reading sla

Unit B2

Vivian Cook

• Knowledge of one language is different from knowledge of more than one language

• Knowledge of one language = language competence

• Knowledge of more than one = interlanguage

• Multicompetence = L1 competence plus L2 interlanguage

• L1 and L2 can never be treated as a single system

• Multicompetence is different state of mind from monolingual linguistic competence, knowledge of second language is not an imitation of knowledge of L1

• L1 affects and is affected by L2 – for example by voice onset time, grammar, same words in different languages with different meanings, L2 speakers have a different metalinguistic awareness and different cognitive processes (multilinguals function better than monolinguals)

• L2 is never fully switched off when speaking L1 (example is code switching)

Pallier et al

• Crystallization hypothesis predicts that the later a second language is learned, the more cortical representations of the second and the first languages will differ (not fully supported)

• This article shows how even L1 can be forgotten after several years of not using it or not being surrounded by it (example were Korean immigrants bought to French and raised by French, which were not in contact with any other Korean person or the language itself, they did several tests to test their brain and response to the Korean language and it confirmed they completely forgot it)

A3

• Empiricism (Leonard Bloomfield) – one of his concerns was general description of a language should be scientific, and the analysis should be based only on real data to be scientific

• Behaviourism (B.F.Skinner) – learning is seen as the product of teaching – conditioning and habit formation (the dog experiment – salivating when hearing the bell)

• Mentalist (Chomsky) values subjective data as for example gained by introspection

• Language could not be explained by just looking at observable facts – it is inadequate and incomplete as evidence

• Two sentences – “john is easy to please/john is eager to please” – both look the same in terms of grammar, but meaning is different – it is easy for someone to please John/John is the one who does the pleasing -> language could not be analysed by looking purely by observable data but needed to take into account the data that could not be observed

• Universal grammar – all languages have something in common (they have verbs) and it must exist in our mind in order to learn the language, because the input children have is imperfect

• Children are biologically programmed to learn a language (language acquisition device – contain what the languages have in common)

• Chomsky’ paradigm is no longer widely used, but for a long time, it was hard to challenge its premises

• Larsen-Freeman – first pointed out the usefulness of DST to SLA, does not fully agree with the idea of LAD and UG, but agrees there are some general tendencies that all languages may exhibit

• Connectionism – movement in cognitive science that seeks to explain human intellectual abilities using computer simulation of neural networks

• No special language learning modul is needed – children learn a language from the input they receive because of their ability to generalise what they are exposed to

• Positive/ negative transfer between L1 and L2 (errors can be transferred as well as thing that are similar in the two languages which helps with acquiring L2

• Krashen – language is not learnt by learning about it (grammar), but by using it

• The acquisition versus learning hypothesis: Krashen and Terrell – acquisition as a subconscious process and learning as conscious process

• The monitor hypothesis: Krashen and Terrell – consciously learned language is not very helpful when speaking naturally

• The natural order hypothesis: some grammatical structures are learned later and some earlier

• The input hypothesis: acquiring language happens as you receive input one step better than you are

• Affective filter hypothesis: a number of ‘affective variables’ such as motivation, self-confidence and low anxiety can play a facilitative role in successful second language acquisition

• Least compatible with DST would be Krashen’s strong version of the natural order hypothesis because there are too many different factors – the actual input, the learner’s L1, age, intelligence, setting of learning, motivation and so on