finer's learners, these learners had failed to set the parameter for the English value, having adopted a smaller domain than that which actually obtains in English. Like Broselow - Finer's data, these data are also not longitudinal, yet the learners tested were advanced, indicating that acquisition may have ceased. The final body of work listed in Table 3 is that of Archibald (e.g. 1990, 1992; also see 1993a, 1993b). Adopting the set of metrical parameters Dresher Kaye (1990) used to construct a computer model of leamability, Archibald investigated the acquisition of English by Hungarian, Polish and Spanish learners. Archibald's results showed that learners are, for the most part, able to reset the metrical parameters involved in stress assignment in English. The question remains as to whether all parameters are eventually reset at their English values. As with Broselow - Finer's and Young-Scholten's studies, if we find that some metrical parameters remain set at their native language values or

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at intermediate values, we will need to search for the forces that prevent the adoption of target language parameter values by post-puberty second language learners. 5.

Discussion

The listings in the three tables in the preceding sections should by no means be construed as an exhaustive account of all the studies which can be recast into a principles and parameters framework.22 Some additional studies which come to mind are James' (1988) on prosodic structure, Eckman's studies on markedness and syllable structure (e.g. 1991) as well as studies which adopt a natural phonology model such as Dziubalska-Kolaczyk's (1987). What the above discussion has shown is that there is certainly immediate potential for research within a principles and parameters framework. To begin with, there is evidence that post-puberty second language learners have access to the phonological principles of UG. At the minimum this is an indication that learners are doing 'something interesting' - i.e. the second language acquisition of phonology is not simply transfer, nor is it the result of a 'frozen tongue'. In that learners show evidence of access to principles when these principles are not fully instantiated in their native languages, their L2 phonological development is worthy of linguistic study. Assuming that learners have access to the phonological principles of UG compels us to examine in more detail the question of whether they have access to the parameters of UG. If all the constraints and processes which we have cast as parameters are indeed parameters, then we can say there is evidence that phonological parameter settings are indeed transferred. There is further evidence that parameters are reset, although not necessarily at the target language setting. At this point it becomes obvious that even with the recasting of previous studies to fit within a principles and parameters framework, including studies which already work within this framework, a UG approach to L2 phonology is still in its infancy. In order to successfully address the issues which come to the fore when such an approach is adopted, research questions must be carefully formulated. We need to ask whether, in those cases in which the learner starts with the most restrictive setting of a parameter, positive evidence indeed succeeds in triggering the resetting of the parameter. If a parameter is reset at an intermediate value and seems never to be set at the target language value we need to investigate further possible factors which might be connected to the post-puberty acquisition of phonology. The issue of non-adoption of the target language parameter setting may involve leamability problems more than simply access to the parameters of UG. It is an issue which has also not been fully resolved in the L2 acquisition of syntax.

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One related area of investigation is that of the role of explicit and negative evidence (see Schwartz 1993). Several researchers (e.g. Neufeld 1977) have shown that under the right instructional conditions, a level of phonological proficiency can be attained such that non-native speakers are judged to be native speakers (but see footnote 5). If we find that explicit and/or negative evidence appears to be instrumental in altering performance, further investigation will be required to determine whether such evidence alters competence. In other words, it may turn out that negative and/or explicit evidence is powerless to effect parameter resetting. Under such a scenario the appearance would be given that acquisition has occurred, either due to the opportunities the learner has to impose a filter on output or as the result of the acquisition of individual lexical items rather than aquisition of a rule or the setting of a parameter. 6.

Conclusion

At the minimum, we can agree that there is a need for more research in L2 phonology and that such research will - particularly if it is carried out within a principles and parameters framework - certainly be of interest to those working in theoretical linguistics, LI acquisition and L2 syntax. We should also keep in mind that it is the issue of completeness that must drive the field of L2 phonology: Why do the majority of adults find it impossible to rid themselves of a foreign accent? If we accept the possibility that the inability to acquire a native-like accent may involve the loss of some function (i.e. that a critical period exists) such an admission should by no means preclude further investigation into the linguistic factors involved in lack of completeness. If our conception of the critical period is not monolithic, but rather allows for continued access to many, if not most, of the components and subcomponents of language, then our task is to sort out how acquisition takes place in these components and subcomponents. Leather - James' (1991) observation that transfer is less obviously present at later stages for the realization of segments than it is for prosodic structure suggests that the parameters relating to prosodic structure may resist resetting. Differential acquisition in the subcomponents of phonology might in turn relate to biological factors limiting access to the parameters in these subcomponents. If we are to undertake investigations relating to the access of UG in L2 phonology, the way in which data are collected needs to be reconsidered. In determining whether learners retain access to principles not instantiated in their L Is, we need to look at independently motivated principles such as the sonority hierarchy. In order to establish whether a parameter setting is transferred initially, data must be collected from beginners. Finally, longitudinal studies and studies of advanced learners are essential in the investigation of whether parameters undergo resetting.

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The potential clearly exists for very fruitful research to be carried out in L2 phonology within a principles and parameters framework.23 The pleasant surprise is that a good amount has already been done, although for the most part under a different guise. Notes 1.

Insightful comments by S.J. Hannahs on earlier versions of this paper were most appreciated; any remaining oversights in the final version are mine alone.

2.

Although it is generally thought to be the case that prepuberty second language learners continue to employ the same mechanisms as first language learners in that their acquisition of the second language is complete, the age at which younger learners begin to exhibit lack of perfect attainment in their L2 has not been definitively established, particularly with respect to the various components of language (see Long 1990 for a review of the research).

3.

While negative evidence does exist in the form of parental corrections, restatements, etc., because it is clearly not provided in a systematic and thorough manner, it is difficult to argue that it plays a role in the setting of parameters (see e.g. White 1989b for discussion).

4.

The phonological principles and parameters I refer to throughout this paper should not be seen as entailing the adoption of a particular theory of generative phonology (such as the government-based theory proposed in Kaye - Lowenstamm - Vergnaud 1990).

5.

See also Bromberger - Halle (1989), who argue on the basis of the need for extrinsic rule ordering in phonology that the current model of syntax cannot be applied to phonology. Even if one agrees with Bromberger Halle on the need for extrinsic ordering, it is possible to allow for this in some subcomponents of phonology while positing principles and parameters in others.

6.

One illustration of such a learnability problem relates to the Subset Principle, whereby the grammars generated by various parameter settings form nested subsets of each other (see Berwick 1985; Wexler - Manzini 1987). A learnability problem arises when the learner's native language parameter setting generates the superset grammar of a target language subset. In such a case the learner would require information regarding the

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impossibility of the constructions (i.e. negative evidence) generated by the LI grammar. 7.

Regarding what constitutes complete phonological acquisition in a second language, Leather - James (1991) remark that there is no consensus on "what the observable correlates of good pronunciation might be" (307; emphasis theirs). Admittedly deciding whether a learner's competence does, in fact, mirror that of a native speaker is not a straightforward task - there are, for example, no phonological tasks comparable to the grammaticality judgement tasks used to measure L2 syntactic acquisition (but see Young-Scholten 1993 for an attempt at this). One of the problems in evaluating the phonological competence of L2 learners lies in arriving at a standard for what constitutes completeness, or to be more precise, in discriminating between near-native and native. Naive judges might, for example, decide that a speaker is 'a native speaker of the language, but not from around here'. If the variation exhibited by non-native speakers can be construed as a possible dialect by such judges, the results will be misleading. One interpretation of the data is, of course, that since the L2 variant constitutes a possible dialect of that language, this is an indication that the learner has completely acquired the L2 phonology. There is a more illustrative way in which to view the situation. If an adult learner is exposed to a certain set of data (i.e. positive evidence), and rather than acquiring the phonology represented by these data, acquires some hybrid of it, then we cannot unequivocally claim that the learner has access to the same mechanisms as a child in a comparable (L2) situation who does acquire the phonology the data represent.

8.

There is the odd reference to adult learners who have completely acquired an L2 phonology. However, these individuals constitute an exception to the rule that adult learners do not acquire the phonology of an L2 perfectly. As exceptions one would expect them to possess an exceptional distribution of cognitive abilities. Obler (1987) discusses one such case. Some actors and musicians might fall into this category, given that their chosen professions reflect exceptional abilities. If this is, in fact, the case, then it could be argued that such individuals are able to rely on other cognitive abilities to compensate for unavailable linguistic mechanisms.

9.

This period can be demarcated by Bailey - Madden - Krashen's article on morpheme accuracy order in 1974 and the initial research which adopted a principles and parameters approach to L2 syntax (e.g. Flynn 1984; White 1985).

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10.

It should be noted here that much of the evidence employed to make claims in phonology involves the treatment of segments in isolation. Using this as evidence in arguing against a critical period for phonology is tantamount to using evidence from the acquisition of individual words to show that learners have no access to the syntactic principles and parameters of UG.

11.

That such variables might account for additional individual variation is not relevant to the issue of completeness, particularly if such variables also account for similar variation among children acquiring a first or a second language, for whom completeness is the norm.

12.

In continuing to consider whether a critical period is relevant to the L2 acquisition of phonology, it is worth keeping in mind Seliger's (1978) comment that "much language can still be acquired by adults, but not to the same degree possible for children..." Applied to phonology, this indicates that "the end of the critical period ... may only be for some features of that system together with some aspects of the other subsystems" (1978: 19).

13.

The syntactic equivalent is the argument that if the learner's intermediate syntactic structures represent a possible UG grammar, this is then evidence of access to UG (see for example duPlessis et al. 1987).

14.

While it may turn out that the underlying causes of incompleteness are not entirely linguistic, it certainly makes sense to continue looking for linguistic clues.

15.

Wiese (1991) claims that such clusters with [s] in German, both initial and final, also constitute the equivalent of an affricate. Wiese further suggests that the segments involved in such sequences must be dissimilar (i.e. in terms of their feature geometry). It would be interesting to determine what intuitions non-native speakers of German have regarding permissible and impermissible sequences.

16.

It should be noted that Wenk's characterization of French in his study differs somewhat from the traditional definition of syllable-timed.

17.

One must, however, exercise caution in characterizing phenomena as meeting the Subset Condition. See for example MacLaughlin's (1992) critique of White.

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18.

Another difference between Arabic and English is that Arabic allows leftward resyllabification. Leftward resyllabification involves a vowel-final syllable preceding a consonant-initial one absorbing the consonant into its coda. That this does not occur in English, even in terms of ambisyllabicity, is clearly illustrated by the occurrence in American English of flapping in (i), whereby an intervocalic I\J or /d/ is realized as a flap [D], but not in (ii): (i) at all -> a [D] all (ii) a tall (one) -> * a [D] all

19.

This is an oversimplification of the constraints on German syllable structure; in actuality German requires a greater minimal distance between some classes.

20.

Note that the application of the Subset Principle to the first language acquisition of syllable structure also (correctly) predicts that children initially adopt the most restrictive parameter value (five), which generates syllables without onset clusters (i.e. CV(C) syllables). What is also predicted (presumably incorrectly) is that English learners of Japanese and Korean will have difficulty with a parameter setting involving a greater minimal distance, since negative evidence is required to retreat from a superset setting to a subset setting.

21.

See Young-Scholten (1993) for evidence that Koreans are eventually able to set the parameter for a target language value of one.

22.

There appears to be at least one area of phonology not amenable to a principles and parameters approach. Bromberger - Halle (1989) make the point that phonological acquisition, at least the segmental level, is different from syntactic acquisition in this respect.

23.

It should be stressed that not all interesting research in L2 phonology fits into a principles and parameters framework. For example, work on L2 acquisition which adopts the theory of feature geometry (e.g. Weinberger 1988) represents an important area of inquiry, particularly in view of the parallel research being carried out on first language acquisition (e.g. Fikkert 1991; Goad 1992). In addition, the potential exists for L2 phonologists to make an important contribution to research on the acquisition of L2 syntax in terms of the role metrical structure may play in the elements which can act as triggers for the setting of syntactic parameters (see Vainikka - Young-Scholten 1993).

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References Allen, George D. - Sarah Hawkins 1980 "Phonological rhythm: Definition and development", in: Grace H. Yeni-Komshian - James F. Kavanagh - Charles A. Ferguson (eds.), 227-256. Archibald, John 1990 "The acquisition of English metrical parameters by Polish speakers: Quantity-sensitivity and adult access to UG" [Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development]. 1992 "Adult abilities in L2 Speech: Evidence from stress", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan R. James (eds.), 1-17. 1993a "The leamability of English metrical parameters by Spanish speakers", IRAL, 129-142. 1993b "Metrical phonology and the acquisition of L2 stress", in: Fred R. Eckman (ed.), 37-48. Aronoff, Mark - Richard Oehrle (eds.) 1984 Language sound structure: Studies in phonology. Presented to Morris Halle by his teacher and students. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Bailey, Nathalie - Carolyn G. Madden - Stephen D. Krashen 1974 "Is there a 'natural sequence* in adult second language learning?" Language Learning 24: 235-243. Berwick, Robert C. 1985 The acquisition of syntactic knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1989 "What is the logical problem of foreign language learning?" in: Susan M. Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 41-68. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. - Sascha W. Felix - Georgette L. loup 1988 "The accessability of Universal Grammar in adult language learning", Second Language Research 4: 1-32. Bromberger, Sylvain - Morris Halle. 1989 "Why phonology is different", Linguistic Inquiry 20: 51-70. Broselow, Ellen 1987 "Non-obvious transfer: On predicting epenthesis errors", in: Georgette L. loup - Steven H. Weinberger (eds.), 292-304. 1988a "Prosodic phonology and the acquisition of a second language", in: Suzanne Flynn - Wayne O'Neil (eds.), 295-308. 1988b "Second language acquisition", in: Frederick J. Newmeyer (ed.), 194-209.

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Broselow, Ellen - Daniel Finer 1991 "Parameter setting in second language phonology and syntax", Second Language Research 7: 35-59. Chomsky, Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of Universal Grammar to adult and child learners: A study of the acquisition of German word order", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. 1989 "The UG paradox in L2 acquisiton", Second Language Research 5: 1-29. Dauer, Rebecca M. 1983 "Stress-timing and syllable-timing reanalyzed", Journal of Phonetics 11: 51-62. Dresher, B. Elan - Jonathan D. Kaye 1990 "A computational learning model for metrical phonology", Cognition 34: 137-195. DuPlessis, Jean - Doreen Solin - Lisa Travis - Lydia White 1987 "UG or not UG, that is the question: A reply to Clahsen and Muysken", Second Language Research 3: 56-75. Dziubalska-Kolaczyk, Katarzyna 1987 A theory of second language acquisition within the framework of natural phonology: A Polish-English contrastive study. [Ph.D. dissertation, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan.] Eckman, Fred R. 1977 "Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis", Language Learning 27: 315-330. 1981 "On the naturalness of interlanguage phonological rules", Language Learning 31:195-216. 1991 "The structural conformity hypothesis and the acquisition of consonant clusters in the interlanguage of ESL learners", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13: 23—41. Eckman, Fred R. (ed.) 1993 Confluence. Linguistics, L2 acquisition, speech pathology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Eckman, Fred R. - Lawrence H. Bell - Diana Nelson (eds.) 1984 Universals of second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

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Fikkert, Paula 1991 "Well-formedness conditions in child phonology: A look at metathesis" [Paper presented at the Conference on Formal and Functional Determinants of Language Acquisition, Tübingen, October 2-5]. Flege, James E. 1987 "A critical period for learning to pronounce foreign languages?" Applied Linguistics 8: 162-177. Flege, James E. - Ocke-S. Bonn 1989 "An instrumental study of vowel reduction andstress placement in Spanish-accented English", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 35-62. Flynn, Suzanne 1984 "A universal in L2 acquisition based on a PBD typology", in Fred R. Eckman - Lawrence H. Bell - Diana Nelson (eds.), 75-87. Flynn, Suzanne - Wayne O'Neil (eds.) 1988 Linguistic theory in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Pokes, Joann - Zinny S. Bond 1989 "The vowels of stressed and unstressed syllables in non-native English", Language Learning 39: 341-371. Gass, Susan M. - Carolyn Madden - Dennis Preston - Larry Selinker (eds.) 1987 Variation in second language acquisition, Vol. II: Psycholinguistic issues. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Gass, Susan M. - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.) 1989 Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Goad, Heather 1992 "Learnability and inventory specific under-specification" [Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual convention, Philadelphia]. Hoekstra, Teun - Bonnie D. Schwartz (eds.) 1993 Language acquisition studies in generative grammar. Papers in honor of Kenneth Wexler from the 1991 GLOW workshops. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Huebner, Thorn - Charles A. Ferguson (eds.) 1991 Crosscurrents in second language acquisition and linguistic theories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hulst, Harry van der - Norval Smith (eds.) 1982 The structure of phonological representations, Part II. Dordrecht: Foris.

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loup, Georgette L. - Steven H. Weinberger (eds.) 1987 Interlanguage phonology: The acquisition of a second language sound system. Cambridge, Mass.: Newbury House. Itö, Junko 1989 Syllable theory in prosodic phonology. [Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts.] James, Allan R. 1987 "The acquisition of phonological representation: A modular approach", in: Allan R. James - Jonathan Leather (eds.), 225-249. 1988 The acquisition of a second language phonology. A linguistic theory of developing sound structures. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 1990 "A parameter-setting model for second language phonological acquisition", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan R. James (eds.), 180188. James, Allan R. - Jonathan Leather (eds.) 1987 Sound patterns in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Foris. Johansson, Stig 1973 Immigrant Swedish phonology. Lund: Gleerup. Kahn, Daniel 1980 Syllable-based generalizations in English phonology. New York: Garland. Kaye, Jonathan - Jean Lowenstamm - Jean-Roger Vergnaud 1990 "Constituent structure and government in phonology", Phonology 7: 193-232. Kellerman, Eric - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.) 1986 Cross-linguistic influence in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. K10ve, Marit H. 1992 "Principles of and constraints on SLA phonology", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan R. James (eds.), 113-121. Leather, Jonathan - Allan R. James 1991 "The acquisition of second language speech", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13: 305-341. Leather, Jonathan - Allan R. James (eds.) 1990 New sounds 90. University of Amsterdam. 1992 New sounds 92. University of Amsterdam. Long, Michael H. 1990 "Maturational constraints on the acquisition of language", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 251-285.

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MacLaughlin, Dawn 1992 "Language acquisition and the Subset Principle" [Paper presented at the XVII annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Ms. Boston University]. Major, Roy C. 1987 "A model for interlanguage phonology", in: Georgette L. loup Steven H. Weinberger (eds.), 101-124. Nespor, Marina - Irene Vogel 1986 Prosodic phonology. Dordrecht: Foris. Newmeyer, Frederick J. (ed.) 1988 Linguistics: The Cambridge survey HI: Language: Psychological and biological aspects. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Neufeld, Gerald G. 1977 "Language learning ability in adults: A study on the acquisition of prosodic and articulatory features", Working Papers in Bilingualism 12: 45-60. 1980 "On the adult's ability to acquire phonology", TESOL Quarterly 14: 285-298. Obler, Loraine K. 1987 "Exceptional second language learners", in: Susan M. Gass, Carolyn Madden - Dennis Preston - Larry Selinker (eds.), 141159. Patkowski, Mark S. 1990 "Age and accent in a second language. A reply to James Emil Flege", Applied Linguistics 11: 73-89. Pike, Kenneth L. 1946 The intonation of American English. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ritchie, William C. (ed.) 1978 Second language acquisition research: Issues and implications. New York: Academic Press. Roeper, Thomas - Edwin Williams (eds.) 1987 Parameter setting. Dordrecht: Reidel. Schachter, Jacquelyn 1988 "Second language acquisition and its relation to UG", Applied Linguistics 9: 219-235. 1989 "Testing a proposed universal", in: Susan M. Gass - Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 73-88.

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Schwartz, Bonnie D. 1993 "On explicit and negative data effecting and affecting competence and linguistic behavior", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 147-163. Scovel, Thomas 1969 "Foreign accents, language acquisition and cerebral dominance", Language Learning 19: 245-253. Seliger, Herbert W. 1978 "Implications of a multiple critical period hypothesis for second language learning", in: William C. Ritchie (ed.), 11-19. Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1982 "The syllable", in: Harry van der Hülst - Norval Smith (eds.), 337-383. 1984 "On the major class features and syllable theory", in: Mark Aronoff - Richard Oehrle (eds.), 105-136. Tarone, Elaine 1976 "Some influences on interlanguage phonology", Working Papers in Bilingualism 8: 87-111. Tropf, Herbert S. 1987 "Sonority as a variability factor in second language phonology", in: Allan R. James - Jonathan Leather (eds.), 173-191. Vainikka, Anne - Martha Young-Scholten 1993 "Direct access to X'-theory: Evidence from Korean and Turkish adults learning German", in: Teun Hoekstra - Bonnie D. Schwartz (eds.), 265-316. Vogel, Irene 1991 "Prosodic phonology: Second language acquisition data as evidence in theoretical phonology", in: Thorn Huebner - Charles A. Ferguson (eds.), 47-65. Weinberger, Steven H. 1988 Theoretical foundations of second language phonology. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.]

Wenk, Brian 1986

"Cross-linguistic influence in second language phonology: Speech rhythms", in Eric Kellerman - Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.), 120-133. Wexler, Kenneth - M. Rita Manzini 1987 "Parameters and learnability in binding theory", in: Thomas Roeper - Edwin Williams (eds.), 41-76.

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White, Lydia 1985 "The acquisition of parameterized grammars: Subjacency in second language acquisition", Second Language Research 1: 1-17. 1989a "The principle of adjacency in second language acquisition: Do learners observe the Subset Principle?" in: Susan M. Gass Jacquelyn Schachter (eds.), 134-158. 1989b Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wiese, Richard 1991 "Was ist extrasilbisch im Deutschen und warum?" Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 10: 112-133. Yeni-Komshian, Grace H. - James F. Kavanagh - Charles A. Ferguson (eds.) 1980 Child phonology, Vol.1. New York: Academic Press. Young-Scholten, Martha 1991 Acquisition at the interface: The L2 acquisition of pronominal cliticization in German. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.] 1992 "The Subset Principle in interlanguage phonology: A preliminary investigation", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan R. James (eds.), 200217. 1993 The acquisition of prosodic structure in a second language. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Second language phonology Allan R. James

1.

Introduction

The study of second language phonology, i.e. the acquisition of new sound systems, has been a focus of interest since the beginnings of second language research. One obvious reason for this is the truism that the influence of a previously learnt language on a new language is most evident on the area of sounds or pronunciation. In Trubetzkoy's metaphor, the sounds of a new language are 'filtered' through the 'sieve' of the mother tongue (Trubetzkoy 1939 [1958]). And while it is certainly the case that pronunciation patterns from the first language (LI) are carried through into the production and perception of the second language (L2), especially in earlier stages of learning, a major task in the study of L2 phonology has been to investigate the conditions under which this is more, or less, likely to occur. Linked to this question is the general issue of what is universal and what is language-specific in the acquisition of new pronunciation patterns, but also of new sound systems in general. Indeed, L2 phonology has to differentiate the relative influence of structural (phonological), phonetic and sensori-motor (perception / production) factors in determining the course and form of second language development.

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This section aims to give a general introduction to L2 phonology, concentrating on the leading issues just mentioned, but also highlighting the current state of discussion in the field. However, before addressing some of the core research on the area, a number of preliminary observations and remarks need to be made concerning the general nature of the study of L2 phonology. 2.

