Transcript BBI 3209 Language Acquisition - UPM EduTrain Interactive Learning

BBI 3209
Language Acquisition
Wong Bee Eng
Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Unit 4 – The role of UG in L1 acquisition
Unit 5 – The observable phenomena in
SLA/ SLL
Unit 6 – The cognitive approach to SLA/
SLL
Unit 7 – The role of universal grammar in
SLA/ SLL
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Unit 4 – The role of UG in L1 acquisition
Universal Grammar
Principles
Parameters
L1 Acquisition
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Unit 5 – The observable phenomena in SLA/ SLL
Transfer of properties of the L1 into the L2
- Phonological properties
- Morphological properties
- Syntactic properties
Staged development in SLA/ SLL
Systematicity in SLA/ SLL across learners
Variability in SLA/ SLL
Incompleteness in SLA/ SLL
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Unit 6 – The cognitive approach to SLA/
SLL
The Perceptual Saliency Approach
Learnability/Teachability Hypothesis
Information Processing Models
- McLaughlin’s information processing
model
- Andersen’s ACT* model
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Unit 7 – The role of universal grammar in
SLA/ SLL
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
THE UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
APPROACH

The main goals of linguistic theory are to
answer the following questions:

What constitutes knowledge of language?

How is knowledge of language acquired?

How is knowledge of language put to use?
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1. What Constitutes Knowledge of
Language?
Knowledge of language – subconscious
mental representation of language which
underlies all language use.
 We inherit a universal set of principles
and parameters (Chomsky, 1981, 1986a,
1986b).
 Principles – invariant

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
Parameters – a limited number of open
values which characterize differences
between languages.

This approach – provides a detailed
descriptive framework for second
language (SLA) research.
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2. How is Knowledge of Language Acquired?

The logical problem of language learning –
degenerate input.
UG – makes the task easier.
 In SLA – learners are faced with the same logical
problem of constructing a grammar of the L2 on
the basis of fragmentary input and of having to
construct abstract representations on the basis of
the samples of language they actually encounter.

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The manner in which L2 learners go about
this is probably NOT the same as the
process in L1 acquisition – 3 reasons
 A. different needs
 B. already have an L1 – with the
parameters set to the values of the L1
 C. L2 learners – cognitively mature,
able to solve problems, able to deal with
abstract concepts.

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3. How is Knowledge of Language Put to Use?
UG is concerned with knowledge of language –
competence, not how language is used in real life –
performance.
 Performance – domain of a theory of language use,
in which linguistic competence is only one aspect.
 Another aspect of language use also has to define
how we access our knowledge base (affected by
sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic variables).

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Arguments from L1 acquisition


L1 acquisition – NOT linked to intelligence.
Dissociation between language development and
cognitive development (aspects of cognition)
Williams syndrome – a metabolic disorder – heart
defects, mental retardation, distinctive facial
expression
 Bellugi et al. (1993) – a dissociation between
language development and the kind of cognitive
prerequisites which Piaget argue are necessary for
language development in such children.

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 Smith
and Tsimpli (1995) Christopher – savant – brain damaged
but can read, write and communicate in
about 17 languages.
 Has
low performance IQ but has an
average/above average verbal IQ.
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
Specific Language Impairment – SLI
(Gopnik and Crago, 1991; Pinker,
1994).

Children – cognitively normal but language
impaired

Characterized by language being deficient
in specific ways, possibly inherited – some
aspects of language at least might be
genetically controlled.
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Language seems separate from other aspects of
cognition although the 2 interact
 Language itself seems to be modular in nature

Broca’s aphasia (front and above the left ear)
– impaired speech production – effortful, hesitant
and non-fluent, almost no grammatical structure,
mainly specific nouns and few verbs
- comprehension of speech remains good

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Wernicke’s aphasia – results from injury to the
Wernicke’s area (around and under the left ear.
 Effortless, fluent and rapid speech but vague and
incomprehensible – grammatically complex and
well structured, but lacking in content words
with specific meaning; general Ns and Vs
(something, stuff, put, did)
 comprehension of speech – impaired.


Specific areas of the brain deal with
specific aspects of language.
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
6 Features of Language Development
(Biologically triggered behaviour)
(Aitchison, 1989, p.67 based on
Lenneberg (1967))
1. The behaviour emerges before it is
necessary.
 2. Its appearance is not the result of a
conscious decision.
 3. Its emergence is not triggered by external
events (though the surrounding environment
must be sufficiently ‘rich’ for it to develop
adequately).

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
4. Direct teaching and intensive practice
have relatively little effect.

