Principles and Theories of Language Acquisition and Learning Midterms Reviewer
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PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING hich of the following is NOT TRUE about language? W...
PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING hich of the following is NOT TRUE about language? W MIDTERMS REVIEWER - Language is a set of fixed symbols The generative-transformational school of linguistics emerged through the influence of _____________________. REVIEW EXERCISE - Noah Chomsky EVIEWER I R Animportantaxiomofthiskindoflinguisticswasthat“languages Which of the following is TRUE about first language acquisition? differ from each other without limit,”andthatnopreconceptions I.Thefirstlanguageacquisitionisalwaysnaturalandthereisnoneed could apply to the field. for instruction in acquiring it. - Structural II. It needs continuous guidance and instruction. Which of the following is/are considered myths that are III. The acquiring process of the first language is very rapid. associated with first language acquisition? IV.Thefirstlanguageislikeaninstinctwhichistriggeredbybirthand I. Children learn languages more easily and quickly than adults. developed with the experience of being exposed to it. II. It takes 1-2 years to acquire the English language. - I, III and IV III. The more time people spend in a second or foreign language All of the following are TRUE about second language acquisition context, the more quickly they learn a language. EXCEPT - IV. Children learningEnglishwilllearnfasterifparentsspeakEnglish I. It is the process by which people learn a second language. at home. II. Learning a second language is a second language acquisition. - I, II, III and IV III. Second language acquisition is alsoknownassequentiallanguage A teacher who believes that "students could learn a second learning. language by being taught toproducethecorrect“response”tothe IV. Second language acquisition pertains to the way children learn appropriate “stimulus” subscribes to which approach? their native language. - Behaviorist - I, III and IV According to Noam Chomsky, when children areexposedtoany Which of the following is TRUE about language learning? human language, they are able to learnitwithinonlyafewyears - Language learning is not an age-appropriate activity for young following birth. This is known as the _______________________. children as learning presupposes that learners have a conscious - Language Acquisition Device knowledge of the new language and can talk about that Thesepertaintotheconsiderationofthestudyofalanguageasthe knowledge. investigationofthedutiesperformedbytheelements,classesand mechanisms involved in it; as a result, with this important role. - Functional Approaches ote practice, habit formation, shaping, overlearning, R histheoryofChomskyclaimstheideathatalllanguagescontain T reinforcement, conditioning, association, stimulus and response similar structures and rules. in language acquisition represent which theory of language? -Universal Grammar - Behaviorism When cognitive styles are specifically related to an educational context, where affective and physiological factors are REVIEWER II intermingled, they are usually more generally referred to as __________________________. hich of the following is TRUE about language learning? W - Learning Styles - Language learning is not an age-appropriate activity for young A process in which a number of cognitive activities become children as learning presupposes that learners have a conscious localized on one or the other of the brain’s two hemispheres. knowledge of the new language and can talk about that - Lateralization knowledge. According to Ausubel, all of the following are considered This learning strategy pertains to constructing a meaningful limitations or problems of audio-lingual method EXCEPT – sentence or larger language sequence by combining known - Adults learning a foreign language could, with their full elements in a new way. cognitive capacities, benefit from inductive presentations of - Recombination grammar. Which of the following is/are considered myths that are What is meant by “code-switching”? associated with first language acquisition? - I.Children learn languages more easily and quickly than adults. In adapting his ideas tolanguageteachingandlearning,weneed II. It takes 1-2 years to acquire the English language. toseethatlearnersunderstandthemselvesandcommunicatethis III. The more time people spend in a second or foreign language self to others freely and non defensively. context, the more quickly they learn a language. - Carl Rogers IV. Children learningEnglishwilllearnfasterifparentsspeakEnglish It refers to phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep at home. psychological panic and crisis. -I, II, III and IV - Culture Shock Thesepertaintotheconsiderationofthestudyofalanguageasthe