Conservative Pattern Accumulation in Foreign Language Learning

Desirable features of acquisition theory: For child language development: i. guaranteed success (under ordinary circumstances) ii. little room for variability in outcome iii. little place of input structure (correction, frequency, etc.) For SLA: i. no guarantee of success ii. accommodation of variability, including near-natives iii. compatibility with our increasing knowledge of (a) input/task structure (b) attention/motivation Suspicious facts about foreign language learning: Clustering failure “Stage seepage” / optionality Difficulty in showing “triggering” Difficulty in acquiring “subtle facts” about constructions