陈逸

Abstract：During the 1970s， various empirical studies in the field of acquisition research are conducted， bringing about abundant achievements. This essay aims to organize and present previous foreign research findings concerning grammatical morpheme acquisition order and sequence both in first and second language acquisition.

Key words：grammatical morpheme； acquisition； order； sequence

中圖分类号：H319 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1672-1578（2018）12-0001-02

Research on second language acquisition started since the end of the 1960s and gradually established itself as a discipline around the 1970s. Focusing on word inflections， especially on the natural acquisition order among grammatical morphemes， studies are conducted extensively by foreign scholars.

1 Studies in First Language

Foreign researchers notice some similarities among language learning behaviors of various children. Babies cry， coo and babble， and then imitate intonation patterns， till they can utter one or two words each time at the age from 1 year to 18 months. When children reach the age of 2 and 2 years 3months， there usually occur word inflections and questions & negatives respectively. Then， they can output rare or complex constructions before talking maturely. According to research on native childrens English acquisition， they firstly encounter “true speech” period， characterized by “one-word utterance”， “two-word utterance” and “telegraphic speech”. During that period， their speech is mainly about content words， while function words are often omitted， as in “Cat stand up table” and “Mary want that”. There exists a prominent change with transmission from “true speech” stage to later fluent speech stage， characterized by the occurrence of inflectional morphemes.

Brown （1973） conducts a renowned study by investigating the appearance of 14 grammatical morphemes in early stages of childrens first language acquisition， uncovering an invariant order of morpheme acquisition： present progressive， prepositions， plural， past irregular， possessive， uncontractible copula， articles， past regular， 3rd person regular， 3rd person irregular， uncontractible auxiliary， contractible copula and lastly， contractible auxiliary. His finding coincides with the assumption that there is aprocess for kids to undergo in obtaining true speech， which is reflected by acquisition order of word inflections. de Villers & de Villers （1973） investigates the same morphemes with Brown in a cross-sectional research of 21 childrenand supports Browns findings with similar accuracy order of acquisition.

According to Ellis（1997）， acquisition sequence deals with a particular structure， and concerns about the interrelationship of categories among the structure. Klima & Bellugi （1966） discovers negation acquisition sequence of English used as L1. Meanwhile， Cazden（1968） notices three stepsin childrens acquisition of irregular verbs， thus forming the acquisition sequence of irregular verbs. In general， research findings in first language acquisition order and sequence have triggered larger research interest and enthusiasm into SLA studies.

2 Studies in Second Language

As for grammatical morpheme acquisition research in L2， Dulay & Burt（1973） test 151 Spanish ESL children with the help of Bilingual Syntax Measure（BSM）， and find that subjects under study roughly presented the same developmental order with that of L1. Besides， they carry out several other experiments with varied numbers of subjects， learner groups， and grammatical morphemes. Similar results of morpheme acquisition order are obtained as plural “-s” occurring first， with present progressive “-ing” and copula “be” taking the second place， then there comes auxiliary “be”， followed by articles （a/an & the） and irregular past tense， and lastly 3rd person singular present tense “-s” appears， with possessive “-s” acquired subsequently.

Baily， Madden & Krashen（1974） employ BSM to investigate adult subjects and discover a universal pattern for non-English speaking learners to acquire English grammatical morphemes. Larsen-Freeman（1976） carries out studies in a more extensive way by extending the mother tongue range of subjects and employing a number of examining tasks and research methods. According to her research findings， the diversity of subjects language background has little influence on the accuracy order of their performance， but different examining tasks generate inconsistent orders.

From 1980s up to date， scholars vary research focuses and approaches in abundance， yielding substantial empirical research data forgrammatical morpheme acquisition order and sequence. By investigating written responses of 777 Japanese EFL learners， Makino（1980） discovers that morpheme acquisition order is similar to previous findings of EFL learners and to those of L1， suggesting similarities in L2 acquisition of different learners， irrespective of their distinct learning environment. By observing adult Mexican Spanish-speaking learners in three contrastive groups， Pica （1983）concludes that “different conditions of exposure to L2 English do not significantly alter the accuracy order in which grammatical morphemes are produced”.

