L2 learners and heritage speakers: Exploring some differences and similarities
Silvina MontrulDepartment of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Acknowledgements
• University of Illinois Campus Research Board Award (2000)
• Beckman Award from the Research Board (2004-2005)
• The Center for Advanced Studies
(Spring 2005)
Assistants and collaborators
Graduate Students Undergraduate Students
Mónica de Pedro Justin SánchezMarisa Martínez Mira Beth EmodyRebecca PhillipsDan ThornhillSilvia PerpiñánSusana VidalCeleste Rodríguez Louro
My Research
SLA and Bilingualism
Adult L2 acquisition L1 loss in bilinguals
My Guiding Assumption
Second language and bilingual grammars are another source of linguistic facts relevant to a theory of language, rather than peculiar or deviant behavior manifested in bilingual speech.
Goals 1. To uncover the systematic structural
(grammatical) properties of learner language at different stages of interlanguage development.
2. To explain how and why developing and stable interlanguage grammars look the way they do, and differ from those of adult monolingual speakers and children acquiring their L1.
PsycholinguisticsSociolinguistics
Monolingual and bilingualL1 acquisition
SLA Theory and Bilingualism
Theoretical Linguistics(generative
syntactic theory)
Grammatical Analysis of Interlanguage and
Bilingual Systems
Languages
• Spanish (mainly)• English• French• Turkish• Korean (with Ji-Hye Kim and James Yoon)• Chinese (with Zhijun Wang)
Some Research Questions• Linguistic nature of interlanguage and bilingual
grammars• The role of the “other” language in the L2
acquisition and L1 loss of a language• Differential outcomes in adult L2 acquisition
and bilingualism (success and fossilization)• Linguistic selectivity of language acquisition
and loss• Differences and similarities between the
linguistic processes attested in L2 acquisition and other instances of language change (bilingual acquisition, diachronic change, Creole genesis)
An example of my recent work
Systematic comparison between L2 learners who are acquiring Spanish as an L2 with Spanish heritage speakers, who are re-acquiring Spanish in a language class.
L2 learners (sequential or late bilinguals)
Adult learners who started learning the L2 after puberty (i.e., after critical period).
Instance of language acquisition
Heritage speakers (simultaneous or early bilinguals)
Adults who as children were exposed to two languages from birth--the family language and the community language--and who may be more dominant in the community language.
Instance of incomplete acquisition/loss
L1 Attrition The L1 is already in place.
Individual usually received some schooling in his L1.
Erosion or loss occurs as a result of L1 disuse and intense contact with an L2, typically after the critical period.
e.g. 1st generation adult immigrants
Incomplete acquisition
Individual was exposed to 2 languages simultaneously or near simultaneously in early childhood, but the community language is presently stronger than the heritage language.
The heritage language is weaker either because it was not acquired completely, or because some aspects were lost (before a critical period) (Silva Corvalán 2003; Vihman & MacLaughlin, 1982).
e.g. 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants
General Research Questions
Does incomplete acquisition (before puberty) resemble a particular stage of second language acquisition (after puberty)?
Do heritage speakers have an advantage over L2 learners?
Factors in Common• Potential effect of another L (1 or 2,
majority language) (Pavlenko 2002, Köpke 2002)
• Potential effect of universal linguistic mechanisms
• Potential effect of reduced input (exposure to L1 or L2)
• Frequency and degree of use of L1 and L2 (Köpke 2002)
Factors which differ
• Age of onset of bilingualism• Nature and timing of input• Experience with explicit instruction• Literacy
Montrul (forthcoming in 2005)
Second Language Research 21, 3
The Unaccusative Hypothesis Intransitive verbs are broadly classified into
unergatives and unaccusatives, depending on the syntactic characteristics of the subject (Perlmutter 1978).
For some linguists this difference is purely semantic (Dowty 1991, Van Valin 1990); for others the distinction is syntactic (Burzio 1986, Rosen 1984).
