30.3917, Review: Spanish; Language Acquisition: Diaubalick (2019)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3917. Thu Oct 17 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 30.3917, Review: Spanish; Language Acquisition: Diaubalick (2019)
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Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:43:14
From: Joelle Carota [jcarota at buffalo.edu]
Subject: La adquisición del sistema verbal español por aprendices alemanes y el papel del aspecto gramatical
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1755.html
AUTHOR: Tim Diaubalick
TITLE: La adquisición del sistema verbal español por aprendices alemanes y el papel del aspecto gramatical
SUBTITLE: Una comparación entre los tiempos del pasado y los tiempos del futuro
SERIES TITLE: Language Development
PUBLISHER: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
YEAR: 2019
REVIEWER: Joelle Carota, University at Buffalo
SUMMARY
This book stems from the author’s own dissertation project that was conducted
between two universities: the University of Wuppertal (Germany) and the
University of the Balearic Islands (Spain). Each of the ten chapters in which
the book is divided guides the reader through the several phases of an
empirical study focused on the issues related to the acquisition of Spanish
past forms (i.e. preterite, imperfect, and to some extent the preterite
perfect). This study centers specifically on the difficulties that German
learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) experience when acquiring the
notion of grammatical aspect. The data collection is the result of a
collaborative effort of the researcher and of several other Spanish L2
teachers and professors in many countries (mostly in Mallorca, Spain but also
in Germany, North and South America, and Northern Europe). This project adds
an important contribution to the relatively recent discussion on the
acquisition of the Spanish verbal system by non-native speakers that has seen
an upsurge in the last decade.
In the introduction, the author gives a summary of the motivation behind his
research questions, that is “is it possible to acquire aspectual contrasts in
an L2 provided that these features are not present in the L1?” Specifically,
the main purpose of this study is to investigate the acquisition of the
Spanish verbal system (in particular the aspectual features of past and future
forms) by German learners in comparison to those with a different L1. He also
points out that he worked within the generative conceptual framework, using in
particular the implications deriving from the Minimalist Program (MP).
Therefore, in this book the acquisition process is seen mostly through the
lenses of the learner’s L1 and its influence. As a matter of fact, the text
explains that German learners of L2 Spanish tend to follow the same pattern
when picking past forms, that is they rely on the lexical markers that appear
in the sentence, often disregarding verbal morphology (i.e. endings).
Consequently, the book’s main focus is to explain the Spanish verbal system so
that it can then be compared and contrasted with the corresponding German one.
The second chapter consists in a detailed explanation of the theoretical
grounding on which the study is based. The author extensively addresses the
cornerstones of generative linguistics (i.e. its initial hypothesis, the
development of the Minimalist Program (MP), the very existence of Universal
Grammar (UG), etc.) and explains the influence that the latter has had on how
language acquisition is conceived. He also discusses the difference between
the acquisition of macroparameters and that of microparameters and how
analyzing the acquisition of one rather than the others in this study would
have affected the results on an empirical level. In terms of the degree of
access to UG, the author mentions the most prominent hypotheses of partial
inaccessibility of UG and of full access to UG, namely on the one hand, the
Failed Features Hypothesis (FFH) (Hawkins & Chan 1997) and the
Interpretability Hypothesis (Hawkins &. Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli &
Dimitrakopoulou, 2007); and on the other the Full Transfer/Full Access
Hypothesis (FTFAH) (Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996); the Interface Hypothesis
(IH) (Sorace & Filiaci 2006); the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH)
(Lardiere 2008, 2009).
The purpose of Chapters Three and Four is to explain in detail the specific
difficulties related to the acquisition of verbal systems, in particular the
obstacles that German learners of L2 Spanish face when studying the Spanish
verbal system. In fact, according to the author, one of the purposes of
chapter three, for instance, is also “to present the inherent complexity of
the verbal system” (Diaubalick 2019: 46). In the third chapter specifically
the author produces an overview of the theoretical basis for the division of
verbs into categories. In the last section of this same chapter, there is a
very clear terminology table that shows the wording regarding aspect that
will be used in the remainder of the book. In this chapter, the author also
stresses the fact that, given the extremely relevant communicative function
verbs have, studying patterns of verb acquisition is a very peculiar task
especially because learners cannot circumnavigate the concept as they would do
with other elements (e.g. adverbs, personal pronouns, etc.); instead they have
to find a way to acquire this element if they want to advance their
proficiency in the target language. In this book, grammatical aspect is
classified according to the different notions of perfective, imperfective and
perfect (Comrie 1976).
