L2 acquisition of the indexical shift parameter in Turkish

Abstract

This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of a specific syntactic phenomenon known as indexical shift. Indexicals are lexical items that pick their referents in discourse. For instance, ‘I’ and ‘you’ refer to the speaker and addressee of the conversation. In some languages, however, indexicals may shift to pick a different referent in the matrix clause when they are embedded in a finite complement clause. In other words, languages are largely divided into two groups: shifting and non-shifting languages. Therefore, a natural question to ask is to what extent does L1 affect the L2 acquisition of indexical shift? To answer this question, I carry out an experiment with learners of Turkish from shifting and non-shifting languages and find that L1 has no effect on the learners’ level of native-like performance. Turkish strongly favours shift and learners fall behind native speakers. But the difference between learners from shifting and non-shifting languages is insignificant. The paper also reiterates and elaborates on the judgments of native speakers previously attained elsewhere. © 2023 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.