The present study evaluates the role of age on the rate of acquiring English as a second language in an immersion setting. Subjects were children with native languages typologically very different from English. The children arrived in the United States between the ages of 7 and 12 years and were tested on their knowledge of English grammatical morphology and syntax at different lengths of stay in the United States, ranging from 6 months to 3 years. Subjects' performance was predicted by the length of their stay in the United States and by gender, with females outperforming males. Age of arrival played no role in predicting subjects' rate of acquisition. Performance was very similar between two age groups examined (7–9– and 10–12-year-old arrivals) throughout the 3 years measured. The present results suggest that, on certain aspects of grammar, different-aged children acquire a second language during the first 3 years of acquisition at similar rates when their native language is very different in typology from the target language.

One of the differences between Chinese and English is that the former allows both null subjects in finite sentences and null objects, but the latter allows neither. This cross-linguistic variation is believed to be related to the underspecification of I and topic drop in Chinese but not in English. This paper reports on an empirical study investigating the unlearning of null subjects and null objects by 159 Chinese learners in their L2 acquisition of English. In L1 acquisition, it has been found that English-speaking children display an asymmetry by frequently allowing null subjects but rarely null objects. The results of this study indicate that there is an asymmetry in Chinese learners' L2 English, which, however, is opposite to that found in English L1 acquisition: Chinese learners are able to reject the incorrect null subject in English, but unable to detect the ungrammaticality of the null object. It is proposed that the unlearning of null subjects by Chinese learners of English is triggered by the evidence in their input indicating the specification of AGR(eement) and T(ense) in English, and that the difficulty in the unlearning of null objects is related to the lack of informative evidence to unset the [+ topic-drop] setting in Chinese learners' L2 English.

Interlanguage pragmatics—the study of nonnative speakers' use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge—has hovered on the fringes of SLA research thus far. In theories of 12 acquisition, pragmatics may figure as a constraint on syntactic knowledge, for instance, but pragmatics is not usually recognized as a knowledge component whose development deserves theoretical consideration in its own right. There is thus a tension between SLA as a theoretical (in the sense of “nonapplied”) discipline and the theory and practice of second or foreign language pedagogy. In theories of communicative competence in L2 teaching and testing, pragmatic competence figures prominently (e.g., Bachman, 1990). Curricula and materials for L2 teaching developed in recent years include strong pragmatic components or even adopt a pragmatic approach as their organizing principle.

The two studies reported here investigated the notion of politeness as perceived by native speakers of English and advanced learners of English. The questions which concerned us included: (1) Are native speakers of English really aware of the varying degree of politeness conveyed by a given English sentence?; (2) Is there a high correlation between native speakers of English and advanced learners of English in their politeness judgements?; (3) Do native speakers of English really use different politeness strategies in different situations?; (4) Is there a high correlation between native and nonnative speakers of English in the use of politeness strategies? From a theoretical point of view, Study I was concerned with Lakoff's (1973b) claim that politeness increases with decreasing imposition; Study II was concerned with the distance-politeness hypothesis which predicts that one will use polite strategies in situations where he perceives himself as psychological and/or socially distant from his addresee. From a pedagogical point of view, the comparison of the two studies here suggested that the learner's ability of judging politeness in the target language does not necessarily mean that he can use politeness strategies appropriately in actual communication situations.

As part of a research project on the investigation of second language (L2) ultimate attainment in 41 Spanish early and late near-native speakers of L2 Swedish, the present study reports on voice onset time (VOT) analyses of the production of Swedish word-initial voiceless stops, /p t k/. Voice onset time is analyzed in milliseconds as well as in percentages of word duration, thereby accounting for speaking rate effects. The results revealed an overall age effect on VOT production; however, this age effect became salient and statistically significant for all three stops only when speaking rate was taken into consideration. Similarly, when speaking rate was accounted for, only a small minority of the late learners exhibited actual nativelike L2 behavior, and most (but far from all) early learners performed within native-speaker range. The results are taken as an indication for relative VOT, as opposed to absolute VOT, constituting a reliable measure of nativelike L2 stop production, which has important implications for future research on age effects and maturational constraints in L2 acquisition.

