The dynamics of agreement errors in a corpus of four italian learners of Spanish L2

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution in the production of plural agreement in four italian learners of Spanish L2, a longitudinal case study, using the dynamical systems approach. Two time series for each student were created, tagging production of agreement with: no error, gender error, error due to no insertion of epenthetic -e- (“-es”), plural error and mixed error. Then these series were treated with quantitative nonlinear techniques involving entropies and recurrence analysis. The main goal consisted in finding transitions periods in error dynamics and identifying sessions in which learning was promoted.