Language Acquisition and Thought

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Language Acquisition and Thought

• Lecture 8

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Language Acquisition and Thought

• Language acquisition is a complicated process,
  because it involves a wide range of social,
  psychological, cognitive, linguistic,
  physiological factors. We shall discuss how
  language acquisition is achieved and the
  relationship between language and thought.

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Acquisition and FL Learning

• Rod (1985) and Krashen (1981) regard acquisition
  as the spontaneous internalization of rules and
  formulas. The term acquisition is often used to
  refer to first language acquisition and second
  language acquisition. First language acquisition
  is also called mother tongue acquisition.

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Acquisition and FL Learning

• Acquisition takes place in the speech community
  where one's first language or second language is
  spoken. It is often natural, without much focus
  on form. The learning of English by speakers of
  other languages in the United States is an
  example of second language acquisition.

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Acquisition and FL Learning

• Foreign language learning usually takes place in
  the speech community where one's first language
  is spoken. It is a conscious process through
  formal school-like settings and requires time for
  processing, with focus on linguistic form in
  addition to knowledge of the rules of language
  use. For example, the learning of English in
  China.

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• Some linguists use the term learning and
  acquisition interchangeably to cover both
  language acquisition and learning.
• Traditionally, language learning is a process of
  habit formation. However, the research into first
  language development by Halliday reveals that
  language learning is a social process. Halliday
  regards educational learning as an organized
  social process in which the construction of
  meaning occur systematically. To Huba Freed,
  learning is interpersonal and is performed by
  individuals who are intrinsically tied to others
  as social beings, interacting as competitors or
  collaborators, constraining or supporting the
  learning process, and able to enhance learning
  through cooperation and sharing.

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The Cognitive Code Theory

• This theory stresses the fact that the learner
  brings to the task of learning an innate mental
  capacity. S/he brings a perception of
  relationships and an unconscious formulation of
  the 'rules' resulting from the discovery of the
  structure and organization of new material and
  from the perception of its relationship to known
  material. The importance of the individual's
  mental organization of learned material seems to
  show that the nervous system stores images and
  memories which can then be evoked without a
  preceding stimulus.

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The Association or Operant Conditioning Theory

• This theory indicates that a tie can be
  established between a stimulus and a response.
  This behavioristic approach regards learning as a
  continuous association between stimulus and
  response, followed immediately by confirmation of
  the learner's correct response by a teacher, a
  tape, a record, and so on, resulting in the
  formation of the habits needed for placing sounds
  and words in appropriate arrangements.

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Social factors

• To Ellis (1994 191-529), successful second
  language acquisition involves three kinds of
  factors (1) external factors, including social
  factors, input and interaction (2) internal
  factors, including language transfer, cognitive
  accounts and linguistic universals (3)
  individual differences, including individual
  learner differences and learning strategies.

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Social factors
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Social factors

• Social factors can influence the efficiency of
  second language acquisition. Learners differ
  greatly in the type of proficiency they acquire
  and the ultimate level of proficiency they reach.
  Although these differences can be accounted for
  by language aptitude, learning style and
  personality, they are socially determined.

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Social factors

• According to Ellis (1994 197), the effect of
  social factors is mediated by a number of
  variables, for example, learner attitudes. Social
  factors may determine the learning opportunities
  which individual learners experience, for
  example, the learner's socio-economic class and
  ethnic background may affect the nature and the
  extent of the input to which they are exposed.

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First Language Acquisition

• Every normal child can become a competent speaker
  of his native language in the first five years of
  life. This may be shown by an analysis of the
  language actually produced by him.
• Although each normal child acquires his first
  language in pretty much the same way, the
  development of first language acquisition varies
  from child to child. From observable facts, we
  can see that a normal child may go through four
  stages in first language acquisition.

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First Language Acquisition

• The Babbling Stage
• In the first few months, by about 6 to 7 months,
  infants begins to babble by repeating a
  consonant-vowel sequence, like babababa. Besides
  the stimulus-controlled cries and gurgles, the
  sounds produced in this period seem to include
  the sounds of human languages. By 10 to 12
  months, infants begin to use sentence-like
  intonational contours. It is in this babbling
  stage that infants learn how to distinguish
  between the sounds of their language and the
  sounds which are not part of the language.

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First Language Acquisition

• The one-word stage is also called the
  holophrastic stage. The child tends to use single
  words to express large chunks of meaning that
  would be conveyed in a phrase or sentence by a
  mature speaker. After one year, the child has
  learned that sounds are related to meanings and
  begin to use the same string of sounds repeatedly
  to mean the same thing.
• The child becomes able to use certain single
  words as labels for regular features of the
  immediate, concrete environment, such as toys,
  members of the family and so on.

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First Language Acquisition

• At the end of the one-word stage, usually at the
  age of 2 or so, the child starts to put single
  words into sentences such as "Big house", "Baby
  cry", "Hit ball". Most of these sentences consist
  of two words, each word with its own single-pitch
  contour. Most of the words are contents words,
  like nouns, verbs and adjectives.

