Second Language Acquisition of Articles. Empirical Findings and Theoretical Implications
Authors
María del Pilar García Mayo, Roger Hawkins.
Year
2009
ISBN
978902725310
Publisher
John Benjamins
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The studies in this collection address a topic that has recently become the focus on considerable interest in second language acquisition (SLA) research: the acquisition of articles. Langauges appear to vary in weather they have articles (English. German, Norwegian do, but Chinese, Japanese, Russian do not). Languages that have articles also appear to divide into those that realise definiteness (e.g. English) and those that realise specificity (e.g. Samoan). When speakers of one type of language learn an L2 of a different type, issues of central concern to SLA research arise: the nature of L1 infleucne, the time course of development, ultimate attainment, the relationshipt between performance and competence, and the role of Universal Grammar. These issues are considered in nine studies, writen by researchers whose work is at the forefront of enquiry, that offer new data, new perspecties and new insights into the way L2 speakers acquire articles.