Como Citar
Resumo
In this paper, I present an analysis of data on initial aquisition of Portuguese as second language by six children living in a Japanese-Brazilian community in Brazil. These children speak only Japanese as their mother tongue, until school age. In this study, the principles and parameters model of generative grammar theory (Chomsky 1981, 1988) has been used together with studies on language transfer (Odlin 1989). I have chosen to investigate a syntactic phenomenon which distinguishes the Japanese and the Portuguese languages: the parameter of linearity (that is, word order). According to this parameter, in Japanese the phrase head is in final position andin Portuguese it is in initial position. I show that, in this initial stage of second language acquisition, children transfer the head-last parameter of Japanese to Portuguese, when
they are producing noun phrases (NP ® N + complement) and verbal phrases (VP ® V + complement). The evidence presented contradicts other studies which deny the existence of language transfer at all (Dulay e Burt 1974; Dulay, Burt e Krashen 1982), and those who deny it mainly at the syntactic level (Felix 1978; Paradis and Genesee 1996).
Referências
BICKERTON, D. (1977). Pidgnization and creolization: language acquisition and language universals. In: VALDAM, A. (ed.) (1977). Pidgin and creole linguistics. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
CHOMSKY, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
______. (1988). Language and problems of knowledge: the Managua lectures. 2nd. ed. Massachussets: MIT Press.
DULAY, H.C. e BURT, M.K.(1974). Natural sequences in child second language acquisition. Language Learning, 24, 1, p. 37-53.
DULAY, H.; BURT, M. e KRASHEN, S. (1982). Language two. New York: Oxford University Press.
FELIX, S.W. (1975). Interference, interlanguage, and related issues. In: HATCH, E.M. (ed.) (1978). Second language acquisition: a book of readings. Rowley, Massachusets: Newbury House.
FLYNN, S. (1987). A parameter setting model of L2 acquisition. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing.
GENESEE, F.; NICOLADIS, E. e PARADIS, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22, 3, pp. 611-631.
GONÇALVES, S.C.L. (1997). Aquisição do Português como segunda língua: o caso das crianças yuba. Campinas: IEL/UNICAMP, Dissertação de mestrado (mimeo).
KUNO, S. (1990). The structure of the Japanese language. 9th. ed. Massachussetts: MIT Press.
ODLIN, T. (1989). Language Transfer: cross linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ONO, M. (1992). Dicionário básico Japonês-Português. São Paulo: Aliança Cultural Brasil-Japão.
PARADIS, J. e GENESEE, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 1, pp. 1-25.
PERRONI, M.C. (1976) Aspectos da gramática do português aos 2;0 de idade. Campinas: IEL/UNICAMP, Dissertação de Mestrado (mimeo.)
PETERS, A. (1983). The units of language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
RADFORD, A. (1990). Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax: the nature of early child grammars of English. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.
RAPOSO, E. (1992). Teoria da gramática: a faculdade da linguagem. Lisboa: Caminho.
SCHWARTZ, B.D. e EUBANK, L. (1996). What is the ‘L2 initial state’? Second Language Research, 12, 1, pp.1-5.
WHITE, L. (1989). Universal grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
O periódico Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos utiliza a licença do Creative Commons (CC), preservando assim, a integridade dos artigos em ambiente de acesso aberto.
Downloads
