Comparative Perspectives on Language Acquisition: A Tribute to Clive Perdue

by Marzena Watorek (Editor), Sandra Benazzo (Editor), Maya Hickmann (Editor)

Overview

This volume aims to provide a broad view of second language acquisition within a comparative perspective that addresses results concerning adult and child learners across a variety of source and target languages. It brings together contributions at the forefront of language acquisition research that consider a wide range of open questions: What are the precise mechanisms underlying acquisition? How can we characterize learners’ initial state and predict their degree of final achievement? What role do specific (typological) properties of source and target languages play? How does fossilization occur? How does the relative complexity of cognitive systems in adult and child learners affect acquisition? Does language learning influence cognitive organization? Can language learning shed light on our general understanding of human language and language processing?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847696038
Publisher:	Channel View Publications
Publication date:	01/09/2012
Series:	Second Language Acquisition , #61
Pages:	632
Product dimensions:	6.15(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Marzena Watorek is Professor in Linguistics at the UniversityParis 8. Her research interests include first and second language acquisition, particularly discourse production, initial processing of the input by adult learners, and the interface between language acquisition and teaching.

Sandra Benazzo is Associate Professor in Linguistics and French as a Second Language at the UniversityLille 3. Her research mainly concerns L2 acquisition in the domain of temporality, information structure, discourse organization and the comparison with L1 acquisition.

Maya Hickmann is Research Director in the Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage (CNRS and Universityé Paris 8). Her research mainly focuses on the role of structural vs. functional and universal vs. language-specific determinants in first and second language acquisition.

Table of Contents

Contributors ix

Introduction: New Comparative Perspectives in the Study of Language Acquisition - Clive Perdue's Legacy Marzena Watorek Sandra Benazzo Maya Hickmann 1

Part 1 Second Language Acquisition: From Initial to Final Stages

1 A Way to Look at Second Language Acquisition Wolfgang Klein 23

2 L2 Input and the L2 Initial State: The Writings of Clive Perdue Rebekah Rast 37

3 Finiteness and the Acquisition of Negation Angetika Becker 54

4 The Different Role of Additive and Negative Particles in the Development of Finiteness in Early Adult L2 German and L2 Dutch Sarah Schimke Josje Verhagen Giuseppina Turco 73

5 Lexical Categories in the Target Language and the Lexical Categorisation of Learners: The Word Class of Adverbs Giuliano Bernini 92

6 Is it Necessary for Chinese Mandarin Speakers to Mark Time? Reflections About the Use of Temporal Adverbs with Respect to Verbal Morphology Jili Sun 108

7 The Development of Reference to Time and Space in French L3: Evidence from Narratives Pascale Trévisiol 133

8 Verbal Morphology in Advanced Varieties of English L2: Aspect or Discourse Hypothesis? Eleonora Alexandra Vraciu 153

9 High-Level Proficiency in Second Language Use: Morphosyntax and Discourse Inge Bartning 170

10 Ultimate Attainment and the Critical Period Hypothesis: Some Thorny Issues David Singleton 188

11 Language Origins, Learner Varieties and Creating Language Anew: How Acquisitional Studies Can Contribute to Language Evolution Research Sandra Benazzo 204

12 Multiple Perspectives on the Emergence and Development of Human Language: B. Comrie, C. Perdue and D. Slobin Ivani Fusellier-Souza 223

Part 2 L1 and L2 Acquisition: Learner Type Perspective

13 Child Language Study and Adult Language Acquisition: Twenty Years Later Dan I. Slobin 245

14 The Derivation of Mixed DPs: Mixing of Functional Categories in Bilingual Children and in Second Language Learners Nadine Eichler Natascha Müller 263

15 L1 or L2 Acquisition? Finiteness in Child Second Language Learners (cL2), Compared to Adult L2 Learners (aL2) and Young Bilingual Children (2L1) Suzanne Schlyter Anita Thomas 282

16 Young L2 and L1 Learners: More Alike than Different Rosemarie Tracy Vytautas Lemke 303

17 The Older the Better, or More is More: Language Acquisition in Childhood Christine Dimroth Stefanie Haberzettl 324

18 Additive Scope Particles and Anaphoric Linkage in Narrative and Descriptive Texts: A Developmental Study in French L1 and L2 Sandra Benazzo Clive Perdue Marzena Watorek 350

19 Discourse Cohesion in Narrative Texts: The Role of Additive Means in Italian L1 and L2 Patrizia Giuliano 375

20 The Role of Conceptual Development in the Acquisition of the Spatial Domain by L1 and L2 Learners of French, English and Polish Henriëtte Hendriks Marzena Watorek 401

21 The Grammaticalisation of Nominals in French L1 and L2: A Comparative Study of Child and Adult Acquisition Ewa Lenart 420

Part 3 Typological Variation and Language Acquisition

22 Typology Meets Second Language Acquisition Anna Giacalone Ramat 443

23 Linguistic Relativity: Another Turn of the Screw Rainer Dietrich Chung Shan Kao Werner Sommer 464

24 Paths in L2 Acquisition: The Expression of Temporality in Spatially Oriented Narration Annie-Claude Demagny 482

25 A Cross-Linguistic Study of Narratives with Special Attention to the Progressive: A Contrast between English, Spanish and Catalan Carmen Muñoz 502

26 Reference to Entities in Fictional Narratives of Russian/French Quasi-Bilinguals Tatiana Aleksandrova 520

27 The Cohesive Function of Word Order in L1 and L2 Italian: How VS Structures Mark Local and Global Coherence in the Discourse of Native Speakers and of Learners Cecilia Andorno 535

28 Macrostructural Principles and the Development of Narrative Competence in L1 German: The Role of Grammar (8-14-Year-Olds) Christiane von Stutterheim Ute Halm Mary Carroll 559

29 Online Sentence Processing in Children and Adults: General and Specific Constraints. A Crosslinguistic Study in Four Languages Michèle Kail 586

30 A Personal Tribute Sir John Lyons 613

Editorial Reviews

This well-edited collection of papers responds to the theoretical issues that concerned Clive Perdue throughout his productive career. The 29 chapters examine similarities and differences between monolinguals, childhood bilinguals, and adult and child learners of a second language. We see how learner productions are influenced by perceptual abilities, L1 transfer, and explicit learning as they operate across the lifespan, rather than some uniform expiration of a critical period.

Brian MacWhinney

In this volume, written by collaborators and friends of Clive Perdue, we find both familiar themes such as the expression of meaning in language, and unfamiliar ones such as the critical period, evolution, and signed language. Well-studied migrant workers provide data as do new populations (tutored learners, child L2ers, near native adult L2ers, bilinguals). What binds the contributions is a concern with simpler linguistic systems. A worthy tribute to Clive's intellectual legacy.

Susanne Carroll