Environmental Influence on Language Acquisition: Comparing Second and Foreign Language Acquisition of Swedish

• Published in: Language learning Vol. 60; no. 3; pp. 628 - 650
• Main Authors: Håkansson, Gisela, Norrby, Catrin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.09.2010; Wiley-Blackwell; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adults. Performance, acquisition; Association Measures; Australia; College Students; Comparative Language Studies and Linguistics; Educational Environment; Foreign Countries; Foreign language learning; Grammar; Grammar lexicon relationship; Grammaticality; Humaniora och konst; HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP; HUMANITIES and RELIGION; Humanities and the Arts; Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik; L2 exposure; L2 Swedish; Language acquisition; Languages and linguistics; Languages and Literature; Learning Environment; Lexicon; Linguistic Input; Linguistic subjects; Linguistic Theory; Linguistics; Lingvistik; Lingvistikämnen; Longitudinal Studies; Native Speakers; Pragmatics; Processability Theory; Production and comprehension processes; Psycholinguistics; Psychology of language; Scoring; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Second language learning theories; second versus foreign; Språk och litteratur; Språkvetenskap; Sweden; Swedish; Swedish language; Task Analysis; Theory; Vocabulary; Word and letter association; word association; Australia; Sweden; Melbourne Victoria Australia; Malmo Sweden; Psycholinguistics; Swedish as foreign language; Second language acquisition; second versus foreign; L2 Swedish; language acquisition; word association; Processability Theory; pragmatics; L2 exposure
• ISSN: 0023-8333; 1467-9922; 1467-9922
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00569.x

This article explores the influence of the learning environment on the second language acquisition of Swedish. Data were collected longitudinally over 1 year from 35 university students studying Swedish in Malmö, Sweden, and in Melbourne, Australia. Three areas were investigated: grammar, pragmatics, and lexicon. The development of grammar was analyzed within the framework of Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998, 2005). For the pragmatic analysis, the learners’ production in a gap‐filling task was measured against answers from 100 native speakers. A scoring system was devised to enable comparisons between learners and native speakers. The lexical analysis was based on a word association test. The results show that the grammar developed similarly in the two groups, whereas differences between the groups were found in pragmatics and lexicon. This variation is explained by differences in target language exposure.