Introduction To Second Language Acquisition

PART ONE

The child is seen to have some progress over the four data collection periods. He is seen to be using more number of questions by the third collection and the patterns are seen to be more clear by then. He seems to make a number of mistakes due to L1 transfer in his interlanguage. For example, ‘like you me not, Reidun?’, where he does subject-verb inversion as it is a yes or no question and he does the inversion just like how he would while forming a yes or no question in his native language, Norwegian.

There also seems to be an influence of universal grammar in his question formations. For example, ‘what d’you do to-yesterday?’. In Norwegian, there is no equivalent of ‘do’ in English, but still the child is seen to be using it quite often in his questions and correctly during the third data collection period. He has not used this structure before either, hence this might be due to the universal grammar. His patterns are more clear by time 3 and time 4 as he is seen to use more questions and has widened his vocabulary range. He is seen to over-generalize the subject-verb inversion rule in yes or no questions as he is not just inversing the auxiliary verb and the subject but is also seen to be inversing the positions of main verb and subject too, this could also be due to his first language interference in his interlanguage. He is seen to use ‘you not’ together very often as a chunk which maybe because he considers it as a single word which he has prefabricated in his cognitive system and has used it as an unanalysed chunk. The child is seen to use certain wh- words more often than the rest, for example, ‘what she (is) doing now?’, ‘what d’you like?’, ‘what you do in the hayshed?’, the wh-word ‘what’ is the one repeatedly used. He might be trying to do hypothesis testing by using the same words in different contexts. By the time the third data collection is done, the child is seen to have started using negatives. But due to the mistakes he makes because of his L1 interference the questions were wrongly formed.

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By the time 4, he is seen to have got hold of how to use negatives and when to apply the rule subject-verb inversion. The child is seen to have understood negatives and has used it appropriately as well, for example in time 3, ‘like you me not, Reidun?’, a question that was formed wrong was seen to be correctly formed in time 4 as ‘Don’t you like me Reidun?’. This child seems to have gone through the U-curve, where he starts off with quite correct question structures in time 1, but by time 2 and 3 he is seen to have gone down the curve and is seen to make many more mistakes than he initially did, but by time 4, he has come back up the curve making a good progress from what he was able to do before. This is probably because he was just being able to make the correct questions as he was just copying the patterns that he heard around himself, he starts making mistakes as he is learning new things and starts using them, as he learns more he understands how to use the structures and he makes good progress in forming questions.

Both the children in part one and part two are seen to make notable progress by the end of the data collection. Both of them seem to have followed the U-curve in their progress growth, as both of them seem to start off with quite good skills of question formation, but by the middle of the data collection, both the children have gone down the curve and has made evident progress by the end of the data collection period. There are many similarities between the acquisition of both the children like, the interference of their first language interference, in part one child forms questions and adds something to the end of it in order to replace an element in questions the ’ka’ in Japanese, for example, ‘What do you doing, this boy?’, hypothesis testing with repetitive use of ‘what’ in different contexts were seen in both the parts, uses chunks, for example, ‘do you’ in part one and ‘you not’ in part two, ad both of them start getting hold of the rule of using negatives by the end of the data collection period. In part one, native language did not play a major role in the acquisition of English questions, but in part two, the child made most of the errors due to first language interference as he was trying to match the structure of English questions to that of his native language. Native language interference has caused high rates of non-standard inversions in part two. Therefore, it can be observed that native language does affect the acquisition of English questions but it does not play the major role in the acquisition.

I would like to see more data for part two, in order to track down the patterns of the child, to see whether he is actually capable of producing those correct questions or has he just picked it up from his surroundings and is using it whenever he did. It would have been more convenient if the part two data was arranged according tense so it would be easier to analyse. The analysis would have been helped if there was a bit more context to the child’s conversation and instruction in school provided, it would have helped identify the reason for his errors and progress better.

INTRODUCTION

Language is a strategy used for human correspondence that comprises of the utilization of linguistic units in an organized and typical manner. Even today language acquisition is a mystery that many linguists have tried to decode through a number of theories. One such theory that brought about a noteworthy effect in the investigation of both first and second language acquisition is Universal Grammar which was a theory proposed by Noam Chomsky. This theory has brought about remarkable impact not just in the field of language but also in various other fields like brain science and so on. This essay is supporting the notion that universal grammar plays a major role in second language acquisition, and that even though it is not the only factor but the most important one in second language acquisition.

