UNIT 13 : DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
How language – users interpret what other language users intent to conveny is based discourse.To interpret discourse , we use correct and incorrect form and structure.But that is not enough.Because an ungrammatical sentence may convey a message , we make sense of it As language users , we have more knowledge than that.
Cohesion
Cohesion can be described as ties and connections which exist within a text. Pronouns , references , lexical connections , terms which share a common element of meaning , connectors are cohesive links within a text which give us some insight in our judgements on whether something is well-written or not.
Coherence
We need to create meaningful connections which are not actually expressed by the words and sentences. We need to fill in a lot of gaps which exist in the text. This factor is described as coherence. If there are no cohesive ties within a fragment of discourse , we can understand them in terms of the conventional actions performed by the speakers.
Speech Events
We need to specify the roles of speaker and hearer and their relationship , whether they were friends , strangers , young , old , of equal or unequal status and many other factors.All of these factors will have an influence an what is said and how it is said.
Conversational Interaction
Two or more people take turns at speaking. Participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished , usually by signaling a completion point. We have different conventions of turns – taking ; cutting in an another speaker or waiting for an opportunity to take a turn.
The Co-operative Princible
In a conversational exchange , the participants are co-operating with each other.We have four maxims to be obeyed.
Quantity : As informative as required
Quality : Say that which you believe to be true.
Relation : Be relevant
Manner : Be clear , brief and orderly
Implicature is an additional conveyed meaning.To describe the conversational implicature , we have to appeal to some background knowledge that must be shared by the conversational participants.
Background Knowledge
We actually create what the text is about based on our expectations of what normally happens.
A Schema is a term for a conventional knowledge.Structure which exists in memory.One particular schema is a script.A script is dynamic in which a series of conventional actions takes place.
UNIT 15 : LANGUAGE & THE BRAIN
Neurolinguistics, the study of relationship between language and the brain.
Parts of the brain
The brain has two basic parts : The left hemisphere, and the right hemisphere. We will first concentrate on the left hemisphere.
Broca’s Area ( the anterior speech cortex )
It deals with producing speech.
Wernicke’s Area ( the posterior speech cortex )
It deals with comprehension.
The Motor Cortex
It controls movement of muscles, when speaking face, jaw, tongue, and larynx.
The Arcuate Fasciculus
It forms a crucial connection between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area .
The Localization View
The word is heard and comprehended by Wernicke’s area , the signal is transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area where preparations are made to produce it. A signal is then sent to the motor cortex to physically articulate the word.
But this is an oversimplified version of what may actually takes place. We have neglected to mention the intricate interconnections via the central nervous system, the complex role of the brain’s supply, and the extremely interdependent nature of most brain functions.
The localization view is one way to say that our linguistic abilities have identifiable locations in the brain.
Tongue Tips & Slips
• The Tip of the Tongue : You feel that some word is just eluding you, that you know the word.
• Slip of the tongue : Tangled expressions.
e.g. long shorty stort ( long story short )
or word reversals : ( spoonerism )
e.g. use the door to open the key
Although the slips of the tongue are mostly treated as errors of articulation, it has been suggested that they many result from “ slips of the brain “ as it tries to organize linguistic messages.
• Slip of the ear : A type of misunderstanding.
e.g. Have you seen the great ape ?
But the speaker said “ grey tape “
Aphasia
Aphasia is defined as impairment of language function due to localized cerebral damage which leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing linguistic forms.
Broca’s Aphasia ( Motor Aphasia )
It is serious language disorder characterized by a substantially reduced amount of speech, distorted articulation and slow often effortful speech. They generally use lexical morphemes but not functional morphemes. In Broca’s aphasia comprehension is typically much beter than production.
Wernick’s Aphasia ( Sensory Aphasia )
The type of language disorder which results in difficulties in auditory comprehension is sometimes called “ sensory aphasia “ someone suffering fom this disorder can actually produce very fluent speech which is, however, often difficult to make sense of it.
Conduction Aphasia
It is identified with damage to the arcuate fasciculus. This time people do not have articulation problems but may have disrupted rhythm because of pauses and hesitations.
Comprehension of spoken words is normally good. But repeating a word or phrase ( spoken by someone else ) will create major difficulties. What is heard and understood can not be transferred to the speech production area.
Dichotic Listening
Anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain and anything on the left side is processed in the right hemisphere. So a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere.
In Dichotic Listening Test, a subject sits with a set of earphones on and is given two different sound signals simultaneously. When asked to say what was heard, the subject more often correctly identifies the sound which came via the right ear. This is known as right-ear advantage. The right hemisphere appears to have primary responsibility for processing a lot of other incoming signals of non linguistic nature. So the right-hemisphere handles non-verbal sounds and the left-hemisphere handles language sounds.
