Second Language Acquisition of Articles
Empirical findings and theoretical implications
Editors
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.
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 49] 2009. ix, 272 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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List of editors and contributors | pp. vii–viii
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Acknowledgments | p. ix
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Introduction: The interest of article acquisition for theories of SLAMaría del Pilar García Mayo and Roger Hawkins | pp. 1–10
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Part I. Article choice, fluctuation and L1 transfer in the acquisition of articles by L2 speakers
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Article choice in L2 English by Spanish speakers: Evidence for full transferMaría del Pilar García Mayo | pp. 13–35
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L2 English article production by Arabic and French speakersGhisseh Sarko | pp. 37–66
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Questioning the validity of the Article Choice Parameter and the Fluctuation Hypothesis: Evidence from L2 English article use by L1 Polish and L1 Mandarin Chinese speakersMarta Tryzna | pp. 67–86
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The processing role of the Article Choice Parameter: Evidence from L2 learners of English.Lucy Kyoungsook Kim and Usha Lakshmanan | pp. 87–113
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Accounting for patterns of article omissions and substitutions in second language productionDanijela Trenkic | pp. 115–143
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Part II. Further issues in the representation and use of articles by L2 speakers
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Article use and generic reference: Parallels between L1- and L2-acquisitionTania Ionin and Silvina Montrul | pp. 147–173
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Variability in L2 acquisition of Norwegian DPs: An evaluation of some current SLA modelsFufen Jin, Tor A. Åfarli and Wim A. van Dommelen | pp. 175–199
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Articles in Turkish/English interlanguage revisited: Implications of vowel harmonyHeather Goad and Lydia White | pp. 201–232
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Article choice and article omission in the L3 German of native speakers of Japanese with L2 EnglishCarol Jaensch | pp. 233–263
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Author index | pp. 265–267
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Language index | p. 269
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Term index | pp. 271–272
“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.”
Benjamin White, Marshall University, in Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(3): 479-480
“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.”
Donielle Sharma, Heartland Community College, Normal IL, on Linguist List 21.2574, 2010
“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.”
Florence Myles, University of Newcastle
“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.”
Donna Lardiere, Georgetown University
Cited by (28)
Cited by 28 other publications
Sabir, Mona & Alaa Melebari
Ionin, Tania, Sea Hee Choi & Qiufen Liu
2022. What transfers (or doesn’t) in the second language acquisition of English articles by learners from article-less native languages?. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 12:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
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.
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.
Hermas, Abdelkader
Ionin, Tania & María Belén Díez-Bedmar
Zhao, Helen
AZAZ, MAHMOUD
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.
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.
Sessarego, Sandro
2020. Chapter 2. Chocó Spanish. In Hispanic Contact Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 22], ► pp. 44 ff.
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego
Sabir, Mona
Aalberse, Suzanne, Yiwen Zou & S.J. Andringa
2017. Extended use of demonstrative pronouns in two generations of Mandarin Chinese speakers in the Netherlands. In Cross-linguistic Influence in Bilingualism [Studies in Bilingualism, 52], ► pp. 25 ff.
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.
Campillos Llanos, Leonardo
2016. PoS-tagging a Spanish oral learner corpus. In Spanish Learner Corpus Research [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 78], ► pp. 89 ff.
Haznedar, Belma & F. Nihan Ketrez
2016. Introduction. In The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 20], ► pp. 1 ff.
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.
Ortega, Lourdes
2014. Chapter 8. Trying out theories on interlanguage: Description and explanation over 40 years of L2 negation research. In Interlanguage [Language Learning & Language Teaching, 39], ► pp. 173 ff.
TRENKIC, DANIJELA, JELENA MIRKOVIC & GERRY T. M. ALTMANN
TRENKIC, DANIJELA & NATTAMA PONGPAIROJ
Ionin, Tania, Soondo Baek, Eunah Kim, Heejeong Ko & Kenneth Wexler
ISHINO, NAO
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.
Ionin, Tania, Silvina Montrul, Ji-Hye Kim & Vadim Philippov
Vandepitte, Sonia
[no author supplied]
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFK: Grammar, syntax
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General