Current Trends in European Second Language Acquisition Research

276 Pages·1990·1.25 MB·English

by  Hans W. Dechert (Editor)

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title: Current Trends in European Second Language Acquisition
Research Multilingual Matters (Series) ; 51
author: Dechert, Hans W.
publisher: Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin: 185359024X
print isbn13: 9781853590245
ebook isbn13: 9780585225845
language: English
subject Second language acquisition--Congresses, Language and
languages--Study and teaching--Europe--Congresses.
publication date: 1990
lcc: P118.2.C87 1990eb
ddc: 428/.007
subject: Second language acquisition--Congresses, Language and
languages--Study and teaching--Europe--Congresses.
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Page i
Current Trends in European Second Language Acquisition Research

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Page ii
Multilingual Matters
Age in Second Language Acquisition
BIRGIT HARLEY
Bilingualism and the Individual
A. HOLMEN, E. HANSEN, J. GIMBEL and J. JøRGENSEN (eds)
Bilingualism in Society and School
J. JøRGENSEN, E. HANSEN, A. HOLMEN and J. GIMBEL (eds)
Bilingualism and Special Education
JIM CUMMINS
Bilingualism: Basic Principles
HUGO BAETENS BEARDSMORE
Code-Mixing and Code Choice
JOHN GIBBONS
Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education
MICHAEL BYRAM
The Education of Linguistic and Cultural Minorities in the OECD Countries
STACY CHURCHILL
Introspection in Second Language Research
C. FAERCH and G. KASPER (eds)
Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education
COLIN BAKER
Language Acquisition: The Age Factor
D. M. SINGLETON
Language in a Black Community
VIV EDWARDS
Language and Education in Multilingual Settings
BERNARD SPOLSKY (ed.)
Learner Language and Language Learning
C. FAERCH, K. HAASTRUP and R. PHILLIPSON
Methods in Dialectology
ALAN R. THOMAS (ed.)
Minority Education: From Shame to Struggle
T. SKUTNABB-KANGAS and J. CUMMINS (eds)
Minority Education and Ethnic Survival
MICHAEL BYRAM
Modelling and Assessing Second Language Acquisition
K. HYLTENSTAM and M. PIENEMANN (eds)
Oral Language Across the Curriculum
DAVID CORSON
Raising Children Bilingually: The Pre-School Years
LENORE ARNBERG
The Role of the First Language in Second Language Learning
HÅKAN RINGBOM
Schooling in a Plural Canada
JOHN R. MALLEA
Variation in Second Language Acquisition
SUSAN GASS, CAROLYN MADDEN, DENNIS PRESTON and LARRY SELINKER (eds)
Please contact us for the latest book information:
Multilingual Matters, Bank House, 8a Hill Road,
Clevedon, Avon BS21 7HH, England.

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Page iii
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS 51
Series Editor: Derrick Sharp
Current Trends in European Second Language Acquisition Research
Edited by
Hans W. Dechert
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon Philadelphia

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Page iv
Disclaimer:
This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set
(http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Current trends in European second language acquisition research /
edited by Hans W. Dechert.
p. cm.(Multilingual matters : 51)
Papers originating from a workshop held July 27-28 1985 at
Georgetown University in conjunction with the 1985 LSA/TESOL Summer
Institute.
Includes bibliographies and indexes.
1. Second language acquisitionCongresses. 2. Language and
languagesStudy and teachingEuropeCongresses. I. Dechert,
Hans W. (Hans-Wilhelm) II. LSA/TESOL Institute (1985 : Georgetown
University) III. Linguistic Society of America. IV. Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages. V. Series: Multilingual
matters (Series) : 51.
P118.2.C87 1989
428'.007dc19 88-25207
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Current trends in European second language
acquisition research(Multilingual
matters; 51)
1. Foreign language skills. Acquisition.
Research.
I. Dechert, Hans W.
401'.9
ISBN 1-85359-024X
ISBN 1-85359-023-1 Pbk
Multilingual Matters Ltd
Bank House, 8a Hill Road & 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101
Clevedon, Avon BS21 7HH Bristol, PA 19007
England U.S.A.
Copyright © 1990 Hans W. Dechert
and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved No part of this work
may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Index compiled by Meg Davies (Society of Indexers)
Typeset by PhotoGraphics, Honiton, Devon
Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Print, Bristol

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Page v
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Part One: Theory and Methodology in Second Language Acquisition
Research
1
Nouns and Verbs in the Learner's Lexicon
Rainer Dietrich 13
2
Typological Markedness as a Research Tool in the Study of Second
Language Acquisition
Kenneth Hyltenstam 23
3
Foreign Language Acquisition and the Development of Automaticity
Jaakko Lehtonen 37
4
Competing Plans in Second Language Processing
Hans W. Dechert 51
Part Two: Children's First and Second Language Acquisition
5
Early Bilingual Reading: Retrospects and Prospects
Renzo Titone 67
6
The Relationship Between Native and Foreign Language Learning
Ability: Educational and Linguistic Factors
Peter Skehan 83
7
Investigations into Classroom Discourse
Werner Hüllen 107
8
The Linguistics of Enunciative Operations and Second Language
Learning
Danielle Bailly 119
Part Three: Reference in Second Language Acquisition
9
The Development of Means for Temporality in the Unguided
Acquisition of L2: Cross-linguistic Perspectives
Colette Noyau 143

