EUROSLA Yearbook - Volume 13, Issue 1, 2013

Three well-known cases of extreme linguistic isolation during childhood and two recent cases from the neurological literature involving left-hemispherectomy in children are examined. In all five situations, subjects underwent delayed L1 acquisition (with L1 onset ranging from 5 to 31 years). “End-state” utterances provided in published reports are analyzed for evidence concerning subjects’ control of the Head Position, Null Subject, and Wh parameters. In addition, the early phrasal development of a subset of the five subjects is investigated in terms of the asymmetric Merge operation. Findings concerning ultimate attainment indicate that the younger cases set parameters more successfully, and that performance declines markedly with increasing age, while results regarding early multiword utterances suggest that these are strikingly “normal” as long as delayed onset of L1 occurs within, and right up to, the critical period boundary. This pattern, it is argued, is consistent with the notion that pre- and post-critical period first language learning involve qualitatively different processes.

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion pertaining to the source of optionality in second language (L2) pronominal interpretation. We examined pronominal use not only in L2 English adverbial – adjunct CP clauses (‘The student was upset because he had failed the test’), but also in English VP-coordination structures (‘Jane had studied hard and (she) passed the exam’), an area which has never been investigated before. While English adjunct CP clauses represent a context in which overt pronominal subjects are obligatory, in VP-coordination pronouns can be apparently dropped. These structures were tested by means of two English production tasks: a Sentence Completion task and a Cloze Test. Our results showed that compared to the English controls the Greek learners used (a) significantly more ungrammatical null subjects in adjunct CP clauses and, crucially, (b) significantly more overt pronominal subjects in VP-coordination structures. After examining two possible accounts for the observed optionality, namely, the Interface Hypothesis and the Interpretability Hypothesis, we argue that a language internal syntax explanation best addresses our data both in the adjunct CP clauses and in the VP-coordination structures.

Within the functionalist approach to SLA, this study examines the interaction of event linearization patterns in L2 with the ways temporal information is typically structured in learners’ source and target languages. Specifically, film verbalisations and picture descriptions by Czech and Hungarian advanced learners of English were elicited to test learners’ susceptibility to restructure linearization principles in the target language. Another aim was to test whether linearization patterns within groups interrelate with L1-L2 contrasts in temporal structuring. Analyses of non-chronological order construction frequencies and of their preferred distribution across linguistic forms showed a pronounced effect of L1-specific linearization patterns on advanced learner production; and a close interrelation of event ordering preferences with L1-driven structuring patterns. These findings suggest that the process of event linearization in L2 largely rests on L1 fundaments, and that persisting L1 principles can lead to significant digressions from target-like performance even in highly advanced learner varieties.

Theoretical research concerned with the notion of second language (L2) learning difficulty has resulted in specific criteria that can be used to predict the learning difficulty of different languages in terms of both explicit and implicit knowledge. The characteristics of the constructed language Esperanto suggest that this language has lower explicit and implicit learning difficulty than other languages. It may therefore be a suitable ‘starter language’ for child L2 learning in the classroom. Specifically, we propose that Esperanto may facilitate the development of metalinguistic awareness and, as a consequence, boost children’s budding capacity for explicit learning. This would be particularly advantageous in the minimal-input setting of the average foreign language classroom. We present findings from an empirical study which compared 11 to 12-year-old English-speaking children who had learned Esperanto and a European L2 (N = 35) with children who had learned various combinations of European and non-European L2s (N = 168) in terms of their performance on a measure of metalinguistic awareness. No significant differences in overall level of metalinguistic awareness were identified, but the Esperanto group significantly outperformed the comparison group on one of the eleven metalinguistic tasks included in the measure. Moreover, the Esperanto group displayed a more homogeneous performance than the other groups of children. This suggests that learning Esperanto may have a lasting levelling effect, reducing differences between children with varying metalinguistic abilities.

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This paper addresses the question of how learners break into a novel morpho-syntactic system, extract elements of this new system from the input they receive, process them, and begin to acquire the new system. The data for this project were collected as part of a large European project (VILLA – Varieties of Initial Learners in Language Acquisition) comparing the processes of perception, comprehension, and production during the acquisition of a novel target language (Polish) in adults of different source languages within the first hours of instruction under controlled input conditions. Two experiments, a grammaticality judgment task and an oral question-answer task, were conducted longitudinally to investigate learners’ perception and use of Polish nominal morphology in two groups of adults (French and German native speakers) after 4.5 hours and after 10.5 hours of instruction. In addition to contributing new insights into the role of the source language in the initial stages of acquisition, results speak to the influence of overall exposure to the input, and reveal interesting interactions between factors such as the frequency of a lexical item in the input and its transparency relative to the learner’s source language.

The purpose of this study is to examine the structural relationships among variables that affect Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and frequency of communication in the L2 in Japanese university EFL classrooms: anxiety, motivation, integrativeness, international posture, ought-to L2 self, ideal L2 self (idealized L2 speaking self), L2 linguistic self-confidence, and valuing of global English. This purpose includes investigating Dörnyei’s (2005) hypothesis that the interplay of linguistic self-confidence and the ideal L2 self positively influence L2 WTC. A sample of 373 Japanese university students participated in the study. Questionnaires were administered at the beginning of the semester and a hypothesized structural equation model based on the WTC model (MacIntyre 1994), the socioeducational model (Gardner 1985), and the concept of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei 2005), was tested. The structural relationships yielded new perspectives on learners’ WTC, particularly the finding that the ideal L2 self was a significant predictor of L2 WTC. Pedagogical implications of the research findings are discussed.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the correlation between diversity and intensity of interactions with the target language in a Study Abroad context, duration of SA and the construction of identity. In order to determine such a correlation, a two-fold study is conducted. The first stage is the completion of a highly detailed language contact profile (LCP) questionnaire. This provides extensive information regarding language learning history and is a powerful tool in illuminating the intensity and diversity of exposure to a range of loci of learning that learners experience during study abroad. Following completion of the LCP, the informants take part in two role plays which require the construction of differential identities when engaged in a speech event of asking for advice. The construction of identities then undergoes linguistic analysis in order to investigate if and how differences in the construction of compound identities are indexed. In brief, results indicate that highly-intense, symmetrical exposure to a range of loci of learning is probable only after an accumulated duration of more than one year and that only after such a period, the learner acquires agency over identity construction.

Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this paper investigates free occurring conversational data in French as a second language. Its focus of attention is a debated concept within the conversation analytic approach, i.e., topic management. After an overview of the existing literature on topic management and the conceptualisation of learning and L2 interactional competence, the main part of the article will be concerned with data analysis. The data show an au-pair girl speaking French with her host-family at different points in time. The longitudinal design allows for describing in detail and conceptualising L2 interactional competence and its development. In fact, taking into consideration interactional aspects, such as sequential and action organisation, it contributes to a better understanding of L2 learning. The results show how topic management is not only the object of, but also the means for, learning an L2, whilst being socialised into the very same L2. This article contributes to an ongoing debate in the field of CA and, especially, CA-SLA about conceptualising L2 learning and tracking the development of L2 interactional competence.