AKWIZYCJAAKWIZYCJA, akwizycja jezyka
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SLA is the study of the acquisition of a non-primary language, i.e. a language beyond the native language. Sometimes the term is used with reference to the process of acquiring an L2 in an environment in which that language is spoken, i.e. in a naturalistic setting L1 - first language, native language (NL), mother tongue -the first language a child learns -all languages acquired in early childhood, i.e. before the age of three L2 - second language -any language learned after the L1 -“L2 can refer to any language learned after learning the L1, regardless of whether it is the second, third, fourth, or fifth language” Foreign language learning - learning an L2 in the NL environment, in a classroom context Target language (TL) - the (second) language that is being learned Formal learning - classroom learning Informal learning - learning in naturalistic contexts Bilingualism, multilingualism - the knowledge of two or more languages Monolingualism - the knowledge of one language only IN THE PAST: Linguistics -studied the properties of language as abstract code Applied linguistics -applied the findings of linguistics to practical ends SLA -studied the acquisition of languages other than the first NOW: Linguistics -studies the properties of language as abstract code Applied linguistics -studies how people use language in real life SLA -studies the acquisition of languages other than the first as well as the L1 of L2 users Linguistics informs us about the nature of language, characteristics of the languages being learned, etc. Psychology, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics inform us about the cognitive processes involved in language acquisition, the representation and processing of language in the brain. Social psychology focuses on group-related phenomena, such as identity, social motivation, social and interactional contexts of learning. Sociolinguistics emphasizes variability in learner linguistic performance. L2 user - someone who uses an L2 for real life purposes. L2 learner - someone who is learning the code for future use Levels of linguistic analysis, phonology (sound system): phonemes, syllable structure, intonation, tone, rhythmic patterns Levels of linguistic analysis: SYNTAX (grammar, sentence structure): -word order (e.g. SVO, SOV) -agreement between sentence elements (e.g. number, gender agreement) -rules to form questions, negations, passives, etc. -ways to structure information within sentences, The knowledge of grammar entails the knowledge of rules which can produce an infinite number of sentences. -prescriptive grammar, e.g. “Don’t split infinitives” -descriptive grammar MORPHOLOGY: -morphemes - parts of words that have meaning free morphemes - that are words in and of themselves, • e.g. man, woman, love, seen bound morphemes - that are not words in and of themselves • e.g. dis-, un-, -ly, -es, -ed, -tion -inflectional morphemes - that carry grammatical information (e.g. tense, number, gender) -derivational morphemes (prefixes, suffixes) - that change the meaning of words or their grammatical category LEXICON (vocabulary):word meaning (semantics), pronunciation (and spelling),grammatical category (part of speech),possible occurrence in combination with other words (collocations) and in idioms PRAGMATICS & DISCOURSE: -ways to express intended meaning appropriately to the communicative situation at hand, e.g. Will someone open the window? Why don’t you file a complaint? -ways to connect sentences, and to organize information across sentence boundaries, -structures for telling stories, engaging in conversations, etc. -scripts for interacting and for events Bilingualism -“native-like control of two languages. Such “perfect” bilinguals are hard to find. Usually, one language of a bilingual is stronger or dominant. Itbegins “at the point where the speaker of one language can produce complete, meaningful utterances in the other language”. Multicompetence -“the knowledge of more than one language in the same mind” (Cook 2002: 10). L2 user - someone who uses an L2 for real life purposes. Kinds of bilinguals: - balanced - with equal mastery of two languages - dominant - with greater proficiency in one of the languages - incipient - at the early stages of bilingualism, where one of the languages is not fully developed - early bilingual - someone who has acquired two languages early in childhood - late bilingual - someone who has acquired two languages later in life - simultaneous bilingual - somebody who has been acquiring two languages since birth - sequential bilingual - someone who started acquiring an L2 after the L1 • Communicative advantages – e.g. the ability to communicate with extended family members – research shows that bilinguals are more sensitive to the communicative needs of others than monolinguals (Genesee, Tucker & Lambert 1975) • Cultural/economic advantages – better understanding of other cultures – ability to find a better job, get education, etc. Cognitive adv. • Bilinguals have greater mental flexibility, are more creative and better at divergent thinking*. *The goal of divergent thinking is to generate many different ideas about a topic in a short period of time • Bilinguals have better metalinguistic abilities**. **Metalinguistic knowledge is what one knows about language, as contrasted with what one can do in the language. • Bilinguals perform better on tasks that require selective attention Code - switching is the use of two languages in the same conversation. L2 users code switch for a number of reasons, such as lack of a concept in one language, for humour, for fun, because of the social context, etc. Multilingualism has been traditionally considered a special case of bilingualism. Nowadays many researchers consider bilingualism to be a special case of multilingualism. The nature of interactions in multilingual competence depends on proficiency in the respective languages, age, linguistic closeness of the languages in question, etc. Heritage language : the language “which was first for an individual with respect to the order of acquisition but has not been completely acquired because of the switch to another dominant language. An individual may use the heritage language under certain conditions and understand it, but his/her primary language is a different one. A heritage language learner in an English-speaking environment is someone who is “raised in a home where a non- English language