A cognitive view of the role of L1 in the L2 acquisition process

Author(s): Jorge Giacobbe

Source: Second Language Research, Vol. 8, No. 3, Special issue on CROSSLINGUISTIC
INFLUENCE (October 1992), pp. 232-250
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43104456
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Second Language Research 8,3 (1992); pp. 232-250

A cognitive view of the role of L1 in the

L2 acquisition process*
Jorge Giacobbe Groupement de Recherches sur L'Acquisition
des Langues

In the first part of this article, I reflect on the role that the learner's
hypothesis-forming activity may assign to the LI during the course of the
acquisition process. These remarks are illustrated in the second part of the
article by observations from a longitudinal case study of the acquisition of
movement verbs.

I The learners' paradox, and preconditions for learning

The adult L2 learner acquiring her new language 'spontaneously'
through everyday contact with its native speakers immediately finds
herself caught in a contradiction.1 Unlike the child, for whom
language2 acquisition and the acquisition of a first language go hand
in hand, the adult already has a language upon encountering an L2
and knows, by this token, how to discourse with native speakers.
Such a generalization is more easily demonstrated in the case of a
closely related L1-L2 pairing (which is the case of the learner
studied in the second part of this article), but it cannot be excluded
even in the case of unrelated languages. It is this capacity for
discourse on the part of the adult speaker which places her upon
arrival in the new linguistic environment in an almost paradoxical
situation, for she has to communicate (and knows what linguistic
communication is), but does not command the linguistic means to
do so. Yet the only way to develop the repertoire is to communi-
cate. Her task is then to engage in discourse activity in order to be
* Address for correspondence: Département d'Espagnol, Université Paris VIII, rue de la
Liberté, F-93 Saint Denis. I wish to thank the editors both for their comments and for
grappling with the original French version of this article. Thanks are also due to an
anonymous reviewer.
1 My remarks will be limited to the case of the untutored acquisition of an L2 outside the
classroom (although 'untutored' is not intended to imply any lack of metalinguistic awareness
on the learner's part). As Berta, the learner of Section II of this article is a woman, the
pronoun 'she' will be overgeneralized throughout to refer generically to 'the learner'.
~ Uncountable 'language' will be used in the Saussurean sense of langage. The original
French terms will be used throughout the article for the Saussurean signe , and its two sides,
namely, signifiant and signifié.
© Edward Arnold 1992

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 Jorge Giacobbe 233

able to elaborate what is inevitably a highly limited linguistic system

in the early stages.
What is the role of the learners' LI in her attempts to reach a
balance between the effort of acquiring new linguistic material and
the need to convey and understand meaning? Initially this question
can be narrowed down to asking how the learner analyses what she
hears. How does she manage to get a hold on individual items and
stretches of the linguistic input? Or rather, how does L2 native
speaker input become a 'model' for the learner's own constructions?
Within the adult's overall propensity for acquiring a new lan-
guage, the knowledge of language and communication developed
during first language acquisition is crucial. If discourse activity
provokes the construction and restructuring of the interlanguage,3
then during the very first contacts with native speakers of the new
language, such communication must rely on the LI.4 It is through
the LI that the beginning learner can access the language and
communication universais which allow her to gauge the communica-
tive intention of the interlocutor, even in the extreme case of lack of
understanding of the words uttered. The LI thus functions as a prior
system allowing the learner some participation in foreign-language
discourse activity, even before it can function as a source of transfer.
This initial system, the LI, operates in discourse situations which
allow the learner to make full use of extralinguistic information in
her first analyses of the verbal material of the new language, as she
tries to understand and make herself understood. In this context,
the learner's success in sampling L2 items closely depends on the
possibility of integrating them into Ll-derived linguistic and concep-
tual frameworks. This is the sense in which the LI is taken to be a
prior system for the development of IL knowledge, and this is the
claim to be explored in the empirical study of Section II of this
article.
The above view of the absolute beginnings of the L2 acquisition
process has a certain number of consequences:
1) To generalize presupposes the creation of a schema,5 a
hypothetical construction allowing a piece of verbal behaviour
to be replicated and modified in actual use. The hypotheses
3 1 leave aside hypotheses relating to universal language acquisition and processing such as
Faerch and Kasper's (1986: 50-51) 'procedural knowledge', or Zobl's (1980: 470) 'develop-
mental acquisition principle', as these hypotheses seemingly follow on from the Chomskyan
'competence/performance' dichotomy. The hypothesis I shall be exploring postulates a
continuum between the actual productions of learners in discourse activity and the construc-
tion of their interlanguage knowledge.
4This statement is of course restricted to monolingual beginners, that is, L2 (rather than L3)
learners.
The Piagetian scheme.

