Transcript Chapter 11

Chapter 11
Language Acquisition
11.1 First Language Acquisition
It is no wonder that parents take such joy in observing
their children’s first step in the acquisition of language.
Consider the following sequence between a mother and
her 3-month-old daughter:
Ann :( smiles)
Mom: Oh, what a nice little smile! Yes, isn’t that nice?
There. There’s a nice little smile.
► Ann :( burps)
► Mom: What a nice wind as well! Yes, that’s better, isn’t it?
Yes.
► Ann :( vocalizes)
► Mom: Yes! There’s a nice noise.
►
►
►
First language acquisition (L1 acquisition) is the term
most commonly used to describe the process whereby
children become speakers of their native language and
languages .
► L1 acquisition is remarkable for the speed with which it
takes place. The speed of acquisition has led to the
belief that there is some “innate” proposition in the
human infant to acquire language. This is usually called
the “language faculty” with which each newborn child is
endowed.
► There are basically two approaches to the question of
first language acquisition:
①The behaviorist approach
②The innateness approach
11.1.1 The behaviorist approach
► Let’s
see the following example:
► Suppose a baby is hungry, she babbles; she does
not pronounce the right sound [milk] for the milk
she wants; she gets corrected, she imitates the
correct sound and gets understood; she gets the
milk she wants. All the time the baby is observing
and imitating the speech sound [milk]; she gets
punished ( in the sense that she does not get the
milk she wants) when she falls to produce the right
sound [milk] and is rewarded when she hits on the
correct sound.
say milk correctly
► The
child imitates the speech around it, using a
process of trial and error. It is reinforced in these
imitations, or discouraged from them, by the
degree of success it achieves in communicating.
This is a standard “stimulus-response-imitationreinforcement” approach.
► The important thing is that they all believe that all
the internal linguistic knowledge of the individual
is the direct result of combining the linguistic
event that the individual has observed.
B.F. Skinner
11.1.2 The innateness approach
► The
behaviorist hypothesis of first language
acquisition has been strongly challenged from the
1960s onwards, especially under the influence of
Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theories and cognitive
psychology.
The innateness hypothesis says that the
ability to acquire a human language is
part of the biologically innate equipment
of the human being. It also claims that
this built-in ability is linked in some
manner to physiological maturation.
► For
example:
► Children become competent speakers of a language at a
comparatively early age before they are ready for other
cognitively complex tasks such as learning mathematics,
physics or chemistry. It has also been observed that children
all over the world go through the same stages in language
acquisition regardless of their linguistic environment.
Children do not choose their first language; they can learn
any language equally well as long as they are in the right
linguistic environment. A Chinese child will pick up English
as his first language if he is born in an English-speaking
country. This probably shows that all human language share
certain universal properties ( such as they all have nouns,
verbs, and so on) and that human children are born with
knowledge of these universal properties.
11.1.3
Stages of Acquiring the First Language
A good deal of research on the acquisition of first
language focuses on children’s early utterances. The
establishment of stage of acquisition is probably the
best-known outcome of research on children’s
language.
► Several stages have been identified:
1. Pre-language stage(3~10 months)
2. The one-word or holophrastic stage(12~18 months)
3. The two-word stage(18~20 months)
4. Telegraphic speech(2~3years old)
►
11.2 Second Language Acquisition
Q: Why we should master the second language?
A: This has been a time of the “global village” and
the “World Wide Web”, when communication
between people has expanded well beyond their
local speech communities. As never before, people
have had to learn a second language so as to
obtain an education or secure employment. At
such a time, there is an obvious
need to discover more about how
second languages are learned.
Second Language Acquisition(L2 acquisition, SLA) can
be defined as the way in which people learn a
language other than their mother tongue, inside or
outside of a classroom.
