Second Language Acquisition II

1. Indicate the type of error (phonological, morphological, syntactic, or lexical) found in the
following sentences.
a) She play tennis almost every day.  morphological
b) I no get on the train on time.  phonological
c) The house old needs painting.  syntactic
d) I’m not a very good cooker.  lexical
e) You should get your hairs cut.  morphological
f) Look at that goose with antlers!  lexical
g) I miss the bus, yesterday.  morphological
h) Tank you very much.  phonological

2. In your second language learning experience, can you think of an example of an L2 property
that seemed very different from your L1 and that you found easy to learn? Can you think of
an example of something different that you found hard to learn? What do you think might
have led to the difference in ease of learning?

Yes, in my second language (Malayalam), “r” is rolled, whereas in English it’s not. I found this
easy to pick up. On the other hand, we roll “n” in Malayalam too, and I found this difficult to
learn. I think the placement of the consonants led to the difference in ease of learning, because a
rolled ‘r’ and ‘n’ have different placements, some of which are more similar to consonants in
English.

3. In second language learners whose first language does not allow coda consonants, we
sometimes see variation in the production of English codas. Examine the following phrases
and propose an explanation as to why some stops in coda position are deleted, and others are
produced. Segments in boldface are produced while struckthrough segments are deleted.
Focus only on either boldface or struckthrough segments for this question.
a) cup of coffee
b) back to work  the next word starts with a consonant
c) met on the train
d) bad with numbers  the next word starts with a consonant
4. What explanation would you give for a native speaker of French who produced the English
sentence I drink frequently coffee ? How could you explain the fact that when the same
speaker produces the sentence He is frequently late, it is grammatical? Do any other English
verbs have the same properties as be ?

In French, you put the adverb after the verb, but in English it matters where the subject is placed.
The second sentence is grammatical because the noun is removed.
Have” has the same property.

5. Consider the possible responses of a teacher when a student produces the following
ungrammatical sentence: Why he should bring a sweater?
Teacher A: That should be “why should he bring a sweater?”
Teacher B: He should?
Teacher C: Think about what you know about WH questions with modals in them.
Teacher D: Because it might be cold in the theatre.
What do you see as the pros and cons of each of the responses? What might influence your
response?
Reactive focus on form:
Pro: less likely to make same mistake again
Con: constructive criticism can be direct/harsh sometimes
Pre-emptive focus on form:
Pro: everyone benefits from the prompt, not singling one person out by correcting them
Con: less likely to remember it since you weren’t corrected directly

6. Imagine that you are teaching English to a group of L2 learners. How might you respond to
the following non-target like utterances? What do you think the intended utterance was? If
you tried to explain the nature of the errors, what would you say?

a) I like to fish eat.

I like to eat fish.
The verb comes before the noun.

b) He said that he late would arrive.

He said that he would arrive late.
The adjective comes after the verb.

c) I was disgusted for the film.

I was disgusted by the film.
Wrong use of preposition
d) What did you see the man read the book that was on?
What did you see the man read that was on the book?
Syntactic error  sentence structure/order

e) Is raining.
It is raining.
Phonological error.

f)I bought in Japan.

I bought it in Japan.

Phonological error.