is spoken, who speaks or at least understands the language, and who is to some degree bilingual in that language and in English”. Heritage languages are often incompletely learned or have undergone attrition*. Language attrition - loss of language due to non-use. Pre-linguistic milestones: - cooing (2-3 months) - earliest vocalizations using non-language sounds - babbling (6 months) - repeated CV sequences, e.g. bababa, dadada, mamama - protoword - an idiosyncratic, phonetically consistent signal with an identifiable meaning Early syntactic development: -one-word utterances (9-12 months), -two-word utterances (12-18 months), -three-word utterances (18-24 months) - telegraphic speech, i.e. speech lacking grammatical functors – Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a measure of syntactic complexity. Behaviourism emerged in psychology towards the end of the 19th century as an attempt to make psychology a science like biology or chemistry. The behaviourists opposed the mentalism of earlier schools in psychology, intending psychology to become an empirical science. They discarded introspection as a research tool, proclaiming behaviour the real data of psychology Operant (instrumental) conditioning is forming an association between our own behaviour and a particular outcome; the organism’s response operates on the environment and is instrumental in producing whatever rewards or punishments (positive or negative reinforcement) follow it. It is a response for which the original stimulus is either unidentified or nonexistent; it may be loosely thought of as voluntary behaviour. In Skinner’s view, most human behaviour is of the operant type. Positive and negative transfer: -positive transfer (facilitation) e.g. Spanish lenguajes , English languages -negative transfer (interference) e.g. Moderns Languages, greens beans >retroactive inhibition - where learning acts back on previously learned material, e.g. causing someone to forget >proactive inhibition - where a series of responses already learned tends to appear in situations where a new set is required Structuralism was a theoretical orientation in linguistics, inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1857-1913) lectures in general linguistics. In the 19th century linguistics focused on historical description of languages. De Saussure was the first to focus on synchronic description of language. In Europe, structural linguistics was represented by the Prague school (N. Trubetzkoy, R. Jakobson). In America, the foundations for structural linguistics were laid by L. Bloomfield. -The structuralists viewed language as a system of relationships, consisting of elements arranged in some hierarchical order. -Language is speech, not writing. -A language is what its native speakers say, not what someone thinks they ought to say (i.e. linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive). Contrastive Analysis originated as an application of linguistic knowledge and behaviourist psychology to practical ends. It was conducted with the ultimate goal of improving teaching materials. It relied on structure-by-structure analysis of two languages with a view to preparing effective language teaching materials. Contrastive analysis-basic assumptions : -[L]anguage is a habit and [...] language learning involves the establishment of a new set of habits. -The major source of error in the production and/or reception of a second language is the native language. -One can account for errors by considering differences between the L1 and L2. -[T]he greater the differences, the more errors will occur. -What one has to do in learning a second language is learn the differences. Similarities can be safely ignored as no new learning is involved. [...] -Difficulty and ease in learning is determined respectively by differences and similarities between the two languages in contrast. Chomsky vs. Skinner: -The study of input-output relations neglects the organism’s causative role. By neglecting what is going on in the speaker’s mind, it is merely descriptive, not explanatory. -Language is not a habit structure. A stimulus might generate an infinite number of unpredictable responses. -Language is creative. We are able to produce and understand sentences that we have never heard before, i.e. we haven’t been conditioned to produce or understand them, we couldn’t have learned them by association -Certain behaviours are genetically determined and mature without learning. Learning the rules of grammar may be one such behaviour, since all children follow the same developmental path in L1 acquisition, irrespectively of the language being learned. Cognitive revolution: -Chomsky’s criticism of behaviorism, and his later work, started a new way of thinking sometimes referred to as cognitivism. -Apart from linguistics, the cognitive revolution transformed cognitive and developmental psychology, philosophy, parts of anthropology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence Empiricism vs. nativism: - The nature–nurture controversy : Does behaviour and development derive from heredity and genes (nativism) or are they the effect of experience and learning (empiricism)? - Nativism: >Plato: humans are born with innate ideas >Christianity: humans are born with original sin >Rene Descartes - Empiricism: >Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, David Hartley >John Locke (1691): the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) at birth Chomsky: - competence - the underlying, implicit knowledge of language; internalized system of rules; >linguistic competence is an idealized knowledge of a native speaker who has mastered the language perfectly; >it is free from any regional or foreign influences; >competence is the object of study for a linguist; >hence, the subject matter of linguistics is the contents of the human mind, not the actual linguistic behaviour, >in the case of an educated adult native speaker the competence can be studied by introspection - no field data is necessary. -performance - the actual linguistic production >the actual performance is affected by variables such as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, errors, and hesitation phenomena such as repeats, false starts, pauses, omissions and additions, >therefore, it is of no interest to a linguist. Chomskian view of acquisition: Basic premises: -language acquisition is qualitatively different from other cognitive processes, since grammar is too complex to learn for an infant’s immature cognitive