Second Language Acquisition: Second Language Acquisition: IntroductionIntroduction

Paola Escudero

Optimality Theory and Phonological Acquisition Seminar, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS

March 1, 2002

Basic questionsBasic questions

What is so special (and/or different) about L2 acquisition as compared to L1 acquisition?

Specifically, in terms of the way(s) in which it could challenge phonological theory

Main differencesMain differences Initial state. Maturational/age factor. Metalinguistic awareness

Input: impoverished? Settings: Formal vs. Naturalistic and the input

Psycho-social factors: motivation, attention, identity, etc? Great variation in development: almost every learner manifests a

different pattern

Final state: does learning occur? What about fossilisation?

Initial stateInitial state

Questions:– What is the nature of the initial L2

system and why?

– Are L1 and L2 one or two separate systems?

Initial stateInitial state

Nature of the L2 perception system– Phonology: Full Transfer/Full Access

(Schwartz & Sprouse 1996)– Speech perception research: Linguistic

experience

One or two separate systems?– Phonology: implicitly two systems– Speech perception: explicitly one system

L2 phonology & the initial state L2 phonology & the initial state Full Transfer/Full Access in Production

– Davidson 1997, Hancin-Bhatt 2000 Full Transfer & Full Access to UG and CDA Their account works for most of their production data

– Broselow et al 1998 Can’t be Full Transfer, Full Access to UG (universal markedness) Their account works for their production data

– Hayes 2000 Full Transfer, Full Access to UG and the CDA Account based on the specific theoretical framework does not account for the production data

Full Transfer/Full Access in Perception – Hayes 2001ab

Full Transfer, Full Access to (UG?) the GLA Perception grammars for the first time in L2. Simple case but works!

L2 speech perception research & the L2 speech perception research & the initial stateinitial state

Foreign/L2 speech perception models– Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best 1995, 2001)

Generalisations about Foreign language perception Data attest the generalisations

– Speech Learning Model (Flege 1995, 2001) Generalisations about experience L2 learners Access to the same L1 mechanisms for L2 learning Data attests generalisations

L2 categorization within phonologyL2 categorization within phonologyHayes 2001ab

– Full Transfer, Full Access to the GLA– Implicitly two systems– No ref. to L2 speech perception models– Accounts for a simple L2 categorization case

Escudero & Boersma (2002)– Full transfer: grammar copying (explicitly two grammars)– Full Access to the GLA and language universal strategies– More challenging case