Processing, Production, and Placement

A complete theory of L2 (second language) acquisition, therefore, should account for three aspects of L2 development: 1) the representation of L2 knowledge; 2) the relationship between input and L2 knowledge; and 3) the relationship between L2 knowledge and output.  The research we present in this book is the first to analyze the L2 acquisition of object pronouns in Spanish using such a tripartite framework with the aim of identifying an interface between the comprehension and production of the target structure throughout L2 development.  As Andersen  succinctly asserted, "the basic task in language learning is to get the language that is outside the learner's head into his head."  We explore the possible psycholinguistic strategies guiding that task, beginning with the perceptual saliency of the target structure in input, its comprehension by L2 learners, and its production under tasks imposing different cognitive demands. The research presented in this book will bring those two approaches together and formulate a theory that accounts for the interface of the development of form-function mapping in comprehension with that of production.