16.1516, Review: Second Lang Acquisition: Foster-Cohen et al (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1516. Thu May 12 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1516, Review: Second Lang Acquisition: Foster-Cohen et al (2004)

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1)
Date: 11-May-2005
From: Ernani Garrão Neto < egarrao at ism.com.br >
Subject: EUROSLA Yearbook: Volume 4 (2004) 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:29:19
From: Ernani Garrão Neto < egarrao at ism.com.br >
Subject: EUROSLA Yearbook: Volume 4 (2004) 
 

EDITORS: Foster-Cohen, Susan; Smith, Michael Sharwood; Sorace, Antonella; 
Ota, Mitsuhiko
TITLE: EUROSLA Yearbook 2004
SUBTITLE: Annual Conference of the European Second Language Association
SERIES: EUROSLA Yearbook 4
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins Publishing Company 
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2777.html


Ernani Machado Garrão Neto, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. 

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

The EUROSLA Yearbook presents a selection of 10 papers from the annual 
conference of European Second Language Association. It is a useful series 
that combines some important researches on a diversity of fields of modern 
linguistic theory. Volume 4 is mainly focused on *optionality*, for it is 
the major topic discussed in the selected articles as a whole. The 
organizers seem to have had the intention to assemble papers tackling 
current issues on different linguistic domains, such as semantics, 
pragmatics, syntax, morphology and lexicon, involving a wide variety of 
languages. This is a good start, since it allows the linguistics community 
to have a clearer understanding about second language acquisition process. 
The next section of this review provides a description and commentary on 
each of the ten papers in this volume.

CONTENT

1. The article "Why do L2 learners optionally choose a certain divergent 
analysis of TL over a TL-like one?", written by Masahiro Hara and Chun-Hua 
Ma, investigates the acquisition of one type of Japanese passive by 
English and Chinese native speakers via grammaticality judgments. The 
results indicate that the more fluent is a speaker, the lower are the 
probabilities of misjudgment for an ungrammatical construction in 
interlanguage (IL) grammar.  

According to this paper, optionality reflected by grammaticality judgments 
is subordinated to IL lexicon, once it comprehends "functional features 
from L1 and feature values copied to IL lexicon at its creation" (p. 9). 
These L1 features would be available, even in most advanced stages of L2 
acquisition and they may be selected while L2 sentences are being formed. 
In this case, it could generate an ungrammatical sentence, considering the 
differences and similarities found in both L1 and L2 grammars. Therefore, 
one could say that what the author is claiming is that optionality is a 
result from the selection of different lexical items from IL lexicon.   

This paper's organization is excellent, though it contains an incomplete 
abstract and a very short introduction. The author does not anticipate the 
reasons for the divergent analysis, although from the title we may infer 
he would do so right from the beginning. On the other hand, it presents 
supporting ideas for the hypothesis involving optionality results and 
motivations in L2 acquisition. The implemented methodology was 
satisfactory, in spite the fact that it lacks data from L2 beginners as 
well as oral linguistic production, two sorts of data which could strongly 
contribute to the study results. 

The final discussion is interesting and the conclusion presents relevant 
ideas regarding the main topic discussed through the study. Nevertheless, 
the author chose to consider the framework of Full Transfer Full Access 
Hypothesis, which I believe is a big mistake, once the data collected are 
insufficient to prove Schwartz (1998) hypothesis.   

2. The article "Meaning, proficiency and error types: variation in 
nonnative acquisition of unaccusative verbs", by Ayako Deguchi and 
Hiroyuki Oshita, investigates the acquisition of English intransitive 
verbs by Japanese speakers from 4 different proficiency levels. The 
research is based on grammaticality judgments. The subjects were presented 
6 different unaccusative verbs from 3 different semantic types and 2 
unergative in active and passive sentences. The results revealed that in 
earlier stages of acquisition the speakers would not make the necessary 
distinction between unergative and unaccusative verbs. The more fluent the 
speakers would get the more they were able to recognize the semantics and 
syntactic differences involving those types of intransitive verbs. 

This study tries to combine the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis and the 
Unaccusative Hierarchy Hypothesis, both based on non-native acquisition of 
unaccusative verbs. According to the author, it would be necessary to 
refine the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis in order to clarify the real stage 
of L2 grammar development in which the non-target phenomenon would appear 
or disappear. However, he does not indicate by no means how it takes 
place, nor what are the basis for the hypothesis refinement. 