5. There is a regular sequence of ‘milestones’
as the behaviour develops, and these can
usually be correlated with age and other
aspects of development.

6. There may be a ‘critical period’ for the
acquisition of the behaviour.
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UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
WHAT DOES UG CONSIST OF?

Theory – many versions – from phrase structure
rules to Minimalist Programme – essentially the
goal – the same – to characterise the innate
language faculty.
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
Varying emphases – result of search for
descriptive adequacy – to account for the
details of increasing numbers of
typologically unrelated languages while the
search for explanatory adequacy – to make
effective cross-language generalizations.
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
A theory of language must show how each
particular language can be derived from a
uniform initial state under the ‘boundary
conditions’ set by experience. … The
search for descriptive adequacy seems to
lead to ever-greater complexity and variety
of rule systems, while the search for
explanatory adequacy requires that
language structure must be invariant,
except at the margins.
(Chomsky, 2000: 7)
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Principles
 Initial state – a set of universal principles
which specify the limited possibilities of
variation – parameters.
Parameters
 Need to be fixed (set).
 Language learning – constrained.
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
E.g. of a principle – STRUCTURE
DEPENDENCY
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The knowledge that languages are
STRUCTURE DEPENDENT can explain
SUBJECT AUXILIARY INVERSION,
PASSIVISATION,…
The way we move elements is NOT based on
the LINEAR ORDER of the sentence.
Structure Dependency – a principle of
UG
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Also part of our UG endowment

Syntactic categories – both lexical and
functional and do no have to be learnt.

Universal inventory of categories that the
child selects from on the basis of the input,
as not all languages will make use of all
categories or their features.
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PARAMETERS
Languages – organized hierarchically in
terms of phrases (structure – dependency).
 But there are rules which differ between
languages – PARAMETERS.
 E.g. HEAD PARAMETER – specifies the
position of the head in relation to its
complement(s).
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
Parameters – language –specific
knowledge.

Head parameter and it is stated as:

The parameter that determines the
relative positioning of heads with
respect to their complements
(Radford, 1997; 20).
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
‘a language is… a set of specification for
parameters in an invariant system of
principles of UG’ (Chomsky, 1995: 388).

The PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS
framework (Chomsky, 1986a,b; 1987)
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
Language acquisition – learning the
LEXICON; i.e. learning the VOCABULARY
of the language and settings of parameters.

Abstract principles – specified as before.

Parameters – contained in the
FUNCTIONAL categories only.
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L1 Acquisition

The core element of a phrase is the head.

Complements optionally modify the head.

Another type of modifier is the Specifier –
also an optional modifier.
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



In L1 acquisition, children would know
that sentences are made of phrases
which comprise the Specifier-HeadComplement structure.
They don’t have to learn this since this is
part of the child’s innate knowledge.
But they would not know the exact
ordering of these elements in their
language.
They need linguistic input in order to set
the head parameter.
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
The number of possibilities with regard to
the ordering of these three elements is
constrained. The following are the
possibilities:

Specifier-Head-Complement (like the
English language)

Specifier-Complement-Head

Head-Complement-Specifier
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
Examples of utterances of a 20-month-old boy
(from Radford, 1997: 22).
Head (V)
Complement
Touch
heads
Cuddle
book
Want
crayons
Head (P)
In
To
With
Complement
school
mummy
potty
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
Acquiring this aspect of word order
involves the simple task of setting a binary
(two-way) either head-first or head-last
parameter at its appropriate value.

In other words, UG would tell the child
that the only possible choices are for
languages to be head-first or head-last.
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Second Language Acquisition
(Second Language Learning)
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THE OBSERVABLE PHENOMENA OF
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Five observations that can be made about
SLA are:
Transfer of Properties of the L1 Grammar
into the L2 Grammar


Transfer of linguistic properties from a speaker’s
L1 into the L2 - a pervasive feature of SLA.
1960s – main focus of attention for anyone
involved with thinking about the nature of L2es.
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Affects all linguistic levels –
phonetics/phonology (pronunciation), syntax
(the construction of sentences), morphology
(the internal structure of words), lexicon
(vocabulary), and discourse (the
communicative use that sentences are put
to).
 We are most aware of transfer where the L1
and L2 differ on a particular property,
because this leads to patterns in speech of
the non-native speaker not found in the
speech of the native speaker, for e.g.

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Transfer of phonological properties – e.g. L1
French speakers of L2 English may
pronounce this as zees
 Transfer of syntactic properties – e.g. L1
English speakers of L2 French may place an
adverb in a position which is possible in
English but not in French:
 *Le chat toujours mordre.
 The cat always bites. (Selinker, Swain &
Dumas, 1975)
 (Native French: Le chat mord toujours.)

