Instance Theory and Universal Grammar in Second Language research

1
Instance Theory and Universal Grammar in Second
Language research

• Team members Steve, Jones, Ines, Trixie
• Teacher Aya Okamato

2
Instance theory

• Concepts and categorization
• One important area in which instance theory
  has been developed is that of concepts and
  categorization (Medin and Schaffer, 1978 Smith
  and Medin, 1981 Nosofsky, 1986 Nosofsky et al.,
  1992 Estes, 1994).

3
Classical idea

• An item belongs to a given category if and
  only if it has the defining characteristics of
  that category.

4
Prototype theory (Posner and Keele, 1970 Rosch,
1978 Smith and Medin, 1981)

• Each category has a most representative case,
  abstracted from the various examples of it, and
  judgments about category membership are made
  primary by comparison with this prototype.

5
Logan