Itistherankofthelinguisticunitthatmustbetakenascontextin investigationofthedutiesperformedbytheelements,classesand order for the error to become apparent. mechanisms involved in it; as a result, with this important role. - Domain - Functional Approaches ccording to him, “language acquisition does not require A - i s not an age-appropriate activity for young children as learning extensive use of grammatical rules and does not require tedious presupposes that learners have a conscious knowledge of the new drill.” language and can talk about that knowledge. - Krashen From a neurolinguistic point of view,languageacquisitionandlanguage learning are processed in two different ways in the brain. This is also used in linguistics to refer to the process in which During early infancy, language processing – duringacquisition–occurs incorrect linguistic features become apermanentpartoftheway in many areas of the brain. a person speaks and writes a new language, especially when not Only over time it gradually becomes concentrated into two areas: the learned as a young child. Broca’sarea,whichissituatedintheleftfrontalcortexandisinvolvedin - Fossilization the production of the patterns in vocal and sign language, and the It is the level of your ability to understand other people, what Wernicke’s area, in the left temporal cortex thatisprimarilyinvolvedin motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them. language comprehension. - Emotional Intelligence The Broca’s area is the one actively involved in language acquisition processes,whereastheWernicke’sareaisactiveinthelanguagelearning LANGUAGE, LEARNING AND TEACHING AND FIRST LANGUAGE process ACQUISITION - L inguists distinguish between language acquisition and language FIRST LANGUAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE learning. - Children acquire language throughasubconsciousprocessduringwhich FIRST LANGUAGE they are unaware of grammatical rules. - The mother tongue or native language of a person. - This happens especially when they acquire their first language. - It is like an instinct which is triggered by birth and developed with the - It is like understanding a game by doing, i.e. not by first reading the rules. experience of being exposed to it - Theyrepeatwhatissaidtothemandgetafeelforwhatisandwhatisnot - Apersoncannotdecidehis/herfirstlanguage.Itcomestohim/herasan correct. inheritance/legacy/birthright. - In order to acquire a language, they need a source of natural - First language is ‘acquired’ and it is very rapid. communication, which is usually the mother, the father, or the caregiver. - Always natural and there is no need for instruction in acquiring it. LANGUAGE LEARNING SECOND LANGUAGE - A language a person learns in order to communicate with the native - is the result of direct instruction in the rules of language. speaker of that language. - A personal choice of a person. There is no other alternative to a first language. - A lways fixed by the person. There are many alternatives to a second consolidation of a number of possible definitions of language yields the A language. A person/community can choose a second language among following composite definition other languages. 1. Language is systematic. - The secondlanguageis‘learned’andtheprocesscanvaryfromlanguage 2. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols. to language and from person toperson,butcanneverbeasrapidasthe 3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual. first language acquisition. 4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer. - Not natural, and it needs continuous guidance and instruction. 5. Language is used for communication. 6. Language operates in a speech community or culture. O verall,languageacquisitionandlearningareinterrelatedand 7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans. are both worth investigating. 8. Language is acquired by allpeopleinmuchthesameway;languageand Stephen Krashen a linguist, educational researcher, and language learning both have universal characteristics. political activist has a lot to say about second language +++ acquisition. 1. Explicitandformalaccountsofthesystemoflanguageonseveralpossible levels (most commonly phonological, syntactic, and semantic). LANGUAGE 2. The symbolic natureoflanguage;therelationshipbetweenlanguageand reality; the philosophy of language; the history of language. - L anguage is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child 3. Phonetics; phonology; writing systems; kinesics, proxemics, and other spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruc-tion, is "paralinguistic" features of language. deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the 4. Semantics; language and cognition; psycholinguistics. same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to 5. Communication systems; speaker-hearer interaction; sentence process information or behave intelligently. processing. - On