Second Language Acquisition: Theoretical Approaches
Psycholinguistics: overview - Brian MacWhinney.
Intro:
-Psycholinguistics is a field that combines methods and theories from psychology and linguistics to derive a fuller understanding of human language.
- psychological reality (PR) as the issue that motivated psycholinguistics as a separate field.
-PR leads two related fields: 1.developmental psycholinguistics (the study of child language acquisition). 2. Issue of how rules of grammar might be processed in the brain. (Como se desmorona la idea de la black box)
- six important core areas in psycholinguistics. these areas are central to the study of psycholinguistics because they allow us (no nosotros pero los weones que investigan) to evaluate the psychological reality of linguistic formalism.
1.Word recognition:
:
-we usually perceived word as following each other in clear temporal succession. words are being blurred together by coarticulation and assimilation. (la idea de que aprendimos palabras por medio de frases y no palabras por palabras)
-during sentence perception (lo explicado arriba) many of these alternative words are partially active in a short list of competitors.
-segmentation relies on word recognition. is dynamic.
-problems: women and men produce vowels in different ways. same problem with dialects. the solution needs lexical competition.
-there are influences from a word’s sound that can also influence from meaning. (ej. escuchar la palabra doctor y luego nurse, aunque no conozcas la palabra nurse, se entiende igual la wea)
Sentence comprehension.
-word recognition preceded the process of sentence comprehension. This notion is rejected- over the past 50 yrs- by understanding and constructing language processing as both interactive and incremental.
-incrementalism: ex you can hear a sentence and you can repeat it, but that does not mean that you understand the sentence. we process incoming material both lexically and conceptuality. (mientras mas escuchas de la sentence, más completo está el trabajo de comprehension)
-garden path: arrives when a word or suffix has two meaning, one more common than the other. in these cases the strong (common) meaning dominates over the weak (rare) meaning. making difficult to understand the sentence.
-lexical effect: Lexically based expectations can be complex. there are two readings of similar strength, there is no garden path. we have an expectation about how a sentence should be, but the real meaning is different, anyway it is common as our expectation.
|
|
|
-Moduality:context can help us to know what is the real meaning of the word. anyway we should not focus only in context.
Sentence production
-different to sentence comprehension because we are in full control of the meaning we wish to express.
-when we produce a sentence we have 4 steps.
- message construction according our goals and intention
- lexical access, when we convert these ideas in worded forms.
- positional patterning to order words into phrases and clauses.
- activating a series of verbal gestures through articulatory planning.
a continuación vienen una serie de errores culiaos que cometimos porque somos bacanes.
-lexical bias: errors that typically involve the transpositions of letters between words.
-the rivals: errors. many of these errors are true slips of the tongue.
-lexical blend: when we have 2 important words, we tend to blend them. [flavor + taste= flaste) cachense esas matemáticas.
Message construction and perspective
-sentence comprehension and sentence production are linked to embodied perspective of the speakers( de eso se trata este punto)
-we have choices at the moment we talk according the perspectives we have and the things we want to focus. (ex. impersonal construction, passive voice, etc)
-language is full of choices and sentence production can be viewed as involving a continual competition between choices for perspectives.
Crosslinguistic comparisons
-languages differ markedly in the particular grammatical contrats they choose to mark and the devices that they use to mark them.
-in one type of experiment , psycholinguistics used a simple common task to examine the effects of radically different structures. how different is the process in different languages (ex the lion kisses the cow. en español se puede decir como de 5 maneras distintas(variables words order)) that is how we can not use our language to learn another, because it has different grammar rules that allow us to understand in different ways.
-in conclusion, when a monolingual speaker come to learn a second language, the learner needs to retune his or her sentence-processing mechanism.
|
|
|
Neurolinguistics
-where and how language occurs in the brain.
-here we have a lot of weas that are related to biology (as what part of the brain is related to fluency, semantic, etc) and I think it is not interesting, but if u want me to write them anyway, I will (inserte emoji fabuloso)
-the work attempting to identify areas involving aspects of language processing has shown how difficult it is to peg a function to a single area.
Second Language Acquisition: Theoretical Approaches
Introduction
- Difficult to understand SLA theories bc (problem of theorizing):
1. SLA is a complex multifaceted phenomenon, need of specific theoretical and methodological tools for a given aspect
2. Different theoretical approaches means different views of :
● the nature of L
● the language learning process
● language learner.
- Chapter aim: present the main theoretical families that currently exist in SLA research
- Might seem artificial to separate formal, cognitive and social aspects of L
- No one approach to date has succeeded in capturing all these facets , hence, the multiplicity of approaches addressing a particular dimension of language acquisition.
- Basically: many conflicting claims/ideas concerning SLA
Why theories?
3.2.1. Purpose of SLA theories
- Concept of theory:
1. Oxford Dictionary: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something
2. For the purpose of SLA research: a more or less abstract set of claims about the units which are significant within the phenomenon under study, the relationships which exist between them, and the processes which bring about change.
- In SLA context: a theory might be
1. restricted in scope and focus on a single aspect of the acquisition process (specific) → property theory
2. it might be more elaborate and comprehensive → transition theory
- Theories: explain/describe through a continuous process of reflection and are continuously assessed through empirical evidence -> may be modified to give better account of some aspects that might have not been considered before. → theory building is a reflexive process
|
|
|
- In the context of SLA research: theoretical approaches need to be explicit about: view on the nature of language, the learner, and the learning process + which aspect of SLA they are trying to explain.
- Whatever the focus, theories need to be explicit about:
1. Object of study + assumption claims about NofL, LL, LP (and their interaction)
2. testable/falsifiable
3. SLA phenomena
● Property theories: why they are so
● Transition theories: proposals of mechanism of development
4. Engage with other theories
3.2.2. SLA research agendas
Core questions that have motivated SLA research:
Formal
- What is the linguistic system underlying learner’s performance?
- What is the role of of (i) the native language, (ii) the target language, and (iii) universal formal properties of human language?
- 80´s and 90´s -> establish developmental sequences in the domain of morphosyntax
- Rely on formal theories
- describe/analyze learner language
- Explore cohabitation and interaction of several L systems
- Explain developmental patterns in subsystems of L
- Explanatory factors: formal properties (L1 and L2), universal properties of L
Cognitive
- How do learners develop their ability to access and use their L2 system in real time?
- Implies that the development of formal linguistic system is different to the development of the ability to access and use the system in real time.
- Dissociation between formal linguistic and processing skills is not accepted by all.
- What are the roles of individual differences and learning styles in shaping and/or facilitating L2 development?
- Learners are highly variable in the speed at which they learn a foreign L, as well as in their ultimate success
- First language learners more homogeneous
- Role of intrinsic learner and extrinsic variables
- What is the influence of the age of the learner in the L2 development?
Social and interactional context
|
|
|
- How does input/output shape the development of 2 or 3?
- What type of input and interaction might facilitate/shape/speed up development.
- Relate to all subdomains of L or whether it is evident in the development of lexis (negotiation of meaning) or in the acquisition of syntax (study of interrogative development)
- Also studied the manipulation of input and interaction
- How do the environment/social context shape the development of 1 or 3?
- In terms of social status + the specific communicative needs entailed in different social contexts + co-construction of identities in multilingual communities of practice
● 1 and 2 → formal properties of huma language → focus: language (different views on it)
● 3, 4, and 5 → internal cognitive characteristics and mechanisms → focus: learning
● 6, and 7 → sociocognitive and social factors → focus: interactional patterns and/or on language use.
3.2.3 Research findings
Дата добавления: 2019-09-13; просмотров: 181; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!