Patti Spinner

SECOND LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND MORPHOSYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this study is to begin work toward a grammatical assessment measure that could bridge the gap between theoretical work on grammatical development, on the one hand, and tools such as the Michigan Test (which uses multiple-choice questions on vocabulary and grammar) or the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages scale (which uses holistic descriptions of grammar use), on the other hand. Such a measure would need to be practical to administer with large groups. Two proposals of grammatical development (processability theory, Pienemann, 1998 , 2005 ; and organic grammar, Vainikka & Young-Scholten, 2006 ) were applied to short samples of spontaneous production data from 48 adult second-language learners of English from mixed first-language backgrounds. The rapid profile scale successfully accounted for the learners’ development but is of somewhat limited use with short samples of data. The organic grammar placement scale may need to be further refined, but it includes important indicators of grammatical development. A preliminary proposal for using a combined measure with a rubric is presented.

The second language acquisition of number and gender in Swahili: A Feature Reassembly approach

Much of the recent discussion surrounding the second language acquisition of morphology has centered on the question of whether learners can acquire new formal features. Lardiere’s (2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly approach offers a new direction for research in this area by emphasizing the challenges presented by crosslinguistic differences in the overt expression of formal features. In this study, I examine the acquisition of number and gender in Swahili by speakers of English and explore how the data can be described by a number of current approaches, including the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996), the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (e.g. Hawkins and Chan, 1997), and the Feature Reassembly approach. The results of an elicited production task and a written gender-assignment task indicate that learners have difficulty detecting the number feature on Swahili noun prefixes, and because of this they are initially unsuccessful at marking plurals. The findings are best described under a Feature Reassembly approach. I suggest some directions for expanding the Feature Reassembly approach in future research.

The clausal left periphery in child Spanish and German

Abstract Evidence from child language development supports the position that overt subjects in Southern Romance languages are left-peripheral, Topic-Focus constituents. Specifically, overt subjects begin to be used at the same time as other less controversially left-peripheral, Topic-Focus constituents, such as fronted objects and wh-questions. However, this interpretation of the data would be much more compelling if it could be shown that these constituents do not emerge at the same time in the speech of children learning languages in which overt subjects are obligatory and largely independent of discourse considerations, such as German. To this end, we examined the speech of three longitudinally studied Spanish-speaking children, Carlos, Eduardo and Graciela, and the speech of two longitudinally studied German-speaking children, Simone and Caroline. We also examined the German data of Katrin and Andreas, which was collected on a single day for each. While the Spanish-speaking children begin productively using overt subjects, fronted objects and wh-questions at a statistically similar point in development, the German-speaking childrens data show that overt subjects begin to be used significantly earlier than do fronted elements and wh-questions. This supports the argument that child Southern Romance and child German are different with respect to the timing of the development of these constituents. We believe that this reflects the childrens early knowledge of the structure of their target adult languages, which in the case of Southern Romance, includes left-peripheral, discourse-sensitive subjects.

Ecological Validity in Eye-Tracking: An Empirical Study.

Eye-trackers are becoming increasingly widespread as a tool to investigate second language (L2) acquisition. Unfortunately, clear standards for methodology—including font size, font type, and placement of interest areas—are not yet available. Although many researchers stress the need for ecological validity—that is, the simulation of natural reading conditions—it may not be prudent to use such a design to investigate new directions in eye-tracking research, and particularly in research involving small lexical items such as articles. In this study, we examine whether two different screen layouts can lead to different results in an eye-tracking study on the L2 acquisition of Italian gender. The results of an experiment with an ecologically valid design are strikingly different than the results of an experiment with a design tailored to track eye movements to articles. We conclude that differences in screen layout can have significant effects on results and that it is crucial that researchers report screen layout information.

Review article: Second language acquisition of Bantu languages: A (mostly) untapped research opportunity

This review article presents a summary of research on the second language acquisition of Bantu languages, including Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa and Lingala. Although second language (L2) research on these languages is currently very limited, work in morphosyntax and phonology suggests promising directions for future study, particularly on noun class, tense and aspect.

Second language acquisition and linguistics: A bidirectional perspective

Abstract We argue for a bidirectional relationship between second language research and linguistic theories. It is our belief that SLA research should look to linguistics for concepts and models that provide a basis upon which to make hypotheses, conduct data analysis, and draw conclusions, and we also believe that linguistic theorists can develop and improve their understanding of linguistic concepts and models by examining the results from SLA studies. In this paper, we present arguments in favor of this approach, with examples from two different types of linguistic universals: the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy and features such as tense and number. Second language acquisition data have been used to provide evidence for the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy and provide a way to understand areas in which its predictions are not met. Similarly, second language data provide us with a view of what happens when there is a contrast between features in a speaker’s native language and the language being learned. The data thus may shed light on the universality of features, in addition to how features are represented, parsed, and processed. In both cases, we argue that second language data are valuable when examining certain linguistic questions because they illuminate areas of conflict or mismatch between two linguistic systems.

L2 learners' sensitivity to semantic and morphophonological information on Swahili nouns

Abstract Previous research demonstrates that L2 learners are sensitive to morphophonological and semantic information regarding grammatical gender in European languages (e.g., Spinner & Juffs, 2008). In this study we examine the use of morphophonological and semantic information by two groups of English-speaking learners acquiring Swahili gender (noun class). The results of an oral agreement-marking task, a written gender assignment task, and interviews indicate that learners are sensitive to morphophonological information regarding gender in Swahili. The findings for semantic information are more complex; learners appear to be sensitive to animacy but not to other “minor” semantic information such as tree or active body part. We propose the Semantic Core Hypothesis, which suggests that core semantic principles such as biological sex, animacy and humanness may be more easily accessible to L2 learners than other semantic principles.

PRODUCTION AND COMPREHENSION IN PROCESSABILITY THEORY: A SELF-PACED READING STUDY

The purpose of this study was to determine whether processability theory (PT; Pienemann, 1998, 2005) accounts for the emergence of grammatical forms and structures in comprehension. Sixty-one learners of English participated in oral interviews that elicited a variety of structures relevant to PT. Learners were divided into two groups: those who produced these structures productively in speech (high level) and those who did not (low level). These groups then read grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with PT structures in a self-paced reading task. Based on Pienemann (1998), PT predicts that the high-level group should perform similarly to native speakers. However, only the native speaker control group demonstrated sensitivity to ungrammaticalities. There was evidence that learners might have acquired lower-stage structures in an implicational order in comprehension, but it was quite mixed. These results have implications for PT and for models of the L2 linguistic system that include both production and comprehension.