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234 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

which allow schemata to be set up, modified and co-ordinated

(i.e., organized into a system) are at least partly derived from
prior systems. As acquisition progresses, it is not only LI that
functions as such a system - earlier stages of development of the
IL system also function in this way. It is important to note that
the only intake possible is where the item or rule of the L2
native speaker input can be integrated into already functioning
systems. Where this is not the case, the learner is effectively
'deaf to the input and the item in question is not heard. This
deafness is therefore selective, depending on the learner's prior
systems. Any new item or sequence in the learner's production
must then be seen as the result of the available schemata having
been modified.
2) The analyst deals with production, and the corpus (whatever its
nature: recorded spontaneous speech, grammaticality judge-
ments, etc.) is the manifest result - the product - of complex
hypothesizing by the learner. An item or sequence under study
may be the product of different schemata. It is a truism, but
worth repeating, that for the self-same item or sequence,
Ll-derived hypotheses may coexist with IL-derived hypotheses,
and deciding whether the surface sequence is due to 'transfer'
or 'overgeneralization', say, depends crucially on the theoreti-
cal framework one has adopted.
3) It is the learner who constructs, co-ordinates and accesses her
schemata in order to deal with the demands of the discourse
activity she is engaged in. How she proceeds does not depend in
the first instance on the structure of the LI , or the L2 (or even
the IL). Rather, the to-and-fro between 'deafness' and intake is
the consequence of the learner's own restructuring capacity.
Each stage of IL development has its specific constraints, which
in turn constrain the direction that development can take. This
means in particular that the L2 does not represent a stable
target, but changes over the course of acquisition. Rather than
speak of the L2 model, it would be more appropriate to speak
of different targets that learners set themselves as a function
both of their own hypotheses and of the discursive constraints
on their interactions with native speakers of the L2. Further
acquisition is, to repeat, motivated by communicative need,
and the shape that it takes depends on the current functioning
of the learner's IL.
4) As a consequence of (3) there is no end-state in L2 acquisition
(such as convergence with native speakers) which may be
determined at the outset. However, this does not preclude
envisaging the acquisition process - the succession of models

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 Jorge Giacobbe 235

that the learner sets up - as being directional (in principle,

moving in the direction of L2).
5) The cognitive view being taken here links up with the linguistic
notion of idiosyncrasy proposed by Corder (1971). Corder's
speculation about possible learner types and parallel courses
shared by learners of the same L2 is relevant, but these learner
types are not to be defined by linguistic criteria (sharing an LI),
but rather by procedures for constructing, restructuring and
using IL systems. The study of learner types is the study of
cognitive procedures, and not the study of LI and L2 structures.
6) This brings me to the central question. If it is the case that the
LI provides an initial system from which to create schemata for
the construction of the L2, what role does it then play in the
development of the IL? And how is it possible to include the
role played by the LI in a cognitive account of language
development? Cromer's 'cognition hypothesis' seems a good
place to start examining these questions. This hypothesis has
two aspects, which Bruner describes thus:

Whoever studies prelinguistic precursors of language must, I believe, commit

himself to what Cromer (1974) has recently called the 'cognition hypothesis'.
The cognition hypothesis has two parts to it. The first holds that 'we are able
to understand and productively to use particular linguistic structures only
when our cognitive abilities enable us to do so' (Cromer, 1974: 246). The
second holds that when our cognitive abilities allow us to grasp a particular
idea, we may still not have grasped the complex rule for expressing it freely
but may nonetheless express it in a less complex, if indirect form (Bruner,
1975: 258-59).

Cromer's hypothesis highlights the genetic nature of language

acquisition in that it postulates a doctrine of functional substitution,
or at least of continuity between functionally equivalent forms of
communication (between prelinguistic forms and the development
of a first language, in the case that interests Bruner).
Cromer's hypothesis probably has greater implications for the L2
situation. First, it would suppose, as I do, that the adult beginner
has prior linguistic and conceptual constructions (via the LI) which
govern the onset and the course of the acquisition process. Sec-
ondly, the cognition hypothesis addresses the question of the
dynamics of the process, that is, how the prior existence of linguistic
and cognitive contraints governs the gradual appropriation of new
forms which in principle approximate more and more closely to
those of the L2. Thus the two parts to Cromer's hypothesis - the
concept and the rule for expressing the concept - evoke the
continuity/discontinuity between different aspects of the cognitive

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236 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

(and linguistic) constructions of the adult, and the hypotheses she

must entertain in order to acquire a new language.
These preliminary remarks can now be made much more concrete
in the following analysis of the acquisition of movement verbs by
Berta. I return to the questions raised here in the conclusion.

