Development in L2 phonology: Let’s take a long look at the age issue

Martha Young-Scholten

Fundamental issues in L2

acquisition are in part problems about time; claims about development are best interpreted within a full longitudinal perspective where light can also be shed on causes and effects regarding various phenomena (Ortega & Iberri-Shea 2005:26;30).

Fundamental issues in L2 phonology

‘Traditional’ issues The role of L1 knowledge The contribution of universals/developmental processes The learner’s age upon initial exposure(and peripheral issues such as aptitude, identity, anxiety)

Emerging issues Input The relationship of phonological development to other

components of language

Longitudinal studies In L2A, the aim is the tracking of L1 influence and

universal processes during development

Longitudinal studies allow observation of simultaneous development of phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon to look for causal relationships

Longitudinal data on the development of phonology by child L1ers, child L2ers and adult L2ers provides a developmental perspective on age (and follows current trends in the study of the acquisition of morphosyntax) But few longitudinal studies of the phonological

development of child L2 learners exist Even fewer such studies exist on adult L2 learners.

The rest of the talk

1. A bit more background 2. The modern history of the study of L2

morphosyntax 3. Development in phonology 4. Development in L2 phonology 5. Conclusion

1. A bit more background

From the mid-1980s (e.g. Clahsen & Muysken 1986) through the 1990s (e.g. Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994) and up to now (e.g. Meisel 2003) L2 morphosyntax researchers have paid (roughly) equal attention to the kind of knowledge acquired (mental representations) how this knowledge is acquired (its emergence, in stage-like

development)

If the same mechanisms are employed across the lifespan there should be no fundamental differences in learner’s mental

representations (e.g. no UG-violating grammars) there should be no differences in the developmental pathways

taken (apart from L1 influence) Much of this debate revolves around the production of verbal

morphology (non-finite vs. inflected forms) and the position in declarative and embedded clauses of these (main) verbs

Longitudinal studies of morphosyntax

Typically developing L1 children (including sign language learners)

Atypically developing L1 children Simultaneous bilingual children Child L2 learners (= the least number of

studies) Adult L2 learners

Studies have typically been of only one of these populations; multi-age studies such as Snow & Hoefnagel-Höhle (1982) and more recently Unsworth (2005) – both coincidentally on L2 Dutch – still represent a small minority

Longitudinal studies of phonology

Typically developing L1 children Bilingual children (simultaneous) Atypically developing L1 children Child L2 learners Adult L2 learners

In 39 years, 17 longitudinal L2 phonology have been carried out, mostly on segmental phonology, and mostly on English (Gut 2009)

L2 phonology models could be tested with such data (Best’s Perceptual Assimilation; Flege’s Speech Learning; Eckman’s Markedness/Structural Conformity; Major’s Ontogeny/Phylogeny; Archibald’s parameter resetting, Dziubalska-Kołaczyk’s Natural Phonology; Escudero & Boersma’s OT-based Functional Phonology)

IL phonology and age

L2 phonology is natural (Eckman 1981)

L2 adults’ phonologies are constrained by the same principles as younger learners’ phonologies (Young-Scholten 1996)

Many (all?) current L2 phonology models assume access to innate language-specific/phonology-specific mechanisms across the lifespan E.g. Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolenksy 1993)

assumes lifelong availability of a set of universal constraints; ranking differs across languages

Note: This puts L2 phonology at odds with L2 morphosyntax where debate regarding access to UG/use of same language-specific mechanisms across the lifespan is unrelenting (e.g. Bley-Vroman 2009).

IL phonology and age

To examine the critical/sensitive period for L2 phonology Look at end-state L2ers with differing ages of initial

exposure Include extralinguistic factors, e.g. length of residence

Less less attention has been paid to factors such as input quality (e.g. from non-native speakers), input type (orthographic exposure/literacy), identity, aptitude and motivation (this is changing; perhaps presumably peripheral factors are important)

If there is a CP for L2 phonology, when does it end? Pre-15 and post-15 year olds constitute two separate

populations (=the CP closes around age 15; Patkowski 1990)

The CP closes earlier, starting at age 6 (Long 1990)

IL phonology and age

On the one hand, we have plenty of evidence of use of the same mechanisms by younger and older learners

On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence of non-convergence on the target language phonology by older L2 learners

This paradox (if it is one) can best be resolved by more work in L2 phonology from a developmental perspective: Without longitudinal data ‘claims about acquisition

within an OT model are weak’ (Hancin-Bhatt 2008:142). Errors (as we’ve known for awhile) aren’t the only

measure of difficulty ‘rate of acquisition [...] is a more insightful measure of learning’ (Eckman 2008:101) – and best measured in a longitudinal study.

