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The role of language dominance in cross-linguistic syntactic influence: A Korean child's use of null subjects in attriting English*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2012

SANG-GU KANG
SANG-GU KANG*
Affiliation:
Korea University
*
Address for correspondence: Institute of Foreign Language Studies, 145 Anam-Ro, Seongbuk-Gu, Seoul 136–701, Koreakangsg39@gmail.com
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Abstract

While Hulk and Müller (2000) predict that the direction of cross-linguistic syntactic influence is unidirectional when the construction involves syntax–pragmatics interface and surface overlap between two languages, they explicitly rule out language dominance as a factor involved. This study questions their latter claim and argues that the syntax of the dominant language can influence that of the weaker, based on a Korean–English bilingual boy's attriting English data; Korean null subjects triggered English subject drop when his Korean became more dominant. Thus, I propose a revised model of cross-linguistic influence that accounts for both Hulk and Müller's proposal and my data.

Keywords

attritioncross-linguistic influenceEnglish null subjectlanguage dominancesyntactic transfer
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 219 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported in part by the generous fund from YB Min Scholarship. I thank all my participants and their parents for inviting me to be a part of their lives and the three anonymous BLC reviewers for their comments. I would also like to thank my talented wife, Min Sun, for drawing the best pictures for my experiments.

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