DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS: ORDER AND SEQUENCE IN

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONBy: Hamid

DarmadiPost-Graduate Program of English Language

Tanjungpura UniversityPontianak

2015

Do learners acquire some target-language (TL) features before others?

How do learners acquire a particular TL linguistic feature?

The existence of developmental patterns can be investigated in different areas of language; linguistic (phonological, lexical and grammatical), semantic and functional. This topic will deal more with the acquisition of grammatical systems.

Obligatory occasion analysis (Brown, 1973)

Target-like use analysis (Pica, 1983)

Frequency Analysis (Cazden et al. 1975)

Cross-sectional data (Dulay and Burt 1973 and 1974c)

Methods for Investigating Developmental Patterns

WHY L1 before acquire L2???1. L1 provided L2 researchers with useful

methodological procedures for investigating developmental patterns in learner language. (SHARP, FLAT)

2. L1 acquisition orders and sequences provide a baseline for considering L2’s.

Developmental patterns in L1 Acquisition

One of the pervasive findings in L1 acquisition is that children appear to follow a fairly well-defined pattern of development.

Crystal (1976) describe the specific grammatical features when the mean length of the children utterances is one word, two words, three words, etc.

Brown (1973) found fixed order of acquisition of various English morphological features in 3 children.

Villiers and de Villiers (1973). See Table 3.1

EVIDENCES

Klima and Bellugi (1966). See table 3.2. Bloom (1970) found systematic acquisition of

the semantic functions which negatives (‘no’ and/or ‘not’) can realize in English.

Wells (1986a) generalize the developmental pattern of L1 acquisition in stages. See Table 3.3.

Peters (1977) found silent period. Nelson (1973) found the children use formulas.

MORE EVIDENCE

1. Behaviourist2. Mentalist (Ellis, 1985a, p.44)3. Cognitive processing (Slobin S., 1973 and

1985b)

L1 Models

There are three aspects of early L2 acquisition:1. Silent period2. Formulaic speech3. Structural and semantic simplification

Developmental patterns in second language acquisition

In L2 acquisition, silent period is not obligatory. Because they already acquired one. Yet many learners especially children opt for a silent period.

SILENT PERIOD

Itoh and Hatch (1978) where Takahiro refuse to speak English for the first 3 month

Hakuta (1976) where Uguisu also refuse to speak English for the first 3 month

Saville-Troike (1988) where 6 from 9 children opt for silent

EVIDENCES

Huang and Hatch (1978) where Paul begin to talk English by Imitating.

Naiman et al. (1978) claim the learner begin to speak from the start.

Gibbons (1985) where survey of 47 Australian children begin to talk English after 2 weeks silent.

THE DEVELOPMENT

Different in social and cognitive orientation (Saville-Troike, 1988)

It provides an opportunity for the learner to build up competence via listening (Krashen, 1982)

It’s a rejection stage (Itoh and Hatch, 1978) They only began to learn English when they

start to speak it at home with his parents. (Rodriguez cited by Krashen, 1982)

WHY THE LEARNERS SILENT??

One possibility is that silent period actually “private speech” as shown by Saville-Troike study later.

Consist of: Expression which are learnt as unanalysable

wholes and employed on particular occasions (Lyons 1968: 177)

Its about routine and pattern Krashen and Scarcella (1978).

Whole utterances learnt as memorized chunk (Hakuta, 1976; Krashen and Scarcella (1978).

Entire scripts which the learner can memorize (Ellis, 1984b)

FORMULAIC SPEECH

Formulaic speech can be observed in the speech of native speakers. As Pawley and Syder (1983) argue that achieving native-like control involves not only learning a rule system that will generate an infinite number of sentences, but also ‘memorized sequences’ and ‘lexicalized sentence stems’

It’s a given community shares (Coulmas, 1981)

They perform fixed expression (Dechert, 1983)

For L2 acquisition, formulaic speech has been observed particularly in the early stages.

Why natives?

Formulas enable them to meet their basic communicative needs in an ESL classroom, where English as the medium for instruction. (Ellis, 1984b)

Formulas left to their own devices, after remain silent (Krashen, 1982)

Is it important for L2 acquisition?

