Second language English morphosyntax acquisition

Second language English morphosyntax acquisition by adults with varying home literacy Anne Vainikka, Martha Young-Scholten, Colleen Ijuin and Samawal Jarad Literacy Education & Second Language Learning for Adults

Portland, 12 August 2017

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Today’s presentation 1. The importance of understanding learners’ development of morphosyntax in a second language (L2) 2. What we know about the development of morphosyntax in an L2 3. Our on-going project on L2 English and emerging results, focusing on early word order and negation 2

1. The importance of understanding L2 development of morphosyntax: awareness of the research o Answers the question “Do the linguistic behaviours of adult migrants correspond to CEFR levels?” (Minuz 2017) o Reveals what underlies learners’ language use to provide more sophisticated tools to track learner progress and use/develop materials (Schellekens 2008; Young-Scholten & Ijuin 2006) o Gives us an appreciation of learners’ potential

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Awareness of earlier and current research o Demystifies why some phenomena viewed as easy are difficult for second language (L2) learners and some phenomena viewed as difficult may be easy (e.g. Lightbown 1985 on teacher expectations) o Reveals how the L2er’s first language (L1) does and does not influence L2 development but other factors do (Universal Grammar-driven L2 acquisition; see for example Hawkins 2001; 1985; Schwartz & Sprouse 1996; 2013; Vainikka & YoungScholten 1994; 2011; White 1989; 2005 and many, many others)

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Do the linguistic behaviours of adult migrants correspond to the Common European Framework of Reference levels? The learner uses, in various modes, language which involves or is At A1: isolated phrases At A2: phrases joined by simple connectors At A1 and A2: short, simple

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Level B2

Listening

B1

Understand main points of clear standard speech on familiar, daily topics and on tv and radio when delivery is slow.

Understand description of events, wishes, feelings including in letters with mostly frequent daily or job-related language.

A2

Understand phrases, high frequency words, main idea on immediate, personal topics and in simple messages. Recognise familiar words and very basic phrases spoken slowly about immediate circumstances.

Read very short, simple texts. Find specific, predictable information in simple everyday written text and letters. Understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences in environmental text.

A1

Reading

Understand Read articles, extended and reports, literacy complex speech prose. face-to-face, tv and films.

Spoken interaction

Written interaction

Spoken production

Written production

Interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that enables discussions with native speakers. Use language for common situations and on familiar, personallyrelevant, topics.

Write letters about the personal significance of events and experiences. Write personal letters describing experiences and impressions.

Present clear, detailed descriptions on a wide range of subjects related to one’s interests. Connect phrases in a simple way to describe experiences, wishes, events, books , films; justify plans , aims.

Write clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects related to one’s interests.

Communicate in simple and routine tasks in simple, short direct exchanges on familiar topics.

Write short, simple notes and messages on topics of immediate need.

Use series of phrases and sentences to simply describe family and talk about personal circumstances.

Interact simply about oneself when speaker speaks slowly, repeats and rephrases .

Write a short greeting notes and fill in forms with personal details.

Use simple phrases and sentences to describe where one lives and who one knows.

Write series of simple phrases and sentences linked with simple connectors like ‘and’, ‘but’ ‘because’. Write simple isolated phrases and sentences.

Connect text on familiar or personal topics in a simple way.

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2. What we know about L2 morphosyntax development L2 morphosyntax researchers have been discovering a lot about the linguistic nature of the lowest levels, and that all learners have comparable acquisition potential. Hawkins (2001):

From the 1970s onwards longitudinal studies (of a few learners over time) and cross-sectional studies (one–time studies of more learners at different levels) of inflectional morphology and word order (e.g. negation; embedded clauses; questions) show that L2 development occurs in stages which are largely independent of o learner’s L1 o learner’s age at initial exposure o type of exposure (naturalistic/uninstructed/classroom) o learner’s educational background 7

How we know this: some major studies of immigrant (usually uninstructed) adults contributing to Hawkins’ conclusion Study

L1 and L2

Description

Ideas introduced

Bailey et al. 1970s

Spanish and speakers of 11 other languages L2 English

cross-sectional: 73 learners

L2ers’ development follows a ‘natural’ order (Krashen 1985) - like children (Brown 1973).