Observational and descriptive preliminaries

In studying L2 phonology we need to know that acquiring the sound system of a new language involves developing knowledge and skills of different types associated with the different levels of sound structure themselves. There is more to acquiring a new sound system than developing a new set of pronunciation habits, for instance. Knowledge of the underlying regularities of the new system, i.e. of its phonology in the narrower sense of the word, is equally part of the learning task, as is the development of a phonetic system, or representation, which forms the link between the more abstract, system properties of sounds and their status as purely articulatory-perceptual complexes. In practice, much of L2 phonology research has concerned itself with sounds as phonetic entities, thereby unfortunately obscuring the complex interplay between the development of system knowledge of the L2 and the development of practical sensori-motor pronunciation skills necessary for the realization of new sounds and new sound patterns. In summary, then, acquiring new phones, new syllable types, new stress patterns, new intonation or tone patterns involves synthesizing the phonological, phonetic and articulatory / perceptual properties of these sound elements according to the norms of the L2. Both the influence of the sound structure of a previously learnt language as well as universal preferences in sound structure may be present at all or any of these different levels. A practical example may serve to illustrate some of these potential complexities. Acquiring the L2 English [Θ] as in thigh [Gai] involves, in terms of a traditional phonemic analysis, establishing the phonological status of the phone as the phoneme /Θ/, distinguished from other phonemes such as /t/ as in tie, /s/ as in sigh and / / as in thy by the phonological features [dental] and [voiceless], for example (other features could also be employed for illustration purposes). It equally involves establishing the combinatory, or phonotactic possibilities of the sound element. /Θ/ can occur singly or in combination with other consonant phonemes in syllable-initial and syllable-final position; in initial position, for example, it can only combine with /r/ as in through /θπι:/, with /j/ as in Matthew /mseGju/, and with /w/ as in thwart /0wa:t/. Learners of English who have no /Θ/ phoneme in their native language are likely to substitute an /s/, /t/ or /f/ for the L2 element, depending on the feature and phonemic system of their LI and the possible phonotactic parallels of those 'comparable' phonemes in the native

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language. The phoneme /Θ/ is in any case a typologically marked element (Maddieson 1984). However, the combinatory possibilities of the /Θ/ phoneme in initial position in English conform to universal preferences concerning consonant phoneme clusters, which have established that /6r-/, /6j-/ and /0w-/ combinations are preferred over, e.g., /θη-/ or /Θ1-/ clusters. Such preferences are based on what is known of cluster typology in the languages of the world (see Greenberg 1978) and on the sonority status of the constituent phonemes, which says that co-occurring consonant phonemes must differ sufficiently in their sonority values and which is the case with /9r-/, /9j-/ and /0w-/, but not with /θη-/ and /Θ1-/ (see Selkirk 1984). For L2 learning this might even mean that /Θ/ in clusters is less influenced by LI structures than the occurrence of /Θ/ singly. At the same time, however, the practical articulation and perception of the [Θ] has to be mastered. The motor coordination necessary for a target-like production of [Θ], involving the approach, hold and release of the tongue-tip relative to the upper front teeth, and this of course in different sound combinations, has equally to be learnt. So does the perceptual discrimination of [Θ], as opposed to [f] or [s] or even [t], have to be acquired in the L2, again singly and in combination with other sounds. Differential results have been found for the production and perception of dental fricatives with L2 learners of English (Nemser 1971). However, by and large, it may be concluded that whereas the production of L2 [Θ] is likely to be mastered in clusters before in single position, perception may follow the opposite path (Wieden - Nemser 1991). What one can deduce from the above is that the norm in L2 sound acquisition is not only that the development of articulatory and perceptual abilities proceeds out of phase, but also that the development of phonological and pronunciation capacities unfold quasi-independently of each other, and indeed may at certain stages of learning be directly contradictory. The establishment of the phonetic structure, or representation, of the phones of the L2, however, serves to mediate between the developing phonological and articulatory / perceptual properties of the new sounds. While in a phonological analysis the phoneme /Θ/ in English may be distinguished solely by the features [dental] and [voiceless] (see above), its property of being a fricative sound, although irrelevant for its definition as a member of a phonemic system, is of course necessary for its actual pronunciation. The phonetic specification for /Θ/ in English, then, must include a feature [fricative] in addition to the phonologically derived features of [dental] and [voiceless]. The combination of these properties then forms the basis for the implementation of [Θ] as an articulatory / perceptual entity in the L2. Conversely, as articulatory and perceptual skills develop in the L2, the sensori-motor representations of the [Θ] also serve to shape and refine its phonetic structure, and via this its phonological specification.

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Substitutions for the [Θ] in the L2 can result from a phonological and/or sensori-motor misinterpretation of the defining phonetic features of the phone according to LI norms. For example, a learner of English whose LI has dental [t] and alveolar [s] might associate the [dental] and [voiceless] features of the target phone phonologically with his own /t/, and the [voiceless] and [fricative] features articulatorily and perceptually with his own [s] or even [f], if present in the LI. However, here, too, universal tendencies of sound structure, in this case phonetic structure, can play a role in a learner's selective misinterpretation of the target [Θ]. Typologically in the languages of the world, the combination of [dental] and [voiceless] is more likely to define a [t], and [fricative] and [voiceless] an [s] (Maddieson 1984). We see, then, that the acquisition of an L2 phonology is a complex matter, involving the development of a number of different levels of sound structure and their associated intra- and inter-relationships. However, given these observations and assumptions on L2 speech acquisition, crucial to our further understanding of the development of new sound systems are answers to the following questions: 1. Exactly which sound units form the basis for learning and the basis for association with 'equivalent' or 'non-equivalent' properties of the LI and/or with universally preferred sound patterning? 2. Exactly which sound properties of these units lend themselves to these kinds of association? and 3. Exactly which strategies of association and learning does the learner employ in acquiring new sound structures? A fourth question might be added: How are answers to the above to be theoretically motivated? For the explanation of these issues, answers in the research to all three questions have drawn on both theories of sound structure and theories of (sound) learning. In the following sections these questions will be frequently returned to in the light of attempts to address them from a number of descriptive and theoretical perspectives. 3.

LI influence and its relation to universal-typological factors

Mention has been made already of ways in which the sound system of a language previously learnt may affect the realization of the L2 at various levels of structure. However, it has also been indicated that this influence is differentiated and selective. Research has shown that certain structural and contextual conditions in learning may favour or disfavour LI influence. Moreover, the whole concept of LI influence in L2 speech learning (i.e.,

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transfer) has been subjected to re-definition and re-evaluation over recent years. For example, do we mean by LI influence or transfer in L2 acquisition the product or process effects of a previously learnt sound system on the development of a new one? These points will now be discussed in the following sections. 3.1.

Transfer

Hammarberg (1990) offers three definitions of transfer in L2 phonology: a) as a strategy, "with regard to the learner's plan of action to solve a particular problem in acquiring some phonological regularity in the L2"; b) as a process, "with regard to the event or act of transferring something"; and c) as a solution, "with regard to the product [...] of the applied strategy and the occurred process" (1990: 198-199). These three interpretations of the notion of transfer are of course equally applicable to other than phonological domains of L2 learning. However, in L2 phonology the notion and role of transfer as strategy, process or solution is necessarily more complex, since realizing the sound structure of an L2 involves not just giving the system some form, but actually manifesting it in physical substance, subject to the constraints of real-time articulation and perception. In other words, any theory of LI influence in L2 phonology must make contact with general theories of speech production and perception, of speech processing and of language performance in a way that theories of LI influence in, for example, syntax, lexis or morphology do not have to. Also, from a learner perspective, transfer effects in the phonological sphere are, arguably, implemented at a lower level of consciousness than equivalent effects in the syntactic, lexical or morphological domains. As was pointed out in section 2 above, LI transfer (as strategy, process and solution) can occur at phonological, phonetic and sensori-motor levels of sound structure; at which level, for example, do we interpret a French learner of English's [s] substitution for target [Θ] in *[sri:], three! In order to establish from learner performance at what level LI effects are operative, certain methodological and theoretical procedures have to be followed. Methodologically, for example, evidence for LI influence in the purely phonological domain can be deduced from decision tasks as to the grammaticality or acceptability of L2 sound structures produced in various formats; whereas evidence for similar influence on a purely sensori-motor level can be deduced from actual perception and production tasks employing nonexistent but theoretically possible sound structures of the L2. Theoretically, the descriptive framework chosen for analysing sound structure in practice of course circumscribes the methodology employed, although it must be said that in the past research on L2 phonology has not been entirely consistent in this respect. In

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fact, much research has until recently employed uncontrolled naturalistic data with essentially ad hoc frameworks of analysis. Returning to the nature of transfer itself, the multiple definition of Hammarberg above assumes a problem-solving, or cognitive theory of L2 phonological learning. Indeed, it is this general conception of L2 phonological acquisition that has, more implicitly than explicitly, informed much research in the field. The adoption of cognitive theories of L2 phonological acquisition, in the wake of similar developments in the study of LI phonological acquisition (see, e.g., Macken - Ferguson 1983), must be seen as a direct reaction against the predominantly behaviourist models of sound learning prevalent in the 1960s and early 1970s. Such models were associated with contrastive analyses of source and target languages which were expressed in terms of phonemic theory and had as their overt aim the betterment of foreign language teaching (representative for research in this paradigm is, e.g., Moulton 1972). In the simplest terms, the model for learning adopted assumed that the acquisition of a new phonology was a matter of gradually replacing old (i.e. LI) pronunciation habits by new ones by associating a new set of stimuli (the L2 sounds) with a new set of responses (attempts at the L2 sounds). Stimuli in the L2 which were identical to those in the LI were assumed to elicit correct responses; those which were different in the L2 were assumed to cause learning problems via proactive interference from LI habits (for an expose of this model, see Briere 1968). In hindsight, it seems paradoxical that behaviourist theories were employed to explain transfer and non-transfer effects on the strictly phonological or phonemic level of the L2, whereas such Stimulus-Response habit formation models of learning would seem in the first place to be more appropriate to the skill level of sound realization, i.e. to the actual articulation and perception of the L2. Cognitive theories of transfer, on the other hand, attribute a much more active role to the learner in L2 acquisition. He has the 'choice' to draw on linguistic knowledge and/or skills of his LI to 'solve' a particular realization problem in the sound system of the L2, thereby using LI transfer as a strategy, process and solution in Hammarberg's terms. Drawing on the phonological resources of the LI is one means by which a problem may be solved; others include drawing on the already learnt resources of the L2 itself via so-called generalization. However, is this model applicable to all levels of L2 sound learning? In practice, research on L2 phonological acquisition overtly employing hypothesis-testing / cognitive theories of learning have restricted their attention to the phonetic or surface phonological level of sound structure (Tarone 1980; Hammarberg 1988). In the sense that the establishment of the phonetic level of sound structure involves a matching of underlying phonological properties with actual articulatory and perceptual patterns of realization, might it not be that in

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L2 learning this general model of problem-solving and matching is, after all, particularly appropriate to the phonetic level of L2 sound acquisition? This having been said, however, it is still not clear in such approaches a) under which conditions, structural / linguistic or otherwise, such matchings take place, and b) how cognitive models of learning may be integrated with linguistic descriptions and theories of L2 phonology. Similar criticisms could of course be levelled at the behaviourist theory of phonological learning already outlined. And although both cognitive and behaviourist notions of L2 sound learning provide us with partial answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 in section 2 above, doubts remain as to the processing reality of cross-linguistic phonological, phonetic and articulatory / perceptual description. Is there, in other words, such a thing as phonological, phonetic or articulatory / perceptual processing in L2 sound acquisition involving LI and other structural influence and which can be specified in linguistic terms? Or must all theories of L2 sound learning draw on essentially ad hoc non-linguistic explanations to account for the processing dimension of the task? These issues will be addressed again in section 4 below. 3.2.

Selective LI influence

It has been noted above (section 3) that LI transfer effects are differentiated and selective. It is not the case, even at beginning stages of learning, that the sound structures of the LI are omnipresent in the realization of the L2. But why is this so, over and above the considerations discussed in the previous sub-section? A number of conditions for, or constraints on, the differential influence of the LI in L2 learning have been proposed. Such conditions may be a) structural, i.e. having to do with the nature of the two sound systems in contact; b) contextual, i.e. pertaining to i) the actual linguistic context in the L2 of the elements under investigation, and ii) the learning context in which the L2 structures are realized; c) personal, i.e. involving the social psychological make-up of the learner against the background of the particular L2-learning community, and of course his biological status; and d) psycholinguistic, i.e. having reference to the nature of L2 sound learning itself, assuming one or other theory of language learning and processing. In practice, in L2 phonological research most attention has been given to a) and b), and relatively little to c) and d), reflecting the relative state of development of theoretical approaches to the different areas. These conditions and constraints on LI transfer will now be discussed in the following.

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Structural constraints

Structural constraints on LI transfer in L2 phonology were in modern times first formulated in terms of contrastive analysis (see also 3.1 above). Those sound elements of the L2 that were phonologically different to those of the LI were predicted to cause difficulty in acquisition, whereby LI interference was then expected; those which were the same or similar were deemed to be easy to acquire (for a statement of this standpoint together with a contrastively based phonological 'hierarchy of difficulty' for LI English speakers learning L2 Spanish, see Stockwell - Bowen 1965). However, bearing in mind that contrastive phonology of the time employed surface phonemes and allophones as the primes of description and that the learning theory employed, sometimes more implicitly than explicitly, was a behaviourist one (see 3.1 above), it was perhaps not surprising that larger-scale empirical research showed that these predictions were not borne out in practice (Whitman 1970; Nemser 1971). With the demise of contrastive phonology as a predictive means for explaining LI transfer effects, subsequent research on structural constraints took two directions. Establishing whether L2 sounds were the 'same' or 'different' to those of the LI was increasingly seen to involve a) learners' own (variable) perceptions of the equivalence status of L2 and LI sounds, and b) typological properties of the sound systems in contact. Concerning a), while it might be imagined that research into learners' perceptions of L2-L1 equivalence might be founded on psycholinguistic or processing theories of sound association, this has not been the case. Indeed, learner judgements as to the same / different status of L2 phones with regard to LI phones has continued to be interpreted as directly dependent on the physical substance of the sound elements in question. Wode (1978, 1981), for example, looking at the acquisition of English by German speakers, observed that the substitution of an L2 phone by one of the LI in second language learning is dependent on a crucial similarity measure obtaining between the potentially equivalent L2 and LI sounds. Thus transfer only occurs when phones show substantive similarities (but not necessarily total 'sameness'), such as the L2 English [ae] as in fat and the LI German [e] as in fett. In situations where this is not the case, e.g., as with English [o:] in raw and German [o:] in roh, the substitutions that are made are purely perceptually based, as is evidenced in early child LI phonology — e.g., [w] for [j] in English (Ingram 1976). On the same topic, Flege and his associates (e.g., Bonn - Flege 1990; Flege 1985, 1987, 1990, 1992; Flege - Eefting 1986) have shown in a large number of experimental studies of learner sound production and perception involving various L2/L1 pairings, that the phonetic distance status of the relevant phones provides a reliable predictor of LI transfer effects. Whereas a 'new' phone in

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the L2 is shown to be masterable in acquisition, 'similar' phones are consistently produced and perceived with non-target values (under the influence of LI transfer). 'Identical' L2-L1 phones, on the other hand, provide little problem in acquisition. Quantitative specifications of the acoustic properties of such phones (e.g., voice onset time for stops, fonnant values for vowels) form the basis for establishing these categorization types. However, in all these studies there remains the question as to the processing reality of the phonic substance of L2 and LI sound elements, especially given the learner's changing perception of what is 'new', 'similar' or 'different'. In contrast, research relating to b) above, i.e. on typological determinants of L2-L1 equivalence judgements, has by definition denied any processing dimension of such comparisons and has concentrated instead on purely phonetic / phonological properties of the phones or phone types in question within the framework of what is more, or less, likely in the sound systems of the world's languages. Differential LI transfer effects in the L2 are the product of typological properties of the L2 and LI in contrast rather than simply of the substantive nature of their respective phones. Eckman (1977), for example, developed a Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) to predict areas of difficulty that a learner will have with the phonological system of an L2. Such areas of difficulty have to do with the structural differences between L2 and LI only inasmuch as such differences are compounded, as it were, by the different elements of the L2 being more typologically marked than those of the LI. To give a concrete example, a Dutch learner of English will find the word-final obstruent voicing contrast (bat vs. bad, loose vs. lose, batch vs. badge, etc.) difficult not just because Dutch lacks this contrast, but because such, contrasts are typologically marked generally. However, the MDH has received criticism on the grounds that the predictions it makes are not borne out in actual learner productions (e.g., Altenberg - Vago 1983; Stockman - Pluut 1992) and that the concept of phonological markedness is defined too broadly (James 1988). In particular, Hammarberg (1988, 1990) has shown with LI German/L2 Swedish data that L1-L2 phonological contrast and degree of typological markedness operate independently to determine the degree of LI influence in L2 sound acquisition. He has also shown that it is the typological markedness values within the L2 itself that co-determine the extent of transfer in learner phonological performance. Nevertheless, other research on syllable structure has demonstrated that it is only those sounds and sound combinations in the L2 which do not exist in the LI that are subject to difficulty / substitution effects on the basis of their relative degree of markedness. Tropf (1983, 1987), in a longitudinal study of the acquisition of German by Spanish speakers, concludes that with syllable structure the order of acquisition proceeds according to the sonority values of the (L2) constituent phonemes, such that more sonorous segments, e.g. vowels in nuclear

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position, are acquired before less sonorous segments, e.g. the consonants in syllable onsets and codas. If, however, the L2 (German) shares similar segments in similar syllable structures to the LI (Spanish), this general pattern no longer obtains. Carlisle (1992) shows that with Spanish speaking learners of English there is a strong tendency in the realization of the L2 syllable initial clusters /si-/ as in slow, /sN-/ (i.e., /sm-/ as in smell, /sn-/ as in snail), and /st-/ as in stand for fewer LI transfer effects to occur with the typologically less marked /si-/ than with the more marked /sN-/ and /st-/. With syllable-final consonant clusters, however, the situation is somewhat more differentiated. In a number of studies in the 1980s (e.g., Tarone 1980; Greenberg 1983; Sato 1984) examining the L2 English realizations of speakers of different L Is, it is concluded that influence from the LI is stronger than any typological effects in determining the substitutions made. Thus, even if the LI in question does not permit syllable-final clusters (e.g. Cantonese, Japanese and Vietnamese) then in most cases some (LI) consonant segment is produced to close the syllable, thereby denying any universal typological preference for open CV syllables. On the other hand, Eckman (1987, 1991) shows that Cantonese-, Japanese- and Korean-speaking learners of English do reduce final consonant clusters according to general typological norms. They are, in fact, reduced from more marked to less marked forms; for example, clusters with two fricatives and a stop as in asks will be reduced to clusters with a fricative and a stop *[aks], rather than to two fricatives *[ass]. It seems, then, that as far as closed syllables in the L2 are concerned, and specifically as monosyllabic words, whereas typological markedness considerations might explain the types of final consonant reduction found, there seems to be other pressure to maintain a coda of some sort. The form of the actual consonant (cluster) then produced in the L2 is likely to show LI effects to the extent that the LI has similar consonants in its inventory. These observations have been given a theoretical interpretation by Weinberger (1987). In a study of the production of L2 English final consonant clusters by LI speakers of Mandarin, he concludes that it is the degree of phonological recoverability of the lexical item in question that determines whether problematic L2 English final consonant structures are resolved by the learner via the syllable simplification strategy of vowel epenthesis or consonant deletion, both strategies being subject to LI structural influence. Phonological recoverability in this context refers to the ability of a speaker to deduce an underlying phonological representation from a given surface structure. Whereas vowel epenthesis enhances the recoverability of the item (e.g. one of Weinberger's examples is Mandarin *[biga] for English big), consonant deletion reduces it (e.g. *[bi] for big); vowel epenthesis maintains L2 syllable structure, whereas consonant deletion destroys it. The leading idea behind these notions is

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that in adult L2 phonology, as opposed to early child LI phonology, for example, there is a constraint on maintaining the sound shape of (monosyllabic) words in a recognizable form (for further discussion, see 4.3 below). The picture concerning structural constraints on LI influence in L2 phonology is that the area is clearly open to further study. Systematic research has only looked at individual segment types and syllable structure, has interpreted the L2 phones variously as phonetic and phonological entities, and has employed different methodologies and assumptions in the analysis. Evidence for the relative influence of LI vs. typological effects on L2 phonological learning is still, therefore, largely ambivalent. 5.2.2.

Constraints of the linguistic context

It is a matter of common observation in L2 phonology that the effects of LI transfer vary according to the linguistic context in which target phones occur. Thus, all things being equal, the substitution for an L2 English /δ/ as in this is more likely to be a stop [d] (or [t]) hi syllable-initial position and a fricative [z] (or [s]) in syllable-final position (James 1984, 1986). Such differential substitutions may be accounted for phonologically with reference to typological or 'natural' arguments to the effect that, across the board, stops are more likely to occur hi syllable-initial position and fricatives in final position. In syllableinitial position stops instantiate strengthening orfortition processes; in syllablefinal position fricatives instantiate weakening or lenition processes (for typological arguments, see, e.g., Lass 1984; and for 'natural' arguments, see, e.g., Dressier 1984). However, most research on this area has been concerned with establishing the purely correlational, rather than truly explanatory, effects of linguistic context on differential LI structural influence. Dickerson (1975), for example, argued that LI-influenced substitutions by Japanese learners for L2 English [z] decreased as a function of the phonetic context of the sound in L2. There was least LI influence with [z] prevocalically and most with [z] before dental and alveolar obstruents (e.g. [θ δ s z t/03]. This is perhaps not surprising, since Japanese allows [z] hi the first context but not in the second. Other research on the acquisition of English dental fricatives by French-speaking learners (Gatbonton 1978; Wenk 1979) has shown that Ll-influenced substitutions (e.g. [s] and [z]) are more likely to occur in certain contexts than others. By and large, it is concluded that prevocalic contexts are more conducive to target-like [Θ] and [δ] pronunciations than any other. In a more theoretical-phonological account of contextual effects on LI transfer, James (1986) has argued that the degree of prominence or headship of the phonological context of an L2 phone is responsible for the type of LI influence/universal influence shown hi its realization. Thus, substitutions for L2

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English /o/, for example, by Dutch learners may be LI-influenced to the extent that the LI allows certain comparable phones to occur in comparable positions of prominence, subject to typological preferences for what phone types are more, or less, likely to occur in such positions. As learning progresses, the influence of both LI and universal positional preferences diminishes (in terms of natural phonology, Ll-derived rules and universal 'natural' processes lose their effect). In summary, one may conclude that while there are obvious indications that linguistic context plays a role in determining the degree of LI structural influence (or universal influence) in L2 phonological production, these conditions still need to be further investigated. In particular, one would like to know what the exact articulatory, phonetic and phonological contextual effects are, both separately and in combination. 3.2.3.

Constraints of the learning context

Perhaps the most obvious difference in learning context that one thinks of as influencing the degree of LI transfer in L2 phonological learning is that of guided or classroom vs. unguided or naturalistic situations. However, although studies on L2 phonology have analysed data from both types of context, as yet no conclusions have been drawn regarding their significance in affecting sound learning. Research into the learning context has been largely concerned with the influence of different tasks demanded of the learner on the form of the L2 phonology produced. In general, it has been concluded that the more 'formal' the task engaged in, the more target-like (and less LI-influenced) the L2 phonological realization will be. Thus a number of studies investigating the phonological performance of L2 learners of English of various LI backgrounds have shown that in word-reading tasks (i.e. the most formal task as opposed to the less formal dialogue- / sentence-reading and least formal free conversation tasks) the least influence is noticed of LI structure (e.g., Nemser 1971 for LI Hungarian / L2 English; Dickerson - Dickerson 1977 for Japanese / English; Wenk 1982 for French / English; Sato 1985 for Vietnamese / English). However, the less opportunity for pronunciation control and monitoring the task type allows, the greater becomes the likelihood of non-target realizations and LI influence (although for critical view of this general conclusion see Tarone 1983). Findings on the influence of learning context have therefore been rather limited, and although much more study is required for a better understanding of this factor, it seems that is articulatory control itself (rather than, say, phonological knowledge) that is subject to variation in such conditions.

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Other constraints

As has been pointed out above (3.2), research has also been carried out into a number of other constraints on L2 phonological learning and the LI / universal influences therein. However, not all can be reviewed here. Suffice it to repeat that research both on personal and psycholinguistic factors has been underrepresented in the field, although within the former the study of biological factors (particularly age) has traditionally attracted more attention. Clearly, the social status of the L2 in question with regard to the LI must have an important influence on pronunciation attainment, as do the attitudes learners have towards the target language and the attitudes the target language community has towards foreign pronunciations or accents in general for that matter. Pronunciation is in this respect a particularly sensitive area of L2 proficiency. In general, one can conclude that the more positive the learner attitude is, the greater the learning motivation and empathy the learner has towards the target culture and language, the greater will be the success and the less LI pronunciation influence will be evident (for reviews of work on this area, see Zuengler 1988; and Leather - James 1991). As far as biological constraints are concerned, despite a research interest that stretches over decades, the situation concerning the effects of age on L2 pronunciation learning is still far from clear. The common view that the ability to acquire the sounds of an L2 decreases at the onset of puberty has received some support in the literature, at least as far as the development of articulatory and perceptual capacities is concerned. Concerning the development of knowledge of an L2 phonological system, however, it might be argued that adults share an advantage over children, since they are able to apply maturer cognitive capacities to the establishing of underlying relations between sounds. But even with articulatory and perceptual abilities, adult learners are not always at a disadvantage. It has been shown, for instance, that in early stages of L2 pronunciation learning, adults make more rapid progress than children (Snow Hoefnagel-Höhle 1977). The argument which supports the Joseph Conrad syndrome, i.e. that postpubertal learners rarely, if ever, can achieve a native-like pronunciation in the second language, rests largely on the critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg 1967). Liberalization of cortex function occurring around puberty inhibits subsequent attempts at mastery of the sound patterns of a new language (Scovel 1988). However, at least as far as sound discrimination abilities in the L2 are concerned, it would seem that poorer performance by adults as opposed to children is to be ascribed to the fact that older learners tend to process the signal linguistically in terms of their LI auditory / acoustic patterns, whereas younger learners are more capable of auditory processing of the signal without reference to already developed LI linguistic patterns (for empirical evidence, see Wieden -

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Nemser 1991). Whether this may be interpreted as evidence for an absolute loss or deterioration of perceptual abilities with post-pubertal learners is still a matter of debate. Finally, with psycholinguistic constraints on LI transfer and phonological learning, much has been said already above (3.1) concerning the effect of different learning processes on L2 acquisition. Reference has been made to the earlier behaviourist interpretation of sound learning, to more cognitive interpretations of the learning task where transfer is seen as one of a number of 'strategies' which may be employed to 'solve' a realization problem in the L2, and to neo-behaviourist accounts of sound learning which employ the L2-L1 similarity status of target phones as perceived by the learner to account for differential substitution effects (3.2.1). Likewise, it has been pointed out that all these theoretical conceptions of L2 phonological learning are in need of further refinement. Such refinement could take the form of more sophisticated experimental control procedures, but also a more explicit definition of their status with regard to linguistic, specifically phonological, theory. The relationship, for example, between process and structure in the phonological domain, generally as well as in L2 learning, remains a problematic one (see also 3.1 above) and will be taken up again in the following section. 4.

