Elicited imitation as a window into developmental stages

Kristof Baten,Frederik Cornillie

doi:10.22599/jesla.56

Kristof Baten, Frederik Cornillie

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.56

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Abstract

In the second language acquisition literature, data of naturally occurring language use are considered the most ideal data to make statements about second-language (L2) development. This study examines to what extent experimentally elicited data can provide an equally valid basis for determining L2 development, by testing predictions derived from Processability Theory regarding the L2 acquisition of the German case system. Using naturally occurring language data, previous research on L2 German case acquisition has uncovered three developmental stages. The present cross-sectional study investigates whether the same stages occur in data obtained from an experimental task (i.e., a computer oral elicited imitation task (OEIT). Thirty-six university L2 learners of German participated in the study. The results show that the elicited data prove comparable to the naturally occurring data. As such, this study corroborates a previous validation study on developmental stages in L2 English, which demonstrated the comparability of naturally occurring and experimentally elicited data. In addition, concerning methodological advancement of the OEIT design, the present study proposes to include a direct measure of comprehension.

Highlights

In second language acquisition (SLA), it is a long-established finding that second-language (L2) learners follow predictable stages in the acquisition of grammatical structures (Abrahamsson, 2013)
Picture-matching task Table 3 presents the results of the picture-matching task: The first column lists the different types of the oral elicited imitation task (OEIT)’s stimulus sentences; the two middle columns give the number of correct and incorrect matches; the last column indicates the total number of matches
The present study examines whether the OEIT can reveal the same developmental stages that were observed in previous research using data of naturally occurring language use

Summary

Introduction

In second language acquisition (SLA), it is a long-established (but not indisputable) finding that second-language (L2) learners follow predictable stages in the acquisition of grammatical structures (Abrahamsson, 2013). This finding is largely based on evidence from naturally occurring L2 use. For reasons of external validity, many SLA researchers prefer data of naturally occurring L2 use for making statements about what learners have learned (Ellis, 2008). The problem with this kind of data is that it often does not contain enough examples of the more difficult linguistic structures. More evidence will be available with regard to specific linguistic structures, especially the more difficult ones

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