The Ultimate Attainment Of Null Subject In L2Chinese Learners

The Interface Hypothesis (IH), as a most refreshing proposal to explain the ultimate failure in second language acquisition, postulates that adult L2learners will have no difficulty in acquiring narrow syntactic features and internal interfaces, but may remain persistently optional at external interfaces. However, it has triggered debate on two major issues:whether the external interface is the only vulnerable interface, and whether the external interface is persistently optional. More recently, a variable-dependent perspective, which claims that many different variables like L1transfer, L2input, etc., may interfere with the ultimate attainment at the interface, is suggested to settle the dispute. Nevertheless, more empirical studies are needed to testify the legitimacy of the statement.The present research is designed to explore whether the IH well accommodates the acquisition of L2Chinese null subject and to investigate what variables may interfere with the ultimate attainment at the interface. Three groups of participants are involved, with L1background of English, Italian and Chinese, to complete an acceptability judgment test. However, in order to improve the reliability of this task,, a comprehensive investigation is carried out to code Chinese null subject into eight types, with four related to pure syntax and four concerning discourse identification.It is detected that both the English and Italian Chinese learners can ultimately attain the syntax of Chinese null subject. However, compared with Chinese natives, permanent vulnerability is specified at the syntax-discourse interface for both groups, yet, not all the interfaces are problematic and the optionality differs in the English and Italian groups. On the one hand, the findings argue for the IH and verify the lingering L1influence at the syntax-discourse interface. On the other, it advocates the variable-dependent perspective by proposing that L1-L2pairings, that is, different linguistic representations of a targeted structure in different L1and L2might be a potential variable to explain the different interface difficulties encountered by the near-native English and Italian Chinese learners.