Introduction 1.

Will examine the descriptive evidence that lends support to the existence of regular
developmental patterns in L2 acquisition, reserving theoretical and pedagogical considerations
until later
2. Will made a distinction between the idea of an order and a sequence of acquisition
3. Will be an account of the main methods that have been used to study developmental patterns in
language acquisition
4. Will begin a survey with a description of three aspects of early L2 acquisition (the silent period,
the use of formulas and structural/semantic simplification
5. Will continue with an account of research which has investigated the acquisition of grammatical
morphemes
6. Will come an examination of research which has produced evidence to show that the acquisition
of certain syntactic structures follows a defined sequence with learners manifesting various
transitional constructions in the process of acquiring TL rules
7. Will finally be a general evaluation of the claims regarding developmental patterns

1. To examine whether learners’ errors change over time and to examine samples of
learner language collected over a period of time in order to identify when specific
linguistic features emerges
2. Methods:
a. Obligatory occasion analysis
- The procedure: first, samples of naturally occurring learner language are collected.
Second, obligatory occasions for the use of specific TL features are identified in data
Developmental patterns: order

and finally the percentage of accurate use of the feature is then calculated by
Methods for investigating
developmental patterns

establishing whether the feature in question has been supplied in all the contexts in
and sequence in second
language acquisition

which it is required
- problem: it takes no account of when a learner uses a feature in a context for which it
is not obligatory in TL
b. Target-like analysis  to take account overuses as well as misuses a number of
researchers
c. Frequency analysis  to catalogue the various linguistic devices that the learners use to
express a particular grammatical structure and then calculate the frequency with
which each device s used at different points in the learners development
d. Implicational setting  seeks to exploit the inter-learner variability that exists in a corpus
of learner language in order to establish which features different learners have
acquired and whether the features can be arranged into a hierarchy according to
whether the acquisition of one feature implies the acquisition of one or more other
features for each learner
Developmental patterns in

1. Has provided L2 researchers with useful methodological procedures for investigating

developmental patterns in learner language
L1 acquisition

2. L1 acquisition orders and sequences provide a baseline for considering L2 acquisition

orders and sequences
3. Early work on L1 acquisition in the 1960s and 1970s consisted of detailed case studies
of individual learners based on the speech they produced, of cross-sectional studies of
larger numbers of learners and of some experimental studies of children production
and comprehension of specific linguistic features

1. The idea of developmental patterns is based on unplanned language use and it is not
at all clear to what extant it is applicable to planned language use
2. The early stages  characterized by a silent period, by the use of formulaic speech
and by structural and semantic simplification
3. The silent period
Developmental patterns in a. The silent period is necessary for the young child needs to discover what language is
L2 acquisition and what it does
b. Silent periods provides learners with an opportunities to prepare themselves for social
use of the L2 by means of private speech which they engage in while they are silent
Developmental patterns
in L2 acquisition 4. Formulaic speech
a.Consists of expression which are learnt as unanalysable wholes and employed on particular
occasions
b.Has been observed to be very common in L2 acquisition particularly in the early stages
5. Structural and semantic simplification
a.Structural simplification
-evident in the omission of grammatical functors
-Can be described by means of the traditional categories of a descriptive grammar
b. Semantic simplification
-involves the omission of content words which would normally occur in native speaker speech
-Best accounted for in terms of the descriptive categories provided by case grammar
c. Both structural and semantic simplification may occur either because learners have not yet
acquired the necessary linguistic forms or because they are unable to access them in the
production of specific utterances

1. The morpheme studies to investigate the order of acquisition of

grammatical functors
The acquisition of morphemes: 2. Were motivated by similar studies in L1 acquisition
order and sequence 3. Employed obligatory occasion analysis in order to establish the
accuracy with which learners of L2 English performed a range of
morphemes
Developmental patterns: order

4. The morphemes studies  cross-sectional morpheme studies and

and sequence in second

longitudinal morpheme studies

language acquisition

1. In the pronoun system of a language, a number of semantic

distinctions are to be found
2. The commonalities in accounts of pronoun acquisition are striking
3. The acquisition of syntactic structures
a. Will review a number of early studies which examined the
acquisition of negatives in English and German and which provide
evidence of a clear sequence development
The acquisition of individual b. Will consider relative clauses which provide evidence of an order
morphemes: pronouns of acquisition
c. Will look at the acquisition of word order rules in L2 German
4. The acquisition of negatives in English and German
a. The development of negatives in English is based on several
studies that cover learners of English with Japanese, Spanish,
German, and Norwegian as their L1 and also children,
adolescence and adults
b. Negation  example of a transitional structure that involves a
series of forms or structures which learners use en route to
mastering the TL form (internal and external negation)
5. The acquisition of relative clauses in English and Swedish
a. Presents learners in two tasks: must learn that relative clauses
can modify noun phrases that occur both before the verb and
must ;earn the various functions that the relative pronoun can
serve
b. These two tasks amount to a substantial learning burden
6. The acquisition of German word order rules: in naturalistic L2
acquisition
7. The limitations of the research which has investigated developmental
patterns
a. Focus on grammar
b. Lack of a general index of second language acquisition
c. Inter-learner variability
d. Intra-learner variability
e. Methodological problems