2. The modern history of the study of L2 morphosyntax

Studies of L2 learners in a naturalistic acquisition context initially dominated research on L2 morphosyntax (e.g. the ZISA project of adult Italian, Portuguese and Spanish learners of German) and through the 1990s (ESF project on 8 NLs/5 TLs) and currently continue to do so in the study of the L2A of information structure

Studying naturalistic learners removes one potentially crucial difference between older and younger L2 learners: instruction

L2 morphosyntax

Note: The sub-group of L2 syntax researchers currently approaching the UG access question by looking at poverty of the stimulus/PoS effects (where underlying structure is underdetermined by the input and not available from the L1), instructed L2 learners needn’t be excluded because PoS phenomena are not taught, because

Forms may not exist for teachers to focus on/correct when inaccurate

Lack of awareness by teachers of the latest generative analyses of syntax means that learners aren’t taught the underlying structure

Representative longitudinal studies of L2 morphosyntax by naturalistic (TL-immersed) adult learners (numerous such studies exist on L2 children, usually by PhD students)

Study L1 and L2 Subjects Duration

Cazden et al. 1970s

L1 Spanish/L2 English

2 children, 2 teenagers,2 adults

10 mnths

ZISA 1970s/80s

L1 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian/L2 German

12 adults 2 years

ESF 1980s 6 L1s/5 European L2s

40 adults 2 ½ years

VYSA 1990s

L1 English/L2 German

Three teenagers 1 year

What we know and don’t know What we know

Older learners demonstrate UG access, too (White 1989 and work since then on PoS effects up to the present)

Learners’ ILs develop in stages where both younger and older learners display similar non-target patterns

What we are unsure of The strength of influence of L1 knowledge (Schwartz &

Sprouse 1996 vs. Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1996; to appear)

The relationship between verbal morphology and syntax The source of non-target production in inflectional

morphology

Debated: The interpretation of variable production of inflectional morphology

During acquisition, there is tight coupling of morphology + syntax: acquisition of a given morpheme represents related syntactic structure Vainikka & Young-Scholten (1994): this holds in L1 and L2

acquisition Haznedar & Schwartz (1997): morphology + syntax are tightly

coupled in L1 acquisition but neither in child nor L2 acquisition Missing inflection is due to surface-level mapping problems

Prévost & White (2000): morphology + syntax are tightly coupled for L1 and L2 children, but not for L2 adults

Goad, White & Steele (2003): variable production of functional morphology is related to L1 transfer of prosodic licensing (past/agreement/plural suffixes in L1 Chinese/L2 English)

Oldenkamp (2010): variable production (in L2 Dutch) involves interaction of morphology and prosodic structure

What is the role of phonology in the L2 acquisition of morphosyntax?

How does the learner go from reception of a continous speech stream to construction of a mental grammar? This has been ‘one of the most under-researched and under-theorized aspects of second language acquisition’ (Carroll 2001:1) This is changing with experimental studies of the

phonological realization of grammatical morphemes in L2 acquisition (Frenck-Mestre, Foucart, Carrasco & Herschensohn 2009; see also Arteaga, Herschensohn & Gess 2003 for pedagogical applications thereof)

Hancin-Bhatt (2008:119): substantial empirical evidence for developmental effects in L2 phonology notwithstanding, there are still few theoretical analyses that provide an account of how these effects interact over time with each other how they interact with other components of language

 Adults w/noschoolSom;VN

Target-like segmental

and prosodic

phonology

Morphosyntax stage

1= bare VP; 4=CP

Phonological awareness %

correct

readinglevel4 =

decoding

onset; rime

phoneme

Phung 29% 1ii 51% 0% 1Nien 3% 1i 34% 17% 1Keif 69% 1ii 61% 8% 1Abba 56% 1ii 56% 17% 1Aliya 63% 1ii 37% 0% 1Shamey 54% 1i 20% 16% 1Asia 81% 1ii 36% 0% 2Sharif 71% 4 68% 42% 4