From typology to theory

As has been seen above, much research into L2 sound learning has been concerned with investigating the relative influence of typological-universal factors with regard to LI structural influence. Over and above this specific interest in typological factors shaping sound realization, one may conclude that also in general much of the approach to L2 phonology has been typological rather than strictly theoretical in orientation. After all, also theories of sound learning which employ notions such as the 'new'/'similar'/'same' status of L2 phones (Flege, see above) or even 'problematic/'non-problematic' (Hammarberg, see above) are, in the final analysis, typological in character. However, how far does a typological approach bring us in our understanding of L2 phonological acquisition? We have seen that typological constraints are an inherent 'corrective' to LI influence in various sound structures. While there are, undoubtedly, typologically preferred or unmarked segments, segment combinations and syllable types which play a role in L2 sound acquisition, the status and significance of these typological preferences must, ultimately, be integrated in an overall theory of L2 phonology. Let us first review some of the major findings on universal-typological factors in sound learning.

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Typology in L2 phonology

Typological arguments concerning the phonological form of learner speech have made reference to sets of universal preferences obtaining in i) the languages of the world in general (see 3.2.1 above) and ii) child phonology, specifically early child phonology. These factors will now discussed individually. 4.1.1.

Universal typology in L2 phonology

Arguments concerning universal structural preferences in phonology have been put forward to account for preferred segment and syllable types produced in the L2 which override under certain conditions any structural influence of the LI (3.2.1). However, apart from the fact that such elements are often indeterminate as to the inherent articulatory / phonetic vs. phonological status of such preferences (again see 3.2.1 above), under what assumptions does one accord these influences a role in L2 sound realization? Is it, e.g., the case that an L2 learner comes to the task with a predetermined set of sound preferences that is somehow anchored in a theory of universal sound structure? And if so, is knowledge of this universal sound structure somehow imputed to the learner as part of his phonological potential or competence? Or is the influence or whole concept of typologically preferred sound structure as found in stable, codified, native speaker sound systems at all applicable to the variable, uncodified, nonnative speaker phonologies that L2 learners manifest? Eckman (1984, 1991), for example, argues that the surface form of developing L2 phonological systems does not violate universal restrictions on what are possible native language sound structures. One does not find any marked phonotactics in syllable structure, for instance (3.2.1 above). However, do such restrictions go beyond the structures inherent in the LI s and L2s involved? Singh (1991) proposes that non-target phonotactics in interphonology may be explained in terms of repair strategies which the learner employs in adjusting the target input to the well-formedness conditions obtaining in the developing L2 and which to a large extent are determined by LI norms. Broselow (1983, 1984) adduces similar arguments to explain the syllabification of L2 English phonological strings by LI Arabic speakers. What role is therefore left for universal typological restrictions on phonological form over and above those embodied in the learner's LI itself? In practice, of course, establishing from uncontrolled learner data whether a particular L2 segment or segment combination is evidence for a universal preference or LI influence is difficult. This is the problem of so-called multiple (or at least dual) structural motivation. With reference to the discussion in 3.2.1 above, especially of Eckman's (1977) Markedness Differential Hypothesis; is the substitution of L2 English word-final [d] as in bed by [t], as found with LI

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Dutch and German speakers, to be interpreted as an instance of LI transfer (the LI s have no word-final voiced obstruents) or of universal preference (such that voiced obstruents in word- / syllable-final position are typologically marked)? We may deduce from the present discussion that the problems concerning the position of universal typology in L2 phonology are both methodological and theoretical. They are methodological in a practical sense in that a watertight means of establishing from learner data what constitutes evidence for universal vs. LI influence still has to be developed, and methodological in a more general sense in that much analysis has confused the type vs. token status of the phones and phone combinations investigated. Moreover, as referred to already above, there remains the theoretical problem of interpreting universal factors within a linguistic model of (L2) phonological acquisition. 4.1.2.

Child language typology in L2 phonology

Arguments concerning the influence of child language typology have been employed in studies which address the developmental dimensions of L2 phonological learning. The leading idea behind such approaches is that developmental processes, i.e. characteristic sound processes found in (earlier) child phonology, influence the emerging L2 system in those structures where LI influence or transfer processes are absent. Developmental processes and transfer processes are seen as competing influences shaping L2 phonology and are present to different degrees according to i) the L2-L1 similarity status of interlanguage segments and types of L2 phones in question, and ii) the stage of acquisition the learner is at. Concerning i), Wode (1978, 1981) for example has claimed that, at least with pre-pubertal L2 learners, if no similarity measure is established by the learner between a given target phone and a possible LI equivalent, then developmental processes take over and the phone is acquired in the way that young children (of two years to four) would acquire such a phone in a native language (see also 3.2.1 above). What this means, amongst other things, is that the phone is processed acoustically or phonetically and not linguistically (for further evidence of the acoustic processing of L2 sounds by pre-pubertal learners, see Wieden Nemser 1991). However, Hecht - Mulford (1982), in a study of a 6 year old Icelandic speaker's acquisition of English, conclude that in general while transfer processes predominate in the production of vowels, developmental processes predominate with target affricates and fricatives. Almost conversely, Johannson (1973) noted with beginning and post-beginning adult learners of L2 Swedish of various LI backgrounds that it was the vowels above all that were subject to substitutions reminiscent of earlier child phonology. The picture concerning the

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influence of developmental processes / child language phonology on the typology of L2 sound learning is at the moment, therefore, far from clear. With regard to ii) above, i.e. the correlation of developmental vs. transfer processes with level of L2 learning, Major (1986) has proposed an Ontogeny Model to account for the relative influence of these two processes in shaping L2 phonology over time. On the basis of a study of the acquisition of Spanish [r] by LI English speakers, he suggests that LI influence (transfer) shows an absolute decrease over time, whereas developmental processes first increase and decrease in influence as acquisition proceeds. While on the basis of the evidence provided, this is indeed a plausible interpretation of the influences at work in determining the course of acquisition of the L2 Spanish [r], much more evidence needs to be assembled to support this model (although, see, e.g., Major 1992). Again here, one is confronted with the basic problem of decoding which phonological forms constitute evidence for developmental vs. transfer processes (see the problem of multiple structural motivation discussed in 4.1.1 above). More importantly, though, the notions of transfer and developmental processes have to be explicitly defined and anchored within an overall theory of phonological learning (again see the discussion in 4.1.1). Accepting that developmental processes play a role in L2 phonology, what exactly are they? Do they include very early child phonological processes such as the fronting of syllable-initial consonants or the stopping of fricatives (see Ingram 1976)? Or are they confined to the kind of syllable shape processes that have been discussed above (3.2.1) and which characterize somewhat later development (e.g., final consonant (cluster) epenthesis or reduction)? Are these 'processes' or simply a set of well-formedness conditions on interphonology (Singh 1991)? Are they the 'same' processes that are posited in Natural Phonology (Stampe 1973; Dressier 1984; also Major 1987) or in typological phonology (Greenberg 1978)? What assumptions underlie their presence in L2 phonological acquisition? Is there, for example, the assumption of some underlying basic phonological capacity, as is exemplified in the phonology of child systems and/or in typologically preferred systems as found in the world's languages, and which still emerges as a constraint on the form that interphonologies can take? And if so, is this biologically determined in any way? These remain largely open questions in much research on L2 phonology, but it is only by confronting these problems within a coherent theoretical framework that one can hope to come to a deeper understanding of the typological restrictions obtaining in L2 phonological acquisition. Some of these issues will again be raised in the following sections.

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Typology and theory

Much has been said already regarding the theoretical and methodological problems with typological approaches to L2 phonology. There have been, however, some recent attempts to interpret typological findings within a more general linguistic theory of L2 phonological learning. If it is assumed on the basis of evidence from at least earlier stages of L2 learning that universal and/or child language structures and processes play a significant role in shaping interphonologies, then it must be the case, surely, that the L2 learner brings some kind of knowledge or capacity of phonological structure to the task which he has gained via the acquisition of his native language. One might argue that this is not the same knowledge as that of the mature LI structure itself, but rather a knowledge developed, perhaps via predisposition, but in any case given form by the acquisition of his native language sound structure as a child. However, such knowledge is not only of preferred phones and phone combinations - which may be ultimately articulatorily / perceptually determined - but also of, for example, the phonological robustness or integrity of the (monosyllabic) lexical item (see also 3.2.1 above). Word forms in the L2 must be somehow phonologically complete, and evidence for this has been furnished by various studies on syllable-final consonant structures in L2 production, as discussed in 3.2.1 above. Whereas final consonant clusters may be reduced in the L2, following general typological norms (Eckman 1987), single consonants are preferably maintained but may be followed by an epenthetic vowel - essentially a vocalic offglide (Weinberger 1987). Both 'solutions' by the L2 learner, however, serve to maintain the recognizability of the word form by keeping its CVC(C) syllable structure intact. Alternative solutions to resolve production difficulties would impair the recognizability of such syllables as lexical items; e.g., vowel epenthesis to split up a 'difficult' L2 final consonant cluster might create a phonologically possible bisyllabic word and hence lexical confusion, and deletion of a final single consonant in a monosyllabic item would equally lead to problems in the lexical interpretation of the word. Arguably, with the simplification of syllable-//«'//*// consonant clusters in the L2, the use of vowel epenthesis, e.g. *[tarai] for L2 English try has less effect on the transparency or recognizability of the word than consonant deletion such as *[tai], although initial consonant clusters in L2 acquisition have not been systematically investigated in this respect. As far as syllable-initial single consonants are concerned, there is no evidence from the L2 phonology literature to suggest that they are deleted, even when the consonants do not have any direct 'equivalent' phones in the LI.

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The point emerging from these observations is that maintenance of the phonological transparency of (monosyllabic) words may indeed constitute evidence for another kind of linguistic knowledge than that of phone types or possible syllable phonotactics which the L2 learner possesses. Weinberger (1994) has termed this functional knowledge and accorded it equal status to what he terms phonetic knowledge (of sounds and syllables) as forming part of the capacity for phonological learning (in his terms, 'universal grammar'). Functional knowledge, operationalized via the phonological principle of recoverability (see 3.2.1 above), constitutes the capacity to ensure that (monosyllabic) word forms remain recognizable in production. It is a capacity that develops in child language acquisition, and one which is at a particular stage of LI learning in direct conflict with phonetic knowledge in determining the phonological shape of emerging words (Weinberger 1994). Arguments such as these are reminiscent of some of the basic tenets of Natural Phonology (Stampe 1973; Dressier 1984) which say that sound systems are the product of the competing influences of pronounceability (= here, phonetic knowledge) and perceptibility (= here, functional knowledge). Be this as it may, with this model Weinberger offers a plausible interpretation of the role of typologically preferred phonological processes within an overall conception of the L2 learning capacity. Whether functional knowledge as it is conceived of here is in essence a different kind of phonological capacity to phonetic knowledge remains to be seen in further research on the area. James (1988), for example, claims that the segment and word, established as basic phonological units via LI acquisition, form the heuristic units in L2 phonological learning which serve as starting points for the further development of, respectively, general phonological structure within the syllable and general phonological structure beyond the word (phrase, clause, sentence, etc.). 4.3.

Theory

In much of the discussion so far on L2 phonology, it may be noted that there remains a largely unresolved tension between the structure of developing sound systems and the processes that shape them. We have seen that structural analyses of interphonologies are often accompanied by essentially ad hoc analyses of the processes assumed to be of influence in shaping them (whether typological / structural or psycholinguistic in nature). On the other hand, one may also note that those accounts of L2 phonology which concentrate on the process element involved (transfer influence, similarity judgements, etc.) employ essentially ad hoc structural description. Already in the discussion above (e.g., 4.1.1, 4.1.2) it has been indicated that further progress in the area can only ideally be brought about by synthesizing structural and process observations within an overall linguistic theory of sound learning. In addition, the role of the LI in L2

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phonological learning ideally needs to be interpreted in the context of a general theory of the sound learning capacity. In recent years this challenge has been taken up with the adoption of Universal Grammar (UG)-based theories of phonology. Since UG offers a theory of the human language (learning) capacity, also as it is manifested in sound learning, in that it is argued that such a capacity / competence emerges in child language acquisition given a normal input / 'triggering' environment, it is of fundamental relevance for our understanding of L2 phonological acquisition whether this capacity is still present or available in the learning of so-called non-primary languages. Phonological competence is subject to universal (structural) principles, on the one hand, and the setting of language-specific parameters (roughly, typological choices) on the other. Interesting questions are, therefore, a) whether L2 phonological acquisition manifests similar principles to LI learning, and b) to what extent parameter settings necessary for the L2 are dependent on those already made for the LI. Ultimately, one wishes to find out via this approach to what extent L2 learners have access to UG in phonological learning and to what extent parameters are set in the L2 according to universal markedness considerations familiar from LI and/or according to markedness values obtaining in the L2 compared to the LI. Perhaps paradoxically, this kind of theory of UG as applied to phonological acquisition, does not contain an explicit learning component. Rather, the question in much recent work is as to the learnability of languages, specifically grammars (Wexler - Culicover 1980; Archibald 1993). Whereas parameter-setting is seen as an abstract, theoretically-conditioned system of choices (i.e., independent of any 'process' of choosing involved and certainly not in any literal learning sense), the learnability criterion for grammars (here, phonological grammars) is equally an abstract notion pertaining to the theoretical possibility of learning, given a particular structure of the (phonological) grammar itself. As far as L2 phonology is concerned, a number of studies have recently investigated the role of principles and parameters in learning. Archibald (1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1993) has looked at the degree to which metrical parameter settings (Dresher - Kaye 1990), i.e. pertaining to word stress patterns, are taken over from the LI in L2 production and perception tasks. Examining the L2 English data of Polish, Hungarian and Spanish learners, he concludes that while there is evidence of LI parameter transfer, adults are nonetheless capable of resetting metrical parameters in the L2. On the relation of principles to parameters in L2 phonological learning, K10ve (1992) shows with Cantonese-speaking learners of Norwegian that while the Maximality Principle of Syllabification (Itö 1989), i.e. the domain within which segments are assigned to syllables, is observed, the parameter of directionality of syllabification is maintained in its LI setting (i.e. right to left as in Cantonese). Other representative work on L2

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phonology within the UG paradigm can be found in Young-Scholten (1990, 1992, 1993) on re-syllabification domains in the acquisition of English by German speakers (for fuller discussion of work on this area, see the article by Young-Scholten in this volume). However, although initial results are promising, there inevitably remain problems in this approach (for an early critique, see James 1990). Firstly, the specification of what constitute phonological principles and parameters is itself scarcely developed and thus far has primarily been defined solely for the more 'tactic' aspects of phonological structure (metrical stress, syllabification). Secondly, in much of the work so far, the actual processing dimension of phonological structure has been neglected (e.g., what does it mean to say that parameters are transferred or re-set in this context?). Thirdly, and linked to the previous point, is the fact that sound methodological questions have been raised concerning the general line of UG-based research into L2 learning (Birdsong 1989). And although the investigation of L2 phonology via a UG perspective undoubtedly opens up new explanatory possibilities in the field, some of these issues lead back once more to the theoretical, descriptive and methodological problems in L2 phonological research which have been referred to throughout this paper. 5.

Conclusion

There is much now that we know concerning the acquisition of new sound systems, the role of the LI therein, the role of typological or universal preferences and the different ways in which learners process and reproduce the sound patterns of the L2. Returning to the central questions which were posed in section 2 above, i.e. 1) which units or elements form the basis of learning, 2) which sound properties of these elements are processed in learning, and 3) what processes are employed in learning, we can conclude that much light has been shed on both the formal and substantive aspects of these issues from a very wide range of perspectives. However, the point has been made in this paper that the many observational and descriptive analyses which the field of L2 phonology has brought forth need to be complemented by clearly defined theoretical conceptions of sound learning for further understanding, if not 'explanation', of the issues at hand. Fortunately, second language phonology has now gradually moved into such a phase of theoretical concern with the adoption of current UG-based phonological models in the analysis of controlled empirical learner data. The relevance of phonological theory to L2 sound acquisition, and of the latter to the former, has never been greater. In this respect, the prospects for further progress in the field seem particularly positive.

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References Altenberg, Evelyn - Robert Vago 1983 "Theoretical implications of an error analysis of second language phonology production", Language Learning 33: 427-447. Archibald, John 1991 "The word tree and quantity-sensitivity in the interlanguage of adult Hungarian speakers" [Paper presented to the Boston University Conference on Language Development]. 1992a "Adult abilities in L2 Speech: Evidence from stress", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 1-17. 1992b "Transfer of LI parameter settings: Some empirical evidence from Polish metrics", Canadian Journal of Linguistics 37: 301-339. 1993 Language learnability and L2 phonology: The acquisition of metrical parameters. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Aronoff, Mark - Richard Oehrle (eds.) 1984 Language sound structure. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Birdsong, David 1989 Metalinguistic performance and interlinguisiic competence. Berlin: Springer. Bohn, Ocke - James E. Flege 1990 "Perception and production of a new vowel category by adult second language learners", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 37-56. Briere, Eugene 1968 A psycholinguistic study of phonological interference. The Hague: Mouton. Broecke, Marcel P.R. van den - Antonie Cohen (eds.) 1984 Proceedings of the tenth international congress of phonetic sciences. Dordrecht: Foris. Broselow, Ellen 1983 "Non-obvious transfer: On predicting epenthesis errors", in: Susan M. Gass - Larry Selinker (eds.), 269-280. 1984 "An investigation of transfer in second language phonology", International Review of Applied Linguistics 22: 253-269. Carlisle, Robert 1992 "Environment and markedness as interacting constraints on vowel epenthesis". in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 64-75. Corder, S. Pit - Eddy Roulet (eds.) 1977 Actes du 5ieme collogue de linguistique appliquee de Neuchatel. Universito de Neuchatel.

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Dickerson, Lonna 1975 "The learner's interlanguage as a system of variable rules", TESOL Quarterly 9: 401-407. Dickerson, Lonna - Wayne Dickerson 1977 "Interlanguage phonology: Current research and future directions", in: S. Pit Corder - Eddy Roulet (eds.), 215-231. Dresher, Elan - Jonathan Kaye 1990 "A computational learning model for metrical phonology", Cognition 34: 137-195. Dressier, Wolfgang 1984 "Explaining natural phonology", Phonology Yearbook 1: 29-51. Eckman, Fred 1977 "Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis", Language Learning 27: 315-330. 1984 "Universals, typologies and interlanguage", in: William Rutherford (ed.), 79-105. 1987 "The reduction of word-final consonant clusters in interlanguage", in: Allan James - Jonathan Leather (eds.), 143162. 1991 "The structural conformity hypothesis and the acquisition of consonant clusters in the interlanguage of ESL learners", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13: 23-42. Flege, James E. 1985 The production and perception of foreign language speech sounds. (Biocommunication Research Reports 4.). University of Alabama at Birmingham. [Also published in Harris Winitz (ed.), 244-401]. 1987 "Equivalence classification of LI and L2 sounds in second language acquisition", in: Allan James - Jonathan Leather (eds.), 9-39. 1990 "English vowel production by Dutch talkers: More evidence for the 'similar' vs. 'new' distinction", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 255-293. 1992 "The intelligibility of English vowels spoken by British and Dutch talkers", in: R. Kent (ed.), 157-231. Flege, James E. - Wieke Eefting 1986 "Linguistic and developmental effects on the production and perception of stop consonants", Phonetica 43: 155-171. Gass, Susan M. - Larry Selinker (eds.) 1983 Language transfer in language learning. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

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Gass, Susan M. - Carolyn G. Madden (eds.) 1985 Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Gatbonton, Elizabeth 1978 "Patterned phonetic variability in second-language speech: A gradual diffusion model", Canadian Modern Language Review 34: 335-347. Greenberg, Cindy 1983 "Syllable structure in second language acquisition" (CUNY Forum 9). City University of New York. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978 "Some generalizations concerning initial and final consonant clusters", in: Joseph H. Greenberg - Charles A. Ferguson - Edith A. MoravcSik (eds.), 243-279. Greenberg, Joseph H. - Charles A. Ferguson - Edith A. MoravcSik (eds.) 1978 Universals of human language, Volume 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hammarberg, Björn 1988 Studien zur Phänologie des Zweiisprachenerwerbs. (Stockholmer Germanistische Forschungen 38). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. 1990 "Conditions on transfer in phonology", in: Jonathan Leather Allan James (eds.), 198-215. Hecht, Barbara - Robert Mulford 1982 "The acquisition of a second language phonology: Interaction of transfer and developmental factors", Applied Psycholinguistics 3: 313-328. Ingram, David 1976 Phonology disability in children. London: Edward Arnold, loup, Georgette L. - Steven H. Weinberger (eds.) 1987 Interlanguagephonology. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Itö, Junko 1989 "A prosodic theory of epenthesis", Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7: 217-259. James, Allan 1984 "Phonic transfer: The structural bases of interlingual assessment", in: Marcel P.R. van den Broecke - Antonie Cohen (eds.), 691695. 1986 Suprasegmental phonology and segmental form. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

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The acquisition of a second language phonology. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 1990 "A parameter-setting model for L2 phonological acquisition?", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 180- 188. James, Allan - Jonathan Leather (eds.) 1987 Sound patterns in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Foris. Johannson, Faith 1973 Immigrant Swedish phonology. Lind: CWK Gleerup. Kent, Raymond D. (ed.) 1992 Intelligibility in speech disorders. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. K10ve, Marit 1992 "Principles and constraints on SLA phonology", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 113-121. Lass, Roger 1984 Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leather, Jonathan - Allan James (eds.) 1990 New Sounds 90. University of Amsterdam. 1992 New Sounds 92. University of Amsterdam. Leather, Jonathan - Allan James 1991 "The acquisition of second language speech", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13: 305-341. Lenneberg, Eric 1967 Biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley. Macken, Marlys - Charles Ferguson 1983 "Cognitive aspects of phonological development: Model, evidence, and issues", in: Keith E. Nelson (ed.), 256-282. Maddieson, Ian 1984 Patterns of sounds. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Major, Roy 1986 "The Ontogeny Model: Evidence from L2 acquisition of Spanish r", Language Learning 36: 453-504. 1987 "A model for interlanguage phonology", in: Allan James Jonathan Leather (eds.), 101-124. 1992 "Transfer and developmental factors in second language acquisition of consonant clusters", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 128-136. Moulton, William 1972 The sounds of English and German. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nelson, Keith E. (ed.) 1983 Children's language. Volume 3.

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Nemser, William 1971 An experimental study of phonological interference in the English of Hungarians. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rutherford, William (ed.) 1984 Language universals and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sato, Charlene 1984 "Phonological processes in second language acquisition: Another look at interlanguage syllable structure", Language Learning 34: 43-57. 1985 "Task variation in interlanguage phonology", in: Susan M. Gass Carolyn G. Madden (eds.), Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 181-196. Scovel, Thomas 1988 A time to speak: A psycholinguistic inquiry into the critical period for human speech. Cambridge, Mass.: Newbury House. Selkirk, Elizabeth 1984 "On the major class features and syllable theory", in: Mark Aronoff - Richard Oehrle (eds.), 107-136. Singh, Rajendra 1991 "Interference and contemporary phonological theory", Language Learning 41: 157-175. Snow, Catherine - Marion Hoefnagel-Höhle 1977 "Age differences and the pronunciation of foreign sounds", Language and Speech 20: 357-365. Stampe, David 1973 A dissertation on natural phonology. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Stockman, Irene - Erna Pluut 1992 "Segment composition as a factor in the syllabification errors of second-language speakers", Language Learning 42: 21-45. Stockwell, Robert - John Bowen 1965 The sounds of English and Spanish. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tarone, Elaine 1980 "Some influences on the syllable structure of interlanguage phonology", International Review of Applied Linguistics 24: 143163. 1983 "On the variability of interlanguage systems", Applied Linguistics 4: 142-163.

