Languaculture: Re(de)fining Advanced Proficiency Jim Lantolf Penn State University

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Languaculture Re(de)fining Advanced
ProficiencyJim LantolfPenn State University
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Distinguished Language Proficiency

• ACTFL
• Shows strong sensitivity to social and cultural
  references and aesthetic norms by processing
  language from within the cultural framework.
• ILR
• Use the language fluently and accurately on all
  levels normally pertinent to professional needs.
  Organizes discourse well, using appropriate
  rhetorical speech devices, native cultural
  references, and understanding.

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Outline of Presentation

• Inside- and outside- the circle linguistics
• Form Meaning
• Communication Cognition
• Culture, Meaning Mind
• Mediation
• Developing L2 Conceptual Base ?
• Concepts -- verbal imagistic
• Motion manner path
• Metaphorized motion fictive motion

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The EncirclementLanguage Segregated from Culture

• Saussure Builds the Wall
• Language inventory of systematically organized
  symbols
• Bloomfield Builds a Higher Wall
• ripped language out of the ethnographic
  research program of Boas
• linguistics the study of the sound system and
  grammar.
• study of meaning assigned to psychology
• (Agar 1994, see also Crowley 1996)

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Consequences for Language Teaching

• Encased-linguistics framed the way applied
  linguistics construes language.
• Pedagogy
• Language Assessment

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Triumph of Structure(Fauconnier Turner 2002)

• We live in an age of the triumph of form. In
  mathematics, physics, music, the arts, and the
  social sciences, human knowledge and its progress
  seem to have been reduced in startling and
  powerful ways to a matter of essential formal
  structures and their transformations scientific
  knowledge is only a matter of finding deep hidden
  forms behind ostensible forms.

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Breaching the WallMeaning Rediscovered

• Common sense tells us that form is not substance.
  The blueprint is not the house, the recipe is not
  the dish, the computer simulation of weather does
  not rain on us.
• (Fauconnier Turner 2002)

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Meaning, Mind Culture

• Anthropology argues that culture is meaning
• Antipsychological stance
• Pushed psychology out of anthropology
• Geertz, sustaining Saussures dualism, insisted
  meaning resides exclusively in signs and
  relations between them
• Cognitive Anthropology -- meaning resides in
  individuals collectives (Strauss Quinn 1997)
• Cultural Psychology organic dialectical
  relationship between psychological and cultural
  processes meaning organizes and imbues humans
  with mental intentionality (Vygotsky 1987)

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Communication Cognition

• Communicative Conception
• Language thought are independent
• Language serves to transmit thought
• Cognitive Conception
• Humans think IN natural language natural
  language sentences are vehicles of thought
• (Carruthers Boucher 1998)
• Supra-Communicative Conception (Clark 1998)
• Public language (social communication) is
  available as a tool for mediating thinking
  (Vygotsky and A.A. Leontiev)

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Dennett on Language Thinking

• We refine our resources by incessant rehearsal
  and tinkering, turning our brains (and all the
  associated peripheral gear we acquire) into a
  huge structured network of competencies. In our
  own case, the principle components of this
  technology for brain manipulation are words
• (Dennett 1998)

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Vygotsky on Regulation

• I only want to say that without man sic
  (operator) as a whole the activity of his
  apparatus (brain) cannot be explained, that man
  controls his brain and not the brain the man
• Internalization transformative/flexible not a
  fax (Strauss Quinn 1997)

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Mediation

• Artifacts/Concepts/Activities

Individual
World
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Applied Linguistics View

• There is now fairly widespread conviction that
  linguistics should concern itself not with
  idealized constructs but with the reality of
  language as people actually experience it as
  communication, as the expression of identity, as
  the means for the exercise of social control.
  (Widdowson 2000 4)

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Learning a Second Language

• Learning inside-the-wall
• Make a few minimum frame changes, and youre
  ready to communicate (Agar 1994).
• Inside the wall most aspects of language are
  perceptual, indexical, iconic, or denotative
• FL learners rely on word definitions because the
  experience in which concepts emerge are not open
  to this group (Kecskes Papp 2000).
• Fork Gabel, tenedor, forchetta, etc.
• L2 laid down on L1 inner speech (Ushakova 1994)

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Tutored LearnersInside the Circle

