The Bottleneck Hypothesis updated

Slabakova, Roumyana

doi:10.1075/lald.63.16sla

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…More broadly, the results of the beginning and low‐advanced groups are consistent with the tenets of the Bottleneck Hypothesis by Slabakova (, , , ), which seeks to explain what is hard and what is easy to acquire in a second language. It proposes that it is functional morphology (such as definiteness) that is the bottleneck of L2 acquisition; acquisition of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics flows smoothly.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic

Azaz

2019

The Modern Language Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines first language (L1) English transfer in the acquisition of plural noun semantics in second language (L2) Arabic. Drawing on previous research on the L2 acquisition of plural noun interpretation, the study presents and discusses new production data of specific and generic definite plurals by English‐speaking learners of Arabic at beginning (n = 15), low‐advanced (n = 15), and high‐advanced levels (n = 11). The results from 2 meaning‐based elicitation tasks showed that the beginning group heavily transferred their L1 English generic bare plurals in the production of target‐like Arabic generic definite plurals. The low‐advanced group fluctuated between bare and definite plurals. Only the high‐advanced group, who had studied Arabic in an immersion setting combined with very structured classroom instruction, showed considerable stability in their production of target‐like definite plurals. A careful analysis of the textbook series the beginning and low‐advanced groups were taught from showed that the semantics of plural nouns, and more broadly, the semantics of the definite article, were not explicitly taught. The study concludes that the L1 effects in mapping definite and bare plural nouns to their meanings are exacerbated in the absence of explicit instruction. Further pedagogical implications for teaching form‐meaning mappings for articles are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic

Azaz

2019

The Modern Language Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…BH focuses on how a second language is acquired (Slabakova, 2008(Slabakova, , 2010(Slabakova, , 2014(Slabakova, , 2015(Slabakova, , 2019. Much research has addressed the question of what is easy or difficult to acquire in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and why.…”

Section: Bottleneck Hypothesis (Bh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acquisition of syntax, semantics and pragmatics may be smooth in SLA, but the difficulty in acquiring a second language emerges from functional morphology as this varies across languages. Slabakova (2019) argued that functional morphology forms this bottleneck because 'it bundles a variety of semantic, syntactic and morphophonological features that have an effect on the acceptability and the meaning of the whole sentence' (p. 2).…”

Section: Bottleneck Hypothesis (Bh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These have focused on the difficulties learners may experience during the acquisition of the morphology function. Slabakova (2019) detailed five complicating factors which affect the acquisition of functional morphology: (1) morphosyntax-semantic mismatches, (2) feature reassembly, (3) functional redundancy, (4) opacity and (5) construction frequency.…”

Section: Bottleneck Hypothesis (Bh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Learners can benefit from features in their L1 which are similar to those in their L2, employing them differently by mapping between the two. Slabakova (2019) examined the results of Hwang and Lardiere (2013) as an example of feature reassembly difficulties learners might face. Hwang and Lardiere (2013) investigated the acquisition of the Korean plural marker "-tul" by L1 English speakers.…”

Section: Bottleneck Hypothesis (Bh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The role of first language transfer in the acquisition of definiteness in specific and generic contexts by Saudi-Arabic learners of English

Aboras¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies on the acquisition of definiteness in English by Arabic learners have largely focused on the errors made using articles. The present study investigates the accuracy of Saudi-Arabic learners with regard to the different features associated with definiteness: specificity and genericity. Arabic, like English, contains a definite article and an indefinite article; however, article usage differs between the languages in that Saudi-Arabic tends to drop the indefinite article as it is not obligatory, as it is in English. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the accuracy with which learners employ specificity and genericity and the effect of the first language on learners’ accuracy. The thesis examines the effects of proficiency level and vocabulary level (receptive and productive). Two experimental studies were carried out, the first focusing on specificity by testing the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008) and the Fluctuation Hypothesis (Ionin et al., 2004). The former posits that learners are able to map features between L1 and L2 and that similarities and differences between languages affects acquisition. The latter hypothesis relates to definiteness and specificity, postulating that learners fluctuate between article settings until they acquire the Article Choice Parameter in English. The second experiment focused on genericity with singular and plural contexts, testing the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008) and the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (Hawkins & Chan, 1997), which argues that learners cannot acquire a new uninterpretable feature if it is already set in their L1. These experiments demonstrated that the accuracy of Saudi-Arabic learners of English varies according to definiteness features, as the participants performed more accurately with specificity than with genericity. First language transfer affected uses involving genericity more than those involving specificity. The other factors – proficiency level and receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge – affected the learners’ accuracy with respect to both specificity and genericity.

show abstract

Gradience in subject–verb number agreement: Can bilinguals tune in?

Jessen

Schwarz

Felser

2021

Applied Psycholinguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates native German speakers’ and bilingual Turkish/German speakers’ sensitivity to constraints on verbal agreement with pseudo-partitive subjects such as eine Packung Tabletten (“a pack of pills”). Although number agreement with the first noun phrase (headed by a container noun) is considered to be the norm, agreement with the second (containee) noun phrase is also possible. We combined scalar acceptability ratings with a stochastic constraint-based grammatical framework to model the relative strength of the constraints that determine speakers’ agreement preferences and subsequently tested whether these models could correctly predict speakers’ verb choices in a production task. For both participant groups, number match between the container noun phrase and the verb was the strongest determinant of both acceptability and production choices. The relative ranking of the constraints that we identified was the same for both groups, and the lack of age-of-acquisition effects suggests that constraints on variable subject–verb agreement, and their relative strength, are acquirable by both early and later learners of German. Group differences were seen in the absolute constraint weightings, however, with the bilinguals’ agreement preferences being more strongly influenced by number match with the containee phrase, indicating a comparatively greater reliance on surface-level cues to agreement (such as noun proximity) among the bilingual group.

show abstract

The Bottleneck Hypothesis updated

Cited by 14 publications

References 67 publications

L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic

L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic

The role of first language transfer in the acquisition of definiteness in specific and generic contexts by Saudi-Arabic learners of English

Gradience in subject–verb number agreement: Can bilinguals tune in?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About