Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen
Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen
Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen
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the Dulay <strong>and</strong> Burt child second language studies used the BSM, the Bailey et al.<br />
adult study used the BSM, <strong>and</strong> when Larsen-Freeman used the BSM she obtained a<br />
similar order, but when she used other tasks she did not. Also, Porter (1977)<br />
reported that child first language acquirers produced what appeared to be the second<br />
language acquisition order when the BSM was used; as pointed out above, first <strong>and</strong><br />
second language acquisition orders are somewhat different. While this evidence is at<br />
first glance suggestive, recent studies <strong>and</strong> reanalysis show conclusively, I believe,<br />
that the natural order is not an artifact of the BSM. First, we have obtained the<br />
natural order without the BSM, in the composition studies cited above, <strong>and</strong> more<br />
recently in free (spontaneous) speech in a study of adult second language acquirers<br />
(<strong>Krashen</strong>, Houck, Giunchi, Bode, Birnbaum, <strong>and</strong> Strei, 1977). Also, the SLOPE test<br />
gives an order quite similar to that found in the grammatical morpheme studies<br />
(<strong>Krashen</strong> et al., 1976; Fuller, 1978). (Some of these data were obtained <strong>and</strong> reported<br />
on after this objection was raised.) <strong>Second</strong>, Porter's child first language BSM order<br />
is not at all dissimilar to first language orders previously published in the literature<br />
(rho = 0.67 with de Villiers <strong>and</strong> de Villiers, 1973, which just misses the 0.05 level<br />
of significance, quite impressive for a rank order correlation using just seven items).<br />
(For a fuller discussion, see my response to Porter (<strong>Krashen</strong>, 1978c) in <strong>Language</strong><br />
Learning.)<br />
2. Do cross-sectional <strong>and</strong> longitudinal studies agree?<br />
It has been suggested that there is considerable individual variation in morpheme<br />
orders, <strong>and</strong> that longitudinal <strong>and</strong> cross-sectional studies do not always agree<br />
(Rosansky, 1976). In an attempt to determine just how much variation really exists,<br />
I recently reviewed every study available to me where grammatical morphemes<br />
were analyzed in obligatory occasions. This included child L1, child L2, delayed<br />
L1, <strong>and</strong> adult agrammatics. It included both grouped <strong>and</strong> individual studies, <strong>and</strong><br />
longitudinal <strong>and</strong> cross-sectional studies. The complete list of reports consulted is<br />
given in Table 1.<br />
Following de Villiers (1974) I only included morphemes with at least ten obligatory<br />
occasions in a given study. This is an extremely small number, <strong>and</strong> I originally<br />
thought that this would produce large<br />
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