Linguistic aspects of interlanguage Chapter 7 Linguistic aspects of interlanguage

Q: Does your L1 have relative clauses structures? (p.63)

Typological universals: Accessibility hierarchy If a language can relativize positions lower in the accessibility hierarchy, it can always relativize positions higher up, but not vice versa.

Q: What is UG? (p.65)

A finite set of fundamental principles (abstract rules) that are common to all languages; e.g., a sentence must always have a subject, even if it is not overtly pronounced. A finite set of specific parameters that determine syntactic variability amongst languages; e.g., whether or not the subject of a sentence must be overtly pronounced (Pro-drop parameter).

Within this framework, the goal of linguistics is to identify all of the principles and parameters that are universal to human language (called Universal Grammar).

Parameter setting local binding vs. long-distance binding (p.65) head-initial vs. head final English is a strongly head-initial language. The head of the phrase (the verb eat) precedes its complement “eat an apple” Nouns also tend to precede any complements. “He married a girl who is from Texas”

Q: Can L2 learners reset this parameter? (p.66)

Q: What is poverty of the stimulus (p.66)

Q: How do children learn the full grammar of their mother tongue although they receive only positive evidence? (p.67)

Q: What is critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg,1967) Q: What is critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg,1967)? Do you agree with this? (pp.67-68)

Q: Among the views of ‘access to UG’ (p Q: Among the views of ‘access to UG’ (p. 69), which do you think sounds more compelling?

Q: What is ‘markedness’? (p.70)

Q: What should we consider when we test the ‘markedness’ effect on SLA? Which one is more likely transferred to L2, marked or unmarked structures from L1? (p.70)

Any criticism of UG?

However, the language acquisition process cannot be determined by knowledge of UG alone. The theory did not fully explain how grammar is acquired as it concerned itself only with those ‘core’ aspects of grammar. It did not address how learners develop their lexicon, how they construct form-meaning networks, how they learn to perform speech acts appropriately etc.

Methodological problems Can we interpret performance data as evidence of grammatical competence? (White, 2003)