二语习得第四章总结

Chapter 4 Explaining second language learning
● The behaviourist perspective
✓L2 Applications:
∙Audiolingual instruction: A dominant approach to foreign language teaching from the 1940s to the 1960s, especially in North America.
∙Activities emphasized mimicry and memorization.
∙
contrastive analysis.
✓Limitations:
∙Researchers found that many learner errors are not predictable
on the basis of first language.
∙
when the translation equivalent would be correct)
● The innatist perspective
✓Opinions
∙Chomsky’s critique of behaviourism
∙Chomsky viewed L1 as based on child’s innate language-specific module of the mind.
∙Innate knowledge of certain principles of Universal Grammar permits all children to acquire the language of their environment during a critical
period of their development
∙Primary focus of UG-based SLA research is on competence not
performance.
✓About L2 learning
∙Chomsky made no specific claims about the implications of his theory for L2 learning.
∙However, other linguists with an interest in SLA have discussed this and have not entirely agreed.
∙There is still ‘the logic problem’ of L2 acquisition (learners eventually know more about the language than they could reasonably learned if they
had to depend entirely on the input they are exposed to)----knowledge of
UG must be available to L2 learners as well as L1 learners
But whether the nature and availability are same or has been altered by the
acquisition of other languages
∙How do instruction and corrective feedback contribute to SLA?
instruction and corrective feedback change only superficial aspects of
language performance and do not affect the underlying systematic
knowledge.
L2 learners need explicit information about what is not grammatical
sometimes.
∙Usually interested in the language competence of advanced learners ---- involve grammatical judgement
✓L2 applications: Krashen’s Monitor Model
∙Five hypotheses of Monitor Model
• Acquisition(unconscious) versus learning(conscious attention to form and
rule learning) ----- far more language is acquired than learned
• Monitor hypothesis: Learned knowledge used only as a monitor/editor to
make minor changes and polish what the acquired system has produced
• Natural Order Hypothesis: L2 Acquisition follows a ‘natural order’ and
unfolds in predicable sequences.
• Comprehensible input hypothesis: Acquisition is based on access to
comprehensible input containing (i+1).
• Affective filter hypothesis: Stress and negative affect interfere with
acquisition.
∙Challenged by other researchers and theorists, but still influential.
• as not testable in empirical research
•Nonetheless, his ideas have had a major influence on the movement from
structure-based to communicative approaches to language teaching (e.g.
content-based, immersion, and task-based instruction).
• Classroom research explaining L2 learning confirms that students can
make considerable progress through exposure to comprehensible input but
questions remain about whether it is sufficient.
● The cognitive perspective
✓Opinions
∙The study of cognition––how humans acquire, process, store, and retrieve information
∙Emphasize the role of general human abilities to process and learn information—including language on the basis of experience
∙In contrast to innatists, cognitive psychologists argue that there is no mental module devoted to language acquisition. Rather, all learning and
thinking are based on the same cognitive processes.
∙Learning a first or a second language draws on the same learning processes (perception, memory, categorization and generatlization); what’s different
are the circumstances of learning and how learners’ prior knowledge of
language shapes their perception of a new language.
✓Information processing
∙Language acquisition is the building up of knowledge that can eventually be used automatically for speaking and understanding.
∙New information must be noticed before it can be learned.
∙There is a limit to how much information a learner can pay attention to.
∙Through experience and practice, information that was new becomes easier
to process. In turn, it gradullay become automatic
∙Choosing words, pronouncing them and stringing them together with the appropriate grammatical markers is automatic. (formulaic)∙The retrieval of word meanings is automatic
∙Skill learning:
1. New information may first be internalized as declarative knowledge––
learner is aware of the information and can report noticing it.
2. Through practice, declarative knowledge is proceduralized, and the
learner acquires the ability to use the information appropriately.
3. With further practice, the information can be accessed automatically. So
automatically, in fact, that the learner forgets having learned it.
4. Restructuring: Not all knowledge seems to follow the declarative-
procedural-automatic path: bursts of progress/apparent
backsliding(overgeneralization errors)
∙Transfer-appropriate processing:
1. When we learn something, we also internalize the conditions under
which it was learned and the cognitive processes involved in the learning.
2. Thus, we recall our knowledge of something more easily when the
context and processes for recall are similar to those in which we originally
learned it.
