Typological & Functional
Approaches
By Crystal (曾靖雅)
Gass, S. M., & Selinker, L. (2008). Second language acquisition:
An introductory course (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
2 Approaches to SLA
1
Typological Approach
 the study of the patterns exhibited in the
languages worldwide
2
Functional Approach
 the study of how language functions
(tense/ aspect, which combines verb meanings,
morphological form, and phonology)
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Typological Universal
The study of typological universals stem from work
in linguistics by Greenberg (1963).
Linguists discover similarities/differences in Lg.
Linguists attempt to determine linguistic typologies
or what “type” of langauges are possible.
If a language has feature X, it will also have
feature Y.
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In language with prepositions, the genitive
almost always follows the governing noun, while
in languages with postpositions it almost
precedes the noun.
French (7-1) le chien de mon ami
the dog
of my
friend
Italian (7-3) il cane di mia madre
the dog
of my
mother
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In languages with postpositions, such as Turkish,
what we call prepositions follow the noun, where
the morphological markers follow the noun
Turkish (7-4) a. deniz
= an ocean
b. denize = to an ocean
c. denizin = of an ocean
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English allows not only the predicted order, but
also the unpredicted word order.
Predicted word order
the leg of the table
Unpredicted word order
my friend’s dog
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Languages with dominant
verb-subject-object(VSO) order are always
preposition.
Welsh (7-6) lladdwyd y dyn gan y ddraig.
Killed-passive the man
by the dragon
the man was killed by the dragon.
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Natural Language
Interlanguages are natural languages.
(Adjemian, 1976, p.298)
Interlanguage: the language produced by a
nonative speaker of a language (eg. A learner’s
output). Refers to the systematic knowledge
underlying learners’ production.
Natural Langauge: any human language shared
by a community of speakers and developed over
time by a general process of evolution.
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Hindi (7-7) Ram-ne seb
kaya.
Ram
apple
“Ram ate an apple.”
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ate
French (7-13) Jean a mange une pomme.
Jean
has eaten
an
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apple
Japanese (7-19) Taroo-ga ringo-o tabeta.
Taroo
apple
ate
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“Taroo ate an apple.”
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Table 7.1 Word orders
Hindi
French
Japanese
English
Basic order (V+O)
OV
VO
OV
VO
Aux + Verb
V Aux
Aux V
V Aux
Aux V
Preposition + Noun
(Postposition)
N Post
Prep N
N Post
Prep N
N + Relative Clause
N + RC
N + RC
RC + N
N + RC
Possessive
Poss + N
N + Poss
Poss + N
Both
Adj + N
Adj + N
N + Adj
Adj + N
Both
Head-initial Language
Head-final Language
Head = Verb
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Interlanguage Structural Conformity Hypothesis:
All universals that are true for primary languages
are also true for interlanguages.
(Eckman, Moravcsik, and Wirth, 1989, p.195)
There are many ways in which universals can be
expected to affect the development of SL
grammars:
(1) the shape of a learner’s grammar
(2) acquisition order (marked form)
(3) one of the interacting forces
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7.2.1 Test case1:
Accessibitiy Hierarchy (AH)
 Keenan and Comrie (1977)
 SU > DO > IO > OPREP > GEN > OCOMP
 SU = subject
That’s the man who ran away.
The girl who came late is my mom.
 DO = direct object
That’s the man I saw yesterday.
The girl Kate saw is my sister.
 IO = Indirect object
That’s the man to whom I gave the letter.
The girl Whom I wrote a letter to is my sister.
 OPREP = object of preposition relatives
That’s the man I was talking about.
The girl whom I sat next to is my sister.
 GEN = genitive
That’s the man whose sister I know.
That girl whose father died told me she was sad.
 OCOMP = object of comparative
That’s the man I am taller than.
The girl who Kate is smarter than is my sister.
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Gass (1979)
(1)free compositions
(2)sentence combining
(3)grammaticality judgments
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Resumptive Pronoun Hierarchy
Hyltenstam (1984)
Resumptive pronoun
 (7-25)
She danced with the man who [*he] flew to Paris
yesterday.
(7-26)
The woman whom he danced with [her] flew to
Paris yesterday.
OCOMP > GEN > OPREP > IO > DO > SU
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Resumptive Pronoun Hierarchy
2003, Comire, typology for some East Asian Lgs.
2003, O’Grady, Lee and choo, support AH.
2007, Jeon and Kim, head-external & headinternal relative clauses.
2007, Ozeki and Shirai, introduced another level
of complexity.
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7.2.2 Test case II
the acquisition of questions
Wh- inversion implies wh-fronting
(7-28) Whom will you see?
S V
VS => the question word or phrase is initial.
What is your daughter’s name?
VS
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7.2.3 Test case III
voiced/ voiceless consonants
Phonology
Speakers of Spanish and Mandarin Chinese
learning English.
Word-final voiceless sound
NL and language universals
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Conclusion
The domain of language universals is that of
natural languages and not second languages
The domain of language universals is that of all
linguistic systems – any failure to comply with a
putative language universal would then be taken
as evidence that description of the universal is
incorrect
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Functional Approach
How language functions for the communication
purposes
Tense and aspect: the Aspect Hypothesis
The discourse Hypothesis
Concept-oriented approach
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Tense and aspect: the Aspect
Hypothesis
 Learners recognize what morphological markers for
verbs
 1980s, a more sophisticated approach was taken to the
L2 acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. That is “The
Aspect Hypothesis.”
 Punctual/ achievement/ state/ accomplishment verb
 Target languages generally show:
(1) Past/perfective: punctual/ achievement/
accomplishment
(2) Imperfective: (durative) punctual/ achievement/
accomplishment
(3) Progressive: strong duration or dynamic
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The discourse Hypothesis
At the acquisition, not only lexical meaning, but
also structure of the discourse in which
utterances appear.
An investigation of learning English, showing
that “will” emerges prior to “going to” as an
expression of futurity
(1) formal complexity
(2) “will” as a lexical marker
(3) one-to-one principle.
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Concept-oriented approach
This approach is the need to map certain
functions that the learner wants to express to the
form that she or he needs to express it.
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