Effect of the first language on spanish learners’ production of english embedded interrogative clauses

Abstract

This paper tries to articulate from the point of view of linguistic theory how Spanish native grammatical competence of embedded indirect questions, as characterized by the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995), can influence knowledge and production of such structures in non-native English by adult Spanish learners. A theory on the difference between native and adult non-native acquisition is also invoked in order to support the need for explicitly teaching and making adult learners aware of the differences between the two languages for these particular structures.

Keywords

• grammatical competence
• embedded indirect questions
• minimalist program
• native and non-native language acquisition