Does Typological Proximity Really Matter? Evidence from Mandarin and Brazilian Portuguese-Speaking Learners of Spanish

Alejandro Cuza,Jian Jiao,Julio César López-Otero

doi:10.3390/languages3020013

Abstract

The present study examines the role of typological proximity in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish among eighteen (n = 18) Mandarin-speaking second language (L2) learners and sixteen (n = 16) Spanish heritage speakers (HSs) with Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as their dominant language. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which language proximity (languages are members of the same family) plays a role in the complete specification of the relevant features constraining DOM marking in Spanish. Results from an elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task (AJT) showed no support for the typological proximity model (Rothman 2010). There were also no age of onset of acquisition effects, in contrast to what was expected. The post-puberty Mandarin L2 learners outperformed the BP HSs in most of the conditions examined, suggesting a role for language instruction. Results are discussed along the lines of Liceras and Alba de la Fuente’s (2015) proposal whereby the locus of transfer is more related to the typological similarity between the languages at the microparametric level than to language proximity itself.

Highlights

The present study examines the role of typological proximity in the acquisition of DifferentialObject Marking (DOM) in Spanish among Mandarin-speaking second language (L2) learners and Spanish heritage speakers (HSs) with Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as their dominant language
We wanted to investigate the extent to which typological proximity plays a significant role in the specification of the relevant features constraining Differential Object Marking (DOM) marking in Spanish, a syntax-semantics interface structure so far unexplored among Mandarin-speaking L2 learners of Spanish
We wanted to examine whether this is the case in intermediate stages of L2 acquisition and heritage language development; and if not, whether it is typological similarity rather than proximity that makes a relevant contribution in the degree of optionality vs. final attainment (Liceras and Fuente 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish among Mandarin-speaking second language (L2) learners and Spanish heritage speakers (HSs) with Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as their dominant language. We investigate the extent to which language proximity/closeness (languages are members of the same family) plays a role in the complete specification of the relevant features constraining DOM marking in Spanish. We extend previous work by investigating (1) the role of typological proximity in language development, as postulated by Rothman’s 2010 Typological Primacy Model (TPM), and (2) by analyzing the acquisition process among Mandarin/Spanish bilinguals, a language pair so far underexplored in the L2 acquisition literature (Cuza et al 2013; Jiao 2017). We aim to inform current debate on the role of age and maturational constraints in the acquisition process by testing Spanish heritage speakers born and raised in Brazil and with BP as their L1 (Giancaspro et al 2015; Montrul 2008; Montrul et al 2011). BP does not typically mark direct objects, leading to potential cross-linguistic influence effects and patterns of Languages 2018, 3, 13; doi:10.3390/languages3020013 www.mdpi.com/journal/languages

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