Overgeneralisation in L2 morphosyntax and the role of alphabetic literacy

Abstract

The study is aimed firstly to examine the role of literacy in adult immigrant learners’ development of English morphosyntax using the stages of Organic Grammar (or OG). Literacy—from the perspective of generative linguistics—is not thought to have a direct influence on the development of syntax. This does not mean that it plays no role in the acquisition of certain aspects of functional morphology, and emerging research on oral production of non/low-educated/literate learners shows some connection between literacy and the development of morphosyntax. To achieve this aim, 60 participants (with varying levels of literacy and amounts of native language schooling) were recruited to participate in a study. Data were collected through production tasks (picture descriptions) and comprehension tasks (computerized tasks). The results show that the developmental path of acquisition is systematic. There is a positive connection between literacy and the acquisition of morphosyntax. The second aim is to further explore learners’ overgeneralisation of functional morphemes (the use of non-target function words or multi-word utterances) during the acquisition of second language (L2) English morphosyntax and to confirm the specific Organic Grammar stage of L2 morphosyntax development at which L2 learners engage in such an overgeneralisation. The results indicate that: (1) overgeneralisation occurs after the Verb Phrase (VP) stage. (2) Overgeneralisation does not alter the general developmental path of acquisition (i.e., the stages of Organic Grammar). (3) Overgeneralisation can involve morphemes, words, and multi-word sequences. (4) Overgeneralised forms are placeholders that learners temporarily use as they work on identifying the relevant heads in the input. (5) the use of certain function words (as placeholders) seems to be peculiar to the VP-stage learners, and higher OG-stage learners use different types of place-holders (e.g., the copula be or personal pronouns), thereby supporting the recent predictions of placeholders through the stages of Organic Grammar