BACKGROUND

Universal Grammar

Universal grammar is a system of parameters and principles that give imperatives on language structure over the course of acquisition of a language. In other words, a native or non-native speaker of a language knows a number of principles, rules, and regulations of a language that they would not have acquired from the speech they have heard or has indulged in, as this information is not acquired from their experience of the society, it ought to come from some innate property is what Chomsky called as the universal grammar, that consists of a set of principles and parameters (Chomsky, 1976). The set of principles seems to be the same for all the languages. For instance, the X’-schema that comprises of the word level to phrase level ranking organization is an outline that is shared by all the languages. But on the contrary, parameters differ depending on the language that comprise of a constrained variety of how principles can be connected relying upon the information intake. For instance, consider the following two sentences, ‘is the programme that is on the television any good?’ and ‘is the programme that on television is any good?’. A person who knows how to speak English can effortlessly tell that the first sentence is the correct one and not the second one. The person without any external help or explanation knows that the ‘is’ is moved out from the main clause instead of the subordinate clause to the start of the sentence in an interrogative sentence in English. Hence, the universal grammar theory in bipartite, which from one side portrays language in the sense of linguistic structures and on the other side aims to clarify how a language is procured (COOK, 1985).

Universal grammar and second language acquisition

The number of studies and researches have demonstrated that universal grammar plays a fundamental role in processing a second language. Despite the fact that all accounts prove it genuine, it does not imply that it is not the only theory which is involved. Firstly, when an individual is gaining a second language, they experience diverse stages in their approach to achieve the local skill of the target language and hence the individual produces an interlanguage. Researches show that the language structures of interlanguage is represented by universal grammar in a few regards. Linguists case that these standards of universal grammar acknowledged in the interlanguage are obvious when students can utilize etymological properties which were not taken in neither from the information nor the linguistic structures of first language. Besides, there is a number of conditions that ought to be met so as to demonstrate that the language structures of interlanguage are administered by universal grammar standards, it ought not be obtained from second language contribution under any conditions, and it ought to vary from both first and second language. It is also suggested that the acquisition of a second language is through five steps, full transfer, minimal trees, valueless features, initial hypothesis of syntax, and full access without transfer, among which initial hypothesis of syntax and full access without transfer is based on the theory of universal grammar while the others are based on native language (White, 1990).

Researches that show the importance of universal grammar in second language acquisition

Universal grammar has a solid impact in second language acquisition and to show this a number of investigations have been completed and supported through their experimental proof. A number of these investigations provide proof for the principles of universal grammar and the residence universal grammar parameters. One such study regarding the principles of universal grammar was directed on subjacency. Ritchie conducted an investigation with regard to the topic of subjacency on a group of students in an American university. The group of twenty Japanese speakers of English and native speakers of English with regards to their universal grammar on the right roof constraint which proposes to represent the non-event of sentences where a component is shifted to the right side and out of embedded sentence from which it started. For example: ‘*That a review came out yesterday is catastrophic of the article’. And ‘that a review came out yesterday of the article is catastrophic.’ Ritchie tested this through a grammaticality judgement task where the subjects were asked to identify whether the given sentences were grammatical or ungrammatical. The Japanese subjects seemed to identify the sentences that violated the constraint as less grammatical, this establishes the presence of the right roof constraint in their English. According to Ritchie, the right roof constraint is a feature that is acquired innately by children and not through any other linguistic input. Japanese being a language without the feature of the constraint, the Japanese learners of English were able to distinguish the grammatical from the ungrammatical. Therefore, this can be considered as a proof of the existence of innate universal principle in adulthood. This lead to Ritchie’s conclusion that linguistic universals are intact in an adult (Ritchie, 1978).

Another study with experimental proof was conducted on subjacency by a group of linguists. This study aimed to establish the presence of universal grammar in adult language learners. This study was conducted with a group of advanced level adult Korean English language learners by giving them an intuition based grammaticality judgement task about the wh-movement sentences in English. The constraints relevant to the wh-movement in English are considered to be acquired innately through the principles of universal grammar. Since Korean is not a language with any wh-movement, hence the knowledge of the constraint could not be due to the transfer of native language. The subjects successfully distinguished the grammatical from the ungrammatical and gave a complex image of the functioning of universal grammar in adult second language learners, but the presence of universal grammar principles were very evident and hence concluded that universal grammar exists in adult language learners and that it plays a major role in second language acquisition (Bley-Vroman, Felix and Loup, 1988).

