1. Acquisition of the Article
Semantics by Child and Adult
L2-English Learners
Tania Ionin, María Luisa Zubizarreta,
Vadim Philippov
(2009)

2. INTRODUCTION
Question:
Do children and adults acquire a second
language in the same way?

3. MAIN FOCUS
TRADITIONALLY
ULTIMATE ATTAINMENT
•L2 learners that started learning the L2 during childhood (early learners)
•L2 learners that started learning the L2 as adults (late learners)
Conslusions so far: consensus
•Early learners outperform the late learners on grammaticality judgement tasks in
the L2
Conslusions so far: disagreement
•The reason/explanation for this difference
•Biological
•Social
•Input

4. MORE RECENTLY MAIN FOCUS
PROCESSING
•¿is the processing of an L2 simmilar in children and adults?
•Do both, children and adults, learners of an L2 have access to UG?
Conclusions so far
(generativist)
•Children – yes GU
•Adults– debatable
•Schwartz (1992, 2002, 2004) – while the L1 is kept constant, the adults’ acquisition process is
simmilar to that of children – UG constrained

5. Articles, definiteness and specificity
 Aside from definitness, articles also encode specificity.
 In English, specificity is not morphologically marked.
 In Samoan, specific and non specific objects are marked with
two different articles.

6. ENGLISH vs. SAMOAN

7. Some definitions
 Definiteness: a presupposition of uniqueness
 The speaker assumes that the hearer shares the
presuposition of the existence of a unique individual in
the set denoted by the NP.
 Specificity: a speaker’s intent to refer
 The speaker intends to refer to a unique individual in
the set denoted by the NP and considers this individual
to possess some noteworthy property.

8. CLASSIFICATION & EXAMPLES
[+definfinite, + specific]
I want to talk to the winner of this race – she is a good friend of mine.
[+definite, -specific]
I want to talk to the winner of this race – whoever that happens to be.
[-definite, +specific]
Professor Robertson is meeting with a student from her class – my best friend Alice.
[-definite, -specific]
Professor Robertson is meeting with a student from her class – I don’t know which one.

9. ACQUISITION OF ARTICLES BY CHILDREN
AND ADULTS (previous studies)
 ADULTS
 L2 learners of English overuse “a” with non-specific definites [+definite,
–specific]
 L2 learners of English over use “the” in indefinite and specific contexts [-
definite, +specific]
 CHILDREN
 Child L2 learners of English overuse “the” in indefinite, specific contexts
(like the adults)
 Chlid L2 learners of English do not overuse “a” with non-specific
definites (unlinke the adults)

10. Possible Explanations
Children are egocentric and disregard the knowlede of
the listener.
Psychological
It is difficult for children to separate the listeners’ assumptions
by those of the speaker.
Linguistic The association of “the” with specificity.

11. Current study
MOTIVATION:
Explain the difference between children and adults
Determine which explanation best explains the
(mis)use of articles.

12. Participants
26 adults, L1 Russina, L2 English
58 children (10-12 yrs old) L1 Russian, L2
English
Control group L1 English (adults and
children)

13. METHODOLOGY
WRITTEN ELICITATION
60 short dialogues designed to elicit articles
CLOZE TEST (only for adult L2 English learners)

14. RESULTS
L1 ENGLISH
 High scores
 Children made more mistakes (compared to the adults)
 The few mistakes children made were in nonspecific indefinites
L2 ENGLISH
 The two groups are statistically comparable
 Clear influence of specificity (both groups)
 Adults: influence of specificity is evident both, in definite contexts as
well as indefinite contexts.
 Children: influence of specificity is much more evident in indefinite
contexts than it is in definite ones

15. CONCLUSION
QUESTION:
 Do children and adults of an article-less L1 acquire English
articles in the same way?
ANSWER:
YES and NO

16. Explicit and implicit knowledge
 Learners have both, explicit and implicit knowledge about article use.
 Implicit: takes the form of access to semantic universals
 Explicit: takes the form of explicit strategy – overextends the semantic distinction
to dfinites & indefinites.
EVIDENCE:
 performance on implicit tasks and differences among adult learners in different
studies.
 Ionin (2004) an implicit task for L1 Russians and L1 Korean learners of L2 English:
 written narrative task (did not explicitly target articles) – targeted meaning,
rather than form and did not encourage conscious awareness of linguistic rules
– implicit task
 article ellicitation task – explicit task