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PROFILING CHILD ESL ACQUISITION:
PRACTICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
KRISTIN KERSTEN
Immersion programs have been claimed to be the most effective
educational programs for the acquisition of a second language. This study
focusses on ESL data from an immersion elementary school in Germany,
which are analyzed within the framework of Processability Theory (PT,
Pienemann 1998, 2005) and subsequently compared to PT data from
naturalistic L2 acquisition. The paper puts a special focus on
methodological issues of data analysis, especially with regard to coding
decisions resulting from the form-function interface of linguistic
structures. A fine-grained analytical grid is suggested, which is mainly
based on the work of Pienemann (1998) and Pallotti (2003, 2007). The
results indicate that, after four years of immersion schooling in a
monolingual German environment, the participants in the program reached
the final two stages of the processing hierarchy suggested by PT (stages 5
and 6) in L2 English, and are thus comparable to children learning English
as a second language in a naturalistic context. With regard to data
elicitation, it could be demonstrated that the profiling procedures
suggested by PT can also be applied, with some limitations, to data
sources not directly related to the PT framework.
1. Introduction
This paper focusses on data from an immersion (IM) elementary school in
Kiel, Germany, in which monolingual German children aged 6-11 are
instructed in English in almost all parts of the curriculum. The immersion
method has been called the most successful educational program for
second1 language acquisition in schools (Genesee 1987, Wesche 2002,
Wode 2004, cf. also results from a comparative study by Pienemann et al.
20062). In order to shed more light on the effectiveness of such programs,
1 This article will not differentiate between the terms second and foreign language.
2 Pienemann, Keßler & Liebner (2006) present data they collected at an immersive
primary school in Kiel-Altenholz for a comparative analysis of different school
programs.
Kersten, K. (2009). "Profiling child ESL acquisition: practical and methodological
issues." In J.-U. Keßler, D. Keatinge (eds.), Research in Second Language
Acquisition: Empirical Evidence Across Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars
Press, 267-294.
Profiling child ESL acquisition
268
semi-spontaneous oral narratives from a four-year longitudinal study with
four children of the Kiel immersion school, originally elicited in the
framework of temporality and narrative structure (e.g. Berman & Slobin
1994, Dietrich et al. 1995, for an overview on temporal semantics cf.
Bardovi-Harlig 2000), are profiled with the help of acquisitional stages for
L2 English as suggested by the profiling hierarchy within the framework
of Processability Theory (PT, Pienemann 1998, cf. also online information
by Pienemann et al. on Rapid Profile3). Developed by Manfred Pienemann
in his influential 1998 book, PT is based on the premises of Levelt's
(1989) model on language production and relies mainly on Kempen &
Hoenkamp's (1987) Incremental Procedural Grammar and Kaplan &
Bresnan's (1982) Lexical-Functional Grammar (for a concise introduction
to the theory see Pienemann 2005, chapter 1). A special emphasis of the
discussion in this paper lies on the criteria used for data coding.
In the first section of this paper, the program, the data elicitation
procedure, and the research questions will be introduced. The next part
will describe the structures the analysis focusses on, and discuss other
theoretical and methodological issues relevant to the coding of the data,
especially with regard to the form-function interface in the acquisition of
grammatical structures. Afterwards, the operationalization of criteria used
for the analysis will be discussed in detail. The following two sections will
present the results of the analysis and relate them to attainment levels of
naturalistic L2 learners of English (Pienemann & Mackey 1993).
2. The study
2.1 The immersion project
The data presented here were collected in a bilingual elementary school,
the Claus-Rixen Grundschule in Kiel, Germany. The school is one of
several educational institutions, ranging from preschool to secondary
levels (ages 3-18), which are monitored under the supervision of Henning
Wode at Kiel University (see Kersten 2005, Wode 2001 for more
information on the Kiel Bilingual Project).
The elementary school incorporates a partial immersion program.
Bilingual classes (grades 1-4) mainly composed of monolingual German
children from a middle class background are taught in English in all
content matter except for German language arts. This amounts to
approximately 70% of L2 input throughout the curriculum.
3 http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/rapidprofile
Kristin Kersten 269
2.2 Data elicitation procedure
The present analysis is part of a larger study which was designed to elicit
guided, semi-spontaneous oral narratives in the framework of the
acquisition of temporality based on a comparative research study by
Berman & Slobin (1994). The data are currently being analyzed with
respect to the acquisition of narrative structures (e.g. Möller 2006) and
verbal morphology in the framework of temporal semantics (Kersten
2007, 2008). Data was elicited longitudinally over four years in the
children’s L1 and L2 at the end of each grade (grades 1-4), and cross-
sectionally with an L1 English-speaking comparison group4 from an
elementary school in White Bear Lake, Minneapolis, in the USA, grades
1-4.
Subjects: The analysis of this study was carried out on the samples of four
subjects of the L2 data set, i.e. subjects 03, 06, 07, and 08. For each of the
children, one test is available at each grade level. All subjects are female
and started learning the L2 at age 6, with the exception of child 06, who
had prior experience with the L2 in a bilingual preschool.
Method: A picture story was used for data elicitation.5 During each
elicitation, the narration was delivered twice in the L2, first with a
German-speaking interviewer whom the children were able to ask for
vocabulary (Test A), and subsequently with an interviewer who was
known to the children as a native speaker of English (Test B). During the
second test, no questions were permitted. Both versions provided data for
this study. The grade 4 data also include a short interview on personal
stories preceding the narration. The tests were audio- and videotaped and
subsequently transcribed. The samples average about 7:50 min of
recording.
Coding conventions: Direct repetitions within the narrations (e.g. where is
my frog, where is my frog), repetitions of interviewers' utterances (up to 3
4 The term control group is avoided since it implies that all variables except for the
dependent one are kept constant. As this was not possible at the time of data
collection in the USA, I prefer the term comparison group to indicate that some,
but not all of the variables are comparable. Comparable variables include the
grades and the age of the children.