system; -languages are not learned through imitation of the adult model, since adults’ linguistic performance is too imperfect to serve as a reliable model to develop linguistic competence; -reinforcement is unnecessary for successful L1 acquisition, since adults do not correct the erroneous forms -there must be a separate language faculty in the brain, different from other cognitive faculties. Lg Acquisition Device: -LAD is an innate, uniquely human language capacity. -LAD operates independently of general cognitive processes. >Even people with low IQs acquire language. -Input is necessary to trigger the operation of LAD. However, the course of language acquisition is determined solely by the properties of LAD. -LAD atrophies around puberty. Chomsky’s influence of 1L acquisition: -A child should be treated as a speaker of a language of his/her own rather than a defective speaker of adult language, who has insufficiently mastered the rules. The child’s language at any stage is a system in its own right. -The system is developing as the child is constantly forming hypotheses on the basis of the received input and then testing them. -This means that a child’s utterances Error Analysis grew out of Contrastive Analysis. -It acknowledged inadequacies of CA: >Some of the errors predicted by CA did not materialize in actual learner production. >Learners made errors that CA could not predict. This means that the source of these errors must be other than transfer from the L1. >Moreover, some of the errors L2 learners made were identical to errors made by L1 acquiring children. >CA dealt with comparing grammatical sentences in two languages. EA studied the actual errors L2 learners made. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CA/EA -CA focused on surface-level structures -language learning was seen as habit formation -proper teaching was seen as essential to learning -structures were compared in order to prevent errors and facilitate teaching// -EA focused on underlying rules -language was seen as a rule-governed behaviour -language learning mechanisms were separate from other cognitive mechanisms, so teaching was less important >actually some learners could learn despite bad teaching methods-errors were studied in order to understand the learning process better Procedure for Error Analysis : 1. Collection of a sample of learner language. – oral or written; conversation, letter, essay, etc. 2. Identification of errors. – cf. errors vs. mistakes; mistakes excluded from analysis 3. Description of errors. – language level (phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc.) – linguistic category (negative, passive; article, preposition, etc.) 4. Explanation of errors. – interlingual (“between languages”) - due to transfer from L1, – intralingual (“within language”), i.e. developmental - similar to L1 acquisition, due to incomplete acquisition of a rule or overgeneralization (e.g. I seed him. ). 5. Evaluation of errors. – e.g. To what extent the error affects intelligibility or social acceptability? Learner language as system: -ransitional competence (Corder 1967) -idiosyncratic dialect (Corder 1971) -approximative system (Nemser 1971) -interlanguage (Selinker 1972) Interlanguage - This system is composed of numerous elements, not the least of which are elements from the NL and the TL. What is important is that the learners themselves impose structure on the available linguistic data and formulate an internalized system. IL is systematic, dynamic, variable, reduced in form and function. Fossilization - generally refers to the cessation of learning. It is central to the concept of IL. CENTRAL IL PROCESSES : - Language transfer >projection of L1 features on to the L2 e.g. ride on a bicycle - overgeneralization of L2 rules >attempts to use L2 rules in ways which it does not permit e.g. drive a bicycle What did he intended to say? -transfer of training >when teaching creates rules that are not part of the L2 e.g. the use of he for both he and she Yes, they aren’t. -strategies of L2 learning >e.g. simplification -communication strategies NATURE OF IL: -A learner's interlanguage is the learner's system of rules/assumptions/hypotheses about how the target language works. -The learner's interlanguage (i.e., rules/assumptions/hypotheses) changes over time and with increased exposure to the target language. -The learner's interlanguage will contain some rules that are identical to those of a native speaker, but will differ in many or most respects. -The rules/assumptions/hypotheses in the learner's interlanguage may have multiple sources, such as the learner's native language, his/her innate language endowment, generalizations based on experience with the target language, and creative hypotheses. -The learner's interlanguage will become progressively more complex through increased experience in the target language, and it will also become gradually more native-like, but this isn't always directly observable on the basis of the types and numbers of errors that learners produce. -Few learners progress all the way to native-like proficiency in all areas of the target language, although many learners do become fully functional in all relevant domains of target-language use. Acquisition : • implicit, subconscious • informal situations • uses grammatical 'feel' • depends on attitude • stable order of acquisition Learning: • explicit, conscious • formal situations • uses grammatical rules • depends on aptitude • simple to complex order of learning The Natural Order Hypothesis: -The rules of language are acquired in a predictable order. -Average order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes for English as an L2 The input h acquisition. Affective filter - Learners vary with regard to affective factors such as: motivation, self-confidence, anxiety. Transfer-related phenomena: avoidance (underproduction), differential learning rates, different routes of acquisition, overproduction Learner psychotpology -The learner’s knowledge about the language with regard to what items are language- specific and which are language-neutral. It is affected by perceived language distance. Factors that affect language transfer: – difficulty – salience – frequency – L1-L2 similarity/difference – perceived language distance – prototypicality ypothesis- If acquisition is central and learning peripheral, language pedagogy should encourage [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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