In the case of parameters of universal grammar, studies look into concentrates to gather observational proof. The examinations had as an objective to discover proof if the students could reset a parameter found in their first language to the estimation of the target language. If there should be an occurrence of resetting, that would account as a proof of the innately present universal grammar. Furthermore, it is likewise intended to test if the learners reset every one of the structures identified with a parameter. Instances of these studies were those ones done by Lydia White both in 1985 and 1986. She studied the pro-drop parameter in grown-up students. The subjects were learners of English who were native speakers of Spanish and French in 1985 (White, 1985), while in 1986 she included Italian understudies (White, 1986). It is fundamental to note that Spanish and Italian are languages with the pro-drop feature, and on the other hand, French and English do not have the feature of pro-drop. From the study, White concluded that, firstly second language students do not connect specifically with second language information at the same time, rather, at first exchange the first language setting of a parameter. Secondly, In the due course of time, students can reset a parameter to the values of the target language. And thirdly, interlanguage sentence structures might be affected by the characteristics of the target language, even though it may not be completely as anticipated by language theories.

There has been a vast number of researches following the same line. Another relevant study in the same subject was conducted Lozano in 2002 on the ‘Interpretation of overt and null pronouns in non-native Spanish’. A number of studies show that language learners are only able to acquire a near-native competence to the target language even after a long immersion in the second language. These conclusions have originated from the various characteristics of universal grammar. This research studies the properties that universal grammar permits to change and the property absence of native-like proficiency to first language impact on the second language. This study takes into consideration a principle and a language specific property in the acquisition of non-native Spanish, namely the overt pronoun constraint (OPC) and the contrastive focus constraint (CFC). Lozano conducted an experiment to contrast the affectability to the two structures in the learners of Spanish with advanced level of language proficiency. The results collected from the experiment show that both the Greek speaker of Spanish and the English speaker of Spanish do not behave differently to OPC structures from the native speakers of Spanish, but it was seen that only English natives varied from the Spanish natives in the case of CFC structures. If OPC is a principle of universal grammar as asserted, this backs the estimate that students with an advanced level of language skills even on the properties that contrast from their first language but originated from the principles of universal grammar. On the other hand, the issues the English natives faced, but not the Greek natives, with the CFC structures bolster the case that language specific properties are possible focuses for fossilization (Lozano, 2002).

CONCLUSION

All the above mentioned research shows that second language learners have the access to universal grammar just like the first language learners. In fact, the syntax of the acquirer’s interlanguage gives the proof of direct access and parameter settings. They show that second language acquirers can acquire certain properties of second language grammar, without any contribution from the grammar of their fits language, through the universal grammar theory. Even though universal grammar is not the only factor in second language acquisition but it is the most important factor and plays a major role in second language acquisition.

REFERNCES

1. Bley-Vroman, R., Felix, S. and loup, G. (1988). The accessibility of Universal Grammar in adult language learning. Interlanguage studies bulletin (Utrecht), 4(1).
2. Chomsky, N. (1976). Reflections on language. London: Temple Smith.
3. COOK, V. (1985). Chomsky's Universal Grammar and Second Language Learning. Applied Linguistics, 6(1).
4. Lozano, C. (2002). The interpretation of overt and null pronouns in non-native spanish. Durham working Papers in linguistics.
5. Ritchie, W., 1978. The right roof constraint in an adult-acquired language. Second language acquisition research: Issues and implications, pp.33-64.
6. Singleton, D. and Ryan, L. (2004). Language Acquisition: The Age Factor. 2nd ed. Multilingual Matter Ltd.
7. White, L. (1990). Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12(02), p.121.
8. White, L. (1985). THE “PRO-DROP” PARAMETER IN ADULT SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. Language Learning, 35(1), pp.47-61.
9. White, L., 1986. Implications of parametric variation for adult second language acquisition: an investigation of the pro-drop parameter. Experimental approaches to second language acquisition, 55, p.72.