The unaccusative/unergative distinction is universal, but languages vary as to the syntactic reflexes of unaccusativity.
Examples(1) a. John walked.
unergative
b. [John [VP walked ]]
(2) a. John arrived. unaccusative
b. [ e [ VP arrived John]]
c. [Johni [VP arrived ti]]
Why Unaccusativity?1. Important body of existing research on
L1 acquisition of Dutch, English, Romance, Russian, etc.
2. Important body of existing research in L2 acquisition of different languages.
For some linguists, this distinction is an example of the poverty of the stimulus problem (Van Hout 1996; Snyder, Hyams &
Crisma 1995; Hirakawa 2001)
Tests for unaccusativity in Spanish
A. Preverbal and Postverbal Subjects (Contreras, 1978)
unaccusativeJuan llegó./ Llegó Juan (preferred).
Juan arrived/arrived Juan‘Juan arrived.’
unergative Juan habló (preferred)./Habló Juan.
Juan spoke/spoke Juan‘Juan spoke.’
B. Absolutive Constructions (de Miguel 1992)
unaccusative-telic Caídas las piedras del cielo, los geólogos comenzaron a
investigarlas. fallen the stones from the sky, the geologists began to
investigate themunaccusative-atelic *Existidos los dinosaurios, el planeta estaba poblado. existed the dinosaurs, the planet was populatedunergative *Hablados los turistas, se fueron de paseo al centro.
Spoken the tourists, they went for a stroll downtown
C. Bare Plurals as Postverbal Subjects (Torrego 1989, cf. Aranovich 2000)
Unaccusative
Salieron marineros del puerto.
left sailors of the port
Unergative
*Caminaron mujeres por la calle.
walked women along the street
D. Passives
Unaccusatives
*Los marineros fueron llegados al puerto.
*‘The sailors were arrived to the port’
Unergatives
*Los niños fueron cantados en el coro.
*‘The children were sung in the choir.’
Sorace (2000)• Many verbs (arrive, talk) display consistent
unaccusative and unergative behavior within and across languages.
• Yet, other verbs (run, decay) show variable syntactic behavior depending on aspectual elements in the sentences in which they appear.
• There is a semantic hierarchy of unaccusative and unergative verbs, with some verbs being ‘more’ unaccusative or unergative than others, depending on their lexical meaning.
Unaccusativity Hierarchy
Most unaccusativechange of location
change of statecontinuation of a pre-existing
stateexistence of state
uncontrolled processcontrolled process (motional)
controlled process (non-motional)Most unergative
L2 Acquisition of Unaccusativity
Intermediate and quite advanced L2 learners have persistent problems with unaccusative verbs in English, Japanese, Italian, French and Chinese.
Some errors attested in English:
passive unaccusatives
causativized (transitive) unaccusatives
avoidance of S-V order with unaccusatives
Unaccusativity in Spanish
Experiment 1: Late bilinguals or L2
learners
Specific Research Questions
1. Do English-speaking adult L2 learners of Spanish know about the syntactic distinction between unaccusative and unergative verbs in Spanish?
2. Does the semantic hierarchy proposed by Sorace play a role in the acquisition of these verbs in Spanish?
Hypothesis 1
If learners do not distinguish between unaccusative and unergative verbs, then they should treat all verbs alike in the relevant constructions.
Hypothesis 2If learners analyze unaccusatives as having
underlying objects, they should:
a. incorrectly accept passive unaccusatives but not passive unergatives (if passive is taken as overt marking of NP movement);
b. prefer unaccusatives with postverbal rather than with preverbal subjects, and
c. correctly accept unaccusatives with bare plurals and in participial absolute constructions.
Hypothesis 3
If L2 learners are sensitive to the semantics of unaccusativity, and even if they show robust knowledge of the syntactic reflexes of the distinction, we expect to see variability in judgments with less core and peripheral unaccusative and unergative verbs rather than with the core classes.
