French L2 Learners
What They're Talking About1
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4501629 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Patsy M Lightbown (U.S. National Science Foundation, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1977 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 371-381 |
| Publication date | 1977-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language Learning (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0023-8333 • E-ISSN: 1467-9922 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00128.x |
| OpenAlex | W1995033586 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
The acquisition of French by two six-year old boys, native speakers of English, was observed longitudinally. Form-meaning relations in their spontaneous multi-word utterances were compared to the form-meaning relations observed, in previous research, in the speech of two-year old English L1 and French L1 children, at a similar level of linguistic development. The same fairly limited set of form-meaning relations accounted for the majority of both L1 and L2 learners' utterances over the period of the longitudinal observations. However, in the speech of the L1 learners, a sequence of emergence of relations or groups of relations had been observed whereas, for L2 learners, no clear developmental sequence was apparent. This difference was seen as a reflection of the fact that L1 learners' linguistic development is closely tied to cognitive development. L2 learners, cognitively more mature, encoded a greater variety of meanings even when their knowledge of the language was extremely limited. They achieved this variety by the use of pro-forms whose meanings they over-extended
Cognition · Language acquisition · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Meaning (existential) · Second-language acquisition · Set (abstract data type) · Variety (cybernetics) · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
| Highly cited | No |
|---|