Doctoral Dissertation Research: Native Language Transfer and Second Language Acquisition

本研究在生成式二语习得的理论框架下，对学习者在二语习得中的母语迁移进行了实验研究。研究的重点是法语的代词特征，这些特征在理论相关方面与英语代词系统的实例有所不同，但与西班牙语的代词特征相似。为了测试迁移的效果和特征重组的额外困难，包括英语和西班牙语的L2法语的L1学习者（除了法语母语者），并将在两个实验任务中进行测试，一个是离线的，一个是在线的。这项研究针对的是语言教师每天在课堂上遇到的具体困难。因此，它将有利于社会，因为它将使语言教育者能够更好地理解学习过程，并根据学习者的需要创建适应的课程，以直接的方式针对具体问题。重读代词的习得，尤其是其语义解释，是一门新语言发展过程中的一个难点，只有通过系统的、有理论基础的研究，我们才能增加和提高我们对这一过程如何演变的认识。该项目将增加我们对中介语语法的发展和非母语人士习得第二语言时新语言表征的创造的理解。它结合了理论语言学、第二语言研究和心理语言学的元素，使这三个子领域能够相互交流，并在后来为语言教育学和教师教育等其他领域提供信息。所研究的语言现象，特别是本研究中提出的词汇项目和语义特征的结合，是检验和推进当前非常突出的二语习得假设：特征重组假设（FRH）的理想领域。本研究调查了母语为英语和西班牙语的人对法语第三人称代词的二语习得情况。FRH指出，特征包是从L1转移到L2的，母语和目标语言中可用特征的不匹配可能会成为L2学习者的困难来源。由于西班牙语和法语的宾语代词系统在词汇特征编码方面几乎相同，而英语代词系统则有很大的不同，因此预计母语英语和母语西班牙语的法语学习者会表现出不同的错误模式。本研究着重研究了英语与法语、西班牙语中不存在的强烈代词与修辞代词区别的习得，以及[Human]特征的作用，这是英语代词特征构成的一部分，而法语和西班牙语中没有。同样，法语和西班牙语的代词中也有性别的语法区分，但英语中没有，英语中性别的区分是语义上的（生物性别）。这种比较允许对转移、特征重组和输入显著性进行评估。与该领域的许多工作不同，该项目寻求理论和应用知识的结合，通过考虑学习者？内部表示以及输入和指令。

The proposed study consists of an experimental investigation of transfer from a learner's first language (L1) in the acquisition of a second language (L2), couched within the theoretical framework of generative second language acquisition. The focus of the investigation is on pronominal features in French, which differ in theoretically relevant ways from those instantiated in the English pronominal system, but are similar to those in Spanish. In order to test effects of transfer and the additional difficulties of feature reassembly, both English- and Spanish-speaking L1 learners of L2 French are included (in addition to French native speakers), and will be tested on two experimental tasks, one offline and one online. The study addresses specific difficulties that language teachers encounter in class every day. Thus it will benefit society because it will allow language educators to better understand the learning process and target specific problems in a direct way, by creating an adapted curriculum according to the learners' needs. The acquisition of clitic and strong pronouns, and particularly their semantic interpretation, is a difficult aspect in the development of a new language, and only through a systematic and theoretically founded investigation can we increase and advance our knowledge about how this process evolves. The proposed project will increase our understanding of the development of interlanguage grammars and the creation of new linguistic representations when non-native speakers acquire a second language. It combines elements of theoretical linguistics, L2 research and psycholinguistics in a way that the three subfields can inform each other and later inform other fields such as language pedagogy and teacher education. The linguistic phenomenon under investigation, particularly the combination of lexical items and semantic features proposed in this study, is the ideal area to test and advance the currently very prominent SLA hypothesis: the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH). The study investigates L2 acquisition of French 3rd person pronouns by L1 speakers of English and of Spanish. The FRH states that feature bundles are transferred from L1 to L2, and mismatch in the available features in the native and target language will likely be a source of difficulty for L2 learners. Because the object pronominal system of Spanish and French is almost identical in terms of lexical feature encoding, but the system of English pronouns is vastly different, L1 English and L1 Spanish learners of French are predicted to show different patterns of errors. The study focuses on the acquisition of the strong pronoun vs. clitic pronoun distinction, which English doesn't have, but French and Spanish do, and on the role of the feature [Human], which is part of the feature composition of English pronoun but not those of French or Spanish. Similarly, there is a grammatical distinction of gender encoded on the pronouns of French and Spanish, but not in English, where the distinction of gender is semantic (biological gender). This comparison allows for the evaluation of transfer, feature reassembly and input salience. Unlike much work on the area, the project seeks combined theoretical and applied knowledge gains, by considering both the question of learners? internal representations as well as input and instruction.