SLCL Master Calendar of Events (all SLCL unit calendars)

Linguistics Seminar Series: Amy Atiles

Event Type

Lecture

Sponsor

Department of Linguistics and the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics

Location

Gregory Hall 223

Date

Nov 10, 2025   4:00 pm  

Originating Calendar

Linguistics Event Calendar

• Talk Title: L2-English article acquisition: A case for Structured Input
• Abstract: using the and a appropriately is a very difficult task. L2ers must learn that singular count nouns in English are definite when (1) both the speaker and hearer are aware of the referent and (2) the referent is unique (Heim, 1991). Furthermore, L2ers must learn to disregard salient concepts which alone do not necessitate the use of the, like Specificity (Ionin et al., 2004) where the speaker intends to refer to an entity that has a noteworthy property (but not necessarily hearer knowledge) or Presuppositionality (Ko et al., 2010) where the speaker intends to refer to an entity that is known to the hearer (but is not necessarily unique). Several intervention studies have attempted to use such generative second language acquisition (SLA) hypotheses to teach L2ers about definiteness; however, these interventions have been either ineffective (Snape & Yusa, 2013; Snape & Umeda, 2018) or counterproductive (Lopez, 2019). In this talk, I will argue that explicit instruction is not enough to create correct form-meaning mappings and that such instruction must be accompanied by pedagogically-matched techniques. If L2ers are incorrectly mapping the onto Specificity or Presuppositionality, then a pedagogical technique which directly addresses mapping issues should be implemented. Structured Input (VanPatten, 1996, 2004), which highlights and attempts to overhaul learners’ incorrect parsing strategies, has much potential for article acquisition. I will demonstrate the effectiveness of Structured Input in the acquisition of articles by L1-Chinese L2-English learners through a step-by-step description of a 6-week intervention. Four experimental groups received a different combination of instructional content (disregarding Specificity vs. disregarding Presuppositionality) and article practice (structured input tasks vs. traditional fill-in-the-blank tasks) while a Control group completed an intervention on prepositions. Participants completed a Self-Paced Reading Task, Forced Choice Task, and Acceptability Judgment Task before and immediately after the intervention. The results of the Forced Choice Task, which assessed the influence of Specificity, will be presented in this talk. Preliminary results from the other two tasks, which assessed the influence of Presuppositionality, will also be provided. Finally, I will discuss the importance of intervention research in the fields of Generative and Instructed SLA.