Participants
28 Spanish monolingual native speakers
71 L2 English-speaking learners of Spanish
25 advanced
21 intermediate
25 low-intermediate
Tasks
1. Proficiency Test (parts of DELE)
2. Vocabulary Translation Task (Pre-test)
3. Acceptability Judgment Task
18 verbs (9 unaccusative, 9 unergative)
divided into 3 subclasses each
UnaccusativesMost unaccusative Less unaccusative
core less core periphery
change of location
change of state existence of state
llegar ‘arrive’ morir ‘die’ existir ‘exist’
salir ‘leave’ desaparecer ‘disappear’ quedar ‘remain’
caer ‘fall’ surgir ‘emerge’ faltar ‘lack’
UnergativesLess unergative Most unergative
Periphery less core core
uncontrolled process
controlled process
(motional)
controlled process
(non-motional)
temblar ‘shiver’ correr ‘run’ hablar ‘talk’
bostezar ‘yawn’ caminar ‘walk’ cantar ‘sing’
transpirar ‘sweat’ nadar ‘swim’ trabajar ‘work’
Structures Testeda. Preverbal and post-verbal subjects
(grammatical)b. Passive constructions (*ungrammatical)c. Postverbal bare plural NPs (grammatical for
unaccusative but *ungrammatical for unergatives)
d. Participial absolute construction (grammatical with telic unaccusatives but *ungrammatical with unergatives).
Total of 90 sentences (45 gram., 45 ungram.)
Examples from test
1. El tren salió a las 3.
incorrect somewhat incorrect maybe somewhat correct correct
1 2 3 4 5
2. Nadaron Pedro y Mónica en la piscina. 1 2 3 4 5
Results
Proficiency Scores (max 50)
Native speakers
(n = 28)
L2 Learners
(n = 71)
Adv.
(n = 25)
Interm.
(n = 21)
Low
(n =25)
mean 49 *46.08 *31.9 *18.16
range 45-50 40-50 25-39 12-24
sd 1.30 3.04 5.14 3.74
Figure 1. Monolingual native speakers (n = 28). Mean acceptability judgments.
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Figure 2. Low intermediate learners (n = 25). Mean acceptability judgments.
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Figure 3. Intermediate learners (n =21). Mean acceptability judgments.
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Figure 4. Advanced learners (n = 25). Mean acceptability judgments.
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Summary
Support for hypothesis 1:
The less proficient learners did not distinguish between unaccusatives and unergatives in the bare plural NP and participial absolute construction, BUT also incorrectly accepted passive unaccusatives and unergatives more than the other groups.
They don’t seem to discriminate between verbs or constructions.
Support for Hypothesis 2:
The intermediate learners discriminated between unaccusatives and unergatives with most constructions, but also incorrectly accepted passives with the two classes. Overall, the advanced learners performed like the native speakers.
Are L2 learners sensitive to semantic subclasses of unaccusative and
unergative verbs?
Low-intermediate learners in general do not discriminate semantically among different classes of unaccusative and unergative verbs.
Like the native speakers, the advanced learners discriminated semantically among different verbs.
Intermediate level learners also show effects by verb class in some constructions.
Variability in accordance with Sorace’s hierarchy.
Sensitivity to semantic and syntactic properties of intransitive verbs begins to emerge in the intermediate group.
Results of advanced group suggest that L2 learners eventually acquire the syntax of unaccusativity.
Advanced L2 learners were different from the native speakers in the absolutive construction. (They had lower ratings for the telic unaccusative classes).
Experiment 2: Early Bilinguals or Heritage
Speakers
Research Questions
Can incomplete acquisition affect knowledge of lexical semantics?
If it does, does it affect knowledge of the syntactic or semantic reflexes of unaccusativity?
HypothesesIf incomplete acquisition resembles
intermediate or advanced stages of L2 acquisition, then:
Heritage speakers are expected to have robust knowledge of the syntax of unaccusativity but show variable judgments with the semantics of unaccusativity.
