The Acquisition of German : : Introducing Organic Grammar / / Anne Vainikka, Martha Young-Scholten.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• VerfasserIn: Vainikka, Anne,; Young-Scholten, Martha,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Studies on Language Acquisition [SOLA] , 44
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (407 p.)

The Acquisition of German: Introducing Organic Grammar brings together work on the acquisition of German from over four decades of child L1 and immigrant L2 learner studies. The book’s major feature is new longitudinal data from three secondary school students who began an exchange year in Germany with no German knowledge and attained fluency. Their naturalistic acquisition process - with a succession of stages described for the first time in L2 acquisition - is highly similar to that of younger learners. This has important implications for German teaching and for the theory of Universal Grammar and acquisition. Organic Grammar, a variant of generative syntax, is offered as a practical alternative to Chomsky’s Minimalism. The analysis focuses on extensive monthly samples of the three students’ German development in an input-rich environment. Similar to previous studies, the teenagers build syntactic structure from the bottom up. Two acquired correct word order by the end of the year, the third, who had greater conscious awareness of German grammar, had a divergent route of development, suggesting that language awareness can alter a natural developmental path. The results are addressed in light of recent debates in child-adult differences.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Dedication. Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Organic Syntax of Adult German -- Chapter 3. Organic Grammar and L1 acquisition -- Chapter 4. Second language acquisition at the VP level -- Chapter 5. Second language acquisition at the IP level -- Chapter 6. Differences in triggering between children and adults -- Chapter 7. The second language acquisition of the CP projection -- Chapter 8. Naturalistic learners and unsolved problems in SLA -- References -- Index