4.4 ILs are influenced by the learner's L1
4.4.1 The effect of the L1 on SLA: how
In an early review article of studies of this sort, Zobl (1982) identified two patterns of L1 influence on SLA. These were (1) the pace at which a developmental sequence is traversed, and (2) the number of developmental structures in such sequences. Zobl noted that a learner's LI can inhibit and/or accelerate passage through a developmental sequence, although apparendy not alter the sequence itself, except
Main clause WO Simple verb Aux. verb
Dutch/German svo SOV
Turkish SOV SOV
Arabic VSO SVO
TABLE 4.3Word Order in Source and Target Languages by occasionally adding a different initial starting structure.
Where an L1 form is similar to a developmental one, this can make the learner persist with the developmental form longer than learners without such a form in their L1, and can also extend the structural domain of the immature form (Zobl 1980a, 1980b, 1983a; Schumann 1982). Thus, Zobl maintains that (pre-verbal LI negation) Spanish-speakers' initial No FESL negation rule is the result of the developmental creative construction process, as with speakers of other languages without a No V construction in their LI, but that both the Spanish-speakers' protracted use of the construction compared, say, with (post-verbal negation LI) Japanese speakers (Gillis and Weber 1976), and also their extension of the rule to modal and copular verbs, are due to the convergence of the LI and developmental structure. Similar generalizations are captured in Kellerman's (1984) 'reasonable entity principle' and in Andersen's (1983b) 'transfer to somewhere principle', which holds that transfer operates in tandem with natural developmental principles in determining the way ILs progress.
Another example Zobl (1982) provides of congruence causing a delay in traversing a developmental sequence concerns the persistence of verb-final word order in the learning of Dutch and German (see Table 4.3). Zobl notes, first, that in a study of the development of Dutch SL word order by Turkish and Moroccan migrant workers in Holland, Jansen, Lalleman and Muyksen (1981) found that, while the Turks used many more verb-final structures in their early Dutch ILs, as might have been predicted from the SOV order of Turkish, both Turkish and Moroccan Arabic speakers used verb-final structures in
the early stages, something one would not expect of the latter group due to the fact that Moroccan Arabic is not verb final.
Zobl notes further that overgeneralization of the verb-final order in main clauses with auxiliary verbs to main clauses with simple verbs was also reported for
(SVO) English speakers learning Dutch (Snow and Hofnagel-Hohle 1978). Third, verb-final order is also dominant in early stages of the LI acquisition of German (Roeper 1973), which has the same word-order distribution as Dutch. From the L1 and L2 data, Zobl argues that the developmental sequence in Dutch and German is clearly verb-final before verb-internal word order. The OV order of Turkish can thus be seen to have caused both the more protracted and the more generalized use of the verb-final developmental structure of the Turks' Dutch SL in the Jansen et al. study. Conversely, the SVO Moroccan Arabic order allowed the Arabic speakers in the same study to move on from the generalized verb-final stage in the developmental order more quickly. The slower abandonment of this initial OV strategy by the Turks, Zobl claims, parallels Spanish speakers' more protracted use of No V negation.
While the negation and word-order examples are cases where LI and developmental structural congruence inhibits learning, Zobl points to several cases where the effect of congruence is positive. When L1 and L2 employ the same device, e.g.
inflectional morphology, to encode a given range of meanings, SL learners still start by omitting the marking in the L2, followed by an often lengthy period of variable marking before attaining target-like use. By looking at or across studies involving speakers of two or more different Lis acquiring the same L2 under comparable conditions, Zobl
variable marking phase are shorter where the source and target language are congruent. Thus, when the L1 (e.g.