ZISA 1980s

Spanish, Portuguese and Italian immigrants L2 German

cross-sectional: 45 learners; 2-year longitudinal: 12 learners

L2ers follow stages; debate about whether these are driven by linguistic or other cognitive mechanisms ; see e.g. Piememann’s Processability;

ESF 1990s

2 ½ yrs: Immigrants learning; L2 40 learners English + 4 other European L2s

L2 learners start with and often ‘fossilize ‘at Klein & Perdue’s (1987)‘‘Basic Variety’; Processability (Pienemann 1988)

LEXLERN

Korean; Turkish immigrants L2 German

cross-sectional: 17 learners

Confirms Bailey et al.; argues for L1 influence just at the start and UGdriven L2 acquisition

L1 English exchange students L2 German

1 year longitudinal: 3 learners

Educated , uninstructed, ab inito exchange students follow same stages as less educated adults

1990s (V&YS) VYSA 2000s (V & YS)

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2. What we know about L2 morphosyntax Stages of development in L2 German, L2 English and more recently, L2 Arabic and L2 Mandarin (Vainikka & Young-Scholten and collaborators, 1994…present)

o At first learners transfer their L1 verb phrase (VP) and produce only inflection-less single-clause sentences They stay at this initial stage (like the Basic Variety) until their utterances reflect L2 word order in the VP

o Universal Grammar guides the learner’s subconscious analysis of the input they hear (and read) and they incrementally, in stages next acquire functional morphology (inflections, etc.) and relevant word order for negation, questions, embedded clauses, etc. 9

Examples of stages (in next table) VP (longitudinal study of object-verb Farsi 7- and 8-year olds; Mobaraki, Vainikka and Young-Scholten 2008) Spot cupboard have. (Melissa, sample 7) Monday apple eat. (Bernard, sample 9)

TP Two womans is cooking. (Awad, current project) The woman is cry. (2005 project)

AgrP They are writing. (Mohmad, current project)

CP This guy, he's driving a car but he's sad but the car … he cannot drive the car. (Mo, current project) 10

Organic Grammar stages in L2 English (Vainikka & Young-Scholten) types of verbs

agreement/tense

Stage

word order

pronouns

syntax

VP

L1 order, then L2 order

main verbs

none

no/few subject, object pronouns

Almost none

NegP

VP and NegP L2 word order

main verbs; copula ’is’ not/no/don’t

none

subject pronouns still omitted

Single clauses; formulaic or intonation-based Qs.

TP

resembles L2 except complex syntax

main verbs, modals; copula forms beyond ‘is’; auxiliaries begin to emerge

no agreement; -ed produced but not stable; some aspect, but not productive

more pronoun forms, but not obligatory

Conjoined clauses. Formulaic wh-Qs; yes/no Qs w/o inversion

AgrP

resembles the L2 apart from complex syntax

main verbs, modals, copula forms beyond ‘is’; auxiliaries in all forms and tenses

productive tense, aspect; some agreement, esp. forms of ‘be’ ; 3rd sg -s not stable

pronouns obligatory, ‘there’ and existential ‘it’

Simple subordination; wh-Qs but all Qs may lack inversion

CP

always resembles the L2

complex tense, aspect forms; passives; range of main verb, modal, auxiliary forms

forms usually correct, apart from newly attempted ones

subject pronouns even in embedded clauses

Complex subordination. All Qs with inversion. 11

3. The current project 3.1 Participants 3.2 Methodology 3.3 Description of the L1s 3.4 Hypotheses 3.5 Results

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3.1. Project participants So far, 18 Arabic, 6 Urdu, 8 Somali speakers o Who’d immigrated to the UK or USA after puberty o Who’d never received English instruction in their home countries o Whose home language literacy varied o Whose L2 literacy varied from zero to secondary Most but not all were in English classes at the time of testing (unlike the guest workers studied in Germany from the 1970s to 1980s in the earlier table) 13

3.2 Methodology: picture-prompted oral production VP determined by word order for main verb and e.g. object. NegP Pairs of pictures one of which indicated absence of an actions target: The boy doesn’t eat. The girls aren’t washing the dog. TP Picture-prompted narrative retelling target: -ed on main verbs or irregular past forms The people watched the boat. The boat sank.

Agreement with copula be forms: card game with researcher target: I am a nurse; you are a teacher; we are teachers, etc. AgrP Pairs of pictures depicting habitual action target: 3rd singular –s on verbs He reads the newspaper. Pairs of pictures depicting on-going action target: auxiliary be + V-ing The boy is washing the dog. 14

3.3 VP, NegP, TP and AgrP in the L1s VP word order

Negation word order

tense marking

agreement marking

Arabic

VO

Negation morpheme precedes the verb





Somali

OV






Urdu, etc.

