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IS THE “NATURAL ORDER” AN ARTIFACT OF THE BILINGUAL SYNTAX MEASURE?
Author(s) -
Krashen Stephen D.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1978.tb00314.x
Subject(s) - syntax , morpheme , linguistics , artifact (error) , psychology , order (exchange) , rank (graph theory) , word order , natural (archaeology) , similarity (geometry) , natural language processing , computer science , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , history , archaeology , finance , combinatorics , economics , image (mathematics)
In a recent study, Porter (1977) reported that the rank order for grammatical morphemes in obligatory contexts between child first language acquirers using the BSM was “moderately dissimilar” to that found for child second language acquirers using the BSM. Also, correlations between the L1 BSM order and child L1 orders obtained from spontaneous speech are “highly dissimilar”. He suggests that the order obtained with the BSM could be “an artifact of the testing situation” and should be validated using spontaneous speech of second language performers. This paper makes three points about these conclusions. (1) Spontaneous speech data has been provided since Porter's paper was written, and there appears to be clear agreement between BSM and spontaneous speech (and writing) morpheme orders. (2) The BSM L1 order found by Porter is not “highly dissimilar” to child L1 order obtained using spontaneous speech, as the rank order correlation (rho =.67, n = 7) is quite close to statistical significance. (3) The degree of similarity between Porter's L1 order and BSM L2 orders is not inconsistent with previous findings. This suggests that the “natural order” found using the BSM for second language acquirers is not an artifact of the test.