Aspects of the development of number marking in L2 English Paper presented at the AFinLA Conference, 9-10 November 2007, Kuovola, Finland Florencia Franceschina University of Jyväskylä

1. Introduction

Background Collaboration between SLA and Language Testing researchers at Lancaster and Jyväskylä. We are part of the SLATE (Second Language Acquisition and Testing in Europe) network, with members from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK Data presented here come from the CEFLING (Linguistic Basis of the CEFR for L2 English and L2 Finnish) Project

Our big questions What stages do L2 learners go through as they develop their L2 knowledge and skills? What are the linguistic indices that a learner is at a particular stage on his/her way to becoming a proficiency L2 speaker?

Generalizations about L2 development from the SLA literature a. The route of L2 development is generally stable across individuals in at least two ways: - there is a set of features F 1 that is used productively by learners in their early stages of development (e.g., case contrasts in English pronouns) and there is another set F 2 comprising features that appear later in development (e.g., passivization, relative clauses). - there is a set of features F 3 that is used accurately by learners from their early stages of development (e.g., case contrasts in English pronouns) and there is another set F 4 comprising features that continue to be used with relatively low levels of accuracy even late in development (e.g., 3PS ‘s’).

NB1: It is unlikely that F 1 to F 4 will be the same for all L2s, though there may be some patterns that are the same across languages. This has consequences for practical applications of this research (e.g. formulation of scales such as those in the CEFR). NB2: Route of L2 development may vary slightly depending on the learner’s L1 and other factors. Language instruction does not substantially affect the route of L2 development (except for some short term effects). b. Factors such as type and amount of L2 instruction, type and amount of naturalistic exposure to the L2, language aptitude, age, L1 background, among others, can have an effect on the rate of L2 development and likely level of ultimate attainment.

Limitations of existing SLA knowledge The generalizations we can make based on the existing literature (e.g., F 1 vs F 2 ; F 3 vs F 4 ) are too vague for our purposes: they do not allow us to establish the exact link between communicative competence levels (e.g., CEFR levels)  linguistic indices

Scope of this presentation Focus of linguistic analysis: number marking on head N in L2 English Aims: –to uncover patterns of development of number marking across six proficiency levels –to assess the potential of DEMfad as a methodological tool for the investigation of our RQs

2. Number marking on head N

Why look at number marking? Cross-linguistic variation -> potential learnability problems Simple to determine OCs Feature relevant to nominal and verbal domains Feature with morphological, syntactic and semantic effects

Number marking on English head N Examples: a)one tablec)one child b)two tablesd)two children Singular is base form Plural may be regular/irregular Interaction of number with: –countability –definiteness –quantification –…

What we already know from the SLA literature Number marking emerges relatively early and is relatively accurate from early on (e.g., Kersten, 2004) Number marking can be short of target-like even for relatively advanced learners (e.g., Jiang, 2004; Young, 1989) Number marking has been observed to be both: –subject to L1 influence (e.g., Bruhn de Garavito, 2004) and –impervious to L1 influence (e.g., Parodi et al., 1997)

3. DEMfad

Method for the empirical description of linguistic indicators of development consisting of 3 main elements: 3.1. Principled selection of D 3.2. DEMfad 3.3. Operators , >> and >

3.1. Principled section of D D should be selected according to one’s chosen: Theory of language Theory of language learning

3.2. DEMfad D EM f a d

3.3. Operators The following operators describe the possible relationships among relevant phenomena in language development: X >> Y = X takes place before Y X  Y = if Y then X (i.e., Y does not occur without X also occurring) X > Y = the value of X is larger than the value of Y (on measure m)

Emergence (E) Emergence criteria and their operationalisations vary across studies. For example: Min. no. of occurrences in productive use (Rapid Profile, Pienemann, )

Pallotti (2006) has discussed the advantages and also some practical difficulties of using emergence criteria for investigating L2 development. Also see Meisel et al (1981) for an early discussion of these issues. Some studies (typically early case studies) do not even define their emergence criterion and simply report on the first recorded occurrence of specific forms.

Mastery (M) Acquisition criteria and their operationalisations also vary across studies. Example from FLA literature: Brown (1973) used 90% criterion 90% suppliance in three successive samples each sample contains 5 or more obligatory contexts

Examples from SLA literature: Andersen (1978) used 80% criterion Ellis (1988) used 75% criterion Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1994) used 60% criterion

Andersen (1978) D= grammatical morphemes/functors M= 80% accuracy a= SOC scores cop ‘be’ >> aux ‘be’ >> irreg past >> ‘have’ aux

Mastery needs to be considered in relation to all of fad, as mastery may be reached in one area but not another. For example, learners may be fully accurate in their production of X, but the frequency of use and/or the distribution of use of X may not be target-like. See the literature on avoidance strategies, for some concrete examples.

Frequency of use (f) Example: change in frequency of use of demonstratives (this, these, that, those) changes with both level and L1 (Banerjee, Franceschina and Smith, 2006).

