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Input and Second Language
Acquisition: The Roles of Frequency,
Form, and Function
Introduction to the Special Issue
NICK ELLIS LAURA COLLINS1
University of Michigan Concordia University
English Language Institute TESL Centre, Department of Education
500 E. Washington Street 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8
Email: ncellis@umich.edu Canada
Email: laura. collins@concordia. ca
The articles in this special issue explore how the acquisition of linguistic constructions as
form-function mappings is affected by the distribution and saliency of forms in oral input, by
their functional interpretations, and by the reliabilities of their form-function mappings. They
consider the psycholinguistics of language learning following general cognitive principles of
category learning, with schematic constructions emerging from usage. They analyze how learn-
ing is driven by the frequency and frequency distribution of exemplars within construction, the
salience of their form, the significance of their functional interpretation, the match of their
meaning to the construction prototype, and the reliability of their mappings. These investiga-
tions address a range of morphological and syntactic constructions in instructed, uninstructed,
and laboratory settings. They include both experimental and corpus-based approaches (some
conducted longitudinally) and consider the relationship between input and acquisition in the
short term and over time, with a particular emphasis on spoken input directed to second and
foreign language learners.
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330 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)
Key aspects of category learning mately tuned to include
input frequencythe at all levels of
frequency and frequency distribution of exem-
grain: Input frequency affects the processing of
plars, the salience of their forms, phonology the
and significance
phonotactics, reading, spelling,
of their functional interpretations, the formulaic
lexis, morphosyntax, matchlanguage, lan-
of their meanings to the construction prototype,
guage comprehension, grammaticality, sentence
and the reliabilities of theirproduction, mappings. These
and syntax are . Sensitivity to
(Ellis, 2002)
the factors requiring description, across
input frequency the
entails thatevi-
language users must
dence of the input and learner havecognition, to of
registered patterns inves-
occurrence in process-
tigate the acquisition of linguistic ing. Theseconstructions
frequency effects are asthus compelling
categories. evidence for usage-based models of language ac-
This special issue explores a range of morpho- quisition, which emphasize the role of input.
logical and syntactic constructions of second and
foreign language acquisition in instructed, unin- Type and Token Frequency. Token frequency
structed, and laboratory settings, with particular counts how often a particular form appears in
emphasis on experimental and corpus-based in- the input. Type frequency, on the other hand,
vestigations of spoken input directed to L2 learn- refers to the number of distinct lexical items
ers. The focus on aural input provides a much that can be substituted in a given slot in a con-
needed complementary focus to the written-based struction, whether it is a word-level construction
corpora work, which has dominated much of the for inflection or a syntactic construction speci-
L2 research. Furthermore, it allows for compar- fying the relation among words. For example,
isons with child first language (LI) acquisition the "regular" English past tense -ed has a very
and permits analyses of speech phenomena that high type frequency because it applies to thou-
may render some constructions more or less per- sands of different types of verbs, whereas the vowel
ceptible than others. The use of longitudinal data, change found in some irregular past forms (e.g.,
where possible, also allows us to look at the devel- "swim/swam "; "ring/ rang") has much lower type
opment of language over time (Ortega 8c Iberri- frequency. The productivity of phonological, mor-
Shea,2005). phological, and syntactic patterns is a function
The investigations reported broadly adopt of type rather than token frequency (Bybee 8c
functional, cognitive linguistic, psycholinguistic, Hopper, 2001). This is so for the following rea-
and constructionist perspectives (e.g., Bates & sons: (a) The more lexical items that are heard in
MacWhinney, 1987; Ellis, 1998, 2003, 2006a; a certain position in a construction, the less likely
Ellis 8c Cadierno, in press; Goldberg, 1995, 2003, it is that the construction is associated with a par-
2006; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987; Ninio, 2006; ticular lexical item and the more likely it is that
Robinson 8c Ellis, 2008; Tomasello, 2003) to in- a general category is formed over the items that
vestigate the degree to which the acquisition of occur in that position; (b) the more items the cat-
linguistic constructions may be explained by the egory must cover, the more general are its criterial
ways in which general perceptual and cognitive features and the more likely it is to extend to new
principles of category learning shape learners' ex- items; and (c) high type frequency ensures that
periences with the language input to which they a construction is used frequently, thus strength-
are exposed. ening its representational schema and making it
Four determinants of learning explored in this more accessible for further use with new items
issue are (a) input frequency (type-token fre- (Bybee 8c Thompson, 2000). In contrast, high
quency, Zipfian distribution, recency), (b) form token frequency promotes the entrenchment or
(salience and perception), (c) function (proto- conservation of irregular forms and idioms; the
typicality of meaning, importance of form for mes- irregular forms only survive because they are high
sage comprehension, redundancy), and (d) in- frequency. These findings support language's
teractions between these (contingency of form- place at the center of cognitive research into hu-
function mapping). We now consider each in man categorization, which also emphasizes the
turn.
importance of type frequency in classification.
