Toward a Universal Path to the Acquisition of Argument Mapping in L2: Evidence from Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese

This paper examines cross-linguistic evidence towards a universal processing path to the acquisition of argument mapping of verb thematic roles (e.g., agent, patient) onto grammatical functions (e.g., subject, object), in second or additional language (L2) learning. The acquisition of argument mapping in East Asian languages as L2 remains largely under-researched, particularly in terms of development. The data in each language in this study, that is Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese, were collected in separate longitudinal studies using tasks targeted to eliciting verbs requiring a variety of argument structures. These are analysed based on the Lexical Mapping Hypothesis. Results indicate that L2 learners initially map the highest available role in the thematic hierarchy (e.g., agent, experiencer) onto a minimally specified SUBJ/TOP (that is, the language-specific ‘default mapping’ of the L2). Furthermore, the development of argument mapping in learners of all three languages turns out to follow the sequence predicted by LMH, i.e., default mapping > default mapping + additional argument > non-default mapping. The study also identified language-specific phenomena within ‘the non-default mapping’ stage, such as causatives appearing comparatively earlier in Mandarin Chinese L2 and Vietnamese L2, and passives appearing earlier in Japanese L2. This study’s theoretical contribution to the field is that the acquisition of argument mapping plausibly follows a universal processing route and, at the same time, is characterised by language-specific features. It also represents an original investigation in the specific area of L2 acquisition of argument mapping cross-linguistically, and it discloses an often ignored, but theoretically important, difference with the acquisition of argument structure.