PROS The learners of L2 sometimes use the

formulas they have acquired in unique ways (Huebner, 1980)

Formula-based analytical process…was repeated in case after case (Wong-Fillmore, 1976)

Formulas are worked on systematically by learners (Ellis, 1984b)

How does formulaic speech work?

Waduyu = what do you Isa = is a

(Huebner, 1980) That one I don’t know = I don’t understandIt is a different expression to say that ‘I don’t know’

(Ellis, 1984b)

EXAMPLES

Formulaic speech and rule-created speech is unrelated (Krashen and Scarcella, 1978)

Formulas serve only ‘short-term production tactics’ and play no role in acquisition. (Bohn, 1986).

CONS

In comparison with formulaic speech, the learner’s early creative utterances are typically truncated, consisting of just one or two words, with both grammatical functors and content words missing.

STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC SIMPLIFICATION

EXAMPLES: Library (= He is in the library)

(Hanania and Gradman, 1977) Me no blue (= I don’t have a blue crayon)

(Ellis, 1984a)

These utterances indicate that both structural and semantic simplification are taking place.

Unplanned speech of both child and adult learners

The omission by structural simplification, such as: plural –s, past –ed.

The omission by semantic simplification, such as: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

(Ellis, 1982)

EVIDENT

But for communicative purpose, omission will probably make problem due to the circumstances. (Corder, 1981b)

For example:Hitting (=he hit me)

Structural simplification can be described by means of the traditional categories of a descriptive grammar.

Semantic simplification is best account for in terms of the descriptive categories provided by a case grammar (Fillmore, 1968; Greenfield and Dent 1980)

OTHER STUDY

He is hitting me(Agent) (Action process) (Patient)

Learners version could be:Hitting (=Action process)He hitting (=Agent+Action process)Hitting me (=Action process + Patient)He me (=Agent + Patient)

EXAMPLES

To reflect the linguistic resources available or readily accessible

To reflect which constituent will be maximally informative in context.

But there is a little evidence to support that learners follow some kind of order in acquiring the various semantic roles described by the case categories like L1 acqusition.

What’s the study for then??

The morpheme studies The succesful morpheme studies of L1

brought the study to employed obligatory occasion analysis in order to establish the accuracy with L2 learners performed a range of morphemes.

The acquisition of morphemes: order and sequence

An investigation to eliciting ‘natural’ spoken data by means of Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) to Spanish and Chinese children. (Dulay and Burt, 1973;1974c)

An adult subjects by using BSM. (Bailey, Madden, and Krashen, 1974)

CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES

Larsen-Freeman (1976b) used learners with a wider range of L1s and using five task for collecting the data.

Its result little difference for L1s learners. But there were differences in the orders for different task between speaking, reading and writing. Some morphemes rose in the rank order in reading and writing tasks.

Krashen, Butler, Birnbaum and Robertson (1978) by using ‘fast’ writing and ‘careful’ writing. Unfortunately, it did not affect the morpheme orders.

Later Dulay and Burt (1975) and Krashen (1977) overcome the problem for the rank orders. And Krashen propose ‘natural order’ of morpheme acquisition. See Figure 3.1

The natural order of Krashen being widely used then, including some of languages other than English. Such as Pica’s (1983) did.

Figure 3.1 Proposed ‘natural order’ for L2 acq (Krashen 1977)

-ingPluralcopula

Auxiliary article

Irregular past

Regular past3rd person singular

Possessive -s

There have been fewer longitudinal morpheme studies, such as Rosansky (1976), Hakuta (1974), Schmidt (1983)

LONGITUDINAL STUDIES

A close look at individual morphemes shows that they acquired gradually and systematically.

Learners do not progress from non-acquistion to acqusition, but rather pass through a series of stages.

The acquisition of individual morphemes: pronouns

Felix and Hahn (1985) for pronoun omission Butterworth and Hatch (1978) for

substitutional and overgeneralizations for possessives pronoun.

E.g You girlfriend (=your girlfriend) He car (=His car) Gundel and Tarone (1983) for Object pronouns

omission.

