Abstract
Within the scope of research that lies at the intersection of sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, there is a growing body of empirical work on learners’ acquisition of variable subject expression in Spanish. This research has been instrumental for demonstrating that second language (L2) learners acquire linguistic and social constraints on subject form use. The present study extends research on variable Spanish subject expression to an understudied learner population: native Korean-speaking learners. Interview data were examined for the range and frequency of first-person subject forms produced by Korean-speaking learners at four instructional levels as well as linguistic and individual (extralinguistic) predictors of subject use. Results showed that learners at each level produced primarily null subjects, and verb number, verb-form regularity, verb semantics, and use of Spanish outside of class significantly predicted use of an overt personal pronoun over null subjects.
Highlights
Within the scope of research that lies at the intersection of sociolinguistics and second language acquisition (e.g., Bayley and Preston 1996; Geeslin and Long 2014; Regan and Bayley 2004), there is a growing body of empirical literature that focuses on learners’ development and use of variable morphosyntactic phenomena
The range of subject forms used by speakers to address themselves, their listener(s), and others is distinct and does not share the same contexts of use across these languages, which is likely due to the hierarchical system of personal pronouns for first- and second-person referents and the lack of true personal pronouns for third-person referents in Korean. Based on these observations and keeping in mind that the current study focuses on first-person referents, the primary acquisitional challenge facing Korean-speaking learners in the development and use of variable first-person subject expression in Spanish includes adjusting rates of null subject use to reflect sensitivity to linguistic factors known to influence variable subject omission in native-speaker Spanish
Null subjects accounted for the majority of subject forms produced by Korean-speaking learners in first-person contexts
Summary
Within the scope of research that lies at the intersection of sociolinguistics and second language acquisition (e.g., Bayley and Preston 1996; Geeslin and Long 2014; Regan and Bayley 2004), there is a growing body of empirical literature that focuses on learners’ development and use of variable morphosyntactic phenomena. The majority of these studies have examined sociolinguistic variation in second- language (L2) French or Spanish and contribute to theoretical discussions on learners’ developing sociolinguistic competence, or the ability to use language in linguistically and socially appropriate ways (Canale and Swain 1980). The different subject forms permitted in Spanish are illustrated in (1)
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