2011-2012 Spring Semester IDO 284 Session 6

7/31/2019 2011-2012 Spring Semester IDO 284 Session 6

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SESSION 6

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Gass & Selinker (2008) Chp. 6

Formal Approaches to SLAIn this and the following three chapters, we

focus on three areas in which the SLArelationship with other academic disciplineshas been most heavily felt: linguistics(chapters 6, 7), psychology (chapter 8), andsociolinguistics broadly construed to includesociocultural orientations (chapter 9).

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Formal Approaches to SLAWith regard to the influence each of these fields has

on SLA, the difference can be found in the generalemphasis: linguistics focuses on the products ofacquisition (i.e., a description of the linguisticsystems of L2 learners), psychology focuses onthe process by which those systems arecreated (e.g., a description of the process of theway in which learners create learner systems), andsociolinguistics focuses on social factors that

influence the acquisition of the linguisticsystem and the use of that system.However, one feature all areas share when

considering SLA is a concern with the learningproblem: how is it that learners acquire, when

they do, the complexities of a second language?05/27/12 3


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Formal Approaches to SLAThis chapter deals with nativist approaches

to language, which claim that at least someaspects of language learning involveinnateness.

Special nativism includes theories oflanguage (learning) that posit special

principles for language learning, principlesthat are unique to language (learning) andthat are not used in other cognitiveendeavors.

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Formal Approaches to SLAUniversal Grammar

The UG approach to second language

acquisition begins from the perspective oflearnability. The assumption of innateuniversal language properties is motivated bythe need to explain the uniformly

successful and speedy acquisition oflanguage by children in spite ofinsufficient input.

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Formal Approaches to SLAAs Chomsky (1995, p. 167) noted: The theory

of a particular language is its grammar.Thetheory of languages and the expressions theygenerate is Universal Grammar (UG); UG is atheory of the initial state So of the relevant

component of the language faculty.

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Formal Approaches to SLAThe theory underlying UG assumes that

language consists of a set ofabstractprinciples that characterize core grammarsof all natural languages.

In addition to principles that are invariable (i.e.,all languages have them) are parameters

that vary across languages.See Cooks analogy between driving a car and

principles and parameters on page 161.

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Formal Approaches to SLAHow does UG relate to language acquisition? If

children have to learn a complex set ofabstractions, there must be something otherthan the language input to which they areexposed that enables them to learn languagewith relative ease and speed.

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Formal Approaches to SLAUG is postulated as an innate language facility

that limits the extent to which languages canvary. That is, it specifies the limits of apossible language. The task for learning isgreatly reduced if one is equipped with aninnate mechanism that constrains possiblegrammar formation.

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Formal Approaches to SLAChild language acquisition

The claim is that, on the basis of language input

alone, children cannot attain the complexitiesof adult grammars. Innate linguistic propertiesfill in where the input fails.

Theoretically, there are two kinds of evidence

available to learners as they make hypothesesabout correct and incorrect language forms:

Positive evidence and negative evidence.

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Formal Approaches to SLAPositive evidence comes from the speech

learners hear/read and thus is composed of alimited set of well-formed utterances of the

language being learned.When a particular sentence type is not heard,

one does not know whether it is not heardbecause of its impossibility in the language or

because of mere coincidence.It is in this sense that the sentences of a

language that provide the input to the learnerare known as positive evidence. It is on thebasis of positive evidence that linguistichypotheses can be made.05/27/12 11


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Formal Approaches to SLANegative evidence, on the other hand, is

composed of information to a learner that hisor her utterance is deviant with regard to thenorms of the language being learned.Negative evidence can take many forms,including direct correction, such as Thats notrightor indirect questions, such as What did

you say?

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Formal Approaches to SLAThe child language literature suggests that

negative evidence is not frequent (see Brownand Hanlon, 1970, and the theoretical

arguments by Baker, 1979), is often ignored,and can therefore not be a necessarycondition for acquisition.

Because positive evidence alone cannot

delineate the range of possible and impossiblesentences, and because negative evidence isnot frequently forthcoming, there must beinnate principles that constrain a priorithepossibilities of grammar formation.