• FL learners rely on word definitions because the
  experience in which concepts emerge are not open
  to this group. There is not enough input and
  context for FL learners to form an experimental
  multimodal representation that goes beyond word
  definition (Kecskes Papp 2000)

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Learning Outside the Wall

• Re-establish connection between language and
  culture languaculture (Agar 1994)
• The Challenge
• Development of new L2 conceptual base (Lantolf
  1999)
• Learner centeredness concern with learning
  richness of the L2 systems symbolic resources
  rather than with creatively expressing personal
  meanings or applying learning strategies and
  styles, a frequent interpretation in FLED (Byrnes
  2002)

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Conceptual Proficiency

• Conceptual Proficiency know how the target
  language reflects or encodes its concepts on the
  basis of metaphorical structuring and other
  cognitive mechanisms. Conceptual knowledge also
  serves as a basis for grammatical and
  communicative knowledge. (Kecskes Papp 2000)

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Concept Formation

• Two types of conceptual systems
• Spontaneous emerges from everyday human
  experience
• Rooted in non-reflective experience of cultural,
  social, mental, and physical worlds. (Kecskes
  Papp 2000)
• Internalized as habitus
• Scientific consciously appropriated in school
• Interacts with spontaneous

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Problem of L2 Conceptual Development

• Are new conceptual systems learnable ?
• Does this entail experiential replication ?
• If so, which experiences are open to adult L2
  learners ?
• Are new conceptual systems teachable ?
• (Valeva 1996)

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Lexical Concepts

• Cognitive Linguistics The entity designated by a
  symbolic unit can therefore be thought of as a
  point of access to a network. The semantic value
  of a symbolic unit is given by the open-ended set
  of relations simple and complex, direct and
  indirect in which this access node participates
  (Langacker 1987 163)

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More on Misconceived Conceptual Knowledge

• TIME
• Past (Chinese) Future (Chinese)
• Future (English) Past (English)
• (Lai 2004)

FACE
P
Back
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More on Misconceived Conceptual Knowledge

• Shang up to denote earlier time
• Shang ban nian the first half of the year
• Xia down to denote later time
• Xia ban nian the second half of the year
• (Lai 2004)

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More on Misconceived Conceptual Knowledge

• Combining front and back with up and down
• Front distant past
• UP Front closer past
• Back distant future
• Down Back closer future
• (Lai 2004)

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More on Misconceived Conceptual Knowledge

• English uses UP for future but it isnt the same
  UP as Chinese Shang and this is revealed in the
  gesture that accompanies the utterance
• Move the meeting up
• Gesture is horizontal and not vertical
• The opposite direction is not DOWN but BACK.

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Motion Events

• Six criteria
• Figure object moving/located with respect to
  another object (ground)
• Ground reference object in relation to which the
  figure moves
• Path trajectory of figure
• Motion changes of locatedness
• Manner how motion is performed
• Cause efficient origin of change in motion or
  location (Talmy 2000)

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Talmys Motion Event Typology

• Verb-Framed Languages conflate path of motion
  with verb and express manner lexically, through
  gesture or not at all.
• Romance Languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese,
  Rumanian, Italian, Catalan, etc.) Japanese,
  Korean, Turkish
• Satellite-Framed Languages conflate manner of
  motion with verb and express path through a
  satellite mentioning the ground against which
  figure moves.
• English, German, Dutch, Russian, Chinese

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Motion Event Examples

• S-Language
• The cat crawled/scrittered up inside the
  drainpipe
• Figure Manner Satellite
  Ground
• V-Language (Type 1)
• El gato subio el canalon.
• The cat climbed up the drainpipe
• Figure Path Ground
• V-Language (Type 2)
• payswukwan sok-ulo tul-e
  ka-seltegt
• drainpipe interior-via enter-INF
  go-and
• (a cat) goes into the drainpipe

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Manner of Motion

• The cat rolls out of the drainpipe
• El gato sale rodando del canalón
• The cat exits rolling from the drainpipe
• koyangi-ka tasi ccwulwulwuk nayly-e
• cat-NM again ONM descend-INF
  
• wa-ss-eyo.
• come-PST-POL
• 
  

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Thinking for Speaking

• Slobin (1996) in activity of speaking, thinking
  takes on a particular quality as experiences are
  filtered through languages into verbalized
  events.
• TSF not merely influence how people talk about
  events but how they experience those events they
  are likely to talk about later (Slobin, 2003, p.
  179).