5 Frog, where are you? (Mayer 1969), cf. Berman & Slobin (1994).
Profiling child ESL acquisition
270
turns), hesitations and self-corrections, and uninterpretable elements such
as tokens with unclear endings were excluded from the analysis.
2.3 Research questions
The developmental stages suggested by PT are used to evaluate the
effectiveness of language acquisition in an IM educational program. As
the data were collected in a different theoretical framework, the first step
of the analysis will focus on the applicability of PT to this specific set of
child data. Only after having established the coding criteria for the
analysis can the results be compared to naturalistic L2 acquisition. Thus,
the study will focus on the following research questions:
1. Do the data confirm the stages predicted by PT?
2. What are the operational criteria for an application of PT to this data
set?
3. Are the results of L2A in an immersion school as indicated by the PT
stages comparable to results achieved by learners from a naturalistic
learning context?
3. Theoretical and methodological considerations
The operational methodology applied here is based on Pienemann (1998)
and includes criteria suggested by Pallotti (2003, 2007),6 who, in his
recent work, sought to operationalize the coding criteria presented in
Pienemann (1998) for his application of PT to Italian. The following
section introduces the selection of structures focussed on in the analysis,
and discusses some problematic issues which have emerged in the process
of data interpretation.
3.1 The structures
The classification of linguistic structures into six developmental stages of
ESL identified by PT is based on Pienemann (1998), Rapid Profile, and on
Pienemann & Johnston (1987) and will not be repeated here. In order to
use PT as a profiling measure for data not elicited in the PT framework, it
6 I am very much indebted to Gabriele Pallotti for helpful comments and
discussions on the first draft of this paper. For a full account of his work on the
operationalization of the emergence criterion see Pallotti (2007).
Kristin Kersten 271
is important to identify those structures which occur with a relatively high
frequency and thus increase data density.
stage syntactic structures morphological structures
6 cancel inv
5 3.sg –s
4 (wh-)copula inv
yes-no inv
part-verb
3 do-front
topical
wh-front
adv-front
aux+ing
aux+en
poss pro/det
obj.pro
2 SVO
neg+V
past reg
past irreg
IL-ing
plural –s
1 single wds
Table 1: PT-Structures
Verbal inflections are likely candidates since they appear in almost
every clause of the narrations. Table 1 gives an overview of the syntactic
and morphological structures coded for analysis. Irregular past was
classified together with regular past and IL (interlanguage) -ing as stage 2
since no exchange of phrasal information is involved. The two auxiliary
constructions not present in Rapid Profile were classified as stage 3
because of the unification of values between auxiliary and the lexical verb,
which is an instance of phrasal agreement (Pienemann 1998:175). Note
that this does not require the target-like use of the auxiliary. The target-
like agreement of auxiliary and subject is not relevant here; otherwise the
structure would have to be placed at stage 5. To illustrate this with
examples from the data:
Child 06.1:
and the dog falling down off the window (IL-ing, stage 2)
and the boy are looking to a tree (aux+ing, stage 3)
Since there were too few occurrences of do-front and aux 2nd in the sample
they were excluded from the analysis.
Profiling child ESL acquisition
272
3.2 Form-function interface and the emergence criterion:
some problem cases7
Research in SLA has repeatedly shown that a learner's IL-system is a
system in its own right with its individual rules, which do not necessarily
need to correspond to those of the target language (Pienemann 1998: 138f,
160f). Especially in the beginning stages of acquisition, investigations into
the distribution of linguistic features run the risk of confusing the
emergence of interlanguage rules with random variation and chunks
(Housen 1995, Perdue 1993, Pienemann 1998 chapter 4, 117ff). Such
confusion can be avoided when researchers explicitly define "what forms
and what functions are considered evidence for the emergence of a certain
structure" (Pallotti 2003:1).
The emergence criterion is a concept crucial for data analysis within
the framework of PT. For an analysis of learner language, PT proposes a
methodological operation which is based on the criterion of the first
emergence of morpho-syntactic elements in the language produced by a
learner. More specifically, Pienemann characterizes emergence as the
"first systematic use of a structure" in question (1984:191). This refers to
the moment "at which certain operations can, in principle, be carried out"
(1998:138).
In recent years, Pallotti has further developed the definition of the term
emergence (2003, 2007). In his 2007 article, he seeks to operationalize the
different components of emergence as quoted above to validify data
analyses based on this criterion. The relation of form vs. function of a
structure becomes especially important in two aspects of his definition, i.e.
the notions of the productive8 and the systematic use of grammatical
morphemes:
The learner may in fact be supplying the morpheme randomly, with no clear
function, in free allomorphic variation. In this case, one would not say that a
systematic form-function association has emerged, but rather that the learner is
still experimenting with a phonological form. A criterion must specify a way
of differentiating such cases from systematic uses. ... Only when a form begins
to be used with a specific, selective function can one conclude that a rule has
7 I am grateful to Satomi Kawaguchi for comments on this issue in an earlier draft
of this paper.
8 Examples for the productive use of a structure are minimal pairs or creative
constructions. In a minimal pair of the plural morpheme, the -s will be attached
complementarily to nouns in plural context, thus indicating a functional use of
the morpheme.
Kristin Kersten 273
emerged. This point is also made by Pienemann (1998: 126). (Pallotti
2007:371f)
It has to be pointed out that the term function should refer solely to the
grammatical funtion of a linguistic element as opposed to a conceptual or
semantic function in a specific context. To give an illustration of this
distinction: if the V-s inflection is used by a learner in many different
contexts, most of which do not refer to the grammatical function of 3rd
pers. sg., V-s cannot be interpreted as having emerged in terms of a
systematic use of the structure. The application of V-s rather seems to be
used randomly in the data. However, this example only relates to the
suppliance of the grammatical function of 3rd pers. -s. The temporal (i.e.
conceptual) function of present tense which the -s inflection carries as
well should not be taken into consideration in the analysis, as PT does not
make any claims about conceptualization but only about the processing
load in terms of syntactic and morphological grammar formulation. This
distinction will be discussed in more detail below (section 3.2.3).
