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L2 children do not fluctuate

Production and on-line processing of indefinite articles in Turkish-speaking child learners of English
  • Vasiliki (Vicky) Chondrogianni and Theodoros Marinis
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The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood
This chapter is in the book The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood

Abstract

In this study, we examined whether Turkish-speaking child L2 learners of English omitted or substituted indefinite articles in a production task that comprised a referential specific and a non-referential predicational semantic context. We also examined the source of children’s errors using a self-paced listening task where children heard grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with indefinite articles present or omitted. L2 children’s performance was compared with that of an age-matched English-speaking L1 group and a younger L1 group. Results showed that all groups distinguished between the two semantic contexts in both tasks. Although children primarily omitted articles, in the on-line processing task, all groups detected the ungrammaticality related to article omission. We interpret these results within the Missing Surface Inflection and Feature Reassembly hypotheses.

Abstract

In this study, we examined whether Turkish-speaking child L2 learners of English omitted or substituted indefinite articles in a production task that comprised a referential specific and a non-referential predicational semantic context. We also examined the source of children’s errors using a self-paced listening task where children heard grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with indefinite articles present or omitted. L2 children’s performance was compared with that of an age-matched English-speaking L1 group and a younger L1 group. Results showed that all groups distinguished between the two semantic contexts in both tasks. Although children primarily omitted articles, in the on-line processing task, all groups detected the ungrammaticality related to article omission. We interpret these results within the Missing Surface Inflection and Feature Reassembly hypotheses.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Acquisition/processing of morphology, syntax and semantics
  5. Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony 29
  6. Turkish children’s early vocabulary 57
  7. Acquisition of canonical and non-canonical word orders in L1 Turkish 79
  8. What does online parsing in Turkish-speaking children reveal about grammar? 99
  9. Acquisition of scope relations by Turkish-English bilingual children 119
  10. Part II. Discourse
  11. Children’s referential choices in Turkish 153
  12. Learning to think, talk, and gesture about motion in language-specific ways 177
  13. Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages 193
  14. Part III. Literacy development
  15. Integrating cognitive and sociocultural aspects of reading in Turkish 223
  16. Phonological awareness in reading acquisition 243
  17. Part IV. Typical vs. Atypical development in monolingual and bilingual Turkish-speaking children
  18. Vocabulary and grammar acquisition in Turkish as assessed by the Turkish communicative development inventory 275
  19. Language impairment in Turkish-speaking children 295
  20. Language development in Turkish-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders 325
  21. Verbal functional categories in the speech of a Turkish speaking child with autism 341
  22. L2 children do not fluctuate 361
  23. Second language exposure in the preschool 389
  24. Index 413
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.20.16cho

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Acquisition/processing of morphology, syntax and semantics
  5. Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony 29
  6. Turkish children’s early vocabulary 57
  7. Acquisition of canonical and non-canonical word orders in L1 Turkish 79
  8. What does online parsing in Turkish-speaking children reveal about grammar? 99
  9. Acquisition of scope relations by Turkish-English bilingual children 119
  10. Part II. Discourse
  11. Children’s referential choices in Turkish 153
  12. Learning to think, talk, and gesture about motion in language-specific ways 177
  13. Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages 193
  14. Part III. Literacy development
  15. Integrating cognitive and sociocultural aspects of reading in Turkish 223
  16. Phonological awareness in reading acquisition 243
  17. Part IV. Typical vs. Atypical development in monolingual and bilingual Turkish-speaking children
  18. Vocabulary and grammar acquisition in Turkish as assessed by the Turkish communicative development inventory 275
  19. Language impairment in Turkish-speaking children 295
  20. Language development in Turkish-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders 325
  21. Verbal functional categories in the speech of a Turkish speaking child with autism 341
  22. L2 children do not fluctuate 361
  23. Second language exposure in the preschool 389
  24. Index 413
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