II A case study of the acquisition of movement verbs

The purpose of this study is to show that in certain circumstances,
the adult learner of an L2 has to reconstruct the concepts behind the
meaning of linguistic signs before they emerge in the L2.
The problems considered here clearly have to do with the relation
between LI and L2, as well as the relation holding between the
acquisition of both these languages and cognitive development in
general. As regards this cognitive activity, the most commonly held
view maintains that in acquiring a second language, the adult can
draw on the concepts developed during LI acquisition.6 Lurking
behind this point of view is the idea that adult SLA is fundamentally
concerned with constructing a new system of signifiants, and that
such concepts remain available within the limits of crosscultural and
crosslinguistic differences.7 In other words, the adult acquiring an
L2 has to (re)construct only those L2 notions which are not
grammaticalized in her LI , while the others are directly available for
incorporation into the IL system.
Can this view of the 'natural' availability of transferable concepts
be questioned, and to what extent?8 During the process of acquiring
L2 French, Berta, a Spanish-speaking learner, had to reconstruct
the notion of PATH, which underlies the use of certain movement
verbs in French, aller ('go') in particular. This notion is shared with
the LI equivalent ir. To represent a PATH, one needs to be able to
represent a homogeneous (Euclidian) space. As will be seen,
however, the initial system which Berta builds up is based on a
6This view is that of Klein (1986: 5), and Weissenborn (1984: 262-63).
7 Cf Klein (1986), and Weissenborn (1984).
8 The study by Cook (1977) on adult learners' use of before and after raises some questions
about the notional transfer hypothesis.
9This study was carried öut in the context of the European Science Foundation's research
project (1982-88) on spontaneous adult language acquisition, which examined 10 linguistic
cases of acquisition in five European countries: France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands
and Sweden. For a complete description of the aims and methodology of this project, cf.
Perdue (1984). Berta is a political refugee from Chile who knew no French on her arrival in
the Paris region. The corpus analysed here consists of retellings of an abridged version of
Chaplin's Modern times , which relates the adventures of two main characters referred to here
as 'Chaplin' and 'the girl'. Berta performed this task three times, to a different L2-speaker on
each occasion, at approximately 10-month intervals. The retelling of Time 1 occurred during
her sixth month in France, the retelling of Time 2 took place after 17 months, and that of
Time 3 after 24 months.

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 Jorge Giacobbe 237

topological conceptualization of space, where the representation of

movement is inextricably linked with the notion of BOUNDARY,
to the exclusion of PATH. The most striking observation in the
study is that Berta does not consistently use aller to refer to
movements until the recording of Time 3, when she had already
been in France for two years (see footnote 9). Given that third
person narratives are being dealt with (roughly speaking), and that
the third person forms of Spanish and French 'go' in the present
indicative and their functions are virtually identical,10 it would not
have been surprising to find a 'classic' case of early, successful,
transfer. But that is precisely what is not found.

1 The representation problem

A first question to be asked relates to that what may be termed the
'representation problem'. What is the reason for Berta's two years'
'delay' before using aller , this commonest of movement verbs? The
answer lies in the analysis of the means she did indeed use to express
movement. The development of these means will be described
briefly over the three points of time investigated in this study.11

Time I: movement conceptualized as relocation

The following utterance of Berta's refers to a movement:12

1) 0 [o fJ'efJV a] la maison (0 = aller )

'(elle) 0 chercher à la maison'
(she (goes to) look FOR the house)

In (1), the preposition a marks the direction of the movement, and

there is no verb aller.
Given that this example and many of the following examples
containing reference to movement correspond to source and/or
target language sequences whose structure would contain a move-
ment verb, I will describe them as having a verb 'missing' in the
"'Spanish ir and French aller both have va as third person present indicative. In the plural,
Spanish van corresponds to French vont , pronounced [võ], although a Spanish ear would
initially not distinguish this pronunciation from [von]. The functional range of the two verbs is
in fact not identical, but what differences there are do not affect the examples discussed.
"For a detailed analysis of Berta's cognitive means of representing movement, for other
related aspects of her development, as well as for extended discussion of the general theses of
this paper, see Giacobbe (1992).
All examples are from Berta. If there is dialogue between her and a native speaker of the
target language, the latter's utterances are marked by NS. The transcription conventions are
the following: + represents a silent pause, and / a self-correction. Pairs of * * enclose source
language sequences, [ ] enclose sequences in phonetic transcription, and ( ) unclear sequences.
Each example is accompanied by the author's standard French gloss, and a gloss in English.
The zero sign 0 is used to indicate a 'missing' item, as explained in the text : 0= aller is to be
interpreted as 'aller is missing'.

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238 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

position marked by 0. Notice, however, that in Spanish the preposi-

tions a and en suffice to convey movement and location respectively,
whereas verbs are obligatory in French to convey these meanings. I
return to this fact in Section II. 2.
The examples from Time 1 show that Berta generally tends to
omit aller, whether or not the 'missing' form is similar to the
corresponding Spanish form, and whatever the syntactic structure of
the utterance. But these 'omissions' do not only concern aller, other
movement verbs are omitted, as is être (which marks the localiza-
tion, and to which I shall return):

2) après + 0 de la prison (0 = revenir ?, venir ?)

