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ACQUISITION OF DUTCH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

The Explanative Power of Cognate and Genetic Linguistic Distance Measures for 11 West European First Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2010

Frans W. P. Van der Slik
Frans W. P. Van der Slik*
Affiliation:
Radboud University and University of the Free State
*
*Address correspondence to: Frans W. P. Van der Slik, Department of Linguistics, Radboud University, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This study reports on the impact of 11 West European first languages on the acquisition of Dutch. Using data from nearly 6,000 second-language learners, it was found that the mother tongue had a rather large impact on two language skills—namely, oral and written proficiency—as measured by the scores received by these learners on the State Examination of Dutch as a Second Language. Multilevel analyses showed that the effect of the mother tongue can adequately be modeled by means of the cognate linguistic distance measure, adopted from McMahon and McMahon (2005). The explanative power of the genetic linguistic distance measure (Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994), on the other hand, was rather poor. Additionally, learner characteristics (age of arrival, length of residence, hours studying Dutch, education, and gender) and context characteristics (quality of schooling in the country of origin and multilingual country of origin) explained part of the variation in Dutch speaking and writing skills.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 401 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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