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Manner Saturation

• English lexicon highly saturated with conflated
  manner verbs trudge, shinny, swagger, plop,
  scamper, leap frog, slog, skip, barrel, etc.
• Spanish lexicon has conflated manner verbs, but
  not saturated tambalearse, trepar, agitar
• (Slobin 2003)

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Gesture/Speech Interface

• Growth Point integration of distinct verbal and
  imagistic semiotic architectures into a single
  meaning system (McNeill 1992)
• Gestures material carriers of thinking and
  therefore provide "an enhanced window into mental
  processes (McNeill Duncan 2000)

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Gesture and Motion

• V-languages gestures synchronize with path verbs
  optionally used to express manner.
• S-languages gestures synchronize with path
  satellites or conflated manner verb, depending on
  focus
• (McNeill Duncan 2000)

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Motion Event Typology

• Verb-Framed Languages
• Path of figures motion conflated with verb
• Manner optionally encoded lexically
• Spanish El pajaro sale de la jaula dando
  saltitos The bird leaves from the cage
  jumping
• Satellite-Framed Languages
• Path of figures motion encoded in particle
• Manner conflated with verb
• English The bird hops out of the cage

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Gesture/Speech Motion Events

• Spanish
• e entonces busca la manera (silent pause) 'and
  so he looks for the way'
• GROUND GESTURE depicts the shape of the
  pipe
• de entrar / / se mete por eldesague /
  /sí?
• 'to enter REFL goes-into through the
  drainpipe.. Yes?
• PATH MANNER Both hands rock and rise
  simultaneously manner and path (left hand
  only through mete). Right hand continues to
  rise with rocking motion
• (McNeill Duncan 2000)

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Gesture/Speech Motion Events

• English
• but it rolls him out
• MANNER Hand wiggles manner
  information
• and he rolls down the drain spout
• PATH Hand plunges straight
  down path information only
• (McNeill Duncan 2000)

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Conceptual ShiftSpeech Gesture L2 Research

• Four L2 Gesture TFS Studies
• Stamm 2001 Spanish L1 gt English L2
• Ozurek 2002 Turkish L1 gt English L2
• Kellerman van Hoof 2003 Dutch L1 gt English
  L2
• Negueruela, Lantolf, Jordan Gelabert (2004)
  Spanish L1, English L1 gt English L2, Spanish L2

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Stamm 2001

• Spanish L1 gt English L2 University Speakers in
  U.S. (Tweety Bird Cartoon)
• 1 speaker gt English path gesture on satellite

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Ozurek 2002

• Turkish L1 gt English L2
• Tweety Bird Cartoon
• Beginners Start age 19 Study 1 year Not live
  abroad
• No evidence of shift (L1 manner-V path-V)
• Intermediate Educated in Turkish
  English-Speaking Schools from age 11 3rd year of
  university study Not live abroad
• No evidence of Shift (L1 manner-V path-V)
• Advanced Educated in Turkish English-Speaking
  Schools from age 11 at least 10 years in U.S.
  prior to return to Turkey
• Beginning to shift 5/6 use Manner Path 3/6
  use gesture at least once

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Kellerman van Hoof 2003

• Dutch L1 gt English L2 Frog Story
• Dutch is S-language
• Speakers manifest Spanish L1 pattern with path
  gesture marked on verb ??
• Minimal analysis of manner events

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Negueruela, Lantolf, Jordan Gelabert (2004)

• Spanish L1 gt English L2
• 3 Speakers Residing in U.S. 1 gt 6 years
• English L1 gt Spanish L2
• 3 Speakers Enrolled in Spanish Graduate Program
  min. 1 year abroad
• English L1 control 3
• Spanish L1 control 3
• Task Narrate Frog Goes to Dinner

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L1 Speakers Path

• L1 Spanish La rana se ha metido en el saxofon
• The frog got into the saxophone
• PATH hand cupped describes trajectory,
  other hand mimicking the bell of the
  saxophone)
• L1 English The frog jumps out of boys pocket,
  through the restaurant, into a saxophone
• (Path three strokes, one on each satellite
  hand emerges from pocket with index finger
  extended, moves away from body, moves downward
  index still extended

