A feature-based contrastive approach to the L2 acquisition of specificity
A feature-based contrastive approach to the L2 acquisition of specificity
This study examined the acquisition of the Russian indefinite determiners (kakoj-to ‘which-to’ and kakoj-nibud’ ‘which-nibud’) encoding scopal specificity by English and Korean native speakers within the feature-based contrastive framework (Lardiere 2008, 2009). The specificity markers kakoj-to and kakoj-nibud’ are reflections of different values of three major nominal features definiteness, scopal specificity, and referentiality. The learning task for each functional item differs with respect to mapping and re-configuration of the feature combinations. Our experimental data suggest that the morpheme kakoj-to was acquired early since English (some) and Korean (eotteon ‘some’) have the corresponding morphemes with the same featural representation as the Russian kakoj-to. The morpheme kakoj-nibud’ presented a greater difficulty since its featural make-up is not overtly realized in English or Korean, that is, learners had to re-assemble the target feature set. Such developmental patterns provide evidence that feature re-assembly poses a challenge in second language acquisition. On the basis of the findings, pedagogical implications are discussed
318-339
Cho, Jacee
7562b2ca-ecb1-4133-a467-67945196cc6c
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
1 June 2017
Cho, Jacee
7562b2ca-ecb1-4133-a467-67945196cc6c
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Cho, Jacee and Slabakova, Roumyana
(2017)
A feature-based contrastive approach to the L2 acquisition of specificity.
Applied Linguistics, 38 (3), .
(doi:10.1093/applin/amv029).
Abstract
This study examined the acquisition of the Russian indefinite determiners (kakoj-to ‘which-to’ and kakoj-nibud’ ‘which-nibud’) encoding scopal specificity by English and Korean native speakers within the feature-based contrastive framework (Lardiere 2008, 2009). The specificity markers kakoj-to and kakoj-nibud’ are reflections of different values of three major nominal features definiteness, scopal specificity, and referentiality. The learning task for each functional item differs with respect to mapping and re-configuration of the feature combinations. Our experimental data suggest that the morpheme kakoj-to was acquired early since English (some) and Korean (eotteon ‘some’) have the corresponding morphemes with the same featural representation as the Russian kakoj-to. The morpheme kakoj-nibud’ presented a greater difficulty since its featural make-up is not overtly realized in English or Korean, that is, learners had to re-assemble the target feature set. Such developmental patterns provide evidence that feature re-assembly poses a challenge in second language acquisition. On the basis of the findings, pedagogical implications are discussed
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Cho-Slabakova-AL-accepted.docx
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Accepted/In Press date: 3 June 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 July 2015
Published date: 1 June 2017
Organisations:
Faculty of Humanities
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Local EPrints ID: 378846
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/378846
ISSN: 0142-6001
PURE UUID: 803610e9-cc6e-4c85-b55c-648af68897fa
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Date deposited: 17 Jul 2015 12:34
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:19
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Author:
Jacee Cho
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