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Tropf, Herbert 1983 Variation in der Phonologie des ungesteuerten Zweitspracherwerbs. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Heidelberg.] 1987 "Sonority as a variability factor in second language phonology", in: Allan James - Jonathan Leather (eds.), 173-191. Trubetzkoy, Nikolai 1939 Grundzüge der Phonologie. [Published 1958, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht]. Weinberger, Steven H. 1987 "The influence of linguistic context on syllable simplification", in: Georgette L. loup - Steven H. Weinberger (eds.), 401-417. 1994 "Functional and phonetic constraints on second language phonology", in: Mehmet S. Yavas (ed.), 283-302. Wenk, Brian 1979 "Articulatory setting and de-fossilization", Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 4: 202-220. 1982 "Articulatory setting and the acquisition of second language phonology", Revue de Phonetique Appliquee 65: 51-65. Wexler, Kenneth - Peter Culicover 1980 Formal principles of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Wieden, Wilfried - William Nemser 1991 The pronunciation of English in Austria. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Whitman, Randolph 1970 "Contrast!ve analysis: Problems and procedures", Language Learning 20: 191-197. Winitz, Harris (ed.) 1988 Human communication and its disorders: A review. Norwood, N.J: Ablex. Wode, Henning 1978 "The beginnings of non-schoolroom L2 phonological acquisition", International Review of Applied Linguistics 16: 109-125. 1981 Learning a second language. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Yavas, Mehmet S. (ed.) 1994 First and second language phonology, San Diego: Singular Publishing. Young-Scholten, Martha 1990 "Interlanguage and postlexical transfer", in: Jonathan Leather Allan James (eds.), 107-129. 1992 "The subset principle in interlanguage phonology: A preliminary investigation", in: Jonathan Leather - Allan James (eds.), 200217.

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The acquisition of prosodic structure in a second language. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Zuengler, Jane 1988 "Identity markers and L2 pronunciation", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 10: 33-49.

Speech perception and L2 phonological acquisition Henning Wode

1.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the research on speech perception and to summarize some recent work that attempts to explore how these findings may help to clarify certain unresolved problems in general phonological theory and L2 phonological acquisition. As for phonological theory, the issues discussed include the ontogenesis and the phylogenesis of the universal set of sound contrasts used in natural human languages, some relationships between perception and production, the continuity issue, and biological underpinnings of phonological acquisition. As for L2 acquisition, the findings from speech perception are particularly relevant for equivalence classification, explanations of age and foreign accents, as well as certain points of methodology. The theoretical framework is the Universal Theory of Language Acquisition (UTA). Its basic assumption is that there should be no discontinuities with respect to the language learning abilities across different language domains, such as LI acquisition, L2 acquisition, language change, or self-monitoring. The paper starts with a discussion of continuity/discontinuity with respect to language acquisition research and language change. Next a model of speech perception is proposed that traces the development of speech perception from

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neonates and infants to children and adults and that integrates LI and L2 acquisition. Then various implications and some research tasks are pointed out followed by a brief conclusion.1 2.

Continuity: The need for a common psycholinguistic basis

Language acquisition researchers have raised issues that must appear odd to anyone not familiar with the field, e.g. whether learner languages are natural languages (Eckman 1981); whether children have access to U(universal) G(rammar) (e.g. Felix 1984); whether adults have access to UG for L2 acquisition (e.g. Clahsen - Muysken 1986); or whether adult L2 acquisition is fundamentally different from child LI acquisition (Bley-Vroman 1986). Seriously, what kind of a notion of naturalness is this, if learner languages are non-natural, and how should non-natural phenomena ever turn into natural ones? What is universal about UG if it occurs only with some speakers but not universally with all? Are people really asked to believe that LI and L2 acquisition are fundamentally different in the sense that they are totally unrelated to each other? How could there ever be such things as language typology and linguistic universals given the fact that all these phenomena require some common psycholinguistic basis? How should such a basis come into being ontogenetically and phylogenetically? If it is assumed that there are different and totally unrelated psycholinguistic mechanisms it needs to be explained how, in the long run, the results of language learning should feed into, or coincide with, language change, language typology, and the universal constraints on human languages. Some of the difficulties, it seems, are artefacts of the original assumptions echoed in the questions above. What they share is a discontinuity assumption concerning the respective psycholinguistic basis. 2.1.

Continuity in language acquisition research

Consider the Universal Theory of Language Acquisition (UTA): Humans are endowed with certain abilities that allow them to acquire natural human languages. All or some of these abilities are available at birth. They interact with the input provided by the ambient language(s). The acquisitional abilities of individuals develop over time because of biological growth and because of developments due to external stimulation via the ambient language(s). It is the state of development of a given individual's acquisitional abilities that determines how he will master a language, i.e., as a monolingual LI learner, as a bilingual LI learner, as an L2 or L3 learner, or as somebody re-learning a language. The implicaton is that if a given learner's state of development is known it should be

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predictable how he will acquire the language in question (for details cf. Wode 1981, 1993). What, then, is the nature and the development of these language learning abilities? Theoretically, the solutions could be of two sorts. One is to assume that for each new learning situation, such as LI vs. L2, or L2 vs. L3, new learning abilities are developed or activated which are unrelated to any of those used before. This is a discontinuity view. The continuity view, on the other hand, assumes that abilities activated in new situations either develop in a continuous fashion out of the earlier ones, or that they have been present all along but have been dormant. The discontinuity view has little plausibility. For one thing, an individual may be faced with so many different situations in the course of his life that the number of different abilities must be close to infinite, which is beyond anybody's capacity. What is needed, therefore, is a view that allows for more parsimony and efficiency. How are learners able to react to so many differences in the learning situations? Do they adapt their original acquisitional abilities to cope with new tasks or are there other options? A methodological artefact In terms of counterevidence, for the discontinuity view to be acceptable it must meet the requirement that there be at least one property that categorically differentiates the acquisitional types, such as LI vs. L2. Age is probably the most likely factor to meet this requirement. After all, this is the area where differences between (child) LI learners and (adult) L2 learners have been reported quite frequently (e.g. Clahsen - Muysken 1986; Clahsen 1990; Dulay et al. 1982; Flege 1992, in press; Long 1990, 1993; Wode 1993). However, even age will not do because of methodological considerations. Of course, if one compares adult L2 acquisition to child LI acquisition, then the age difference is so obvious that it may be hard not to regard age as a property that sets these two groups of subjects apart. However, as pointed out in Wode (1990), such a procedure involves an artefact. Age is a gradient. The question, therefore, is which age range is to be criterial. This issue cannot be decided arbitrarily, as in McLaughlin (1978: 9), who - arbitrarily - defines L2 acquisition as learning an additional language after the age of 3. What is needed is a functional solution in the sense that the learner's development as reflected in his linguistic behaviour must provide evidence of the sort that a given property occurs only with one age group and not with another one. What is needed is to investigate the origin and the development of the respective abilities starting with very young LI learners who are then followed up through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Note that the continuity view does not require that every language acquisitional ability needs to change over time. There is ample evidence to

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suggest that some abilities do not do so. Recall that some developmental structures have been found with learners of all age groups and acquisitional types. Preverbal negation NP NEG VP is a case in point. Utterances like me no close the window meaning T m not going to shut the window' have been observed with LI monolingual, LI bilingual, and LI trilingual children, with L2 children and adults, in L2 re-learning, as well as in foreign language teaching (cf. Wode 1993 for a survey). This wide range of invariant occurrences can hardly be due to different learning mechanisms nor to differences in the input situations. The invariance in this case, must result from invariant learning abilities. On the other hand, as will be pointed out below, the area of speech perception abounds with evidence showing age-dependent differences. Note carefully, however, that even if age-related differences were found, this would not necessarily argue against the continuity view as long as the differences can be shown to develop out of previously existing abilities. Views on age and language acquisition As for the (dis)continuity issue, the acquisitional research on age presents the clearest case of a discontinuity view. Lenneberg's critical period hypothesis is probably the best known instance of it (Lenneberg 1967). As will be recalled, Lenneberg suggested that, around puberty, changes occur in the brain so that people can no longer learn languages the way children do. The evidence Lenneberg relied on included, among other things, language impairments due to various types of pathological conditions and L2 acquisition by, notably, adult L2 learners. The latter were assumed to be notoriously incapable of acquiring a native-like L2 competence. Subsequently, Lenneberg's radical view has been criticized on various grounds. Alternative views include resetting the age range, or showing that there are different time spans of peak sensitivity for the different structural areas. For the purposes of this paper it is not necessary to summarize these alternative proposals in detail nor to review the impact of age on language acquisition (cf. Long 1990, 1993 for recent detailed surveys). It suffices to recall the general idea that the ability of people to learn languages declines as a function of age and that adults, in particular, are subject to such losses. What is their nature - total or partial, gradual or abrupt? What kinds of abilities are involved - biological ones like sensory sensitivity, or cognitive ones such as changes in the organization and processing of linguistic information in memory? 2.2.

Continuity across linguistic domains

It is important not to restrict the issue of continuity to the domain of language acquisition. The above arguments carry over to other domains. After all, whatever may be required - syntax, morphology, discourse, perceptual categories

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- they are not mastered for the sake of learning but to be used for other purposes. Theoretically, this means that the linguistic knowledge resulting from the learning process must ultimately feed into, and result in, the kind of knowledge pertinent to the respective domains and as activated by mature speakers. In this sense, then, the notion of continuity should not be restricted to the field of language acquisition with respect to the acquisitional abilities needed for the various acquisitional types. Rather, the continuity view should also hold across different domains of linguistic inquiry not normally treated that way in the past. To illustrate, the consequences of adopting a discontinuity view for speech perception are briefly explored on the basis of two domains which, in the past, have not been linked that way, namely, language change and the metalinguistic function of how to control one's own speech for degree of fit with target norms. Continuity in language change One of the fundamental properties of natural human languages is their potential for change. Socio-linguistic studies of large urban populations have yielded many insights into the details of diachronic changes in general and on sound changes in particular. For example: Who initiates sound change? Who is liable to propagate it? Are there any phonological properties that cannot be subject to change? The general pattern of results can be inferred from Labov's pioneering early studies on English in New York City (1966) or on Martha's Vineyard (1963). In the New York City study Labov investigated the phonological variation of postvocalic /r/ in vowels like four, forty, or beer and other variables as a function of age, social class, gender, and style. From the point of view of this paper, the following results are of particular interest. All age groups were sensitive to the most prestigeous variant, namely, post-vocalic /r/, and all speakers could produce it, although the frequency of usage differed systematically across the age ranges as a function of gender, social class, and style. The sub-group most sensitive to post-vocalic /r/ turned out to be the females of the lower middle class aged around 40. These speakers had the highest rate of hypercorrections. Labov suggested that this synchronic pattern was a reflection of a sound change in progress. It is obvious from his findings that this change did not originate with children, nor were they the ones to primarily propagate it. The middle-aged females were the most sensitive, although no age group proved totally insensitive to post-vocalic /r/. This finding goes counter to wide-spread assumptions that sound change originates with children (cf. Wode 1984 for a more detailed criticism of the traditional view). Moreover, in order to be able to adjust one's own speech to ongoing sound change one needs to be able to perceive the changes in the pronunciation of the speech community. Since the speakers of all age ranges investigated by Labov were able to do so, it follows that they must all have retained at least some of

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their original sensitivity for this type of contrast. In addition, the fact that the middle-aged females of the middle class excelled in hypercorrections does not mean that females are more sensitive to sound change on any biological grounds, because in Labov's study on Martha's Vineyard the males were the most advanced with respect to adapting to the sound changes (Labov 1963). Obviously, people, throughout their individual life span, retain an ability to adjust to language changes in their environment as a function of age. There is no indication of any discontinuity with respect to these abilities. Note that this conclusion is not consistent with the idea of some critical period or any radical age-dependent losses of acquisitional abilities. Continuity and self-control The abilities required to adapt to language change can be regarded as a special case of yet an even more general property of human language processing and which, at the same time, constitutes a basic requirement for communication to be successful. Speakers need to be able to check on their own speech whether they are still in tune with the speech norms of their speech community and if not how to adapt to them. This is the metalinguistic function of languages (Jakobson 1960). Note that self-control is required no matter what the range of variation in a given speech community. Just like the ability to adapt to sound change, the requirement that metalinguistic abilities be available to speakers throughout their lifespan is not consistent with any discontinuity claim such as mentioned above. Moreover, since the metalinguistic control function is not restricted to only some phonetic/phonological properties, it follows that the most plausible assumption is that the original sensory abilities remain available unchanged throughout life. The evidence from speech perception reviewed below is consistent with this view. 3.

Speech perception

Although learning a language obviously means being able to perceive what it sounds like, language acquisition researchers have, to date, taken very little note of the research findings concerning speech perception by either infants learning their Ll(s) or children and adults learning their L2(s). Paragraph 3 provides a brief summary from the perspective of UTA, i.e. by relating LI to L2 acquisition, by cutting across all age ranges, and by relating the development of speech perception to such every day functions as language change and selfcontrol. Speech perception is rooted in the human auditory system. This system is capable of two ways of perceiving sound, namely, categorically and

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continuously2. Categorical perception refers to the fact that sounds are mapped onto classes although these sounds are not identical in terms of their acoustic structure. Categorical perception operates on an all-or-none basis. For example, for a phone to be interpreted as English /b/ no attention is paid to the degree of voicing, i.e. whether fully voiced, partly voiced, or whether there is only very little voicing. On the other hand, humans can discriminate very minute sound differences, for example, levels of loudness, pitch height, etc., as when listening to non-speech sounds. Such gradual distinctions are discriminated on the basis of continuous perception. Neither categorical nor continuous perception is specific to humans or languages, because the former has also been found in non-humans, e.g. chinchillas (e.g. Kühl - Miller 1978) certain kinds of monkeys (e.g. Kühl Padden 1982, 1983; Sinott 1989) and other species; and non-speech sounds may also be perceived categorically (e.g. Miller et al. 1976; Pisoni 1977). It should be immediately obvious that speech perception and speech processing could not possibly work as fast as they do if they were not based on some categorical interpretation. However, as suggested in more detail in Wode (1990, 1994a, b, in press) the considerations above on sound change and self-control clearly show that a theory of speech perception must incorporate continuous perception. These functions are beyond the capacity of the categorical mode because the latter can only determine whether a token is or is not within the respective category. The degree of fit and the nature of the corrections, if any, must be determined on a continuous basis. Categorical and continuous perception interact to shape the categories of the target language(s). Continuous perception is likely to serve a number of functions. One is as a monitoring device. This function is required for various purposes. Two have already been pointed out, namely, self-control in daily interactions and adjustments to sound change (paragraph 2.2). A third function relates to language aquisition. That is, before learners can make any progress they must have available some mechanism that allows them to detect in which way their own production conforms to, or differs from, the target values of the input. Such deviances are detected by continuous perception and the information is then fed into the appropriate components of the entire speech perception system in such a way as to provide for the direction of the development the learner needs to pursue in order to get closer to the target. This function of the continuous mode is not limited to monolingual infants or children. Learners of additional languages, including older learners, are faced with much the same problem. The intuitively most plausible assumption, therefore, is that the same mechanism(s) is/are involved for all learners, irrespective of their age. Consequently, it is crucial for any theory of speech perception whether any changes in categorical and/or continuous perception can be shown to exist as a function of age and/or experience.

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Past research on speech perception and its development was primarily focused on categorical perception. As a prerequisite for the subsequent discussion of the issues pertinent to this paper only some basic findings need to be reviewed. Moreover, categorical perception and continuous perception need to be looked at separately.

3.1.

Categorical perception

The nature of categorical perception Speech perception is said to be categorical if an acoustic continuum is perceived discontinuously (for detailed general reviews cf. Repp 1984; Luce - Pisoni 1988; on LI infants and LI children cf. Jusczyk 1992; Aslin et al. 1983; Kühl 1987a; for L2 acquisition Flege 1988). Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of the logic behind the experiments on categorical perception via the contrast voiced /ba/ vs. unvoiced /pa/.

Figure 1:

Rationale of the experimental design for discrimnation of /ba/ and /pa/ (+ periodic vibration after the release of closure; - periodic vibration before the release of closure (from Wode 1990).

category boundary ba

pa

individual stimuli

periodic vibration (ms) release of closure

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A number of stimuli are synthesized in such a way that they differ as to VOT (voice onset time). VOT marks the point at which voicing sets in relative to the release of the closure, e.g. before, after, or at the time of, the release. The stimuli are produced in such a way that the individual tokens each differ only by a very small increment, say, 10 ms, so that the entire range of stimuli presents a (pseudo-)continuum. The tokens are randomized for presentation. Subjects are asked to discriminate the tokens and/or to identify them as /ba/ or /pa/. This can be done, for example, by requiring subjects to decide whether the final stimulus X in a three-stimulus sequence ABX is like A or B. In general, discrimination is poor, i.e. random, for those stimuli which belong to the same category, but high for stimuli belonging to different categories. Similarly, within-category stimuli are identified as the same, across-category ones as different. The borderline between two categories is called the category boundary or the phoneme boundary. It is marked by an abrupt change-over in the judgments of the informants as to which category a stimulus belongs to. With mature monolingual adults the category boundaries recur at values that are fairly stable. They are language-specific, i.e. every language has its own values. There may be some variation as to their location across individual speakers (e.g. Abramson - Lisker 1970; Lisker'- Abramson 1964, 1970; Williams 1981, Gass 1984) and within the same speaker, the latter sort, however, only within narrow margins (Howell - Rosen 1984). The term categorical, therefore, cannot be taken in an absolute sense but only in a slightly looser one, namely, as referring to a high degree of categoriality. As is well known, perceptual categories are not based on stimuli in which only one single acoustic dimension is varied. For example, for an element to be identified as (voiced) /b/, VOT is one of several cues, duration of the consonant, lack of aspiration, or the duration of the preceding vowel may all contribute towards identifying tokens as /b/. In fact, some of the latter may even serve as the only characteristic in case there is no periodic vibration of the vocal folds. Moreover, in identifying a given category different speakers need not even rely on the same acoustic properties. This is particularly obvious for L2 learners, as Bonn - Flege (1990) have shown for L2 learners of English with German as their LI. For the identification of their lax vs. tense vowels native speakers of English primarily rely on spectral cues, i.e. the distribution of energy over the acoustic frequency range; native speakers of German primarily use duration to distinguish their German long vs. short vowels; and German L2 learners of English at first rely on duration rather than the spectral cues to identify the English tense vs. lax vowels. The learnability of perceptual categories Suppose an LI learner is faced with an array of stimuli as in Figure 1. How is he to learn where to locate the phoneme boundary? Note that in this respect real

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speech is not unlike the situation represented in Figure 1. Consider, e.g. initial voiced stops in English. Some tokens may be prevoiced as in French /b/; others fully voiced; still others somewhat voiced; and some may even be completely devoiced (e.g. Lisker - Abramson 1964). To be sure, neither the prevoiced stops nor the fully voiced ones tend to be most frequent in English. But how is the learner to know which variety of stops he is to regard as the target norm? Note, further, that the category boundaries cannot be detected or inferred in any direct way from the acoustic properties of the speech wave. How, then, does the learner manage to arrive at the appropriate solution? Note that this is the logical problem of language acquisition, familiar enough from LI syntax (Hornstein Lightfoot 1981) but by no means restricted to it (Wode 1988, 1994a). The initial state: Infants As of today, it appears that infants can discriminate all the distinctions used for phonological purposes in natural languages before they begin to speak. In fact, some of these distinctions have been shown to be available with children as young as four weeks of age. Where do their perceptual abilities come from? The presently available evidence is consistent with the following view: At birth children have available the same abilities for categorizing speech irrespective of the language they happen to be in contact with. For example, the three languages English, Spanish, and Kikuyu, a Bantu language of Kenya, differ as to how voicing is made use of. English contrasts voiced unaspirated stops vs. voiceless aspirated stops; Spanish has prevoiced vs. voiceless unaspirated stops; and Kikuyu, according to Streeter (1976), contrasts voiced vs. prevoiced stops, except for the labial place of articulation. Kikuyu has only one labial stop and it is prevoiced. Young children, no matter which language they are exposed to, at first discriminate three different VOT ranges, namely, prevoiced, voiced, and voiceless, with VOT boundaries that are much the same for all children. This is so irrespective of the input language. Streeter (1976), for example, found the three categories with Kikuyu children, although, as just noted, Kikuyu has only one labial stop which is prevoiced. Similarly, English infants are, at first, sensitive to prevoicing although it is not a distinctive feature of the phonological system of English (e.g. Lasky et al. 1975; Eilers et al. 1979; Aslin et al. 1983). Apparently, the human auditory system is structured in such a way that it is particularly sensitive to specific distinctions. They can be thought of as points of heightened perceptual sensitivity along specific acoustic dimensions. These points are not learned but they are part of the genetic endowment of homo sapiens. They are available at birth and provide for the initial abilities that allow infants to acquire and develop the categories of their ambient language(s).3

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After the onset of speech: Children, adolescents, adults It may require until adulthood, before the target language values are fully established (e.g. Zlatin - Koenigsknecht 1975, 1976; Bailey - Haggard 1980; Flege - Eefting 1986). The course of this development is characterized, amongst other things, by the familiar fact that older speakers fail to identify or discriminate non-native sound contrasts, although infants perceive them. The pioneering research by Janet Werker and her collaborators on pre-speaking infants shows that these changes already occur during the second half of the first year of life (e.g. Werker et al. 1981; Werker - Tees 1983, 1984; cf. Werker Pegg 1992 for a summary). In a series of experiments Werker presented listeners with the dental vs. retroflex /t/ contrast of Hindi and the glottalized velar vs. uvular stops of Thompson, an Amerindian Language of British Columbia, Canada. The age range was from infants aged 0;6 to adults. One group of subjects were monolingual Anglophones with no prior contact with either Hindi or Thompson. Note that the contrast between the retroflex til vs. the dental /t/ is phonemic in Hindi but not in English. Until age 0;7 infants from monolingual Englishspeaking environments have the same ability to discriminate III vs. /t/ as infants growing up in a monolingual Hindi environment. Subsequently, there are perceptual changes. By age 0;9 only one third of the English-environment subjects were successful up to criterion, by age 0;11 only 2 out 12, and at age 4;0 no child or adult managed to distinguish III vs. /t/. The results for the Thompson contrast of glottallized velar /k/ vs. glottalized uvular /q/ were similar. Thompson is among the few languages with a phonemic contrast between a glottalized velar stop /k/ and a glottalized uvular stop /q/. This opposition does not exist in English. As with III vs. /t/ Englishenvironment children appear to begin to fail to discriminate the /k/-/q/ continuum around age 0;7. Werker's research shows further that the degree of failure to discriminate certain distinctions differs according to contrast. Consider the Hindi contrast /th/ vs. /dh/. Werker's findings show that children and adults retain some ability to discriminate /th/ and /dh/ even without training or exposure. In addition, as little training as 1-2 weeks may be so successful that adult students can discriminate /dh/ and /th/ up to criterion. This contrasts with the poor performance of adults even after training for /t/ and /t/. For these contrasts training was successful only with those students who had had some prior exposure to Hindi early in life. This is an important point, because it means that these subjects were re-learning Hindi rather than being exposed to it for the first time.

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The perception of non-native contrasts Studies on the perception of L2 learners/speakers are indispensable for a proper understanding of both the functioning of the speech perception system in general and LI and L2 acquisition in particular, because it is through contact with additional languages that the true potential of the speech perception system of humans is revealed. How and to what extent are the perceptual abilities of learners activated for the purpose of learning additional languages? At which state of development can the perceptual abilities be activated - at the original state at birth, at the state of development at which the learner first has access to L2 input, or at some intermediate state? Unfortunately, much less research has so far been carried out on L2 than on LI perception and there are various methodological problems with the L2 research available to date. For one thing, only some contrasts have been investigated so far, notably, VOT (e.g. Caramazza et al. 1973; Williams 1981; Albert - Obler 1978; Obler 1983; Gass 1984), the lit vs. /!/ contrast (e.g. Mochizuki 1981; MacKain et al. 1981; Strange - Dittman 1981; Sheldon Strange 1982; Mann 1986), or vowel distinctions (e.g. Elsendoorn 1981; Flege Hillenbrand 1984; Bonn - Flege 1990; cf. Flege 1988 or Wode 1994a for surveys). Nonetheless, what evidence there is suggests the following view: People approach the task of learning an L2 on the basis of the state of development of their perceptual abilities and categories. They form the grid according to which L2 speech is at first processed. As the L2 learner begins to make progress some category boundaries developed through the prior LI are modified to serve both languages. Suppose a given LI has a VOT boundary between /b/ and /p/ around -4 ms, as in Spanish (Williams 1981), and the target L2 has a VOT boundary of +25 ms, as for English (Lisker - Abramson 1964; Williams 1981). L2 learners may use a VOT range that is a compromise between the LI and the L2 and that matches neither one (e.g. Williams 1979; Flege - Hillenbrand 1984; Flege 1987). It is not clear at the present time whether this compromise is used at the beginning or only during some intermediate stages, or whether it is due to lack of appropriate LI input and hence due to unlearning the LI distinction. In any event, in the subsequent course of development this compromise VOT range needs to be revised in such a way that the LI, e.g. Spanish, is perceived and produced according to the proper Spanish VOT values and the L2, e.g. English, according to the English target values. Can people do this? This question cannot be answered at present. Researchers so far have tended to take an unbalanced approach by pointing to the many imperfect L2 learners. L2 subjects not recognizable as L2 speakers are difficult to find, not because there are none but because they are simply less conspicuous than those with a non-native accent. In any event, it seems premature to conclude that human

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beings cannot achieve native-like control for any L2. This conclusion would be highly implausible and counter-intuitive. Above all, pace Lenneberg (1967), nobody has been able to point out any biological fact that would make successful L2 learning impossible. (Recall paragraph 2.1 on age and see Wode 1994a for details on the issue of biologically based restrictions). Moreover, recent advances in equivalence theory suggest a different solution. Equivalence classification The early pioneer studies on language contact and bilingualism, like Weinreich (1953) or Haugen (1953, 1958), already suggested that phonological transfer in L2 bilinguals is likely to occur only if the phonemes in question are sufficiently similar to each other. Such a claim makes sense only if it is assumed that these phonemes are heard as similar. The insight concerning perceived similarity and/or difference was developed further in the L2 acquisition research during the 1970's (Wode 1977, 1978, 1981). It was suggested that the way L2 learners acquire the phonological elements of a given L2 depends on equivalence relationships based on the degree of perceived/perceivable similarity between the phonological elements of the target L2 and those of the LI. The basic idea is: In naturalistic L2 acquisition of phonology learners start from their own LI phonological capacity. This capacity is the state of development of their LI phonological system. From their LI capacity they start towards the L2 targets by substituting LI elements for those L2 elements that are sufficiently similar to the available LI targets. Those L2 elements that are not sufficiently similar to any LI elements are acquired differently, very likely in ways parallel to their acquisition in LI. Phonological elements that are sufficiently similar in this sense will be called equivalent to each other; those that are not, are non-equivalent. (...) There seems to be a crucial measure that separates the range of equivalencies from nonequivalencies. L2 elements that fall within this crucial range of equivalence are matched and substituted by their respective LI equivalents. Those that fall outside this crucial range, undergo other developments (Wode 1981: 232). Flege (1988, 1992, in press) has expanded on this notion of equivalence in two important ways. One is that he distinguishes between 3 types of cross-language phonetic relationships on the basis of perceptual similarity, namely, identical, similar, and new sounds. Identical elements are perceived by the L2 learner as being the same; consequently, the L2 target is substituted by the LI equivalent. Similar phones are perceived as different, but not as dissimilar enough not to be substituted by the LI equivalent. New sounds are perceived as different from anything in the learner's LI repertoire. The perception of the L2 input feeds into

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the pre-existing system of the LI categories. This has a double effect. The identical and the similar L2 elements are handled via the equivalent LI sounds. This allows the L2 learner to make rapid progress on a good number of phonological elements. The new elements, however, require the creation of new categories, which takes time. Consequently, new phones develop later. However, in the long run the new sounds are likely to be mastered more successfully, because there are no pre-existing categories to interfere with. Since phones in different languages are hardly ever completely identical, it is flaws in the realization of the similar phonological elements that persist longest, i.e. they take the most time to overcome. 3.2.