OV






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3.4 Hypotheses H1. Organic Grammar predicts VP transfer Arabic: verb object VO acquired with transfer Somali, Urdu (Dari, Punjabi, Pahari): object verb OV based due to L1 transfer; with enough English input, switch to English VO H2. Under Organic Grammar, acquisition of functional projections is guided by Universal Grammar = patterns of acquisition of functional projections will be similar to each other and to that of children acquiring English. 16

3.5 Results L2 English VP order transfer for 6 Arabic + 6 Urdu+ speakers Learner; L1 Amro; Arabic

Program level Pre-entry

L1 literacy 0

L2 literacy Lowest

OV

VO

0/8

8/8

Awad; Arabic

Pre-entry

ok

Lowest

0/10

10/10

Mohmed; Arabic

Pre-entry

ok

Some

0/10

10/10

Moh. S; Arabic

Pre-entry

0

Lowest

0/7

7/7

Sabry; Arabic

Pre-entry

ok

Some

0/10

10/10

Moh. M; Arabic

Pre-entry

0

Lowest

0/9

9/9

Tazeem; Urdu

Entry 1

ok

Some

0/4

4/4

Naz; Urdu

Entry 1

ok

Good

0/10

10/10

Sultani; Dari

Pre-entry

ok

Lowest

1/8

7/8

Imtiaz; Urdu

Entry 1

0

Lowest

1/10

9/10

Shafida; Pahari

Pre-entry

0

Lowest

3/10

7/10

Zabila; Punjabi

Pre-entry

0

Lowest

4/8

5/8 17

Results: NegP NegP – negation - the learner’s first elaboration of their L2 syntax after VP Like L1 children, learners start with sentenceexternal placement of negation: No Joe wash. Evidence of NegP is target-like word order for negation, with internal placement of no or not most of the time: Noun phrase – negation – main verb Target: Joe doesn’t/is not wash/washing the dog. 18

Name (L1)

NegP acquired, based on frequency (70%) of English order

Afra (A)

Yes (10/10) 100%

Mohmed (A)

Yes (10/10) 100%

Abdi (S)

Yes (3/3) 100%

Mo (S)

Yes (9/9) 100%

Naz (U)

Yes (9/9) 100%

Sabry (A)

Yes (10/10) 100%

Rawdha (A)

Yes (10/10) 100%

Mohammed S (A)

Yes (10/10) 100%

Tazeem (U)

Yes (9/9) 100%

Awad (A)

Yes (9/10) 90%

Sultani (D)

Yes (7/10; 3 null subjects) 70%

Amro (A)

Yes (9/10) 90%

Mohammed M (A)

No (4/10) 40%

Zabila (Pun)

No (2/10) 20%

Shafida (Pa)

No; ( struggles w/ 6/10); not yet working on NegP

Imtiaz (U)

No (4/9) ; not yet working on NegP 19

VP vs. NegP vs. further projections The learners in our sample had projected NegP, but not yet TP or AgrP, projected TP/AgrP but not yet CP. We found an interesting pattern of behaviour in the oral production of those who had acquired NegP but not yet TP or AgrP. It would be dismissed as random and unsystematic without the right theoretical tools to interpret it and these tools come from previous research on LESLLA learners.

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Julien, van Hout & van de Craats (2016) Learners: 40 Arabic, Berber and Turkish adults with no schooling up to secondary school education taking Dutch as a second language. Data: oral production in response to viewing film clips/pictures and an auxiliary meaning/function assignment task

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Dutch: verb-final word order in the verb phrase as in Ik heb naar de kerk gelopen. ‘I walked to the church.’ Dummy auxiliaries, particularly is(t) produced at the second stage, when the learner has not yet projected AgrP/TP. For ‘John walks to the church.’ (1) head-final Dutch VP (transferred or switched) *Jan naar de kerk lopen John to the church walk (2) post-subject verbal material, but not the main verb ?Jan ga/gaat naar de kerk lopen. Jan is/ist naar de kerk lopen. John goes/is to the church walk (3) target-like Dutch word order Jan loopt naar de kerk. John walks to the church 22

Results • The 18 learners at CEFR A1 used is/ist more frequently than the 22 learners at A2 • is/ist in response to Dutch input • this dummy auxiliary is in learners’ L2 lexicons and used for agreement/tense before they take the extra step of attaching suffixes to main verbs (Economy Principle, Chomsky 1995) Note that free morphemes were found to precede bound morphemes in L2 German (Vainikka & YoungScholten 1998) Most learners were “at a more advanced stage than predicted on the basis of their CEFR level and the results 23 of earlier studies.” (2016:69)

Overuse of lexical items and of longer sequences is common in language acquisition Dummy auxiliaries is a general phenomenon, attested not only in L2 Dutch but also in L2 French, German and English (Haberzettl 2003; Huebner, Carroll & Perdue 1992; Jordens & Dimroth 2006; Schimke 2013) and in L1 acquisition. It’s long been observed that L1 and L2 learners overgeneralize certain morphemes when there are irregular patterns, e.g. –ed (attaches where it doesn’t belong), to irregulars: goed or wented. Learners use multi-word sequences like single words, e.g. Wagner-Gough (1978); Myles (2005). 24

Learner Amro

Tazeem

L1 lit no

ok

Task

Multi-word unanalyzed sequences produced

3rd sg habitual

You need is smoking; I am read; I’m cook; I am is clean; this girl I’m go; This man I’m go