Swedish or Spanish) and the L2 (e.g. English or German) both use articles to mark definiteness and indefiniteness, target-like control is achieved more quickly than in cases of zero contrast, i.e. when the L1 (e.g. Finnish or Japanese) lacks articles or some other category present in the L2, a finding obtained for articles in ESL (Fathman 1975a; Hakuta 1975;
Granfors and Palmberg 1976; Mace-Matluck 1977; Sajavaara 1978, 1981) and in German as a SL (Gilbert and Orlovic 1975). The same holds true for copular verbs (Henkes 1974;
Scott and Tucker 1974), prepositions (Sjoholm 1983 reported in Kellerman 1984) and various kinds of lexical error (Ringbom 1978) in ESL, and for reflexive pronouns in French as a SL (Morsely and Vasseur 1976).
Zero contrast, referred to as 'new' in Table 3.1 (i.e. the L2 possesses a category that is absent in the learner's L1), affects IL development in more subtle ways than originally believed.
One effect is to delay passage through a developmental sequence, something we have seen can also result from congruence. An example is provided by Keller-Cohen (1979) from her study of the acquisition of English by three
young children, native speakers of German, Finnish and Japanese. Rising-intonation questions are the first question type to emerge in L1 acquisition by speakers of languages which have this option (Wode 1978). Finnish does not use intonation questions, and in LI acquisition of Finnish, WH-questions develop first, followed by yes/no questions, which require a question inflection and verb transposition (Bowerman 1973). Keller-Cohen found that, while following the same developmental path as the other two children in the
learning of yes/no questions in ESL (cf. Table 4.1), the Finnish child progressed much more slowly.
A second possible effect of zero contrast identified by Zobl (1982) involves the addition of a preliminary step to an acquisition sequence. Zobl noted that Paul, a five-year-old Chinese child acquiring ESL (Huang 1970), having no articles in his L1, initially employed deictic determiners, usually demonstrative adjectives (e.g. this house), as the first approximation to definite articles in the L2. (For related findings with other SLs, see Orlovic 1974, and Valdman and Phillips 1975.) In contrast, Guero, a three-year-old Spanish-speaking child (Hernandez-Chavez 1977), whose L1 does have an article system, used the English definite article as early as the first appearance of deictics. Again, L1-L2 differences did not alter the developmental sequence but did delay passage through it, this time by postponing the start and adding a sub-stage.
Zobl interprets these findings as showing that transfer, rather than working separately and in competition with the creative construction process, as had once been thought, actually accommodates to natural developmental processes. L1 influence will not change normal developmental sequences but may modify passage through them. Its effects, Zobl concludes, are subject to two constraints. First, it is fairly well established that, in situations of language contact, complex structures typically undergo modification by formally simpler structures. In keeping with this fact about historical language change, the developmental complexity constraint (Zobl 1982, p. 180) holds that:
LI influence may modify a developmental continuum at that point at which a developmental structure is similar to a corresponding LI structure and where further progress in the continuum amounts to an increase in complexity beyond that of the L1 structure.
When this condition is met, Zobl predicts, one of three things will happen. First, there may be a delay in the restructuring needed for the learner to progress to the next developmental stage (e.g. the case of prolonged No Vnegation by Spanish speakers). Such structures may be
prime candidates for fossilization (Zobl 1983a; White 1985a).
Second, the scope of the current developmental structure may be extended (e.g. extension of the Spanish speakers' No V negation rule to modal and copular verbs, or Wode's finding that German LI learners of ESL place the negator after the main verb, as in German, once they begin to place it [correctly] after the English auxiliary). Third, learners may seek development with the smallest possible rule change. In this case, Zobl (1982, p. 180) claims, they are behaving under a second constraint, the internal consistency constraint as he terms it, which holds that 'in traversing a developmental continuum, learners will strive to implement rule changes which permit a maximum degree of structural consistency with the preceding developmental forms'. An example of application of this constraint is the transitional use of deictic determiners for articles by learners lacking articles in their LI, thereby allowing them to avoid what would be a more radical restructuring move, from zero marking to full grammaticization (use of an article system). Another example is the Turkish speakers' protracted use of the verb-final Dutch constituent order before making the (for them) more radical switch to VO word order with simple verbs in Dutch.