Accessibility Of Uninterpretable Features In SLA

Whether adult second language learners have access to Universal Grammar is inconclusive to date.Previous scholars have explored this question by investigating whether certain syntactic structures can be acquired by adult second language learners.But their results and conclusions diverge greatly.The testing ground for this question in the present study is Chinese and Japanese relative clauses.Owing to an uninterpretable feature instantiated in Chinese but not in Japanese,the relative constructions in the two languages are different.This difference can be illustrated by the binding condition of reflexives and pronouns within the relative clauses in the two languages.Specifically,for reflexives,Japanese zibun within the head NP of a relative clause can only refer to the matrix subject,whereas Chinese reflexive ziji can refer to both the matrix and the embedded subject.As for the pronouns,Japanese kare within the head NP of a relative clause cannot have a bound interpretation,but Chinese ta can.Since this syntactic knowledge is not likely to be learned through classroom teaching or other explicit instructions,by investigating whether L1 Chinese learners of L2 Japanese can acquire this knowledge would possibly provide evidence for previous hypotheses and theories with regard to the accessibility of Universal Grammar.In tackling the question,this study first recruited 23 adult Chinese learners of Japanese to do a self-paced reading task and a picture-matching truth value judgment task with regard to their understanding of reflexive zibun within Japanese relative clauses.The results showed that the L2 participants seemed to have the knowledge about the interpretation of zibun within relative clauses,but since they displayed inconsistency in the two tasks,it was insufficient to interpret the result as successful acquisition.Consequently the study invited another 40 adult Chinese learners of Japanese and tested their understanding about Japanese pronoun kare and Chinese pronoun ta within relative clauses by another picture-matching truth value judgment task and a comprehension judgment task.The behavior of most participants showed that they were aware of the target syntactic knowledge,and a comparison between advanced and intermediate learners further revealed that they were able to acquire the knowledge as their proficiency improved.Moreover,according to an informal interview after the experiment,many of the participants made their choices based on intuition.The study concludes that adult second language learners are able to acquire implicit knowledge that is not learned in their first language.The conclusion further implies that adult learners have access to universal grammar,hence supporting the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis while opposing the Failed Functional Feature hypothesis.