Through decades, three theories of first
language acquisition emerged namely: behaviorism, innatism and
interactionist/developmental perspective.
Behaviorism states that language behaviour is the
production of correct responses to stimuli through reinforcement
(Skinner). Innatism, on the other hand,
states that children acquire a complex grammar quickly and easily without any
particular help beyond exposure to the language, they do not start from scratch
(Language Acquisition Device). And
interactionist/developmental perspective states that language was one
manifestation of the cognitive and affective ability to deal with the world
(Piaget).
Now, let’s center our
discussion on the Theory of Innateness.
As discussed earlier, innatism states that children acquire a complex
grammar quickly and easily without any particular help beyond exposure to the
language, they do not start from scratch.
This is because of the presence of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
which is innate to every human being.
This LAD contains all and only the
principles which are universal to all human language, such as the Universal
Grammar (UG). This UG is an innate
template or blueprint for language. And
according to the theory of innatism, children go through similar Universal
language acquisition stages regardless of cultural and social circumstances.
On the other hand,
under innatism, we have the markedness
differential hypothesis, which states that linguistic rules can be either
part of the core grammar or periphery.
The core grammar consist the UG of the learner where general principles
of language were followed, considered to be less complex, and unmarked. The peripheral on the other hand, consist
only those which are specific to each language, considered to be more complex,
and is marked. Markedness, most of the
time, speaks of only first language acquisition because marked structures are
defined as those departing from core grammar and requiring specific evidence
during the course of L1 acquisition (Chomsky & Lasnik, 1977; Chomsky,
1981). In short these are the structures
are present in the L1 of a learner which later on, be transferred or not to the
L2.
To talk about
markedness in L2 acquisition, let’s have the research Markednes and Second Language Acquisition by Lydia White of McGill
University. In here, adult and child
learners of French as a second language were tested using grammaticality judgment
tasks on two marked structures, preposition stranding and the double object
construction, which are grammatical in English but ungrammatical in French, to
see if they would accept French versions of these structures. According to the researcher, in adopting the
learnability definition of markedness for L2 acquisition, two possibilities are
raised. First, all language learning, L1
or L2, the learner starts out with the unmarked hypothesis or the developmental
hypothesis of markedness (Mazurkewich, 1984, 1985). In here, all learners will acquire unmarked
forms as a necessary developmental stage before the acquisition or marked
forms. The second one, which the
researcher refer to as the transfer hypothesis, is that the L1 will play a
role. A number of researchers have
argued that the L2 learner is less likely to transfer marked forms from the L1.
Two different groups of
FSL learners were studied where on both studies, larners were tested on their
judgment on sentences in the L2 to determine whether or not marked structures
from the L1 would be accepted. In
addition, aspects of the tests were designed to address the question of whether
markedness had any kind of psychological status for these learners.
As to the results, the
hypothesis that marked constructions in the L1 will be a source of transfer
errors in the L2 does not appear to be supported by the judgments on
preposition stranding. In conclusion,
the researcher suggested that the data gathered partially support the
contention that marked forms may be transferred from the L1 or other languages
known to the language learner. However,
the L2 sureness data and the L1 judgment data suggest that learners do not
necessarily make a distinction between marked and unmarked structures and
markedness is not a clear predictor of what will or will not be transferred
from the L1. Hence, from the study
discussed, it is evident that markedness exist in L2 acquisition because the
researcher found out the marked forms may be transferred from the L1 known to
the language learner.
References:
White, L. (1987). Markedness
and second language acquisition. United States of America: Cambridge
University Press.
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