Past Tense Production by English Second Language Learners With and Without Language Impairment

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated whether past tense use could differentiate children with language impairment (LI) from their typically developing (TD) peers when English is children's second language (L2) and whether L2 children's past tense profiles followed the predictions of Bybee's (2007) usage-based network model. Method: A group of L2 children with LI (L2-LI) and a matched group of L2-TD peers were administered the past tense probe from the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (Rice & Wexler, 2001) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1997). A representative input corpus provided distributional information for each verb used. Background information was obtained via parent questionnaire. Results: The L2-LI group used fewer tense-marked verbs than did the L2-TD group. In both groups, vocabulary size and word frequency predicted accuracy with regular and irregular verbs. Children omitted regular past tense marking most often after alveolar stops, dropping the allomorph /Id/; L2-TD children omitted /t/ more often than /d/. Finally, first language typology predicted past tense accuracy. Conclusions: Past tense use could potentially differentiate between English L2 children with and without LI. The impact of vocabulary, frequency, and phonological factors supported the network model and indicated profile differences between L2-LI and L2-TD children.Key Words: child second language acquisition, language impairment, English past tense, usage-based theory M uch research has focused on investigating the relationship between the developmental profiles of monolingual children with language impairment (LI) and their typically developing (TD) peers regarding the acquisition of verb inflection in English (Bedore & Leonard, 1998;Bishop, Adams, & Norbury, 2006; ContiRamsden, 2003;Redmond & Rice, 2001;Rice, Wexler, & Hershberger, 1998;Rice, Wexler, Marquis, & Hershberger, 2000). This research has shown that English-speaking children with LI have profound difficulties in acquiring tense-marking verbal inflection. Hence, their development of this particular aspect of the language constitutes a reliable clinical marker, that is, it discriminates well between TD children and children with LI (Rice, 2003;Rice & Wexler, 2001). Because speech-language pathologists in North America often work with children who are learning English as a second language (L2; Goldstein, 2004;Gutiérrez-Clellen, 1996;Jacobson & Schwartz, 2005), increasing our understanding of how TD children and children with LI acquire tense inflection when English is their L2 could be relevant to clinical practice. On the one hand, research comparing L2-TD children to their monolingual peers with LI has shown overlap in their difficulties with tense-marking morphology in English, suggesting that use of tense morphology might not differentiate between affected and unaffected children among L2 learners (Paradis, Rice, Crago, & Marquis, 2008). On the other hand, research comparing the use of tense morphology by English L2 learners with and without LI su...

Effects of Verb Familiarity on Finiteness Marking in Children With Specific Language Impairment

“…An alternative perspective is provided by Bybee’s usage-based network model (Bybee, 1995, 2003, 2006) as interpreted by Blom & Paradis (2013). Blom and Paradis (2013) provide a succinct description of their interpretation of a usage-based model of past tense acquisition by children with language impairments.…”

How Thai EFL Learners Deal With English Regular Past Forms: A Case Study of a Speech Sound Perspective

“…Blom and Paradis (2013) investigated whether L2 children with and without L1 delay differed in their acquisition of the English regular and irregular past tense or not. In terms of irregular verbs, the findings reveal that L2 children with normal development performed better than the other group.…”

“…In addition, Solt et al (2004) suggested that the main obstacle to correctly producing the three allomorphs of the '-ed' morpheme is the inability of L2 learners to perceive these allomorphs consistently. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the study of the English regular past tense verbs in different aspects, from child language acquisition (Blom & Paradis, 2013) to adult language acquisition (Birdsong & Flege, 2001;Solt et al, 2004;Lardiere, 2002;Sriphrom & Ratitamkul, 2014;Prapobaratanakul & Pongpairoj, 2016). However, far too little attention has been paid to regular past tense verbs by Thai scholars.…”

Quantifying the relative contributions of lexical and phonological factors to regular past tense accuracy

“…A minimum number of exposures to the target form seemed to be required; greater rates of exposure led to more accurate production. Others examining second language learners have also observed that Past Frequency and Lemma Frequency separately contribute to accuracy levels (Blom & Paradis, 2013). Second language learners may have less exposure to English and smaller verb vocabularies.…”

“…Work with bilingual and ESL populations suggests that frequency influences morphological production across the lifespan (Blom & Paradis, 2013; Nicoladis, Palmer, & Marentette, 2007; Wulff, Ellis, Roemer, Bardovi-Harlig, & LeBlanc, 2009). …”