The tenability of the regression hypothesis as a basic principle for language attrition within languages has not been really questioned until now. In order to find out to what extent attrition might be the reverse of the process of acquisition, phenomena of attrition in the use of the German case system were studied. Two hypotheses were tested: the Linguistic Hypothesis and the Cognitive Hypothesis. the Linguistic Hypothesis is based on the notion of regression. According to this notion, attrition is the reverse of the language acquisition process. The Cognitive Hypothesis is based on the assumption that in natural cases of language acquisition, there is a tendency to establish a one-to-one correspondence between cognitive function and morphological case assignment. The results from experiments on case marking in headline-type constructions showed differences between native (L1) speakers and second language (L2) learners. In L1 speakers the relation between case marking and underlying semantic functioning becomes more prominent, whereas in L2 learners the nominative is used as a default case, indicating that morphological differentiations become reduced. This means that for L1 speakers the Cognitive Hypothesis provides a more adequate explanatory framework, whereas for L2 learners it is the Linguistic Hypothesis that is more appropriate.

This paper examines the nature of finite and nonfinite main declarative sentences produced by L2 child learners. It claims that two of the main proposals on the root infinitive (RI) phenomenon, the Truncation Hypothesis (TH) and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH), are not mutually exclusive in child SLA because they are hypotheses on completely different issues. According to the TH, different roots are involved: RIs are VPs underlyingly, whereas finite clauses are IPs or CPs. The MSIH claims that L2 learners have difficulties using the exact inflectional morphology, which leads them to produce verbs with an infinitival marker or no inflection at all. These so-called default forms are finite. In principle, then, an L2 learner could project truncated structure and produce default finite forms at the same time. This possibility is investigated in longitudinal data from an English-speaking child learning German. Two complementary sets of data can be accounted for by the hypotheses. Verbs bearing a nonfinite marker are restricted to nonfinite positions, which is consistent with the TH. Bare (uninflected) forms occur in the same (finite) positions as verbs inflected for person and number, which suggests that they are finite. This finding is consistent with the MSIH.

Given the longitudinal nature of L2 grit, the use of conventional research methodologies with cross-sectional data to examine the validity of L2 grit scale seems inadequate. The present research was an attempt to extend the domain-specific phase of research on L2 grit, with the pursuit of long-term goals at its core, into a dynamic one. Thus, we adopted a longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis-curve of factors model (LCFA-CFM) approach to trace changes in L2 learners’ grit at different points of time in an EFL course. LCFA-CFM ensures measurement invariance over time, deals with second-order latent variables, takes into account measurement errors, and is capable of assessing interindividual differences. With this in mind, we, first, employed LCFA to test the factor invariance of L2 grit based on a bifactor CFA model over time and, second, used CFM to measure change of L2 grit during an L2 course. To do so, we collected data from 437 adult EFL learners in Iran in four time phases using the L2 grit scale and analyzed them using Mplus 7.4. The model fit was accepted and invariance of the latent factor of L2 grit was confirmed over time. Also, the negative covariance between initial level of L2 grit and its rate of change over time (second-order latent variables) suggested a steeper increase in the construct over time for learners with lower initial scores of the construct. That is, L2 learners who started at a higher level of L2 grit experienced less change in L2 grit over time. The LCFA-CFM ensured that the factor structure of L2 grit is invariant over time and provided insights into how L2 grit changes over an L2 course.

This research report focuses on the relationship of English phonological variation to intelligibility for adult second language learners of English. Fifty-eight adult ESL learners (29 advanced beginners and 29 high intermediates) were tested' on their ability to understand working-class (New Yorkese), educated (Standard English) and foreign-accented speakers of English. Subjects were also asked to rank these speakers according to expected ease of comprehension. Findings from this study indicate Standard English to be more intelligible than either New Yorkese or foreign accented English for these learners.