While the description of morpho-syntactic forms seems to be a quite
straightforward operation, the description of their various functions thus
seems a somewhat more complicated matter. It is therefore necessary to
carefully operationalize the criteria which lead to the conclusion that a
structure has emerged in an interlanguage system with respect to the first
systematic occurrence (Pallotti 2007). To account for these criteria, Table
2 shows a distributional analysis which takes into account the variables
context, target-like types, and target-like tokens of a given element, as
well as its under- and over-suppliance (i.e. the null-hypothesis). Table 2 is
an example for two structures which have emerged in an interlanguage
system, i.e. 3rd sg. -s and plural -s (subject 06, grade 1):
To illustrate this distribution with the example of 3rd pers. sg. -s: In 59
contexts of 3rd pers. sg., the child uses V-s with 11 types (i.e. with
different lexical verbs) and 21 tokens (i.e. total occurrences independent of
the verb type). 38 contexts of 3rd pers. sg. are used without the -s inflection
(i.e. as base form V-ø), which is counted as under-suppliance, but V-s is
never used in a context other that the 3rd pers. sg., thus there is no instance
of over-suppliance in this example. For this reason, the structure was
assigned the status emerged in the analysis (cf. chapter 4).
Profiling child ESL acquisition
274
Structure Contexts/target-like types/
target-like tokens
3.sg -s
3.sg ¬ s
-s ¬ 3.sg
others ¬ –s
59/11/21
38
0
10/2/10
– under-suppliance
– over-suppliance
pl -s
pl ¬ s
-s ¬ pl
11/5/11
0
0
– under-suppliance
– over-suppliance
¬ without
Table 2: Example of a distributional analysis (Child 06.1)
While in Table 2 the form-function interface seems unproblematic,
difficulties may arise in the interpretation of corpora like the one at hand
with regard to other kinds of functions. The following sections will discuss
the notions of grammatical vs. conceptual function and their relevance to a
PT analysis with reference to the interpretation of reported speech vs.
relative clauses as an example of the former notion, as well as to
maturational and lexico-semantic influences on learner language as an
example of the latter.
3.2.1 Conceptual vs. grammatical function
The preceding section has hinted at certain difficulties in coming to terms
with the form-function relationship which has to be taken into
consideration when assigning the emergence criterion to interlanguage
data. The term function is, in itself, not without problems, though. As
already indicated earlier, it is necessary to tease apart different functional
aspects of a linguistic element.
Taking again the function of 3rd pers. sg. -s as an example, two
different aspects can be distinguished: On the one hand, the inflection
denotes subject-verb agreement. This specific exchange of inter-phrasal
grammatical information pertains to the S-procedure in the Formulator of
Pienemann's model (1998, 2005, based on Levelt's 1989 model of
language production). On the other hand, the inflection marks present
tense. In other words, one can differentiate between a grammatical and a
semantic function (Tarone 1988) of the linguistic element. In the example
of 3rd pers. sg. -s the grammatical function would be inter-phrasal
agreement, and the conceptual or semantic function relates the respective
Kristin Kersten 275
event within a temporal sequence. Thus, in the tense/aspect system of a
language it is the second, the semantic function, which comes into play
(cf. also Huddleston 1993:80f).
In Levelt's model of speech production (1989:9) which underlies PT,
time reference is generated in the Conceptualizer (cf. also Pienemann
1998:76), whereas the diacritic feature for tense marking is part of the
lemma information stored in the Lexicon. PT's predictions on the
processing hierarchy focusses solely on the functioning of the Formulator
(Pienemann 1998:74). It pertains fully to syntactic structures, whose
functions are often described as "grammatical relations" (Huddleston
1993:7): there is no conceptual difference in saying Turn off the radio or
Turn the radio off; nor in Where are you? vs. *Where you are? Thus, in
the processing of syntactic structures, it is the grammatical function which
indicates that a specific procedure is at work. Still, when it comes to data
coding, not all syntactic structures in learner language are easy to interpret
in this framework. An example will be discussed in section 3.2.2. In
section 3.2.3, a more detailed discussion of form and function with
reference to time and morphological tense-marking follows, to which the
predictions of PT refer only in part.
3.2.2 Cancel inversion
In his characterization of cancel inversion, Pienemann states that “word
order phenomena observed in direct questions do not apply in the context
of indirect questions” (1998:170). He gives the example I wonder
whether/why/where (he had lunch yesterday). An example for this
structure from this study is found in the data of child 08.3:
08.3
... shouted: "Where is my frog?"
... shouted where the frog is.
The introductory verb shout is not quite target-like, but the opposition of
both phrases points to a cancel inversion in the context of an indirect
question in the second phrase. But consider the following example:
06.2
... looks where the bees are.
... to see where is the frog.
Profiling child ESL acquisition
276
According to Greenbaum & Quirk (1990:298f), only cognitive verbs or
verbs describing a mental activity introduce indirect questions. However,
it seems obvious that, in 06.2, the child overgeneralizes the inversion rule
from indirect contexts to relative contexts introduced by look and see. It is
apparent in the data that the difference between indirect questions and
other forms of subordination is not as clear-cut as theory would have it.
The same wh-elements that introduce interrogative clauses can as well
introduce relative clauses (Greenbaum & Quirk 1990:309, 367f). And
Huddleston (1993:396) points out that the same fronting mechanisms are
at work in both kinds of clauses. What adds to the confusion in the latter
example of 06.2 is the fact that the antecedent is missing, i.e. the element
which the relative pronoun/adverbial refers to. Huddleston (1993:396)
calls these structures fused relative constructions. He points out that they
even partially overlap with interrogative constructions (as e.g. in he spent
what they gave him vs. she told me what they gave him, p. 404).
Without going into too much detail, it obviously seems rather unlikely
that the learners distinguish between relative and interrogative wh-
elements in their interlanguage. It is much more probable to assume that
once a lexical item is annotated for a certain grammatical function, in this
case for inversion, it is initially overgeneralized to all contexts, and only
later in development becomes differentiated with respect to different
grammatical functions.
This might be different, however, in contexts of relative clauses with
antecedent. There are many instances of such full relative clauses
especially in the data of the third and fourth year. The last section raises
the question of whether these elements, too, should be classified as
contexts for cancel inversion. Indeed, some instances of the corpus suggest
that inversion seems to be an issue for the children even in full relative
contexts:
07.4
... a place where we don't find them
... a hole where he shouted in
... a Markt [market] where can you buy Chinese things
08.3
... the little frog who he catched
... the little frog who has he catched
The question remains which factors influence this development. One
factor which may come into play here is the complexity of the structure to
be cancelled (i.e. copula-inversion vs. verb-complexes in 08.3). This might
Kristin Kersten 277
represent an example of an intra-stage development (compare Mansouri &
Håkansson 2007). This analysis thus suggests that three types of relative
contexts have to be differentiated, i.e. indirect, fused and full relative
contexts. And for the learner, this differentiation seems not
straightforward at all.
3.2.3 Past tense marking
As stated above, in order to establish the first systematic use of a structure,
the researcher has to operationalize the notions of first and systematic. In
Pallotti's operational criteria for emergence, this is where the function of a
morphological structure comes into play, illustrated above with the
example of the 3rd pers. sg. -s-inflection, which requires the processing of
inter-phrasal agreement. With respect to past reference, which will be
discussed in this section, Pienemann states that
the use of grammatical information ... proceeds without reliance on
temporary storage. An example is the morphological marking of reference to
time. The information about tense is contained in the verb lemma with the
value 'past' for the diacritic feature 'tense'. This means that the diacritic
feature in question is available in the same location where the morpheme for
the marking of past (i.e. '-ed') has to occur and no information has to be
deposited into any syntactic procedure to achieve this process. I call the
resulting class of morphemes 'lexical'. Since lexical morphemes can be
produced without phrasal procedures they can develop before phrasal
procedures. (Pienemann 2005:11)
The -ed-inflection is thus processed by the category procedure and
classified at stage 2 in the processing hierarchy. In the present data set
however, the question arose as to when the morpheme V-ed could be
classified as emerged according to the operational criteria used in the
analysis. One problem came up with respect to establishing its systematic
use, another in connection with "the marking of past (i.e. -'ed')". Both
problems arise in the broad context of the form-function relation. In the
following two sections, they will be illustrated with examples from the
data and subsequently addressed with reference to the theoretical
framework of PT.
3.2.3.1 Developmental issues
One reason which can render it difficult to establish the systematic use of
verbal inflections especially in corpora of child narratives are maturational
Profiling child ESL acquisition
278
constraints. To establish the systematicity of use, a stable reference point
in the linguistic context is indispensable.
16.1 B (Grade 1) 06.2 A+B (Grade 2)
and the boy is in the water
and hears something
and then the boy said to the dog
quiet (dir)
and then the boy looked behind
the tree
and there is his frog with another
frog and babies
and then the boy has a little baby
from the mother and the
daddy
and the boy fall on the floor ...
and then the dog and the boy fell in the water
and then the dog finds the beehive
and [Hesitation: they thi/] the dog think
that’s a ball
and jumped
because he(?) want to toys with the boy ...
and there came many many bees(beens?) out
and the boy looked in a hole in a tree
and there cames a owl out
and say huh huh ...
Table 3: Tense marking (L2 English)
This may be, for example, the predominant tense of a narration. In
narrative child language data, however, it becomes obvious that stable
time reference is a specific competence which has to be developed over
time. Tables 3-6 vividly illustrate this phenomenon.
Table 3 shows a picture very familiar to everyone working with child
language. A look at the temporal function of the verbs reveals a high
amount of variation regarding tense marking. There are tense shifts within
one sentence, within one verb type, and even two different tense markers
on one and the same verb. The same is true for aspect marking (Table 4).
08.1 B (Grade 1) 08.2 B (Grade 2)
and the boy say
au (dir)
and then the boy looking in a hole
and the bees fly away
and then the dog are running away ...
and then the boy staying on the stone
‘n then the boy are sitting on a deer ...
n’ then the boy are say
psst (dir)
and then the boy is looking in a hole in a
tree
and then he look above the trunk
Table 4: Aspect marking (L2 English)
Kristin Kersten 279
Again, we find a range of intra-individual variation: activites like fly and
run are sometimes marked with a progressive marker, sometimes they are
not; there is variation on the inflections of a single verb type, ect.
Interestingly, however, this phenomenon is not restricted to the L2 stories.
A similar distribution occurs in the L1 stories (Tables 5 and 6), which are
taken from other transcipts in the corpus:
16.1 (Grade 1) 07.2 (Grade 2)
er ging zu der Schildkröte
und bellte sie an
und dann beißt die Schildkröte den Hund
in seine Pfote
und dann leckt er sich die Pfote
und der kleine Junge nahm seinen Eimer
und seine Schaufel
und packte sie weg
[and he went to the turtle and barked at
her
and then the turtle bites the dog in his
paw
and then he licks his paw
and the little boy took his bucket and his
spade
and put [past] them away]
dann läuft der Hund zur Schildkröte
und bellt sie an
dann kam der Junge dichter und
dichter
und dann biß plötzlich die Schildkröte
den Hund in die Pfote
[then the dog runs to the turtle
and barks at her
then the boy came closer and closer
and then, suddenly, the turtle bit the
dog in the paw]
Table 5: Tense marking (L1 German)
Tense shifts like went and bites, barks and came as in Table 5 are
frequently found. The same is true for English as L1 (Table 6).
Here, verbs expressing a rather punctual action like yell through a hole or
call for the frog are expressed in the progressive. A time-shift is present in
both examples as well, from is yelling to came, went running to climbs and
so forth.
