Articles in child L2 English: When L1 and L2 acquisition meet at the interface

Abstract

In this study, the authors investigate the acquisition of the article system of English as a phenomenon at the interface between morphosyntax and semantics. L1 acquisition studies have found that children make mistakes in article use until they are at least four years old or possibly older. Also, adult L2 acquisition studies have reported that learners of English often have consistent difficulty in the use of articles until very late stages of acquisition. This study sought to understand whether child L2 learners would display acquisition patterns similar to child L1 for the English article system. The authors analyzed article use in L2 children from four L1 backgrounds: Mandarin/Cantonese Chinese, Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi, Arabic, and Spanish. The findings of the study indicate that the interface domain of the article system is indeed problematic for child L2 learners. The authors found that all L1 groups had difficulty acquiring the semantic aspect of the phenomenon. In the no-article L1 groups, the acquisition of the morphosyntactic aspect of article use showed the effect of L1 in the form of article omissions. Transfer of the mapping of the feature [−definite] onto indefinite article forms from L1s did not take place in the Arabic and Spanish L1 groups, indicating that L1 transfer in child L2 acquisition is limited. Comparing the findings with those of the previous studies of child L1 and adult L2 acquisition, the authors conclude that the predominant trends in children’s article acquisition were developmental rather than transfer-based. This finding in particular highlights the special status of L2 children as a unique learner population.