The acquisition of articles in child second language English: fluctuation, transfer or both?

Abstract

The data for this study consisted of a longitudinal corpus of narratives from 17 English second language (L2) children, mean age of 5;4 years at the outset, with first languages (Lls) that do not have definite/indefinite articles (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) and Lls that do have article systems (Spanish, Romanian and Arabic). We examined these children's acquisition of articles in order to determine the role of L1 transfer and, in so doing, test the Fluctuation Hypothesis, and also to compare our findings to those from research on adult L2 learners. Three tendencies were found over two years: (1) All children substituted the for a in indefinite specific contexts (i.e. showed fluctuation) regardless of L1 background; (2) all children were more accurate with use of the in definite contexts than with a in indefinite contexts, regardless of L1 background; and (3) children with [-article] Lls had more omitted articles as error forms than children with [+article] L1s, but only at the early stages of acquisition. Overall, L1 influence in the children's developmental patterns and rates of article acquisition was limited. Child L2 learners converged on the target system faster than prior reports have indicated for adult L2 learners, even when their Lls lack articles. Thus, we conclude that fluctuation is a developmental process that overrides transfer in child L2 acquisition of English articles, in contrast to what has been reported for adult L2 learners.

Past Tense Production by English Second Language Learners With and Without Language Impairment

“…However, the presence of an L1 does make L2 learners distinct from monolinguals, and L1 background was found to influence children's outcomes. The L1 transfer effects in this study were consistent with findings reported in other child L2 studies (Blom et al, 2012;Paradis, 2011;Zdorenko & Paradis, 2008. According to Bybee (2008), L2 learners transfer L1 knowledge on the basis of similarity.…”

“…This corpus contains language samples from English L2 children and adult native speakers of English, all living in the Edmonton area. These language samples have been collected as part of several studies over 8 years conducted by the second author (e.g., Golberg, Paradis, & Crago, 2008;Paradis, 2008;Paradis et al, 2008;Zdorenko & Paradis, 2008. The samples were collected in a naturalistic setting and can be considered representative of the input of English L2 children in Edmonton.…”

Interpreting definiteness in a second language without articles: The case of L2 Russian

“…As Ionin et al (2004) discuss, however, there were arguably very few contexts that allowed for nonspecific definites in the production data, making the production error patterns somewhat tentative and inconclusive. The series of studies by Ionin and colleagues has proved highly influential and has inspired a number of following studies (Garcia Mayo, 2009;Snape, 2009;Zdorenko and Paradis, 2008; among others) largely confirming the fluctuation findings. However, Trenkic (2008) takes issue with Ionin et al's operationalization of specificity and argues against the Fluctuation Hypothesis by proposing that L2 English learners are mis-analysing the and a as adjectives.…”

Article use in L2 English by L1 Russian and L1 German speakers

“…Two particular problems have been identified in the literature: (i) the ungrammatical omission of obligatory articles (e.g., Goad & White 2007;Lardiere 2004;Radford 1990;Trenkic 2009) and (ii) the use of an incorrect article, typically using the definite article instead of the indefinite (e.g., Huebner 1983;Master 1987;Parrish 1987;Thomas 1989;Wexler 2011;Zdorenko & Paradis 2008). The examples in (5), produced by an adult native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, exemplify these problems.…”