In particular, less core and peripheral unaccusatives and unergatives should show more variable/indeterminate ratings than core unaccusative and unergative verbs.
Participants and Tests36 adult Spanish heritage speakers
(Mexican-Americans) enrolled in intermediate and advanced Spanish language and literature classes
28 monolingual Spanish native speakers
Proficiency Test
Vocabulary Translation Task (Pre-test)
Acceptability Judgment Task
Some Characteristics of HS• Little or no early schooling in Spanish• Spanish spoken in early childhood at home
as a first language or in conjunction with English
• Rapid shift from Spanish to English occurred before adolescence
• Subsequent use of Spanish is confined to conversations with a few relatives
• Self-rated proficiency in Spanish from 3-5 in a 5-point scale (mean 4.01)
RESULTS
Proficiency Test
ANOVA: F(1,61) = 31.575, p < 0.0001
Monolinguals Heritage Speakers
mean 49 *39.85
sd 1.30 8.89
range 45-50 16-50
HS’s Proficiency Distribution
5
0
8
15
8
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
0-20 20-30 30-39 40-45 45-50
Monolinguals
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Heritage Speakers (n =31)
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstruction
Bare Plurals Passive
Unaccusative
Unergative
Low Proficiency HSs (n = 5)
1
2
3
4
5
PreverbalSubject
PostverbalSubject
AbsolutiveConstructions
Bare Plurals Passives
unaccusative
unergative
Advanced and intermediate HS showed similar pattern of responses as advanced and intermediate L2 learners: They distinguished syntactically between unaccusative and unergative verbs in the relevant constructions.
Low-level HS also discriminated syntactically between the verbs, unlike the low proficiency L2 learners.
Verb Classes by Proficiency
• All groups, included the lower proficiency group, discriminated semantically between different subclasses.
• Peripheral verbs (unaccusatives of existence and uncontrolled process unergatives) received the most variable ratings, in accordance with the unaccusativity hierarchy.
Summary
• Syntactic knowledge of unaccusativity is quite robust in Spanish heritage speakers.
• However, and in absolute terms,
heritage speakers are still different from monolinguals with the absolutive constructions in Spanish.
Like intermediate and advanced L2 learners, heritage speakers accepted more ungrammatical passive unaccusatives and unergatives than monolingual native speakers.
A crucial difference between L2 learners and heritage speakers emerged at the lowest proficiency levels:
While heritage speakers discriminated syntactically and semantically between unaccusative and unergative verbs, the L2 learners did not.
Conclusions
1. Language specific properties of unaccusativity are learned without L2 learners ever receiving explicit instruction, and there is a clear developmental path.
2. There are important similarities between intermediate and advanced stages of L2 acquisition and incomplete acquisition in the types of errors made and in the degree of ultimate attainment at the advanced level.
3. The weaker grammar of a bilingual resembles intermediate or advanced stages of second language acquisition (Schlyter 1993).
4. Advanced early and late bilinguals can attain similar levels of linguistic competence in some grammatical domains regardless of Critical Period (Montrul 2002).
But, low proficiency heritage speakers are superior to L2 learners, at least in terms of “subtle” unconscious linguistic knowledge not available to metalinguistic awareness.
Current work
2 possibilities:
1. Proficiency test not be suitable for HS. (It may underestimate their actual proficiency.)
2. HS have a linguistic advantage due to their linguistic past (i.e., critical period)
1. Proficiency Test
In Montrul (2005), I found that the results of the same proficiency test administered to 16 HS was highly correlated (r2 .85) with the scores of a morphological recognition task testing the difference between indicative and subjunctive verbs.
02
46
810
1214
1618
20
0 10 20 30 40 50
Morphological Recognition Task
Pro
fici
ency
Sco
res
Montrul, Perpiñán, Phillips, Thornhill and Vidal (in progress)
We are currently investigating whether proficiency scores on the DELE are also predictable from patterns of language use throughout the lifespan and whether they are also comparable to proficiency self-ratings in different skills.
