The reassembly of verbal and nominal morphosyntactic features by novice L1 English-L2 Spanish learners

Yarrington, Kara Marie

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115383 Copy

Description

Title

The reassembly of verbal and nominal morphosyntactic features by novice L1 English-L2 Spanish learners

Author(s)

Yarrington, Kara Marie

Issue Date

2022-04-08

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Montrul, Silvina

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Montrul, Silvina

Committee Member(s)

• Bowles, Melissa A
• MacDonald, Jonathan E
• Yan, Xun

Department of Study

Spanish and Portuguese

Discipline

Spanish

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Spanish
• Second Language Acquisition
• Syntax
• Oral Development

Abstract

Adult first language (L1) English speakers who are advanced second language (L2) learners of Spanish demonstrate near-ceiling levels of accuracy for some features of Spanish, such as [Person] and [Number] for verbs (McCarthy, 2012; Rodgers, 2011). While for other features, such as [Aspect] for copulas (i.e. ser and estar), and [Person] and [Gender] in nouns, advanced L2 Spanish learners reach high but not near-ceiling levels of accuracy (Alarcón, 2010; Foote, 2014; Pérez-Leroux, Álvarez, & Battersby, 2010; Perpiñán, 2014). However, little research has been done to longitudinally investigate novice learners’ progression during their beginning stages of language learning to measure the initial accuracy levels of their oral production with such features and monitor any changes in their accuracy across time. Seventeen students in an intensive, beginner-level Spanish course participated in three 1.5-hour sessions across a 15-week semester. They completed five tasks eliciting oral production in their L2 Spanish including story recall, storytelling, picture description, the 20 Questions Game, and an informal interview. The tasks targeted verbal and nominal features to track acquisition of those features and longitudinal accuracy development. Consistent with the proposal of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH) (Lardiere, 2000; 2008; 2009), participants correctly used finite and nonfinite verbs above 90% across all sessions, began to reassemble [Aspect] from the copula ser to the correct copula estar, correctly used [Number] on noun modifiers above 89% in all sessions, and struggled with [Gender] assignment and agreement on noun modifiers. Error rates for the most part did not change over the course of the semester. This research provides insight into the longitudinal development of novice L2 language learners’ oral morphosyntax.

Graduation Semester

2022-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Kara Yarrington

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