On Transfer, Proficiency and Cross-Individual/Aggregate SLA Differences : Examining Adjectival Semantics in L2 Spanish

Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro and Judy, Tiffany and Rothman, Jason (2009) On Transfer, Proficiency and Cross-Individual/Aggregate SLA Differences : Examining Adjectival Semantics in L2 Spanish. In: Issues in Second Language Proficiency :. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., London, pp. 233-254. ISBN 9780826435156

Abstract

This chapter principally addresses L1 transfer effects via an examination of the acquisition of properties related to the Spanish Determiner Phrase (DP), namely adjectival semantics. We compare the experimental performance of English-speaking and Italian-speaking adult learners of L2 Spanish at various levels of pro!ciency, reporting !ndings from two experiments: a Semantic Interpretation Task designed to test whether one intuits inter-pretational differences of pre- and postnominal adjectives and a Context-based Collocation Task. In line with the developmental sequence predictions of the Full Transfer/Full Access initial state model, the Italian-speaking learners' data compared to the English-speaking learners' demonstrate that L1 transfer is robust and deterministic in adult L2 development. Furthermore, by brie"y looking at individual L2 learner and native control data, we highlight and support empirically important epistemological and methodological issues.