As the author states at the very beginning of the chapter, the purpose of
Chapter Four is to give an overview of the main differences among and within
Indo-European language families in terms of aspect. What stands out in this
chapter is that within the Romance languages family, usually languages have
two opposite simple forms to express the past, that is the simple preterite or
preterite perfect (esp. canté; it. cantai; fr. je chantai; pt. cantei) and the
imperfect (esp. cantaba; it. cantavo; fr. je chantais; pt. cantei). Using one
of the two elements of this dichotomy is usually enough to express the past,
in other words there is no need of lexical markers. On the other hand,
Germanic languages do not have the imperfect, therefore they lack that
specific aspectual part. In English, this parametric difference is compensated
by the existence of other explicit morphosyntactic mechanisms that mark this
aspectual feature (i.e. present progressive; verbal periphrasis). For this
reason, within the Germanic language family, German is in deep contrast with
English, which is the only language that presents a similarity with the
Romance system given the fact that it does have this aspectual difference even
if only partially.
The fifth chapter, “La adquisición del pasado en la L2”, is dedicated to a
very detailed literature review whose purpose is to describe previous SLA
research including the theoretical framework on which these studies were
based, key variables and phenomena, and the methodology that was used. The
author stresses the fact that most previous studies on the acquisition of past
tenses were based on a non-generative framework and that the challenge of his
project is precisely to establish a sound connection between previous results
and the generative approach, thus establishing a safe ground for the project.
In the sixth chapter, the author mainly talks about another area of time and
aspect that was also tested in this study: the future. Future forms were
included in the study because they present several connections as well as some
differences with the past forms that were the object of this study. For
example, in both instances they interact with the lexical aspect at the
sentence level, that is with the telicity of the predicate. As a matter of
fact, German and Spanish differ in two fundamental ways. On the one hand,
German speakers prefer to express future concepts with the present tense and
on the other, the epistemic uses of future constructions do not interact with
the lexical aspect.
Chapter seven provides a clear-cut report on the methodological approach that
was chosen by the researcher, particularly the second to last section (i.e.
section 7.3). This section shows the structure of the questionnaire (both in
paper and online format) that was used to collect data. The questionnaire was
distributed in different countries to native and non-native speakers of
Spanish; the first group of speakers was used as a control group to measure
the results of the non-native speakers, and at the same time the answers
produced by those non-native speakers of Spanish whose L1 is German were
compared to those of native speakers of other Indo-European languages. The
different sections (‘tareas’ or tasks) that made up the questionnaire were
outlined in this chapter to demonstrate that the respondents were explicitly
tested on comprehension, recognition, and production of past and future verb
forms in Spanish. The acquisition of aspectual features regarding the past is
different from acquisition of those related to the future in that in the first
case, the learner will have to acquire both interpretable and
non-interpretable features, while in the second case only non-interpretable
aspectual features will have to be acquired.
In Chapters Eight and Nine, the author elucidates the results of the
statistical analysis (a multivariate analysis that combines ANOVAs methods and
was measured with the Wilks’ Lambda Test) done on the data that was collected,
i.e. the results related to the acquisition of past aspectual values and those
deriving from the acquisition of future aspectual values. The results show
that the presence of contradicting items, which were integrated into the
questionnaire on purpose, complicates the choice of past forms made by the
respondents. In fact, respondents tend to be confused and to hesitate when
choosing between two past forms. To compensate for this hesitation, they
develop a strategy that usually consists in a model strictly dependent on
their L1. For instance, native speakers of Romance languages tend to rely on
aspectual values, thereby considering telicity as an important element and
indicator. On the other hand, German L1 speakers usually look for lexical
elements and rely on temporal discourse markers when facing a choice. These
same results were confirmed by the analysis of the data collected on the
future (Chapter Nine). These observations conform to what was previously
claimed in contrastive grammar studies that state that German L1 speakers
prefer lexical elements over morphological markers while speakers of Romance
languages follow the opposite trend.
In the tenth and eleventh chapters, the author draws the following
conclusions: (1) the initial impression that the distinction between Spanish
past tenses is one of the most difficult aspects to acquire, especially for
German native speakers, was confirmed; (2) the second hypothesis that
concerned the existence of acquisition strategies developed by learners
themselves was confirmed in the case of the past (i.e. development of a
compensatory strategy) but not for the future, since its acquisition was
proven to be successful; (3) the third hypothesis, like the previous two, was
confirmed as well. In fact, German students of L2 Spanish, as part of an
acquisition strategy based on their L1, have shown a tendency to rely on
temporal discourse markers, which were considered ‘warning signals’.