Ravem（1968） chooses subjects of Norwegian background and discovers that L2 negation acquisition sequence is similar to that of L1. In light of Cancino， Rosanky and Schumanns study（1975）， English auxiliary acquisition sequence of native Spanish speaker firstly goes with appearance of “is”， and then “can”， with “do” occurring shortly afterwards. Studies about this issue on children， adolescents or adults with varied contexts are widely conducted， ranging from Spanish， Japanese， Arabic， German to French （Butterworth 1972； Milon 1972； Young 1974； Gillis & Weber 1976； Hanania & Gradman 1977； Gerbault 1978； Felix 1981）. Moreover， most of the research findings coincide with those of L1 acquisition. 3 Comparison between L1 & L2 Acquisition Order and Sequence

As for relationships between L1 and L2 acquisition order， distinct opinions are raised. Krashen（1977） holds that acquisition orders are different for L1 and L2， but there are similarities between them. By dividing morphemes into groups， he proposes a hierarchical arrangement of acquisition order proceeding from Group 1 （plural “-s”， progressive “-ing”， copula “be”） towards Group 2 （auxiliary be， articles）， with Group 3 （irregular past tense） taking third place， and then ultimately to Group 4 （regular past tense， 3rd person singular present “-s”， possessive “-s”）. Based on such grouping， he propounds the Natural Order Hypothesis， which indicates that the acquisition order of grammatical morphemes can be predicted， irrespective of the language status as L1 or L2. Dulay & Burt （1978） make a comparison about the acquisition order of 11 grammatical morphemes between Chinese and Spanish children EFL learners， discovering that acquisition orders collected are nearly the same.

Studies aiming to test and verify natural orders of acquisition have enjoyed a considerable popularity through the years. By carrying out separate case studies on a 20 year-old Serbo-Croatian and a 16 year-old Mandarin-speaking Chinese， Billings（1999） and Wang （2000） both generate similar acquisition order to that of Dulay & Burts. While Tonos（2002） studies Japanese EFL learner corpus for revealing acquisition order of 8 grammatical morphemes and acquires contradictory results， thus its hypothesized that learners background may possibly affects acquisition order.

On one hand， researches have been conducted to verify different morpheme acquisition orders， and on the other hand， L2 acquisition order of syntactic components has drawn profound research attention.Hanania & Gradman（1977） observe the process of a nineteen-year old Saudi woman who acquires English as second language. The definite simple rule formation found in her English negation acquisition gives evidence for“L1=L2” hypothesis and assumes same acquisition pattern for L1 and L2. By changing subjects into German， Wodes study（1978） reaches a conclusion that L1 and L2 acquisition pattern are different at the surface level， but may be the same at a deeper level. In other words， L1 and L2 acquisition orders are not the same， but there may be some reliance of L2 acquisition on L1 acquisition. In addition， Cancino， Rosanky and Schumann （1978） take native Spanish speakers as subjects and investigate their acquisition process of English negatives and interrogatives， indicating that there exists L1 interference with L2 negation acquisition.

Abundant research findings accumulated till now have greatly enriched empirical data of grammatical morpheme acquisition order & sequence， and have helped to lay a theoretical foundation for language acquisition research.

References：

[1] Bailey，N. C. Madden & S. Krashen 1974. Is there a “natural sequence” in adult second language learning？ [J]. Language Learning 1974（21）：235-243.

[2] Brown， R. 1973. A First Language： the Early Stages [M]. Cambridge， MA： Harvard University Press.

[3] Cancino， H. Rosansky， E.J. & Schumann， J. H. 1975. The acquisition of the English auxiliary by native Spanish speakers [J]. TESOL Quarterly 9：421-430.

[4] Dulay， H. C. & Burt， M. K. 1973. Should we teach children syntax？ [J].Language Learning 23：245-258.

[5] Krashen，S.D. Houck，N. Giunchi， P. Bode， S. Birnbaum， R.， & Strei. 1977. Difficulty order for grammatical morphemes for adult second language performers using free speech[J]. TESOL Quarterly 11：338-341.

[6] Larsen-Freeman， D.E. 1976. An explanation for the morpheme acquisition order of second language learners[J]. Language Learning 26：125-134.

[7] Makino， T.1980. Acquisition order of English morphemes by Japanese secondary school students[J]. Journal of Hokkaido University of Education 30（2）：101-148.

[8] Pica， T. 1983. Adult acquisition of English as a second language under different conditions of exposure[J]. Language Learning 33：465-497.