Natural Second Language Acquisition or

Pidginization? Present Tense Verb Usage

by Adult Chinese Speakers of Spanish
in Guayaquil, Ecuador
Hsiao-Ping Hu
Temple University

1. Introduction

In this study, I investigate adult natural second language acquisition and social acculturation
resulting from Chinese immigrants coming into contact with the Spanish language and Ecuadorian
culture after their arrival in Ecuador in very recent times. Special account is taken of social factors that
influence their language acquisition. Most particularly, I compare natural second language acquisition
by older speakers to more formal language learning and acquisition by younger adult speakers. The
language output obtained from the older and younger participants in this study sheds light on the
nature of their language acquisition processes, attitudes towards the language, and most importantly
their linguistic systems. But what is language acquisition and how do people who come into contact
acquire the second language? How may second language learning in certain contact situations be
related to pidginization, the development of contact languages? Clancy Clements presented similar
questions in several studies regarding Chinese immigrant Spanish in Spain. In his studies Clements
used the data collected from two informants, Jenny and Luis, both older adults (Clements, 2003). In
my study, I broaden the number of participants to 17, 8 older adults and 9 younger adults.
My data were collected over the summers of 2001-2003 and drawn from 17 recorded interviews.
The speakers are divided into two distinct groups; one is older adults (older than 40) and the other
younger adults (younger than 40). For each group of participants, the objective, in this case, has been
to examine the acquisition of Spanish morpho-syntactic (or grammatical) features of the present verb
tense; attention is also given to the type of subject used. The factors analyzed in correlation with
subject-verb agreement are: (1) person of the verb form, (2) alternative form used, (3) type of subject,
(4) age of speakers, and (5) household composition.

2. Theoretical preliminaries

Before presenting the results of this study and examining whether the process seen in the speech
production of the older Chinese adults in Ecuador may be natural second language acquisition or
pidginization, it is essential to define what pidginization and second language acquisition are.
According to John Holm (2000), a pidgin is a simplified language containing target language
lexicon and including features of the speaker’s first language,

A pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between groups of people
with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal
communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of any other group
for social reasons that may include lack of trust or close contact. (Holm, 2000, p. 5)

© 2007 Hsiao-Ping Hu. Selected Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, ed. Jonathan
Holmquist et al., 140-149. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
 141

This pidgin, as Holm explains, “is […] stable and has certain norms of meaning, pronunciation and
grammar, although there is still variation resulting from the transfer of features from speakers’ first
languages” (p. 5).
Lipski’s definition of a pidgin is seen in his discussion of early evidence of Afro-Hispanic speech.
He writes: “Some of the language attributed to Africans was a transparently exaggerated travesty, but
in general the features of pidgin language emerge: elimination of verbal conjugation; lack of nominal
and adjectival agreement; short, simple sentences; reduction of pronouns to a single set; and
considerable phonological simplification tending toward open syllables” (Lipski, 1994, p. 97). Lipski
also suggests that early Spanish pidgin may be attributed to first or second generations only.
Both Holm and Lipski agree that a pidgin is a language that contains aspects of both the target
language and the first language, but Lipski emphasizes that a pidgin may not transfer to the second
generation when local, fully formed variety of Spanish is readily available. In the present study, what
will be described as pidginized Spanish does not transfer to the children because they all have formal
schooling and have gone through a more complete language acquisition process.
Finally, Schumann’s definition of a pidgin is based on the functions that the pidginized language
serves. A language serves three functions: communicative, integrative, and expressive.

Through the communicative function information is exchanged among persons. The

integrative function serves to mark one’s identity within society and the expressive function
is designed to allow the expression of certain psychological needs. Pidgin languages are
generally restricted to the first function – communication. That is, their purpose is merely to
convey information. Since pidgins are always second languages, the integrative and
expressive functions are maintained by the speaker’s native languages. As a result of this
functional restriction, pidginization produces an interlanguage, which is simplified in outer
form and reduced in inner form (Schumann, 1974, p. 139-140).

