The acquisition of tense in English: Distinguishing child second language from first language and specific language impairment

Abstract

This study reports on a comparison of the use and knowledge of tense-marking morphemes in English by first language (L1), second language (L2) and specifically language-impaired (SLI) children. The objective of our research was to ascertain whether the L2 children's tense acquisition patterns were similar or dissimilar to those of the L1 and SLI groups, and whether they would fit an (Extended) Optional Infinitive profile, or an L2-based profile, e.g., the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. Results showed that the L2 children had a unique profile compared with their monolingual peers, which was better characterized by the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. At the same time, results reinforce the assumption underlying the (Extended) Optional Infinitive profile that internal constraints on the acquisition of tense could be a component of L1 development, with and without SLI.Research documenting the developmental parallels between second language (L2) and first language (L1) acquisition of morphosyntax has been longstanding (e.g., Dulay & Burt, 1973, 1974 see Zobl & Liceras, 1994, for review). More recently, research comparing the morphosyntax of child L2 learners to same-aged L1 learners with specific language impairment (SLI) in French and Swedish has also showed striking similarities between these two groups (Crago & Paradis, 2003;Grüter, 2005;Håkansson 2001;Paradis & Crago, 2000Paradis, 2004). Paradis (2005) found evidence for SLI-like patterns in child English L2 learners' acquisition of grammatical morphology, but to date, no direct comparison of English L2 and SLI acquisition of morphosyntax has been undertaken. The presence of overlap in the linguistic characteristics between L2 and SLI is relevant for applied concerns, such as differential diagnosis of SLI in the L2 population. Overlap is also relevant for theoretical accounts aimed at characterizing only those features of impaired grammars to the exclusion of typicallydeveloping (TD) learner grammars, among same-aged peers.On one hand, morphosyntax related to functional categories might be expected to be vulnerable across acquisition contexts on linguistic theoretical grounds, since the functional layer of the grammar could be considered the locus of much crosslinguistic variation in language-particular grammars (Paradis & Prévost, 2004). Certainly the L2 versus TD L1 and L2 versus SLI comparative research supports this expectation. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume Corresponding author: Johanne Paradis, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E7, Canada. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptAppl Psycholinguist. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2008 October 9. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript that shared characteristics notwithstanding, at some level there should be differences between impaired and TD learner grammars. More specifically, Paradis & Crago (2000 suggested that both French SLI and L2 acquisition have the characteristics of an (Extended) Optional...

Critical periods and SLI

“…This potential overlap of SLI and L2 features in SLI might have influenced the results on similarities between SLI and cL2. Such similarities have been reported by Håkansson & Nettelbladt (1996), Paradis & Crago (2000), Håkansson (2001Håkansson ( , 2003, Grüter (2005), Paradis et al (2008) 2 and Orgassa & Weerman (2008). In some of these studies, the authors briefly address the question of age and maturation (Crago & Paradis 2003, Orgassa & Weerman 2008 3 ), and Håkansson (2001) proposes "a common denominator for grammatical problems in L2 children and children with SLI" (Hå-kansson 2001: 96).…”

“…German is a V2 language with OV, with the finite verb rising to the C position in all matrix clauses, resulting in V2 2. In contrast to the earlier studies comparing SLI and cL2, Crago & Paradis (2003) and Paradis et al (2008) concentrate especially on crucial differences between these two acquisition types. Such differences indeed exist in addition to striking similarities.…”

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

“…This corpus contains language samples from English L2 children and adult native speakers of English, all living in the Edmonton area. These language samples have been collected as part of several studies over 8 years conducted by the second author (e.g., Golberg, Paradis, & Crago, 2008;Paradis, 2008;Paradis et al, 2008;Zdorenko & Paradis, 2008. The samples were collected in a naturalistic setting and can be considered representative of the input of English L2 children in Edmonton.…”

“…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 suggests that accuracy with tense has the potential to be a clinical marker in L2 English (Jacobson & Schwartz, 2005;Paradis, 2008).…”

The Effect of Positive Evidence and Negative Feedback on EFL Learners’ Acquisition of the Third Person Singular Form

“…Jiang (2004) found that during sentence processing, Chinese learners of English tended to focus on the plurality of the subject rather than the verb, suggesting that their morphological knowledge is not part of their L2 competence. Some studies (Ellis & Sagarra, 2010;Haznedar, 2001;Ionin & Wexler, 2002;Paradis, Rice, Crago, & Marquis, 2008) explored the learning difficulty from the perspective of cognitive psychology and argued that earlier learned language cues (i.e., the plural form of the subject) blocked the acquisition of later experienced ones (i.e., the less salient verb morphology). Wang (2011) proposed that the high frequency of inflectional errors might be due to the deficiency of language experience and stimulus to trigger the already-known rules in the representation of learners' knowledge.…”