the other hand, you might have offered a synthesis of standard 6. Dialectology; sociolinguistics; language and culture; bilingualism and definitions out of introductory textbooks: "Language is a system of second language acquisition. arbitraryconventionalizedvocal,written,orgesturalsymbolsthatenable 7. Human language and nonhuman communication; the physiology of members of a given community to communicate intelligibly with one language. another."Dependingonhowfussyyouwereinyourresponse,youmight 8. Language universals; first language acquisition. alsohaveincludedsomementionof(a)thecreativityoflanguage,(b)the presumed primacy of speech over writing, and (c) the universality of language among human beings. - ComesfromtheLatinterm“lingua”whichmeanstongueandtheFrench term “langue” which means the term itself. e xplanatory level of adequacy in the study of language, that is, a “principled basis, independent of any particular language, for the selection of the descriptively adequate grammar of each language” (Chomsky, 1964). Structuralism/Behaviorism Ferdinand de Saussure claimed that there was a difference between The linguist’s task, according to the structuralist, was to describe the parole (what Skinner “observes” and what Chomsky called structural characteristics of those languages. “performance") and langue (akin to the concept of “competence”, our An important axiom of structural linguistics was that “languages differ underlying and unobservable language ability). fromeachotherwithoutlimit,”andthatnopreconceptionscouldapplyto The cognitive psychologists asserted that meaning, understanding, and the field. knowing were significant data for psychological study. Of further importance to the structural or descriptive linguist was the Instead of focusing rather mechanistically on stimulus-response notion that language could be dismantled into smallpiecesorunitsand connections, cognitivists tried to discover psychological principles of that these units could be described scientifically, contrasted, and added organization and functioning. up again to form the whole. Cognitive psychologists, like generative linguists, sought to discover Structuralism first came to prominence as a specific discourse with the underlying motivations and deeper structures of human behavior by workofaSwisslinguist,FerdinanddeSaussure,whodevelopedabranch using a rational approach. of linguistics called "Structural Linguistics." That is, theyfreedthemselvesfromthestrictlyempiricalstudytypicalof Among psychologists, a behavioristic paradigm also focused on publicly behaviorists and employed the tools of logic, reason, extrapolation, and observableresponses–thosethatcanbeobjectivelyperceived,recorded, inference in order to derive explanations for human behavior. and measured. Going beyond descriptive to explanatory power took on utmost Typical behaviorist models were classicalandoperantconditioning,rote importance. verballearning,instrumentallearning,discriminationlearningandother Both the structural linguist and the behavioral psychologist were empirical approaches to studying human behavior. interested indescription,inansweringquestionsabouthumanbehavior: objectivemeasurementofbehavior:objectivemeasurementofbehaviorin Rationalism and Cognitive Psychology controlled circumstances. The generative-transformational school of linguistics emerged through The generative linguist and cognitive psychologist were, to be sure, the influence of Noam Chomsky. interested in whatquestion;buttheywerefarmoreinterestedinamore Chomsky was tryingtoshowthathumanlanguagecannotbescrutinized ultimate question, why: What underlying reasons, genetic and simplyintermsofobservablestimuliandresponsesorthevolumesofraw environmental factors, and circumstances caused a particular event? data gathered by field linguistics. The generative linguist was interested not only in describing language (achieving the level of descriptive adequacy), but also in arriving at an Constructivism . Learning is both an individual and a social process. 2 Constructivism is a language theory to helpthestudentsinconstructing - We find the meaning of learning through the interaction with others in something based on their own understanding. natural contexts. It emphasizes the students' role more than the teacher’. 