L1 influence in the L2 acquisition of isiXhosa verb placement by English and Afrikaans adolescents
Date
2009
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University
Abstract
This paper reports on an investigation into the possibility of first language (L1) transfer in the initialstages of the second language (L2) acquisition of isiXhosa by adolescent L1 speakers of Afrikaans andEnglish, respectively. Four hypotheses about the initial state of L2 acquisition are (i) the Full Transferhypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996; White 1989, 2003), (ii) the Minimal Trees hypothesis(Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1994, 1996), (iii) the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax (Platzack 1996) and(iv) the No Transfer hypothesis (Clahsen and Muysken 1986). A study was conducted to test thedifferent predictions made by these hypotheses regarding verb placement by beginner learners ofisiXhosa; data were collected by means of both a sentence completion and a grammaticality judgementtask. It is argued that the results of the study are only compatible with the Full Transfer hypothesis.The implications of the results of this investigation for L2 teaching in a multilingual environment arealso briefly discussed.
Description
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za/pub
CITATION: Lombard, S., & Conradie, S. 2012. L1 influence in the L2 acquisition of isiXhosa verb placement by English and Afrikaans adolescents. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 38. https://doi.org/10.5842/38-0-59.
CITATION: Lombard, S., & Conradie, S. 2012. L1 influence in the L2 acquisition of isiXhosa verb placement by English and Afrikaans adolescents. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 38. https://doi.org/10.5842/38-0-59.
Keywords
second language acquisition
Citation
Lombard, S. & Conradie, S. 2009. L1 influence in the L2 acquisition of isiXhosa verb placement by English and Afrikaans adolescents. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS, 38, 167-181, doi: 10.5842/38-0-59.