Continuous perception

Equivalence theory as presently formulated needs to be amended by giving consideration to the issue of what may enable and/or induce L2 learners to modify their original LI categories and how such learners may notice that they are off target. It appears that this, too, is achieved through the interaction of the continuous mode and the categorical mode (details in Wode 1990, 1994a). The question, then, is what stops many adult L2 learners from going all the way towards target-like L2 values. In this paragraph the focus is on continuous perception and whether it changes over time. To start with, consider three alternatives. Suppose, first, that the continuous abilities remain unchanged and unaffected by language input throughout life. In this case there should be no biological reason at all why these abilities should not be available or reactivatable for the purpose of language acquisition during later stages of life, such as L2 or L3 acquisition. But why should many adult L2 learners have such difficulties? Now assume that the original continuous auditory abilities are, in fact, affected by the language input to such an extent that they are extinguished. If this were the case there should be some age range after which it is impossible for any learner to achieve native-like control or to come close to it. In fact, people at that age range should not be able to learn any distinctions beyond their LI at all and they should be incapable of taking part in any ongoing sound change. Clearly, the available evidence does not support this second alternative. A third option is that the continuous abilities remain unchanged but that access to them changes or that the interaction of continuous and categorical perception becomes more difficult as the categories of the LI get established. Access may be blocked totally, or only partially, or it may even vary with the situation or the task. At the present time, this third option appears to be the most likely solution.

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In support of this view and in addition to language change and the metalinguistic control function mentioned in paragraph 2.1 - 2.2, the remainder of this paragraph is devoted to drawing attention to some additional evidence from L2 acquisition. Similar phonological elements in L2 acquisition Many adults fall considerably short of native-like perfection in their L2, i.e. both with respect to the similar and the new phonological targets. But even the imperfect learners do learn something, although it may amount only to some compromise category boundaries. This means that such learners do have some ability to detect differences between the LI and L2 categories. As pointed out above this can only be achieved on a continuous basis. Note that any L2 target may be affected in this way, i.e. by some adjustments in the direction of the target. This implies that whatever is retained in terms of the original sensitivity of continuous perception it is not limited to specific areas of the range of sensitivities. Note that this conclusion should leave room for speculations as to whether some areas are more/less effected than others. New phonological elements in L2 acquisition The L2 acquisition of new phonological elements in the sense of equivalence theory is an extremely important piece of evidence in several respects. Such elements may show, first, that the original categorical sensitivity is still available; second, that the original sensitivity of the continuous mode is also still available; and, third, that the interaction between the two modes very likely functions in the same way with all learners. New phonological elements may be acquired by L2 learners in much the same way as by LI learners. A telling example is the acquisition of the retroflex and the central frictionless /r/, as in American and British English. LI and L2 learners at first substitute [w] for both kinds of /r/, no matter whether the LI background of the L2 speakers is Spanish with its apical /r/, or German with its uvular /R/ (Wode 1977, 1988). These observations imply, first, that the original categorical sensitivity is still available; second, that the continuous perception must have remained the same as it is with small children; and, third, that the interaction of categorical and continuous perception has not changed either. Additional evidence is provided by Bohn - Flege (1990). They investigated the L2 perception of some American English vowels by adult native speakers of German. The learners were grouped according to English language experience. The more experienced learners more closely resembled the native English speakers than did the inexperienced Germans. These observations imply that the L2 speakers must have perceived some differences, that they must have done so on a continuous basis, and that their outputs must have been controlled on a continuous basis.

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The clicks of Zulu present additional evidence on new phonological elements for speakers of English. Best et al. (1988) examined the perception of such clicks by English monolinguals. The age ranges included college students and infants aged 6-14 months. Both groups showed good discrimination of the clicks. In sum, then, the perception of new phonological elements by L2 learners provides insights into the retention of the original continuous and categorical perceptual abilities. It appears that the original abilities are still available later in life. Boundary shifting in LI training experiments Repp (1984: 303ff.) and Werker - Pegg (1992) review a number of experimental studies in which adult monolingual subjects were tested as to the effects of training on discrimination and whether training could lead to a shift in the location of category boundaries. Both effects can, in fact, be achieved. That is, discrimination may improve as a function of training; and the location of category boundaries may change. Obviously, continuous perception as well as its interaction with categorical perception, is still functioning. Note that this can be regarded as the experimental equivalent to sound change.4 3.3.

Processing of perceptual information

The evidence discussed in paragraph 3.1 - 3.2 does not support any sweeping claims to the effect that the original sensitivities of either categorical perception or continuous perception are extinguished or that they change very drastically. Worker's experiments suggest that the problem is one of accessing certain kinds of perceptual abilities rather than loss of sensory capabilities. That is, the original sensitivities are neither extinguished nor changed but the rise of phonemic LI perceptual categories may block the access to the original categorical sensitivities. Tees - Werker (1984) ran a series of experiments on adult speakers of English. They were tested on their ability to discriminate natural tokens of the Hindi retroflex vs. dental stop contrast and the Thompson globalized velar vs. uvular stop contrast. The stimuli were presented in two conditions. In one condition, the interval between the presentation of the stimuli was 500 ms, and in the other one 1500 ms. The subjects were able to discriminate the contrasts in the 500 ms condition but not in the 1500 ms one. This means that the original ability is still in existence, but access to it is made difficult or blocked via the development of the categories associated with the phonemes of a given language, in the above case English. In fact, Tees - Werker suggest that the difficulty is to switch from phonemic processing to another one based on phonetic cues. An

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analogous experiment was performed with synthetic stimuli (Werker - Logan 1985). The results were the same. Experimentally induced changes in the choice of processing strategies Another way of showing that the perceptual peculiarities of adults are not due to any loss of sensory abilities but to processing modalities was explored by Morosan - Werker (in preparation, cited in Werker - Pegg 1992). They varied the types of stimuli presented to their English-speaking subjects in such a way that the use of certain processing strategies could be experimentally induced. In the first condition, there were four kinds of pairings: phonemically different (bilabial/dental), phonetically different (retroflex/dental), acoustically different (two different bilabial, dental, or retroflex stimuli), and physically identical (one stimuli paired with itself)· In the first condition, the listeners could easily discriminate the phonemically different (English bilabial/dental) pairings, but they did quite poorly on all other pairings, thus evidencing phonemic processing. In the second condition, i.e. with the phonemically different pairings eliminated, the subjects showed increased sensitivity to the phonetically different (nonEnglish retroflex/dental) pairings, thus evidencing phonetic processing. But there was also some increase in the sensitivity to the within-category acoustic differences. In the third contextual condition only within-phonetic category and physically identical pairings were presented. In this testing condition the subjects showed the most sensitivity to within-phonetic category acoustic differences, thus evidencing acoustic processing (Morosan - Werker in preparation, cited in Werker- Pegg 1992). These results clearly indicate that adults can use different processing strategies depending on experimental, conditions. These findings further support the view that the phonemic processing strategy is most readily available but that this does not mean that other processing strategies are not available any more because of loss of sensory sensitivity. 4.

Some implications

The above approach is likely to contribute to a better understanding of old problems because it brings to the forefront shortcomings that have either gone unnoticed before or that simply did not arise because they were beyond the reach of the older perspectives. Unfortunately, not all of the questions that come to mind can be answered at the present time because of lack of pertinent research on L2 perception. For instance: Do all L2 learners follow the same development or are some of them able to identify the target L2 category boundaries without being affected at all by their prior LI? Do all learners retain the ability to eventually separate the category ranges for either all or only some L2 distinctions? What are the details of the development of L2 learners who gained a native-like L2 competence? What is the relationship between nature and

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nurture in speech perception? What is the relationship between perception and production, i.e. do the category boundaries match, is perception closer to the target, or is there a stage of development where production and perception are independent of each other? Recall Sheldon - Strange (1982) on the L2 acquisition of English /r/ and III by adult speakers of Japanese. Some subjects were found to have a fairly native-like command of /r,l/ for production but did not distinguish the two in perception (see also Bohn - Flege 1992). Only some of these issues can briefly be taken up below. 4.1.

A UTA-model of speech perception

The data reviewed in paragraph 3 can be neatly integrated within UTA: Speech perception in humans develops out of their auditory system. It is genetically endowed and constitutes the biological foundation for speech perception. The mechanisms of speech perception are not language-specific, because categorical perception has also been found with non-humans, and some non-speech sounds may also be perceived categorically. The auditory system is characterized by points of heightened sensitivity along certain acoustic dimensions and it originally provides for categorical and continuous perception. Both are required for the development of speech perception. Continuous perception functions as a control device for the development of the categories of categorical perception. Both the original continuous and categorical perception remain unchanged throughout life. The perceptual categories of a given language develop out of the points of heightened sensitivity. They allow infants to respond to the sounds of the target language before the onset of speech and while the child does not understand the language(s) yet. At this stage, the developments in the perceptual system are due to the fact that those phonetic properties not exploited for distinctive purposes are either rare in the language input or they do not occur there at all (Werker Tees 1984). This way pre-speaking children desensitize to those acoustic cues not used in their ambient language(s), because they do not develop the appropriate categories for use of phonemic perception and because the latter blocks access to the former, unless specific circumstances prevail that induce the choice of non-phonemic strategies. Consequently, when children begin to speak they have already developed a fair approximation of the target categories. As children develop after the onset of speech, their perceptual categories continue to be sharpened towards these targets. That is, the range of the individual categories becomes more clearly delimited and the change-over from one category to the next becomes more abrupt. The mature state may not be reached until age 1618.

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In monolingual situations, the development results in the fact that those original sensitivities not required by the target become less readily available. The degree of availability differs depending on the category involved. Some contrasts, at least with some speakers, cannot be activated right away at all upon first contact to an additional language. Recall the difficulty that the English speaking adults had in identifying the retroflex vs. dental stops of Hindi and the glottalized velar vs. glottalized uvular stops of Thompson. The abilities for other contrasts may remain more readily available, for example, the relative retention of the ability to identify voiced vs. voiceless aspirated stops by speakers of English. The details as to what happens when the original abilities are needed are anything but well understood at the present time. Nonetheless, the impact of experience is not such that its results are completely irreversible. On the contrary, at any given state of development, i.e. with children as well as with adults, the categories and abilities remain flexible enough to meet new needs, such as imposed by contact with additional languages or in cases of dissemination of language change. The degree to which such new demands can be met differs depending on the categories involved. As for LI bilingual situations, no suggestions can be made on the basis of experimental investigations, because no pertinent studies on LI-bilingual children appear to be available. However, there is the observation that such children do not show phonological transfer at the beginning until approximately age 3;0 or even later (Wode 1988, 1989, 1992). It is therefore quite plausible to assume that in such cases the categories are developed appropriately from the beginning. That is, those cases where similar targets lead to transfer with L2 learners aged 4;0 or above, are handled by LI bilingual children in such a way that they develop the appropriate distinctions separately without interference. It is the state of development of the individual learner's speech perceptual system that determines how its various functions are met, namely, self-control, adaptation to language change, and language contact. The latter term is used to draw attention to the fact that L2 acquisition is merely a special case of the more general phenomenon of what may happen in situations of language contact. This also subsumes pidginization and borrowing. As for their psycholinguistic basis in general, and the perceptual one in particular, there is no reason to assume that L2 acquisition, pidginization, and borrowing are each based on different perceptual machinery. It is in the way people handle contact situations, in particular, the acquisiton of additional languages, that the true potential of the auditory system for speech perception is revealed. Although many of the details are still unclear, the major outlines of what happens begin to emerge. If a new language has phonological elements that are identical with some already developed by the speaker, than they can be handled via the pre-existing categories. In case of new elements no preexisting category will do. The learner needs to go back to his original categorical

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sensitivities and develop the new target. Since the particular area of sensitivity is not yet occupied by other categories, learners tend to be successful, although it may take some time. What they activate is their original categorical and continuous sensitivities. Similar elements present the most complicated cases. The L2 elements feed into pre-existing categories. As a consequence, the similar elements are handled easily and fairly consistently in borrowing as well as in pidginization and L2 acquisition. Since the original points of sensitivity of neonates and infants are occupied by previous categories, the original categorical sensitivity is hard to access, because language processing in spontaneous communication is based on phonemic perception. The research by Werker and her collaborators suggests that, in fact, these original sensitivities are retained but that they become difficult to access in specific situations. However, there remains a mystery at the present time: Why should the same person be able to adapt to sound change and control his own speech via his continuous mode, but fail to develop adequate targets for his L2? 4.2.

Nature, nurture, and age

Some implications inherent in the claims and findings presented above go beyond speech perception. In fact, speech perception may well serve as a paradigm case to make more sense out of the venerable debates concerning nativism vs. empirism and the impact of age on L2 acquisition. As for the former and leaving aside radical views which do not apply to language acquisition anyway, namely, that either everything is innately given or that everything is due to experience, the issue is to determine the impact of genetic predisposition and experience. This is a general problem which applies to many, if not all structural areas of natural languages, whether it is learning, self-control, or language change, that is at stake. The problem always is to specify the abilities that are required to acquire and develop these structures. In every such case the learner needs to be credited with the appropriate abilities which allow him to create the structures of the respective linguistic subsystem, even if the result is not necessarily nativelike competence. Furthermore, in all these cases provision has to be made for the fact that people can handle more than one language and that they can do this, at least with some success, throughout their entire life. Given such a perspective, the task is to specify (a) those anatomical and functional biological substrates that constitute the innate component; (b) the nature of the cognitive functional system(s) that can be generated on the basis of these biological substrates in conjunction with external stimulation; and (c) the nature and the extent to which the biological substrates and/or the functional

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systems can change as a function of time and experience. Consider two alternatives: (a)

(b)

It is the biological substrates that change. This means that prior states of development are inaccessible. As a consequence, subsequent language acquisition cannot be based on the same abilities as activated before. The biological substrates do not change at all. They give rise to functional systems which remain subject to change if need be. These systems, in turn, can give rise to additional systems either via the interaction with the original substrates, or in conjunction with other derived systems.

Lenneberg's critical period hypothesis (1967), Bley-Vroman's fundamental difference hypothesis (1986), or claims to the effect that adults do not have access to the principles and/or parameters of UG anymore, are instances of alternative (a). The development of speech perception, clearly, instances alternative (b). That is, the biological substrate is the auditory system. Its inherent, i.e. innate, properties allow for the creation of the speech perception system as a functional system arising from the interaction of the innate properties with the ambient language(s). The original properties remain available for both the adaptation of existing systems as required by subsequent demands, such as language change or the subsequent creation of additional languages, although access to the original properties may be blocked in certain situations. As argued in detail in Wode (1993, 1994a), in order to understand the impact of age on L2 acquisition it is not enough to identify optimal age ranges or points in time after which native-like mastery cannot be achieved any longer (as in overviews like Dulay et al. 1982 or Long 1990, 1993). What needs to be determined is the causes of these changes. As detailed in Wode (1994a), three kinds of explanations can be identified at the present time, namely, (a) sociocultural explanations, (b) cognitive explanations, and (c) biological ones. Biological explanations refer to anatomical and functional changes, such as, the neurological underpinnings of the language faculty in humans, the post-natal development of the vocal tract configuration in conjunction with the lowering of the larynx before the onset of speech (Lieberman 1984; Kent 1992), the development of tongue control (Kent 1992), or the development of neural networks. The socio-cultural explanation refers to the fact that learning a language is an integral part of the socialization of any individual. The more advanced in age, the more deeply rooted will he be within his native culture, and the less will he be prepared to acquire a native-like competence in the new L2 for fear of loss of his original cultural identity (Schumann 1978). To retain a foreign accent is an extremely handy device to become, at the same time, fully functional in some non-native culture and to retain one's primary socio-cultural attachments.

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As for the cognitive explanation, it refers to changes in the functioning of human cognition. The changes in the perceptual behavior summarized in paragraph 3, clearly, require such a cognitive explanation. That is, they do not fit the socio-cultural nor the biological explanation. It is the rise of the LI perceptual categories and not any loss of innate sensory capacities or sociocultural attachments that leads to the well known perceptual difficulties of L2 learners. The surprise, however, is that these difficulties occur already before the onset of speech, i.e. much before puberty as predicted by Lenneberg's critical period hypothesis (1967). 4.3.

Innateness

The claim that some kind of knowledge specific to language structures is innate to the species of homo sapiens is familiar enough from generative and nongenerative sources. However, as pointed out in greater detail in Wode (1994a, 1994b, in press), claims about innateness cause problems if considered from the evolutionary point of view. How did the linguistic information get into the genes of the species in the first place? To explain this via selection and adaption to external contingencies will not do, because such a view presupposes that the object to cause the adaptions, in this case human language(s), must have been in existence prior to the language capacity in the adapting organism. Consequently, languages and the human language faculty must be thought of as having developed out of abilities and/or properties that existed in the species before. As for speech perception, the evolutionary issue concerning innateness causes no problems. The research on non-human species (Kühl - Miller 1978; Kühl Padden 1982, 1983; Sinott 1989; e.g. paragraph 3) indicates that the auditory systems of other species have perceptual discontinuities comparable to the perceptual categories of human speech. Consequently, it can be conjectured that, in terms of evolution, the categorical sensitivity as evidenced by human neonates and other species antidates the development of human speech. In other words the auditory basis for speech perception was in place much before the species of modern homo sapiens became distinct or started to develop its language capacity. 4.4.

Typology of sound contrasts in human languages

It is a well established fact that the sound systems of natural human languages make use of only a small inventory of contrasts. Drawing on the research results on neonates, infants and animals, Kühl suggested a plausible explanation, namely, that the sound contrasts in human speech evolved out of the natural discontinuities of the auditory system (e.g. Kühl 1987b, 1991). This typology does not have to be learned, it is innate. The points of heightened auditory

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sensitivity on which it is based do not constitute linguistic knowledge in any sense of this term, but rather properties of the auditory system in quite a mechanical sense. 4.5.

Perception and production

Obviously, perception must precede production if learners are to approach target norms. But when and how does this happen? What is required is some mechanism that provides for the perceptual information derived from the input, makes it available to the vocal production system, and monitors the output results. It seems that the pertinent target information is contained in the representations of the perceptual categories, and that the monitoring is achieved via the interaction of categorical and continuous perception as summarized in paragraph 3. The first point in time identified so far for such a perception-production link is the babbling period during the second half of the first year of life (Wode 1994b, in press). Some recent studies on babbling report changes in the nature of babbling towards various properties of the target language in around 0; 8-0; 10 (e.g. de Boysson - Bardies et al. 1989; de Boysson - Bardies et al. 1992; Sendlmeier - Sendlmeier 1991; cf. Wode 1994a for a review). During the babbling period the prephonemic perceptual categories function as the basis for the control of production. After the onset of speech this function is probably taken over by the phonemes, or, more likely, by the phonetic prototypes in the sense of Flege (1992, in press) that constitute the target language allophones. As for L2 production the mechanism of equivalence classification largely determines the nature of L2 production. That is, whether transfer is relied on, whether new sounds need to be developed, and so forth. 5.

Conclusion

Needless to point out that most of the above is anything but well established. Also needless to add that this way the challenge for further research is all the greater. This does not only concern empirical facts to be collected via controlled experiments or via anecdotal observation but also theoretical constructs with respect to both phonological theory and language acquisition. Above all, phonological theory in general and theories about L2 phonological acquisition in particular need to be revised to incorporate the link between perception and production.

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Notes 1. This paper is an expansion of my plenary delivered to the 1990 SLRF Conference at Eugene, OR (Wode 1990) by incorporating subsequent work presented in more detail in Wode (1992, 1994a, 1994b, in press). I am grateful to Ocke-Schwen Bohn for helpful comments. 2. Unfortunately, there is a terminological clash involving the terms continuous perception and (dis)continuity. Both are established terms in their respective fields without any overlap in their definitions. That is, continuous perception refers to properties of the auditory system as explained above and does not relate to the discontinuity issue as discussed in paragraph 2. Instead of creating further confusions I adhere to the original terms and their definitions. 3. There are three major experimental techniques for use with pre-speaking infants: High amplitude sucking (HAS), cardiac rate measurements (CR), and the head turning technique (HT). Each of these techniques works on the principle of habituation. For example, an infant's rate of sucking on a pacifier will settle for a stable pattern if the child is exposed to the same sound for a longer period of time. The child is said to habituate to the sound. The moment the stimulus pattern changes, the child may react by changes in the sucking rate. The frequency will go up. This interaction between habituation and sucking rate adjustment is exploited for experimental purposes in the HAS technique, first successfully utilized by Eimas et al. (1971). Suppose the same stimulus /ba/ is played for a certain period of time so that the child gets habituated to /ba/. If then /pa/ is introduced to interrupt the previous pattern, the child's sucking rate may be expected to go up. The logic behind this experiment is that the child's rate can only go up if he has, indeed, perceived the new stimulus as different, i.e. as belonging to a different category from the one habituated to before. The same rationale underlies the two other experimental techniques. In the CR design a marked deceleration in the heart beat is viewed as indicating that a new category has been perceived. The HT design, requires the child to be trained to turn his head into a specific direction upon the presentation of a novel stimulus (cf. Jusczyk 1985; Polka - Werker 1994; or Kühl 1987a for details on these techniques). 4. Although such experimental results do suggest that it should, in principle, be possible to use the techniques of speech perception research for remedial

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purposes, for foreign language teaching such attempts have so far proved not very successful. See Strange (1992) for a survey. References Abramson, Arthur S. - Leigh Lisker 1970 "Discriminability across the voicing continuum: Cross-language tests", in: Bohuslav Hala - Milan Romportl - Pfemysl Janota (eds.), 563-567. Albert, Martin L. - Loraine K. Obler 1978 The bilingual brain. Neuropsychological and neurolinguistic aspects of bilingualism. New York: Academic Press. Aslin, Richard N. - David B. Pisoni - Peter W. Jusczyk 1983 "Auditory development and speech perception in infancy", in: Marshall M. Haith - Joseph J. Campos (eds.), 573-687. Bailey, Peter - Mark P. Haggard 1980 "Perception-production relations in the voicing contrast for initial stops in 3-year-olds", Phoneticall: 377-396. Best, Catherine T. - Gerald W. McRoberts - Nomathemba M. Sithole 1988 "Examination of perceptual reorganisation for normative speech contrasts: Zulu click discrimination by English-speaking adults and infants", Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14: 345-360. Bley-Vroman, Robert W. 1986 The logical problem of foreign language learning. Austin: Mimeo University of Texas. Bohn, Ocke-S. - James E. Flege. 1990 "Interlingual identification and the role of foreign language experience in L2 vowel perception", Applied Psycholinguistics 11: 303-328. 1992 "The production of new and similar vowels by adult German learners of English", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14: 131-158. Burmeister, Hartmut - Patricia L. Rounds (eds.) 1990 Proceedings of the 10th meeting of the Second Language Research Forum, I. Eugene, OR: Department of Linguistics and American English Institute, University of Oregon. Butterworth, Brian - Bernhard Cornrie - Osten Dahl (eds.) 1984 Explanations for Language Universals. Berlin: Mouton.

