I thought this article nicely summarized the different theories on L2 acquisition, their predictions, some of their evidence, and their flaws. It pointed out an interesting problem that it is difficult to collect evidence that is evan able to disambiguate the cause of those results, in other words the same data could be used to support several of the theories since they overlap so much. It is also difficult to even define what the beginning-state and end-state are for L2 learners. Some may have been exposed to their target L2 for a long time in informal settings, while others were only exposed later once they started formal study. And since different individuals seem to stop at different levels of competency, it is hard to say when an L2 learner has finished acquiring their L2. It is not like acquiring one’s L1, where everyone starts in the same place and eventually reaches fluency after about the same amount of time.
This article discussed the roles of transfer and access to UG in second language acquisition. It summarized the different theories (Full transfer/ Full Access, Partial transfer/ Full Access, Partial transfer/ Partial access, etc.) It then discussed how there was a lot of overlap in these theories, and how this provided difficulties in ultimately deciding when second language acquisition can be considered complete (“fossilization”), and how exactly a second language learner arrived at that point. I find it interesting that many of these theories come to a conclusion that most second language learners will never be as fluent in the language as a native speaker and that each second language learner picks up a different amount of the language then even someone else who started out with the same L1. I feel as though perhaps a key factor in how much of a new language someone can pick up has to do with their mentality towards learning it. If you are more enthusiastic about learning a new language, you will really try your best to learn to sound natural while speaking it, or if you are suddenly immersed in the language, you have to quickly pick it up in order to communicate with those around you.
I found the five perspectives on the L2 initial state to be very interesting. I was also intrigued by “fossilization,†and the experiments which showed that fluent speakers of L2 either achieved or failed to achieve native-like competence in all areas of the L2.
I definitely agree with Alyssa that motivation and desire play a key role in how quickly and/or efficiently a person learns a language. Additionally, individuals who are placed in an immersion setting in a country where the L2 is spoken will learn it quickly out of neccesccity.
There is an example of L1-based UG principle being active enough to constrain the acquisition of novel properties of the L2. It says about Japanese learners, but I could not get what a subject/object asymmetry clearly. If there is a specific example, it helps me a lot.
And, I also think that the environment and motivation have a big influence on L2 acquisition.
In “Second Language Acquisition: Initial to Final Stateâ€, White discusses the different theories on how access universal grammar and L1 transfer affect second language acquisition. The available research on the theories (full transfer and partial access; no transfer and full access; full transfer and full access; partial transfer and full access; partial transfer and partial access) is conflicting. I would like to evaluate each study in more detail before reaching a conclusion. In addition, different studies on the critical period offer support both for and against it. Johnson and Newport (1991) found native Chinese speakers’ performance declined on Subjacency violations as the age of acquisition increased. However, White and Juffs (1998) found native Chinese Speakers did not differ greatly from native English speakers on Subjacency violations. If the research does not uphold the critical period, it gives indisputable evidence for full access of UG. I think White’s paper shows how much work still needs to be done in the area.
Even though I was a proper Linguistics major for a period, I have never read anything by Chomsky, only heard his ideas reverently (or, alternatively, skeptically) mentioned in passing. Now, being in two classes that deal with Chomskyan ideas in a bit more detail, I’m kind of struck at what a magical-sounding thing Universal Grammar is. This article especially made me think of it as the Akashic Record of language. That aside, I enjoyed this article, particularly the nicely detailed section on L2 Intial States.
The article is covering acquisition of L2 and transfer and how they are related to UG. Although the contradictory theories on transfer were a bit overlapping, but I enjoyed reading the article. I would hope if there were some clear examples on the Parameter of Chomsky’s framework on syntax. However, the final state of L2 acquisition interested me wherein the study concludes that: L2 learners differ from each other in their ultimate attainment, even when one considers learners of the same mother tongue learning the same L2, which is correct in my view, when we see people from specific using Transfer when acquiring L2 than other group do who speak the same mother tongue! This may defend the opinion that UG is not always available to L2 learners during the course of acquisition. Also what stimulated me to search for is what is called in the study by “fossilization”, on why people “stop” acquiring their L2 at different points! This is somehow related to the other factor that “maturation”, and how UG might wither away at the end of some critical points. IN other words, how access to UG is subject to maturation. It’s true that correlation between performance and age of starting acquisition of L2, meaning that ultimate attainment for adults are different from children.