Naturalistic and uneducated adults: phonology + morphosyntax + phonological awareness + reading

(cross-sectional study, Young-Scholten & Strom 2006)

3. Development in L1 phonology A time-line of studies

Diary studiesLarge

sample studies

Longitudinal sampling

Preyer 1889 Late 1920s-1950s: groups of between 72 (Fisher 1934) and 430 (Templin 1957) children from 1;6 to 8;0 on their articulation, vocabulary, sentence length

Braine 1963: 3 children Stern 1907,1924

Miller & Ervin 1964: 5 children

Leopold 1939-1949

Brown 1973: 3 children

Grégoire 1937,1947

Bloom 1970 3 children

Gvozdev 1949 Others (usually one child) e.g. Velten 1943, Waterson 1971, Menn 1973, Smith 1973, Ingram 1974

Zarębina 1965

Shvachkin 1973 study of 19 Russian children’s perception of phonemic distinctions from 0;10 to 1;6 Solely on phonology: Smith (1973)…Fikkert (1994) ... Lleó & Prinz (1997)... Rose (2000)

4. Development in L2 phonology

Morphosyntax researchers’ recruitment of phonology to address the intractable problem of variation in production (and more; see below) This points to the need to conduct studies along the

lines of Snow & Hoefnagel-Höhle (but see below)

Do we know as much about L2 phonological development as we do about morphosyntactic development?

Do we know as much about L2 phonological development as we know about L1 phonological development?

Study Description Features investigated

Dickerson 1974

1 yr: 5 Japanese students’ English /r/ and /l/

Wode 1978 ½ yr: 4 German children’s English

phonology; morphology

Hecht & Mulford 1979

2/3 yr: 1 Icelandic child’s English fricatives

Snow&Hoefnagel- Höhle 1982

1 yr: 33 children’s, teenagers’, adults’ Dutch

phonology, morphology, vocabulary, syntax

Sato 1984 5/6 yr: 2 Vietnamese boys’ English

syllable structure

Rankin 1985 5 yrs: 32 Spanish university students’ English

segmental perception, production

Winitz et al. 1995

6 2/3 yrs: 1 Polish boy’s English . accent

Carlisle 1998 4 yrs: 4 Spanish students’ English syllable structure Abrahamsson 2003

1 2/3 yrs: 1 Chinese adult learner’s Swedish

syllable structure

Edwards 2006 5/6 yr: 2 Vietnamese adults’ English

syllable structure

Derwing et al. 2008

2 yrs: 32 Mandarin, Ukrainian, Russian adults’ English

fluency; comprehensibility

Oldenkamp 2010

1 -2 yrs: 24 Turkish, Arabic, Chinese adults’ Dutch

phonology; morphosyntax

A time-line of longitudinal L2 phonology studies

Gut (2009): a corpus study that can provide a foundation for longitudinal, comparison data

Large-sample synchronic corpus L2 German (n= 55) and L2 English (n=46) focusing on rhythm, stress and intonation German L2 learners’ initial exposure ranged from age

three to 33 and included both instruction and immersion Sample includes spontaneous speech, a reading

passage, nonsense word reading and interview Qs on exposure, motivation, attitude, musical and acting ability

Gut examined relationships between prosody, morphology and extra-linguistic factors

Findings The variation found is highly systematic Acquisition involves a set of mutually dependent factors Age is no barrier to acquisition of phonology

Phonology and vocabulary

In L1 acquisition, a vocabulary spurt coincides with acceleration of phonological development (Ingram 1976). This spurt may relate to variability in syllable structure

simplification processes: typically developing L1 children delete rather than epenthesize, but early talkers exhibit considerable epenthesis along with their larger vocabularies

In L2 acquisition epenthesis is the preferred syllable simplification strategy for older learners (Abrahamsson 2003; Weinberger 1987 )

Is there a comparable vocabulary spurt in (naturalistic) second language acquisition that coincides with phonological development?

Do older L2 learners resemble atypical L1 children?

One line of inquiry in L2 research on morphosyntax has involved asking whether L2 acquisition by older learners resembles that of atypically developing L1 children (most recently see Marinis to appear).