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First Language Acquisition

• The Telegraph to Infinity Stage refers to the
  time when child begins to produce sentences
  longer than two words. This stage is
  characterized by the omission of the small
  function works such as to, the, can, is, and so
  on. Their sentences sound as if they were
  telegraphs. For example, "No sit here", "John
  build house". They also become more complex in
  terms of the number of meaning relations they
  express and the grammatical structures they use.

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First Language Acquisition

• Functional Interpretation
• Based on an observation of a child named Nigel
  from 9 months to 2 years old, Halliday (1975)
  interprets the process of first language
  acquisition from a functional standpoint.
  According to Halliday (197819), if there is
  anything which the child can be said to be
  acquiring, it is a range of meaning potential.
  This includes the mastery of a small number of
  elementary functions of language, and a range of
  choices in meaning within each function. The
  choices are very few at first, but they expand
  rapidly as the functional potential of the system
  is reinforced by success

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Second Language Acquisition

• Learning a second language is rather different
  from learning the first language. The process of
  second language acquisition, like that of first
  language acquisition, is very complicated. There
  is not yet any single theory or framework that
  can adequately explain the phenomenon. However,
  researchers have been trying to study it from
  different perspectives. The study of second
  language acquisition has been seen as
  contributing to more effective language teaching,
  and as a way of testing hypotheses about the
  nature of language.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The research methodology of second language
  acquisition has historically utilized the
  linguistic analysis of learners' interlanguage,
  and the results of case studies and ethnographic
  research. Second language acquisition has its own
  features.
• Although second language can be acquired in a
  natural or tutored situation, according to Ellis
  (1985 4), different learners in different
  situations learn a second language in different
  ways. Thus, different theories of second language
  acquisition have appeared to find out its major
  features.

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Second Language Acquisition

• One of the features of second language
  acquisition is that first language can exert
  influence. The process is called language
  transfer. When the first language (L1) and second
  language (L2) are similar, the L1 can facilitate
  the process of L2 learning. However, when the L1
  is different the L2, the learner's knowledge can
  interfere with the learning of the L2. Based on
  this assumption, a procedure called Contrastive
  Analysis was developed in the 1960s to predict
  the problems the L2 learner would encounter.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The second feature is that all L2 learners, no
  matter what their L1 is, follow a natural, fixed
  order in learning the grammar of the L2.
  According to the L2 L1 hypothesis, second
  language acquisition is very similar to first
  language acquisition. In their language learning,
  all learners use a common set of mechanisms of
  the human language faculty. Second language
  acquisition is a universal process which reflects
  the properties of the human mind.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The third feature is that learner errors are not
  regular. They may make an error in some contexts
  but not in others. They do not simply memorize L2
  rules and then reproduce them in their own
  utterances. According to Ellis (198510), this is
  due to two types of contextual variation. The
  first is the situational context. When the
  learner is required to communicate instantly, he
  will not have time to maximize his knowledge of
  the L2 and is likely to produce errors that would
  not occur in situations when they have time to
  plan their utterances carefully. The second is
  the linguistic context. This means that the
  learner errors may occur in certain types of
  structures but not in others.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The fourth feature is that learner factors may
  influence the mastery of L2. Ellis (198510-12)
  shows that there are five general factors that
  contribute to individual learner differences
  age, aptitude, cognitive style, motivation, and
  personality.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The fifth feature of second language acquisition
  is that learner strategies are used learning
  strategies, production strategies and
  communication strategies. With these strategies,
  the learner may process his L2 input to develop
  his linguistic knowledge, use the L2 knowledge
  efficiently, and compensate for non-existent
  knowledge by improvising with existing L2
  knowledge in incorrect and inappropriate ways.

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Second Language Acquisition

• The sixth feature is the important role of formal
  instruction. Formal instruction usually takes
  place in the classroom and the L2 is taught
  systematically with syllabus and textbooks.
  Although L2 learning can take place in a natural
  setting, the importance of formal instruction in
  the acquisition of L2 linguistic competence can
  not be ignored, because formal instruction can
  facilitate the whole process of second language
  acquisition.

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Second Language Acquisition

• Internal factors include language transfer, the
  learner's cognitive capacity, and linguistic
  universals. All L2 learners experience the
  process of acquiring a second language with their
  mother tongue knowledge. However, the learner's
  existing linguistic knowledge influences the
  course of second language development. Language
  transfer is the phenomenon that the learners
  apply their first language knowledge
  subconsciously in learning a second language

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Second Language Acquisition

• The second internal factor is the learner's
  cognitive capacity. From the cognitive
  perspective, language acquisition depends on an
  innate, human-specific module that is distinct
  from general intelligence.
• The third internal factor is linguistic
  universals. Linguistic universals refer to those
  common features among different languages, and
  the abstract principles that include Universal
  Grammar and that constrain the form of the
  grammar of any specific language.

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Language and Thought

• Traditionally, language is thought to be the
  dress of thought. A speaker reveals his intention
  in his own language. Language and thought are
  mutually dependable to each other.
• Some people equal language to thought. However,
  to Jackendoff (1994 180), thought is a mental
  function completely separate from language, and
  it can go on in the absence of language.
• language helps us think.

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• End of Lecture
• Thank you!!