3. Learning is a self-regulated process Itisoneofthelanguagetheoriesthatgivescontributionintheeducation - Individual’s learning is determined by the inborn characteristics and field. external factors that influence them. Constructivism as a theory of learning emerged from the work of 4. Learning is an organizational process that enables people to cognitive psychologists such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner. make sense of their world. With the development of cultural psychology, the two perspectives - Learningisviewedasaprocesstorelatethepriorknowledgeandnewone become dominant. They are individual and social constructivism. by assimilating and accommodating. Individual constructivism focuses on the constructionofmeaninginside 5. Cognitionservestheorganizationoftheexperientialworld,not the person while social constructivism focuses on the construction of the ontological reality. Truth as viability, not validity. meaning among people. - The term “learning” may be defined in different ways, perspectives, life Constructivism is a theory of learning to help the learners to construct and the purpose of it. So, the individual has different results in something based on their own understanding by assimilating prior interpreting the term “learning” based on his or her experience. knowledge and new ones. 6. Reality represents an interpretation. Researchers studying first and second language acquisition have - Toconstructourunderstandingofthemeaningofcertainthings,wecan’t demonstrated constructivist perspectives through studies of separate them with the term interpretation. conversational discourse, socio-cultural factors in learning, and 7. Learning is a socially situated activity that is enhanced in interactionist theories. meaningful contexts. In many ways, constructivist perspectives are a natural successor to - The term “learning” happens in social environments in interaction with cognitivist studies of universal grammar, information processing, others in a meaningful context. memory, artificial intelligence, and interlanguage systematicity. 8. Language plays an essential role in learning. Thinking takes place in communication. - Language is seen asthetooltoconnectwithwhathasbeenlearnedwith The Principles of Constructivism componentsoflanguagesuchaswords,sentencesetc.thencombineitin ❖ There are some principles of constructivism that mustbepaidattention order to create effective communication. in applying this theory in the teaching learning process (Simon, 1990). 9. Motivation is a key component in learning. - Motivation has a significant role in learning. If the learner has high 1. K nowledge is actively constructed by the individual. motivation in learning, he will have a betterresultthanthelearnerwho - Itmeansthatknowledgeisseenorviewedaslearninginhowthelearners doesn’t. construct the meaning of something that can make sense to them. - In other words, it creates the learners as active creators. ❖ A ccording to Brown (2000), the study of SLA is very much like the APPROACHES viewing of our mountain: we need multiple tools andvantagepointsin order to ascertain the whole picture. The Behavioristic Approaches ➔ Thebehavioristapproachtolanguagelearninggrewoutofthebeliefthat students could learn a second language by being taught to produce the correct “response” to the appropriate “stimulus”. ➔ Thestudentwouldthenreceiveeitherinstantpositiveorinstantnegative “reinforcement” in the shape of either correction or praise from the teacher. ➔ The resulting methodology, audio-lingualism, was a very heavily teacher-centred approach consisting of a lot of “mimicry and memorization”. ➔ The linguist Leonard Bloomfield claimed that “language learning is over-learning” and this, in effect, was what audio-lingualism was based on. ➔ The proponents of the audio-lingualism believed that language learning was a process of habit formation in which the student over-learned MYTHS ASSOCIATED WITH 1ST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION carefully sequenced lists of set phrases or “base sentences”. ➔ The method was extremely successful and enjoyed considerable 1. Children learn languages more easily and quickly than adults. popularity. 2. It takes 1-2 years to acquire the English language. ➔ Good L2 (second language) speaking habits would be reinforced in 3. The more time people spendinasecondorforeignlanguagecontext,the studentsandsimplistic,predictable,repetitivedrillswouldtryandensure more quickly they learn a language. the absence of error. 4. Children learning English will learn faster if parents speak English at ➔ Mistakes were not to be tolerated in audio-lingualism. home. ➔ They only proved the “good” habits hadn’t yet been learnt. 5. The more children areimmersedinEnglishinschool,thefastertheywill ➔ The teaching theories that followed after audio-lingualism (which was learn English. especially dominant inthe1940sand1950s)puthigherpriorityonwhat 6. All people acquire languages in the say way. the learner was sub-consciously “doing” with the language. 