Accuracy (a) Example from Ellis (1982): D= verb ‘to be’ M= 75% accuracy a= SOC cop ‘be’ >> aux ‘be’

Distribution (d) Example from Ellis (1988): D= copula ‘be’ a= SOC d= pronoun subject contexts vs NP subject contexts pron S > NP S

Interaction M x a x d It has been found that certain forms become fully accurate at different times in different functions/contexts. For example, Wode’s (1978) longitudinal study of his four L1 German- speaking children during their 6 month-stay in the US found that while the children were fully target-like from the start regarding the distribution of the regular plural allophones [-s, -z] vs. the same forms were commonly used incorrectly in possessive inflection, as shown in the examples below (pp. (1)Butch’s car [ bætéjs] … (2)Jinx’s car [ dZñnkés] … (3)Des’ car [ dEs] … M reg pl > M poss

Interaction E x d Example: Cancino et al’s (1978) study of the acquisition of negation found that the first verbal forms to be negated post-verbally were cop ‘is’ and ‘can’, followed by other auxiliaries. This took place at their proposed stage 3, which comes before the stage at which negative devices are productively combined with auxiliaries in a range of tense and agreement forms. E neg in cop or ‘can’ >> E neg in aux

Advantages of this method a.The combined use of the three operators ( , >> and >) in the description of the relationship between different phenomena over time and when compared to other phenomena allows the researcher to capture both the stage-like and continuous characteristics of the L2 developmental route.

b.The combined use of the three operators ( , >> and >) makes the the comparison of cross-sectional and longitudinal data easier. c.DEMfad can be used with different theories of language.

d.The combined investigation of the different elements of DEMfad allows us to see much more than the study of each element independently, as illustrated by previous examples.

What we are aiming for DEMfad t6 C2 DEMfad t5 C1 DEMfad t4 B2 DEMfad t3 B1 DEMfad t2 A2 DEMfad t1 A1

4. DEMfad for D= number marking on head N

Design Cross-sectional CEFLING data (L2 English from the Finnish National Certificate -YKI- examinations) from 30 learners, 5 at each CEFR level A1-C2 (3 written performances per learner, totalling 90 written performances) CEFLING: YKI:

NB: A relatively small sample size was deliberately chosen here to allow detailed analysis of certain methodological issues. A consequence of this is that only descriptive statistics and qualitative results can be presented here.

CEFLING L2 English pilot corpus size

Figure 1

Figure 2 (f x d)

Figure 3 (f x d)

Figure 4 (f x d)

Figure 5 (f x a x d)

Figure 6 (f x a x d)

Figure 7 (a x d)

Figure 8 (a x d)

What can we say about E D= number marking on head N ? E: Singular/plural contrasts are present even at the lowest level, suggesting that E for this feature is very early E x a: All learners seem to be operating above chance level in term of accuracy of singular/plural marking, even at the lowest proficiency levels

What can we say about f D= number marking on head N ? E x f: The frequency of use of number marking does not alter radically after the time of E (this needs to be confirmed by looking at data from learners below A1 level) f x d: There seems to be a difference in how the frequency changes with level for sg vs pl contexts (cf. Figs 2 and 3)

What can we say about a D= number marking on head N ? a=TLU seems to be a reasonable discriminator of A1-A2 vs B1-C2 (a x d: pl TLU<90%  A1 or A2), but not between individual levels

What can we say about d D= number marking on head N ? f x d: see above a x d: …

What can we say about M D= number marking on head N ? Figure 7: –There is no clear point at which M is reached if M = 100% accuracy –If M ≥ 90%, then M is reached at B1 –M x d: If a level lower than 100% is set for M, then M is possible for both sg and pl contexts in this population, but M d:sg > M d:pl

DEMfad t1 (A1) E: the contrast sg/pl seems productive even at this low level, indicating that number has emerged by now E x d: … a: even at this level, learners are operating above chance level a x d: … f x d: freq of sg contexts same as for other levels, but freq of pl context lower than for other levels

DEMfad t2 (A2) f x a: Frequency of correctly supplied plural forms does not seem to distinguish A1 vs A2, but it may distinguish between A and the remaining levels such that f x a A < f x a B or C (Figs 5 and 6) a x d: The difference in correctly supplied sg and pl decreases markedly after A2 (cf. Fig. 8)

DEMfad t3 (B1) There seems to be a change in accuracy before/after B1, such that a A <a B1. (Or should it be described as a U-shaped transition from A1 to B1?)

DEMfad t4 (B2) f x a x d: Frequency of correctly supplied plural forms may distinguish between B1 and B2 as follows: f x a B1 < f x a B2 (Figs 5 and 6)

DEMfad t5 (C1) f x a x d: C1 may represent a temporary dip in a U-shaped pattern of dev of accuracy (Fig. 5)

DEMfad t6 (C2) f x a x d: Frequency of correctly supplied plural forms may distinguish between C1 and C2 as follows: f x a C1 < f x a C2 (Figs 5 and 6)

Some tentative conclusions DEMfad allows us to account for more systematicity in L2 development than approaches just looking at emergence, or accuracy, or contexts of use Within-level individual variation is considerable, so group mean scores should be used with caution (cf. Figs 5 and 6). Overlap between levels (esp. adjacent levels) is common.

For further research Explore d in more detail. For example: –Number on N of different semantic types (e.g., count vs mass, collective Ns, etc.) –Number of N vs number on V Examine some data from level below A1 to investigate E in more detail Investigate operators other than > (i.e., >> and  )

Statistical significance and effect size of trends observed in this small sample need to be investigated in larger sample Investigate factorial relationship between the different elements of DEMfad (e.g., through ordinal regression, as in Banerjee and Franceschina, 2007) Do similar analyses on other Ds NS comparison

Much of the work reported here was possible thanks to the financial support provided by the following institutions, for which I am grateful: