- Phone:
- (812) 855-3248
- Email:
- rsprouse@indiana.edu
- Website:
- https://dsls.indiana.edu/faculty/sprouse.html
- Department:
- Second Language Studies Department
- Campus:
- IU Bloomington
- Major:
- PHD
Ballantine Hall 878
Bloomington, IN 47406
Bloomington, IN 47406
The primary goal of my research is to gain a better understanding of the adult second language paradox: Why is that adults exposed to a nonnative language develop systems of linguistic knowledge of a startlingly rich and complex nature, including properties for which there is little or no evidence in the input ("poverty/bankruptcy of the stimulus"), while still (in a large percentage of cases) experiencing significant difficulty in the acquisition and use of relatively "simple" features of word choice and form? I am best known in second language studies for proposing (together with Bonnie D. Schwartz, University of Hawaii/) the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis and for pioneering (together with Laurent Dekydtspotter, Indiana University) research on the syntax-semantics interface in English-French interlanguage. I am currently developing the Deep Lexical Transfer Hypothesis, which a re-conceptualizes Full Transfer in terms of relexification/relabeling in the sense that Claire Lefebvre (Université du Québec à Montréal) has used these terms to describe creole genesis. I am also considering ways in which the Language Instinct becomes "blunted" over the course of the life span, even though the fundamental architecture of grammars and processing mechanisms remain untouched.
Additional topics that have captured my interest over the years include case and agreement in German and Icelandic, perfect auxiliary selection in Romance and Germanic, the comparative correlative construction in German, the syntax of ditransitive verbs in the Germanic languages, and the development of tag questions in Welsh.
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