29.2567, Diss: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Patricia Vazquez-Lopez: ''The Acquisition of Alternation in a Second Language''

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-2567. Mon Jun 18 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.2567, Diss: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Patricia Vazquez-Lopez: ''The Acquisition of Alternation in a Second Language''

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Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:15:16
From: Patricia Vazquez-Lopez [pvl.vazquez at gmail.com]
Subject: The Acquisition of Alternation in a Second Language

 
Institution: University of Greenwich 
Program: PhD in Applied Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2016 

Author: Patricia Vazquez-Lopez

Dissertation Title: The Acquisition of Alternation in a Second Language 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Language Acquisition


Dissertation Director(s):
María Jesús Arche

Dissertation Abstract:

This study examines the acquisition of alternation in a second language (L2)
by focusing on the acquisition of the copular verbs in Spanish, ser and estar,
by native speakers of English, who have only one copula (i.e. be).
Specifically, this thesis focuses on copular cases with adjectival predicates,
which can be classified into three groups: adjectives that combine only with
ser (e.g. famoso ‘famous’), adjectives combining only with estar (e.g.
contento ‘happy’) and those compatible with both but where only one copula is
felicitous according to the context (e.g. nervioso ‘nervous’) (i.e. dual
adjectives).

Two hypotheses were entertained, one dubbed as Syntactic Complexity, according
to which the simpler an element is the earlier and better its acquisition is
expected to be in an L2, and the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 1993; Sorace &
Keller, 2005; Sorace & Serratrice, 2009; Sorace, 2011, among others),
according to which elements whose value depend on an interface (e.g.
syntax-discourse interface) are expected to be more vulnerable to acquisition.
The first hypothesis predicts that ser, by virtue of its simpler syntactic
structure (Arche, Fábregas & Marín, 2017), is acquired first and better. The
second one predicts difficulties in the acquisition of cases where the two
copulas are a possibility (i.e. dual adjectives) but only one copular verb is
appropriate according to the context. To assess these hypotheses a
cross-sectional elicitation study was carried out, which elicited the copular
alternation through four, focused oral production and written comprehension
tasks. The task design was especially tailored to each adjectival group. Tasks
elicited copular clauses in 108 tokens, of which 36 included 6 only-ser
adjectives and 6 only-estar adjectives and 72 tokens that contained 18 dual
adjectives in contrasting discursive contexts, specifically 6 dependent-stage
adjectives of physical appearance (e.g. viejo ‘old’), 6 dependent-stage
adjectives of disposition (e.g. amable ‘kind’) and 6 self-standing stage
adjectives (e.g. nervioso ‘nervous’). 71 English-speaking learners of Spanish
and 25 native Peninsular Spanish speakers participated. 

Results show that L2 acquisition is determined not only by the syntactic
properties of the copulas themselves but also by the syntactic properties of
the adjectival predicates. Learners were not more accurate with adjectives
that have a fixed syntactic distribution than with those that are
context-dependent. By contrast, advanced learners attained a native-like level
with those adjectives that are grammatically possible in constructions where
the property of stage-levelness (associated to estar) is not brought in only
by the copula estar, but in other syntactic environments such as absolute
constructions and subject predicative complements. That is, with only-estar
adjectives such as contento ‘happy’ and dual self-standing stage adjectives
such as nervioso ‘nervous’. In turn, they failed to achieve a target-like
alternation when the copulas appear with dual dependent-stage adjectives of
physical appearance (e.g. viejo ‘old’) and those of disposition (e.g. amable
‘kind’). Furthermore, results indicate that even learners at higher levels of
proficiency have not fully acquired ser, leading them to misuse this copula in
constructions where the copula expected was estar. This contradicts much
previous research (Geeslin, 2000; Geeslin, 2003; Geeslin & Guijarro Fuentes,
2006; Woolsey, 2008; VanPatten, 2010; among others) that states that ser is
easily acquirable.




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