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Page vi
10
Reference and Discourse Structure in the Learning of French by Adult
Moroccans
Daniel Véronique 171
Part Four: Cross-Linguistic Interaction in Second Language
Acquisition
11
Effects of Transfer in Foreign Language Learning
Håkan Ringbom 205
12
Input from Within: Utrecht Research into Cross-linguistic Influence in
Formal Language Learning Environments
Michael Sharwood Smith 219
13
Language Contact and Culture Contact: Towards an Integrative
Approach in Second Language Acquisition Research
Els Oksaar 230
Biographical Data on Contributors 245
List of Research Projects 251
Index 253

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Page vii
PREFACE
This volume is the result of the common efforts of many more people involved in SLA research than those whose contributions
it collects.
In a letter of May 25th 1984 Deborah Tannen, the Director of the 1985 LSA/TESOL Summer Institute asked me whether I'd
like to organise 'some sort of a symposium linking linguistics to teaching ESL . . .' on the occasion of the 1985 Summer
Institute. My immediate answer was that this seemed to be a challenging suggestion. Yet I was careful enough not to agree
immediately as I realised that organising such a workshop in a year's time would create many problems among which the task of
raising funds was not the easiest one. During the following months I contacted many individuals as well as institutions and
asked them for their assistance. All in all, there was an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the idea of the Georgetown
Workshop so that I finally came to the conclusion that I might as well say 'yes'! In a letter of August 22nd 1984 Professor
Tannen officially invited me to organise 'a special workshop on the topic "Current Trends in European Second Language
Acquisition Research" to take place July 27th and 28th in conjunction with the 1985 Institute of the Linguistic Society of
America and the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, to be held jointly on the campus of Georgetown
University the summer of 1985.' She further stated in the same letter 'I believe there is a great need to bring to the awareness of
the American and International linguistics and TESOL communities, the important work being done by European researchers in
this field.'
'European Second Language Acquisition Research', the second part of the Workshop's topic and this volume's title is, of course,
an overextension. I am fully aware of it. There is not such a thing as a unified SLA research tradition in Europe. Even if there
was, the many constraints imposed on the Workshop personal, organisational, temporal, and last but not least financial ones,
only permitted me to ask some scholars from some countries to present and discuss some of their ideas. All of us at the
Workshop realised that we could not claim to give more than a glimpse into the

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Page viii
enormous richness and variety in European SLA research. Actually, the experience that there exists such a diversified research
tradition in Europe of which we were just a part is perhaps one of the most intriguing results of our meeting. All this is meant
with the phrase 'Current Trends', the first part of the topic of the Workshop and the title of the following pages. To be sure,
because of the organisational restrictions and difficulties alluded to above various European cultures and languages, and thus
research traditions, are overrepresented in this volume; others are underrepresented, or not represented at all. There is, for
instance, a severely felt lack of contributions dealing with Eastern European research. Nevertheless, the decision to meet at
Georgetown and discuss our research activities with the participants of the Summer Institute in spite of these limitations has
proved to be an extremely rewarding one. To my knowledge it has been the first Workshop of that sort and of that size ever to
take place in the United States.
Some of the articles collected in this volume are identical or almost identical with the papers read at the Workshop. Most of
them, however, represent modified versions written afterwards in light of the discussions during the Workshop.
For me collecting, reading, and editing them has been an exciting experience, firstly because of the remarkable variety of
methodologies approaching the problem of SLA, and secondly because of the conceptual and cultural differences surfacing
through them. Editing such a collection in the course of time has proved to be a rather complicated task. This is to say that many
portions of this volume have undergone various stages of modification during the last two years. I have been fortunate enough to
have had my graduate student assistants Silke Baier, Bärbel Treichel, and Brigitte Schwarz patiently reading and rereading the
various versions during the 'growth' of the final manuscript, thus sharing with me their knowledge in APA standards. This
procedure could only be practised with the kind help of M. Burba, B. Carl-Mast, and C. Kuchta, the secretaries in the
Department of English and Romance Languages and Literatures of the University of Kassel.
I surely hope that my intention to preserve each contribution's 'flair', its particular shade of culture and wealth of thought has
been realised in spite of the need to standardise it. With the exception of the two native speakers of English among us, all
articles were written by learners of English as a second or foreign language. I hope that the many linguistic compromises to be
found on the following pages may be acceptable for native English readers. Unfortunately this procedure has taken lots of time.

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Page ix
First of all I would like to thank all contributors to this volume for their patience. Secondly I wish to thank the officials of
Georgetown University for giving us the opportunity to meet at this inspiring campus and participate in the various activities of
the 1985 LSA/TESOL Summer Institute. In this context I am particularly grateful to Deborah Tannen for suggesting the original
idea of the Workshop, and to her colleagues and the staff in the Department of Linguistics of Georgetown University who have
all made our stay a very pleasant and successful one. Among them, Heidi Byrnes deserves a special word of thanks for the
never-ending assistance she offered to us before and during the Workshop. John Hammer from the Linguistic Society of
America did his best to activate his connections and overcome our problems in the planning and financing of the Workshop.
This Workshop would not have been possible without the grants made available to the participants from the Federal Republic of
Germany by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the financial grants provided to other
participants by the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam, and the assistance given by various national sponsors and
European universities.
I finally wish to thank Multilingual Matters, our publisher, for the close cooperation and professional diligence in bringing out
this volume.
HANS W. DECHERT
KASSEL, MARCH 1988

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