Ultimate Attainment in L2 Acquisition: The Testing of the Aspect Hypothesis

Ultimate Attainment in L2 Acquisition: The Testing of the Aspect Hypothesis

The present study investigates the developmental process of adult Korean learners of English. In particular, the study examined the acquisition of the English simple past and present perfect in order to provide an understanding of the process of L2 acquisition of temporal systems as well as L2 acquisition in general. The objectives of this study are: (1) to systematically investigate the acquisition of the simple past and present perfect, (2) to test how lexical aspect influences the acquisition of the simple past and present perfect, and (3) to report acquisitional changes of the simple past and present perfect across learners with different proficiency levels. The participants were 60 Korean L2 learners of English in four different proficiency levels, measured by an independent proficiency test, and 11 native speakers of English. A cross-sectional study of the controlled-elicitation task was designed to explore the acquisition process. The results revealed that learners exhibited progress proportionate to their proficiency levels of L2. Learners also showed the influence of lexical aspect in the acquisition of the simple past, except for the advanced level learners. That is, learners showed higher accuracy on the simple past with accomplishments and achievements than with states and activities. The advanced level learners, as well as the native speakers, were not influenced by the lexical aspect. They demonstrated equal accuracy in a11 four lexical aspectual categories.