Elicited Imitation in Second Language Learners. Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 6

• Main Author: Hamayan, Else
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Bilingual Education Project, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 01.05.1975
• Subjects: Adults; Children; English (Second Language); Imitation; Language Ability; Language Acquisition; Language Instruction; Language Learning Levels; Language Research; Language Skills; Learning; Linguistic Difficulty (Inherent); Second Language Learning; Second Languages

Three groups of subjects were tested in an elicited imitation study. These were 8-year-old, 11-year-old and adult native speakers of Arabic who were learning English as a second language. The subjects were asked to repeat sentences of seven different grammatical structure types. Previous research with 4-year-old native speakers of English (Smith, 1973) has found that three of the structures were easy to repeat (Type A structures) while four were difficult to repeat (Type B structures). In the present study, a similar difference in the repeatability of A and B structures was found for the youngest subjects, but there was no such difference for the adults and only a moderate difference for the intermediate group. The pattern of results suggested that this was not a function of differences in the subjects' English-language backgrounds, but represents a developmental difference in the ability of second-language learners to repeat certain grammatical structures. The theoretical reasons for the variability in repetition difficulty for the different structure types were considered. (Author)