Schumann also points out that pidginization occurs when a learner fails to pass the early stages of
second language acquisition due to social and/or psychological distances. When acquisition ceases to
continue, fossilization occurs, which means that the learner will keep certain grammatical mistakes
regardless of any amount of explanation or of error correction. When this happens, the learner may
employ primarily the communicative function of language and not the integrative or expressive ones.
The integrative function of language can be achieved only if the learner does not fossilize in the early
stages of acquisition and according to Schumann the expressive function can never be fully achieved
by L2 learners.
According to Rod Ellis, “Second language acquisition refers to all aspects of language that the
language learner needs to master. However, the focus has been on how L2 learners acquire
grammatical sub-systems, such as negatives or interrogatives, or grammatical morphemes such as the
plural {s} or the definite and indefinite articles. Research has tended to ignore other levels of
language” (Ellis, 1986, p.5). Taking into account Ellis’ definition of language acquisition, the
characteristics of a pidgin encompass all aspects of a language that the language learner needs to
master. However, with respect to all aspects of the target language, the speaker of a pidginized
language falls radically short. Nominal, verbal, sentential, and even phonological systems are
simplified and fossilized and may be modified after the speakers’ first rather than the target language
system. This means that if a L2 speaker does not master the plural marker {s} or shows a lack of
verbal inflection, he or she has not successfully acquired the language.
Before accepting the above assumption, let us take a look at Stephen Krashen’s theory of second
language acquisition. Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition is composed of five hypotheses:
the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, the Monitor hypothesis, the Natural Order hypothesis, the Input
hypothesis, and the Affective Filter hypothesis. For the purposes of this study, I will take into account
the Acquisition-Learning and the Natural Order hypotheses. According to Krashen, there are two
distinct ways in which adults develop competence in a second language: first, the acquired way -
where the learner subconsciously goes through a process similar to that of L1 acquisition and the
language is used for real communication. Second, the learned way – where the learner goes through
142

formal instruction and a conscious process that results in knowing about the language (Krashen, 1988).
The Natural Order hypothesis suggests that learners acquire the rules of language in a predictable
order. For any target language, in this case Spanish, some grammatical rules tend to be acquired first
while others later.
For both Ellis and Krashen, the end result is the acquisition of the rules of the target language. If
the result falls short and takes the form of simplified, fossilized usage involving elements of the first
language - the result may be pidginization; rather than second language acquisition. The differences
outlined above suggest that the Spanish spoken by the Chinese older adults in this study might have
been acquired in the form of a pidgin, while the Spanish spoken by the younger adults was both
learned and acquired in the form of a second language.

3. The Chinese Community in Ecuador

Chinese emigration has been ongoing since the early 1840s with the Silk Road and later with the
Coolie Trade. Many Chinese immigrants left their native country in search of a better life for their
families. Upon arrival in new countries they found foreign language and culture a complex reality.
This is the case of Chinese immigrants in Ecuador. As early as the 1900s Chinese people started
entering Peru in order to work on the plantations. There, a small community was rapidly formed and
over time it has grown and expanded to bordering countries, such as Ecuador.
The Chinese community in Guayaquil is a tight entity. The maintenance of their status, culture and
language is very important. Newly arrived immigrants always have somewhere to stay and someone
from the community to help them establish their business and find a home. Many older adults who first
arrived in Ecuador over the age of 50 do not speak Spanish and it is not necessary to do so because the
younger generations in the family serve as interpreters. The young children who immigrate to Ecuador
frequently are not proficient in reading and writing Chinese. There is, however, a Chinese School in
the community organized by the Taiwanese community to teach children how to read and write in
Chinese on weekends. The school is open mostly only to people from Taiwan. Children attend the
school every weekend and sometimes after ‘regular’1 school. In recent years some parents have been
sending their children back to their home country to formally study Chinese. The parents arrive in
Ecuador, where the children attend primary school for two to three years, and then the children are sent
back to their homeland for a year or more. After a year or more in their homeland, they return to
Ecuador to continue their education and attend Chinese School. People from Taiwan, Hong Kong and
China acknowledge each other and do business together but they rarely socialize at a personal level.
This situation is similar to that of the Chinese community in Spain as described by Beltrán and García
(2001). According to these authors the Chinese community in Spain values their culture and language
more than the immediate adoption and adaptation of the new foreign language. In some cases, children
are not allowed to study and learn Spanish in fear of losing their own language and some adults also
refuse to learn the language. In other cases, young children study Spanish formally until they are about
eight or nine years old and are sent back to China to study until they are adolescents. After a period in
China they return to Spain to continue their Spanish education or help in their parents’ business.

