Studies In Language Acquisition Research Articles

The Role of Linguistic Alignment on Question Development in Face‐to‐Face and Synchronous Computer‐Mediated Communication Contexts: A Conceptual Replication Study

AbstractTo date, linguistic alignment studies in second language acquisition have mainly been conducted during face‐to‐face (FTF) interactions. In the current study, we examined and compared the effect of structural alignment on the development of English direct and indirect questions in FTF and synchronous computer‐mediated communication (SCMC) contexts. Additionally, we assessed participants’ working memory capacity and previous knowledge of the target structures. We assigned 50 Korean learners of English to either an FTF or SCMC modality. Over 3 weeks, they completed a pretest, two interactive alignment sessions, a working memory test, and immediate and delayed posttests. Results indicate that primed production of direct and indirect questions is significantly more likely than unprimed production. Moreover, we found an interaction with modality for primed production of direct questions but not for indirect questions. Findings suggest learning effects for direct questions only and that this effect is facilitated by the degree of alignment.

A Picture-Book Based Corpus Study on the Acquisition of wh-words in Japanese

Abstract Clancy (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16(2), 323–47) claims that the developmental order of wh-questions in first language acquisition follows the order: what = where<who<how=why<when. Forner (1979. The mother as LAD: interaction between order and frequency of parental input and child production. In A. Hastings & F. R. Eckman (Eds.), Studies in first and second language acquisition (pp. 17–44). New York, NY: Newbury House Publishers) further argues that a mother’s order of introducing wh-questions might be influenced by her assumption of a child’s cognitive development. Similarly, the target age for picture books might also reflect an adult’s assumption of the child’s cognitive development. Accordingly, this study investigates a Japanese picture book corpus to determine whether the order of appearance for wh-words mirrors that of Clancy’s developmental order. As a result, the appearance of Japanese wh-words in the picture books were similar to Clancy’s (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16(2), 323–47) order except for the question dou ‘how’. Because dou and the English ‘how’ have different ranges of meaning, the data were reanalyzed which resulted in an order more similar to Clancy’s. These results suggest that the target age of picture books reflect the adult’s assumption of a child’s cognitive development. Picture books might also influence a caregivers’ order of introducing wh-words. In conclusion, this study implies external social factor such as picture books, together with other factors, might influence the children’s wh-developmental order.

A sílaba na relação com a escrita: ataques ramificados na escrita de crianças dos segundo e quarto anos – um estudo a partir do EFFE-On

The syllable is a unit of the phonological system of human languages that has been the subject of numerous studies in language and language acquisition. Using longitudinal data from the online corpus EFFE-On, this article focuses on the evaluation of children's written performance with respect to the order of acquisition of the syllable structure, in particular the analysis of branching Onsets (obstruent+liquid). The study focuses on the performance of second and fourth graders in the Lisbon area and will allow us to describe the relationship between phonological and orthographic knowledge in children attending the first years of elementary education.

Desenvolvimento linguístico e ensino de português como língua materna: assimetrias na compreensão de orações relativas de sujeito e de objeto

Studies in language acquisition show that relative clauses are a domain in which children exhibit difficulties. As found in other languages, a subject-object asymmetry has been found for European Portuguese both in production and in comprehension. On the other hand, studies in educational linguistics assessing Portuguese school age children suggest that difficulties with relative clauses can be found along basic education. As in these studies, this paper extends the study of subject and object relative clauses to school age children. Starting from Batalha (2017), we present a pre/posttest design study that assessed the linguistic knowledge of 91 students in grades 4, 6 and 8 on the understanding of referential dependencies with the relative pronoun que in subject and object restrictive relative clauses. The findings, which were obtained using a reading task that required the identification of antecedents of relative pronouns, are discussed from the point of view of educational linguistics, considering some of the implications of the study for Portuguese L1 teaching.

How large should a dense corpus be for reliable studies in early language acquisition ?

Dense corpora have been put forward as necessary tools for corpus studies of language acquisition. Despite their great interest, they are not yet frequently used, probably because of the high cost involved in their creation. The goal of the present study was to predict the optimal size of a dense longitudinal corpus when used to infer, manually or automatically, the details of lexical or syntactic development in child language. The results show that corpora of at least 30 to 40 one-hour recordings are necessary, but that longer corpora using the same protocol provide little new information. Dense corpora are indeed very useful, but do not need to be overly large to study grammatical development. This has important consequences for corpus-building projects, which can be optimized. The existence of a limit to the amount of information provided by large corpora also has important consequences for linguistic theory, as this helps locate the threshold between learning frozen forms and generalizing knowledge about language structure.

