The X-argument to move forward the interactional approach to L2 acquisition

WANG ChumingCenter for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Guangdong University of Foreign Studieswangcm@gdufs.edu.cn

Contents

• The X-argument• The creative imitation hypothesis • The cognitive basis of the X-argument• Evidence for the X-argument• Implications• Conclusions

A classical question revisited

• Why is it that children learn to speak their first language speedily whereas adult L2 learning is laborious?

• The UG-based approach has an answer.• Any answer from the usage-based approach?

The X-argument

• The X-argument : Both language learning and learning efficiency are driven by ‘Xu’, a Chinese word with a composite meaning ‘completion, extension and creation (CEC)’.

The X-argument

• Typical Xu/CEC occurs in dialogue, where interlocutors complete and extend each other’s speech creatively (CEC), as in questions and answers.

• Children interacting with adults and L2 learners with NSs in situated dialogue lead to high efficiency of language learning due to the simple procedure of Xu or CEC, i.e. turn-taking in response to each other’s speech.

The X-argument

• In principle, the X-argument accords with the usage-based approach to language learning.

• In the process of Xu/CEC, language knowledge is contingent, emergent and derivable from experience.

• Promoting your own theory when your study can be tied to already-existing usage-based theories?

The X-argument

The X-argument rests on two observations:1. Dialogue is full of incomplete stretches of

discourse.2. An asymmetry obtains between language

comprehension and production in that one’s comprehension abilities exceed production abilities.

Two consequences for language learning

1) Incompleteness of discourse motivates Xu or CEC. • If no Xu or extension occurs, dialogue would come to a

stop.• Language is learned through Xu because dialogue is the

most natural way in which children acquire their L1.2) Asymmetry between comprehension and production necessitates ‘creative imitation’.• The learner tends to resolve the asymmetry by imitating

or drawing on language uses from what s/he comprehends.

The creative imitation hypothesis

• In the process of Xu or CEC, as in a dialogue with an adult, the child tends to imitate adult’s way of language use in expressing ideas of his/her own making, particularly when s/he feels lack of the necessary linguistic means. The language constructions so imitated are most efficiently retained for subsequent communicative use. The same process occurs in L2 learning.

• What is created is the ideas initiated by the learner (cf. the role of agency).

• What is imitated is the language used to express the learner’s ideas.

• Imitation of language co-occurs with creation of ideas.

The creative imitation hypothesis

Imitation during Xu or extension has the following characteristics:• It is driven by communicative needs.• It occurs in rich context of communicative use of language,

which reinforces form-context mapping, facilitating subsequent appropriate use of the form being imitated. (cf. the Learn-together- use-together (LTUT) principle, i.e. what co-occurs with a linguistic form being learned will affect its retention, retrieval and use. See Wang, 2009)

• It is dynamically adapted to the change in meaning making. • It is concomitant with the ideas being communicated.• It is anything but parroting.

The cognitive basis of the X-argument• The X-argument views language learning as a creative imitation

process, which is driven by the comprehension-production asymmetry.

• What the learner comprehends is from the other interlocutor and what s/he produces is something of his/her own creation.

• In a way, language is learned through interaction between comprehension and production due to the asymmetry between the two.

• Xu/CEC is a driving force of this interaction.• The hallmark of interaction is alignment whose magnitude hinges

on interactive intensity (cf. Pickering & Garrod, 2004).• Interactive alignment is conducive to ironing out the asymmetry

between comprehension and production, producing a levelling-offeffect (Wang & Wang, 2015).

• When learners’ production aligns with comprehension of more advanced speaker’s speech, language learning occurs .

The cognitive basis of the X-argument• Asymmetry between comprehension and production bears

on efficiency of language learning.• Comprehension and production, mediated by Xu/CEC, occur

in close proximity. Thus, what has been learned in the preceding discourse can be put to immediate use and scaffold the follow-up production.

• Xu/CEC, which intimately couples creation with imitation, input with output, and comprehension with production, intensifies interaction between each pair, hence a strong alignment or learning effect.

• The X-argument can account for children’s speedy acquisition of language.

The cognitive basis of the X-argument

Xu/CEC

Interaction

Alignment

Learning

Applications: L2 continuation tasks

• To achieve high efficiency in language learning, tasks can be designed to encourage learners to XU or creatively extend what they comprehend from quality input.

• But how?

Applications: L2 continuation tasks

Comprehension Xu production

speak Listen

Input write outputRead

translate

Evidence

C. Wang & M. Wang’s (2015) study:

• Research question: Does alignment exist in an L2 written continuation task?

• Participants: Chinese-speaking EFL learners• Procedure: Continuing in English a story with its ending

removed. Half of participants completed the task after reading the L2 English version of the story and the other half the L1 Chinese version, followed by writing in English.

• Results: 1) Alignment existed in the written continuation task. 2) Participants produced significantly fewer English errors when they performed the English-version task than the Chinese-version task due to alignment between production and comprehension.

• What has been learned affects what can be processed (Corder,1978; Gass,1988).

EvidenceZhang’s (2016) study:• Research questions: 1) Is there any difference between the effects

of a continuation task and comprehensive corrective feedback on EFL learners’ writing development? 2) Does the input language in the continuation task make a difference in L2 writing development?

• Participants: Chinese-speaking EFL learners• Procedure: A quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess

participants’ L2 writing development based on a pretest-posttest-delayed-posttest design implemented in four intact EFL freshman classes.