In L2 phonology, the question is whether developmental processes resemble that of the atypically developing children discussed for example in Ingram (1976) who either exhibited prolonged use of typically developing children’s processes or who followed unique processes.

The role of phonology in triggering morphosyntactic development

The VYSA longitudinal corpus

LEARNER

EXPOSURE to foreign languages

AGE at arrival in Germany

Joan 1 month of Spanish; no German

16

Paul 1 semester of French; no German

17

George 1 year of French; no German

15

Input and data collection in the VYSA study

Input For the first four weeks

From a German teacher and other American students during language + culture course

From learners’ initial host family During 11 subsequent months

From (native speaking) students in German secondary schools

From host families Data collection

11 times (monthly), with individual learners in Germany Broad and narrow morphosyntax and phonology tasks,

including grammaticality judgment, comprehension and translation

Informal conversation with the researcher about the learner’s unfolding exchange experience

Stage: highest syntactic projection Joan Paul George1i: VP (verb phrase) – no function words produced head-initial : Der Mann trinken der Kaffee.

1 1-2 1

1ii: VP switches to head-finalDie Madchen immer die Buch lesen.

3 3 3

2: FP/TP emerges and is head-initialIch gegessen der Apfel.

2-3 3-4 2-3

3: AgrP emerges and is head-initialIch wohnst there.

5 5-6 4

4i: CP emerges and is head-initialIch habe gewunst, dass du hast gefragt.

6-7 7-8 6-8

4ii: AgrP switches to head-final Willst du es wirklich wissen, was wir gemacht haben?

9 11 never

4iii: AgrP head-final throughout 11 never never

Joan, Paul and George’s acquisition of German syntax, from 3 wks after arrival (file 1) to ca. 12 months later (file 11)

Individual variation

Despite being the youngest, George made the least progress in his acquisition of syntax: we attribute this to his conscious learning of inflectional morphology (cf. Felix 1985 on competing cognitive structures)

George also made the least progress in acquiring final devoicing (see Young-Scholten 2004)

While Joan was best at morphosyntax, she Joan did not make the most progress in final devoicing (due to more orthographic exposure? (see Young-Scholten 2002)

How does this relate to the acquisition of morphosyntax? All (naturalistic) learners (subconsciously) scan the input for

cues or triggers that reveal how a given language operates

Projection

Trigger in child German

Trigger in adult L2 German

VP Stress pattern L1 bootstrappingFP 3rd sg. –t ModalsTP Participle affixes

(ge/-t)Auxiliary haben ‘have’

AgrP Agreement (2nd sg. –st)

Copula sein ‘be’

CP Object clitics (-s/-n)

Complementizers

Phonological and morphological triggers for the acquisition of syntactic structure in German

George consciously

learned these two

paradigms.

Detecting triggers

For us, triggers are among the morphological (verbal) elements which start to become productive in a learner’s speech before s/he posits new functional projections

They are robust (but does this equate to salience?) in the input

Longitudinal data required for examining such causal effects: morphosyntactic and phonological data

The VYSA have been orthographically transcribed

They have not yet been phonetically transcribed

When the data are phonetically transcribed, they can be donated to PHON

PHON: MacWhinney & Rose’s CHILDES-inspired data management tools for contribution of data to PhonBank. PhonBank: overwhelmingly covers L1 phonology What’s the ideal longitudinal L2A study for PhonBank?

Ortega & Iberri-Shea (2005) emphasize the need to gain a sufficiently lengthy picture in order to observe development

Expected time-scale for emergence of investigated phenomenon/a determines study length/session frequency

Although the boy in Winitz et al.’s study was tracked for 62/3 years, native production was attained after 1 year…

Emergence varies: re-examine cross-sectional data, including the details of participants’ input quantity and quality

Data from longitudinal studies not on phonology

Data collected for morphosyntactic analysis have been only orthographically transcribed

PHON only requires phonetically transcribed data, so recordings needn’t be of quality required for acoustic analysis

If state-of-the-art recording equipment (including analogue) has been used to enable transcription of TL- and non-TL-like inflectional morphology

And the usual care has been taken when recording And if storage of recordings has been careful --- and it has

been for the VYSA data --- then such data can be phonetically transcribed and analyzed to shed light on phonological development from the initial state onwards and on the role of phonology in triggering morphosyntactic development.