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Caramazza, Alfonso - Grace H. Yeni-Komshian - Edgar B. Zurif - E. Carbone 1973 "The acquisition of a new phonological contrast: The case of stop consonants in French-English bilinguals", The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 54: 421—428. Clahsen, Harald 1990 "The comparative study of first and second language development", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 135159. Clahsen, Harald - Pieter Muysken 1986 "The availability of universal grammar to adult and child learners: A study of the acquisition of German word order", Second Language Research 2: 93-119. Davies Alan - Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.) 1984 Interlanguage. Edinburgh: University Press. de Boysson-Bardies, Bonodicte - Pierre Halle - Laurent Sagart - Catherine Durand 1989 "A crosslinguistic investigation of vowel formants in babbling", Journal of Child Language 16: 1-17. de Boysson-Bardies, Bonodicte - Marilyn M. Vihman - Liselotte RougHellichius - Catherine Durand - Ingrid Landberg - Fumiko Arao 1992 "Material evidence of infant selection from the target language: A cross-linguistic phonetic study", in: Charles A. Ferguson - Lise Menn - Carol Stoel-Gammon (eds.), 369-391. Dulay, Heidy C. - Marina K. Burt - Stephen D. Krashen 1982 Language two. Oxford: University Press. Eckman, Fred R. 1981 "On the naturalness of interlanguage phonological rules", Language Learning 31: 195-216. Eilers, Rebecca E. - William Gavin - Wesley R. Wilson 1979 "Linguistic experience and phonemic perception in infancy: A cross-linguistic study", Child Development 50: 14-18. Eimas, Peter D. - Einar R. Siqueland - Peter W. Jusczyk - James Vigorito 1971 "Speech perception in infants'', Science 171: 303-306. Elsendoorn, Bernard A.G. 1981 "The influence of vowel duration in English CVC-words on the word-final perception of the fortis-lenis contrast by Dutch speakers of English, Part 2", Progress report Institute of Phonetics Utrecht 7: 42-57. [Institute of Phonetics, University of Utrecht]. Felix, Sascha W. 1984 "Maturational aspects of Universal Grammar", in: Alan Davies Clive Griper - Anthony P.R. Howatt (eds.), 133-161.

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Ferguson, Charles A. - Lise Menn - Carol Stoel-Gammon (eds.) 1992 Phonological development: Models, research, implications. Timonium, MD: York Press. Flege, James E. 1987 "The production of 'new' and 'similar' phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification", Journal of Phonetics 15: 47-65. 1988 "The production and perception of foreign language speech sounds", in: Harris Winitz (ed.), 244-401. 1992 "Speech learning in a second language", in: Charles A. Ferguson - Lise Menn - Carol Stoel-Gammon (eds.), 565-604. in press "Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems", in: Winifred Strange (ed.). Flege, James E. - Wieke Eefting 1986 "Linguistic and developmental effects on the production and perception of stop consonants", Phonetica 43: 155-171. Flege, James E., - James Hillenbrand 1984 "Limits on phonetic accuracy in foreign language speech production", The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 76: 708-721. Gass, Susan M. 1984 "Development of speech perception and speech production in adult second language learners", Applied Psycholinguistics 5: 51-74. Gass, Susan M. - Carolyn Madden - Dennis Preston - Larry Selinker (eds.) 1989 Variation in second language acquisition, Volume II: Psycholinguistic issues. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gottlieb, Gilbert - Norman A. Krasnegor (eds.) 1985 Measurement of audition and vision in the first year of postnatal life: A methodological overview. Norwood, N.J.: Able*. Haith, Marshall - Joseph J. Campos (eds.) 1983 Handbook of child phonology infancy and developmental psychobiology, Volume 2. New York: John Wiley. Hala, Bohuslav - Milan Romportl - Pfemysl Janota (eds.) 1970 Proceedings of the 6th international congress of phonetic sciences 1967. München: Max Hueber. Hamad, Stevan (ed.) 1987 Categorical perception: The groundwork of cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Haugen, Einar 1953 The Norwegian language in America. A study in bilingual behavior. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1958 "Language contact", in: Eva Sivertsen (ed.), 771-785.

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Hornstein, Norbert - David W. Lightfoot (eds.) 1981 Explanation in linguistics. London: Longman. Howell, Peter - Stuart Rosen 1984 "Natural auditory sensitivities as universal determiners of phonemic contrasts", in: Brian Butterworth - Bernard Comrie Osten Dahl (eds.), 205-235. Hyltenstam, Kenneth - Ake Viberg (eds.) 1993 Progression and regression in language. Sociocultural, neuropsychological, and linguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, Roman 1960 "Linguistics and poetics", in: Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), 350-377. Jusczyk, Peter W. 1985 "The high amplitude sucking technique as a methodological tool in speech perception research", in: Gilbert Gottlieb - Norman A. Krasnegor (eds.), 195-221. 1992 "Developing phonological categories from the speech signal", in: Charles A. Ferguson - Lise Menn - Carol Stoel-Gammon (eds.), 17-64. Kent, Ray D. 1992 "The biology of phonological development", in: Charles A. Ferguson - Lise Menn - Carol Stoel-Gammon (eds.), 65-90. Kühl, Patricia K. 1987a "Perception of speech and sound in early infancy", in: Philip Salapatek - Leslie B. Cohen (eds.), 275-381. 1987b "The special-mechanism debate in speech: Categorization tests on animals and infants", in: Stevan Hamad (ed.), 355-386. 1991 "Human adults and human infants show a 'perceptual magnet effect' for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not", Perception and Psychophysics 50: 93-107. Kühl, Patricia K. - James D. Miller 1978 "Speech perception by the chinchilla: Identification functions for synthetic VOT stimuli", The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 63: 905-917. Kühl, Patricia K. - Denise M. Padden 1982 "Enhanced discriminability at the phonetic boundaries for the voicing feature in macaques", Perception and Psychophysics 32: 542-550. 1983 "Enhanced discriminability at the phonetic boundaries for the place feature in macaques", The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 73: 1003-1010.

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The lexicon

Lexicon and grammar in second language learning

Paul Bogaards

Learning a foreign language amounts to mastering a grammar and a vocabulary. This claim will arouse little opposition. It is remarkable, however, that many learning methods emphasize grammar in their texts, and especially in their exercises, as if it were self-evident to do so. Students are required to first learn the structure of the language and in the second place the vocabulary. In foreign language learning research as well, far and away the most attention has been paid to the question of how the learner's internal grammar develops, whereas hardly a beginning has been made in the study of what one could call the mental lexicon. Perhaps it would be wise to further examine this obvious priority which is given to grammar, in particular within the framework of a communicative approach to foreign language teaching. 1.

Introduction

From a linguistic perspective, one can view the sentences of a language as kinds of buildings. Two things are necessary in order to construct these buildings; on the one hand, the elements (materials) used in the construction, and on the other hand the rules that determine how this happens. This seems to be a general principle which applies to houses as well as to linguistic utterances.

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In the field of linguistics, it has sometimes seemed as though one could study these two aspects separately, as if they belonged to two different worlds, to two domains that to all intents and purposes were detached from one another: the grammar as the place for rules and structures, and the lexicon as the place for elements, the supply of individual pieces of building material, waiting to be processed. Bloomfield's statement in this respect is well-known (1933): "The lexicon is really an appendix of the grammar, a list of basic irregularities" (274). For some, this representation of the situation has even called to mind the image of a prison where the grammar represents the law and the words are behind bars because they are unwilling to obey any rules (Di Sciullo - Williams 1987: 3). In reality, however, lexicon and grammar are in no way separate from one another. This can be made clear comparing language with a game like marbles. In this game there are mostly marbles of different colours and sizes. But these external differences alone are not the main thing. The main thing is that one can or may do different things with the different types or categories of marbles. In other words, there are different rules for the different categories; the rules give meaning to the categories. Rules and elements are interdependent. This does not mean, however, that they are equally important. Whereas one may play with marbles without having any rules at all, it is totally impossible to do anything with only rules and no marbles. Or, to go back to the context of building, it may be possible to protect oneself from wind and rain just by piling up building material without having a clear plan as to how to do this, but if one only has the structure of a house, or the knowledge of building principles, one will get wet. This also applies to language: As a rule, vocabulary is more important than grammar. Indeed, with only a few loose elements and no syntactic connection, something happens anyway. Take, for example, the following sequence: Storm fall tree dead. These words call up a rather clear image, even though it is not at all certain which grammatical categories they belong to and regardless of the fact that they can mean many different things. This explains why text comprehension is determined to a large extent by knowledge of vocabulary (Chall 1987: 11). Furthermore, the foreign language learners' need for lexical elements, in early as well as in later stages of the learning process, is often far greater than the need for grammatical rules. Travellers take dictionaries along when going abroad, not grammar books (Hatch 1978). Moreover, it is worth noting that in situations where getting a message across quickly and precisely is of the utmost importance (in telegrams, panic situations or times when emotions are high), people limit themselves to what is essential, namely, the lexicon, and reduce the syntax to the very minimum. Finally, the number of syntactically ungrammatical sentences we speak and write is enormous (see, for instance, Besse - Porquier 1984: 15). In

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short, grammar does not really seem to be absolutely necessary, but the lexicon is. Grammar seems to become necessary when we want to convey complex or unobvious messages precisely and subtly (Issidorides 1991: 99, 105). In this section, I will try to show that language consists not of grammatical constructions into which lexical elements can be inserted, but of lexical elements that call up grammatical structures. From this central position of the lexicon, I will, furthermore, consider a few implications for foreign language learning. 2.

Lexicon and grammar from a linguistic perspective

2. /.

Structures and rules

My first point is that syntactic structures are not autonomous constructions with their own status, independent of the lexicon. In order to argue this case, I would like to go back to a classic example of structural grammar. The Dutch linguist Reichling (1962: 76-77) accepts (1), which corresponds to an 'English' sentence such as (la) as "a grammatically correct Dutch sentence". (1) (1) a.

De vek blakte de mukken. The veil blaked the mugten.

Although (la) 'means nothing', we know various things 'for certain', namely, (2), (3) and (4). (2) (3) (4)

The mugten was blaked by the veil. At least one blaker ofmugtens is a veil. The veil has blaked the mugten.

Reichling uses this example to show that one can understand a great deal about the relationships between the words used, based on a knowledge of the grammar (of Dutch) and with no idea of the meaning of the lexical elements. In Reichling's words: "The grammatical system is autonomous - has its own laws - in that it functions independently of any individual lexical meaning of the words used (....)" (77). Reichling is saying, in effect, that there are constants in the relationships between the constituents of a sentence, regardless of what these constituents mean. This implies that we should be allowed to replace each of the 'words' in sentence (1, la) with another word, and then make the same conversions as in sentences (2) to (4). Or, to put it in a more modern way, certain changes can take place within the NP (V NP) structure regardless of the lexical filling of the categories. Let us look at what that yields for the following sentences:

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The cook roasted the turkey. The driver avoided the children. The highway bored the men. The teacher possessed this skill.

Clearly, the 'transformation' applied in (2) gives a satisfactory result only for sentence (5); for morphological reasons, an adaptation of the verb is necessary for sentences (6) and (7), whereas for sentence (8), the passive form is very uncommon. The 'transformation' in sentence (3) leads to strange statements for sentences (6), (7) and (8), and the change of tense makes sentence (8) seem rather odd. The following French sentences show that even when 'the same structure' is used with the same verb but with different objects or in a different tense, substantial differences may result both in interpretation and in the possibilities for 'transformations' to apply: (9) (10) (11) (12)

Gerard aime Juliette. Gerard aime sa soeur. Gerard aime le fromage. Gerard a aime le fromage.

Only sentence (9) can be changed into the passive without undergoing further adaptations and only the Görard in sentence (11) is a real connoisseur (cheese lover). The meaning of aimer is (most likely) 'to be in love with' in sentence (9), 'to have affection for' in sentence (10) and 'to have a strong liking for (the taste of)' in sentences (11) and (12). The difference between the last two sentences is that in (11) we are talking about 'cheese in general', of which Gorard apparently is very fond, and in (12) we are talking about 'a certain (quantity of) cheese', without divulging Gorard's preferences. In short, one must wonder what, in this case, is functioning autonomously, or, as Reichling has it, "independently of any individual lexical meaning of the words used". What has been said about structures, as a consequence, also applies to grammatical rules. I would like to explore this point with the help of a few cases of pronominalisation in French. Let us consider the following examples: (13) a. b.

Sylvie parle souvent a sa soeur. Sylvie lui parle souvent.

(14) a. b. c. d.

Sylvie pense souvent ä sa soeur. Sylvie pense souvent a elle. Sylvie pense souvent ä son travail. Sylvie y pense souvent.

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Roger joue ä cejeu depuis plus d'une heure. -Roger y joue depuis plus d'une heure. Roger joue au tennis depuis trois ans. * Roger y joue depuis trois ans.

The general rule in French is that the indirect object can be replaced by a personal pronoun which then stands before the finite verb, a so-called pronom conjoint, as in sentence (13b). Sentence (14b) demonstrates that there are exceptions to this rule, exceptions that have to do with the characteristics of verbs such as penser ä, faire attention ä, s 'adresser ä and others. The difference between sentences (14a, b) and (14c, d) indicates that the semantic value of the indirect object has a direct influence on the choice of the form and place of the personal pronoun: eile or lui for feminine or masculine persons (positioned after the finite verb), y for things (positioned before the finite verb). Sentences (15 ad) demonstrate that ä ce jeu can be replaced by a personal pronoun, whereas au tennis cannot. Summing up, one could state that, contrary to what was claimed by Reichling and many other linguists, rules and structures are not autonomous, not independent. Indeed, they are extremely sensitive to any individual lexical meaning of the words used. 2.2.

The grammar of the lexicon

As stated in the introduction, it is often thought that rules and structures exist only in syntax, and occupy no place within the lexicon. In this respect, it is interesting to follow the line of thought of Di Sciullo - Williams (1987). They propose that there are three possible ways to approach the notion word. According to the first, words are morphological objects, i.e. products of the basic units (morphemes), formed according to certain combination rules (affixation, compounding). The second line of approach defines words as the basic units of the syntax, as indicated by the term syntactic atoms. Finally, the third approach views words as elements of language which are brought together in lists (dictionaries); the authors choose the term listemes for these elements. According to Di Sciullo - Williams, there is a strong parallelism between the fields of morphology and syntax, because in both cases there is a collection of basic elements, or atoms (morphemes and words, respectively), and a number of combination rules. Free combinations as well as set, unchangeable ones occur on both levels. On the morphological level, most forms are fixed, at least in languages like English, but it is still quite easy to form and understand new words which have never been used before. New words for things or situations are constantly being created, and no one would really have a problem with new formations like miraclemonger or microscientology. On the syntactic level, on the

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other hand, most constructions are new, but many 'ready mades' occur in language use. Sentences like Quality not quantity and other idiomatic expressions and sayings have fixed forms which are hardly sensitive to the effect of grammatical rules. This line of thought has led, rightly, to talk of a grammar for words separate from the traditional sentence grammar (Baayen - Booij 1990: 3). In both grammars there is a supply of building blocks and combination rules. The opinion that the lexicon is a static entity is replaced by a view that attempts to understand the lexicon in its dynamic aspects by searching for rules and regularities. 2.3.

From lexicon to grammar

Generative grammar has given a more central place to the lexicon in recent years. According to the Principle of Projection, lexical elements are projected onto the syntax of the sentence. Something like 'eat [- NP]' is usually given as an example of a lexical element, which is interpreted as being a statement that eat is followed by a noun phrase which functions as a direct object, that is, that eat is a transitive verb. In a structure containing 'V [- NP]', V may thus be replaced with eat. It is worth noting that in this formulation the characteristics of the lexical elements are projected onto the syntax of the structure of the sentence. Although, according to the theory, the lexicon is the source of everything, and although a process of interaction is said to take place between lexicon and grammar, a formulation like this still suggests a sort of primacy of syntax with regard to the lexicon. It is as though a syntactic structure (a sentence) were first1 constructed but not accepted until a lexical element is found that corresponds with it. In this way the lexicon seems to function only as a sort of filter of the unbridled power of the generative mechanism. Opposing this view, Lakoff (1987: 229-259) has convincingly shown that the human mind works with meaningful categories, symbols with meaning, and not with meaningless signals. Knowledge and use of language have nothing to do with a kind of higher mathematics, where the x's and y's can later be substituted by meaningful things. The human mind can only make use of elements that are meaningful from the outset. This implies, as was shown also in 2.1 above, that syntax cannot be independent of the lexicon. Or, in the words of Lakoff (1987): ... no autonomous syntax (of the sort required by generative grammar) could in principle be supplied with an adequate theory of meaning. A theory of grammar that takes syntax as the study of uninterpreted formal symbols will forever be meaningless. What is required is (...) a theory of

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syntax in which syntactic categories are semantically motivated and grammatical constructions come with meaning (256 f.). It therefore seems more interesting to take the opposite approach and to see in what way grammatical possibilities and structures arise out of the conceptual meaning of words. The theta-roles and argument structures of the current version of generative grammar offer a useful basis for this approach. The subject and complements of a verb are called the arguments of that verb and each of the arguments corresponds to precisely one theta-role. An argument can fill the role of Actor (or Agent), Theme, Instrument, Goal, etc. According to this view, the subject of the verb murder is an Actor, of collapse a Theme, of receive a Goal, of contain a Locative, etc. (Radford 1988: 378). It is remarkable that in the generative literature only one so-called theta-grid is usually given for each verb. Radford (1988: 383) provides the following theta-grid for the verb give: "give [Actor. Theme, Goal]'.2 Evidently, no thought was given to the meanings of give in sentences like (16) and (17): (16) (17)

The frost is giving. The wood gives.

But apart from this idiomatic use of the verb to give, there are also senses as in (18) and (19) which are closer to the core meaning of give, but where the given theta-grid is not applicable. (18) (19)

The thermometer gives 20 degrees. The analysis gave bad results.

Sentences like (18) and (19) indicate that it is not always possible to actualize the Goal-role. This is especially the case if there is no Actor, or at least if the subject is not the instigator of the action. This suggests that in addition to the theta-grid given above, the verb give should also have something like 'give [Instrument. Theme]'. Further analysis shows that many verbs have more than one theta-grid, because their meanings are much richer and much more dynamic than one would guess from the generative literature. Although it is perhaps not impossible to cater for problems of homonymy and polysemy in the framework of generative grammar, up to now no attempts seem to have been made to do so. That is regrettable, because, as language description tends to take place in terms of the ever more abstract principles and parameters of what is called the core grammar, a heavier accent is placed on the peculiarities of the lexicon. It therefore

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becomes more and more important, in order to give a clear view of the language as a whole, to describe these characteristics in as much detail as possible. A stimulating example of such a detailed description can be found in the work of Mel'ouk and his collaborators (see, for example, Mel'Cuk et al. 1984). They provide descriptions of the following type:

INVITER, verbe 1. X prie (la) Υ de se doplacer ... pour faire des actions (X requests Υ to move ... in order to carry out actions) [Paul m 'invite aller au restaurant] (Paul invites me to go to the restaurant) 2a. Dans le but d'inciter Υ ... X fait savoir Y (In order to urge Υ ... X lets Υ know that) [// nous invita au silence] (He urged us to be silent) 2b. Fait X incite Υ Z-er (Fact X urges Υ to Z(verb)) [Ses promesses m 'invitaient redoubler de zele] (His promises lead me to redouble my efforts) 3. ... X cause que Υ a envie de Z-er (...X causes Υ to want Z(verb)) [Le calme de cette maison invite au repos] (The peacefulness of this house tempts one to rest) 1. X invite Υ Z-er a W U-er = X prie (la) Υ de se doplacer Z l'endroit W pour y faire des actions (Hies ) U correspondant normalement a la nature de W, U otant 6tre plaisant pour Y, et X fait savoir Y que X assumera le role d'hote (1) dans la situation 'U dans W. N.B.: Peut 6tre utiliso performativement. (X requests (la) Y to move Z to place W in order to carry out actions there (linked to) U which normally correspond to the nature of W, U being pleasant to Y, and X lets Y know that X will take on the role of host in the situation 'U in W'. N.B.: Can be used in a performative way) REGIME

Χ

Υ

Ζ

W

U

l.N

l.N

l.aVinf

l.Loc(ad)N 2. chez N 3. Adv

LaN 2. Vinf 3. pour N 4. pour Vinf 5. comme N 6. en tant que N

obligatory

Remarks: W.2: N indicates a person; Z + W + U: not possible.

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Examples X+Υ X+ Υ+ Ζ X+ Υ+W X+Υ+U

: Denis invite ses amis (Dennis invites his friends) : Paul m 'invite aller au restaurant (Paul invites me to go to the restaurant) : Marie les invite Quebec (Mary invites them in Quebec, ) '.Um 'invite au lancement de son Irvre ; II m 'α ίηνίίέ Grangeneuve pour les moissons (He invites me to the Place des Arts intake -> developing system -> output t

focused practice

The goal of instruction focusing on structured input processing is that learners convert input into intake (226). The basic idea behind instruction focusing on processing is that input which is processed in terms of a form-meaning connection must have been decoded linguistically, i.e. the learner must have been able to impose a structure on the input if he has succeeded to infer the encoded meaning. Input that has been processed as a form/meaning connection may serve as intake "from which grammatical information can be made available to the developing system" (227). The type of instruction focusing on the manipulation of input is represented in Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Processing instruction in foreign language teaching (VanPatten Cadierao 1993: 227).

input —> intake -> developing system -> output t

processing mechanisms

T focused practice

In VanPatten - Cadierno, the difference between both methods of instruction is illustrated with the acquisition of the placement of object clitics in Spanish by native speakers of English. As illustrated in (23), Spanish has flexible word order with nominal objects (23a, 23b) and obligatory preverbal position with pronominal objects (23c, 23d). (23) a.

b.

c. d.

El senor sigue a la senora The man-SUBJ follows the woman-OBJ 'The man follows the woman' A la senora la sigue el senor The woman-OBJ her-OBJ follows the man-SUBJ 'The man follows the woman' El senor la sigue The man-SUBJ her-OBJ follows La sigue el senor Her-OBJ follows the man-SUBJ

In order to compare the effects of differences in instructional treatment, VanPatten - Cadierao constructed two instructional packets representing, on the one hand, the traditional form-oriented practising approach and, on the other, the content-oriented processing approach. According to the traditional way of instruction, the grammatical notions and regularities were explained first. Subsequently, the subjects had to practice what

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they had learned initially as formal operations, later in meaningful and more communicative settings. In the condition of structured input processing, on the other hand, the learners were first given a presentation and explanation of the linguistic phenomenon. Subsequently, they were presented with materials for which they had to show that they were able to correctly infer the encoded meaning. For example, having listened to an instructor reading a sentence as in (24a), subjects had to select the best interpretation from English translations as in (24b). (24) a. b.

Me llaman los padres My parents call me I call my parents

In another content-focused activity as represented in (25), subjects had to respond with 'agree' (Si, se me aplicd) or 'disagree' (No, no se me aplicd). (25)

"Indicate whether or not each statement about your parents applies to you. Then share your responses with a classmate.'' a.

Los Homo con frecuencia por telefono Ί call them on the phone frequently'

b.

Los visito los fines de semana Ί visit them on the weekends'

Summarizing, the only activity to be performed by those subjects who obtained content-oriented processing tasks was to interpret OVS structures correctly. This was done by confronting the subjects with sentences to which they had to respond in a content-oriented way. At no point did the learners have to produce the targeted form. In a pretest-posttest experiment, subjects were tested on a written production and an aural comprehension task. For the aural comprehension task, subjects had to match the sentences they heard with one of two pictures; for the written production task, they had to complete sentences according to visual clues. With respect to the comprehension task, it turned out that the learners of the input processing condition scored significantly better than those who were given formfocused instruction. Furthermore, in the production task there was no significant difference between form-focused instruction and input processing. From these results, VanPatten and Cadierno conclude that input processing and formfocused instruction "apparently do not impact the same way on the learner"

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(237f). Form-focused teaching enables subjects to perform a task that they have been instructed in. It has no effect on the developing L2 system. Input processing, however, does have an effect on the L2 system and consequently allows learners to perform a task that was not part of their instruction. The subjects of the input processing condition performed better, not only in decoding but also in encoding. VanPatten and Cadierao conclude that form-focused teaching and input processing involve two different knowledge systems. These knowledge systems have been named acquired vs. learned competence (Krashen 1982), grammatical knowledge (competence) vs. propositional knowledge (Schwartz 1993), or, as I prefer to call it, knowledge of language vs. knowledge about language. Only the former kind of knowledge base determines the state of L2 development, i.e. it determines what L2 learners are intuitively capable of. For those who think that it would still make sense to combine the traditional way of teaching grammar through explanation and practice with a new way of teaching that focuses on input processing, there is more bad news. In an earlier study, VanPatten (1990) has shown that conscious attention to noncommunicative grammatico-morphological forms in the input negatively affects comprehension of content. Given the fact that comprehension of content is a prerequisite for the acquisition of formal aspects of language, we can only conclude that conscious attention to meaningless form is detrimental to acquisition. It must be kept in mind, however, that I am referring to the acquisition of formal syntactic knowledge. The acquisition of lexical knowledge is quite a different story. As is shown in VanPatten (1990), conscious attention to lexical material has a positive effect on the comprehension of content (294). As lexical knowledge can be learned explicitly and as it has a positive effect on processing input, it should contribute to the acquisition of the more abstract properties of a linguistic system. Intuitively L2 learners know this. As Hatch (1983) citing Krashen pointed out: "Learners don't carry grammar books around in their pockets, they carry dictionaries" (74). 3.2.