'après (il/elle) de la prison'
(afterwards, he/she FROM the prison: = 'returns'?)
3) * y* après . . . la femme 0 *al* camion de la police
(0 = monter ?, entrer ?, ialler ?)
'et après ... la femme 0 dans le camion de la police'
(and afterwards . . . the woman INTO the police van: = 'enters'?)
4) *los* deux 0 *en* la/ "en* rue (0 = être)
'tous les deux 0 dans la rue'
(both of them IN the street: = 'are'?)

These examples show that in order to refer to movement and

location, Berta has constructed an idiosyncratic system of three
prepositions, [de], [a], [en]. These prepositions create the following
relations: between the mobile reference and the source position -
[de], see (2); between the mobile referent and the goal position -
[a], see (1) and (3); between the referent and a single position
(location) - [en], see (4). This basic system allows Berta to represent
movement as a double positioning: the mobile referent is first
located at a position A, and then moves because it can subsequently
be located at a position B. Movement is thus merely marked as a
change of place - a new position indicated by the preposition [a] is
attained in relation to an initial position indicated by the preposition
[de]. In context, these utterances in fact merely locate the referent
in relation to an initial position (where it no longer is), or to a final
position where it already is, as the other position can be left implicit.
From a psychological point of view, the speaker has to reposition
the THEME13 by using the linguistic means that she has in order to
represent movement. This relocation is effected in relation to
entities which do not move - the RELATA. Now, the examples
"Following Klein (1991) I shall call the mobile referent the THEME, and the referent (or
referents) in relation to which it is located, the RELATUM. All terms for spatial concepts will
be indicated by CAPITALS, and are defined in detail in Becker et al. (1988). However, an
intuitive understanding of them is sufficient for the reader of this article.

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 Jorge Giacobbe 239

have clearly shown that operations of positioning (location) and of

repositioning (movement) can merge; in both cases, a THEME is
situated by reference to a RELATUM (or relata), and the fact that
a single, prepositionally marked relation suffices to construct the
movement in its entirety underlines the similarity of both opera-
tions. Moreover, as (4) shows, location is also expressed by verbless
utterances - use of the preposition en suffices.
Example (5) is the utterance immediately preceding (3) above:

5) *en la + en el* camion de la police

'(Chariot) 0 dans le camion de la police'
(Charlie IN the police van)

In the first utterance (5), Berta uses the preposition en, which
LOCATES Charlie uniquely in relation to the police van, while the
theme (Charlie) does not move in relation to the RELATUM. In
the following utterance ((3) above), the preposition a situates the
girl both in relation to an implicit source position and to a goal
position, the police van. This double placing is what allows Berta to
represent the movement of entering the police van. The THEME
moves in relation to the two RELATA.
Let us now look at the lexical verbs used by Berta to refer to
movement at Time 1. In fact, the invariable form sorti (doubtless
derived from the French verb sortir 'go out') is practically the only
L2- related form used (3x) by Berta.

6) *y* sorti *del* camion . . . la femme+ *el* police *y* chaplin

'et ils sont sortis du camion, la femme, le policier et Chaplin'
(and they came out of the van, the woman, the policeman and Chaplin)

Sorti expresses movement in a way that is compatible with the

cognitive constraints on Berta's basic prepositional system. The
THEME leaves the inside of the van and then finds itself outside. To
the spatial information of the preposition de, sorti adds the passage
across a threshold from the inside to the outside. Sorti does not
express a PATH, merely a double positioning, a relocation.
Berta's first system of spatial representation is organized along
two separate grammatical levels, open-class (verbs) and closed-class
(prepositions). The prepositions serve to express abstract relations
between entities, whereas the verbs will be used to express percep
tual space by specifying different types of movement.14 Taken
together, they give Berta the wherewithal to express relations in
perceptual space.
,4Thus Berta can use manner verbs such as courir from Time 1 . Their signifiés do not howev
form part of the system of spatial representation under construction.

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240 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