Is Speaking Pidgin Detrimental in the Classroom? Bridging SLA and Creoles

Studies in second language acquisition (SLA) maintain that circumstantial L2 learning involves situations where members of a language minority must learn the majority language for reasons which they have little choice and which are typically associated to larger-scale world events, such as immigration, economic hardship, post-colonialism, war or occupation (Ortega, 2014). Unfortunately, the attitudes towards HCE being viewed as the “Pidgin problem”, especially in the school setting, where it was frowned upon and kept out of the classroom, has not been given considerate recognition. These contexts and incidents motivated the author to investigate about the myths and beliefs towards the nature of Pidgin, and concerns that underlie these questions asked by many educators and linguists on opposite sides of the spectrum: Is speaking a pidgin (or “nonstandard” English) detrimental in the classroom? Is standard English the best language? In this paper, the author attempts to answer these questions by presenting: key terms, a brief history of pidgin and creoles, beliefs towards pidgin, introduce educational programs and concerns of pidgin in the classroom, and research in SLA that have become beneficial and supportive of pidgin in the classroom.

The Corpus of Lithuanian Children Language: Development and application for modern studies in language acquisition

[full article and abstract in English]
 This paper describes The Corpus of Lithuanian Children’s Language and its possible applications for modern studies on the first language acquisition. First of all, the procedure of data collection for the Corpus is discussed. Furthermore, the main methodological principles of longitudinal and experimental data compilation and transciption are decribed. Finally, different studies in developmental psycholinguistics which have been carried out so far and which demonstrate possible ways of the application of the Corpus data for different scientific purposes are introduced.
 The Corpus of Lithuanian Children’s Language developed at Vytautas Magnus University comprises typical and atypical, longitudinal and experimental data of the Lithuanian language development. The Corpus was compiled using different methodological approaches, such as natural observation and semi-experiment. The longitudinal data (conversations between the target children and their caretakers) compiled according to the requirement of natural observation includes transcribed and morphologically annotated speech of two typically-developing children, one late talker, one early talker, one child from a low SES family, and a pair of twins. The data was collected during the period of 1993–2017 and and it can be divided into three cohorts. The semi-experimentaldata (~ 124 hours) comes from numerous studies in narratives and spontaneous dialogues elicited from typically-developing and language-impaired monolingual and bilingual (pre-) school age children.
 From the very beginning of data collection for the The Corpus of Lithuanian Children’s Language, studies in the develomental changes of typical child language have been carried out. Over the past decade, these studies have been supplemented by statistical analysis of elicited semi-experimental data; the majority of these studies deal with typical vs. atypical (delayed or impaired) language acquisition and with differences between acquision of Lithuanian in a monolingual vs. bi-/polylingual settings.
 The paper provides an overview of data of The Corpus of Lithuanian Children’s Language, which have been collected from 1993 but still needed to be structurized according to the employed methodology of data compilation and possible applications for different scientific purposes.

A systematic review of transfer studies in third language acquisition

The present systematic review examines what factors determine when, how and to what extent previous linguistic experience (from the first language, second language or both languages) affects the initial stages and beyond of adult third language (L3) acquisition. In doing so, we address what a bird’s eye view of the data tells us regarding competing theoretical accounts of L3 morphosyntactic transfer. Data couple together to suggest that some factors are more influential than others. As discussed, the systematic review transcends the field of adult multilingualism precisely because of what it reveals, as a prima facie example in behavioral research, in terms of how different types of methodological considerations impact the way data are interpreted to support or not particular claims.

Thirty-five years of ISLA on form-focused instruction: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis offers a snapshot of thirty-five years (1980–2015) of research on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). Fifty-four empirical studies involving a total of 5,051 second language learners – sampled from six applied linguistics journals, Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and TESOL Quarterly – were aggregated for the effects of second language (L2) instruction, yielding an overall large effect size, g = 1.06, 95 % CI = 0.84−1.29. Data were further analysed to identify factors that can modulate the efficacy of instruction. While a minor difference was detected between explicit and implicit instruction, statistically significant effects were found for modes of outcome measures, learners’ onset L2 proficiency, research settings, and intensity of instruction.