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L2 Speakers Path

• Spanish L1 the frog appears from inside
  the salad.
• PATH hands move toward face
• English L1 y me parece que se va a caerse pa
  detras
• Path hand and body leaning back with
  stroke of gesture on invented satellite

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L1 Speakers Manner

• Spanish L1 la ensalada echa un desastre
• the salad is a disaster
• Manner hand shaking
• English L1 the plates kind of tumbling a
  little bit
• Manner hand shaking

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L2 Speakers Manner

• Spanish L1 and the cup, the plate, the fork
  are all falling off the table
• MANNER PATH four consecutive strokes
  with both hands, palms facing each other,
  vigorously moving upward
• English L1 la ensalada está ... como en medio
  aire the salad is ... like in mid-air
• MANNER hand shaking palm down

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Choi Lantolf L2 Korean L2 EnglishPath
Gestures

• L2 Korean
• RH ku phai/phu ltugt altagtn-ulo tul-e ka
• pipe inside-via enter-INF
  go-and seltegt
• /silpeysuthe-kaltagt
• Sylvester-TC
• Sylvester enters inside the pipe.
• Right hand, with all fingers extended, moves up
  passing through left hand which is holding a
  shape of a pipe path only information.

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Choi Lantolf Path Gestures

• L2 English
• climbing ltuhgt up the building ltuuhhgt RH /
  through the gutter /
• While left hand holds a gutter shape, right
  hand, with all digits extended, rises up from lap
  and moves up through left hand path only
  information.

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Choi Lantolf Manner Gestures

• L1 Korean
• kulayse mak BH oll-a
  ka-nunRHtey
• so ascend-INF go-and
• So (the cat) went up and
• Both hands, with chopping motions, move upward to
  depict Sylvesters climbing up the drainpipe
  manner path information marked in gesture only
• L1 English
• so you BH see this big bulge coming up the
  gutter
• Both hands, with palms facing each other, draw a
  shape of bulge three times while moving up
  manner path information.

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Choi Lantolf Manner of Motion

• L2 Korean
• mak oll-a ka-ss-eyo
• intensly ascend-INF go-PST-POL
• (the cat) went up
• Both hands wave up and down, imitating
  Sylvesters paws climbing up the pipe while
  moving up manner path information. Manner
  fog
• L2 English
• BH so (gesture) /RH the cat was climbing
  through the / gutter but thenltngt somehow the
  bird knew it saw it so
• Both hands, with chopping motion, imitate
  Sylvesters paw manner only information. Right
  hand vertically rises up and holds in the
  position path only information.

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Choi Lantolf Manner Salient

• L2 English
• so ltuuhhgt the cat was ltuuhh gt laugh he he
  so ltuuhhgt the cat was ltuuhhgt
• / I mean / rolling o //(stroke starts) on
  the street ltuuhhgt
• Both hands, with all digits extended, sweep from
  left to right path only information. Both hands
  repeat the previous path only gesture path only
  information. No Manner conflated Path Gesture
  typical of English

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Choi Lantolf Manner Salient

• L2 Korean
• RH mak / kil nay ly-e
  wa-ss-eyo / intensely road
  descend-INF come-PST-POL
• (the cat) came down the road
• Right hand, with an index extended, bounces up
  and down while diagonally moving down from left
  to right manner path information. Right hand
  repeats a smaller version of previous gesture,
  with less bouncing manner path information.
• RH mwe kunikka mwusun ltmgt mweltwegt
  kwultwugtha-myense amwuthun
• what so what m what
  roll (wrong form) do-while anyway
• Right hand, with an index extended, continuously
  draws circular motions manner only information.
• NBManner Fog acceptable in Korean but not for
  speaker, who searches for low frequency Korean
  verb to roll

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Conceptual Knowledge Misconceived ?

• Peppers Cheese
• English Hot Sharp
• German Scharf Scharf
• Metaphoric gesture Scharf in L2 German
  conceptualized as heat

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Fictive Motion(Talmy 2000)

• Factive a representation that is more veridical.
  Does not mean that the representation is
  objectively real.
• E.g. I think that John is coming. Creo que Juan
  viene
• Fictive references the imaginal capacity of
  cognition. Does not mean that the representation
  is somehow objectively unreal.