The question arises as to the reasons for this distribution. Are the
children, even in their L1, not capable of target-like tense distinctions?
Are we observing an artefact derived from the specific task, i.e. the
acquisition of a narrative competence in children? Do the children shift
back and forth between narration style and picture description mode? In
order to answer these questions, a much more detailed analysis would
need to be carried out. Yet, unfortunately this is out of the scope of this
paper. What becomes obvious, though, is the following problem: if this
variation cannot be explained satisfactorily for the L1 stories, it is even
more difficult to make claims about the function of verbal inflections in
Profiling child ESL acquisition
280
the L2, and thus to establish coding criteria for the systematicity of their
usage.
25.1 U 04.2 U
then he looks for him
and so does the dog
then he’s barking at a beehive
and the boy’s yelling through a hole
then a squirrel came up
and bited his nose ...
and the dog went running, looking for the frog
and then he climbs up a XXX rock
and holds onto a branch
looking for the frog
and then he got stuck by a moose
the dog’s barking
the dog slipped out the window
the boy is holding the dog
and the dog licked the boy
now the boy is calling for the
frog
Table 6: Tense and aspect marking (L1 English)
Whether or not these observations are related to the elicitation task, the
fact that the same variability can be observed in the L1 stories of children
of the same age strongly hints at a specific cognitive-maturational
development of that age. One strong argument in favor of this point is that
the temporal switches from past to present gradually decrease in the
transcripts from higher grades both in the L1 and the L2 – even though the
elicitation task remained the same.
3.2.3.2 Lexico-semantic marking
The second problem in establishing the first systematic use of the past
inflection is the assumption that -ed indeed functions as "the marking of
past" (Pienemann 2005:11). Even if we assume systematicity in the use of
L2 inflections, these inflections do not necessarily need to be used – even
though systematically – with the same function a native speaker would use
them. It has been suggested that verbal inflections, in the early stages of
the acquisition process, tend not to encode the grammatical functions
ascribed to them at all. The so-called Aspect Hypothesis (AH) as
formulated by Andersen & Shirai (1994) complicates the form-function
issue further by suggesting that in the beginning verbal inflections are
used to encode the inherent semantic properties of the verbs they are
attached to rather than grammatical functions. This has been referred to as
the lexical aspect of the verb. The categories of lexical aspect are
distinguished with regard to their inherent expression of duration, telecity
Kristin Kersten 281
(including an endpoint or goal), and dynamic properties, i.e. state verbs,
activities, accomplishments, and achievements (Vendler 1967, Andersen
& Shirai 1994):
Lexical aspectual classes
Semantic features States Activities Accomplishments Achievements
Punctual - - - +
Telic - - + +
Dynamic - + + +
Table 7: Semantic features of the four categories of inherent lexical
aspect (taken from Rohde 2002:137)
According to the AH, English inflections encoding 3rd pers. sg,
progressive, and past tense are complementarily affiliated with different
verb-categories in that -ing co-occurs mainly with activity verbs, past and
perfective inflections with so-called achievements and accomplishments,
and 3rd ps. -s with state verbs. It is assumed that this distribution is, to
some extent at least, also inherent in the input (Distributional Bias
Hypothesis, Andersen & Shirai 1994), and that it grants the learnability of
verb inflections in both L1 and L2 acquisition (Rohde 1997; see also
Rohde 2002 for a concise overview of these issues). In a study by Kersten
et al. (2002) and Kersten (2007, 2008) the AH was confirmed for the same
data corpus in an analysis on lexical aspect (cf. Table 8).9 As a
consequence, in the L2 narrations, lexical aspect marking, which has a
semantic connotation, has to be carefully distinguished from "the marking
of past". It is much more probable that V-ed, in the beginning stages of
language acquisition, is used by the learner to indicate a functional notion
different from past tense.
9 The effect of this distribution was dominated, in data from grade 1, by the -ing
inflection, which seemed to be used as a general verb marker of invariant form. It
has been proposed that this could be due to its being more saliently marked than
the other forms, to its frequency and multiple functions in the input, and/or due to
its phonological resemblance to the German infinitve ending -en (Rohde 1997).
Support for this idea can be found in the data. 07.1 B: "The boy rufen the frog."
vs. "The boy rufing the frog." But in order to make specific claims about
function, an analysis of this kind should be carried out for each single child.
Profiling child ESL acquisition
282
09.1 (Grade 1)
Clause Aspectual Category
- the dog looking in the glass
- and the boy looking on the tree
- the dog fell down
- and them felled the boy and the dog in
the water
- shut, the Eul [owl] hats shut the eyes
activity
activity
achievement
achievement
state
Table 8: Semantic aspect marking (L2 English)
The examples from the data corpus in Table 8 illustrate the predictions of
the AH in that activity verbs are inflected with -ing, achievements with
past morphology, and state verbs with -s (note the two creative forms of
*fell-ed and L1 *hat-s [has], which indicate that the learners use the
distribution of verbal morphology productively on forms which have not
occurred in the input).
To sum up, the coding difficulties in establishing the systematicity of
verbal tense morphology in these L2 narratives are twofold: first, the
amount of variation due to the cognitive development yields an unstable
reference point in the children's L2 narratives; and second, other
acquisitional principles seem to interfere with the functional use of
morphological structures.
Having illustrated these two phenomena in the language of the
learners, it is necessary to recur to the original PT model in order to
address the issues of systematicity and form and function of past
reference, since the question remains as to when past morphology can be
classified as having emerged in the corpus. As stated above, PT
predictions pertain to the processing operations in the Formulator of the
speech production model. The Lexicon, which contains the lemmata, is
seen as a separate component. However, in the beginning stages of
language acquisition, the Lexicon is not yet completely annotated
(Pienemann 1998:76) and may thus lack specific diacritic features such as
tense. The findings with regard to the Aspect Hypothesis even suggest that
in interlanguage these annotations may differ from those of the target
language and will eventually be changed in the process of further language
acquisition. One theoretical aspect has to be borne in mind, however: The
fact that the respective inflection does not refer to the same conceptual
function in the Lexicon as in the target language does not influence the
functioning of the processing procedure in the Formulator. The category
procedure is at work in both cases, irrespective of whether the inflection
carries a reference to the past or not. In the same sense the target-like past
Kristin Kersten 283
reference is irrelevant for the operationalization of systematic use, as long
as the morphological form is used in a creative and productive way. The
temporal function of the inflections in question can thus be neglected as
long as specific analytical criteria are operationalized for variability and
productivity of their use. These criteria are discussed in the following
section.