Second : For one thing, here second can refer to any
language that is learned in addition to the mother
tongue. Thus, it can refer to the learning of a third or
fourth language. Also, second is not used to contrast
with foreign. Whether we are learning a language
naturally as a result of living in a country where it is
spoken, or learning it in a classroom through
instruction, it is customary to speak generically of
second language acquisition.
11.2.1 Contrastive Analysis
►
1.
2.
3.
To identify similarities and differences between
particular native language(NLs) and target language
(TLs), researchers conducted contrastive analysis
(CA) from the 1940s and the 1960s.
The main difficulties in learning a new language are
caused by interference from the first language.
These difficulties can be predicted by contrastive
analysis.
Teaching materials can make use of contrastive
analysis to reduce the effects of mother tongue
interference
11.2.2 Error Analysis
► An
error refers to the production of incorrect
forms in speech and writing by a nonnative
speaker of second language, due to his
incomplete knowledge of the rules of that
target language.
► For example:
When a Chinese learner of English says “I not
go”(=I will not go) because the equivalent
sentence in Chinese is wo bu qu(我不去).
►
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1.
2.
3.
Error analysis(EA) refers to the study and analysis
of the errors made by second and foreign language
learners. It developed as a branch of applied
linguistics in the 1960s, and achieved considerable
popularity in the 1970s.
It may be carried out in order to
Identify strategies which learners use in language
learning;
Try to identify the causes of learner errors;
Obtain information on common difficulties in
language learning, as an aid to teaching or in the
preparation of teaching materials.
► Error
analysis was therefore offered as an alternative
to contrastive analysis. Attempts were made to
develop classifications for different types of errors on
the basis of the different processes that were assumed
to account for them. A basic distinction was drawn
between intralingual and interlingual errors.
Intralingual errors
Interlingual errors
He is comes.
He comes from China,
Beijing.
result from faulty or
partial learning of the
target language
caused by the learner’s
native language
(language transfer )
11.2.3 Interlanguage
► For
example: The Spanish speaker who says in English
“She name is Mary” is producing a form which is not
used by adult speakers of English, does not occur in
English L1 acquisition by children, and is not found in
Spanish either.
► Evidence of this sort suggests that there is some
in-between system while acquiring L2 which
certainly contains aspects of both L1 and L2, but
which is an inherently variable system with rules
of its own. This system is called an interlanguage
and is now considered to be the basis of all L2
production.
11.3
Individual Differences in Second Language
Acquisition
SLA theories acknowledge that there are some
individual differences in L2 acquisition, especially
some psychological dimensions of differences.
Here we will focus on four major dimensions--language aptitude, cognitive style, personality
traits and learning strategies.
11.3.1 Language aptitude
► Language
Aptitude was known as that people differ in
the extent to which they possess a natural ability for
learning an L2, which is thought to be a combination
of various abilities.
► According to Carroll’s Modern Language Aptitude
(MLAT), the components of language aptitude are:
1.Phonemic coding ability;2.Grammatical sensitivity;3.
Inductive language learning ability ;4.Rote learning
ability
► Learners who score highly on language aptitude tests
typically learn rapidly and achieve higher level of L2
proficiency than learners who obtain low scores.
11.3.2
Cognitive style: field dependence and
field independence
► Field
dependence is measured by asking learners to
look at complex patterns and identify a number of
simple geometric figures that are hidden within them.
The purpose is to see whether they are able to break
up what they see (i.e. the whole) into parts and keep
these parts separate from the whole.
► The characteristics of field dependent language
learners are that they accept the L2 information
exactly as it is presented to them by the teacher. They
do not try to analyze or think about it themselves.
They are very reliant on in their L2 learning. They
tend to be seen as outgoing are interested in others
and so would be expected to develop good
interpersonal communication skills in the L2.
► Field
independent learners, on the other hand, do
not assume that the L2 information that they are
given is necessarily correct. They tend to analyze
it and think about it themselves to determine
whether it is correct or not. They have a strong
sense of personal identify and often seem
insensitive to and distant from other people. They
might, therefore, be expected to be less interested
in developing communication skills in the L2.
