Acquisition of Second Language Grammar Under Incidental Learning Conditions: The Role of Frequency and Working Memory

Although frequency is recognized as an important factor in second language (L2) acquisition, it has remained relatively underinvestigated in terms of its impact on the acquisition of grammatical knowledge under incidental learning conditions. This article reports the results of an experiment where 1...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language learning 2016-03, Vol.66 (1), p.159-190
Main Authors: Denhovska, Nadiia, Serratrice, Ludovica, Payne, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
frequency
Frequency of occurrence
Grammar
Grammatical agreement
implicit learning
Language acquisition
Memory
morphology
Russian as a second language
second language
Second language learning
Short term memory
working memory
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Although frequency is recognized as an important factor in second language (L2) acquisition, it has remained relatively underinvestigated in terms of its impact on the acquisition of grammatical knowledge under incidental learning conditions. This article reports the results of an experiment where 100 novice adult learners were exposed to a complex noun–adjective agreement pattern in Russian under four incidental learning conditions in which type and token frequencies of the stimuli were manipulated. The results show that accuracy was greater in the low type/low token condition and that low token frequency played a more significant role than low type frequency, supporting a “starting small” approach for productive knowledge acquisition. Working memory was differentially involved in production of acquired knowledge in different conditions and not engaged when learning was facilitated by frequency.
ISSN:0023-8333
1467-9922
DOI:10.1111/lang.12142