Thirty-five years of ISLA on form-focused instruction: A methodological synthesis

This article offers a methodological synthesis spanning 35 years of instructed second language acquisition research on the efficacy of form-focused instruction. Eighty-eight (quasi-) experimental studies were sampled from six academic journals: Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and TESOL Quarterly. The focus of analysis was on five sets of variables: (1) research design, (2) participants, (3) context in which the studies were conducted, (4) instructional treatment, and (5) outcome measures. Results revealed that since Norris and Ortega’s (2000) seminal study, the research domain has grown, not only with respect to the number of studies published, but also with regard to the addition of previously unexamined L1 groups, increase in the number of studies investigating implicit instruction, greater use of multiple measures of learning, and more pretesting and delayed posttesting. However, a number of methodological weaknesses have also persisted.

Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain

Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain

Wh-Questions, Universal Statements and Free Choice Inferences in Child Mandarin.

This study investigated 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children's comprehension of wh-questions, universal statements and free choice inferences. Previous research has found that Mandarin-speaking children assign a universal interpretation to sentences with a wh-word (e.g., shei 'who') followed by the adverbial quantifier dou 'all' (Zhou in Appl Psycholinguist 36:411-435, 2013). Children also compute free choice inferences in sentences that contain a modal verb in addition to a wh-word and dou (Zhou, in: Nakayama, Su, Huang (eds.) Studies in Chinese and Japanese language acquisition: in honour of Stephen Crain. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp 223-235, 2017). The present study used a Question-Statement Task to assess children's interpretation of sentences containing shei + dou, both with and without the modal verb beiyunxu 'was allowed to', as well as the contrast between sentences with shei + dou, which are statements for adults, versus ones with dou + shei, which are wh-questions for adults. The 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking child participants exhibited adult-like linguistic knowledge of the semantics and pragmatics of wh-words, the adverbial quantifier dou, and the deontic modal verb beiyunxu.

Two-way immersion students’ home languages, proficiency levels, and responses to form-focused instruction

ABSTRACTTwo-way immersion (TWI) programs in the U.S. integrate learners with different home languages and varied proficiencies in Spanish and English. Although both English home language (EHL) and Spanish home language (SHL) TWI students succeed academically in English, they often experience incomplete acquisition (Montrul 2011. “Morphological Errors in Spanish Second Language Learners and Heritage Speakers.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33: 163–192. doi:10.1017/S0272263110000720) or attrition of their Spanish proficiency (Potowski 2007. Language and Identity in a Dual Immersion School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters). Underdeveloped Spanish proficiency may partly be due to teachers’ tendency to prioritize content instruction while neglecting language development. Studies in one-way immersion programs have revealed positive effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on language development (e.g. Harley 1998. “The Role of Form-Focused tasks in Promoting Child L2 Acquisition.” In Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine Doughty and Jessica Williams, 156–174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lyster 1994. “The Effect of Functional-Analytic Teaching on Aspects of French Immersion Students’ Sociolinguistic Competence.” Applied Linguistics 15: 263–287; 2004. “Differential Aspects of Prompts and Recasts in Form-Focused Instruction.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26: 399–432. doi:10.1017/S0272263104263021). However, the diversity among TWI students regarding their proficiency in Spanish may render FFI challenging when some students produce accurate forms intuitively while others struggle with grammatical accuracy.Guided by sociocognitive theory (Batstone 2010. “Issues and Options in Sociocognition.” In Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Learning, edited by Rob Batstone, 3–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press), this qualitative study investigated how SHL and EHL Grade 5 TWI students responded to FFI on past tense/aspects. Discourse analysis of transcripts from classroom observations was conducted to examine student responses in relation to teacher input and FFI activities. Findings suggest an important relationship between the diversity among TWI students in terms of their Spanish proficiency and responses to FFI, and offer pedagogical implications for classrooms that integrate content and language.

Semantic approximation related to verbal lexicon in Korean monolinguals: Focused on Break-type and Remove-type verbs.

This research aims to explore the semantic approximation related to verbal lexicon in Korean 48-month-old monolingual children (n= 40) as well as adults (= 17). Despite the fact that semantic approximation is a pivotal aspect of language development, related previous studies in 1st language acquisition are much more scarce than regarding 2nd language learning. Semantic approximation in child language stems from analogic and pragmatic strategies and helps young speakers communicate their thoughts by making up their immature lexicon. Moreover, to date, little attention has been paid to the aspects and factors motivating semantic approximations in Korean monolinguals and their strategies underlying their production. Interestingly, Korean speaking monolinguals tend to use semantic approximation much more than those of other languages, i.e. French, German, Chinese and English. For examining this aspect, in this study, the semantic approximation related to verbal lexicon was studied in 40 monolingual kids, compared with 17 matched control participants during an action naming task, APPROX. Our findings show that first, each group showed higher rate of use semantic approximation than other language speakers. Second, most of semantic approximations in Korean monolinguals have been based on `domain change` (between-domain) and more generic terms (hypernyms) are used. Third, semantic approximations are found to be related to lexical richness in Korean verbs` construction and influence the level of conceptual complexity in Korean monolinguals. (Hongik University)