Negative evidence

Telling language learners what is incorrect is common practice in language learning classroom situations. Although it has been found that correction, or negative evidence, as linguists prefer to call it, may not contribute as much to the learning process as most people believe (Cohen - Robbins 1976; Hendrickson 1978), it is still a commonly held view that language learners need to know what is incorrect in the target language. The reasoning for this seems to be that regardless of the amount of exposure to second language input, or primary linguistic data as it is called in language acquisition research, learners go on making errors. Since mere exposure to utterances in the second language does

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not tell the learner if a particular utterance is not possible, explicit negative information becomes an appropriate way to compensate for this. Precisely this position is advocated by Herron - Tomasello (1988) and Tomasello - Herron (1989). From the results of two experimental studies they conclude that learning situations in which the teacher provides corrective feedback will facilitate learning, whereas learning situations in which the students are just given "multiple examples of grammatical structure modelled in sentences centered on a single, contextually relevant theme" (Herron Tomasello 1988: 911) are significantly less effective. In their first experiment Herron - Tomasello (1988) investigated students learning the use of direct object pronouns and negation in L2 French. In the feedback condition, subjects had to produce sentences as an answer to questions from the experimenter. That is, if the experimenter asked Paulette ne fait pas la cuisine. Est-ce-que Gigi fait la cuisine? ('Pauline does not cook. Does Gigi cook?'), the subject had to respond: Oui, Gigi la fait ('Yes, Gigi does'). Also, if the experimenter asked Υ a-t-il un outre supermarche geant pres d'Emory ('Is there another big supermarket near Emory?'), the subject had to respond like // n'y a pas de supermarche pres d'Emory ('There is no supermarket near Emory'). When the subject made an error, it was the experimenter's task to lead the student to self-correction. In the modelling condition, the subjects were provided with the correct answers to the questions posed by the experimenter. That is, the subjects listened to sentences such as: Paulette ne fait pas la cuisine, mais Gigi la fait ('Pauline does not cook, but Gigi does'). The results of this experiment show that the subjects in the feedback condition learned the structures better than the subjects in the modelling condition. In the second experiment, Tomasello - Herron (1989) constructed learning situations "in which students would actually be induced to make errors so that they could then be corrected in a systematic fashion" (387). The authors compared learning in this so-called Garden Path condition with learning in a control condition in which the teacher illustrated and explained the correct form both orally and in writing. In the Garden Path condition, the English subjects had to translate sentences into L2 French. The sentences were chosen such that the students were likely to make transfer errors such as: *Je suis une actrice (Ί am an actress'), *Je visite mes amis parisiens (Ί visit my friends in Paris'), *Je sais Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Ί know Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis'). The results of this experiment led Tomasello - Herron to conclude that the Garden Path technique facilitates the accurate acquisition of L2 structures that are often involved in transfer errors. Tomasello - Herron interpret the findings of both their experiments as evidence that L2 learning is a process that is essentially based on cognitive comparison and hypothesis testing:

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It would seem that subjects in the Feedback condition learned the structures better because they had a chance to engage actively in L2 hypothesis testing. This presumably helped them to focus their attention on the relevant features of the structures they were learning. Subjects in the Modelling condition, on the other hand, remained relatively passive while we demonstrated correct use, and thus it was undoubtedly more difficult for them to discover the relevant features of the structure being modelled" (Herren - Tomasello 1988: 917). Before we accept Tomasello - Herren's general conclusion that cognitive processes of error correction are beneficial to second language acquisition, one should be clear, however, about the kind of L2 knowledge constituting the target of both learning experiments. In the first experiment, for example, subjects had to learn positional and formal properties of direct object pronouns in French. As formal properties of direct object pronouns, subjects had to apply the rules of number and gender agreement. Characteristic of this kind of knowledge is that it rarely serves a communicative purpose. Certainly it did not do so in Tomasello Herron's experimental setting. For the correct use of rules for pronominal reference, learners have to know, for instance, that a singular feminine noun such as la cuisine, is referred to by la and that a singular masculine noun such as le menage is referred to by le. This relation is purely mechanical and cognitive learning can provide a means to achieve this knowledge. The acquisition of this particular type of L2 knowledge, however, is comparable to any other kind of non-linguistic cognitive knowledge for which hypothesis testing and correction are suitable means of teaching. Rule-based conventions of spelling are another example of this kind of knowledge. See e.g. the alternation between single and double marking of long vowels in Dutch open and closed syllables as in boten 'boats' vs. boot 'boat'; slepen 'to drag' vs. sleep 'drag'; maken 'to make' vs. maak 'make' or the use of capital letters with nouns in German as in das Bad 'the bath' vs. baden 'to take a bath'. As is the case with pronominal reference in French, these rules do not serve a communicative purpose. They are conventions that can be learned on the basis of hypothesis testing and through practice they become part of automatic procedures. In Tomasello - Herron's second experiment, subjects had to learn lexical knowledge of a particular kind. In some cases one lexical item in LI English, such as to take, to visit, to know, corresponded to two or three verbs in French: to take - prendre, empörter, emmener; to visit - visiter, rendre visite a; to know - savoir, connaitre. In other cases, different verbs in English, such as to go, to travel and to drive, corresponded to one lexical item in French: aller. Lexical knowledge is also a particular kind of linguistic knowledge. It is qualitatively different from syntactic knowledge such as, for example, word order properties. Whereas human beings continually increase their lexical knowledge throughout

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their lifetime, they do not do so with respect to syntactic knowledge. The reason why there are no temporal constraints for the acquisition of lexical knowledge is precisely that lexical knowledge is essentially cognitive. The acquisition of structural linguistic knowledge, however, is subject to temporal constraints. These constraints on syntactic development, I would argue, explain why cognitive learning and feedback are no more productive than just positive evidence: The developing linguistic system itself determines if and when the learner is ready to acquire a particular syntactic phenomenon. Since Tomasello Herren mainly deal with a kind of linguistic knowledge that is cognitive in the first place and not typically syntactic in nature, it is obvious that they find support for a cognitive model of L2 learning. However, even in their data there is some evidence for the position that I would like to advocate. Part of the experiment in Herron - Tomasello (1988) is the acquisition of negation in L2 French. Negation in French is typically a syntactic phenomenon bearing communicative relevance and it is precisely for the positional properties of negation that Herron - Tomasello do not find a positive effect for feed-back as opposed to only positive input. Summarizing, cognitive models of second language teaching based on corrective feedback or comparison are only relevant if the particular aspects of the L2 are cognitive themselves: This holds for lexical knowledge as well as for rules of convention. Another interesting experiment on the role of negative evidence in the acquisition of morphology was done by Carroll - Swain - Roberge (1992). In this experiment, it was investigated whether native speakers of English were able to learn particular noun formation rules in French. In French, nouns can be formed from transitive verb stems with the affix -age. Examples are, rafflner ('to refine') - raffinage; nettoyer ('to clean') - nettoyage; atteler ('to harness') attelage; embouteiller ('to bottle') - embouteillage. From intransitive verb stems, nouns can be formed with the affix -went. Examples are embarquer ('to embark') - embarquement; s'eloigner ('to withdraw') - eloignement', raisonner ('to reason') - raisonnement; ronronner ('to purr') - ronronnement. In this study, two groups of subjects were compared: An experimental and a comparison group. Both groups had to give the corresponding noun to a given verb, as in the following test item: Dans cette usine, on RAFFINE le sucre ('In this factory, they refine sugar'). Done, c'est une usine de .... ('So, it's a refinery'). Both groups differed with respect to whether or not they received error correction: "When the subjects in the experimental group made an error, they were given the correct response. The comparison subjects were never corrected" (180). Thus, error correction is to be characterized as "implicit negative feed back and positive input" (178). The main research question was formulated as follows: "Can error correction help adult learners construct morphological generalizations?" (184). When the experimental subjects were retested on the

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feed back items they did better than the comparison group. However, the results of the guessing sessions showed that feedback did not enable the experimental subjects to build morphological generalizations, i.e. with new items both groups of subjects scored equally. Thus, whereas "subjects used correction to memorize lexical items", there is no evidence from this study "that correction can lead learners to induce morphological generalizations (or the subcategorization properties of the suffixes -age and -went)" (186). This confirms the idea that lexical knowledge, being a kind of cognitive knowledge, can be learned explicitly, whereas structural linguistic knowledge, i.e. the syntactic basis of morphological generalisations here, cannot. Carroll and Swain (1993) carried out an experiment in which they investigated the extent to which negative feedback would be helpful in learning the correct grammatical generalization underlying dative alternation in English. In this experiment, native speakers of Spanish were first confronted with alternations such as Steve owes a lot of money to Robert I Steve owes Robert a lot of money and Andrea saved some cake for her sister I Andrea saved her sister some cake. Then the subjects were given just the first alternative (NP + for/to NP) and had to decide whether or not the alternating counterpart (with an indirect and a direct object) was correct. Subjects differed with respect to the kind of feedback they received. Of the five groups of subjects who received different types of feedback, one was significantly better than all the others. It was the group of subjects who "[was] told they were wrong whenever they made a mistake and were given an explicit statement about how the alternation works" (365). For example, "You cannot say He fixed his neighbour the lawnmower because with alternating verbs there is always an exchange of possession" (374); and, "You cannot say The students pronounce the teacher a new word (...) because [pronounce} is a long verb that is louder at the end and such verbs don't alternate" (374). This result, it seems to me, does not come as a surprise at all. The experiment is not typically about language use, but about learning to apply a rule. It shows that if someone has to apply a rule, it is quite helpful if he knows what that rule is. No wonder if it turns out that subjects who are given the rule do better applying this rule than subjects who are only given the opportunity to come up with inferences on the basis of implicit or explicit feedback with or without modelling. Summarizing the results of the experiments mentioned so far, it appears that explicit feedback on language contributes to cognitive knowledge about language only: If learners are taught particular rules they will be able to apply these rules, and if learners are taught particular lexical items they will be able to reproduce these lexical items. However, explicit feedback does not contribute to structural knowledge of language: It does not enable learners to infer underlying structural relations.

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The position that L2 learners need negative evidence is also taken by White (1987) in her discussion with Krashen, in which she argues against the notion of comprehensible input. Her point is well taken: Comprehensible input does not get rid of overgeneralizations. For example, a native speaker of French who treats English like French, will produce utterances such as in (26) if he can only rely on positive evidence. (26) a. b. c. d.

John drank his coffee slowly Slowly, John drank his coffee John slowly drank his coffee *John drank slo\vly his coffee

With respect to LI-induced errors such as in (26d), White poses the question of how learners can learn the non-occurrence of a particular possibility if they have no access to negative evidence (104). For L2 acquisition she argues that "it is conceivable that in situations like these, where the learner has carried over an LI form which is not obviously disconfirmed by the input from L2, or where the LI has had other more subtle effects on the way the learner perceives the L2 input, correction or specific, fine-tuned grammar teaching might also be a useful source of input, a means to stimulate change and lead to a different stage in the acquisition process" (107). However, she carefully adds: "Whether it does or not is, in fact, testable" (107). The learnability problem which White describes is one that has been given much attention in first language acquisition research and is usually referred to as Baker's paradox (Mazurkewich - White 1984; Bowerman 1987; Pinker 1987). The paradox to be explained is how it is possible for children to learn constraints on grammar by means of positive evidence only. That is, how can children know that a particular generalization is incorrect if they do not make use of negative evidence? As Baker has pointed out, in some cases children may give up overgeneralized forms such as *goed, *runned or *foots if they receive consistent input of another correct form expressing the same meaning, i.e. went (for *goed), ran (for *runned) or feet (for *foots). This is what is called preemption. More problematic, however, are overgeneralizations which are incorrect without there being a correct alternative. Children, for example, produce utterances showing overgeneralized dative alternation such as in (27) and (28). (27)

Mommy open Hadwen the door I'll brush him his hair Pick me up all these things (Mazurkewich - White 1984: 11)

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441

Don 't say me that or you ΊΙ make me cry Shall I whisper you something? I want Daddy choose me what to have (Bowerman 1987: 79)

Recently, Trahey - White (1993) have looked at the phenomenon illustrated in (26) from a somewhat different angle. Replacing an earlier account in terms of adjacency (as in White 1989: 149ff.), here they explain the data as a manifestation of differences in the setting of the verb movement parameter in French and English. Given that preemption allows learners to recover from an overly general grammar, Trahey - White hypothesize that positive evidence may also preempt a particular setting of a parameter. Since parameter settings are mutually exclusive, second language learners should be able to reset a particular setting on the basis of positive evidence alone. An interesting consequence of this idea would be that overgeneralizations as in (26d) will disappear as soon as primary linguistic data have caused resetting of the verb movement parameter. However, after they carried out an experiment with francophone children learning English as L2, Trahey - White had to conclude that positive input was not sufficient to reset the verb movement parameter. In this experiment, learners were able to learn that structures as in (26c) are possible in English, but they were not able to learn that the position of the adverb as in (26d) is impossible. Since preemption of the setting of a particular parameter by positive input does not seem to take place, one may conclude that second language learners do need negative evidence. Schwartz (1993), however, in discussing this particular position, argues both on theoretical (Fodor 1983) and empirical grounds that negative data have no effect on reorganizing L2 grammar. Looking at White's (1991) data, she demonstrates that learners who have been able to learn that (29b) is correct instead of (29a), incorrectly disallow (30). (29) a. b. (30)

*John eats always the pie John always eats the pie John walks slowly to school

Schwartz (1993) and Schwartz - Gubala-Ryzak (1992) argue that these observations cannot be interpreted in terms of resetting the verb movement parameter. The subjects might just have been learning a particular pattern: Having learnt that S-V-Adv-DO structures are incorrect, they assume that a similar structure such as S-V-Adv-PP is also incorrect. Schwartz' conclusion is that "there will be aspects of the TL that will be nonacquirable". Hence, "L2 learners will simply be unable to arrive at a grammar that is the (strong generative) equivalent to that of native speakers" (160). Although it is true that there are properties of an L2 which are more difficult to acquire than others, I do not think we have to be as pessimistic as Schwartz.

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First, we know that children acquiring their mother-tongue overgeneralize as well (see Mazurkewicz - White 1984; Bowerman 1987). These overgeneralizations are corrected without the use of negative evidence. How is it possible for children on the basis of positive evidence alone to unlearn an overly general grammar? Apparently, children are able to solve this paradox of learning constraints without negative evidence, but we are still far away from knowing how they manage to do so. All we know is that they can. Nobody has ever provided a reason for why L2 learners in principle cannot do what children can. Therefore, before we conclude that adults are unable to recover from an overly general grammar, we will have to have an understanding of what enables children to do so. Second, it seems to me that Trahey - White's research on the acquisition of the verb movement parameter shows that L2 learners may have access to two grammars simultaneously: The francophone learners did not lose the LI setting in English. A similar situation can be observed in children learning to use went instead of *goed. They may also switch back and forth for some time before they stay with the correct form. Furthermore, the data show that there were at least two out of 54 learners who, "following the input flood", no longer used the incorrect LI order, "suggesting that they have reset the parameter" (195). Hence, there are French native speakers who, after having been exposed to two weeks of naturalistic input containing English adverbs, show that it is possible to unlearn LI-induced word order as in (26d) solely on the basis of positive evidence. Third, in order to properly study the question of unlearning overgeneralizations, we should know what exactly the learning task is. In Trahey - White's case, is it adjacency or verb movement? Do learners have to know that (29a) is incorrect or should they know that V and O in English are adjacent? Apparently, a particular learning problem can be formulated negatively or positively. In a positive sense, adjacency is an abstract property of the linguistic system. If adjacency is acquired, errors as in (29a) are simply impossible. At any rate, linguistic analysis should serve to provide an adequate account of the learning task. The learnability problem itself, however, is first and foremost an empirical question. 4.

Conclusion

If we want input and instruction to be most effective, we have to take into account that principles of learning and processing interact with the structural properties of the language to be learned. For the acquisition of the structural properties of an L2, this interaction is conditioned by three types of linguistic constraint: Domains of generalization, clustering, and prerequisite linguistic

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knowledge. Variability is determined by the relation between the structural properties of the particular LI and L2. Hence, for every L2 learning situation it is an empirical question what constitutes the particular domains of generalization, clustering and prerequisite knowledge. Given the fact that these constraints determine ordering and clustering in interlanguage development, it is not surprising that form-focused teaching, providing positive as well as negative formal input, does not appear to affect the development of intuitive structural linguistic knowledge. However, what does have an impact on acquisition is the right kind of meaningful input at the right time. What actually is the right kind of meaningful input and the right time, depends on the linguistic constraints on processing. Meaningful input at the right time not only stimulates the acquisition process, it may even preempt incorrect knowledge without the use of negative evidence. The results of empirical research on the linguistic conditions of acquisition may help us determine what precisely the right kind of meaningful input is for the L2 learner. Notes 1.

The ordering relation between the different types of boundaries is both psycholinguistically and linguistically relevant. Psycholinguistically, i.e. as far as acquisition is concerned, extraction is acquired implicationally: Extraction from a higher level of embedding is acquired before extraction from a deeper level of embedding. Linguistically, these levels of embedding are also ordered in terms of markedness relations: Extraction from a higher level of embedding is less marked than extraction from a deeper level of embedding. Markedness relations depend on structural properties of the linguistic system. Although linguistic theory is not a theory of acquisition, it can often be observed that there is a correlation between markedness relations and implicational relations with respect to the order of acquisition and teachability. This correlation is due to the fact that there appears to be a relation between the structural properties of markedness and processability (Keenan - Comrie 1977; Gass 1980, 1983; Eckmann 1985). This explains the implicational relations in the acquisition of relative clause types (the Accessibility Hierarchy) as well as the implicational relations with respect to extraction from different levels of embedding. Hence, the relevance of markedness relations for acquisition is, in fact, due to variables of input processing.

2.

"Whereas the Turks place V almost invariably in final position, Fatima [who is a native speaker of Arabic] tends to have it after the first NP. This demonstrates that the position of V and, as a consequence, the shape

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of the first phrasal patterns is neither universal nor determined by the underlying pattern of the language to be learned: in scanning the TLinput, learners first identify verbs in positions most in accordance with their SL [source language] expectations" (Klein - Perdue 1992: 214215). 3.

See, however, Clahsen et al. (1992) for the analysis of the affix -s in nominal compounds as a linking morpheme.

4.

Long (1991) has introduced the notion focus on forms vs. focus on form. Instruction which focuses on forms is the traditional way of teaching linguistic elements such as structures, notions and lexical items. Instruction with focus on form means that lessons "whose overriding focus is on meaning, or communication" can be "briefly interrupted by teachers when they notice students making errors", such that "the linguistic feature is brought to learners' attention in any way appropriate to the students' age, proficiency level etc." (46). As evidence for the impact of instruction focusing on form, Long refers to a study by Pavesi (1986) in which instructed FL learners appeared to perform systematically better on relative clause constructions than naturalistic learners. "In considerably less average time [they] reached higher levels of attainment" (47). To me, however, it seems that the results of Pavesi's FL students on relative clause formation are not so much attributable to instruction with focus on form as they are due to the fact that FL learners systematically get more and richer meaningful input. Relativization out of NPs which are more marked in the accessability hierarchy may be relatively rare in naturalistic language acquisition. In instructional situations, however, the teacher has the opportunity to expose the learner much more frequently to constructions that are relatively rare in normal communication. This is what might have caused the better performance of the FL learners with respect to the marked relative clause constructions.

5.

An illustration of this is given in White's (1987) paper on incomprehensible input. In order to acquire the passive, sentences such as The book was read by John are not crucial. Learners can infer from the meaning of the sentence that the agent is 'John' and not 'the book'. White suggests that a passive analysis is "forced" when the learner encounters a sentence such as John was hit. This is because hit obligatorily subcategorizes for theme. As transitive verbs require themes, a passive analysis is the only analysis possible.

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References Andersen, Roger W. 1984 "The one-to-one principle of interlanguage construction", Language Learning 34: 77-95. Andersen, Roger W. (ed.) 1984 Second languages. A cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Bot, Kees de - Ralph B. Ginsberg - Claire Kramsch (eds.) 1991 Foreign language research in cross-cultural perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bowerman, Melissa 1987 "The 'no negative evidence' problem: How do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar?", in: John A. Hawkins (ed.), 73-101. Broeder, Peter J.F.J. 1991 Talking about people. A multiple case study on adult language acquisition. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Carroll, Susanne - Merrill Swain 1993 "Explicit and implicit negative feedback. An empirical study of the learning of linguistic generalizations", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15, 357-386. Carroll, Susanne - Merrill Swain - Yves Roberge 1992 "The role of feedback in adult second language acquisition: Error correction and morphological generalizations", Applied Psycholinguistics 13, 173-198. Clahsen, Harald 1984 "The acquisition of German word order: A test case for cognitive approaches to L2 development", in: Roger W. Andersen (ed.), 219-242. 1991 "German plurals in adult second language development", in: Theorie des Lexikons. Arbeiten des Sonderforschungsbereichs 282, Nr. 4 (Universal Grammar in second language acquisition): 48-66. Clahsen, Harald - Monika Rothweiler - Andreas Woest - Gary F. Marcus 1992 "Regular and irregular inflection in the acquisition of German noun plurals", Cognition 45: 225-255. Cohen, Andrew - Margaret Robbins 1976 "Toward assessing interlanguage performance: The relationship between selected errors, learners' characteristics, and learners' explanations", Language Learning 26: 45-66.

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Eckmann, Fred R. 1985 "Some theoretical and pedagogical implications of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7: 289-307. Ellis, Rod 1985 Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989 "Are classroom and naturalistic acquisition the same? A study of the clasroom acquisition of German word order rules", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11, 305-328. 1990 Instructed second language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell 1993 "Interpretation-based grammar teaching", System 21: 69-78. Eubank, Lynn (ed.) 1991 Point counterpoint. Universal Grammar in the second language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Felix, Sascha W. - Wilfried Weigl 1991 "Universal Grammar in the classroom: The effects of formal instruction on second language acquisition", Second Language Research!, 162-181. Ferguson, Charles A. - Dan I. Slobin (eds.) 1973 Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Fodor, Jerry A. 1983 The modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Frazier, Lyn - Giovanni B. Flores d'Arcais 1989 "Filler driven parsing: A study of gap filling in Dutch", Journal of Memory and Language 28, 331-344. 1990 Mediated relations in parsing: Processing thai-trace in Dutch. [Unpublished MS.] Gass, Susan M. 1980 "An investigation of syntactic transfer in adult second language learners", in Robin C. Scarcella - Stephen D. Krashen (eds.), 132-145. 1983 "Language transfer and universal grammatical relations", in: Susan M. Gass - Larry Selinker (eds.), 69-82. Gass, Susan M. - Larry Selinker (eds.) 1983 Language transfer in language learning. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

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Hatch, Evelyn 1983 Psycholinguistics: A second language perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Hawkins, John A. (ed.) 1987 Explaining language universals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hendrickson, James M. 1978 "Error correction in foreign language teaching: Recent theory, research and practice", The Modern Language Journal 62: 387396. Herron, Carol - Michael Tomasello 1988 "learning grammatical structures in a foreign language: Modelling versus feedback", The French Review 61: 910-922. Hulstijn, Jan H. 1988 "Verwervingsvolgorde van grammatische structuren: Een critische bespreking van de theorie van Pienemann", Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen 30: 7-20. Jansen, Bert - Josien Lalleman - Pieter Muysken 1981 "The Alternation hypothesis: Acquisition of Dutch word order by Turkish and Moroccan foreign workers", Language Learning 31, 315-336. Jordens, Peter 1988 "The acquisition of word order in L2 Dutch and German", in: Peter Jordens - Josine Lalleman (eds.), 149-180. 1991 "Linguistic knowledge in second language acquisition", in Lynn Eubank (ed.), 199-218. 1992 The acquisition of inflection in L2 Dutch and German. [Unpublished MS.] Jordens, Peter - Josine Lalleman (eds.) 1988 Language development. Dordrecht: Foris. Keenan, Edward L. - Bernard Comrie 1977 "Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar", Linguistic Inquiry 8, 63-100. Klein, Wolfgang - Clive Perdue 1992 Utterance structure. Developing grammars again. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Krashen, Stephen D. 1982 Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Long, Michael 1983 "Does second language instruction make a difference? A review of research". TESOL-Quarterly 17: 359-382.

