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L2 AND DEAF LEARNERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF NUMERICALLY QUANTIFIED ENGLISH SENTENCES

Acquisitional Parallels at the Semantics/Discourse-Pragmatics Interface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2012

Gerald P. Berent ,
Ronald R. Kelly  and
Tanya Schueler-Choukairi
Gerald P. Berent*
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Ronald R. Kelly
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Tanya Schueler-Choukairi
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gerald P. Berent, Department of Research, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, 96 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604. e-mail: gpbnci@rit.edu.
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Abstract

This study assessed knowledge of numerically quantified English sentences in two learner populations—second language (L2) learners and deaf learners—whose acquisition of English occurs under conditions of restricted access to the target language input. Under the experimental test conditions, interlanguage parallels were predicted to arise from acquisitional pressures imposed by derivational economy on universal grammar (UG)–guided semantic interpretation. The results of a task in which participants matched sentences to multiple discourse depictions confirmed the predicted parallels. However, in matching underinformative sentences to depicted contexts, the L2 and deaf learner groups overactivated discourse-pragmatic knowledge. The restriction of indefinite noun phrases to singleton indefinites and the cancellation of scalar implicatures rendered sentences more informative in underinformative contexts, producing incorrect—although principled—interpretations. These results inform English acquisition at the interface of semantics and discourse pragmatics and provide further support that economy pressures yield L2 learner and deaf learner interlanguage parallels as observed, for instance, in learners’ interpretative knowledge of universally quantified English sentences.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 35 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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