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This paper tackles the usefulness of comparing L2 learners against native speakers in empirical SLA studies focusing on grammatical aspect. Adapting the view that interlanguage grammars should be analysed in their own right instead of as a deficient form of the target, we show that expressing perspectivity (fulfilled by grammatical aspect markers) methodologically complicates the analyses of Grammaticality Judgment Tasks in aspect studies. For Spanish past tenses, we show that especially with items constructed as allegedly ungrammatical natives behave heterogeneously. This casts doubt on the question whether these data can be used as a baseline against which learners' data could be compared. By analysing the interlanguage separately (not only in comparison to the controls), our findings among German learners of L2 Spanish suggest the use of the forms depends essentially on temporal markers which can be related to both their L1 lacking grammatical aspect and the pedagogical input. Crucially, though the interlanguage does not match the target (i.e., past tenses do not necessarily correlate with aspectuality), the systems are not chaotic but follow well-defined rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The encoding of path shows systematic inter-typological variation, with speakers of satellite-framed languages (S-language; e. g. German, Polish) typically conveying path outside the main verb (in particles, prefixes, etc.) and speakers of verb-framed languages (V-language; e. g. Spanish) typically conveying path in the main verb. However, less is known about intra-typological variation in the expression of path, especially for bilingual patterns of path encoding. In this paper, we examine path descriptions produced by two groups of bilinguals and compare the descriptions made by these bilinguals with those made by native speakers of the corresponding L1 and L2 languages. The first group consisted of native Polish speakers who were L2 German speakers (intra-typological L1-L2 transition), while the second group comprised native Polish speakers who were L2 Spanish speakers (inter-typological L1-L2 transition). Our results provide evidence for greater alignment to L2 among bilinguals learning an L2 from a different typological group (i. e. Polish L1-Spanish L2 bilinguals), and closer alignment to L1 among bilinguals learning an L2 from the same typological group (i. e. Polish L1-German L2 bilinguals). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores cut-offs in the oral narrations of Spanish native speakers in their mother tongue (L1), and in their language-under-study, English (L2). Fluency in the L2 varies with proficiency, and so cut-offs offer a possible means of evaluating this. However, there are certain aspects of fluency which might be common to the L1 and the L2, suggesting that the L1 and L2 share cognitive factors that lead to similar disfluency patterns. To determine if cut-offs are reliable markers of L2 fluency, independent of those occurring in the L1, we assessed the cut-off patterns in the L1 and L2 narrations of this group of speakers, following a multimodal approach. We observed similarities in both languages, potentially indicating that speakers use comparable cut-off-gesture patterns in the L1 and L2. We conclude that using speakers' cut-offs in an L2 to gauge proficiency is meaningful only if the L1 cut-off behaviour is known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the extent to which productive use of formulaic sequences by intermediate students of two typologically different languages, i.e., English and Spanish, is associated with their oral proficiency in these languages. Previous research (e.g., Boers et al., Language Teaching Research 10: 245-261, 2006) has shown that appropriate use of formulaic sequences helps learners of English come across as fluent and idiomatic speakers. The evidence from the present study, which was conducted with the participation of Dutch-speaking students of English and Spanish, confirms that finding, as oral proficiency assessments based on re-tell tasks correlated positively with the number of formulaic sequences the students used in these tasks. The correlations were strongest in the English language samples, however. It seems that the greater incidence of morphological-inflectional errors in our participants' spoken Spanish dampens the contribution that using formulaic sequences tends to make to their oral proficiency (as perceived by our assessors). The findings are discussed with reference to typological differences between L1 and L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]