Acquisition of the Article Semantics by Child and Adult L2-English Learners

Tania Ionin, María Luisa Zubizarreta, Vadim Philippov

(2009)

INTRODUCTION

Question:

Do children and adults acquire a second language in the same way?

TRADITIONALLY MAIN FOCUS

ULTIMATE ATTAINMENT

•L2 learners that started learning the L2 during childhood (early learners)•L2 learners that started learning the L2 as adults (late learners)

Conslusions so far: consensus

•Early learners outperform the late learners on grammaticality judgement tasks in the L2

Conslusions so far: disagreement

•The reason/explanation for this difference•Biological

•Social•Input

MAIN FOCUS

PROCESSING

•¿is the processing of an L2 simmilar in children and adults?•Do both, children and adults, learners of an L2 have access to UG?

Conclusions so far(generativist)

•Children – yes GU•Adults– debatable

•Schwartz (1992, 2002, 2004) – while the L1 is kept constant, the adults’ acquisition process is simmilar to that of children – UG constrained

MORE RECENTLY

Articles, definiteness and specificity

Aside from definitness, articles also encode specificity.

In English, specificity is not morphologically marked.

In Samoan, specific and non specific objects are marked with two different articles.

ENGLISH vs. SAMOAN

Some definitions

Definiteness: a presupposition of uniqueness The speaker assumes that the hearer shares the

presuposition of the existence of a unique individual in the set denoted by the NP.

Specificity: a speaker’s intent to refer The speaker intends to refer to a unique

individual in the set denoted by the NP and considers this individual to possess some noteworthy property.

[+definfinite, + specific]

[+definite, -specific]

[-definite, +specific]

[-definite, -specific]

I want to talk to the winner of this race – she is a good friend of mine.

I want to talk to the winner of this race – whoever that happens to be.

Professor Robertson is meeting with a student from her class – my best friend Alice.

Professor Robertson is meeting with a student from her class – I don’t know which one.

CLASSIFICATION & EXAMPLES

ACQUISITION OF ARTICLES BY CHILDREN AND ADULTS (previous studies)

ADULTS L2 learners of English overuse “a” with non-specific

definites [+definite, –specific] L2 learners of English over use “the” in indefinite and

specific contexts [-definite, +specific]

CHILDREN Child L2 learners of English overuse “the” in indefinite,

specific contexts (like the adults) Chlid L2 learners of English do not overuse “a” with non-

specific definites (unlinke the adults)

Possible Explanations

Psychological

Children are egocentric and disregard the knowlede of the listener.

It is difficult for children to separate the listeners’ assumptions by those of the speaker.

Linguistic The association of “the” with specificity.

Current study

MOTIVATION:

Explain the difference between children and adults

Determine which explanation best explains the (mis)use of articles.

Participants

26 adults, L1 Russina, L2 English

58 children (10-12 yrs old) L1 Russian, L2 English

Control group L1 English (adults and children)

METHODOLOGY

WRITTEN ELICITATION 60 short dialogues designed to elicit

articles

CLOZE TEST (only for adult L2 English learners)

RESULTSL1 ENGLISH

High scores Children made more mistakes (compared to the adults) The few mistakes children made were in nonspecific indefinites

L2 ENGLISH The two groups are statistically comparable Clear influence of specificity (both groups) Adults: influence of specificity is evident both, in definite contexts

as well as indefinite contexts. Children: influence of specificity is much more evident in

indefinite contexts than it is in definite ones

CONCLUSION

QUESTION: Do children and adults of an article-less L1

acquire English articles in the same way?

ANSWER:YES and NO

Explicit and implicit knowledge

Learners have both, explicit and implicit knowledge about article use. Implicit: takes the form of access to semantic universals Explicit: takes the form of explicit strategy – overextends the semantic distinction

to dfinites & indefinites.

EVIDENCE: performance on implicit tasks and differences among adult learners in different

studies. Ionin (2004) an implicit task for L1 Russians and L1 Korean learners of L2 English:

written narrative task (did not explicitly target articles) – targeted meaning, rather than form and did not encourage conscious awareness of linguistic rules – implicit task

article ellicitation task – explicit task