Syntax Analysis There Is Conflict

¶ … Syntax Analysis

There is conflict whether syntax is innate or whether it is learned. Based on a 1973 study that investigated whether L2 (second language) errors that children make are created by 'creative construction" or "habit formation," this study plans to conduct a replication of that study with the difference that the phenomenon of "unique errors" (explained later) will be the syntactic element that will be investigated.

At one time, behaviorism held the center place positing that syntax was an element that was picked up from one's environment. In the 1960s, however, Chomsky showed that rather than picked up from environmental factors, syntax / grammar was innate in a person. Dulay, & Burt (1973) conducted research investigating whether advanced syntax of L2 was also innate or whether it was something that was arduously acquired by the child by particular taught linguistic rules.

According to the habit formation theory, certain errors are predicted in the syntax of the child learning a new language and these errors will appear whenever the second language and the child's natural language diverge. The errors are called 'interference' errors since they persist with the child's (or individual's) attempt to learn the new language.

The authors, thereupon, conducted several studies in which they tested their question on 5- to 8-year-olds.

The "creative construction theory" however which is a successor of Chomsky's innate hypothesis says that different errors should appear in learning of advanced syntax of L2 since the first language is innate and the child is learning a new one which is not impacted by his straining to remember the syntax rules of the first. In other words, since L1 is innate, it exists independent of L2 and all the child strains to internalize is the syntactic rules of L2. The errors would be 'developmental" errors since their pattern would be the same of children in the early stages of acquiring their first language.

The differences in semantic, syntactic and phonological errors between the two are, according to the authors, evident.

Method

The authors tested outcome on a group of 145 Spanish-speaking 8-year-olds and 388 unambiguous errors were tabulated. The children were gathered from two different school areas -- two form California and one in NY. The Bilingual Syntax measure (BSM) was used as tool by their teachers. The BSM measures proficiency of L2 in children in the context of eliciting natural speech form the child.

Errors were then classified into three types -- (1) developmental (the errors that were similar to L1 acquisition errors); (2) interference (the errors that reflected child arduously merging one language with another); (3) unique -- those that appeared in neither of the two categories.

Results showed that tabulation of errors into each category revealed that 3% of the 388 error types were interference whilst 85% were developmental and 12% were unique.

Whilst the authors came to conclusion about the derivation and source of errors in advanced syntax, they still could not explain the 12% errors that were unique. They left that, as they said, to 'future research', but as yet no future research seemingly has been done on that subject.

This is the contribution of this study.

Research Objective

The first step is to replicate Dulay & Burt's (1973) previous study. Times have changed. The educational system has changed. Our aim will be to test whether the 12% of syntactic errors are indeed unique, or whether their appearance is due to educational standards and particular curriculum.

Hypotheses

Our hypothesis is that educational systems generate child's comprehension and internalization of the subject. The educational system of the '70s (when the study was conducted) was quite different to that of today. Our aim will be to conduct a study that will be closely replicated on Dulay & Burt's (1973) original study. The children will be the same age. They will be extracted from the same area. The same schools (if in existence) will be approached. In all ways, therefore, demographics will be repeated. An alternative supplementation to the study may be following that study with a sample extracted from an older age who come from different schools and different states. The contrast may be informative and the one study will be helpful in reinforcing or contradicting the other thereby causing us to investigate the issue further..

The alternative hypothesis of this research is that unique errors in advanced syntax in L2 depend on educational transmission (i.e. style and manner of teaching). One mode of teaching produces more or less "unique errors" than another mode may.

The null hypothesis is that no difference in teaching will be observed. Namely amount of unique errors will remain constant regardless of mode of education.