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Part of
Cross-linguistic Influence in Bilingualism: In honor of Aafke Hulk
Edited by Elma Blom, Leonie Cornips and Jeannette Schaeffer
[Studies in Bilingualism 52] 2017
► pp. 75–100

Specificity and validity in the SLA literature

| Utrecht University
| Utrecht University
We propose a new paradigm for testing the influence of specificity on the acquisition of English articles (Ionin, 2003; Ionin et al., 2004; Ionin et al., 2009; Ko et al., 2010). We discuss and resolve issues of validation and present a preview and discussion of the results the new paradigm generates for L2 learners of English with Mandarin as an L1.
Keywords: SLA, validity, specificity, definiteness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Validation requirements
  • 3.Introducing the paradigm
    • 3.1The specificity flavors of indefinite this
    • 3.2Testing specificity with individual-level noteworthiness
    • 3.3Testing specificity with story noteworthiness
  • 4.Validating the paradigm
    • 4.1Testing for indefiniteness
      • Materials
      • Participants
      • Procedure
      • Results
      • Conclusion
    • 4.2Testing for specificity
      • Materials
      • Participants
      • Procedure
      • Results
      • Conclusion
    • 4.3Concluding the validation experiments
  • 5.Previewing the results of the testing paradigm with L2 learners
    • 5.1The study
      • Materials
      • Participants
      • Procedure
      • Results
        • Filler items
        • Test items
    • 5.2Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 19 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.52.05leb
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