I thought this article was very clear in its characterization of current SLA theories. While these theories differ from one another (some more than others), they could be placed together on a continuum. Each describes a way of thinking about SLA in terms of transfer and access, processes which are not all that clear-cut and which are not entirely provable beyond a shadow of a doubt. The discussion of transfer and access combined, both full or partial, really showed the flexibility of language learning, taking up the question of just how flexible the language learner can be. Can he or she “reset parameters” of UG in acquiring a second language? Or will acquisition always be limited?
About near-native speaker competence, I found this section of the article the most interesting due to the fact that White generalizes this outcome as extreme as the L2 final state. She proceeds by providing an example of fossilization from a native speaker of Chinese first after 10 years of living in the USA and than compares it to 18 years later. There are so many other social aspects to consider in the attainment of the language, for example: Is this person completely immersed in the language everyday of his life? or Does this person have strong links to his community in the USA? Does this person only use the language for work? At what age did this person start learning English? Age is an important factor since White argues there’s a continuous decline in performance and UG is subject to maturation. It will be interesting to see more data on the performance of other adult L2 learners in a longitudinal study not just the one example from White.
After reading in this article about the various theories on the presence of absence of UG in transfer and interlanguage I found myself wondering if there were a possible secondary explanation for the decline with age in ability to fully acquire an L2. It seemed that there was quite a lot of evidence for UG in adult L2 learners, whether it be full access or just partial, the most convincing of which I found to be the incorporation of grammars outside of the learner’s L1 or the L2 they were acquiring. What is the explanation for this outside of UG access? My thought is that there may be other reasons in adults heightened difficulty in L2 acquisition. Language is not the only arena in which adults are comparatively slow or limited in their learning when compared to children. Children develop musical ability and athletic prowess with considerable more ease than their adult counterparts and if these skill sets are not begun before puberty there is less likely hood of mastery. I don’t think anyone has suggested that humans are wired for these sorts of skill sets and then access to them dissipates with age. I think there is just a special overall ability to learn and reach a mastery of certain kinds of knowledge while the mind and body are still developing. Perhaps UG is part of this overall potential. I’m just curious if this more broad perspective is ever examined in LA.
From my own experience learning and teaching language, I have to say that I believe transfer and access to UG does exist in L2 learners regardless of their age. I am leaning toward Full Transfer/Partial Access or Partial Transfer/Full Access. I’m really not sure which one is true though. Anyway, believing in transfer then raised questions in me including one mentioned in the article about differences between learners of different L1s, which means these theories about transfer are all relative to what L1 one learner is native speaker of. Previously, I also had a question about; if transfer does exist, then there are languages that are “better” than others, since we have positive and negative transfers, right? Languages are not made equal, but does that mean there are superior languages that are more advantageous for their native speakers?
For me, this article helped to clarify the relationship between UG and transfer. White highlighted the differences between the theories on their relationship and discussed the value of each of their interpretations. She brings up the point that L2 speakers are expected to produce sentences immediately, while children have years to figure out how to put together the pieces in order to figure out the works of their language. I thought that was interesting because that really emphasizes that UG is either partially or fully represented.
Defining the initial state of an L2 learner is a contentious issue because questions about the mechanisms they use and the potential of their achievement pertain to the notion of an interlanguage. White investigates whether interlanguages are governed by rule of UG. The nature of L1 transfer thus characterizes the discussion of much literature and attempts to paint a clearer picture of this initial state. White lays out several theories, some more plausible than others with regard to access to UG and full or partial transfer between L1 and L2. The idea that there is a critical period for L2 acquisition after which there is a decrease in the availability of UG is also suggested in literature on this subject. In any case, any theory that includes partial access seems to indicate that L2 speakers can never attain native-like fluency. I personally view this model like an asymptotic relationship: that over time the interlanguage increases in accuracy in terms of its approximation of the L2, however, it never quite reaches the same level. I think it is more important to look at the context of the L2 and its uses to determine whether or not native competence is achieved. Essentially, if it fulfills its social purpose, then it has achieved its goal. Qualifying the nature of learners’ interlanguages should therefore take into account wider discursive contexts.
