Second Language Acquisition of Articles

Empirical findings and theoretical implications

Editors
ORCID logoMaría del Pilar García Mayo | University of the Basque Country
ORCID logoRoger Hawkins | University of Essex
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027253101 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027289117 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
Google Play logo
The studies in this collection address a topic that has recently become the focus of considerable interest in second language acquisition (SLA) research: the acquisition of articles. Languages appear to vary in whether they have articles (English, German, Norwegian do, but Chinese, Japanese, Russian do not). Languages that have articles also appear to divide into those that realise definiteness (e.g. English) and those that realise specificity (e.g. Samoan). When speakers of one type of language learn an L2 of a different type, issues of central concern to SLA research arise: the nature of L1 influence, the time course of development, ultimate attainment, the relationship between performance and competence, and the role of Universal Grammar. These issues are considered in nine studies, written by researchers whose work is at the forefront of enquiry, that offer new data, new perspectives and new insights into the way L2 speakers acquire articles.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“An unmistakable strength of the volume is its careful and disciplined attention to theory. Contributing authors clearly state the theoretical motivation for their studies, and they do not fail to discuss what their findings imply for current theory. Readers will encounter new theoretical questions, innovative task designs for data collection, and insightful interpretations of empirical findings.”
“The volume under review contains a very detailed and comprehensive collection of well-written and provocative studies that investigate article acquisition from various perspectives. Multiple languages are examined and discussed; semantic, prosodic and syntactic elements are considered; and a wide variety of test items and methods was employed. The wide scope of studies presented in this collection offers meaningful insight into the processes involved in the acquisition of articles, while at the same time becoming a catalyst for further study. Research into this very specific topic in language acquisition has far-reaching implications for second language acquisition research in general.”
“This volume is an excellent example of how bringing together studies on a specific theme from leading researchers in a field can lead to a work greater than the sum of its parts. This enables the editors, María del Pilar García Mayo and Roger Hawkins, not only to present us with a state of the art picture of what is involved in the second language acquisition (SLA) of articles, but also to show very clearly how the acquisition of this area of grammar can provide a test case for current SLA theories. This book represents an invaluable contribution to current knowledge and understanding not only of this subfield, but of SLA theorising in general.”
“The acquisition of nativelike morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic knowledge of definite and indefinite articles in a second language is one of the thorniest and most persistent learning problems language learners face. This valuable collection offers findings from several new experimental studies of article acquisition, covering a range of methods and L1-L2 (and even L3) language combinations. The empirical results are brought to bear on important theoretical questions in SLA such as the role of transfer, the role of syntactic, semantic, and prosodic constraints of universal grammar, and the interaction between such constraints and other components of linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge. Readers will certainly come away with a deeper appreciation of what it takes to acquire (and to study) such knowledge.”
Cited by

Cited by 27 other publications

Aalberse, Suzanne, Sible Andringa, Martina Faber & Phine Lippe
2020. Definiteness in Wenzhounese Chinese in the Netherlands and in China. In Lost in Transmission [Studies in Bilingualism, 59],  pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Aalberse, Suzanne, Yiwen Zou & S.J. Andringa
AZAZ, MAHMOUD
2019. L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic. The Modern Language Journal 103:1  pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
Campillos Llanos, Leonardo
2016. PoS-tagging a Spanish oral learner corpus. In Spanish Learner Corpus Research [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 78],  pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Díez-Bedmar, María Belén
2015. Article use and criterial features in Spanish EFL writing. In Learner Corpora in Language Testing and Assessment [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 70],  pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Emilsen, Linda Evenstad
2019. Chapter 8. Acquisition of nominal morphology in Norwegian L2. In Teachability and Learnability across Languages [Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching, 6],  pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Haznedar, Belma & F. Nihan Ketrez
2016. Introduction. In The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 20],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hermas, Abdelkader
2020. Genericity in third language English: Acquisition pattern and transfer in ultimate attainment. International Journal of Bilingualism 24:2  pp. 266 ff. DOI logo
Ionin, Tania, Soondo Baek, Eunah Kim, Heejeong Ko & Kenneth Wexler
2012. That’s not so different from the: Definite and demonstrative descriptions in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 28:1  pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Ionin, Tania, Sea Hee Choi & Qiufen Liu
Ionin, Tania & María Belén Díez-Bedmar
2020. Article Use in Russian and Spanish Learner Writing at CEFR B1 and B2 Levels: Effects of Proficiency, Native Language, and Specificity. In Learner Corpus Research Meets Second Language Acquisition,  pp. 10 ff. DOI logo
Ionin, Tania, Silvina Montrul, Ji-Hye Kim & Vadim Philippov
2011. Genericity Distinctions and the Interpretation of Determiners in Second Language Acquisition. Language Acquisition 18:4  pp. 242 ff. DOI logo
ISHINO, NAO
2012. SYNTACTIC FEATURE TRANSFER AND REFLEXIVE BINDING IN INTERLANGUAGE. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 29:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Korfhagen, David, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego
2021. Chapter 7. Declarative intonation in four Afro-Hispanic varieties. In Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 32],  pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Kupisch, Tanja, Alyona Belikova, Öner Özçelik, Ilse Stangen & Lydia White
2017. Restrictions on definiteness in the grammars of German-Turkish heritage speakers. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lozano, Cristóbal & Ana Díaz-Negrillo
2019. Using learner corpus methods in L2 acquisition research. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 32:1  pp. 82 ff. DOI logo
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego
2018. The intonation of Chota Valley Spanish: Contact-induced phenomena at the discourse-phonology interface. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 11:1  pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Sabir, Mona
2018. Specificity and article use. Instructed Second Language Acquisition 2:2  pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Sabir, Mona & Alaa Melebari
2023. I Want to Marry *the Merchant Banker: An Exploratory Self-Paced Reading Experiment on Arab Learners’ Processing of English Articles . PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 33:1 DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2019. Language Contact and the Making of an Afro-Hispanic Vernacular, DOI logo
Sessarego, Sandro
2020. Chapter 2. Chocó Spanish. In Hispanic Contact Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 22],  pp. 44 ff. DOI logo
TRENKIC, DANIJELA, JELENA MIRKOVIC & GERRY T. M. ALTMANN
2014. Real-time grammar processing by native and non-native speakers: Constructions unique to the second language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17:2  pp. 237 ff. DOI logo
TRENKIC, DANIJELA & NATTAMA PONGPAIROJ
2013. Referent salience affects second language article use. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16:1  pp. 152 ff. DOI logo
Vandepitte, Sonia
2002. Causality. In Handbook of Pragmatics,  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
White, Lydia, Alyona Belikova, Paul Hagstrom, Tanja Kupisch & Öner Özçelik
2012.  Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 2:1  pp. 54 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFK: Grammar, syntax

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2009019148 | Marc record