Their compatibility lies in the representation of space that under-

lies them, which is topological. They express a topological space
divided by a BOUNDARY into qualitatively different subspaces.
The space is not homogeneous, given that it is organized by and
around the BOUNDARY, nor is it dimensional, since movement
within it cannot be represented as a measurable PATH, but merely
as a change of position from SOURCE to GOAL. Sorti means 'have
crossed the threshold', 'be located on the other side'; it does not
indicate the following of a measurable path. The subspaces thus
serve to locate a THEME in two individuated places and nothing
more. To represent a PATH, it is necessary for the THEME to be
located at any of the possible places along it, not only at its
beginning and end.
To do this, one needs then to be able to represent a
homogeneous, Euclidian space. This is the representation necessary
to express the meaning of the verb aller. To be able to use aller,
Berta would need to represent a nontopological space in her IL. But
her IL system is not so organized, and so she cannot use aller. Aller
is not coincidentally absent from the corpus.
My first observation is therefore that in order to acquire a new
system of spatial representation using L2 forms in L2 discourse
activity, Berta separates out open-class and closed-class organi-
zation. Keeping the closed-class, prepositional (abstract) system
constant allows her to start constructing the open-class, verbal
(perceptual) means of expression. The first L2 open-class forms
taken in are those which are compatible with the organization of
Berta's minisystem of prepositions, i.e., compatible with the repre-
sentation of movement as a relocation. It is no accident that none of
the verbs omitted at Time 1 could be rendered by the signifié of
sorti. Sorti is compatible with the system and is therefore not
omitted.

Time 1: the need to go further

From Time 1 onwards, Berta feels the need to refer to PATH, as
such reference is one of the task requirements. Different discourse
strategies testify to this, the most noticeable of which is a switch to
Spanish:

7) *y* lui euh *fue aun* restaurant a manger

'et il est allé manger dans un restaurant'
(and he WENT to eat in a restaurant)

Berta's IL paraphrases are particularly interesting, as they come to

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 Jorge Giacobbe 241

represent an important way of referring to movement at Time 2.

The following example shows us how she attempts to express
movement involving a PATH taken by a THEME by using sorti in a
paraphrase. The fact that she herself 'glosses' this attempt in
Spanish allows us to reconstruct its meaning:

8) Berta: *y* elle la femme *con* avec chaplin *arrancaron no se como se

dice* [a]/ *por* la rue
NS: qu'est-ce qu'ils fonti
Berta: [e + va sorti] de la rue + oui
NS: ils sortent de la rue ?
Berta: oui

'B: et la femme avec Chaplin ont démarré (je ne sais pas comment
on dit) par la rue. NS: qu'est-ce qu'ils font? B: euh ils vont sortir de
la rue, oui.' (B: And the girl with Chaplin have taken off (I don'
know how to say it) through the street. NS: What do they do? B:
They are GOING TO LEAVE the street, yes. NS: They LEAVE
the street? B: Yes.)
Berta's second utterance contains two verbal forms [va] and
[sorti]. Notice, though, that [va] markes future time reference, and
it is precisely this future reference that allows Berta to transform the
meaning of [sorti] (which, remember, can only denote a movemen
in the context of a relocation) so that it may refer to the PATH
taken by the two characters, '[va sorti] de la rue' means that Chaplin
and the girl will soon leave the street, i.e., they have already started
moving. This corresponds to the meaning of the Spanish 'gloss' with
arrancaron. Reference is thus achieved for a referent in motion,
after the movement has started, and before it has finished. To
borrow an expression from Vandeloise (1987), this paraphrase
'anticipates the end of the trajectory of the mobile referent',15 i.e.,
describes a path. The subsequent interpretation proposed by NS
reduces Berta's meaning to L2 sortir and, despite her apparently
acquiescing - oui - the whole sequence represents a partial com-
municative failure for her. But for the analyst, it is precisely this
trouble which lays bare the cognitive constraints on the construction
of Berta's IL.

Times 1 and 2: topological space: BOUNDAR Y and its paraphrases

Berta's hypothesizing activity in these texts is fascinating. She takes
the topological representation of space implicit in the verb sorti and
fashions it into a very powerful way of representing movement. By
15 'localise anticipativement le terme de la trajectoire de l'élément mobile' (Vandeloise,
1987: 87).

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242 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

constructing a topological space bisected by a BOUNDARY, the

total space becomes the ideal RELATUM for a THEME in motion.
The whole zone is constructed in order to locate the THEME: it is in
two parts, and each subspace may be considered as SOURCE and
GOAL. The THEME is found within each subspace in turn, and
what creates movement is the crossing of the BOUNDARY.
The paraphrases Berta produces with the help of sorti clearly
show how important the notion of BOUNDARY is for representing
movement. Let us first have a closer look at the meaning of sorti in
(8) above: '[va sorti] de la rue'. If this form refers to a movement by
use of a BOUNDARY which can be crossed, then the 'crossing'
here is not, as in the L2, from an interior to an exterior, but from a
state of immobility to being in motion. Berta cannot represent
movement at this stage without recourse to BOUNDARY, and the
verb sorti provides one for the THEME to cross.
Let us now look at an extract from Time 2 containing a similar use
of sorti:

9) *y * lui [di + ke el lei I esorti ] le pain *del* camion

'et il dit qu'il a sorti (=a volé) le pain du camion'
(and he says he has taken out (=stolen) the bread from the baker's van)

Sorti, here, is an attempt at expressing the notion of 'steal', as voler,

apparently, is not available. The recourse to sorti can be considered
as an attempt to describe the movement Chaplin (says he) accom-
plished - an action which makes the bread move from the baker's
van to Chaplin. Again, we observe the THEME cross a BOUND-
ARY. Sorti thus provides the topological space adequate for
locating a THEME in two places, as its use creates a BOUNDARY.