4. The informants
The participants in this study come from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of which have their
own language varieties. Although the Chinese population in Ecuador is closed as an entity at the same
time it is divided based on nationalities. Chinese speakers from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
communicate with each other mostly in Mandarin, the official language, also known as Pu tong hua,
meaning “common language”. In some cases, when the speakers cannot communicate with each other
in Mandarin or their own dialect, the pidginized Spanish described here is used as the language of
communication; it is also used for communicating with Spanish speakers. All participants are either

1
The Chinese children attend either a Spanish-English bilingual private school or a German-Spanish-English
trilingual private school.
 143

business owners or children of business owners who immigrated to Ecuador in the late 70s in search of
a better business opportunity. Their businesses range from restaurants to electronics stores, automobile
parts, clothing and shoe stores, import and export companies, and more. When strolling through the
center of Guayaquil one will almost surely pass through at least one Chinese owned chifa (a Chinese
restaurant) or store.
As mentioned in the introduction, the informant sample consists of 17 participants, 8 older adults
and 9 younger adults. The data is based on directed interviews with topics such as: memories they have
of Taiwan, China or Hong Kong; the experience they had when they first arrived; the political and
economic situation in Ecuador; the best and worst presidents; and robberies they have experienced.

5. Results
5.1 Linguistic Conditioning

The results of this study indicate that the older adult participants have a great tendency to use the
third person singular form whether there is agreement or not. When there is a lack of subject/verb
agreement, the older adult participants used the third person singular form 82% (percentage calculated
from Table 2) of the time, be it for first person singular, second person singular, first person plural or
third person plural. They make correct use of the third person singular 90% of the time as shown in
Table 1. Besides the third person singular forms, other incorrect uses are of non-conjugated forms,
infinitives and gerunds, and specific cases of use of incorrect plurals.

Table 1: Dependent variable – Person agreement for older adults group (results in percentages)

Group y n Total Tokens

First-person singular 34% 66% 197
Second-person singular 78% 22% 9
Third-person singular 90% 10% 213
First-person plural 50% 50% 16
Third-person plural 29% 71% 21
456

The results in Table 1 show that the speakers use correct or incorrect forms of the first and third person
singular with great frequency; the total number of tokens for first person and third person singular
forms is 197 and 213 tokens, respectively. However, when using the first person singular forms the
speakers demonstrate agreement only 34% of the time. Most of these correct forms used are of a few
specific verbs such as ‘creer’, ‘tener’ and ‘saber’, although sometimes they use the first person and
third-person forms of these verbs interchangeably as ‘yo no sé / yo no sabe’.
The correct use of the third-person singular form, as mentioned earlier, is 90%, while the use of the
third-person as an alternative is 82%2 as shown in Table 2, below.

Table 2: Alternative forms used for older adults group – Errors only (results in percents and
numbers)

Group N Total Tokens

Third-person singular 82% 145
Infinitive 7% 13
Plural 10% 17
Gerund 1% 1
176

2
Total number of alternative third person singular form used (145) divided by total number of errors (176).
144

The results in Table 2 show that when there is a lack of subject-verb agreement, the speakers are using
alternatives such as: third person singular, infinitive, third person plural or gerund instead of the
correct form. The majority of the third person plural forms (17 tokens) as in: ‘China son país grande’
(China are big country) and ‘idioma ma romántico son de español’ (most romantic language are
Spanish) was made by one specific user, while the use of the infinitive form (13 tokens) was made by
different speakers. Examples of the correct uses and of the alternative uses can be seen below.