4. Data analysis and interpretation
In accordance with the previous discussion, the following section will
outline the criteria used for this study based on the suggestions by
Pienemann (1998) and by Pallotti (2003, 2007) in his definition of
operational criteria for data coding.
4.1. Criteria
There are several factors which can potentially undermine the validity of
an analysis. The first factor to account for is insufficient evidence. The
criteria must therefore include a sufficiently high number of contexts for
each structure. For syntax, Pienemann (1998:145) has suggested >4. He
concedes, however, that "some degree of ambiguity remains in this
analysis when it comes to judging if the number of linguistic contexts is
sufficient for a given rule to decide if the rule has been applied or not" (p.
146). Second, the exclusion of chunks has to be guaranteed, which can be
achieved by a certain degree of lexical variability in the data. It can be
argued that this is a necessary prerequisite for syntactic structures as well,
because here the risk runs high that some frequently used structures are
learned as formulas (Pienemann 1998:147). Finally, Pienemann mentions
the occurrence of random hits. These can be accounted for by the number
of over-suppliances or over-use of the structure in question (Pallotti 2003,
2007). Table 9 summarizes these criteria.
threat to validity criterion
exclusion of insufficient evidence → number of contexts
exclusion of cunks → variability
exclusion of random hits → overuse
Table 9: Validity criteria
Profiling child ESL acquisition
284
Pallotti10 emphasises that the rate of over-suppliances (inferred from the
matrix for a distributional analysis in Pienemann 1998:158) is the crucial
factor for the exclusion of random hits, as illustrated in a hypothetical
example of a distributional analysis (Table 10):
Plural –s pl sg
N+ -s 8 2 → number of -s 10, number of over-suppliances 2 = 20 %
N+ -ø 15 43
↓ number of pl 23, number of under-suppliances 15
Table 10: Hypothetical example of a distributional analysis
Under-suppliance of a yet unacquired linguistic form as represented in the
columns is generally to be expected in interlanguage. To illustrate this: if a
feature occurs five times correctly with different types, there is probably
no difference in the status of its emergence, independent of whether there
are 15 or 50 under-uses. It would, however, make a difference had there
been 15 over-suppliances instead of two. According to this logic, the
percentage of over-suppliance has to be taken as an indicator for
randomness. The following cut-off points have been used for the rate of
over-suppliance in the analysis:
Over-suppliance
target-like + overuse =100 %
+ target-like ≥ 75 %
(+) target-like ≥ 50 %
(–) target-like ≥ 25 %
– target-like < 25 %
With reference to Pallotti's criteria, this study uses a fine-grained analysis
including bracketed labels to indicate insufficient evidence. The
operational criteria used in the analysis are presented in Table 11. There is
of course some arbitrariness to any cut-off point in an analysis. Thus, this
chart represents a work-in-progress list which has to be refined.
st structure con-
texts under
-use over
-use variability
(types) examples from data /
comments
6 cancel inv ? inv / ? he wants to know where
the frog is
he looks where the frog is
= fused rel
10 (personal communication)
Kristin Kersten 285
st structure con-
texts under
-use over
-use variability
(types) examples from data /
comments
he sees in the glass where
the frog is = rel
5 aux/do 2nd ≥4 context
¬inv
/ ≥4 or 3 incl.
1mp
(types of
wh+aux)
mp: where are you
looking? /
where is my frog going?
3.sg –s ≥5 3.sg¬s s¬3.sg ≥5 or 3 +
1mp/creat
exclusion of be/have
mp: he walks / they walk
creat: past irreg+s
4 wh-cop
inv
≥4 context
¬inv
/ ≥4 or 3 incl.
1mp
(types of
wh+V)
mp: where are you? /
where is my frog?
yes-no inv ≥3 context
¬inv
inv¬
context
≥3 or 2 incl.
1mp
(types of
S+V)
overuse: this can you
have
mp: are you here? / is he
here?
part-verb ≥3 context
¬movemt.
/ ≥3 or 1 +
1creat
(different
verbs)
creat: the dog came the
beehive down
(mp ?)
3 topical ≥3 / / ≥3
(different
elements)
objects and subordinate
clauses
(mp ?)
do-front ≥4 context¬
do-front
do-front
¬context
≥4
(do with
diff.
contexts)
underuse: he go there?
wh-front ≥4 Ntl
position
within S,
(not final)
/ ≥4 or 3 incl.
1mp
(types of
wh+V)
underuse: he where is?
mp: where are you? /
where is my frog?
adv-front ≥3 Ntl
position
within S,
(not final)
/ ≥3 or 2 +
1mp
or 1 + 1
creat
(types of
adverbs)
exclusion: clause-linking
conj and then; there is
underuse: the frog in the
night go to his family
mp: now the boy wake
up/now the frog is away
creat: downside, there are
a lake
(*)aux+en ≥5 of
aux+en
*aux+en
en¬aux
aux¬en
(= +Vø)
≥5 or 3 + 1
creat
underuse: is
fallen/falled/fell, gone
creat: have goed =
aux+*en
(*)aux+ing ≥5 of
aux+ing
IL-ing aux
¬ing
≥5 or 3 + 1
creat
aux past + aux present
creat: are rufing = aux+
L1-ing
ist looking = L1-aux+ing
Profiling child ESL acquisition
286
st structure con-
texts under
-use over
-use variability
(types) examples from data /
comments
poss. ≥5 context ¬
poss
poss ¬
context
≥2 his dog
underuse: put he hands on
he nose
obj.pro ≥5 context ¬
obj.pro
obj.pro
¬
context
≥2 exclusion of 2nd sg.
he see them
underuse: he see they
2 SVO ≥4 SOV/VSO
random
distrib.
