THE ACQUISITION AND PROCESSING OF WH-MOVEMENT BY NAJDI LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Abstract

This dissertation examines the acquisition of relative clauses and wh-questions by Najdi learners of English. We investigated whether or not Najdi learners of English can acquire wh-movement, a property that is not instantiated in the native language. Previous research has argued that L2 learners cannot acquire the wh-feature in the L2 if this feature is not instantiated in L1 (Hawkins and Chan, 1997). We conducted two experiments: a grammaticality judgment task and a self-paced reading task. The results of the grammaticality judgment task showed that some Najdi advanced learners of English have acquired wh-movement. The results of the self-paced reading study show similar results. These results of both studies suggest that L2 learners whose L1 lacks certain features are able to acquire these new features in the L2. In this dissertation, we argue against the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (Hawkins and Chan, 1997) and the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen and Felser, 2006), and argue in support of the Full Transfer/Full Access theory (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994).