Examples of incorrect (n) and correct (y) uses may be seen below,

Group 1: (y) yo creo que tiene mil, dos mil persona más.
I think that (ref: Ecuador) has one thousand, two thousand person more.
(n) yo viene a Ecuador la gente sí está bien.
I come to Ecuador the people is ok.

Group 2: (y) repite, por favor. (imperativo informal / 3sg)

Repeat, please. (informal imperative / 3sg)
(n) tú sabe3 necesita habla español.
You (2sg) know (3sg) need (3sg) speak (3sg) Spanish.

Group 3: (y) cuando de niño pequeño ya aprende.

When as a small child already learn (3sg).
(n) China son país grande.
China are big country.

Group 4: (y) pero también hablamos chino-mandarín.

but also we speak Mandarin-Chinese.
(n) yo con mi marido no, todo está viviendo.
I with my husband no, all is living.

Group 6: (y) (los ecuatorianos) no entienden.

(Ecuadorians) do not understand.
(n) si los pequeños si quiere estudiar.
if the little ones if want (3sg) to study.

Table 2 has shown that out of 176 error tokens, 145 were of the unmarked third-person singular forms
of the Spanish system. Besides simplification, the person agreement results clearly suggest the
influence of the Chinese grammatical system on Spanish of these older speakers. Chinese is one of the
few languages that does not have subject-verb agreement and inflectional markers of person and tense.
This fact translates to forms such as: yo habla, tú habla, nosotros habla, etc.
Another way of looking at verb form use is in correlation with the type of subject. In the present
tense in Spanish, expressed subjects, whether a noun or a personal pronoun, agree with the verb form
as in ‘Ella va a la tienda’ (She goes to the store) o ‘La casa tiene dos habitaciones’ (The house has two
rooms). In cases were the subject is non-expressed, there is traditionally one verb form per person for
present tense verbs, as in examples 1 and 2 below; other less specific patterns are associated with the
imperfective aspect (as in example 3), subjunctives, and other forms.

3
In all the data, there are only two cases of the incorrect second person singular form. The speaker
repeated the same sentence twice during the interview. There is not enough data to suggest that it is a
case of /s/ deletion for the second person singular.
 145

1. Estudiamos para el examen.

1st.pers. pl.
We study for the exam.

2. Comes el almuerzo a la una de la tarde.

2nd pers. sing.
You (familiar) eat lunch at one o’clock in the afternoon.

3. Jugaba con muñecas.

1st pers.sing/3rd pers.sing
I /S/He played with dolls.

The correlation between verb form use and type of subject shows, as seen in Table 3, that it has no
influence on subject-verb agreement among the older Chinese speakers when the correlations are
broken down for “non-third-person-singular uses” and “third person singular”. They are overwhelming
incorrect in the first case and overwhelmingly correct in the second. As we already know, the results in
Tables 1 and 2 show that there is a great tendency to use the third person singular form in either of
these cases.

Table 3: Agreement by Type of Subject for older adults group

3.1 Non-third-person-singular uses:

Group Y n Total Tokens

Personal pronoun 31% 69% 67
Noun 31% 69% 13
Non-expressed 38% 62% 163
243

3.2 Third person singular:

Group Y n Total Tokens

Personal pronoun 100% 0 10
Noun 82% 18% 68
Non-expressed 94% 6% 135
213

The results in 3.2, above, show that the personal pronoun was present in only 10 out of 213 cases
for the third person singular form. In the case of all other persons, the presence of a personal pronoun
or of a noun did not influence significantly on the results for agreement. The results above for the older
Chinese also show that subject expression is not necessary for the speakers, that is, the proportion of
non-expressed subjects is very high in both 3.1 and 3.2. This also suggests, as I will explain in Section
6, that there is an influence of the speakers’ first language, Chinese, on their output.

