A. Topic
2 Second Language Acquisition Theory
1.
Behaviourist
View’s Theory
B. F. Skinner
(1904–1990), an American psychologist, was perhaps the best known proponent of
an extreme empiricist, or behaviorist, view of language acquisition, known as
behaviourism. Behaviorism is a theory of animal and human behavior. You may be
familiar with Pavlov’s experiments with dogs. In one experiment, a tone sounded
whenever the dogs were fed. Thus, when the dogs heard the sound (the stimulus), they anticipated a meal, and
they would begin salivating (the response).
What Pavlov demonstrated was that when the dogs heard the sound, yet no food
appeared, they salivated anyway. Because of the repeated association of the
sound with food, after a series of trials, the sound alone caused the dogs to
salivate. This is called classical
conditioning.
According to
this theory, SLA occurs in a similar fashion. To learn a second language (L2),
one must imitate correct models repeatedly. Learning requires repeated
engagement in the target behaviour, in this case, the production of the L2.
While the
behaviorist view of language acquisition had considerable impact on the field,
it was sharply criticized by researchers, in particular linguists, who, by the
late 1950s, had come to very different conclusions about the language
acquisition process. Most notably, Chomsky (1959, p. 42) wrote a strongly
worded critique of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior in which he argued: “I have
been able to find no support whatsoever for the doctrine that slow and careful
shaping of verbal behavior through differential reinforcement is an absolute
necessity.” Also, importantly, the behaviorist view fails to explain creativity, the
fact that children produce novel utterances, like “the paper is soaky” (for
“soaking wet,” see Clark, 1993) that do not resemble utterances they hear in
their environment.
2. Universal
Grammar’s Theory
In the Universal Grammar (UG) view, the environment
serves essentially only as a trigger for language development. The UG approach
views language as unique and different from other cognitive systems. It
suggests that humans possess what can be considered as a “language faculty,”
i.e., a universal set of underlying principles, called UG, which lends its name
to this theoretical approach.
The existence of UG allows children to form
hypotheses about language when they are exposed to a finite set of examples
from their environment. In this regard, UG linguists refer to what has been
called the “logical problem of language acquisition,” i.e., that without UG,
language learning would be impossible because the input data are insufficiently
rich to allow acquisition to occur.
The inadequacy of the input is also referred to as
the “poverty of the stimulus.” In other words, the language that children are
exposed to is characterized by abbreviated utterances, interruptions,
ungrammatical sequences, etc., such that they could not possibly receive enough
information about all the grammatical, possible sentences of the language by
exposure alone; something else must be helping children induce the rules of the
language, and that something is the proposed “Universal Grammar” they are born
with as part of their genetic endowment. This approach is therefore nativist,
in emphasizing the biologically inherited aspect of UG. The species-specific
nature of language is also emphasized in this approach: language is unique to
humans; other species’ communication systems are fundamentally different from
human language.
There is considerable evidence for the biological
basis for language that the UG approach emphasizes. As pointed out earlier in
this chapter, children manifest an early sound perception discrimination
ability that appears to fade away if the sound contrasts are not used in the
language of the child’s environment
On the other hand, others point out that the
linguistic view gives too little attention to the role of the environment and
the crucial role played by interaction between the child and his or her social
network, as discussed in the following section.
3. interactionist
approach’s Theory
Interactionist
approach is theoretical viewpoint that recognizes the role of experience and
the environment, as well as the contribution of innate capacities. The social interactionist view which
includes proponents, the role of
environment is more important than acting as a simple trigger for development.
Social interactionist give importance to the interplay between linguistic
structures, cognitive abilities, and social and linguistic environment.
Language is viewd as a communicative act and the language environment nd the
child constitute a dynamic system.
The question
that is of primary interest in language acquisition theory is how children
acquire the ability to express their intentions or meanings in language.
interactionists believe that they do so through a process of negotiation with
their mothers or principal caregivers. This negotiation occurs partly as a
result of mothers treating children’s speech, even if it is babbling, as
meaningful and intentional.
