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Positive evidence in second language acquisition: some long-term effects

McGill University

It has been proposed (Krashen, 1981; 1982; 1985; Schwartz and Gubala- Ryzak, 1992; Schwartz, 1986; 1988; 1993) that L2 acquisition proceeds in essentially the same manner as L1 acquisition (the L1 = L2 position). That is, learners acquire underlying unconscious knowledge of a language (called lin guistic competence) simply by being exposed to the linguistic input (called primary linguistic data) in the environment. Instruction and error correction play no role in the development of competence in the L2.

This article reports the long-term results of a study investigating the role of primary linguistic data in the acquisition of linguistic competence - in par ticular, the rules of adverb placement in English. This study examines the knowledge of adverb placement of 52 grade-6 francophone students (aver age age: 12 years, 2 months) learning English as a second language (ESL) in Québec schools. A year earlier, these subjects had been exposed over a two- week period to a flood of primary linguistic data on adverb placement in English. Immediately after the input flood, it was found that while the sub jects had learnt which adverb positions were grammatical in English, they still used positions which were ungrammatical in English but grammatical in the L1. The results of the follow-up test reported in this article reveal that one year after the input flood, the subjects' knowledge of adverb placement has not changed. They still use both the grammatical and the ungrammatical adverb positions, indicating that exposure to an abundance of primary lin guistic data on adverb placement did not lead to mastery of this structure. Possible explanations for these results and their implications for the L1 = L2 position are discussed.

Second Language Research, Vol. 12, No. 2, 111-139 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/026765839601200201


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