PARA AMPLIACIÓN DE PROYECCIÓN DE COBERTURA

Language acquisition processes can only be observed through the window of particular activities performed by particular interlocutors. The effects of two main factors in our research design (time/cycle and activity type) could first of all be tested in the quantitative macro-study (section 4) by two rather successful measures of lexical richness and variety, viz. Guiraud's index and Theoretical Vocabulary. Primary concepts in the analysis were the number of types (lemmas) and the number of tokens used by a language learner in a specific language activity. A time effect was observed for the group of learners as a whole, which implies that a general increase in lexical richness was found. The activity type turned out to be an influential factor. Free conversation allowed room for topic variation, and thus for lexical variety, whereas film retelling was more restricted by the stimulus events in the film shown.

Moreover, at the level of particular word class categories, it was found that our learners used words from a wide range of word class categories. The word class distribution appeared to be strongly influenced by activity. This highly adaptive behaviour of our language learners seems to be typical of adult language acquisition.

The quantitative macro-study, presented in section 4, was complemented and supported by two more qualitatively oriented in-depth studies of specific lexical domains, belonging to different word class categories, i.e. function words (pronouns) and content words (nouns) respectively. Section 5 focused upon word formation processes, section 6 upon upon pronominal reference to persons. Again, effects of time (cycle), activity type, and source/target language were found in these two substudies.

In the word-formation study, we found a creative and innovative target language oriented use of compounding and circumscription as learner strategies for filling lexical gaps (including derivation). Evidence of source language influence was found as well in particular informant specific circumscriptions (N + prep + N) and left-oriented compounds.

In the pronoun study, a greater relative share of second person pronouns was evidenced in conversations, in comparison to film retellings. Moreover, linguistic properties of the target pronoun system were shown to be more influential determiners of acquisition than differences between the source and target pronoun systems.

Our language learners' strategies for filling lexical gaps proved to be highly task dependent. Pronominal reference to entities resulted in an overextended use of word forms already available rather than in lexical innovations;

the overextended terms, as a rule, were the unmarked terms of the linguistic subsystem in question. However, nominal reference to entities resulted in an opposite pattern: lexical innovations in terms of both composition and circumscription could be evidenced in abundance.

7.2. In prospect

From the patterns discussed above, a rather complex picture of the acquisition process emerges, where different factors cooperate and interact to determine order of acquisition, preference of lexical items, and organization of learner strategies. Furthermore, it may well be the case that the relative weight of the determining factors is different for different linguistic domains and for different stages in a learner's acquisition career. However, there are tendencies in our results to suggest a 'default' hierarchy of main factors determining the linguistic performance of a second language learner, namely:

time (cycle)

TL properties > > SL properties activity type

The default character of this hierarchy means that a search for explanations for the learner's linguistic performance should proceed from left to right rather than the other way around, unless there are clear indications to the contrary. This means, in effect, that, as a rule, source language properties become a potentially valuable explanatory factor only when the other factors in the hierarchy above have failed to apply.

The obvious importance of data derived from adult language learners rather than children is that cognitive development and language development are no longer indissolubly interwoven. Therefore, adult data form a crucial touchstone for claims about universal principles in language acquisition. Of course, universality has not yet been confirmed by data concerning children's acquisition of English as a first language. In fact, different kinds of demands can be made in the qualification of 'universality'. In our study on (pro)nominal reference to entities, many developmental characteristics were evidenced that are independent of a specific target language, source language, and age. A combination of these requirements obviously provides the strongest indicators for universal principles of language acquisition.

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THE USE OF VOCABULARY AND COLLOCATIONS IN THE WRITING OF PRIMARY