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Nick Ellis and Laura Collins 331
the stronger
category are psychophysical forms
defined later in the inpu
by
full breadth ofthe grammatical
exemplar morphemes types
attached to v
hiser, and Sethuraman (2004)
indicate when a particular d
action occurre
provide cues
in samples of child to temporal relationships,
language acqu b
lexical items are much
ety of verb-argument more likely to be pe
construct
This can result for
is a strong tendency in overshadowing
one and sin bl
with very high of the temporal morphology, in
frequency makingcoit d
verbs used, a for L2 learners
profile thatto acquire (Ellis, 2006c, m
closely 2
mothers' Goldschneider
speech to these 8c DeKeyser, 2001).
childre
guage, Zipf s law (Zipf, 1935) d
Function
highest frequency words account
guistic tokens. Goldberg et al. sh
Prototypicality
law applies within VACs,of Meaning. Categories
too, have an
graded structure, with some
this input promotes members being bet-
acquisitio
particular
ter exemplars than others. In the prototype the-
verb account for the
stances of eachory ofparticular
concepts (Rosch 8c Mervis, 1975; Rosch,
argu
Mervis, Gray, Johnson, 8c Boyes-Braem, 1976), the
pathbreaking verb also is the o
prototype as an idealized central description is the
totypical meaning from which t
best example
derived (see also of the category, appropriately
Ninio, 1999, sum- 2
marizing the most representative attributes of a
Recency. Cognitive psychol
category. As the typical instance of a category, it
shows that three key
serves as the benchmarkfactors
against which surround- det
tion of memory ing, lessschemata-frequ
representative instances are classified.
context (Anderson,
The greater the token 1989; Ande
frequency of an exemplar,
2000). Languagethe more processing also
it contributes to defining the category,
effects. This phenomenon is k
and the greater the likelihood that it will be con-
and may be observed
sidered the prototype. in our
ceptual representations, lexical
tax (McDonough Redundancy.
8c The Rescorla-Wagner model
Trofimovic
(Rescorla 8c Wagner,
tic priming refers to1972) thealso summarizes
pheno how
redundant cues
particular syntactic structure tend not to be acquired. Not only as
prior exposurearetomany grammatical
the meaning-form
samerelation- stru
ships low in salience, but they
ior has been observed whencan also be redun-spe
read, or write dantsentences
in the understanding of the meaning (Bockof an
2006; Pickeringutterance.
8c Referring to the previously mentioned
Garrod, 2006
example, it is often unnecessary to interpret in-
flections marking
Form (Salience and grammatical meanings such as
Perception)
tense because they are usually accompanied by ad-
The perceived verbials
strength
that indicate the temporalof stim
reference.
referred to as salience. Low sal
to be less readily learned.
Interactions Between Contingency Elli
summarized the associative
of Form-Function Mapping lea
demonstrating that selective at
expectation, and Psychological
surprise research into associative
are learn- ke
analysis of all ing has long recognized that although
learning, frequency
animal
As the Rescorla-Wagner of form is important, so too is contingency of mo
Wagner, 1972) mapping (Shanks, 1995). Consider learning thethe
encapsulates,
ing induced category from of birds. Although
an eyes and wings are
exper
outcome association equally frequendy experienced features in the
depends
salience of the exemplars,
cue wings are the distinctive
and thefeature in im
outcome. differentiating birds from other animals. Wings
Many grammatical meaning-form arerelation-
important features when learning the cat-
egory of birds
ships, particularly those that are notoriously dif-because they are reliably associ-
ated with
ficult for L2 learners, like grammatical class membership, whereas eyes are
particles
and inflections in many languages,neither.
are of Rawlowfrequency of occurrence is less im-
salience in the language stream. For portant
example,thanad-the contingency between cue and
interpretation.
verbials such as "yesterday" and "tomorrow" areDistinctiveness or reliability of
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332 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)
filesa
form-function mapping is of driving
the oral use of these
forcesame forms
of in a
all
associative learning, to thelongitudinal
degree corpusthat of thepostsecondary
field of L2 learn-
its study has been known as ers' contingency
speech. They look at learning.
the frequency distribu-
Since Rescorla (1968) showedtion of that, for forms
the tense-aspect classical
and the recurring
conditioning, if one removedverbs with
thewhich they are associated,
contingency be-exploring
tween the conditioned stimulus
the roles that(CS) and
frequency, the un-and con-
distinctiveness,
conditioned (US), preservingtingencythe temporal
play in pair-
facilitating learning of construc-
ing between CS and US tions.
but adding
They show that additional
the learning of temporal
trials where the US appeared on its
morphology own, properties
demonstrates animals of category
consequently did not develop a conditioned
learning: sensitivity re-
to input frequency, reliability of
sponse to the CS. This result was
form-function a milestone
mapping, and prototypicality.
