The role of input properties on lexical development in foreign language acquisition: Transparency and frequency

This paper investigates the role of input on lexical development in instructed Second Language Acquisition (SLA) within the functionalist “Learner Varieties” Approach (Klein/Perdue 1997). The data discussed here come from the Italian edition of the European cross-linguistic Project VILLA (Varieties of Initial Learners in Language Acquisition: Controlled classroom input and elementary forms of linguistic organization; Dimroth et al., to appear), where initial instructed SLA is investigated under fully controlled input conditions, allowing for once – reliable correlations between the actually provided input and the learners’ output. Groups of total beginners of five L1s (besides Italian, Dutch and English, French and German), were exposed to 14 hours of input in a new language, Polish. Our study will discuss and compare: • Data from an oral translation task (from Polish into Italian) administered before the course and originally designed to identify the actual transparency of potentially inter-comprehensible Polish words • Data from two sessions (t1 and t2) of an oral question-and-answer task where the required lexicon included items common to the translation test and having different degrees of transparency and frequency in the input. We aim to respond to the following research questions: Do transparency and/or frequency influence lexical development? Is one factor stronger than the other? Do differences in the Polish and Italian stress systems (fixed vs. lexical) matter in determining transparency? With reference to statistical analyses the discussion will show that: • Both transparency and frequency influence lexical development, but transparency seems to have a stronger impact; • The Polish fixed stress system is surprisingly early acquired, although not at all focussed within the course. References Dimroth C. et al., to appear, “Methods for studying the learning of a new language under controlled input conditions: The VILLA Project”. Eurosla Yearbook 2013, Benjamins. Klein W./Perdue C., 1997, “The Basic Variety (or: Couldn’t natural languages be much simpler?)”. Second Language Research 13:301-347.