/ ≥4
(with
varying
constit.)
neg+V
(acc.
to
Rap.Prof)
≥3 postverb.
neg?
/ ≥3 or 1 + 1
creat
(types of V
with neg.)
the boy (is) not walking /
don't walk
underuse: he looks not?
creat: don't can
come/don't finds/didn't
were
past irreg ≥5 of
V-past
*past-ed
irreg+ed
irreg+s
(X-irreg) ≥5 or 3 + 1
creat
exclusion of be/have
creat: *full=fell = *irreg
past reg ≥5 of
V-past
/
(V-reg
+irreg)
(X-ed) ≥5 or 3 + 1
creat
creat: comed = *past-ed
camed = irreg+ed
IL-ing ≥5of
(aux+)
V-ing
/ (X-ing)
≥5 or 3 + 1
creat
creat: the boy rufing =
L1-ing
plural –s ≥5 pl¬s s¬pl ≥5 or 3 +
1mp/creat
mp: frog / frogs
creat: childs, childrens
1 single wds ≥2 / / / dog, boy, der frog
(X): unlikely to occur; ntl: non-target-like; ¬: without; /: no evidence in the data or not
possible; mp: minimal pair; creat: creative construction
Table 11: Operational criteria
Following Pienemann, the number of required contexts is lower for syntax
than for morphology. On the other hand, in syntax some structures run a
higher risk of chunking than others, like for example the collocation of
wh-words with auxiliaries (what is, what do etc.). This is why four instead
of three contexts were used in such cases. To illustrate this: the non-target-
like position of the wh-form within the sentence (He where is?) can be
considered as under-use of wh-front. There was no instance of over-
suppliance in the data (and it seems difficult to think of any example for
it). The notion of minimal pair was also adopted for syntax. An example
from the data would be the productive alternation of the auxiliary with the
same question word, as in Where are you? vs. Where is my frog?
Kristin Kersten 287
4.2 Illustration
A combination of these criteria yields the results of a distributional
analysis expressed as '+' and '–'. Table 12 gives an overview of the
gradation system for emergence. In the case of positive contexts, the
columns of negative evidence are disregarded.
random hits
status
variability
status
contexts
status
underuse
status
status:
emerged
+ + +
(–)/(+) + (+)
(+) – (+)
(–) – + + –
(–) – (+) + (–)
/ / /
Table 12: Operational criteria: gradation of status "emerged"
Table 13 illustrates how this analysis can be applied to the data.
structure random hits variability (negative evidence) status:
tl
tokens over-u
(/cont) % stat.
(≥75%) tl
types min.
pairs creat.
constr. stat. contexts stat. under
-use stat. emerged
morphol.
pl. –s 15 0 100 + 6 2 1 + 15 0
+
IL-ing
/ /
/
p. reg 5 0 100 + 4 – 5 0
(+)
p. irreg 4 0 100 (+) 2 1
(+) 6 2
(+)
poss 12 0 100
+ 2 + 12 0
+
obj.pro 5 0 100
+ 1 – 5 0
(+)
aux+ing 6 0 100
+ 6 + 6 0
+
aux+en 1 2 33
(–) 1 – 6 + 3 + (–)
3.sg –s 44 1/11 98 + 16 5 1 + 56 12
+
syntax
SVO 59
+ / 59 0
+
neg+V 4
+ 4 +
+
adv-front 3 + 3 +
+
wh-front 7 + 2 1 – 7 0
(+)
do-front
/ /
/
topical. 4
+ 4 +
+
part-V
move
1
(+) 1 –
(+)
yes/no
inv
/ /
/
wh-cop
inv
7
+ 2 1 – 7 0
(+)
aux/do
2nd
/ /
/
cancel
inv
/ /
/
+: emerged; (+): insufficient evidence for emergence; (–): insufficient evidence against emergence; –: not
emerged; tl: target-like
Profiling child ESL acquisition
288
Table 13: Operational criteria applied (Child 06.3)
The table shows the analysis of the morphological and syntactic structures
used in the narrative of Child 06 in grade 3 with regard to the operational
criteria established above.
To exemplify: in Table 13, the structure 3rd sg. -s is interpreted as
emerged ('+') since there are a) enough contexts, b) random hits are
excluded, and c) there proved to be enough variability with regard to the
criteria. The structure aux+en has not emerged ('–') because there are not
enough contexts, thus a high risk of chance, and not enough variability.
The feature past irreg may have emerged ('(+)'), but there are not enough
contexts and variability according to the criteria.
5. Results and discussion
5.1 Language development
The following tables show an overview of the development of the four
subjects from grade 1-4. Table 14 represents an implicational analysis of
cross-sectional and longitudinal data of all four subjects. Some of the
structures (bold print) which occur late in development have not enough
linguistic contexts. But since they had already been confirmed in previous
stories of the child, as for example neg+Verb with child 07 (confirmed in
year 3), they were assumed to still be part of the child's interlanguage
system (cf. continuity assumption, Pienemann 1998). 11
At a first glance, all structures are in line with the PT predictions,
except for yes-no inversion and aux+past participle. In most of these cases
the structures are already present in the data but there is not sufficient
evidence according to the criteria. However, as long as other structures of
that stage have emerged, this is a sign that the procedure actually is at
work. Thus, there may simply be other factors which delay the acquisition
of this specific feature as e.g. higher complexity, lower frequency in the
input, etc. (cf. Mansouri 2005, Mansouri & Håkansson 2007 on intra-stage
developments). Therefore they should not be considered counter-examples
to the implicational pattern as long as one of the structures belonging to a
certain stage has emerged. There are, however, many gaps in the data set
indicating that it is not as robust as the two ESL corpora presented in
Pienemann (1998).