This paper focuses on the acquisition of linguistic devices used for discourse cohesion in Chinese and French. Particular attention is paid to how two types of learners (child L1 [Chinese, French] and adult L2 [Chinese learning French]) acquire the linguistic means for marking topics, in particular French dislocation,and its discourse-pragmatic functions. Data consist of narratives based on picture sequences, produced in absence of mutual knowledge. Previous studies in L2 acquisition have shown that, at early stages, adult learners' utterances and texts are organized along semantic and pragmatic principles, rather than along structural ones. These principles play a preponderant role in Chinese as well. French shares this tendency with Chinese, insofar as particular utterance patterns—dislocations—mark topic and antitopic. Results show that French children have to acquire the discourse functions related to dislocations. Postbasic-variety adult learners readily use French dislocations to mark—appropriately—a variety of discourse-pragmatic functions. However, the adult learners quite often use forms that deviate from the dislocated form found in target language French. This is all the more interesting because the chosen forms, though not usable without a certain context in standard French, do occur in colloquial French and are clearly functionally related to the target forms.

Speech rate (articulation rate and pauses) was examined for its relation to communicative success. Native English speakers (NSs) were paired with other NSs and with non-native speakers (NNSs). The subjects viewed a short film, the content of which they were to relay to their two partners independently. Communicative success was measured through comprehension questions addressed to the listeners at the completion of the task. Analyses indicated that although a slight majority of NSs slowed their speech rate for NNSs, they did not adjust articulation rate, but did significantly increase pause time. Neither speech rate nor articulation rate varied over the course of the narrations. Contrary to intuition, the subjects who successfully communicated the story to NNSs did not adjust their speech rate, while those who had difficulty communicating with NNSs increased pause time significantly. The implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for further research are made.

Recent studies on the learning of L2 prosody have suggested that pitch gestures can enhance the learning of the L2 lexical tones. Yet it remains unclear whether the use of these gestures can aid the learning of L2 intonation, especially by tonal-language speakers. Sixty-four Mandarin speakers with basic-level Spanish were asked to learn three Spanish intonation patterns, all involving a low tone on the nuclear accent. In a pre-post test experimental design, half of the participants received intonation training without the use of pitch gestures (the control group) while the other half received the same training but with pitch gestures representing nuclear intonation contours (the experimental group). Musical (melody, pitch) abilities were also measured. The results revealed that (a) the experimental group significantly improved intonational production outcomes, and (b) even though participants with stronger musical abilities performed better, those with weaker musical abilities benefited more from observing pitch gestures.

While many studies have investigated the effect of task complexity on L2 writing, little has been reported on the effects of intended task complexity manipulations on task-generated cognitive demands in L2 writing. This study, therefore, was designed to examine the relative effects of task complexity and cognitive demands on students’ L2 writing. Two argumentative writing tasks were manipulated with varying numbers of elements and reasoning demands to be distinguished either as a simple or complex writing task. Self-ratings and dual-task methodology were adopted to validate the manipulations of task complexity. Thirty-one L2 learners, in the single-task group, were asked to complete two writing tasks and a post-task questionnaire. Participants in the dual-task conditions (30 in Experimental 1 and 31 in Experimental 2) were required to simultaneously complete the primary writing tasks and the secondary tasks. Results from self-ratings and dual-task experiments supported the efficacy of the task complexity manipulations.

This study investigates subject pronominal expression in second language Chinese and compares learner usage with patterns found in their first language. The results show that (a) overt pronouns are used more for singular, +animate subjects than plural, –animate ones; (b) switch in subject surface form favors overt pronouns; (c) English and Russian speakers use overt pronouns more than Korean and Japanese speakers; (d) statements favor overt pronouns most, followed by questions and then imperatives; (e) females use overt pronouns more than males; (f) conversations slightly favor overt pronouns, whereas narratives favor null pronouns; (g) higher proficiency learners across language groups use more null subject referents than do lower proficiency learners; and (h) nonspecific subject referents promote null subjects. Comparison results show that learner patterns are similar to those of their native speaker peers on most dimensions explored except that they tend to overuse overt pronouns. That is, the learners have acquired the subject pronoun use pattern in Chinese rather successfully but need to further develop their sociolinguistic competence regarding null pronoun usage.

