While SLA through immersion is very common, our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of uninstructed SLA is restricted. Although there has been a growing body of psycholinguistic research investigating explicit and implicit L2 knowledge, learning and training (DeKeyser, 2003; Ellis, 2009), comparative studies have often been biased toward advantages for explicit instruction and learning (Morgan-Short, Steinhauer, Sanz, & Ullman, 2012), and many studies tend to use a (semi-)artificial language paradigm (Rebuschat & Williams, 2012), limiting the generalizability of findings to L2 learning in natural contexts.Our study addresses this research gap by investigating the acquisition of stem allomorphy in German strong verbs, a morphosyntactic aspect in a natural language, in a communicative, yet experimentally controlled context (De Vos, Schriefers, & Lemhöfer, in preparation). We used a meaning-based conversational task to measure learning from native-speaker input and compared learning outcomes of advanced L2 German learners (L1 Dutch) in an implicit (n=10; a cover story concealed the study’s intentions) and explicit (n=10; learners were instructed to learn strong-verb inflection from input) instruction condition.In both conditions, the participant and the experimenter (L1 German) engaged in a scripted dialogue and produced, in turn, sentences that were based on pictures and that contained a verb which did or did not require a stem-vowel change. Learning was measured in terms of participants’ improvement in accuracy on vowel-changing items after exposure, as compared to accuracy scores on items for which no input was provided.Comparable amounts of learning were found for both groups; explicit instruction did not have an apparent added value. A retrospective interview revealed that participants in the implicit group had noticed the strong verbs but were unaware of the study’s learning purpose, suggesting that learning was incidental. Our findings illustrate that the principles of morphosyntactic learning can occur during conversation by picking up features of the interlocutor’s speech.ReferencesDe Vos, J., Schriefers, H., & Lemhöfer, K. (in preparation). Naturalistic incidental spoken L2 word learning and retention: An experimental study.DeKeyser, R. M. (2003). Implicit and explicit learning. In C. J. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 313–348). Oxford: Blackwell.Ellis, R. (2009). Implicit and explicit learning, knowledge and instruction. In R. Ellis, S. Loewen, C. Elder, R. Erlam, J. Philip, & H. Reinders (Eds.), Implicit and explicit knowledge in second language learning, testing and teaching (pp. 3–25). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Morgan-Short, K., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., & Ullman, M. T. (2012). Explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the achievement of native-like brain activation patterns. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(4), 933–947. Rebuschat, P., & Williams, J. N. (2012). Implicit and explicit knowledge in second language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33(4), 829–856.
| Periode | 18 mei 2017 |
|---|
| Evenementstitel | GDRI_SLAT Symposium: Pushing for Precision on Initial Input Processing in SLA: Are We Speaking the Same Language? |
|---|
| Evenementstype | Conference |
|---|
| Locatie | Paris, France |
|---|
| Mate van erkenning | International |
|---|