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Formal Approaches to SLAUniversal Grammar is the system of

principles, conditions, and rules that areelements or properties of all humanlanguages (Chomsky, 1975, p. 29). It istaken to be a characterization of the childsprelinguistic state

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Formal Approaches to SLAHow does this relate to second language

acquisition? The question is generallyposed as an access-to-UG problem.

Does the innate language faculty that childrenuse in constructing their native languagegrammars remain operative in secondlanguage acquisition?

More recently, this question is formulated as anissue ofinitial state. What do secondlanguage learners start with?

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Formal Approaches to SLAInitial state

What is the nature of the linguistic knowledge

with which learners begin the secondlanguage acquisition process?

What is the unconscious linguistic knowledgethat learners have before receiving L2 input,

or, to take a variant of the question, what areearly L2 grammars like?

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Formal Approaches to SLAThe two variables influencing this debate are

transfer (i.e., the availability of the firstlanguage grammar) and access to UG (i.e.,the extent to which UG is available).

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Formal Approaches to SLAFundamental Difference Hypothesis

Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-

Vroman, 1989; Schachter, 1988), whichargues that what happens in child languageacquisition is not the same as what happensin adult second language acquisition.

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Formal Approaches to SLAThe Fundamental Difference Hypothesis starts from

the belief that, with regard to language learning,children and adults are different in many important

ways.

1. The ultimate attainment reached bychildren and adults differs. In normalsituations, children always reach a state of

complete knowledge of their nativelanguage. In second language acquisition (atleast, adult second language acquisition), notonly is complete knowledge not always

attained, it is rarely, if ever, attained.05/27/12 19


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Formal Approaches to SLA2. The nature of the knowledge that these

two groups of learners have at theoutset of language learning seems to bedifferent. Second language learners have attheir command knowledge of a full linguisticsystem. They do not have to learn whatlanguage is all about at the same time that

they are learning a specific language.

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Formal Approaches to SLA3. Related to the idea that adults have

complete knowledge of a language system isthe notion ofequipotentiality, expressed bySchachter (1988).

She pointed out that children are capable oflearning any language. Givenexposure to thedata of a language (i.e., the input), a child willlearn that language. No language is easier tolearn than another; all languages are equallylearnable by all children. This is not the casewith second language learners. Spanishspeakers have less difficulty learning Italian05/27/12 21


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Formal Approaches to SLAIf language relatedness (perceived or actual)

were not a determining factor in ultimatesuccess, we would expect all learners to beequally able to learn any second language.

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Formal Approaches to SLA4. Motivation and attitude toward the

target language and target languagecommunity is another difference.

It is clear that, as in any learning situation, notall humans are equally motivated to learnlanguages, nor are they equally motivated tolearn a specific language. Differentialmotivation does not appear to impact a childssuccess or lack of success in learninglanguage. All human beings without cognitiveimpairment learn a first language.

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Formal Approaches to SLAIn sum, the basic claim of the Fundamental

Difference Hypothesis is that adultsecond language learners do not haveaccess to UG. Rather, what they know oflanguage universals is constructed throughtheir NL.

In addition to the native language, whichmediates access to UG, second languagelearners make use of their generalproblem-solving abilities.

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Formal Approaches to SLASecond language learners come to the

language-learning situation knowing that alanguage contains an infinite number of

sentences; that they are capable ofunderstanding sentences they have neverheard before; and that a language has rules ofsyntax, rules of combining morphemes, limits

on possible sounds, and so forth.

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Formal Approaches to SLAWith specific regard to syntax, learners know

that languages can form questions and thatthe syntax of questions is syntactically related

to the syntax of statements. They know thatlanguages have a way of modifying nouns,either through adjectives or relative clauses.

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Formal Approaches to SLAAccess to UG Hypothesis

The opposing view to the FundamentalDifference Hypothesis is the Access to UGHypothesis. The common perspective is thatUG is constant (that is, unchanged as a resultof L1 acquisition); UG is distinct from thelearners L1 grammar; UG constrains the L2learners interlanguage grammars. There arefive positions regarding the availability of UG:

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Formal Approaches to SLA(1) Full Transfer/Full Access,

(2) Minimal Trees

(3) Valueless Features(4) Initial Hypothesis of Syntax

(5) Full Access (without transfer).