2. Linguistic advantage due to early input
Montrul (2004) and Montrul and Rodríguez Louro (2004) looked at the expression of subjects in L2 learners and heritage speakers in an oral retelling task.
The Null Subject Parameter
• Spanish is a pro-drop language, whereas English is a non-pro-drop language.
• Spanish has rich agreement inflection.• Spanish has preverbal and postverbal
subjects• In Spanish, null and overt subjects are
possible, but their distribution is governed by pragmatic constraints.
Participants
Montrul (2004): 14 advanced HS
10 intermediate HS
Montrul and Rodriguez Louro (2004):
13 advanced L2 learners
16 intermediate L2 learners
% Correct Subject-Verb Agreement
80828486889092949698
100
L2 HS L2 HS
Monolinguals Advanced Intermediate
% Null and Overt Subjects
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
L2 HS L2 HS
Monolinguals Advanced Intermediate
overt
null
% Preverbal and Postverbal Subjects
0102030405060708090
100
L2 HS L2 HS
Monolinguals Advanced Intermediate
postverbal
preverbal
% Discourse-Pragmatic Errors
0
5
10
15
20
25
L2 HS L2 HS
Monolinguals Advanced Intermediate
illicit null subject
redundant overt subject
Conclusions
• The morphosyntactic aspects of the Null Subject Parameter and the unaccusative-unergative distinction are acquired very early in childhood in monolingual Spanish children (before age 4) (See Montrul 2004, chapters 4 and 6)
• HS received Spanish input in early childhood and parameters were set very early.
• Once set, these aspects of syntax are not lost.
• L2 learners are still in the process of resetting parameters.
• HS differ from monolinguals (i.e., incomplete knowledge) in interface areas: syntax-pragmatics and semantics (aspects of verb meaning).
• These areas of grammar are learned after age 4 and are dependent upon rich input and probably literacy skills (especially the discourse-pragmatic distribution of null and overt subjects)
• My results corroborate and complement results of a study by Au, Knightly, Jun and Oh (2002) on the advantages of receiving input in a language early in childhood.
• According to Au and collaborators, Heritage Spanish overhearers are superior than very beginning L2 learners in phonology, but not in morphology and syntax.
My results suggest that lower proficiency heritage speakers are also superior to their L2 counterparts in aspects of morphosyntax and lexical-semantics.
But this conclusion deserves further research, since I had few subjects.
CAS Fellowship
Are low-intermediateheritage speakers
linguistically superior to L2 learners of the
same proficiency level?
Phonology
VOTOverall accent
(1 test)
Syntax-semantics
Tense-AspectSubjunctive
(6 tests)
Morpho-syntax
Gender agreementObject cliticsWord order
(6 tests)
Lexicon
Lexical retrieval and access by category:verbs, nouns, adjectives
(2 tests)
Proficiency TestSociolinguistic
interview
Implications• The notion of incompleteness as a
pervasive and peculiar feature of SLA (Bley-Vroman’s 1990 Fundamental Difference Hypothesis).
• Critical Period Hypothesis or Age effects• The role of input in language development
and underdevelopment• The role of literacy and language use• The nature of bilingual grammars and the
instability of language dominance along the lifespan (Kohnert et al., 1999)
• Instructional interventions in Heritage language programs.
Final Words• Generative approaches to L2 acquisition have
been often criticized for not having pedagogical implications.
• Linguistic theory applied to L2 acquisition and adult early bilinguals is a crucial tool for constructing linguistic instruments to identify systematic and measurable differences and similarities between these two bilingual populations.
• Once we know what type of linguistic knowledge HS and L2 learners have or lack, practitioners will be in a better position to address their linguistic and pedagogical needs, especially when they find themselves in the same L2 class.
Thank You Very Much!