In this paper, I address the nature of the mental representation of an interlanguage grammar. The focus will be on the necessity of positing some sort of hierarchical constituent structure to account for L2 phonology. I discuss relevant data from the domains of the acquisition of segments, syllables, moras, and metrical structure. The interaction of these domains is discussed.

In addition, I look at the acquisition of onset clusters and argue that the acquisition of liquids is correlated with the acquisition of consonantal sequences. Evidence from language change, language typology, and language acquisition suggests that there is a causal relationship between the two. The theoretical framework of feature geometry and derived sonority gives us the apparatus to explain what the second-language learners are doing.

This is a report of a study of social marking in second language pronunciation. In particular, it tested out Trudgill's (1981) suggestion that sounds that are most likely to undergo sociolinguistic variation, that is, that may become social markers, are those that Labov (1972a, 1972b), calls stereotypes. This study sought to determine whether there were certain aspects of English pronunciation that native Spanish speakers would, at some level of awareness, associate with American English/American identity. The speakers were asked to perform several tasks, including a mimic of an American speaking Spanish with an American accent (following Flege & Hammond, 1982). Among the results, speakers displayed a tacit awareness of English-Spanish sound distinctions (in particular, allophonic differences) in performing the mimic (supporting Flege & Hammond, 1982). Additionally, some of the alterations they were very conscious of held as stereotypes of American English. Support was found for Trudgill's (1981) suggestion.

In this short article I try to present a taxonomy of sources of difficulty, in particular complexity. I emphasize how these factors interact with each other and with individual differences and treatments, before illustrating some of these interactions and the methodological issues involved in studying them with examples from the empirical studies in this issue. Finally, I make some suggestions for future research.

The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH), as formulated by Bley-Vroman (1990), claims that SLA tends to be nonconvergent because domain-specific linguistic mechanisms available in early childhood cannot be used for language learning in adulthood: Instead, second language (L2) learners deploy domain-general problem solving skills. I claim that nonconvergence is also true of some cases of unbalanced early bilingualism, when the target language was acquired in childhood, suggesting that nontarget attainment in these cases may have different roots—namely, inefficient learning mechanisms in L2 learners but insufficient input in early bilinguals. The FDH then predicts that early bilinguals should still be more successful at attaining nativelike knowledge than the L2 learners due to their early age of acquisition. This review article examines this prediction in light of recent studies of postpuberty L2 learners and unbalanced early bilinguals with nonconvergent knowledge of their first language. I show that the incidence of nativelike achievement is higher in the early bilingual groups than in the L2 groups and that differential performance by the two populations on different tasks lends some support to the processing claims of the FDH.

This study examines pitch range production in the read speech of female German second language (L2) learners of English of moderate to advanced proficiency. The study set out to identify to what extent the learners deviated from or adopted the language-appropriate pitch range values of the target language. Two potential ways in which the learners could deviate from or approximate the target were recognized: (a) by globally expanding their pitch range or (b) by adjusting their pitch range in a position-sensitive way that is linked to the phonetic realization patterns of underlying high and low tones at different points in intonation contours.

Results showed that the L2 speakers produced pitch range values that were often language appropriate or approximated the target, although some deviations from the target were also identified. Deviations and target approximation were found to be position sensitive; that is, L2 learners were found to adjust their pitch range differently at the beginning as compared to later parts of intonational phrases.

Although most of the theoretical work in second language acquisition (SLA) over the years has led to advancement of theories of developing grammars, some recent SLA research has begun to investigate how those grammars are actually learned, relevant to current theories of learnability. This article (a) considers some of the claims for learnability principles that have been proposed within the first language (L1) context and the problems associated with their application to SLA, (b) examines four second language (L2) phenomena with respect to a promising variety of learnability theory labeled preemption, and (c) suggests in what ways research on learnability in SLA can contribute to the further development of learnability theory in general.