Part of
Representational Deficits in SLA: Studies in honor of Roger HawkinsEdited by Neal Snape, Yan-kit Ingrid Leung and Michael Sharwood Smith
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 47] 2009
► pp. 27–51
Edited by Neal Snape, Yan-kit Ingrid Leung and Michael Sharwood Smith
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 47] 2009
► pp. 27–51
Exploring Mandarin Chinese speakers' L2 article use
This paper attempts to explore the difficulties Chinese speakers have with the acquisition of English articles by situating itself within three hypotheses by using two tasks; a written forced choice elicitation task and an oral elicited picture description task. Our findings from the first task are consistent with the Fluctuation Hypothesis. Our findings from the second task are not fully consistent with the Representational Deficit Hypothesis or the strong interpretation of the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis as omission of articles is low. This indicates that L2 learners are perhaps able to access uninterpretable features and target-like prosodic representations even at intermediate levels, which is consistent with the view of full access to syntax and phonological structures via Universal Grammar.
Cited by
Cited by 11 other publications
Ahn, Hyunah & Mi-Jeong Song
2023. L1-Korean speakers’ definiteness processing in L2 English: A visual world paradigm eye tracking study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 26:3 ► pp. 556 ff. 
Cho, Jacee & Roumyana Slabakova
2014. Interpreting definiteness in a second language without articles: The case of L2 Russian. Second Language Research 30:2 ► pp. 159 ff.
Derkach, Kateryna & Theodora Alexopoulou
2023. Definite and indefinite article accuracy in learner English: A multifactorial analysis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition ► pp. 1 ff.
Lena, Ludovica
2023. The (Non-)acquisition of the Chinese Definiteness Effect: A Usage-Based Account. In Learner Corpora: Construction and Explorations in Chinese and Related Languages [Chinese Language Learning Sciences, ], ► pp. 257 ff.
Lopez, Elaine
2019. Teaching the English article system: Definiteness and specificity in linguistically-informed instruction. Language Teaching Research 23:2 ► pp. 200 ff.
Lopez, Elaine, Yuhuan An & Heather Marsden
2022. Mandarin Speakers’ Acquisition of English Articles: Investigating Article Use in Mandarin and Its Influence on L2-English. In Challenges Encountered by Chinese ESL Learners, ► pp. 265 ff.
Lopez, Elaine & Mona Sabir
2019. Article Pedagogy: Encouraging Links between Linguistic Theory and Teaching Practice. RELC Journal 50:1 ► pp. 188 ff.
Savelieva, Tatiana & Yulia Rodina
2022. Cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of articles in L3 English by Danish-Russian bilingual
children. Journal of Second Language Studies 5:2 ► pp. 235 ff.
Snape, Neal
2022. Suppliance of Functional Morphology by L1 Chinese L2 English Speakers: The Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis and Pedagogical Implications. In Challenges Encountered by Chinese ESL Learners, ► pp. 285 ff.
Snape, Neal & Tanja Kupisch
2010. Ultimate attainment of second language articles: A case study of an endstate second language Turkish-English speaker. Second Language Research 26:4 ► pp. 527 ff.
Zhang, Lulu
2021. The influence of first language at the semantics–pragmatic interface. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 11:3 ► pp. 368 ff.
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