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Bilingual Cognition and Language: The state of the science across its subfields
Edited by David Miller, Fatih Bayram, Jason Rothman and Ludovica Serratrice
[Studies in Bilingualism 54] 2018
► pp. 205–224

Chapter 10
Syntactic representations in late learners of a second language

A learning trajectory

| University of Antwerp
| Ghent University

Several studies have shown that syntactic structures can be primed between the different languages of a bilingual. Bilingual production models put forward by Hartsuiker, Pickering, and Veltkamp (2004) and Pickering and Hartsuiker (2008) therefore assume that bilinguals share syntactic structures between languages as much as possible. In this paper, we discuss a model for the development of these shared syntactic structures in late learners of a second language (Hartsuiker & Bernolet, 2017). More specifically, we discuss evidence for three central claims of the model, namely that (1) L2 syntactic representations move from being item-specific to being more abstract, (2) L2 representations become more and more integrated with existing L1 representations, and (3) L1 influences on syntactic processing and production in the L2 occur in early and late phases of L2 syntactic development. Summarizing, syntactic representations in L2 learners differ according to the L2 proficiency of the learner and the syntax of his/her native language.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A model of the trajectory of late L2 syntactic acquisition
  • 3. Key claims of the model
    • 3.1L2 syntactic representations in late learners move from being item-specific to being more abstract
    • 3.2Across the learning trajectory, L2 representations become more and more integrated with existing L1 representations
    • 3.3L1 influences on syntactic processing and production in the L2 occur in the earliest phase as well as in the final phase of L2 syntactic development
  • 4. General discussion
  • References
Published online: 8 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.54.10ber
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