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Formal Approaches to SLAIn addition to principles, part of the innate

language component consists oflexical andfunctional categories.

Lexical categories are the categories that welearn about in school: nouns, adjectives,verbs, adverbs, and so forth. These can bethought of as content words.

Functional categories, on the other hand, arewords that serve particular functions (e.g.,articles, possessives) or they may be

categories consisting of grammaticalmor hemes e. . lurals tense markers .05/27/12 29


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Formal Approaches to SLAFunctional categories can be thought of as

grammatical elements that in a sense formthe glue of a sentence. Examples of functional

categories are determiners (e.g., a, the, our,my, this), complementizers(e.g., if, whether,that), and grammatical markers (past tenseendings, case markings, plural endings, and

gender marking). These differ from lexicalcategories in a number of ways. In general,functional categories represent a fixed set ofwords in a language, whereas lexical

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Gass & Selinker (2008) Chp. 7Typological and Functional

ApproachesTypological approaches stem from the study of

the patterns exhibited in languagesworldwide, and functional approaches have as

their main interest the study of how languagefunctions.

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ApproachesTypological universals

In this approach to the study of universals,linguists attempt to discoversimilarities/differences in languagesthroughout the world. That is, the attempt isto determine linguistic typologies or whattypes of languages are possible. One of themost important discoveries of this approach isthat one can generalize across unrelated andgeographically nonadjacent languagesregarding the occurrence and co-occurrenceof structures.05/27/12 32


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ApproachesFunctional approaches

Second language acquisition from theperspective of how language functions; thatis, how language is used for communicationpurposes.

The major concern in this section is how

different forms are used to express differentfunctions, in other words, how form andfunction relate to one another.

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ApproachesWhereas in the preceding chapters we

considered isolated parts of language (e.g.,syntax, morphology), functional approaches,

because they consider meaning as central,simultaneously take into account manyaspects of language, including pragmatics,semantics, syntax, morphology, and the

lexicon. In other words, multiple levels oflanguage are considered simultaneously.

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ApproachesTense and aspect: the Aspect Hypothesis

A major question asked by researchers studyingtense and aspect is: How do learnersrecognize what morphological markers (e.g.,past tense, progressive) go with what verbs?

The Aspect Hypothesis claims that first and

second language learners will initially beinfluenced by the inherent semantic aspect ofverbs or predicates in the acquisition of tenseand aspect markers associated with or affixed

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ApproachesAndersen (1986, 1991) presented a study of

two native speakers of English, one child andone adolescent, learning L2 Spanish. He

noticed an interesting distinction in theirdevelopment of tenseaspect marking: thepast tense (preterit) markers emerged withpunctual and achievement verbs, whereas the

imperfect markers emerged with verbs thatindicate states.

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ApproachesPunctual verbs are momentary in duration.They may be thought of as being reduced to apoint.

States persist over time without change (e.g.,seem, know, need, want, and be, as in be tall,big, green).

Activities have inherent duration in that theyinvolve a span of time, like sleep and snow.They have no specific endpoint as in I studiedall weekand, thus, are atelic (e.g., rain, play,

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ApproachesAchievements capture the beginning or the

end of an action as in the race began or thegame ended and can be thought of as

reduced to a point (Andersen, 1991).Examples of achievement verbs includearrive, leave, notice, recognize, and fallasleep.

Accomplishments(e.g., build a house or painta painting) are durative like activities andhave an endpoint like achievements.

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Approaches1 Past/perfective morphology emerges with

punctual verbs and verbs indicatingachievements and accomplishments. The

morphology then gradually extends to verbsexpressing activities and states.

2 Imperfective morphology emerges withdurative and/or stative verbs (i.e., activitiesand states), then gradually spreads toachievement/accomplishment and punctualverbs.

3 P i h l i t l

2011-2012 Spring Semester IDO 284 Session 6

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