11 "If a structure has been acquired it will be a constant part of the interlanguage
system at later levels of development." (Pienemann 1998:147)
Kristin Kersten 289
stg. structure 3.1 7.1 8.1 6.1 3.2 3.3 7.2 6.2 6.3 3.4 8.2 7.3 7.4 8.3 6.4 8.4
6 cancel
inv
/ / / / / / / / / / (+) (+) (+) + +
+
5 3.sg –s / / – (+) + + + + + + + + + + + +
4 wh-cop
inv
/ / / (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+)
yes/no
inv
/ (–) / (+) (–) (+) + / / / (–) + + (–) / /
part-V / / / / (+) / / +
+ / (+) (+) (+) + + +
3 topical. / / / (+) / (+) (+) (+) + + (+) (+) (+) + + +
wh-front / / / (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+)
adv-front / + + (+) + + + / + + + + + + + +
aux+en / / / / (–) (–) (–) (–) – (+) / – (+) + (+)
+
aux+ing (+) (+) + + (+) (+) / +? + + + + + + / +
poss (–) / (+) (+) (+) + (+) + + + (+) (+) + + + +
obj.pro / / / / (+) / + / (+) (+) /
+ + (+) + +
2 SVO + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
neg+V / / / / (–) (+) + + + + (+) +
+ + + +
p. irreg / / / / (+) (+) + (+) (+) + + + + + + +
p. reg / / (+) / (+) + (+) + + + (+) + + + + +
IL-ing + + + + + + / / /
+ / / / / / /
pl. –s (+) (+) + + (+) + + + + + + + + + + +
1 single
wds
/ + / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
bold +: structure provides not enough contexts in that data set but has been mastered in
previous years
Table 14: Implicational Analysis - Development (A+B)
Table 15 shows that, when reduced to the different attainment levels, there
is indeed enough evidence for each stage in almost every learner according
to the operational criteria.
stage 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4
6 + (+) (+) (+) +
+
5 + +
+ (+) + + + + + + – + + +
4 (+) (+) (+) (+) + + + (–) + + + (+) + +
3 (+) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
2 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
1 / / / / / / / / + / / / / / / /
bold +: structure provides not enough contexts in that data set but has been mastered in
previous years
Table 15: Attainment in development (A+B)
Only child 03 does not provide enough evidence for stage 4 throughout all
samples. Stage 4 however is confirmed in the data of all the other subjects.
Data which are not specifically elicitated within the framework of PT
run the risk of not providing enough contexts for all structures exemplified
in the PT hierarchy. Therefore, the steps taken in the current approach
Profiling child ESL acquisition
290
were, firstly, the addition of some morphological features, secondly, a
refinement of operational criteria as formulated by Pallotti (2003, 2007),
and thirdly, the application of the continuity assumption in the reading
suggested by Pienemann (1998:147). Insufficient evidence for the stages
in Table 15 amounts to less than 14%, and none of it contradicts the
theory.
5.2 Comparison with naturalistic child L2-acquisition
To examine the effectiveness of the IM program in the Kiel elementary
school, the data were then compared to a naturalistic child ESL study
(Pienemann & Mackey 1993). The data are ordered with respect to length
of residence in the ESL study, and time of input in the IM program
respectively (Tables 16 and 17).
LOR
(months) 6 7
8 8 8 9 11 11 11 22 22 44 60
stage 1:4 1:1 1:7 1:2 1:6 2:1 1:3 1:5 2:2 2:4 2:6 2:5 2:3
6 +
5 + + + + + + + + +
4 + + + + + + + + + +
3 + + + + + + + + + + + + +
2 + + + + + + + + + + + + +
1 + / + / / / / / / / / / /
LOR Length of Residence (taken from Pienemann 1998:179)
Table 16: Attainment in development: ESL study according to LOR
The age of the children in both studies is comparable (8-10 in ESL vs. 6-
10 in IM). The longest time of input is 60 months (five years) in the ESL
study, as opposed to 46 months (four years) in the IM context.
Both studies reveal a high amount of inter-individual variation,
indicating that learners learn at a very individual pace, even given the
same input situation in the IM program.
TOI
mon 10 10 10 10 22 22 22 22 34 34 34 34 46 46 46 46
stage 3.1 7.1 8.1 6.1 3.2 7.2 6.2 8.2 3.3 6.3 7.3 8.3 3.4 7.4 8.4 6.4
6 (+) (+) + (+)
+ +
5 (+) + + + + + + + + + + + +
4 (+) (+) + + (+) (+)
+ + + (+) + + +
3 (+) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
2 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
1 / + / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
TOI Time of Input (months)
Table 17: Attainment in development: IM study according to TOI
Kristin Kersten 291
In neither study the time of input seems to be predictive for ultimate
attainment, but further factors need to be known to make claims about this.
Stage 5 seems to be reached earlier by the naturalistic acquirers. However,
after 4 years of input more IM children have reached the final stage than
the naturalistic learners. It becomes obvious from this comparison that IM
is a very efficient program of language teaching which yields results
comparable to those of naturalistic L2 learners with respect to the
emergence of linguistic features.
6. Conclusion
To conclude, the study has shown that PT is a powerful instrument of
analysis which is applicable also to data corpora with elicitation methods
outside the PT framework. The operationalized criteria suggested in this
paper proved to be helpful tools in analyzing the data. The results showed
that all stages predicted by PT could be confirmed in the L2 narrations of
German children learning English in an IM elementary school. These
children's attainment level within the PT hierarchy is especially significant
in comparison with L2 learners who learned the language in a naturalistic
context. The study shows that children from an IM elementary program
are capable of reaching comparable levels of attainment in L2 acquisition.
Early IM can thus be considered a highly efficient program of language
teaching. A comparison to results from other teaching programs would be
interesting in this context. With regard to refinements of the profiling
methodology it would be valuable for future studies to apply the coding
criteria as used in this analysis to a larger corpus of L2 data.
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