The Acquisition of English Morpho-syntax by Indonesian-Speaking Child L2 Learners

Abstract

This dissertation is a longitudinal case study of two child L2 learners of English. The main purpose of the study is to investigate how the absence of six inflectional morphemes in L1 would affect the production of relevant properties in learner’s L2. Spontaneous data covering a period of 12 months were collected from two different subjects who were 2;3 and 8;4 years old at the commencement of the study. The main theoretical issues addressed in this dissertation include morphological and syntactic interface, particularly with regards to missing surface morphological inflections. In addition, the issue of L1 influence in L2 acquisition is also thoroughly evaluated. Research findings reveal that the two child L2 subjects frequently produce errors which reflect problems with the mapping of surface morphology, consistent with the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Prévost & White, 2000; Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997). Data also expose that errors continue to appear although the subjects already show a certain extent of syntax knowledge. With regards to L1 influence, it has been found that L1 plays an important role in influencing the way learners apply certain rules in L2 production. In particular, this is reflected in the error patterns they produce with regards to morphological properties that are not overtly exhibited in their L1 system. The results of the study provide an important contribution to the existing findings in the field, especially within the area of inflectional morphology. In particular, the study presents a new set of data from child L2 learners who come from L1 backgrounds that has rarely been discussed or researched before. It also strengthens currently existing proposals supporting syntax-before-morphology view (i.e., Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997). Furthermore, findings of the present study reinforce the general assumption that the absence of certain morphological properties results in problems with the production of corresponding features in the target language.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Roumyana Slabakova: orcid.org/0000-0002-5839-460X

ORCID for Glyn Hicks: orcid.org/0000-0003-4126-8655

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