Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition

Abstract

This study investigates the second language acquisition (L2A) of scalar implicatures ( Grice, 1989; Horn, 1972), implicatures based on a range of quantifiers ordered in terms of informational strength: some … most … all. We compared acceptance rates on scalar implicatures with some compared to universally true and false sentences with all by Korean natives in Korean, English natives in English, and two groups of advanced and intermediate Korean learners of English. Experiment 1 presented scalar sentences without context. Pragmatically infelicitous but logically correct sentences with some were the crucial test items. Results indicate that L2 learners derive scalar implicatures significantly more often than the native English and Korean speakers. Experiment 2 used statements in the rich context of stories presented with pictures and text. The pragmatically felicitous responses of the learners increased to over 90%. It is concluded that scalar implicatures present no problem to L2 learners, and that linguistic pragmatic principles are universal. These results are interpreted in light of two influential accounts of scalar implicature calculation and situate them among recent L2A theories.