LING212- SLA The L2 initial state

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LING212- SLAThe L2 initial state

• Florencia Franceschina

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The L2 initial state

• unconscious linguistic knowledge that the L2
  learner starts out with in advance of having
  contact with the L2 input

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What exactly does the initial state consist of?

• In groups of 3-4, discuss the question above.
  Think about
• What knowledge learners have when they begin to
  learn the L2
• How they start to build up their L2 knowledge
• How new knowledge is added to the knowledge of
  the initial state
• (You can draw on your own experience as an L2
  learner or as a teacher.)

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• Example
• Look at the sample data from Arkady and Roman
  (both 124) . They are twin brothers from Flint
  (US) who were born in Russia and emigrated to the
  US with their parents 1 month prior to their
  taping session. Russian was the only language
  spoken at home. The twins had studied English in
  Russia for about 6 months and were studying
  English in school at the time of the
  investigation. Other participants in this session
  were Sveltana, their mother, and Tania Ionin, the
  investigator.

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Theories of the L2 initial state

• Minimal Trees (Vainikka and Young-Scholten,
  1994, 1996)
• vs
• Full Transfer/Full Access (Schwartz and Sprouse,
  1994, 1996)

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Some background concepts

• Phrase structure
• (1)

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• (2)
• (3)

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• Lexical vs functional categories
• (4)

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• (5)

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• Hierarchy of phrase components
• (6)

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Full Transfer/Full Access (Schwartz and Sprouse,
1994, 1996)

• Initial stateentire L1 grammar (except specific
  lexical items)
• Development- L2 input will trigger target-like
  development- learners are not stuck with L1
  settings- ambiguous input could be a problem
• Endstate Convergence is possible, but not
  guaranteed

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• Supporting evidence- Haznedar (1997)- White
  (1985, 1986)- Yuan (1998)- Slabakova (2000)
• Counterevidence- Yuan (2001)

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Minimal Trees (Vainikka and Young-Scholten,
1994, 1996)

• Initial state- lack of functional categories-
  transfer of L1 lexical categories
• Development- full UG-inventory available-
  gradual emergence of FCslexical stage gt FP
  stage gt IP stage gt CP stage- no L1 transfer of
  FCs
• EndstateConvergence is possible given enough
  exposure to the L2

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• Supporting evidence- Vainikka and
  Young-Scholten (1994, 1996)
• Counterevidence- Evidence for the presence of
  FCs in the initial state (Haznedar, 1997
  Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994, 1996 Grondin
  and White, 1996 Lakshmanan, 1993/94)-
  Development doesnt seem to follow the predicted
  progression (Gavruseva and Lardiere, 1996)-
  Evidence of L1 transfer of FCs (Haznedar, 1997
  Trahey and White, 1993)

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Falsifiability problem

• How can we tell what is evidence of the
  initial state and what is evidence of stages
  beyond the initial state?

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• ExerciseGo back to Ionins data. Are they
  compatible with FT/FA? Are they compatible with
  MTs?

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Reading

• White, L. 2003 Second language acquisition
  and Universal Grammar. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press. (Chapter 3, pp. 58-78)