Ellis and Ferreriajunior
in the development of learning theory becauseexamine effects of
it implied that it was contingency, not
frequency, frequency temporal
distribution, and prototypical-
pairing, that generated conditioned responding.
ity /generality of meaning on the L2 acquisition of
three verb-argument
Contingency and its associated aspects constructions
of predic- in the Euro-
pean and
tive value, information gain, Sciencestatistical
Foundation ESLassocia-
corpus. This study
tion, have been at the corepresents a longitudinal
of learning sample ofever
theory the speech of
L2 learners who weretheories
since. It is central in psycholinguistic learning theirof L2 mainly
second language acquisition, as well
naturalistically from(Andersen,
untutored contexts and the
1993; Ellis, 2006b, 2006c, speech
2008b; Gries 8cinterviewers.
of native-speaker Wulff, Ellis and
2005; MacWhinney, 1987). Ferreriajunior show that the most frequent, most
prototypical, and most generic verbs for each con-
THE CONTRIBUTIONS IN struction were those learned first (go somewhere for
THIS SPECIAL ISSUE verb locatives; put something somewhere for verb ob-
ject locatives; give someone something for distransi-
Collins, Trofimovich, White, Cardoso, and tives) . They also found that the frequency profiles
Horst provide an integrated analysis (phonologi- of these verbs were Zipfian (i.e., the most frequent
cal, morphosyntactic, and lexicosemantic) of the verbs were very frequent, compared to other verbs
distribution and saliency of three morphosyn- in the paradigm) . One of the contributions of this
tactic features (simple past, progressive aspect,study is the demonstration of how frequency in-
and the possessive determiners his/her) in a lon-teracts with meaning to facilitate the acquisition
gitudinal corpus of instructional input directedof constructions as categories.
at young francophone learners of English in McDonough and Kim directly examine the rela-
Quebec. Their exploration of the interaction be- tionship between input and production in an ex-
tween the availability (defined through frequency-
perimental study of w/i-questions. They manipu-
based criteria) and the accessibility (defined
late the type and token frequency of question primes
through semantic and perceptibility criteria) of in instructor speech and of prompts to elicit pro-
the three forms identified three factors in their duction of question forms in the students' speech.
data that distinguished the earlier acquired pro- They find a key role for prompt type frequency
gressive construction from the later acquired sim-in the production of accurate u/A-questions but
ple past and his/her forms. These factors weredo not find an effect for type frequency in the
type frequency, which considered frequency inpriming speech. Their results point to the ways
the language at large of the verbs and nouns in which type frequency may affect learning of
found in the constructions; the semantic scope ofconstructions at different stages of development:
noun and verb types associated with the target Low type/high token frequency may enable learn-
forms; and the perceptual salience provided by theers to detect patterns in the input, but high-type-
phonetic environment in which the forms were frequency practice may be necessary for learners
found.
to achieve productive use of the construction.
Wulff, Ellis, Rorner, Bardovi-Harlig, and In Year and Gordon's study, the direct link be-
LeBlanc also take a corpus approach to quantify tween input and production is also examined, this
and qualify acquisition difficulty. They compare time in an actual foreign language classroom. The
the profiles of tense-aspect forms (present, pro-issue under investigation is the role of skewed versus
gressive, past) from the diverse speech situationsbalanced input on the acquisition of the ditransi-
found in the spoken version of the British Na- tive construction in L2 English (e.g., give someone
tional Corpus and the academic discourse found something), a phenomenon that has not received
in university settings compiled in the Michigan much research attention in the L2 literature. Al-
Corpus of Academic Spoken English with pro- though the actual learning in the two conditions
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Nick Ellis and Laura Collins 333
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334 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)
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Nick Ellis and Laura Collins 335
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McDonough, K-, 8c 8c Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural
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Some Inpu
Grammar
Study
LAURA COLLINS PAVEL TROFIMOVICH JOANNA WHITE
Concordia University and the Concordia University and the Concordia University and the
Centre for the Study of Learning
Centre for the Study of Learning
Centre for the Study of Learning
/';-=09 )(8*
and Performance
=-0/']
and Performance
and Performance
Department of Education Department of Education Department of Education
1455, boul. de Maisonneuve O.
1455, boul. de Maisonneuve O.
1455, boul. de Maisonneuve O.
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8
Canada Canada Canada
Email: laura.collins® Email: pavel.trofimovich® Email: jwhite@education.
concordia. ca concordia. ca concordia. ca
The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is possible to distinguish between "diffi-
cult" and "easy" constructions for second language (L2) learners by examining characteristics
of the structures as they occur in aural input. In a multidimensional analysis of 3 English struc-
tures with different acquisition profiles - the simple past, possessive determiners his/her, and
the progressive aspect - we examined the phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexicosemantic
characteristics of the forms as they occurred in a 110,000-word corpus of instructional talk to
L2 learners. We analyzed the type/token distributions of the forms, their lexical properties,
and their perceptual salience. Our findings revealed key input factors that distinguished be-
tween the early-acquired progressive, on the one hand, and the later-acquired past and his/her
determiners, on the other hand. These results lend support to theoretical accounts of the
input-acquisition relationship and also generate hypotheses for manipulating instructional
input to increase the salience of opaque constructions.
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