► Field independence is typical of learners who think
about the input that they get. They would develop
a broader and deeper understanding of the
structure of the language than those who take all
L2 input at face value. Therefore, they have better
performances on structure tests.
11.3.3 Personality traits
Introversion VS Extroversion
The relationship between language
proficiency and extroversion seems to be
true when assessing proficiency and
extroversion seems to be true when
assessing proficiency at using the language,
but not when assessing knowledge of the
language.
11.3.4 Learning strategies
Language aptitude, cognitive style, and
personality traits are the general factors that
affect the rate and level of L2 achievement.
Learning strategies are the particular approaches
or techniques that learners use to try to learn an
L2.
► Three major types of learning strategies have
been identified:
1. Cognitive strategies,
2. Metacognitive strategies,
3. Social/affective strategies.
►
► Cognitive
strategies refer to the steps or
operations used in problem solving that need
direct analysis, transformation or synthesis of
learning materials.
► Metacognitive strategies make use of knowledge
about cognitive processes and constitute attempts
to regulate language learning by means of
planning, monitoring and evaluating.
► Social/affective strategies concern the ways in
which learners choose to interact with other
learners and native speakers.
► Good language learners are also very active, show
►
awareness of the learning process and their own learning
styles and, above all, are flexible and appropriate in their
use of learning strategies. strategies that involve formal
practice(e.g. rehearsing a new word) contribute to the
development of linguistic competence while strategies
involving functional practice(e.g. seeking out native
speakers to talk to) aid the development of communicative
skills.
The study of learning strategies is of potential value to
language teachers. If strategies that are crucial for learning
can be identified, it may prove possible to train students to
use them. In the next section we will examine this idea in
a broader context when we discuss the role of instruction
in L2 acquisition.
11.4 Instruction and L2 Acquisition
One of the goals SLA is to improve language
teaching. Here we will consider three branches of
this research.
The first concerns whether teaching learners
grammar has any influence on their interlanguage
development. Do learners learn the structures
they are taught?
The second draws on the research into
individual learner differences. Do learners learn
better if the kind of instruction they receive
matches their preferred ways of learning an L2?
The third branch looks at the training of
strategies used by “good language learners”.
11.4.1 Form-focused instruction
► Instruction
which draws attention to the forms and
structures of the language within the context of
communicative interaction is called form-focused
instruction.
► The grammar-translation method and the
audiolingual method both attempt to teach
learners grammar, and their only difference is how
this is to be fulfilled. More recently, however,
language pedagogy has emphasized the need to
provide learners with real communicative
experiences. Communicative language teaching is
based on the assumption that learners do not
need to be taught grammar before they can
communicate but will acquire it naturally as part of
the learning process.
11.4.2 Learner-instruction matching
Learner-instruction matching involves an attempt
to ensure that the teaching style is suited to the
learner. It is based on the assumption that
learners have different learning styles and that
they will learn most effectively if the instruction
matches their particular learning styles.
► Educational research which has investigated the
effects of such instruction is sometimes referred to
as aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI).
►
11.4.3 Strategy Training
►
►
Most of the research on strategy training or learner training
has concentrated on vocabulary learning. Training students
to use strategies that concern different ways of making
associations with target words has generally proved
successful.
For example, the key word method requires learners to form two
kinds of associations. First, learners associate the target word
with a word which is the same or similar to an L1 word, e.g. the
Japanese word “ohio”, meaning “morning”, might be associated
with “Ohio”, a state in the United States. Second, the L1 word is
linked to a mental image that incorporates the meaning of the
target word, e.g. the learner thinks of a very cold morning in
winter in Ohio. It has been shown that these associations can help
to memorize the target word.
The idea of strategy training is attractive because it
provides a way helping learners to become autonomous,
that is, of enabling them to take responsibility for their
own learning.