5.2 Social Conditioning

When analyzing the social factors, the results indicated that the most important factor that affects or
relates to the participants’ competence is that of age. The social factors of sex and years of residency
did not indicate any significance. Both the older adults and younger adults groups included in the study
have resided in Ecuador for a similar number of years. Table 4 shows the results for the first person
singular, the third person singular, and third person plural forms, that is, the forms that were most
146

frequently used. When comparing the results of both age groups, the numbers are almost inverted,
specifically for the third person plural form.

Table 4: Older / Younger Groups – Subject-verb Agreement (results in percentages)

Table 4a Older Group

Group y n Total Tokens

First-person singular 34% 66% 197
Third-person singular 90% 10% 213
Third-person plural 29% 71% 21
431

Table 4b Younger Group

Group y n Total Tokens

First-person singular 80% 20% 87
Third-person singular 96% 4% 128
Third-person plural 71% 29% 72
287

The comparison of the variable between both groups indicates that from the total number of tokens,
correct and incorrect, the older adults made 39% of agreement errors while the younger adults made
15%, less than half. The percent of incorrect uses of non-third-person-singular forms for older adults is
67%; the percent of correct uses of these forms by the younger adults is 76%. Table 4 suggests that the
younger adults are acquiring the agreement system and are learning Spanish as a second language,
while this is not the case for the older adult group.
When dealing with second language acquisition, it is known that when one is immersed in the
foreign language or surrounded by people who speak it fluently, it is easier to learn the target
language. This is why the social factor of household composition may be significant in this type of
analysis. When there are young children at home studying the language formally, the older adults can
be influenced by the positive reinforcement. The results in Table 5 show the subject-verb agreement of
older adults who have children living with them and those who do not.

Table 5: Subject-Verb Agreement in Older Adults – Household composition (results in

percentages)

Group y n Total Tokens

Children 49% 51% 106
Without Children 65% 35% 350
456

The results for the comparison of household composition as shown in Table 5, however, go against the
idea of positive influence by having young people, or children, in the home. The results suggest that
when there are small children who speak Spanish fluently at home, the older adults tend to use them as
interpreters instead of learning from them. The older adult households with children show subject-verb
agreement of 49% while those without children show 65%, a 16% difference.

6. The Chinese Grammatical System

In order to better understand the results presented, here, it is important to understand the grammatical
structure of Chinese when dealing with subjects, verbs and subject pronouns. The results in Tables 1
 147

and 3 have shown that besides viewing subject-verb agreement from the perspective of person, it is
also possible to examine agreement in relation to type of subject, whether it is a pronoun, noun, or
non-expressed. The examples below show the lack of subject-verb agreement in the Chinese
grammatical system. The verbal inflection ‘shuō’ is the same for every subject pronoun, which clearly
indicates that apart from context, the only aspect that shows any agreement is the presence of a subject
pronoun.

Lack of subject-verb agreement

wŏ shuō wŏmen shuō

yo hablo nosotros/as hablamos
I speak we speak
nĭ shuō nĭmen shuō
tú hablas / usted habla ustedes hablan
you speak you (all) speak
tā shuō tāmen shuō
él / ella habla ellos / ellas hablan
he /she speaks they speak

The examples above show that person is marked in the subject but not the verb in Chinese.
Nevertheless, because Chinese is a Pro-drop language, the presence of a subject or a subject pronoun is
not always required.

1) In the response to a question, the subject pronoun of the sentence does not need to be expressed in
Mandarin if the reference is understood.

a. John kū le ma?
John cry CRS4 Q5
John llora CRS Q
Did John cry?
¿Lloró John?

pro Kū le.
cry CRS
llora CRS
Yes, he did.
Sí, lloró.

2) There is also a contrast between the use of pronouns and zero pronouns in question-answer
sequences. Imagine that you and a friend are taking the train to Chinatown and you ask him / her about
the train schedule:

a. Xià yi ban huŏche shenme shĭhòu kai?

Next one # train what time leave?
Próximo uno # tren cuándo tiempo sale?
When does the next train leave?
¿Cuándo sale el próximo tren?