Time 2: Lexical development: sorti as the basis for a system of spatial

relations

By Time 2, Berta uses movement verbs within a system based on

sorti, or more exactly, based on a system of spatial relations to a
BOUNDARY.

(a) Crossing the boundary in both directions: sorti is restri

movement crossing the BOUNDARY from the interior
exterior (with or without the metaphorical extension 'from
motion'), and Berta now uses another form for the op
direction, from exterior to interior. This is 'pas', which is
related to L2 passer :

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 Jorge Giacobbe 243

10) chaplin [pas ] a un restaurant

'Chaplin entre dans un restaurant'
(Chaplin goes into a restaurant)

Here the restaurant clearly represents an interior space, and

the preposition a functions to relate the THEME (Chaplin) to the
GOAL position. Correlatively, sorti, used with de, relates the
THEME to the SOURCE position. It can be seen then that [pas ]
also represents movement by the creation of a topological space
with a BOUNDARY. Sorti and [pas] suppose, then, the same
representation. The space has in fact become more homogeneous in
that movement is now expressible from either side of the BOUND-
ARY to the other. Chaplin can now 'passer' into the restaurant, and
'sortir' out of it.

(b) Movements without explicit direction: there is another function

of [pai]:

11) un personne [ke pas] *por* la rue

'une personne qui passe par la rue'
(a person who is passing by in the street)

Here, [pas] refers to a movement whose direction is not explicitly

given, and it is followed by the Spanish preposition por. Now,
Spanish pasar por, just as French passer par, means 'to cross'; a
BOUNDARY is created, and movement is represented as crossing
this BOUNDARY. But the speaker can attribute greater or lesser
width to this boundary as a function of discourse needs, and the
boundary can itself become a third subspace to be used to locate the
THEME, thanks to por. With por, the SOURCE and GOAL
subspaces are temporarily ignored, and the THEME is located
within the BOUNDARY. There is no 'crossing', and we are as close
as is possible with a topological representation of space to express-
ing the notion of PATH.

(c) Lack of movement: it has already been seen that in Berta's IL,
location and movement are closely related. To complete the lexical
system based on the notion of BOUNDARY, Berta needs a verbal
form (or forms) allowing her to locate the THEME at a single space.
This contrasts with, but depends on, boundary-crossing, and we will
call it nonmovement. It is expressed at Time 2 by [rest], or [restan]:

12) *y el los* deux [restan] (en) la maison *y* après [le/ lesorti] a la rue
'et les deux restent à la maison et après ils sortent et vont dans la rue'
(and the two of them stayed in the house and after they left and went out
into the street)

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244 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

How can Berta incorporate these forms into her discourse? Ex-
ample (12) shows that movement and nonmovement are explicitly
marked. Restan expresses a single localization in relation to the
space defined by the BOUNDARY of sorti. Sorti defines a double
space separated by a BOUNDARY, and restan identifies with one
of these places, independently of the other. In other words, the
functioning of restan depends on the pre-existing subspaces of the
other verbs, here sorti. Chaplin and the girl are positioned at one of
the subspaces of the topological space (the subspace is denoted here
by maison ). This is why restan is part of the system of lexical verbs at
Time 2; Berta still does not have the lexical means to refer to
location independently of movement.

Time 3

Berta's system is in flux at Time 3. I shall describe her attempts to

create a system of representation of movement independent of the
notion of BOUNDARY. In other words, her attempts to express
movement are followed along a PATH, i.e., to create a Euclidian
representation of space in her IL, in addition to the topological
representation she has.

(a) Crossing a boundary: pas *por* located the THEME at a

BOUNDARY at Time 2, and hence allowed the expression of
nondirectional movement. As has been pointed out, this expression
is close to PATH, although embedded in a topological representa-
tion of space. At Time 3, when, as will be seen with example (14)
below, the notion of PATH can be expressed lexically, the function
of [pai] *por* changes precisely to express the crossing of a
BOUNDARY:
13) [se le le lei le lo + ke pas] *por* a coté la maison
'il y a de l'eau (qui passe par) à côté de la maison'
(there is water [which passes by] next to the house)

In this example, the (idiosyncratic) co-occurrence of both p

coté clearly shows how Berta's system of spatial expression
tions. To cross a BOUNDARY (a) the THEME and the BO
ARY are related by por, (b) the BOUNDARY can then be
- pas. The boundary here is complex, namely a side (REG
the house - a coté la maison. The water (='riveť) comes the
an unspecified SOURCE (!), through the BOUNDARY ma
the prepositional phrase a coté la maison, and goes to an un
GOAL.

