The Acquisition of English Regular and Irregular Plural Morphemes by L1 Thai Learners: A Case of the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis
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Abstract
The purpose of the present study is to examine whether L1 Thai learners, whose native language lacks the plural inflection morphology, have acquired English regular and irregular plural morphemes and to see whether variability of L2 English regular and irregular plural morphemes by L1 Thai learners is caused by non-target-like syntactic representations under the assumption of the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis (FFFH). The participants were 36 Thai learners of English divided into two groups based on their proficiency levels: intermediate and advanced. Data were collected from a grammaticality judgement task and a cloze test. The results confirmed the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis (Franceschina, 2001; Hawkins & Chan, 1997) and contradicted the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Lardiere, 1998; Prévost & White, 2000) in that the L1 Thai learners failed to acquire English regular and irregular plural morphemes due to non-existence of plural inflection in Thai. Moreover, their use and judgement of L2 English plural morphemes was rather unsystematic. While some L1 Thai learners were assumed to draw upon their L1 knowledge to complete the tasks, others possibly resorted to linguistic cues showing plurality. The study contributes to Second Language Acquisition with respect to L2 variability and representation.
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บทความทุกบทความเป็นลิขสิทธิ์ของภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์
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