4
Currently Relevant State. Le is also a final particle. It usually appears at the end of a sentence after
any word other than a verb. It differentiates from aspect marker –le in that it does not have perfective
functions. A sentence can sometimes have both CRS and PFV –le because although phonologically the
same they have different functions.
5
Question
148

b. Pro bu xiǎode.
not know.
no sabe.
I don’t know.
Yo no sé.

When the subject pronoun is not expressed as in b, the answer is simple and neutral.

c. Wǒ bu xiăode.
I not know.
Yo no sabe.
I don’t know.
Yo no sé.

When the subject pronoun is expressed as in c, the answer means that your friend might not know the
time of departure for the next train, but someone else might. So, you should go and ask someone else.
The dropping of subject pronouns is fairly common in Chinese and can also be seen in interrogative
sentences.
The elevated occurrence of non-expressed subjects in Table 3 for the older adult speakers is
particularly interesting because as mentioned before, we can see the influence of Chinese in the results.
The Chinese language is a topic-prominent language. What this means is that the topic of a sentence is
what the sentence is about. It always comes first in the sentence, and it always refers to something
about which the speaker assumes the person listening has some knowledge about. What distinguishes
topic from subject is that the subject must always have a direct semantic relationship with the verb, but
the topic does not. In Chinese, the concept of subject is less important. The subject is not marked by
position, agreement or any case marker and in ordinary conversation the subject is frequently missing
altogether (Li, 1989, 17-18).

Examples:
Mary wŏ yĭjing jiàn guo le
Topic subject already see EXP6 CRS7

Mary yĭjing jiàn guo le

Topic already see EXP CRS

Mary, I have already seen her.

* Topic is necessary / subject is not and can be omitted.

The results in Tables 1 and 2 show the great tendency to use the third person singular forms, which
seems to be influenced by the lack of subject-verb agreement in Chinese. The results in Table 3 show
that 65% (298/456) of the tokens were of non-expressed subjects; again, suggesting an influence of the
Chinese grammatical system and its optional use of sentential subjects.

7. Conclusion
In conclusion, Chinese and Spanish are two very different linguistic systems. Although studies
show that First Language and Second Language do not have to be typologically related to be learned
with relative success, older adult Second Language learners, here, have employed a simplified system

6
Experiential marker.
7
Currently Relevant State. Le is also a final particle. It usually appears at the end of a sentence after any word
other than a verb.
 149

characterized by the use of simple unmarked third-person-singular verb forms that is also characterized
by the reduced expression of subjects. In so doing, they have created a communication system
paralleling First Language tendencies in combination with a Spanish-based lexicon in a process that
bears many of the qualities of pidginization. According to Schumann (1978) if speakers can pass
through the first stages of SLA without fossilizing, it is not pidginization. However, much of the data
taken from the older participants in this study show many instances of fossilization, which along with
the other characteristics described, here, may indicate that the contrary is true, that a process of
pidginization characterizes the “Spanish” of the older adult speakers in the sample.

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- - - (1985). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press.
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Lipski, J. (1994). Latin American Spanish. New York: Longman Group Limited.
Schumann, J.H. (1986). Research on the acculturation model for second language acquisition. Journal of
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Selected Proceedings of the Third
Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics
edited by Jonathan Holmquist,
Augusto Lorenzino, and Lotfi Sayahi
Cascadilla Proceedings Project Somerville, MA 2007

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This paper can be cited as:

Hu, Hsiao-Ping. 2007. Natural Second Language Acquisition or Pidginization? Present Tense Verb Usage by
Adult Chinese Speakers of Spanish in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In Selected Proceedings of the Third Workshop on
Spanish Sociolinguistics, ed. Jonathan Holmquist, Augusto Lorenzino, and Lotfi Sayahi, 140-149. Somerville,
MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

or:

Hu, Hsiao-Ping. 2007. Natural Second Language Acquisition or Pidginization? Present Tense Verb Usage by
Adult Chinese Speakers of Spanish in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In Selected Proceedings of the Third Workshop on
Spanish Sociolinguistics, ed. Jonathan Holmquist, Augusto Lorenzino, and Lotfi Sayahi, 140-149. Somerville,
MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. www.lingref.com, document #1535.