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Fictive Motion

• Fictive Motion metaphorize what is factive
  stationariness as if it were in motion thus
  reflecting a cognitive bias toward dynamism
  (Talmy 2000 101).
• FM emerges when a speaker holds two discrepant
  representations in mind
• Belief about real nature of referent
• Representation of the literal reference of the
  linguistic forms used in the utterance

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Fictive Motion

• The fence RUNS along the floor of the valley.
• Literal representation fictive
• Belief representation factive
• Thus, fictive motion is integrated with factive
  stationariness

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Categories of Fictive Motion

• Emanation
• Pattern Paths
• Frame-relative motion
• Advent Paths
• Access Paths
• Coextension Paths

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Coextensive Path(English/Spanish)

• The highway goes from State College to
  Bellefonte.
• La carretera va desde SC hasta Bellefonte.
• The electric cord runs from the TV to the wall.
• El cable eléctrico corre de la tele a la pared.
• El cable eléctrico va de la tele a la pared.
• (Talmy 105)

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Emanation Path

• The tree threw its shadow across the roof.
• El árbol tira/echa/arroja su sombra a lo largo
  del tejado.
• El árbol proyecta su sombra a lo largo del
  tejado.
• His shadow fell on her face.
• Tenía la sombra de él en su cara.
• The wallpaper shows through the paint
• El papel se ve por debajo de la pintura
• (sensory path).

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Pattern Path

• As I painted the ceiling, ants slowly progressed
  across the floor.
• Mientras pintaba el techo, las hormigas iban
  avanzando lentamente por el suelo.
• As I painted the ceiling, paint spots slowly
  progressed across the floor.
• Mientras pintaba el techo, las manchas de
  pintura iban progresando através del suelo.
• Mientras pintaba el techo, iban cayendo manchas
  de pintura por todo el suelo e iban formando
  progresivamente una hilera.

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Frame Relative Motion

• I focused on the magnificent scenary we were
  driving by.
• Me fijaba el magnífico paisaje por el que
  pasábamos
• I sat in the car and watched the scenary rush
  past me.
• Estaba sentado en el coche y veía como el paisaje
  pasaba rápidamente de largo.

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Advent Paths

• The palm trees clustered together around the
  oasis.
• Las palmeras se apiñaban alrededor del oasis.
• (De repente había un montón de palmeras
  alrededor del oasis (use gesture))
• The beam falls away from the wall.
• La viga está atravesada con respecto al muro.
• (Gesture with one hand vertical and the other
  slanted agains it. Needed because atravesada
  can impart the idea that the beam passes through
  the wall

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Coextension Paths

• The oil spread out in all directions.
• El petróleo se esparció por todos sitios.
• The field spreads out in all directions from the
  granary.
• El campo se expande desde el granero en todas
  direcciones.
• The scar zigzags from his ankle to his thigh
• La cicatriz le va desde el tobillo hasta el muslo
  en forma de zigzag

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Lexical Networks

• Pavlenko (1997) Privacy in U.S. Russian
  Immigrants
• Szalay, Lynse, Bryson (1972) compared
  responses of American social scientists living in
  country for at least six years to Korean L1.
• Scientific knowledge of the culture
• Spontaneous knowledge in word associations
  patterned like L1 English not L2 Korean

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Lexical Networks

• Grabois (1997) word association of abstract
  concepts (love, power, justice, etc.)
• Spanish as FL classroom students
• Spanish as FL study abroad students (six months)
• Spanish as SL L1 English immigrants in Spain
  (5-20yrs)
• Spanish L1
• English L1
• Findings
• Spanish SL statistically to Spanish L1
• All other L2 groups pattern like English L1
• Some evidence of shift L1 English gt Spanish L1

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SLA

• Inside-the-circle Linguistic Proficiency
• Grammar, phonology, lexicon
• Ultimate attainment control of
  lexico-grammatical properties of new language
• discourse, pragmatics, identities ??

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SLCA

• Outside-the-circle Conceptual Proficiency
• Conceptual knowledge and meaning, including
  gesture/speech interface
• Ultimate attainment making acceptable choices
  within the nexus of intended meanings available
  resources, and privileged forms of expression as
  the L2 speech community has evolved them (Byrnes
  2002).
• Thinking/communicating through the new
  languaculture
• Teaching bringing students to the language
  rather than the language to the students

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• Turkish yuvarlan-arak iniyor
• V-roll-Conn V-descend
• NB Spanish allows this option