Language Acquisition

Second Language Learning 1

Dr. Öğr. Üyesi M. Fatih Adıgüzel

 Second Language Learning 1

• Learner Characteristics
• Learning Conditions
• Developmental Stages
Grammatical morphemes, negation, question,
possessive determiners, relative clauses, reference to
past
 L2 Learner Characteristics
• All second language learners have already acquired at
least one language
• They may have incorrect guesses about how the
second language works
• Older second language learners have the cognitive
maturity or metalinguistic awareness
• Older learners no longer have the innate language
acquisition ability they had as children
• Attitudinal and cultural differences between children
and adults:
While child learners are more willing to use the second
language even when they have low proficiency levels,
adults and adolescents may feel stressful for fear that they
might make mistakes
 Learning Conditions
In terms of the need to use the second language:
Young learners
• may stay silent until ready to speak
although they are more willing to speak
Older learners
• often have to speak to meet the requirements
of classroom instruction or carry out tasks like
shopping, job interviews etc.
 Learning Conditions
The amount of time spent learning the second
language:
Younger learners
• are exposed to the SL a lot of time – in the classroom,
on the playground, in front of the television
Older learners
• are exposed to the SL less, especially in foreign
language classrooms. Likewise, adult learners like
members of immigrant groups use the SL when they
have to. At other times they use their mother tongues
to fulfil their family responsibilities.
 Learning Conditions
The type of language used:
Classroom learners
• are exposed to a smaller range of discourse types
• are often taught formal language – different from what
is used in most social settings
• In foreign language classrooms, they can sometimes
be exposed to their first language because teachers
switch to L1 for classroom management or to make
things clear
Older learners
• are exposed to diverse discourse types if they are
minority groups with jobs in the host country
 Learning Conditions
Error Treatment:
Outside Classrooms
• Meaning takes precedence over grammatical accuracy
• Errors which do not cause communicative breakdowns are
overlooked (ignored)
• The target community members may think it to be impolite
to interrupt someone speaking with acceptable mistakes
• Native speakers do not respond to grammatical and
pronunciation errors as long as utterances are meaningful.
(unless wrong word choices make the utterance
incomprehensible)
In language classrooms
• Feedback for error correction is typically present
 Some Terms
• Contrastive analysis
• Error analysis
• Interlanguage
• Fossilisation
During the developmental sequence in second language
learning, speakers’ errors are inevitable. In second or foreign
language classrooms, teachers often correct errors, but errors
are usually the indication of the learner’s progress. A learner
who says «I buyed an apple» provides evidence of developing
knowledge of a systematic aspect of English (Using -ED for past
tense).
 Some Terms
Contrastive analysis (the 1960s)
According to contrastive analysis hypothesis
(CAH), errors are the result of negative
transfer from L1.
However, it has been revealed that not all
errors can be associated with such a
transfer, but may be explained as an
indication of learners’ developing knowledge
of the structure of the target language
 Some Terms
Error analysis approach (the 1970s)
It is an approach with a more detailed analysis of learner
mistakes. It was developed as a reaction to the
insufficiency of CAH.
This approach is meant to discover and describe
different kinds of errors in an effort to understand how
learners process second language data- their current
understanding of the rules and patterns.
The error analysis approach hypothesizes that second
language learner language is a system in its own right -
one that is rule-governed and predictable, just like child
language.
 Some Terms
Interlanguage (Larry Slinker 1972)
Slinker gave the name interlanguage to learners’
developing second language knowledge.
Many errors made by second language learners have no
connection to the forms of L1 or L2. A Spanish speaker
who says she name is Maria is producing a form that is
not used either in English or Spanish. Such observations
show that there is some in-between system used in the
L2 learning process, which contains aspects of L1 and
L2, but which is a variable system with rules of its own. In
other words, interlanguages can be systematic but also
dynamic; therefore, they change as learners receive more
new inputs.
 Some Terms
Fossilization (Larry Slinker 1972)

