RT info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
T1 English subjects in the linguistic production of L1 Spanish, L1 Bosnian and L1 Danish speakers: typological similarity and transfer
A1 Mujcinovic, Sonja
A2 Universidad de Valladolid. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
K1 Tipología lingüística
K1 Bilingüismo
K1 58 Pedagogía
AB This study contributes to the analyses of transfer in the case of typologically similarand typologically different language interactions from three different perspectives: L1,modality and time of instruction. To do so the L2 English sentential subjects produced by 26L1 Spanish, 26 L1 Bosnian and 26 L1 Danish children are analyzed. These L2 Englishparticipants are divided into two proficiency groups depending on the time of instructionreceived (2 or 4 years). Written production data (story-telling) were obtained by means of awordless picture sequence adapted from the Edmond Narrative Norms Instrument (Schneideret al. 2005) which participants had to narrate. Oral production data were obtained through asemi-guided individual interview which was audio recorded and then transcribed in CHAT(Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts) format (CHILDES, MacWhinney 2000). Thesubjects produced by these participants were classified following three criteria: form (overtvs. null), grammaticality (grammatical vs. ungrammatical) and adequacy (adequate vs. nonadequate).Two formal proposals on sentential subjects are tested against these L2 Englishdata: Holmberg (2005) and Sheehan’s (2006) with regards to [+null subject] languages beingsuperset to [-null subject] languages; and Fernández Fuertes & Liceras (2018) and Liceras &Fernández Fuertes’ (2019) on the so-called lexical specialization approach that accounts forboth directionality and effect of cross-linguistic influence. The results show that typologicalsimilarity is a conditioning factor in what regards both core grammatical structures andsyntax-pragmatics interface related issues. Time of instruction, however, does not have anyeffects on these children’s L2 English acquisition of sentential subjects. In the case ofmodality, the written task is proven to be cognitively more demanding. These results offer anew window into the analysis of English L2 subjects in that they not only confirm thevulnerability of interfaces also in the case of under-studied languages, but they also showhow Liceras & Fernández Fuertes’ proposal applies to L2 acquisition: cross-linguisticinfluence from the superset language (i.e. Spanish and Bosnian) results in positive transfer.
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/43635
UL http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/43635
LA eng
NO Departamento de Filología Inglesa
DS UVaDOC
RD 17-jul-2024