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1991

"Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology", in Kees de Bot - Ralph B. Ginsberg - Claire Kramsch (eds.), 39-52. Mazurkewich, Irene - Lydia White 1984 "The acquisition of the dative alternation: Unlearning overgeneralizations", Cognition 16: 261-283. Pavesi, Maria 1986 "Markedness, discoursal modes, and relative clause formation in a formal and an informal context", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 8: 38-55. Pfaff, Carol W. (ed.) 1987 First and second language acquisition processes. Cambridge, Mass.: Newbury House. Pienemann, Manfred 1987 "Psychological constraints on the teachability of languages", in: Carol W. Pfaff (ed.), 143-168. Pinker, Steven 1984 Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1987 "Resolving a learnability paradox in the acquisition of the verb lexicon", in: Mabel L. Rice - Richard L. Schiefelbusch (ed.), 1361. Rice, Mabel L. - Richard L. Schiefelbusch (ed.) 1987 The teachability of language. Baltmore: Brookes. Rutherford, William, E. 1987 Second language grammar. Learning and teaching. London: Longman. Rutherford, William E. - Michael Sharwood Smith 1985 "Consciousness-raising and Universal Grammar", Applied Linguistics 6: 274-282. Scarcella, Robin C. - Stephen D. Krashen (eds.) 1980 Research in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Schwartz, Bonnie D. - Magda Gubala-Ryzak 1992 "Learnability and grammar reorganization in L2A: Against negative evidence causing the unlearning of verb movement", Second Language Research 8: 1-38. Schwartz, Bonnie D. 1993 "On explicit and negative data effecting competence and linguistic behavior", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 147-163.

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Sharwood Smith, Michael 1993 "Input enhancement in instructed SLA", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 165-179. Slobin, Dan I. 1973 "Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar", in: Charles A. Ferguson - Dan I. Slobin (eds.), 175-208. 1985 "Crosslinguistic evidence for the language making capacity", in: Dan I. Slobin (ed.), 1157-1256. Slobin, Dan I. (ed.) 1985 The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Volume 2: Theoretical issues. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tomasello, Michael - Carol Herren 1989 "Feedback for language transfer errors. The Garden Path technique", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 385-395. Trahey, Martha - Lydia White 1993 "Positive evidence and preemption in the second language classroom", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 181-204. VanPatten, Bill 1990 "Attending to form and content in the input. An experiment in consciousness", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12: 287301. VanPatten, Bill - Teresa Cadierno 1993 "Explicit instruction and input processing", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 225-243. White, Lydia 1987 "Against comprehensible input: The Input Hypothesis and the development of second-language competence", Applied Linguistics 8: 95-110. 1989 Universal grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1991 "Adverb placement in second language acquisition: Some effects of positive and negative evidence in the classroom", Second Language Research 7: 133-161. White, Lydia - Nina Spada - Patsy M. Lightbown - Leila Ranta 1991 "Input enhancement and L2 question formation", Applied Linguistics 12: 416-432. Wolfe Quintero, Kate 1992 "Learnability and the acquisition of extraction in relative clauses and w/z-questions", Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14: 39-70.

Index A Accessibility Hierarchy, 443 acculturation, 24 Acculturation Hypothesis, 396-397 actants somantiques, 365, 376 acquisition Language Acquisition Device, 168, 181 Learning vs. Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 lexical acquisition, 381-400 Natural Sequence of Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 Universal Theory of Language Acquisition (UTA), 321-322, 338-340 Adaptive Control of Thought, 174 adjacency, 441 strict adjacency, 192-193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 203 Affective Filter Hypothesis, 35 age, 26, 323-324, 326, 340-341 analysis-based strategies, 148 analytic strategies, 147, 153-155 aptitude, 26 arguments, 363 attitude, 25-26, 396 automatic processing, 31 automaticity, 31 avoidance, 19, 41, 393 avoidance strategies, 135 awareness, 426 B Baker's paradox, 440 basic meaning, 387, 391 behaviourism, 72-73 behaviouristic learning, 298-299 bilingualism, 4 bilingual lexicon, 389 Binding principles, 170, 178 bottom-up bottom-up hypothesis, 126-127 bottom-up model, 120

452

C canonical canonical forms, 174 Canonical Syllable Structure, 277 canonical word order, 408 cardiac rate measurement (CR), 344 categorical perception, 326-338, 343 classroom teaching, 415 clustering, 214-216, 226-228, 252, 295, 416-420 cognates, 372, 391 cognitive cognitive complexity, 396 cognitive development, 384 cognitive effort, 398 cognitive explanations, 42 cognitive knowledge, 437-439 cognitive learning, 298 cognitive strategies, 141-142, 159 cognitive style, 27 cognitive theories of learning, 30-33, 39-40, 52 meta-cognitive strategies, 142 cohort theory, 128, 130 communication strategies, 19-20, 135-136, 143-156, 382 communicative communicative effectiveness, 136 communicative instruction, 431 communicative strategies effectiveness of communicative strategies, 150, 155 subordinate communicative strategies, 152 superordinate communicative strategies, 152 compensatory strategies, 135, 150-156 competence, 179 Competition Model, 39, 45 completeness, 265-267, 281, 283 Complex Inversion, 240, 244, 250, 253, 257 complexity cognitive complexity, 396 semantic complexity, 394, 396 compounding, 418, 422-425 comprehensible input, 22, 35-36, 426, 428, 431, 440, 443 concept, 388-389 conceptual strategies, 147, 153-155 conceptualizer, 366-367

Index

Index

connectionism, 174 connectionist model, 48 conscious learning, 394-395 consciousness raising, 426 consonant deletion, 302 constraints, 212, 214 head movement constraint, 219, 224 linguistic constraints of L2 acquisition, 408 context, 122-123, 125 learning context, 304 linguistic context, 303 continuity, 321-326, 408 continuous perception, 327, 334-338, 340, 343 contrastive analysis, 72, 298 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, 40, 76-77 control-based strategies, 148 core core grammar, 180 core meaning, 373, 390 correction, 22-23 error correction, 437-438 creative construction, 73-74, 76, 267 Creative Construction Hypothesis, 41, 77 critical period, 266, 281, 283 critical period hypothesis, 305, 324, 341-342 cross-linguistic influence, 21, 71-83. See also LI-transfer cross-sectional data, 9-10 cultural distance, 396

D

data cross-sectional data, 9-10 data analysis, 11, 99-101 data collection, 95-97 data gathering, 8-10 experimental data, 8-9 longitudinal data, 9-10 primary linguistic data, 202, 205, 213-214, 216, 441 spontaneous data, 8-9 dative alternation, 439-440 development

cognitive development, 384

453

454

lexical development, 17, 386-388 morphological development, 16-17 phonological development, 17-18 pragmatic development, 18-19 rate of development, 407 success of development, 407 theories of development, 53 developmental developmental phases, 41 developmental phonology, 308-309 developmental stages, 10, 13 Directionality of Syllabification, 271-273 distance cultural distance, 396 Minimal Sonority Distance, 269-270, 277-279 phonetic distance, 300 psychological distance, 396 domains of generalization, 409-416 dual-code hypothesis, 126-127 dynamic reconstruction, 89 Dynamic Agreement, 244, 247-248, 252-256 E effectiveness communicative effectiveness, 136 effectiveness of communicative strategies, 150, 155 elaboration, 142 elicitation elicitation tasks, 95-96 elicitation techniques, 149 empirism, 340 Empty Category Principle, 229 epenthesis, 267, 270 equivalence theory, 333-335 error correction, 437-438 experimental data, 8-9 explicit knowledge, 425, 427 explicit feedback, 439 extension metaphoric extensions, 396 overextension, 386 underextension, 386 extraction, 409-414

Index

Index

F false friends, 372, 392 fixed expressions, 399 feedback explicit feedback, 439 implicit feedback, 439 negative feedback, 22 flapping, 279, 285 foreign language acquisition, 4. See also second language acquisition foreigner talk, 22 form-focused instruction, 426-429, 431-433, 443 formal formal education, 51 formal instruction, 5, 25, 425 formal knowledge, 428 formal practice, 140 formulator, 366-367 fossilisation / fossilization, 74, 178, 35, 41, 388 Fossilised UG Hypothesis, 79 functional functional approach, 43 Functional Core Hypothesis, 384 functional criteria, 18 functional explanations, 42 Functional Grammar, 373-376 functional practice, 140 functions, 43 referential functions, 99 fundamental difference hypothesis, 341 G gating technique, 128, 130 generalization domains of generalization, 409-416 inductive generalization, 411, 415 overgeneralization, 415, 440-442 grammatical grammatical correctness, 136 grammatical intuitions, 8-9 grammatical knowledge, 426 grammatical rules, 359-361 grammaticality judgment(s), 177, 179-180, 248, 283, 414. See also intuition

455

456

grammar core grammar, 180 Functional Grammar, 373-376 principles of Universal Grammar, 187-206 H habit-formation, 72 head head movement constraint, 219, 224 head parameter, 46 head turning technique, 344 headedness, 416-420 headedness parameter, 224-227 Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt, 13, 90 hierarchy Accessibility Hierarchy, 443 Prosodic Hierarchy, 275 Sonority Hierarchy, 269-271, 278, 281 high amplitude sucking (HAS), 344 holistic strategies, 147, 153-155 hypothesis Acculturation Hypothesis, 396-397 Affective Filter Hypothesis, 35 bottom-up hypothesis, 126-127 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, 40, 76-77 Creative Construction Hypothesis, 41, 77 critical period hypothesis, 305, 324, 341-342 dual-code hypothesis, 126-127 Fossilised UG Hypothesis, 79 Functional Core Hypothesis, 384 fundamental difference hypothesis, 341 Input Hypothesis, 35, 393-395, 398 Interlanguage Hypothesis, 77 Learning vs. Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH), 81, 301, 307 Monitor Hypothesis, 35, 394-395 Natural Sequence of Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 parallel-access hypothesis, 127 Prototype Hypothesis, 384 Recreation Hypothesis, 79-80 Resetting Hypothesis, 79

Index

Index

Semantic Equivalence Hypothesis, 371-373 Semantic Feature Hypothesis, 384 top-down hypothesis, 126 Universal Hypothesis, 395-396 I implicit implicit feedback, 439 implicit learning, 394-395 incidental learning, 385 inductive generalization, 411, 415 inferencing, 140, 142 informants, 91-95 innate knowledge, 212, 214 innateness, 29, 340-342 input, 22-24, 36, 44, 50, 191-192, 201, 205, 212, 216, 263, 396, 399, 407443, comprehensible input, 22, 35-36, 426, 428, 431, 440, 443 input frequency, 394, 396 Input Hypothesis, 35, 393-395, 398 input processing, 407-408, 426, 432-435 positive formal input, 429-435 instruction, 24-25, 281, 425-443 communicative instruction, 431 formal instruction, 5, 25, 425 form-focused instruction, 426-429, 431-433, 443 processing instruction, 432-435 instrumental motivation, 25 intake, 22, 36, 191, 396 integrative integrative motivation, 25 integrative orientation, 24 intentional learning, 385 interference, 72 interlanguage, 41, 74 Intel-language Hypothesis, 77 interlanguage theory, 73 intuition, 427. See also grammaticality judgement grammatical intuitions, 8-9 inversion, 239 Complex Inversion, 240, 244, 250, 253, 257 Stylistic Inversion, 247-248, 250, 252, 254-256

457

458

Index

J Joseph Conrad syndrome, 305 K kernel meaning, 387, 391 knowledge cognitive knowledge, 437-439 explicit knowledge, 425, 427 formal knowledge, 428 grammatical knowledge, 426 innate knowledge, 212, 214 knowledge about language, 439 knowledge of language, 439 knowledge of UG, 410 lexical knowledge, 426, 435, 437-439 prerequisite knowledge, 420-425 structural knowledge, 438 L LI

LI influence, 294, 296-306, 416-420. See also LI transfer LI-parameter setting, 75 LI system, 408 LI transfer, 267-268, 270-272, 273, 276, 280-281, 309, 312-313. See also cross-linguistic influence, transfer, LI influence, interference language Language Acquisition Device, 168, 181 language aptitude, 26 language education, 5 language module, 29 language-neutral, 372 language transfer, 71. See also LI transfer language universals, 41-42 language learning general principles of language learning, 407-408 nativist theories of language learning, 33-40, 52 second language learning, 3 learnability, 34, 265-267, 273-274, 280, 282, 312 learnability problem, 410, 440, 442 learner strategies, 19, 109 learning

Index

behaviouristic learning, 298-299 cognitive learning, 298 cognitive theories of learning, 30-33, 39-40, 52 conscious learning, 394-395 implicit learning, 394-395 incidental learning, 385 intentional learning, 385 Learning vs. Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 learning context, 304 learning strategies, 135-143, 156 vocabulary learning, 139, 157 left-to-right processing, 130 lexical lexical acquisition, 381-400 lexical decision, 123 lexical development, 17, 386-388 lexical knowledge, 426, 435, 437-439 lexical phrases, 399 lexical specification, 104 lexical unit, 369-371 lexicon, 214, 357-376, 381-400 bilingual lexicon, 389 developing lexicon, 109 mental lexicon, 357-376, 381-400 linguistic linguistic constraints of L2 acquisition, 408 linguistic context, 303 linguistic devices, 99 linguistic strategies, 147, 153-155 listemes, 361 longitudinal data, 9-10 M markedness, 43, 278, 396, 443 Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH), 81, 301, 307 Markedness Theory, 47 phonological markedness, 301 typological markedness, 301-302 maturation, 36, 174 maximality Maximality Principle of Syllabification, 312-313 Maximality of Syllable Structure, 269, 271

459

460

meaning, 381-400 basic meaning, 387, 391 core meaning, 373, 390 kernel meaning, 387, 391 negative transfer of meaning, 393 peripheral meaning, 373 positive transfer of meaning, 392-393 primary meaning, 390 secondary meaning, 387, 390 specific meaning, 387 transfer of meaning 382, 390-393 mental mental encyclopedia, 389-390 mental lexicon, 357-376, 381-400 meta-cognitive strategies, 142 metalinguistic ability, 326 metaphoric extensions, 396 methodology, 7 metrical metrical parameter setting, 312-313 Metrical Parameters, 277, 279 Minimal Sonority Distance, 269-270, 277-279 Minimal Syllable Weight, 271-272 mispronunciations, 131 mistakes, 41 misunderstanding, 109 Monitor Hypothesis, 35, 394-395 monitoring, 125, 140 phoneme monitoring, 126, 128, 130 self-monitoring, 142 morphological morphological creativity, 147, 153 morphological development, 16-17 motivation, 6, 25-26, 51 instrumental motivation, 25 movement head movement constraint, 219, 224 syntactic movement, 188, 193, 198-201, 207 verb movement, 220 verb movement parameter, 441-442 multi-competence, 167, 181

Index

461

N narrative, 102 native language (LI), 21-22, 44, 50 nativism, 340 nativist theories of language learning, 33-40, 52 natural natural phonology, 267-268, 280, 309 natural sequence, 50 Natural Sequence of Acquisition Hypothesis, 35 negation, 14-15 negative negative evidence, 36, 75-76, 169, 172-173, 190, 194, 196, 202, 254, 265, 273, 281-283, 285, 410, 429, 435-442 negative feedback, 22 negative transfer, 72, 77 negative transfer of word form, 392 no-negative evidence, 23, 39 nominative case assignment, 248, 252-256 Nijmegen project, 150

Ο object clitics, 433 Ockham's razor, 194 off-line procedure, 130 on-line procedure, 130 Ontogeny Model, 308-309 opacity parameter, 171-172, 175 operating principles, 33, 408 orthographic rules, 427 overextension, 386. See also overgeneralization overgeneralization, 413, 440-442. See also overextension Ρ parallel-access hypothesis, 127 parameter / parameters, 36, 48, 167, 169, 171-176, 178, 181, 188, 211-231, 263-267, 281-282 head parameter, 46 headedness parameter, 224-227 LI-parameter setting, 75 metrical parameter setting, 312-313 Metrical Parameters, 277, 279 opacity parameter, 171-172, 175

462

Index

parameter resetting, 237-238, 243, 248-249, 251, 255-256, 265, 270, 273, 276-279 parameter setting, 237-258, 441 parameter switching, 215-216, 225-227 parameter theory, 45 parameter values, 40 phonological parameters, 312, 267-280 pro-drop parameter, 45, 48, 171, 175, 178, 228-229 subjacency parameter, 175-178 verb movement parameter, 441-442 parameterization, 416 parser, 189, 200-201, 204, 206 particle Particle rule, 15 Particle Shift, 223, 230 perception categorical perception, 326-338, 343 continuous perception, 327, 334-338, 340, 343 speech perception, 321-345 performance, 179 peripheral meaning, 373 personality traits, 27 phoneme phoneme boundary, 329 phoneme monitoring, 126, 128, 130 phonemic processing, 336-337, 340 phonetic phonetic distance, 300 phonetic variability, 120-122 phonological phonological development, 17-18 phonological markedness, 301 phonological parameters, 267-280, 312 phonological principles, 267-280, 312 phonological recoverability, 302, 311 phonological transfer, 339 phonology developmental phonology, 308-309 natural phonology, 267-268, 280, 309 second language phonology, 263-285, 293-313, 321-345 typological phonology, 306-313

Index

Plato's problem, 187-188, 212, 264 plural marking, 422-425 polysemy, 399 positive positive evidence, 36, 169, 172, 196, 199, 204, 213, 254, 265, 273, 279, 283, 427, 429, 440-442 positive formal input, 429-435 positive transfer of word form, 391 possessives, 418-420 poverty of stimulus, 22, 179 practice formal practice, 140 functional practice, 140 pragmatic development, 18-19 preemption, 441 preposition stranding, 414-415 prerequisite knowledge, 420-425 primary linguistic data, 202, 205, 213-214, 216, 441 primary meaning, 390 priming, 123-124 principle Empty Category Principle, 229 Maximality Principle of Syllabification, 312-313 Principle of Natural Order, 106, 108 Principle of Projection, 362 Projection Principle, 173 Subjacency Principle, 170, 172 Subset Principle, 37-40, 191-194, 202, 204, 206, 273-275, 279, 282, 285 uniqueness principle, 408 principles, 36, 48, 169-171, 212-214, 227, 263-267, 281 Binding principles, 170, 178 general principles of language learning, 407-408 operating principles, 33, 408 phonological principles, 267-280, 312 principles of language, 167, 175-176, 181 principles of Universal Grammar, 187-206 word order principles, 105, 109 pro-drop parameter, 45, 48, 171, 175, 178, 228-229 problem of analysis, 100 problem of synthesis, 100 procedure off-line, 130

463

464

on-line, 130 processing automatic processing, 31 input processing, 407-408, 426, 432-435 language processing, 119-120, 122 left-to-right processing, 130 phonemic processing, 336-337, 340 processing instruction, 432-435 processing strategies, 20, 336-337 right-to-left processing, 130 production strategies, 19 productive vocabulary, 394, 397-399 proficiency-effect, 150, 154 Projection Principle, 173 pronunciation, 293-295, 298, 305 prosodic prosodic domain, 275 Prosodic Hierarchy, 275 prothesis, 270 psychological distance, 396 psychotypology, 80

Q quoted speech, 106, 108 R rate of the SLA process, 24-25, 28 receptive vocabulary, 394, 397-399 recognition point, 129 Recreation Hypothesis, 79-80 reference reference to entities, 109 reference to person, 105 reference to space, 105, 109 reference to time, 106, 109 referential functions, 99 repair strategies, 307 Resetting Hypothesis, 79 restructuring, 31, 40, 189-191, 201, 203-204 resyllabification, 272, 275-276, 279, 285. See also syllabification Domain of Postlexical Resyllabification, 271-272

Index

Index

Domain of Resyllabification, 277 Rhythmic Timing, 271-272, 274 right-to-left processing, 130 root transformation, 222, 230 route of the SLA process, 24-25, 28, 50-51 routines, 399 S schwa paragoge, 267 secondary meaning, 387, 390 second language acquisition, 3. See also foreign language acquisition instructed second language acquisition, 4 natural route of second language acquisition, 407 rate of the SLA process, 24-25, 28 route of the SLA process, 24-25, 28, 50-51 speed of second language acquisition, 100 spontaneous second language acquisition, 4 success of second language acquisition, 100 second language learning, 3 theories of L2 learning, 28-40 second language phonology, 263-285, 293-313, 321-345 segmentation, 121 segregative orientation, 24 self-monitoring, 142 semantic semantic bootstrapping, 189 semantic complexity, 394, 396 semantic constituent, 370 Semantic Equivalence Hypothesis, 371-373 Semantic Feature Hypothesis, 384 semantic features, 384 semantic network, 398 semantic primitives, 375 semantic system, 385 shadowing, 131 social-affective strategies, 142 social distance, 396 social factors, 24, 50 sonority, 295 Sonority Hierarchy, 269-271, 278, 281 sound sound change, 325-326

465

466

sound contrasts, 332-333, 342-343 specific meaning, 387 speech perception, 321-345 speed of second language acquisition, 100 spontaneous data, 8-9 spontaneous second language acquisition, 4 strategies, 19-20, 135-159 analysis-based strategies, 148 analytic strategies, 147, 153-155 avoidance strategies, 135 cognitive strategies, 141-142, 159 communication strategies, 19-20, 135-136, 143-156, 382 compensatory strategies, 135, 150-156 conceptual strategies, 147, 153-155 control-based strategies, 148 direct strategies, 138 effectiveness of communicative strategies, 150, 155 holistic strategies, 147, 153-155 indirect strategies, 138 learner strategies, 19, 109 learning strategies, 135-143, 156 linguistic strategies, 147, 153-155 meta-cognitive strategies, 142 processing strategies, 20, 336-337 production strategies, 19 repair strategies, 307 social-affective strategies, 142 subordinate communicative strategies, 152 superordinate communicative strategies, 152 teaching strategies, 156 strategy training, 157 stress time, 274 structural knowledge, 438 structure dependency, 33-34, 169-170, 174 structure-preserving transformation, 222-223, 230 Stylistic Inversion, 247-248, 250, 252, 254-256 subjacency subjacency parameter, 175-178 Subjacency Principle, 170, 172 Subset Condition, 191-193, 273-275, 276, 283 Subset Principle, 37-40, 191-194, 202, 204, 206, 273-275, 279, 282, 285

Index

Index

substitution, 34 success of second language acquisition, 100 syllable Canonical Syllable Structure, 277 Maximality of Syllable Structure, 269, 271 Minimal Syllable Weight, 271-272 syllable simplification, 302 syllable time, 274 syllabification. See also resyllabification Directionality of Syllabification, 271-273 Maximality Principle of Syllabification, 312-313 syntactic movement, 188, 193, 198-201, 207 syntactic structures, 359-361 T teachability, 421-422 teacher talk, 22 teaching classroom teaching, 415 teaching strategies, 156 vocabulary teaching, 397 temporal temporal connectors, 106 temporal marking, 106 theory cohort theory, 128, 130 equivalence theory, 333-335 interlanguage theory, 73 Markedness Theory, 47 parameter theory, 45 Universal Theory of Language Acquisition (UTA), 321-322, 338-340 theories cognitive theories of learning, 30-33, 39-40, 52 nativist theories of language learning, 33-40, 52 theories of development, 53 theories of L2 learning, 28-40 theta-grid, 363 theta-roles, 363 top-down hypothesis, 126 transfer, 21, 39-40, 238, 372. See also LI transfer language transfer, 71 negative transfer, 72, 77

46?

468

negative transfer of meaning, 393 negative transfer of word form, 392 phonological transfer, 339 positive transfer of meaning, 392-393 transfer of meaning, 382, 390-393 transfer strategy, 135, 153-155, 158 transformation root transformation, 222, 230 structure-preserving transformation, 222-223, 230 trigger, 189-190, 204 typological typological markedness, 301-302 typological phonology, 306-313 typological universals, 42 U underdetermination, 263 underdetermination problem, 212, 214 underextension, 386 underrepresentation, 415 uniqueness principle, 408 universal language universals, 41-42 typological universals, 42 universal factors, 294-306 Universal Hypothesis, 395-396 Universal Theory of Language Acquisition (UTA), 321-322, 338-340 Universal Grammar, 45, 75, 167-182, 211-217, 367-369 access to UG, 175-177, 181, 221-224, 264-265, 268, 270, 280-281, 312, 322, 415 accessibility of UG, 45, 47, 410 availability of UG, 51 knowledge of UG, 410 principles of Universal Grammar, 187-206 usefulness of a word, 396 V variation, I I verb verb movement, 220 verb movement parameter, 441-442

Index

Index

verb placement, 217-224 verb second, 218-219, 221 full V2, 238-243, 246, 255 residual V2, 238-243, 246, 255-256 V2 rule, 15 vocabulary, 167, 173, 381-400 productive vocabulary, 394, 397-399 receptive vocabulary, 394, 397-399 vocabulary acquisition, 381-400 vocabulary learning, 139, 157 vocabulary teaching, 397 voice onset time (VOT), 328-330, 332 vowel epenthesis, 302, 310 W w/z-criterion, 244, 252-255 w/z-questions, 237-258 word word coinage, 145 word form, 389 word recognition, 117-131 word order, 14-16, 216-224, 238-242, 416-417 canonical word order, 408 word order principles, 105, 109 word recognition, 117-131 Z ZISA project, 13, 90

469