If a learner has a fixed repertoire of L2

expressions, containing many forms which do not
match the target language, and if the learner
seems not to be progressing any further, their
interlanguage stops improving and becomes
«fossilized.» It can be the most likely basis of a
foreign accent or persistent use of some unnatural
forms
 Developmental Sequences 1
General Observations
L2 learners pass through similar sequences of development
like L1 learners and this is important because:
1) children’s L1 learning partly depends on their cognitive
development. But adolescent and adult L2 learners have already
completed their cognitive development to a great extent and they
have different experiences with L2.
2) Their experiences with the language are different not only
from those of children acquiring L1 but also from each other.
3) L2 learners already know a language with different patterns
for creating sentences and word forms and they have different
language backgrounds (L1 may be German, French, Turkish
etc.)
 Developmental Sequences 2
Grammatical Morphemes

L2 learners, though from different first language backgrounds,

acquire grammatical morphemes in English in nearly a
predictable order.

• The order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes is quite

similar among L2 learners (of English)
• It is also similar but not identical to the development
sequence observed in children acquiring English as L1.
• L2 learners’ first language has an influence on their order of
acquiring grammatical morphemes to some degree (forms
similar both in L1 and L2 are acquired earlier)
Krashen’s (1982) L2 grammatical morpheme
acquisition sequence for English as L2
 First Language Acquisition of English
Development of Grammatical Morphemes
• 1. Present progressive –ing (Mommy running)
• 2. Plural –s (two books)
• 3. Irregular past forms (Baby went)
• 4. Possessive –s (Daddy’s hat)
• 5. Copula (Mommy is happy)
• 6. Articles the and a
• 7. Regular past –ed (she walked)
• 8. Third person simple present –s (she runs)
• 9. Auxiliary be (he is coming)
CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SEQUENCES
(ENGLISH AS L1 AND L2)
Krashen’s (1982) grammatical morpheme Acquisition order of
acquisition sequence for English as L2 grammatical morphemes in
English as L1

