TYPOLOGICAL AND FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES

TYPOLOGICAL AND FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES

1. TYPOLOGICAL

   • Typological approaches stem from the study of the patterns exhibited in languages worldwide
   • STUDY OF UNIVERSALS: discover similarities/differences in languages throughout the world and typologies
   • Learner languages do not fit within the domain of natural languages, for here we have a learner language rule unlike a rule in any natural language
   • It is not sufficient to state that second languages obey natural language constraints because that is the way languages are.
     • Second language acquisition can contribute to the general study of language by showing whether universal constraints are operative in newly created languages.
   • There must be an arguable relationship between the features in question.
     • There must be a connection between the feature that is implied and the feature that does the implying

2. FUNCTIONAL

   • Functional approaches have as their main interest the study of how language functions
   • The issue of the acquisition of morphological items has long been a feature of second language research
   • The influence of lexical aspect is gradient and wanes according to the learner’s age and the length of target language exposure