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Input and Second Language Acquisition: the Roles of Frequency, Form, and Function Introduction to the Special Issue

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Input and Second Language Acquisition: the Roles of Frequency, Form, and Function Introduction to the Special Issue Input and Second Language Acquisition: The Roles of Frequency, Form, and Function Introduction to the Special Issue NICK ELLIS LAURA COLLINS1 University of Michigan Concordia University English Language Institute TESL Centre, Department of Education 500 E. Washington Street 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8 Email: [email protected] Canada Email: [email protected] The articles in this special issue explore how the acquisition of linguistic constructions as form–function mappings is affected by the distribution and saliency of forms in oral input, by their functional interpretations, and by the reliabilities of their form–function mappings. They consider the psycholinguistics of language learning following general cognitive principles of category learning, with schematic constructions emerging from usage. They analyze how learn- ing is driven by the frequency and frequency distribution of exemplars within construction, the salience of their form, the significance of their functional interpretation, the match of their meaning to the construction prototype, and the reliability of their mappings. These investiga- tions address a range of morphological and syntactic constructions in instructed, uninstructed, and laboratory settings. They include both experimental and corpus-based approaches (some conducted longitudinally) and consider the relationship between input and acquisition in the short term and over time, with a particular emphasis on spoken input directed to second and foreign language learners. LEARNERS’ ACQUISITION OF A SECOND forms in language input and longitudinal corpora language (L2) depends on their experience of relating the properties of learner interlanguage this language and on what they can make of it. Ac- to the available input have the potential to pro- counts of successful L2 acquisition have accord- vide crucial insights into the input–acquisition ingly emphasized the importance of the quality of relationship. An understanding of this relation- the input available to learners (e.g., Gass, 1997; ship is also informed by experimental work, but, Lightbown, 1992; Swain, 1988). However, despite to date, we have a relatively limited body of re- the long-standing recognition of the importance search in second language acquisition in which of input in language acquisition, our research fine-grained manipulations of learners’ experi- base contains little by way of dense corpora stud- ence with natural language input (such as skewed ies describing the evidence, particularly of oral vs. balanced exposure to target features) has been input, upon which learners base their analyses for explored. These corpus-based and experimentally the development of interlanguage grammars. Ex- generated data are the data necessary for the in- tensive corpus linguistic investigations of the fre- vestigation of how the learning of linguistic con- quencies, frequency distributions, and salience of structions (the units of the linguistic system that specify the morphological, syntactic, and lexical The Modern Language Journal, 93, iii, (2009) form of language and their associated semantic, 0026-7902/09/329–335 $1.50/0 pragmatic, and discourse functions) might follow C 2009 The Modern Language Journal general cognitive principles of category learning. 330 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009) Key aspects of category learning include the mately tuned to input frequency at all levels of frequency and frequency distribution of exem- grain: Input frequency affects the processing of plars, the salience of their forms, the significance phonology and phonotactics, reading, spelling, of their functional interpretations, the match lexis, morphosyntax, formulaic language, lan- of their meanings to the construction prototype, guage comprehension, grammaticality, sentence and the reliabilities of their mappings. These are production, and syntax (Ellis, 2002). Sensitivity to the factors requiring description, across the evi- input frequency entails that language users must dence of the input and learner cognition, to inves- have registered patterns of occurrence in process- tigate the acquisition of linguistic constructions as ing. These frequency effects are thus compelling categories. evidence for usage-based models of language ac- This special issue explores a range of morpho- quisition, which emphasize the role of input. logical and syntactic constructions of second and foreign language acquisition in instructed, unin- Type and Token Frequency. Token frequency structed, and laboratory settings, with particular counts how often a particular form appears in emphasis on experimental and corpus-based in- the input. Type frequency, on the other hand, vestigations of spoken input directed to L2 learn- refers to the number of distinct lexical items ers. The focus on aural input provides a much that can be substituted in a given slot in a con- needed complementary focus to the written-based struction, whether it is a word-level construction corpora work, which has dominated much of the for inflection or a syntactic construction speci- L2 research. Furthermore, it allows for compar- fying the relation among words. For example, isons with child first language (L1) acquisition the “regular” English past tense –ed has a very and permits analyses of speech phenomena that high type frequency because it applies to thou- may render some constructions more or less per- sands of different types of verbs, whereas the vowel ceptible than others. The use of longitudinal data, change found in some irregular past forms (e.g., where possible, also allows us to look at the devel- “swim/swam”; “ring/rang”) has much lower type opment of language over time (Ortega & Iberri- frequency. The productivity of phonological, mor- Shea, 2005). phological, and syntactic patterns is a function The investigations reported broadly adopt of type rather than token frequency (Bybee & functional, cognitive linguistic, psycholinguistic, Hopper, 2001). This is so for the following rea- and constructionist perspectives (e.g., Bates & sons: (a) The more lexical items that are heard in MacWhinney, 1987; Ellis, 1998, 2003, 2006a; a certain position in a construction, the less likely Ellis & Cadierno, in press; Goldberg, 1995, 2003, it is that the construction is associated with a par- 2006; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987; Ninio, 2006; ticular lexical item and the more likely it is that Robinson & Ellis, 2008; Tomasello, 2003) to in- a general category is formed over the items that vestigate the degree to which the acquisition of occur in that position; (b) the more items the cat- linguistic constructions may be explained by the egory must cover, the more general are its criterial ways in which general perceptual and cognitive features and the more likely it is to extend to new principles of category learning shape learners’ ex- items; and (c) high type frequency ensures that periences with the language input to which they a construction is used frequently, thus strength- are exposed. ening its representational schema and making it Four determinants of learning explored in this more accessible for further use with new items issue are (a) input frequency (type–token fre- (Bybee & Thompson, 2000). In contrast, high quency, Zipfian distribution, recency), (b) form token frequency promotes the entrenchment or (salience and perception), (c) function (proto- conservation of irregular forms and idioms; the typicality of meaning, importance of form for mes- irregular forms only survive because they are high sage comprehension, redundancy), and (d) in- frequency. These findings support language’s teractions between these (contingency of form– place at the center of cognitive research into hu- function mapping). We now consider each in man categorization, which also emphasizes the turn. importance of type frequency in classification. Zipfian Distribution. In the learning of cate- DETERMINANTS OF gories from exemplars, acquisition is optimized CONSTRUCTION LEARNING by the introduction of an initial, low-variance sam- Input Frequency ple centered on prototypical exemplars (Elio & Anderson, 1981, 1984). This low-variance sample Construction Frequency. Psycholinguistic re- allows learners to get a fix on what will account search shows how language processing is inti- for most of the category members. The bounds of Nick Ellis and Laura Collins 331 the category are defined later by experience of the stronger psychophysical forms in the input than full breadth of exemplar types. Goldberg, Casen- the grammatical morphemes attached to verbs to hiser, and Sethuraman (2004) demonstrated that indicate when a particular action occurred. Both in samples of child language acquisition, for a vari- provide cues to temporal relationships, but the ety of verb–argument constructions (VACs), there lexical items are much more likely to be perceived. is a strong tendency for one single verb to occur This can result in overshadowing and blocking with very high frequency in comparison to other of the temporal morphology, making it difficult verbs used, a profile that closely mirrors that of the for L2 learners to acquire (Ellis, 2006c, 2008a; mothers’ speech to these children. In natural lan- Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2001). guage, Zipf’s law (Zipf, 1935) describes how the highest frequency words account for the most lin- Function guistic tokens. Goldberg et al. showed that Zipf’s law applies within VACs, too, and they argued that Prototypicality of Meaning. Categories have this input promotes
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