Language Acquisition Chapter 1 KEY POINTS : LANGUAGE LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 1. THE FIRST THREE YEARS: MILESTONES AND DEVELOPMENT SEQUENCES I.
GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES
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Longitudinal studies (Adam, Eve and Sarah)
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Cross-sectional study ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------II.
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Negation
Stage 1 No. No cookie. No comb hair.
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Stage 2 Daddy no comb hair. Don’t touch that!
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
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Stage 3 I can’t do it. He don’t want it.
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Stage 4 You didn’t have supper. She doesn’t want it. I don’t have no more candies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Questions
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What-where-who-why-how-when
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Stage 1 Cookie? Mummy book? Where’s Daddy? What’s that? (correct because they have been learned as chunks)
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Stage 2 You like this? I have some? (declarative sentence, intonation)
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Language Acquisition •
Stage 3 Can I go? Are you happy? ---Is the teddy is tired? Do I can have a cookie? Why you don’t have one? Why you catched it? (fronting stage*)
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Stage 4 Are you going to play with me? Do dogs like ice cream?
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Stage 5 Both wh- and ‘yes/no’ questions are formed correctly. Are these your boots? Why did you do that? Does Daddy have a box? --------*Why the teddy bear can’t go outside? (*negative questions can still be difficult)
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
--------Ask him why can’t he go out. •
Stage 6 At this stage, children are able to correctly form all question types, including negative and complex embedded questions.
2. THE PRE-SCHOOL YEARS a) Metalinguistic awareness
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The ability to treat language as an object separate from the meaning it conveys. (in the preschool years)
3. THE SCHOOL YEARS
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Registers
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Standard Variety
Language Acquisition -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLAINING FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
1. The behaviourist perspective: Say what I say -
1940s/1950s B.F Skinner
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Imitation and practice are the primary process in language acquisition
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Imitation ( they selectively pick out patterns and generalize them to new contexts)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. The innatist perspective : It’s all in your mind Noam Chomsky Universal Grammar (UG)
-Viktor and Genie cases (wild children) Deaf children Logical problem of language acquisition ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Interactionist/developmental perspectives: Learning from inside and out I.
Dan Slobin (1973) the close relationship between children’s cognitive development and their acquisition of language ---------------------------
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LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)
Piaget He saw the language as a symbol system that could be used to express knowledge acquired through interaction with the physical world. --------------------------
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Vygotsky
Language Acquisition He supported that thought was essentially internalized speech, and speech emerged in social interaction. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)** --------------------------
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Cross-cultural research Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) Child-Directed Speech *** Interlocutor: A participant in a conversation {Jacqueline Sach (1981) Jim case}
Connectionism A theory of knowledge (including knowledge) as a complex system of units that become interconnected in the mind as they are encountered together. The more often units are heard or seen together, the more likely it is that the presence of one will lead to the activation of other.
Chapter 2 KEY POINTS : EXPLAINING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 1. Learner characteristics
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Language Acquisition -
Very young language learners
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Young second language learners
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Older learners or adult learners
2. Learning Conditions -
Foreigner talk or Teacher talk (Child-directed speech in first language acquisition)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Explaining Second Language Learning: Theories and Perspectives
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LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
I. Behaviourism
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1940s/ 1970s
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Nelson Brooks (1960) and Robert Lado (1964)
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Language learning happens as ‘habit formation’ (imitation and repetition)
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Audio lingual Teaching Method
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Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) : The expectation that learners will have less difficulty acquiring target language patterns that are similar to those of the first language acquisition than those that are different.
The Innatist Perspective: Universal Grammar -
Noam Chomsky
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Universal Grammar (UG): Innate linguistic knowledge which consists of a set of principles common to all languages
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‘Logical problem’ of SLA: learners eventually know more about the language than they could reasonably have learned if they had to depend entirely on the input they are exposed to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
III.
Krashen’s Monitor Model -
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Stephen Krashen (1982) Monitor Model
Language Acquisition -
He was influenced by Chomsky’s first language acquisition theory 1. Acquisition-learning hypothesis 2. The monitor hypothesis 3. The natural order hypothesis 4. The input hypothesis *Affective filter hypothesis
- Communicative Language Teaching Method - Content-Based Instruction ___________________________________________________________________________ CURRENT PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES: THE COGNITIVIST/DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
1. Information Processing -
Norman Segalowitz (2003)
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A psychological theory that uses a computer metaphor for the human brain. It includes the idea that the brain has a very large capacity to store information for the long term, but a more limited capacity for information that requires our attention.
According to connectionists, learners gradually build up their knowledge of language through exposure to the thousands of instances of the linguistics features they eventually hear.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. The Competition Model
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Language Acquisition -
Language acquisition occurs without the necessity of a learner’s focused attention or the need for any innate brain module that is specifically for language.
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This model is an explanation for language acquisition that takes into account not only language form but also language meaning and language use.
__________________________________________________________________________ SECOND LANGUAGE APPLICATIONS: Interacting, noticing, and processing
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
1. The Interaction Hypothesis -
Modified interaction
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Comprehension checks
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Clarification requests
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Self-repetition or paraphrase
2. The Noticing Hypothesis -
Richard Schmidt (1990, 2001)
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Nothing is learned unless it is has been noticed.
3. Input Processing 4. Processability Theory __________________________________________________________________________
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THE SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
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Vygotsky: cognitive development, including language development, arises as a result of social interactions.
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Learning is thought to occur when an individual interacts with an interlocutor within his or her zone of proximal development (ZPD).
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Language Acquisition The ZPD is a metaphorical location or ‘site’ in which learners coconstruct knowledge in a collaboration with an interlocutor.
