Korean Speakers' Acquisition of the English Ditransitive Construction: The Role of Verb Prototype, Input Distribution, and Frequency

Abstract

Recent studies in usage-based linguistics have found that construction learning is more effective when input is skewed toward a prototypical exemplar of the construction, thereby reflecting the frequency distribution in natural language. This study investigates the extent to which a prototypical ditransitive verb with high frequency (give) facilitates the acquisition of the English ditransitive construction in Korean children learning English in a community in which exposure to English is rare outside of the formal classroom setting. Six classes were randomly assigned to either a skewed frequency group, where the input was skewed toward give, or a balanced frequency group, where the input was evenly distributed among the training ditransitive verbs. This experiment found little evidence for the facilitative effects of skewed input on construction learning. Instead, the results suggest that construction learning in this situation is superior with a more balanced set of verbs rather than a focus on a single prototype.

Advancing usage-based approaches to L2 studies

“…Questions pertaining to this process are typically investigated in terms of a priori constructions, e.g. locative motion constructions and object transfer constructions (Ellis and Ferreira-Junior 2009;Year and Gordon 2009), can-constructions (Eskildsen, 2009), auxiliary do-constructions (Eskildsen 2011); negation constructions (Eskildsen and Cadierno 2007;Eskildsen 2012), motion constructions (Li 2014;Li, Eskildsen, and Cadierno 2014;Eskildsen, Cadierno, and Li this volume; for a recent overview, see Cadierno forthc. ), relative clauses (Mellow 2006), question formation (McDonough and Kim 2009;Eskildsen 2015), French c'est and Swedish det är constructions (Bartning and Hammarberg 2007), German gehen and fahren (Roehr-Brackin 2014), and constructions based around the use of es que in L2 Spanish (Yuldashev, Fernandez, and Thorne 2013).…”

Frequency Effects in Second Language Acquisition: An Annotated Survey

“…Although a few studies found that frequency has a limited effect on the acquisition of some certain patterns (Year & Gordon, 2009), both corpus and experimental data suggest that frequency has significant effects on second language acquisition. This annotated survey shows that despite numerous studies, there are still lots of ways to go with research on the relationship between frequency and second language acquisition.…”

“…One important limitation of frequency related studies is that they have difficulties in excluding some other factors in order to detect the unique contribution of frequency. Year and Gordon (2009) listed some of these factors as "the nature of a construction, implicit/explicit learning mode adopted during learning, the number of stimuli taught, exposure duration, the order in which stimuli are presented, and construction complexity." Furthermore, word frequency distributions are highly skewed by nature, which makes even the mega corpora insufficient.…”

On the development of motion constructions in four learners of L2 English

“…Research in both controlled experimental settings (e.g., Goldberg and Casenhiser 2008;Wulff 2005, 2009;McDonough and Kim 2009;Year and Gordon 2009) and naturalistic settings (e.g., Bartning and Hammarberg 2007;Ellis andFerreira-Junior 2009a, 2009b;Waara 2004) has confirmed the ontological status of constructions as form-meaning pairings in L2 learning. Moreover, a growing body of research (Ellis and Ferreira-Junior 2009a;Eskildsen inter alia 2012Eskildsen inter alia , 2014Eskildsen inter alia , 2015Li, Eskildsen, and Cadierno 2014;Mellow 2006;Roehr-Brackin 2014;Yuldashev, Fernandez, and Thorne 2013;) is documenting L2 learning as an exemplar-based process where the L2 user is constantly developing and expanding a repertoire of interrelated constructions used for communicative purposes on the basis of recurring exemplars.…”