• 1. Present progressive –ing

(Mommy running)
• 2. Plural –s (two books)
• 3. Irregular past forms
(Baby went)
• 4. Possessive –s (Daddy’s
hat)
• 5. Copula (Mommy is
happy)
• 6. Articles the and a
• 7. Regular past –ed (she
walked)
• 8. Third person simple
present –s (she runs)
• 9. Auxiliary be (he is
coming)
 Explanations for the Order
Variables that contribute to the developmental
sequence of grammatical morphemes:
• Salience (How easy it is to see the morpheme)
• Linguistic complexity (How many elements you
have to focus on)
• Semantic transparency (How clear the meaning is)
• Similarity to a first language form
• Frequency in the input
 Developmental Sequences 3
Acquistion of NEGATION in L2
Nearly identical to L1 acquisition
• Stage 1. Usually «no» or sometimes «not» is placed before
the element to be negated
- No bicycle / I no like it / Not my friend
• Stage 2. no and not alternate with «don’t». It is used
regardless of person, number or tense
- He don’t like it / I don’t can sing
• Stage 3. «Not» appears after auxiliary and «don’t» is still
used.
- You can not go / He was not happy / She don’t like rice
• Stage 4. «do» is marked for tense, person and number
- It doesn’t work / We didn’t have supper
 Developmental Sequences 4
Acquisition of QUESTION formation in L2
The overall sequence is is similar to L1 acquisition.
Pieneman et al. (1988) described the following sequence in
the development of question formation by L2 learners with
various backgrounds:
• Stage 1. single words or sentence fragments
- Dog? / Two apples? / What’s that? (more like a chunk)
• Stage 2. Declarative word order; no fronting of the
auxiliary but with a rising intonation.
- The boys throw the shoes? (like French)
• Stage 3. Fronting of the auxiliary. Wh-fronting without
inversion
- Do you have? / Is she here? Where the children are playing?
 Developmental Sequences 4
• Stage 4. Inversion in wh- + copula (especially «to be»
auxiliaries). Yes/no questions with other auxiliaries
- Where is the sun? Is there a ball on the table?
• Stage 5. Wh- + auxiliary + the subject + verb
- How can you solve this? / What is Tom eating?
(French speakers have difficulty here because when there is a noun
subject, they don’t use subject-verb inversion => (Pourquoi les
enfants aiment le chocolat? => Not Pourquoi aiment les enfants le
chocolat?)
• Stage 6. Complex questions are acquired as well as the other
questions types.
- You are going, aren’t you? (tag question)
- Why can’t she do that? (negative question)
- Can you tell me what the date is today? (embedded question)
 Developmental Sequences 5
Acquistion of POSSESSIVE DETERMINERS in L2
• French and Spanish learners of English take a long time to
acquire the correct use of «his» and «her». We see a
negative transfer from L1 to L2 (English), which
complicates the situation.
• In English whether to use «his» or «her» is determined
by the gender of the POSSESSOR, while in French it is
the gender and number of the noun to be modified
(whether it is feminine or masculine) determines the
choice of the possessive determiner. So the grammatical
gender of POSSESSED entity determines the choice.
- Ahmet is in his car. (Ahmet, male, possessor => his)
- Sa mère. («mère» -Possessed entity- is feminine singular, so
«Sa» is used whether the possessor is male or female. Sa =
his or her
 Developmental Sequences 5
English (singular noun)
- Ahmet is in his car. (Ahmet, male, possessor => his)
- Ayşe is in her car. (Ayşe, female, possessor => her)
French (singular noun)
- Sa mère. («mère» is feminine, so «Sa» is used whether the
possessor is male or female. Sa= his or her
- Son chien. («chien» is masculine, so «Son» is used
whether the possessor is male or female. Son = his or her
English (plural noun)
- Ahmet is among his TREES. (Ahmet, male, possessor =>
his. The plural possessed TREES does not matter)
French (plural noun)
- Ses arbres. («arbres» is a plural noun meaning «trees», so
«Ses» is used. Ses means his or her before plural nouns in
French
 Developmental Sequences 5
Because of crosslinguistic differences in choosing possessive
determiners, as we discussed above, French and Spanish speakers go
through three stages before they have fully acquired their correct use:
Stage 1. Pre-emergence. They simply don’t use his or her, but prefer
«your» for all persons, genders and numbers.
- This boy cry in the arm of your mother / There is one girl talk with your
dad
Stage 2. Emergence. They use one form persistently whether it is correct or
not.
- The mother is dressing her little boy, and she put her clothes, her pant,
her coat. (her=> his)
- The girl is making HISself beautiful. She put the make-up on his hand,
on his head. His father ….(his => her)
Stage 3. Post-emergence. They differentiate between «his» and «her»
unless the possessed noun has a gender problem (according to French)
- The girl fell on her bicycle. She look his father and cry. (Father = père in
French is masculine, so the masculine «his» is used before it although the
possessor is feminine (the girl) and requires «her» here.
 Developmental Sequences 6
SEQUENCE OF ACQUSITION OF RELATIVE CLAUSES :
L2 learners with different first language backgrounds may cause
problems. However, Doughty (1991) gives the following accessibility
hierarchy for relative clauses. If a learner could use a structure at the
bottom of the list, he/she would probably be able to use the ones
before it.
 Developmental Sequences 6
Development sequence of REFERENCE TO PAST

First L2 learners do not mark the verb for simple past tense. -
(My son come. He work in Paris last year). Then irregular
forms are used earlier than –ED ending. (We went to school
yesterday. She caught some fish). Next some learners begin
to overgeneralise the regular–ED ending and use it with
irregular verbs, even with irregular forms. (He catched some
fish. He wented there last week…).

Again we see L1 backgrounds in tense usage have effects on

the development sequence of acquiring the forms for
Reference to Past
 HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the next week, study the pages 59-70