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Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:2 (2020) ► pp.184–215

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The universal topic prominence stage hypothesis and L1 transfer

A study of L2 Korean written narratives by L1 English and L1 Chinese speakers

 | University at Buffalo
Published online: 29 May 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17061.lee
Abstract
This paper tests the universal Topic Prominence (TP) stage hypothesis and L1 transfer hypothesis by analyzing attested TP features, namely zero pronouns, bare (i.e., article-less) nouns, and post-nominal topic marking found in Korean written narratives collected from L2 Korean (TP language) speakers whose L1 is English (SP language) and Mandarin Chinese (TP language), respectively. The results showed that L2 Korean speakers used zero pronouns as frequently as L1 Korean speakers did from the early stage of their acquisition, whereas the use of the topic marking lagged behind, regardless of their L1 backgrounds. We explain the results by appealing to the universal acquisition path based on pragmatic-lexical-morphosyntactic cline: while the concept of the topic is (arguably) universal, its morphological marking is influenced by L1 as well as learning experience.
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Previous research
  • 3.TP features in Korean
    • 3.1Topic marking
    • 3.2Zero pronoun
    • 3.3Bare nouns
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Hypotheses and predictions
    • 4.2Task and procedure
    • 4.3Participants
    • 4.4Coding
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Zero pronoun
    • 5.2Bare nouns
    • 5.3Topic marking
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Summary of the results
    • 6.2The universality of the concept of topic
    • 6.3L1 transfer
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (74)
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