Frequency Effects in Second Language Acquisition: An Annotated Survey

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between frequency and language acquisition from many perspectives including implicit and explicit instruction, frequency effects on morpheme acquisition in L2, the relationship between frequency and multi-word constructions, frequency effects on phonetics, vocabulary, gerund and infinitive constructions, bitransitive constructions, and so on. In his impressive article on frequency, Ellis (2002a) asked this crucial question about the relationship between frequency and SLA: “How exactly does the frequency of patterns in the input affect acquisition?” Another fundamental question that needs to be answered is: “What purpose does frequency serve in language acquisition?” In addition, frequency and range are said to be the most salient criteria for determining the general usefulness of a word (Koprowski, 2005). Moreover, both corpus and experimental data suggest that frequency has significant effects on second language acquisition. These questions and arguments, which constitute the foundation of frequency studies in second language acquisition, led and guided this study. This annotated survey, summarizing the studies on frequency effects on L2 learning, shows that there are still lots of ways to go with research on the relationship between frequency and second language acquisition in the literature. Some pedagogical implications are discussed with recommendations for the stakeholders of foreign language contexts (i.e. curriculum designers, coursebook writers, language teachers and learners).

Word Skipping in Reading English as a Foreign Language: Evidence from Eye Tracking

Word Skipping in Reading English as a Foreign Language: Evidence from Eye Tracking

The development of morphological complexity: A cross-linguistic study of L2 French and English

Studies in second language acquisition (SLA) increasingly rely on measures of linguistic complexity to assess second language (L2) proficiency and development. While an important number of studies have risen to the call of studying a broader range of complexity related constructs (Bulté and Housen, 2012; Norris and Ortega, 2009), few have examined morphological complexity, instead focusing on syntax and lexis. The use of morphology measures is especially warranted in light of complexity trade-offs believed to occur both in language development – when growth in one linguistic domain (e.g. syntax) is temporarily prioritized over growth in another (e.g. morphology) – as well as crosslinguistically, in the form of balancing effects between different domains of the linguistic system. From both a cross-linguistic and developmental perspective, then, the current emphasis in SLA research on measures of syntactic complexity does not comprehensively gauge overall (grammatical) complexity in learner data. This study focuses on the development of morphological complexity using three previously proposed measures based on the notion of morphological diversity, with special attention to the verbal inflectional system (Horst and Collins, 2006; Malvern et al., 2004; Pallotti, 2015). Not only does the verbal system pose significant challenges to language learners, it is also the locus of important differences between inflectionally richer languages, like French, and inflectionally poorer languages, like English. The study investigates cross-linguistic differences in the development of morphological complexity and the effectiveness of the three morphological complexity measures as indicators of proficiency. The analyses were carried out on a multilingual corpus of 100 L2 French and 100 L2 English oral narratives, representing four different proficiency levels in both languages. Results indicate a more continuous increase of morphological complexity in L2 French than in L2 English and underline the importance of morphology as an essential component of a multidimensional view of linguistic complexity in SLA.

Review of Han (2014): Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese

Review of Han (2014): Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese

A comparative framework for culturally differentiated digital game-based learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore culture as the unit of analysis in comparative education in the context of technology-mediated learning known as digital game-based learning (DGBL). Design/methodology/approach – Two digital games for Chinese language learning were purposefully designed and produced following existing studies in cross-cultural psychology, learning theories and second language acquisition. To corroborate the assumption that culture affects user’s preference of DGBL learning interface, the two newly developed instructional tools were evaluated with eastern and western learners to find out their perceptions and choices through direct observation, pre-/post-assessments and a group interview. Findings – The evaluation indicates the validity of the key assumptions in the theoretical framework: eastern learners were fond of the type of digital game that involves social cues and situational factors, whereas, western learners preferred a simple design and goal-oriented learning game in which they had the power of control. Originality/value – This paper suggests a theoretical and technical framework to design, and produce culturally sensitive DGBL learning tools. Extant studies on the relationship between culture and DGBL are usually on how digital games generate unique learning experiences and culture. Looking at the same phenomenon but in a reverse direction, this study reports on how learners’ culture determines their preferences in DGBL.

Studies in second language acquisition of Chinese

Studies in second language acquisition of Chinese