3rd sg and pl progressive

Two guys I’m reading; three guys I’m washing

negation

(boy) is go to don’t drink; is go to no wash; is go to no play; go to no painting; go to no play

3rd sg habitual

Is go to read; is go to wash; is go to food cooking


(singular) Is go to eat; (plural) every three like go to cleaning

Mohammed S

no

3rd sg hab 3rd sg and pl progressive

in the drink; in the writing; in the coming in writing; in the eat; all plural: in the cooking; in the no cooking; in writing; in the wash

Sultani

Yes

negation

is don’t open door; don’t like; is don’t like painting; don’t like drive

3rd sg and pl habitual

Think for cornflakes; is reading for a book


(sg) eat for; (sg) laugh for; (sg) is like for; (sg) is laugh for; (pl) is in cooking for; (pl) is wash for

negation

I don’t + subject-verb (object/IO/object)) subject + I don’t + object I don’t + subject-auxiliary-verb

3rd sg pl hab 3rd sg and pl progressive

the smoking; the have (sg) the play; (pl) the write; (pl) the walk

Mohammed M

Naz

No

yes

negation

dislike washing; dislike driving; dislike to open 25

Placeholders in the L2 English data • Our L2 English data show more than dummy auxiliaries: learners produce multi-word sequences as if they were words (unanalyzed chunks) • Like Julien et al.’s dummy auxiliaries in L2 Dutch, these don’t occur for learners at all levels • These are used when learners are working on a syntactic projection; they are used when learners are figuring out the head of the tense phrase/TP and the agreement phrase/AgrP 26

These are placeholders. Who uses them? Non-users: learners who have acquired TP/AgrP + possibly CP

Users: acquired NegP; still working on TP/AgrP (have not mastered English tense or agreement morphology)

Non-users: acquired the English VP but not NegP 27

Name (L1)

L1 literacy

NegP acq’d; frequency of English order

Higher projection(s)

Over- /incorrect use

Afra (A)

Some

Yes (10/10) 100%

Yes

None

Mohmed (A)

Some

Yes (10/10) 100%

Yes

None

Abdi (S)

Some

Yes (3/3) 100%

Yes

None

Mo (S)

Some

Yes (9/9) 100%

Yes

None

Naz (U)

Some

Yes (9/9) 100%

Yes

None

Sabry (A)

Some

Yes (10/10) 100%

Yes

None

Rawdha (A)

Some

Yes (10/10) 100%

Yes

pronouns

No

Yes (10/10) 100%

Yes

IN THE used w/ verbs

Mohammed S (A) Tazeem (U)

Some

Yes (9/9) 100%

Yes

GO TO, LIKE, IS

Awad (A)

Some

Yes (9/10) 90%

Yes

IS

Sultani (D)

Some

Yes (7/10; 3 NS) 70%

Yes

I AM, I’M, IS; LIKE

Amro (A)

No

Yes (9/10) 90%

None

I AM, I’M, IS

Mohammed M (A)

No

No (4/10) 40%

None

THE used with verbs

Zabila (Pun)

No

No (2/10) 20%

None

3sg -S

Shafida (Pa)

No

No; struggles w/ (6/10); not yet working on NegP

None

None

Imtiaz (U)

No

No (4/9) ; not yet working on NegP

None

None 28

How these placeholders differ from what others have found These sequences involve closed class elements; the learners in our sample are able to subconsciously identify elements in the input as such. o Not only do they use single, mono-morphemic words (e.g. dummy auxiliaries) but they also use sequences of more than one morpheme or more than one word. o We take these unanalyzed sequences to mark certain functions, but in non-target-like ways. 29

Literacy o In our 2016 LESLLA Granada talk (and see proceedings paper), we concluded that literacy was also a core criterion.

o Now we realize the criteria are purely morphsyntactic o But two of the eight learners without L1 literacy, Mohammed A and Mohammed S, use placeholders the and in the which are not from the verbal category but from other categories o This could be due to frequency in the classroom input

o But it could be the result of greater reliance on auditory memory; literate learners can notice morphology in written text

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Conclusion The good news is that L2 morphosyntax researchers have been discovering a lot about the linguistic nature of the morphosyntax of learners at the lowest levels (CEFR A1/A1-). The bad news is that the vast majority of publications on researchers’ findings are accessible only to those with training in linguistics The Acquisition and Assessment of Morphosyntax is a six-week on-line module offered for free by the EU-Speak project in Nov-Dec 2017. It starts by making sure participants have the tools to understand the relevant research findings. Email us at [email protected] Find information and the PPT at: www.eu-speak.com 31

This presentation has been produced with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The contents are the sole responsibility of the EU-Speak partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the NA and the Commission. Project ref: 2015-1-UK01-KA204-013485 KA2 32