✓Usage-based learning
∙An approach to understanding learning that sees learning as the creation of links (connections) between bits of information
∙Unlike innatists, connectionists do not assume that there is a neurological module specifically designed for SLA. All learning is based on the same
processes.
∙Unlike skill theorists, connectionists do not assume that new knowledge must first be declarative.
∙The frequency with which information is encountered is a strong predictor of how easily it will be learned.
∙Neurological connections are made between language and a particular meaning or a situation (e.g. people usually say Hello when they answer the
phone) and between elements of language itself (e.g. noticing that say
always occurs with I or we/you/they and that says always occurs with
he/she/it).
✓The competition model
∙Proposed to account for both L1 and L2 learning
∙Through exposure learners come to understand how to use the ‘cues’ that language uses to signal specific functions (e.g. word order; animacy).
∙English speakers tend to use word order; Italian speakers use animacy with
a sentence like:
Il giocattolo guarda il bambino. (The toy – is looking at – the child.) ∙Require learners to learn the relative importance of the different cues appropriate In the language they are learning
✓Language and the brain
∙An approach to understanding learning that sees learning as the creation of links (connections) between bits of information
∙Unlike innatists, connectionists do not assume that there is a neurological module specifically designed for SLA. All learning is based on the same
processes.
∙Unlike skill theorists, connectionists do not assume that new knowledge must first be declarative.
✓L2 applications: Interacting, noticing, processing and practicing ∙Interaction hypothesis
1. conversational interaction is an essential condition for L2 acquisition
2. How does input become comprehensible? Modified interaction (through
negotiation for meaning)
3. Modified interaction
∙Comprehension checks
∙Clarification requests
∙Self-repetition or paraphrase4.
4. Revised version of interaction hypothesis
∙More emphasis on corrective feedback
∙‘negotiation for meaning’--- language development (comprehensible output hypothesis.
∙The noticing hypothesis
1. Nothing is learned unless it is noticed.
Importance of awareness and attention in L2 learning
2. whether learners must be aware that they are ‘noticing’ sth. in the input is
the object of considerable debate
∙Input processing
• Learners have difficulty focusing on form and meaning at the same time.
∙Processability theory
• German L2 acquisition
– Developmental sequences in syntax and morphology are affected by how
easy they were to process.
–Ease of processing was found to depend to a large extend on the position
of those features.
• Developmental and variational feature
• learners have to develop certain level of processing capacity before they
can use their L1 knowledge
∙The role of practice
• Practice that characterized audiolingual instruction often failed to make
connections between language forms and their meanings.
• From a cognitive perspective, practice is not mechanical and not
restricted to production––it is also relevant for comprehension.
• Practice should be interactive, meaningful, and focus on task-essential
forms.
● The sociocultural perspective
✓Opinions (Vygotsky)
∙Cognitive development arises as a result of social interaction.
Interaction is important because the cognitive processes begin as an
external socially mediated activity and eventually become internalized ∙Learning occurs through interaction.
∙Speaking (and writing) mediates thinking.
∙Difference between ZPD and i+1
ZPD: a metaphorical location or ‘site’ in which learners co-construct
knowledge in collaboration with an interlocutor.
Emphasis is on development and how learners co-construct knowledge
based on their interaction with their interlocutor or in private speech
I+1: the emphasis is on the comprehensibility of input that includes
language structures that are just beyond the learner’s current
developmental level
∙Interaction versus sociocultural perspectives
Interaction hypothesis: the emphasis is on the internal cognitive processes
in the mind of the learners.
Interaction is important because interaction facilitates those cognitive
processes by giving learners access to the input they need to activate
internal processes, it provides learners with the raw material that is
interpreted and analyzed through internal cognitive processes.
sociocultural perspectives：importance on conversation themselves, with
learning occurring through the social interaction. People gain control of
and recognize their cognitive processes during mediation as knowledge is
internalized during social activity.
Interaction is important because the cognitive processes begin as an
external socially mediated activity and eventually become internalized
✓L2 applications:
∙Learning by talking
• Traditionally, ZPD was restricted to a novice and an expert; the term has
been broadened to include novice–novice interaction.
• Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis: learners have to pay more
attention to how meaning is expressed through language when producing
language
• Research investigating how learners co-construct knowledge while
engaged in collaborative dialogue that focuses on form and meaning at
the same time.。