I thought this article nicely summarized the different theories on L2 acquisition, their predictions, some of their evidence, and their flaws. It pointed out an interesting problem that it is difficult to collect evidence that is evan able to disambiguate the cause of those results, in other words the same data could be used to support several of the theories since they overlap so much. It is also difficult to even define what the beginning-state and end-state are for L2 learners. Some may have been exposed to their target L2 for a long time in informal settings, while others were only exposed later once they started formal study. And since different individuals seem to stop at different levels of competency, it is hard to say when an L2 learner has finished acquiring their L2. It is not like acquiring one’s L1, where everyone starts in the same place and eventually reaches fluency after about the same amount of time.
This article discussed the roles of transfer and access to UG in second language acquisition. It summarized the different theories (Full transfer/ Full Access, Partial transfer/ Full Access, Partial transfer/ Partial access, etc.) It then discussed how there was a lot of overlap in these theories, and how this provided difficulties in ultimately deciding when second language acquisition can be considered complete (“fossilization”), and how exactly a second language learner arrived at that point. I find it interesting that many of these theories come to a conclusion that most second language learners will never be as fluent in the language as a native speaker and that each second language learner picks up a different amount of the language then even someone else who started out with the same L1. I feel as though perhaps a key factor in how much of a new language someone can pick up has to do with their mentality towards learning it. If you are more enthusiastic about learning a new language, you will really try your best to learn to sound natural while speaking it, or if you are suddenly immersed in the language, you have to quickly pick it up in order to communicate with those around you.
I found the five perspectives on the L2 initial state to be very interesting. I was also intrigued by “fossilization,†and the experiments which showed that fluent speakers of L2 either achieved or failed to achieve native-like competence in all areas of the L2.
I definitely agree with Alyssa that motivation and desire play a key role in how quickly and/or efficiently a person learns a language. Additionally, individuals who are placed in an immersion setting in a country where the L2 is spoken will learn it quickly out of neccesccity.
There is an example of L1-based UG principle being active enough to constrain the acquisition of novel properties of the L2. It says about Japanese learners, but I could not get what a subject/object asymmetry clearly. If there is a specific example, it helps me a lot.
And, I also think that the environment and motivation have a big influence on L2 acquisition.
In “Second Language Acquisition: Initial to Final Stateâ€, White discusses the different theories on how access universal grammar and L1 transfer affect second language acquisition. The available research on the theories (full transfer and partial access; no transfer and full access; full transfer and full access; partial transfer and full access; partial transfer and partial access) is conflicting. I would like to evaluate each study in more detail before reaching a conclusion. In addition, different studies on the critical period offer support both for and against it. Johnson and Newport (1991) found native Chinese speakers’ performance declined on Subjacency violations as the age of acquisition increased. However, White and Juffs (1998) found native Chinese Speakers did not differ greatly from native English speakers on Subjacency violations. If the research does not uphold the critical period, it gives indisputable evidence for full access of UG. I think White’s paper shows how much work still needs to be done in the area.
Even though I was a proper Linguistics major for a period, I have never read anything by Chomsky, only heard his ideas reverently (or, alternatively, skeptically) mentioned in passing. Now, being in two classes that deal with Chomskyan ideas in a bit more detail, I’m kind of struck at what a magical-sounding thing Universal Grammar is. This article especially made me think of it as the Akashic Record of language. That aside, I enjoyed this article, particularly the nicely detailed section on L2 Intial States.
The article is covering acquisition of L2 and transfer and how they are related to UG. Although the contradictory theories on transfer were a bit overlapping, but I enjoyed reading the article. I would hope if there were some clear examples on the Parameter of Chomsky’s framework on syntax. However, the final state of L2 acquisition interested me wherein the study concludes that: L2 learners differ from each other in their ultimate attainment, even when one considers learners of the same mother tongue learning the same L2, which is correct in my view, when we see people from specific using Transfer when acquiring L2 than other group do who speak the same mother tongue! This may defend the opinion that UG is not always available to L2 learners during the course of acquisition. Also what stimulated me to search for is what is called in the study by “fossilization”, on why people “stop” acquiring their L2 at different points! This is somehow related to the other factor that “maturation”, and how UG might wither away at the end of some critical points. IN other words, how access to UG is subject to maturation. It’s true that correlation between performance and age of starting acquisition of L2, meaning that ultimate attainment for adults are different from children.