EVALUATION
The book constructs a compelling report of an empirical study centered on the
acquisition of the temporal/aspectual system in the interlanguage of Spanish
L2 learners. Thanks to a copious data collection (657 participants were
involved in this study), the researcher analyzed the specific difficulties
that German learners encountered in the acquisition process precisely because
of the aspectual differences between Spanish and German (the latter, in fact,
lacks grammatical aspect). The results produced by German respondents were
compared and contrasted with those of Romance language speakers (specifically,
Spanish native speakers were used as control group) using inferential
statistical methods. As part of the main findings, the crucial effect of
temporal discourse markers was reaffirmed. Moreover, this study non only
corroborated results from previous studies on English learners of L2 Spanish,
but produced evidence that these values go beyond those same previous results.
The primary merits of this book lie in its presentation of acquisition from
several different theoretical points of view. In fact, the author brings
together the generative and the non-generative traditions and by approaching
the research questions under two different perspectives, describes the
potential contributions and limits that each one has. By doing so, the author
establishes a solid ground for the study and ensures that each theoretical
framework contributes fully and effectively to the approach and methodology
that were used in the study as a whole.
Another strong point of this book is the fact that it is extremely accessible
even to inexperienced readers who might be new to the discipline. The high
readability of this text is facilitated, among other things, by the many
tables that the author has spread throughout the book. Each table works both
as a summary and as an overview of the main conceptual points elaborated in
each section.
The pedagogical implications that derive directly from the findings contained
in this book should not be underestimated. In fact, the author states that
Spanish L2 teachers should help learners to develop a learning strategy that
is based on a global approach (p. 340). This means that, instead of pushing
students to conceptualize temporal discourse markers as tense indicators,
teachers should instead encourage students to create a compensatory
acquisition strategy that is based on their L1. Another important pedagogical
observation is that nowadays aspect is not taught as much as it should be and
that teaching it as a group of grammar rules that students need to memorize is
not effective; instead, a good strategy would be to combine didactic methods
to linguistic theory.
For future research, the author himself suggests comparing speakers of
non-aspectual languages and Anglophone speakers on an empirical level in
terms of their acquisition process of past and future aspectual values. The
results of this study should then be compared to the ones that were described
in this book. The purpose of this comparison will be essentially pedagogical,
that is finding out whether the acquisition strategy that German L1 learners
use (i.e. using temporal discourse markers as an indication of aspectual
features) is shared with other Spanish L2 learners or is exclusive to German
L1 speakers.
The book should be useful to teachers of Spanish as a foreign language
(Profesores de español como Lengua Extranjera – ELE), in particular to those
working with German students, and to researchers working in the field of
second language acquisition (SLA) focusing specifically on the acquisition of
L2 Spanish but also on the acquisition of other Romance languages, for
comparison purposes for instance.
REFERENCES
Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. An Introduction to the study of verbal aspect and
related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Diaubalick, T. 2019. La adquisición del sistema verbal español por aprendices
alemanes y el papel del aspecto gramatical: Una comparación entre los tiempos
del pasado y los tiempos del futuro. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag.
Hawkins, R. & Chan, C. 1997. The partial availability of Universal Grammar in
second language acquisition: the ‘failed functional features hypothesis’.
Second Language Research, 13(3), 187-226.
Hawkins, R. &. Hattori, H. 2006. Interpretation of English multiple
wh-questions by Japanese speakers: a missing uninterpretable feature account.
Second Language Research, 22(3), 269-301.
Lardiere, D. 2008. Feature Assembly in Second Language Acquisition. In J.
Muñoz Liceras, H. Zobl, & H. Goodluck (Eds.). The role of formal features in
second language acquisition (pp. 106-140). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lardiere, D. 2009. Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in
second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 25(2), 173-227.
Schwartz, B. D. & Sprouse, R. A. 1994. Word order and nominative case in
nonnative language acquisition: a longitudinal study of (L1 Turkish) German
interlanguage. In T. Hoekstra & B. D. Schwartz (Eds.), Language acquisition
studies in generative grammar (pp. 317-368). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Schwartz, B. D. & Sprouse, R. A. 1996. L2 cognitive states and the full
transfer/full access model. Second Language Research, 12, 40-72.
Sorace, A. & Filiaci, F. 2006. Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of
Italian. Second Language Research, 22(3), 339-368.
Tsimpli, I. M. & Dimitrakopoulou, M. 2007. The interpretability hypothesis:
Evidence from wh-interrogative in second language acquisition. Second Language
Research, 23(2), 215-242.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Joëlle Carota is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic linguistics and Spanish
teaching assistant in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department of the
State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research interests include second
language acquisition and heritage language education, but also contact
linguistics and sociolinguistic issues in the Hispanic world.
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