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
Transfer of morphological properties – L1
Spanish speakers of L2 English:
e.g.
*Now she’s putting hers clothes on. (Dulay
and Burt, 1983)
 Spanish possessive determiners inflect for both
gender and number, whereas English possessive
determiners only inflect for gender.

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
Where the L1 and L2 are structurally
identical, there are also observable effects:
e.g. Zobl (1984) – acquisition of the
determiner a/the in English is faster for L1
French and Spanish speakers than for L1
Chinese and Russian speakers.

(The former make a distinction between
indefinite and definite determiners while the
latter do not.)
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2. Stage Development in SLA



Acquisition of languages is staged – from the initialstate grammars that L2 learners construct, they go
through stages of development towards the TL.
They resemble L1 learners but both sets of learners
start from different initial-state grammars.
See for e.g. Clahsen and Musyken (1986) for the
acquisition of word order patterns in German by L1
speakers of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish.
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3. Systematicity in the Growth of L2 Knowledge
Across Learners


Learners from different L1 backgrounds develop L2
linguistic knowledge in a way that is not directly
attributable either to their L1, or to the L2 input.
Consistent patterns in the development of accuracy
on grammatical morphology in English across a range
of L2 learners from different language backgrounds,
of different ages, and learning English under different
conditions. For e.g. Dulay and Burt, 1973; Dulay and
Burt, 1974; Bailey, Madden & Krashen, 1974;
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Progressive :The boy is eating.
 Plural
:The boys are hungry.
 Past regular : The boy shouted.
 Past irregular:The boy sang.
 Possessive
:The boy’s horse.
 Third person singular
:The boy runs.

And so on.
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

Makino (1980) – found a high correlation between
his L1 Japanese subjects (of L2 English) and those of
D & B, and there was no relationship between this
order and the order in which the learners were
taught the gammatical morphemes in the classroom.
Learners from different L1 backgrounds, acquiring an
L2 under different conditions of exposure –
naturalistic vs classroom – can go through the same
stages of development; i.e. there is systematic
development.
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4. Variability in Learners’ Intuition About, and
Production of, Aspects of the L2 at Certain
Stages of Development

The mental grammars of L2 learners at certain
stages of development appear to allow more than
one structural variant for a given construction
where the TL has only one form.
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
For e.g. an 11-year-old Portuguese learner of L2
English produced the following with the same
meaning (no and don’t to perform the task of
negation) (Ellis, 1992):
No look my card.
Don’t look my card.

Such cases of variability may be of temporary
duration or they may continue over long periods.
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5. L2 Learners Stop Short of Native-like
Success in a Number of Areas of the L2
Grammar

Very few L2 learners appear to be fully successful
in the way that native speakers are (see for e.g.
Johnson & Newport, 1989).
Summary
 Approaches to the study of SLA must be able to
account for a number of its observable
properties.
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Universal Grammar and second
language acquisition
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Debates and hypotheses about
parameter resetting
Empirical evidence
3 views/hypotheses
 A. L2 learners have no access to UG
 B. L2 learners have full access to UG.
 C. L2 learners have partial access to UG.
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3 views/hypotheses
A. L2 learners have no access to UG
UG is no longer available to L2 learners.
Proponents of this view argue that there is a
‘critical period’ for language acquisition
during children’s early development, and
that adult L2 learners have to resort to
other learning mechanisms.
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Reasons
The commonsense observation that
immigrant children become native-like
speakers of their L2, whereas their parents
rarely do (see e.g. Johnson and Newport,
1989).
 However, adult grammars are generally
UG-constrained (Hawkins, 2001; White,
2003).

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
Studies tend to focus on differences
between L1 and L2 acquisition, and on
differences in the end result of the
acquisition process.
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B. L2 learners have full access to UG.
3 sub-views
Full access/no transfer
Full transfer/full access
Full access/impaired early
representations
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C. L2 learners have partial access to
UG
2 sub-views
No parameter resetting
Impaired functional features
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Evaluation of the theory or Approach
Scope and achievement of the UG approach
The UG view of language
The UG view of language acquisition
The UG view of the language learner
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Thank you
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Final Examination Semester 2
2012/2013
Questions will be based on units 4, 5, 6 and 7
of the module and this lecture.
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Types of questions:
MCQs
T/F
Structural
Short essays/paragraphs
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References:
Those found in the unit and
Mitchell, R. & Myles, F. (2004). Second Language Learning
Theories (Second Edition). London: Hodder Arnold.