EVIDENCES

Klein and Rieck (1982, cited in Klein 1986) for L2 German Acquisition.

Broeder, Extra and van Hout (1989) for L2 Dutch Acquisition.

Andersen (1983a) for L2 Spanish Acquisition.

OTHER EVIDENCES

Stage

Description Examples

1 The use of definite articles in place of possessives

She reads the book

2 The use of a generalized possessive for all persons, genders and numbers

She reads your book

3 The use of a single third person possessive which is overgeneralized

She reads his book

4 Differentiated use of possessives with some possessed nouns but continued errors with human nouns

She reads her book to her brother

5 Correct use of possessives with all nouns

She reads her book to her brother

Table 3.5. the acquisition of possessive pronouns by franchopone learners of English (table based on information provided in Lightbown

and Spada 1990)

There are three sets of syntactic structures to support the evidence of the existence of developmental patterns in SLA:1. The acquisition of

negatives in English and German

2. The acquisition of relative clauses in English and Swedish

3. The acquisition of German word order rules

The acquisition of syntactic structures

Negation is an example of a transitional structure which involves a series of forms/structures which learners use en route to mastering TL form.

The acquisition of negatives in English and German

For English Negation See table 3.6.

Differ from English, German Negation place the negative particle after the finite verb:

E.g. Ich kann nicht kochen (=I can not cook)

THE STAGES

Stage

Description Example

1 External negation (‘no’ or ‘not’ is placed at the beginning of the utterance)

No you are playing here

2 Internal negation (the negator – ‘no’, ‘not’ or ‘don’t’ is placed between the subject and the main verb)

Mariana not coming today

3 Negative attachment to modal verbs.

I can’t play that one

4 Negative attachment to auxiliary verb as in target language

She didn’t believe meHe didn’t said it.

Table 3.6 summary of general stages in the sequence of acquisition in L2 English negation

German also does not have a dummy auxiliary. E.g. Ich koche nicht (I cook not).

Also, when there is a direct object and a ‘free’ adverb, ‘nicht’ follows them as in:

E.g. Ich habe den Wagen gestern nicht gefahren (=I have not driven the car yesterday) (T) (=I have the car yesterday not driven) (F)

Stage

Description Example

1 External negation (‘nein’ usually in sentence-initial position)

Nein helfen

2 Internal Negation (the negator ‘nicht’ place both in pre-verbal or post-verbal position)

• Ich das nicht mach (=I that not do)

• Ich kann das nicht (=I can that not)

3 Negative particle put after the verb even with main verbs and eliminate pre-verbal negation.

Ich fallst nicht runter (=I fall not down

4 The postion of negator put after direct objects and free adverbials. They are able to separate ‘nicht’ from the verb.

German Negation STAGES

See table 3.7 for the stages of English relative pronoun functions

Schuman (1980) explain the stages:

The acquisition of relative clauses in English and Swedish

Stages Description Examples

1 Learners omitting relative pronoun

I got a friend speaks Spanish

2 Learner use ordinary personal pronoun

I got a friend he speaks Spanish

3 Learner use personal pronoun properly

I got a friend who speaks Spanish

See table 3.8 for the sequence of acquisition of German word order rules (Pienemann, Johnston and Brindley, 1988).

The acquisition of German word order rules

See Table 3.9 for the generalized pattern of acquistion for L2 English (based on information provided in Johnston and Pienemann, 1986).

A general pattern of L2 grammatical development

The similarities in L1 and L2 Learners are:1. Perhaps most pronounced in the early stages of

development2. There is evidence of a silent period, the use of

formula and of structural and semantic simplification in both types.

3. Both L1 and L2 learners omit pronouns and they both overgeneralize individual pronouns.

4. Both are strongest in syntactical structures

The L2 = L1 hypothesis

The differences are:1. All L1 learner pass the silent period, but L2 do

not. Especially adult learners.2. Many L2 learners use formulas greater than L13. L2 learners are able to produce longer and

less proportionally reduced utterances from the beginning

4. The morpheme order acquisition is not the same in the two types of acquisition.

See table 3.10. based on Bley-Vroman (1988).

MORE DIFFERENCE OF L1 AND L2

THANK YOU…