Page 50 - Diversity in Action

Marco Magnani, Federica Ricci Garotti, and Katharina Salzmann

based on functional criteria, regardless of word order constraints, as exem-
plified in (6).

(6) Positional case marking:
pre-verbal noun = nominative case
post-verbal noun = accusative case
Functional case marking:
subject (regardless of its position) = nominative case
object (regardless of its position) = accusative case

Results show that all learners across three groups, i.e. irrespectively of their
L1 background, go through this implicational sequence. However, accuracy
rates are lower for Italian L1 learners compared to those from an L1 that has
case marking; and among the latter, learners from a Slavic L1 background
performbetterthan others.Thissuggeststhat whiletheL1doesinfluencethe
L2 outcome, it does not alter the developmental sequence. In other words,
learners from an L1 with case will not transfer this structure to the L2 unless
they are developmentally ready to do so.

L1–L2 Distance without Negative Transfer
To conclude this section, we report on the results of a study by Kawaguchi
(2002), who has investigated the acquisition of Japanese L2 syntax by two
Australian adult learners tested longitudinally, i.e. at four subsequent times
during their process of L2 learning.
From a syntactic point of view, English and Japanese are typologically dif-
ferent. Whereas the canonical word order in English is subject-verb-object
(SVO), in Japanese it is subject-object-verb (SOV). Thus, if we assumed a full
transfer hypothesis, as suggested by Schwartz and Sprouse (1996), we should
expect both learners to initially overextend the English L1 pattern, and hence
produce incorrect SVO sentences in Japanese L2. On the other hand, a cogni-
tively founded framework such as Processability Theory would predict that
canonical word order, regardless of the L2, is the least costly choice in terms
of processing procedures, and hence it is assumed to emerge early in learn-
ers’ interlanguage.
The results of Kawaguchi’s (2002) study completely falsify the full trans-
fer hypothesis and provide evidence in favour of the Processability Theory’s
hierarchy. In particular, Kawaguchi (2002) finds that none of the learners in
her study ever produce verbs in a non-final position, even at initial stages of
interlanguage. This is an important indicator that, when learners are cogni-

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