7. You have to speak the language of the learners in order to teach them ➔ These theories suggested that, far from trying to stamp out error and English. getting children to “mimic” as in this example, the parents would be 8. Language students learn and remember what they are taught. better off allowing the errors and accepting that the children’s “inter language” is not yet ready for the target structures. ➔ The “inter language” is the current system or blueprintoflanguagethat Functional Approach existsinthelearner’shead,constantlyupdatedandalteredasthelearner acquires the target language. - he consideration of the study of a language as the investigation oftheduties T performed by the elements, classes and mechanismsinvolvedinit;asaresult, ➔ In the extract above,thechild’sinter-languageseemstocontaintherule with this important role. “use of auxiliary verb to form negative” but still lacking that which - MichaelHallidayproposedaslightlydifferentapproachtolanguageacquisition. precludes double negatives. Language is acquired in a social context – that is by interacting with other ➔ The adult’s “audio lingual” attempts at error correction are clearly in vain. people. - Childrenfirstlearnhowtocommunicatebyusinggesturessuchasarm-raising, Nativist Approach head-shaking and pointing or by making noises; these are used to achieve - T he study of child language asked some of those deeper questions. functions such as controlling the behavior of others (e.g. head-shaking could - The nativist approach was put forward by Noam Chomsky, stating that mean “Don’t do that.”) or satisfyingphysicalneed(e.g.pointingcouldmean“I want that.”). Later, the child begins to use what Halliday calls protolanguage children's brains contain aLanguageAcquisitionDevicewhichholdsthe (the child’s own words) and, finally, conventional words are used. Gradually, grammatical universals. constraintsofspeaking(e.g.theneedtobeclearandtobeexpressive)forcethe - This theory came about as children have been observed to pick up child to make longer utterances and mold the structure of the child’s language. grammar and syntax without any formal teaching (in spokenlanguage). - Essentially, language consists of forms and functions. Examples of forms of Theyseemtolearnthesefundamentalsoftheirnativelanguage(s)purely language are morphemes, words, sentences, and the rules that govern them. from the input around them. Chomsky believes that the LAD helps Functions are the meaningful,interactivepurposes,withinasocial(pragmatic) children decipherthegrammaticalstructuresoftheirnativelanguage(s), context, that we accomplish with the forms. subconsciously mapping new lexical items to their corresponding word class and syntactic position. - TheLADcouldintheorymeanthatchildrenwhilepossessingthispartof the brain could easily pick up the grammatical structures of any input language as they already have the building blocks in their mind. - This theory is contested by a lot of linguists due to the fact a LAD has never been found on brain imaging or in other studies of children's brains. There are many other approaches which contradict Chomsky's theory, but the nativist approach is still widely held in high regard by \ many language development experts. - The nativist approach in no way suggests that children are born with a lexicon,themajorityifnotalllinguistsagreethatlexicalitemsarelearned frominputandsocialenvironment.Thedifferentapproachestolanguage development mainly focus on how children learn grammar and syntax ISSUES IN 1ST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ◻ I nchildlanguage,mostobservationalandresearchevidencepointstothe general superiority of comprehension over production: children seem to understand a sentence with an embedded relativeinitbutnotbeableto 1. COMPETENCE VERSUS PERFORMANCE produce one. ◻ A ccording to Brown (2000), co mpetence refers to the one’s underlying ◻ How are we to explain this difference, this apparent “lag” between knowledge of a system, event or fact while performance is the overtly comprehension and production? We know that even adults understand observable and concrete manifestation or realization of competence. more vocabulary than they ever use in speech and also perceive more ◻ Performanceistheactualdoingofsomething:walking,singing,dancing, syntactic variation than they actually produce. speaking etc. In reference to language, competence is one’s underlying knowledge of the system of language – its rules of grammar, its 3. NATURE OR NURTURE vocabulary, all the pieces of a language and how those pieces of fit ◻ N ativists contend that a child is born with innate knowledge of or together. predispositiontowardlanguage,andthatthisinnatepropertyisuniversal ◻ Performance is actual production (speaking, writing) or the for all human beings. comprehension (listening, reading) of linguistic events. ◻ The innateness hypothesis was a possible resolution of thecontradiction ◻ Chomsky likened competence to an “idealized” speaker-hearer who does betweenthebehavioristicnotionthatlanguageisasetofhabitsthatcanbe not display such performance variables as memory limitations, acquiredbyaprocessofconditioningandthefactthatsuchconditioningis distractions, shifts of attention and interest, errors and hesitation toomuchslowandinefficientaprocesstoaccountfortheacquisitionofa phenomena, such as repeats, false starts, pauses, omissions and additions. phenomenon as complex as language. ◻ Chomsky’s point was that a theory of language had to be a theory of competencelestthelinguisttryinvaintocategorizeaninfinitenumberof 4. UNIVERSALS performance variables that are not reflective of the underlying linguistic ability of the speaker-hearer. ◻ C losely related totheinnatenesscontroversyistheclaimthatlanguageis universally acquired in the same manner and moreover, that the deep structure of language at its deepest level may be common to all languages. 2. COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION 5. SYSTEMATICITY AND VARIABILITY ◻ N ot to be confused with the competence/performance distinction, comprehension and production can be aspects of both performance and ◻ O ne of the assumptions of a good deal of current research on child competence. language is thesystematicityof the process of acquisition. ◻ Ofthemythsthathascreptintosomeforeignlanguageteachingmaterials ◻ From pivot grammar to three-and four-word utterances and to full is that comprehension (listening and reading) can be equated with sentences of almost indeterminate length, children exhibit remarkable competence, while production (speaking and writing) isperformance. abilitytoinferthephonological,structural,lexical,andsemanticsystemof ◻ It is important to recognize that this is not the case: production is of language. course more directly observable, but comprehension is as much ◻ But in the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equally remarkable performance – a “willful act” to use Saussure’s term – as production is. amount ofvariabilityin the process of learning! ◻ R esearchers do not agree on how to define various “stages” of language 7. IMITATION acquisition, even in English. I t is a common informal observation that children are good imitators. ◻ ◻ Certain “typical” patterns appear in child language. ◻ Wethinkofchildrentypicallyasimitatorsandmimicsandthenconclude ◻ For example, it has been found that young children who have not yet that imitation is one of the important strategies a child uses in the mastered the past tense morpheme tend first to learn past tenses as acquisition of language. separate items (walked, broke, drank) without knowledge of the ◻ That conclusion is not accurate on a global level. difference between regular and irregular verbs. ◻ Indeed,researchhasshownthatechoingisaparticularlysalientstrategy ◻ Then, around the age of four or five, they begin to perceive a system in in early languagelearningandanimportantaspectofearlyphonological which the –ed morpheme isaddedtotheverb,andatthispointallverbs acquisition. become regularized (breaked, drinked, goed). ◻ Moreover, imitation is consonant with behavioristic principles of ◻ Finally, after school age, children perceive that there are two classes of language acquisition – principles relevant, at least, to the earliest stages. verbs,regularandirregular,andbegintosortoutverbsintotwoclasses,a processthatgoesonformanyyearsandinsomecasespersistsintoyoung 8. PRACTICE adulthood. ◻ C loselyrelatedtothenotionofimitationisasomewhatbroaderquestion, 6. LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT the nature ofpracticein child language. ◻ Do childrenpracticetheir language? ◻ F oryears,researchershaveprobedtherelationshipbetweenlanguageand ◻ If so, how? cognition. ◻ What is the role of the frequency of hearingandproducingitemsinthe ◻ Thebehavioristicviewthatcognitionistoomentalistictobestudiedbythe acquisition of those items? scientific method is diametrically opposed to such positions as that of ◻ It is common to observe children and conclude that they “practice” Piaget,whoclaimedthatcognitivedevelopmentisattheverycenterofthe language constantly, especially in the early stages of single-word and human organism and that language is dependent upon andspringsfrom two-word utterances. cognitive development. ◻ A behavioristic model of first language acquisition would claim that practice – repetition and association – is the key to the formation of habits byoperant conditioning. 9. INPUT ◻ T he role of input in the child’s acquisition of language is undeniably crucial. ◻ Whateverone’spositionisontheinnatenessoflanguage,thespeechthat youngchildrenhearisprimarilythespeechheardinthehome,andmuch of that speech is parental speech or the speech of older siblings. 10. DISCOURSE ◻ A subfield of research that is occupying the attention of an increasing number of child language researchers, especially in an era of social constructivist research, is the area of conversational or discourse analysis. ◻ While parental input is a significant part of the child’s development of conversationalrules,itisonlyoneaspect,asthechildalsointeractswith peers and of course, with other adults. ◻ The previously cited issues in the first language acquisition provide fundamental frameworks bywhichlanguageteachersuseasreferenceto their teaching approaches and methodologies.