(b) Expressing PATH: the verb aller: in the following exam

the verb aller is used independently for the first time:

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 Jorge Giacobbe 245

14) il [va] un + un voiture * y* 'preske ke de/] d'accident

'une voiture passe (va) et un accident a failli arriver'
(a car passes by and an accident nearly happens)

Va, here, allows Berta to refer to movement. But as neither

SOURCE nor GOAL is specified, nor is DIRECTION. Crucially,
example (14) contains no BOUNDARY, and indeed no overt
RELATUM by which to locate the THEME voiture. Movement
occurs in a unified, homogeneous space, and the position occupied
by the THEME can only be identified by the co-ordinate system
implicit in the meaning of the verb itself, used by Berta to define the
relevant space as geometrical. The movement described can then be
understood as a PATH through this space.16 This one use of aller is
sufficient to demonstrate the changes that have occurred in Berta's
IL system for expressing movement. The fact that her use is
idiosyncratic (an L2-speaker would have used passer) further under-
lines its significance. How has Berta managed to incorporate this
form into her discourse? The idiosyncratic nature of example (14)
comes from the separation of the two meaning components of (L2)
aller: PATH and directionality (anticipated location at GOAL). In
order to be able to use aller, Berta has taken in the former, not the
latter, component. Other utterances with aller at Time 3 contain
independent marking of directionality. All, however, express the
PATH taken by a THEME within a geometrical space. It is further
highly significant that there are virtually no more verbless utterances
at Time 3 where aller could be said to be 'omitted'.
One final example from Time 3 will suffice to summarize observa-
tions so far:

15) * v * les deux [son entre de kurir] + *>'" après [se va el] + les deux [sor] + les
deux + [se son martfe]
'et les deux sont en train de courir et après elle s'en va, les deux sortent,
ils sont partis'
(and both are running and then she goes away, both leave, both run
away)

Example (15) contains the complete set of procedures used by Berta

(with varying degrees of success) throughout the study to express
movement along a PATH:
(i) les deux [son entre de kurir]: manner verbs17
les deux + [se son martļe]
(ii) les deux [sor] : BOUNDARY crossing
[se va el] : Euclidian space

"This representation of space is akin to that of Langacker (1987).

I7As stated in note 15, verbs expressing the manner of movement have a movement
component to their meaning, but it falls outside the system of IL expression that Berta has
constructed.

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246 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

Thus Berta still has access to the lexical and discourse strategies she
used at earlier stages of her IL development to express movement.
These means are now part of a richer repertoire whose organization
is based on the most complex (and most recent) organization for
referring to space that Berta has constructed: Euclidian space.
Hence, (ii)-type verbs are no longer used to paraphrase PATH.

2 Problems of development and transfer

Having seen how Berta's system representing space has changed
from Time 1 to Time 3, two further questions may be asked: (1)
What is the cognitive mechanism that led her to a first, topological
schema, and what mechanism led to the second Euclidian schema?
and (2) How does Berta use her LI in this development? Although
our whole analysis has been based on the hypothesis that conceptual
transfer did not occur, question (2) poses a different problem,
namely, what role the LI may play in the hypotheses used to
construct a linguistic schema (I return to this distinction in the
conclusion). This is not the same as asking whether a concept may
be transferred to become a signifié of some L2 signifiant. Question
(2) is not the same question as asking what Berta transferred from
her LI.
It has been mentioned that Berta felt the need right from Time 1
to refer to PATH. This need is created by task requirements, and
communicative need in this sense is clearly one of the factors driving
IL development. But it is not the only factor. It is Berta's use of her
IL forms which simultaneously reveals both a representational need
and the fact that Berta's IL repertoire is not adequate to satisfy the
need.
In example (7) from Time 1, repeated here:

7) *y* lui euh *fue a un* restaurant a manger

'et il est allé manger dans un restaurant'
(and he WENT to eat in a restaurant)

the LI verb reveals a gap which will only be filled after 18 months'
conceptual and linguistic construction. This initial borrowing deter-
mines the trajectory that Berta's hypothesis testing will take,
through the paraphrases of Time 1 and Time 2 and the lexical
development of Time 3.
This appearance of an LI item in Berta's discourse reveals to the
analyst the discrepancy between the concrete task requirements and
Berta's IL development. If task requirements were the only factor
determining development, then Berta's IL could only develop by
immediately constructing a Euclidian schema. But it does not do so;