The paper has a good introduction with a great number of references 
related to the optionality phenomenon. The methodology is well developed 
though it completely disregards real data from oral production, which 
could undermine the hypothesis tested. I also believe that the research 
could have been focused on a more balanced distribution of subjects, based 
on proficiency levels. Despite these methodology issues, there is clearly 
a contribution to a higher comprehension of the L2 acquisition process, 
with a great emphasis on the importance of L2 lexicon. 

3. In the article "Syntactic and interface knowledge in advanced and near-
native interlanguage grammars", Holger Hopp focuses on the acquisition of 
German by English and Japanese native speakers. All subjects considered 
were advanced speakers of German. The paper studies the constraints found 
in word order optionality in L2 German grammar, which reveals the 
existence of non-target phenomenon (L1 transfer) even at later stages of 
SLA process. The results did not confirm the effects of critical period in 
SLA by adults since, according to the author, they fail to show the 
existence of representational deficits. 

This paper's abstract is a bit puzzling, though it presents a reasonable 
overview of the main topics mentioned during the text. The work as a whole 
has a perfect organization and a great assortment of references. The 
concluding remarks appear to be, indeed, the logic result obtained by an 
extensive practical investigation. 

4. The article "Subject inversion in L2 Italian", by Adriana Belletti and 
Chiara Leonini, tests the acquisition of word order (VS) and null subject 
phenomena in Italian as a second language. The results revealed the VS 
order was not properly acquired, though null subjects were more often 
correctly used. From the introduction the reader cannot clearly grasp the 
work's objective.  

German, the mother tongue of most adults from the observed group, does not 
allow null subjects nor VS order. The paper's big question is, therefore, 
why it seems to be easier to learners to recognize and use null subjects 
but not the VS order. The study speculates about the existence of 
pragmatics motivation for that reason, but I believe there are some other 
issues to be further considered, still related to possible syntactic 
motivations. The study of Null Subject Parameter associated properties 
(Chomsky, 1995) and the way those properties are recognized (if they are) 
might be important to better understand the phenomenon observed in this 
paper. 

I believe there is also a methodological problem: the author has put 
together many subjects from different L1s, which might have misled the 
results. It would be necessary to comment all the referred L1s´ null 
subject properties.  

The article has a very good theoretical background and the results 
obtained were well clearly presented. 

5. The paper "Ultimate attainment of L2 inflection: effects of L1 prosodic 
structure", by Heather Goad and Lydia White, introduces the Prosodic 
Transfer Hypothesis (PTH), responsible for an asymmetry in L2 oral 
production. According to these authors, whenever L2 prosodic structures 
cannot be built based on L1's, the L2 functional material will be deleted, 
for "every construction produced by the syntax must have a corresponding 
phonological representation" (p. 140). This phenomenon leads acquirers to 
produce non-target-like sentences, as a result from the L1 and L2 prosodic 
mismatch. In order to investigate this phonological constraint, the 
authors studied the acquisition of English by a Turkish native speaker 
considered to have a high proficiency level. 

Even though it is based on a longitudinal analysis of only one subject 
(case study), the paper is extremely well written and has a solid 
theoretical framework. I do believe, however, that the results would be 
more reliable if the study was supported by more robust data. 
Nevertheless, the research combines some relevant methods in a linguistic 
investigation, namely, grammaticality tests, interviews, and the 
production of written tasks. I understand that the combination of these 
methods did contribute to the important results reported in this work. 

The conclusions need further investigation, as the very authors 
acknowledge. It sure is an important step to our comprehension of the 
mechanisms involved in acquisition of L2 morphological categories, 
including possible explanations for production of non-target-like 
sentences. 

6. The article "Morphological variation in early adult second language 
French: a cross-sectional study", by Philippe Prévost, presents a very 
complete study based on the acquisition of L2 French by a group of English 
native speakers. They were classified into 4 different groups based on 
their proficiency, which ranged from beginning to high-intermediate 
levels. The aim of this work was to investigate the nature of root 
infinitives produced by these subjects. The author concluded that root 
infinitives appear in contexts where functional categories are required. 
Therefore, in order to recognize and use the RIs as expected in target-
like sentences, the speaker must be familiar with L2 inflectional 
morphology. 

