Acquisition Sequence of English Grammatical Morphemes Influenced by L1

A Journal Review by Frederick Lukas Tahapary

In SLA, it has been often assumed that the effect of the first language (L1)

is not very strong in the acquisition of grammatical morphemes (e.g., Ellis, 1994;

Mitchell & Myles, 2004). However, such an assumption has not been systematically

examined in the literature. Brown (1973) examined the L1 English acquisition of

14 grammatical morphemes by three children. The study found out that the

development patterns amongst the research subjects were similar across the three

children. Therefore, we could see that there is also a pattern of how grammatical is

acquired by the children. However, what about the second or other language

acquisitions?

Following Brown’s study, similar investigations emerged in SLA research

to establish whether L1 and L2 acquisition show similar patterns. Dulay and Burt

(1973) investigated the acquisition order of eight grammatical morphemes by three

groups of children learning English as a L2: 95 Mexican-Americans, 26 Spanish,

and 30 Puerto Ricans. Luk & Shirai (2009) reviewed L1 effects on the sequence of

morpheme acquisition from countries from Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Spanish

to test the effect of the L1 in the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. The study

reveals that although Spanish L1 learners’ acquisition order generally conforms to

the “so-called” natural order (Krashen, 1977), native speakers of Japanese, Korean,

and Chinese mostly acquire plural –s and articles later than, and possessive’s earlier

than, is predicted by the natural order.

 That indicates that learners can acquire a grammatical morpheme later or

earlier than predicted by the natural order, depending on the presence or absence of

the equivalent category in their L1. This shows us that L1 transfer is much stronger

than is portrayed in many SLA textbooks and that the role of L1 in morpheme

acquisition must be reconsidered. As in the study, it was revealed that there are

strong effect of L1 and how the learner acquire the morpheme. The example taken

from the study here is that Chinese does not have plural marking or an article

system, but it has a structure of denoting possession that is similar to that of English

(Ken de bi= Ken’s pen). Therefore, the study proven that the problem of using

article –s as possession in Chinese speakers and also Japanese, where they use the

same pattern in using possession (NO).

L1 influence is pervasive in all areas of L2 acquisition (Jarvis & Pavlenko,

2007; Odlin, 1989). Despite the numerous claims for the “natural” order of L2

acquisition of English grammatical morphemes, the present study has demonstrated

that they are not an exception to L1 influence. The journal that this essay review

has shown that the acquisition order of grammatical morphemes is highly affected

by the learner’s L1 such that it is possible to predict, to some extent, what is difficult

and what is easy for language learners based on their L1s.

References

Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dulay, H. C., & Burt, M. K. (1973). Should we teach children syntax? Language
Learning, 23(2), 245–258.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2007). Crosslinguistic influence in language and
cognition. New York: Routledge.
Krashen, S. (1977). Some issues relating to the Monitor Model. In H. Brown, C.
Yorio, & R. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL’77 (pp. 144–158). Washington, DC:
TESOL.
Luk, Z. P., & Shirai, Y. (2009). Is the acquisition order of grammatical
morphemes impervious to L1 knowledge? Evidence from the acquisition of
plural -s, articles, and possessive’s. Language Learning, 59(4), 721–754.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00524.x
Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (2004). Second language learning theories (2nd. ed.).
London: Hodder Arnold.
Odlin, T. (1989). Language transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.