• Results: 1) The group doing the continuation outperformed the control group with respect to language use; 2) the input language of the continuation task had a significant effect on language accuracy in the resulting essays.

Evidence

Hong & Shi’s (2016) study:

• Research questions: 1) Does the continuation task help CSL learners acquire the Chinese numeral classifiers? 2) Does

performance of the continuation task result in temporary or

long-term retention of the classifiers being learned?

• Participants: L2 learners of Chinese• Procedure: After reading a picture-cued text describing the

objects in a room, participants were required to perform a

continuation task describing the objects in their own rooms.

• Results: 1) The continuation task significantly improved L2 learning of Chinese classifiers, and 2) there was a long-term

retention of this learning.

Evidence

Q. Wang & F. Wang’s (2016) study:

• Research questions: Did L2 Chinese learners align with the input text in the continuation task of L2 Chinese writing.

• Participants: Korean-speaking learners of Chinese putonghua• Procedure: continuing in Chinese two incomplete stories

after reading their Chinese versions.

• Results: 1) Alignment occurred as shown in using more lexical, phrasal and grammatical structures from the original

stories; 2) Participants committed significantly fewer errors

in most target structures.

EvidenceJiang & Tu’s (2016) study:• Research questions: Does the continuation task

improve the efficiency of L2 vocabulary learning? • Participants: Chinese-speaking EFL learners• Procedure: A comparison was made between the

continuation task and a summary task. A filling-in test and a vocabulary knowledge scale were distributed immediately after the task and one week later to measure participants' gains of the target words in form, meaning and use.

• Results: Both tasks facilitated L2 vocabulary learning, with the continuation task outscoring the summary task, especially in terms of meaning and use.

Evidence

Xu’s (2016) study:

• Research questions: Does alignment occur in a translation continuation task? How?

• Participants: Uighur students in Xinjiang.• Procedure: Participants were required to continue

translating two Uighur stories into Chinese after reading

the first part of the stories in both Uighur and Chinese.

• Results: After reading the Uighur-Chinese parallel texts, 1) participants used more language structures from the

Chinese translations they had just read, indicating that

alignment occurred in the translation continuation task; 2)

the quality of the students' translations improved

significantly.

Evidence

Peng, Wang & Lu’s (2018) study• Research questions: Does the linguistic complexity of the

input text affect EFL learners’ alignment, writing fluency, and writing accuracy in the continuation task?

• Participants: Two comparable groups of Chinese undergraduate EFL learners

• Procedure: Participants read and continued a simplified and unsimplified version of the same incomplete story whose linguistic complexity matched and exceeded their production ability, respectively.

• Results: Compared to the unsimplified version, the simplified version resulted in more automatic alignment and greater improvement in writing fluency and accuracy.

Implications

• Long (1991): focus on form (FonF) vs. focus on forms (FonFs) (For a review of relevant research, see R. Ellis, 2016)

• A useful distinction?• Recast: typical of FonF, a reformulation of an incorrect

utterance that maintains the original meaning of the utterance, e.g.

NNS: Why he want this house?NS: Why does he want this house?

A comparison: FonF vs. Xu/CEC

FonF• Occurring during

interpersonal interaction• In the formal classroom• Teacher-initiated• Learning via error-correction• Access to correct forms

without full understanding• Lack of learner agency

Xu/CEC• Occurring during

interpersonal interaction • In naturalistic context• Learner-initiated• Leaning via positive input• Access to forms occurring

in preceding context• Learner agency activated

Implications

• Halliday (1973): Learning language is learning how to mean, not a system of rules which govern language structure, but rather ‘meaning potential’: ‘what the speaker/hearer can (what he can mean, if you like), not what he knows’(p.346).

• How to realize ‘meaning potential’?• A X-argument perspective of MP: the ability to use language

concurrently with thinking. (Language subserves thinking.) • Xu/CEC, which is meaning-driven and intimately connects

language production with comprehension helps learners realize ‘meaning potential’.

Conclusions

• The X-argument: Through Xu/CEC, language is successfully learned and high efficiency of learning achieved .

• The X-argument views language learning as a process of ‘creative imitation’, which is driven by the comprehension-production asymmetry.

• The X-argument throws light on the time-honored issue: How language is learned and why children acquires language speedily.

Conclusions• The greatest truth is the simplest.• Language learning is facilitated through a very simple

procedure Xu/CEC, couched in one Chinese word . • The language learning mechanism has to be simple to make

it possible for babies to acquire language.• Though simple in operation, Xu does much to activate

almost all major factors facilitating language learning, L1 and L2 alike.

ConclusionsFacilitative factors co-occurring with the process of Xu/CEC:• Activation of learner agency• Arousing of communicative intent• Willingness to communicate• Scaffolding of preceding speech or text for ensuing language use• Reducing of Language use pressure (due to scaffolding)• Inhibition of L1 for L2 learning• Modelling for coherent language use• Noticing of the gap• Language use in discourse context• Conforming to the ‘learn together, use together (LTUT)’ principle.• Selective attention to language forms• Learner self-initiation of ideas• Integration and alignment of language production with comprehension

or intimate connection of input with output• Realization of meaning potential

Conclusions

• The X-argument opens up a new avenue for SLA research.• Potential for pedagogical applications is high due to

availability of the highly operable continuation tasks.

• Vygotsky’s ZPD becomes more operable.• Teaching by showing, learning by doing. • Learning by Xu/CEC = showing + doing

= high efficiency of language learning

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