The author did a great research, based on strong evidence obtained through 
an extensive and complete methodology framework. The results seem to be 
consistent as a consequence of a very solid investigation supported by 
reliable data and substantial bibliographical review.

7. The paper "Monopolizing future: how the go future breaks into will's 
territory and what it tells us about SLA", by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, 
investigates the emergence of going to in the speech of 16 learners of 
English as a second language. According to the author assumptions, the use 
of going to, expressing future time reference, instead of dominant form 
will is due to a clear form-meaning association. The results indicate that 
although will territory could be jeopardized by going to, the latter 
usually fails breaking into the domain of future expression. 

Thanks to its great theoretical review and to its solid discussions on the 
proposed issues, this paper stands out as one of the most relevant studies 
in this yearbook compilation. The author managed to unfold the proposed 
discussion through clear and substantial ideas. It was a longitudinal 
study, based on reliable data, collected from oral and written texts, 
though the author apparently disregarded subjects' mother tongues and 
their possible influence on building interlanguage grammar. 

8. The paper "Interaction of L1 and L2 systems at the level of grammatical 
encoding: evidence from picture naming", by Denisa Bordag, investigates 
the acquisition of L2 grammatical gender. The author focused on the 
ability to identify gender of target language names by German learners of 
Czech and Czech learners of German. The subjects underwent an experiment, 
according to which they were presented pictures they had to name in their 
target language (German). This procedure would allow the experimenter to 
check the way they recognize gender properties in L2 grammar. The author 
claims that "if the gender of an L1 noun differs from that of its L2 
translation equivalent, their lemmas compete for selection", which may 
lead to a slower pattern in L2 naming process, due to L1 gender 
interference.

This is a very interesting work, based on most recent psycholinguistics 
theories. The author did an excellent research, based on a picture naming 
experiment. The paper distribution is also distinctive. The tone is set in 
the comprehensive abstract and in the great introduction. The main topics 
reveal amazing details related to time-processing and L1 transfer, and I 
believe it is an expected result from the nature of the experiment. 

9. The paper "Tense/aspect, verb meaning and perception of intensity by 
native and non-native of English", by Jean-Marc Dewaele and Malcolm 
Edwards, compares the perception of emotional intensity by native and non-
native English speakers. The research is based on written questionnaires 
used in order to check subjects perception of English verb semantics, 
tense and aspect forms.  

The results indicate that second language speakers of English usually take 
more time to develop a precise perception of emotional intensity related 
to non-temporal markers, due to the lack of a solid development of 
semantic-pragmatic functions.  

The authors did a complete survey about the subjects' sociolinguistics 
background, which came to me as a good surprise. In fact, most articles in 
this yearbook carried out a corpus-based research involving different 
subjects with different sociolinguistics background, though they did not 
consider undertaking such a survey. I believe this socio-bibliographical 
information helps researcher to more reliably interpret the results from 
an experiment. 

Regarding the research results, we could say that it sheds light into a 
very important area of second language acquisition field, which is the 
acquisition of pragmatics. This study also interestingly contributes for 
the teaching field of 2nd language pragmatic competence. 

10. The article "May you speak louder maybe?", written by Gila A. Schauer, 
is a longitudinal study with German native speakers learning English as a 
second language in a British university. The aim of this project was to 
check the acquisition of pragmatic patterns. For that purpose, the author 
investigates acquirers from three different stages of acquisition. 

As the author says in the concluding remarks, this paper has some 
limitations related to the nature of collected data. Once again I believe 
that individual interviews could help finding out speakers' pragmatics 
comprehension in real use conditions. Therefore I suppose it might have 
been useful if the author recorded subjects' informal speeches.  

On the other hand, this paper makes a relevant contribution to a greater 
understanding about the usage of general and individual rules and 
strategies found in interlanguage pragmatics. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ernani Garrão Neto is a linguistics researcher at the Federal University 
of Rio de Janeiro, who is concluding his PhD thesis on the L2 acquisition 
of null subjects. He is focusing on adult English native speakers learning 
Brazilian Portuguese as a second language. He has recently returned from 
Lisbon, Portugal, where he collected data for means of comparison to his 
findings in Brazilian Portuguese. He is particularly interested in SLA, 
Language Processing, Psycholinguistics, and Variation and Change Theory.





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