Cross-linguistic influence at the discourse–syntax interface: Insights from anaphora resolution in child second language learners of Italian

This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian by two groups of 13–14-year-olds: monolingual native Italian speakers and highly proficient child second language (L2) learners of Italian whose native language is Croatian. In a picture...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The international journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 369 - 385
Main Author: Kras, Tihana
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2016
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Ambiguity
Anaphora
Antecedents
Attrition (Research Studies)
Bilingual people
Bilingualism
Children
Competence
Developmental Delays
Discourse
European cultural groups
Inappropriateness
Influence
Italian
Italian as a second language
Language
Language Acquisition
Linguistics
Monolingualism
Multilingualism
Native language
Native Speakers
Pragmatism
Pronouns
Property
Second language learning
Serbo-Croatian language
Studies
Syntactic anaphora
Syntax
Syntax discourse relationship
Croatia
anaphora resolution
Italian
Interface Hypothesis
overt subject pronouns
backward anaphora
null subject pronouns
Cross-linguistic influence
discourse–syntax interface
forward anaphora
child second language acquisition
Croatian
ISSN:1367-0069, 1756-6878
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian by two groups of 13–14-year-olds: monolingual native Italian speakers and highly proficient child second language (L2) learners of Italian whose native language is Croatian. In a picture selection task the participants were asked to identify antecedents of null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous forward and backward anaphora sentences. Our assumption in the paper was that Italian and Croatian do not differ with respect to the antecedent biases of null and overt subject pronouns in the contexts under investigation. As predicted, the L2 learners expressed pragmatically appropriate antecedent preferences in all conditions. They even selected the pragmatically inappropriate subject antecedent for the overt pronoun less often than the native speakers, especially in backward anaphora. The L2 learners’ antecedent preferences closely mirror those established in previous research for their age-matched monolingual Croatian peers. We take this as evidence for our position that cross-linguistic influence is operative at the discourse–syntax influence in child L2 acquisition and that it might be the main cause of non-target-like behaviour of some groups of highly proficient bilinguals concerning certain properties pertaining to this interface.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1367-0069
1756-6878
DOI:10.1177/1367006915609239