I thought this article was very clear in its characterization of current SLA theories. While these theories differ from one another (some more than others), they could be placed together on a continuum. Each describes a way of thinking about SLA in terms of transfer and access, processes which are not all that clear-cut and which are not entirely provable beyond a shadow of a doubt. The discussion of transfer and access combined, both full or partial, really showed the flexibility of language learning, taking up the question of just how flexible the language learner can be. Can he or she “reset parameters” of UG in acquiring a second language? Or will acquisition always be limited?
About near-native speaker competence, I found this section of the article the most interesting due to the fact that White generalizes this outcome as extreme as the L2 final state. She proceeds by providing an example of fossilization from a native speaker of Chinese first after 10 years of living in the USA and than compares it to 18 years later. There are so many other social aspects to consider in the attainment of the language, for example: Is this person completely immersed in the language everyday of his life? or Does this person have strong links to his community in the USA? Does this person only use the language for work? At what age did this person start learning English? Age is an important factor since White argues there’s a continuous decline in performance and UG is subject to maturation. It will be interesting to see more data on the performance of other adult L2 learners in a longitudinal study not just the one example from White.
After reading in this article about the various theories on the presence of absence of UG in transfer and interlanguage I found myself wondering if there were a possible secondary explanation for the decline with age in ability to fully acquire an L2. It seemed that there was quite a lot of evidence for UG in adult L2 learners, whether it be full access or just partial, the most convincing of which I found to be the incorporation of grammars outside of the learner’s L1 or the L2 they were acquiring. What is the explanation for this outside of UG access? My thought is that there may be other reasons in adults heightened difficulty in L2 acquisition. Language is not the only arena in which adults are comparatively slow or limited in their learning when compared to children. Children develop musical ability and athletic prowess with considerable more ease than their adult counterparts and if these skill sets are not begun before puberty there is less likely hood of mastery. I don’t think anyone has suggested that humans are wired for these sorts of skill sets and then access to them dissipates with age. I think there is just a special overall ability to learn and reach a mastery of certain kinds of knowledge while the mind and body are still developing. Perhaps UG is part of this overall potential. I’m just curious if this more broad perspective is ever examined in LA.
From my own experience learning and teaching language, I have to say that I believe transfer and access to UG does exist in L2 learners regardless of their age. I am leaning toward Full Transfer/Partial Access or Partial Transfer/Full Access. I’m really not sure which one is true though. Anyway, believing in transfer then raised questions in me including one mentioned in the article about differences between learners of different L1s, which means these theories about transfer are all relative to what L1 one learner is native speaker of. Previously, I also had a question about; if transfer does exist, then there are languages that are “better” than others, since we have positive and negative transfers, right? Languages are not made equal, but does that mean there are superior languages that are more advantageous for their native speakers?
For me, this article helped to clarify the relationship between UG and transfer. White highlighted the differences between the theories on their relationship and discussed the value of each of their interpretations. She brings up the point that L2 speakers are expected to produce sentences immediately, while children have years to figure out how to put together the pieces in order to figure out the works of their language. I thought that was interesting because that really emphasizes that UG is either partially or fully represented.
Defining the initial state of an L2 learner is a contentious issue because questions about the mechanisms they use and the potential of their achievement pertain to the notion of an interlanguage. White investigates whether interlanguages are governed by rule of UG. The nature of L1 transfer thus characterizes the discussion of much literature and attempts to paint a clearer picture of this initial state. White lays out several theories, some more plausible than others with regard to access to UG and full or partial transfer between L1 and L2. The idea that there is a critical period for L2 acquisition after which there is a decrease in the availability of UG is also suggested in literature on this subject. In any case, any theory that includes partial access seems to indicate that L2 speakers can never attain native-like fluency. I personally view this model like an asymptotic relationship: that over time the interlanguage increases in accuracy in terms of its approximation of the L2, however, it never quite reaches the same level. I think it is more important to look at the context of the L2 and its uses to determine whether or not native competence is achieved. Essentially, if it fulfills its social purpose, then it has achieved its goal. Qualifying the nature of learners’ interlanguages should therefore take into account wider discursive contexts.