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 Jorge Giacobbe 247

instead she develops a topological schema, and this fact allows other
factors to be identified determining the construction of her IL
system - her LI in particular.
The basic prepositional system from which Berta's development
starts contains the three forms a, de, en, which are found both in LI
and L2. One could therefore postulate a twofold origin for this
system (or rather, as Zobl, 1980: 74, puts it 'a synthetic perception
of the genesis of developmental and transfer errors'), and speculate
that the formal identity and the overlap in meaning of both systems
has a facilitating effect on a learner's hypothesis-formation.
The role of Ll-derived hypotheses may be sought in the way that
this minisystem of three prepositions functions within Berta's IL.
In their spatial uses, Spanish a, which almost always relates the
mobile THEME and the RELATUM at GOAL, is in opposition to
Spanish en, which always relates the stative THEME to one
RELATUM, thus expressing its location. This opposition allows
verbless utterances in Spanish to convey directional or stative
meaning respectively. And it is this LI opposition which allowed
Berta, in her IL, to represent movement and location with verbless
utterances. In French, movement and location are expressed by the
verb, not the preposition, a fact which precludes the use of such
verbless utterances.
However, this initial system is not identical to the Spanish system,
where a can be used in co-occurrence with ir in a verbal construction
expressing a path. This Berta cannot do in her IL, since its
organization is indeed idiosyncratic, though we do observe Ll-
derived hypotheses in it. Bertha therefore dissociates prepositional
use from use of verbs, and this is central to future development for
two reasons. First, this dissociation allows her to construct an
extremely simple and economical system representing movement.
Even with such a simple repertoire, Berta can express spatial
information without having to ask for words, and without having to
resort to Spanish. Secondly, this dissociation allows her to test
hypotheses. Keeping the prepositional system constant allows her to
express relations between entities, while devoting her attention to
constructing a system of verbs. This system of verbs is developed
from Time 2 to Time 3 and its limitations push her eventually to
express PATH, i.e., to develop a Euclidian schema for space. This
hypothesizing about French lexemes is also informed by her LI, as
her Spanish paraphrases testify.
It may be concluded that it is the LI which is the principal driving
force behind Berta's notional and linguistic development, and the
significance of the items and structures which are introduced into
her discourse to fulfil the communicative needs of the time can only

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248 A cognitive view of the role of LI in the L2 acquisition process

be appreciated in the context of the whole course of her develop-

ment.

Ill Conclusion

I conclude with three points:

1) LI influence is not restricted to transfer, nor is it restricted to

items showing up haphazardly in the IL. The learner's hypoth
eses allow her to distinguish between different aspects of her L
Her hypothesizing activity includes both her LI and thos
aspects of the L2 which are available to her, and exploring th
latter cannot happen in the absence of the former. In oth
words, success in the L2 discourse activity demands that th
learner develop a genuinely bilingual competence (which b
definition precludes any correspondence with the 'end-state' of
monolingual L2 speaker).
2) The cognition hypothesis demonstrates that the 'learner's par
dox' is only apparent. The paradox is only present in t
developmental context of the acquisition of a language if t
'discrepancy' between the learner's capacities as a competen
speaker and the linguistic means she has available in the L2
reconstructed. What one really has to explain is a linguisti
genesis.
But the developmental situation is more complex in the case of
second than of first language acquisition. Cromer imagines
'cognitive intake capacity' and 'complex rule intake capacity' as
being independent. It has been seen, however, that it is the
schemata constructed to assimilate a new signe which force the
learner to reconstruct ab initio her representational capacities.
This situation arises from the richness of available assimilation
schemata to the adult, allowing her to call on other available
systems of representation, an important source of which is her
LI. The development to be explained is not 'from communica-
tion to language', but from communication in one language to
communication in another.
The learner thus has the 'transferred' items play the role of
instruments in 'the acquisition of the more advanced form'
(Bruner, 1975: 260). Given the model proposed by the cognition
hypothesis, it has been suggested that 'transfer' first enabled the
construction of a basic, topological system, and then the transi-
tion to the Euclidian schema (representation of PATH) implicit
in the use of the verb aller. Forms used in discourse activity
because of the learner's communicative needs, and coined

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 Jorge Giacobbe 249

(idiosyncratically) through consulting the LI thus become the

condition for (and the result of) the adult's further cognitive
activity. As Bruner says of the child's utterances, 'for a precursor
utterance to become psychologically and linguistically interest-
ing, it must be shown to be the instrumental prerequisite to a
more evolved utterance' (Bruner, 1975: 260).
3) One last remark about the prior system. Some features of the
learner's construction of an L2 system have been described,
during which Ll-derived hypotheses intervene. In point of fact,
such intervention would not be possible if more general hypoth-
eses relating L2 to LI did not exist. I should distinguish here
between hypotheses relating L2 to LI which operate on a high
level of generality18 (and which allow specific comparisons and
interventions), and operational hypotheses (which allow for the
manipulation and transformation of 'transferable' items so that
they can be assimilated into the system of schemata constructing
the IL). The learner's activity which has been analysed here is
the result of a complex system of transformations which is part of
the adult's cognitive propensity for acquiring an L2.

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lsFor example, along the lines of Kellerman's 'psychotypology' (Kellerman, 1983).

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