LINGUIST List 20.2534
Fri Jul 17 2009
Diss: Language Acquisition: Ivanov: 'Second Language Acquisition of...'
Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny
<dilinguistlist.org>
1. Ivan
Ivanov,
Second Language Acquisition of Bulgarian Object Clitics: A test case for the Interface Hypothesis
Message 1: Second Language Acquisition of Bulgarian Object Clitics: A test case for the Interface Hypothesis
Date: 16-Jul-2009
From: Ivan Ivanov <i.ivanovyahoo.com>
Subject: Second Language Acquisition of Bulgarian Object Clitics: A test case for the Interface Hypothesis
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Institution: University of Iowa
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2009
Author: Ivan Prodanov Ivanov
Dissertation Title: Second Language Acquisition of Bulgarian Object Clitics: A test case for the Interface Hypothesis
Linguistic Field(s):
Language Acquisition
Subject Language(s): Bulgarian (bul)
Dissertation Director:
William D. Davies
Roumyana Slabakova
Jason Rothman
Paula K Kempchinsky
Elena Gavruseva
Dissertation Abstract:
The primary objective of this dissertation is to expand the testing groundof the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006), which states that interfaceproperties involving the syntax and other cognitive domains (such asdiscourse) may trigger residual optionality effects at the end-state. Thetarget of investigation were Bulgarian object clitics whose syntactic anddiscursive properties provide a good testing ground for theoreticalapproaches to second language acquisition. Ten advanced and 14 intermediateL2 speakers of Bulgarian, as well as a control group of Bulgarian nativespeakers, participated in the study. The test materials included aproficiency test, a grammaticality judgment task to check syntacticknowledge of clitics, and a pragmatic felicity task. The latter was aimedat investigating the degree to which L2 learners of Bulgarian, with Englishas their L1, had acquired a syntax-discourse interface property ofBulgarian, namely the pragmatic function of clitic doubling. In Bulgarian,clitic doubling serves as an overt marker of topicality and 'undoubled'object topics are deemed infelicitous.
The results of the experiments in this dissertation present a challenge tosome theoretical approaches to second language acquisition, namely theInterpretability Hypothesis (Tsimlpi and Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) and theInterface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006). The results showed that theintermediate participants did not differentiate between the felicitous andthe infelicitous options in the pragmatic felicity task in a target-likemanner as their responses either did not exhibit statistically significantdifference or favored the response closest to the L1. However, the advancedL2 learners of Bulgarian had successfully acquired the syntax of clitics aswell as the pragmatic meaning of clitic doubling in Bulgarian. Theydisplayed target-like convergence with respect to the syntactic propertiesof Bulgarian object clitics and distinguished between the felicitous andthe infelicitous options in the pragmatic task in a native-like manner.
The study highlights the fact that successful learning at thesyntax-discourse interface cannot be excluded and a lot more research,exploring as many interface conditions as possible, needs to be done inorder to validate the Interface Hypothesis as a legitimate constraint whichpermanently hinders native-like performance.
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