Interactionists point out that a crucial
aspect of the linguistic environment is the speech adaptations to which
children are exposed. In many societies, although not all, children learning
their native language are exposed to particu-lar linguistic and paralinguistic
(prosodic) adaptations; this has been referred to as child-directed speech
(CDS) or caregiver talk.
Some of the common
characteristics of CDS include : shorter utterances, more stress on certain
wordsor syllables, substantial repetition, use of paraphrases, heavy reliance
on questions, and marked intonation contrasts.
4. Emergentism:
Connectionist Viewpoint
One predominant emergentist-inspired model is
connectionism, which proposes that language is learned through exposure to
language in the environment, the input. This exposure allows the construction
of associations among units, i.e., sound sequences, words, sentence patterns,
etc. The L1 develops therefore through ongoing exposure to language in the
environment with increasing exposure to certain units leading to greater
associative strengths. When the associations are strong enough, the units and
patterns become permanently acquired. One often-cited test of this model
(Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986).
used computer simulation to examine past tense
acquisition on verbs and found that the model predicted learning sequences
found in typical L1 English past tense acquisition: i.e., U-shaped learning
(referred to earlier in this chapter) in which the correct irregular past tense
form “went” appeared first, followed by the incorrect over-regularization
“goed” or “wented,” finally returning to the correct form “went.” The
connectionist viewpoint therefore suggests overregularization behavior can be
explained by the child’s sensitivity to the frequency of the forms in the
input, in contrast to the UG approach which uses such examples as evidence of
an underlying rule system. There are both supporters and critics of this
relatively recent approach. While there is evidence that the model may account
for specific aspects of L1 learning such as irregular past tense forms, as
indicated in the preceding paragraph, the connectionist model is still in the
early stages of testing. One specific critique is that it is not clear how
connectionism can account for the effect of non-linguistic, contextual information,
such as tone of voice, gestures, etc., in language acquisition (Tomasello,
cited in Paradis, 2004).
The
questions are….
1.
Which theory is the most decisive in human life in terms of English being a
second language?
2.
Why in UG theory the linguistic view is considered too little attention to the
role of the environment between children and social networks in the
participation of English as a second language?
3.
Theory of Interactionist about environmental factors is the most important and
the mother tongue that influences the ability to interact with children?
B.
Topic
3 Foundations of LA
We begin this chapter with an overview of these
points, and then go on to explore the nature of language learning, some basic
similarities and differences between L1 and L2 learning, and “the logical
problem of language acquisition.” An understanding of these issues is a
necessary foundation for our discussion of linguistic, psychological, and
social perspectives on SLA in the next chapters. We follow this with a survey
of the theoretical frameworks and foci of interest which have been most
important for the study of SLA within each of the three perspectives.
For a variety of reasons, the majority of people in
the world know more than one language. The first anguage is almost always learned effortlessly,
and with nearly invariant success; second language learning involves many
different conditions and processes, and success is far from certain. This may
be at least partly because older learners no longer have the same natural
ability to acquire languages as do young children, and because second language
learning is influenced by prior knowledge of the first and by more individual
and contextual factors. This chapter has identified a number of theoretical frameworks
which provide the bases for different approaches to the study of SLA that we
will consider. All of these approaches address the basic what , how , and why
questions that we posed, but they have different foci of interest and
attention. Linguistic frameworks differ in taking an internal or external focus
on language; psychological frameworks differ in whether they focus on languages
and the brain, on learning processes, or on individual differences; and social frameworks differ in
placing their emphasis on micro or macro factors in learning. Like the lenses
with different color filters used in photographing Mars, these complement one
another and all are needed to gain a full spectrum picture of the
multidimensional processes involved in SLA. Even so, much remains a mystery,
stimulating continued research.
The questions are…
1. What
underlies the relationship between linguistic, psychological, and social
perspectives in SLA learning?
2.
“Linguistic frameworks differ in taking an internal or external focus on
language; psychological frameworks differ in whether they focus on languages
and the brain, on learning processes, or on individual differences; and
social frameworks differ in placing their emphasis on micro or macro factors in
learning”. How could it?
3.
What if building a foundation for learning high school is not necessary that
doesn't matter what will happen?
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