UNIT 16 : FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
There is some innate disposition in the human infant to acquire language. This can be called as the “ language-faculty” of the human with each newborn child is endowed. By itself, this faculty is not enough.
Basic Requirements
1- Acquiring the first language interaction with other language users in order to bring the language faculty into operation.
2- The child who does not hear or isn’t allowed to use language will learn no language. Hearing is necessary but not enough.
3- The crucial requirement appears to be the opportunity to interact with others ula language. Since it is not genetically inherited, it is acquired in a particular language using environment.
The Acquisition Schedule
Language acquisition schedule has the same basis as the biologically determined development of motor skills. This biologically schedule is tied to the maturation of the infant’s brain and the lateralization process. This biological program is dependent on an interplay with many social factors in the child’s environment. Acquisition requires constant input from which the basis of the regularities in the particular language can be worked out.
Caretaker Speech
The simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends a lot of time interacting with a young child is called caretaker speech. ( Motherese ) Frequent questions, exaggerated intonation, simplified words and structures and a lot of repetition characterize caretaker’s speech.
Pre-language Stages
The pre-linguistic sounds are called “cooing” and “babbling” ( from about 3 months to 10 months ). First recognizable sounds are described as Cooing with velar consonants such as [k] and [g] as well as high vowels such as [I] and . ( By 3 months )
By 6 months, the child can produce a number of different vowels and consonants such as fricatives and nasals. Babbling stage may contain syllable type sounds such as “mu” and “da”. Around 9 months, there are recognizable intonation patterns to the consonant and vowel combinations being produced. Around 10th and 11th months, they are capable of using their vocalization to express emotions and emphasis.
[u]The One Word or Holophrastic Stage
Between 12-18 months, they produce single units utterances. ( Milk, Cookie, Cat ) . It is holophrastic because the child can use a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence. ( What’s that ? )
The Two-Word Stage
Between 12 months and 24 months , the child’s vocabulary moves beyond fifty distinct words. A variety of combinations appear in this stage ( mummy eat, cat bed ) . The child not only produces speech but receives feedback which usually confirms that the utterance worked. Children can understand five times as many than they produce.
Telegraphic Speech
Between 2 and 3 years old, the child begins producing a large number of utterances which could be classified as multiple-word utterances. Word-form variations begin to appear. The child has clearly developed some sentence-building capacity by this stage and can order the forms correctly. By the age of two and a half, the child’s vocabulary is expanding rapidly and the child is initiating more talk. By three, the vocabulary has grown to hundreds of words and pronounciation has become closer to the form of the adult language.
The Acquisition Process
For the vast majority of children, no one provides any instruction on how to speak the language, the child is not being taught the language. Children actively construct, from what’s said to them, possible ways of using the language and test whether they work or not. It’s impossible to say that the child is acquiring the language through a process of consistently imitating adult speech in parrot-fashion. Adults simply don’t produce many of the types of expressions which turn up in children’s speech.
Morphology
By the time the child is 3 years old, he starts to use some of the inflectional morphemes which indicate the grammatical function of the nouns and verbs used. First, -ing form appears in expressions such as “ cat sitting “ . Then plural morpheme –s comes as in “boys” . Acquisition of this form is often accompanied by a process of overgeneralization ( adding –s to form plurals as in foots, mans ). Then possessive inflectional –‘s occurs as in “ Mummy’s book “. Irregular past-tense forms appear before –ed inflection in child’s speech. Finally the regular –s marker on third person singular present tense verbs appears. –s occurs with full verbs first ( comes,looks ) and then with auxiliaries ( does, has ) .
Syntax
In the formation of questions and the use of negatives there appear to be three identifiable stages. Stage 1 occurs between 18 and 26 months, Stage 2 between 22 and 30 months and Stage 3 between 24 and 40 months. ( Different children proceed at different paces ) .
Questions
Stage 1 : Simply add a WH- form to the beginning or utter the expression with a rising intonation.
Where kitty?
Sit chair ?
Stage 2 : More complex expressions can be formed but raising intonation strategy continues to be used.
Why you smiling ?
You want eat ?
Stage 3 : Inversion appears but the WH- forms don’t always undergo the required inversion.
Can I have a piece ?
Will you help me ?
Why kitty can’t stand up?
Negatives
Stage 1 : “No” or “Not” should be at the beginning of any expression.
No fall
No sit there
Stage 2 : “Don’t” and “ can’t” appear but “no” and “not” are stil used but in front of the verb.
He no bite you.
I don!t know.
You can’t dance.
Stage 3 : “Didn’t” and “ won’t” appear. Acquisition of the form “isn’t” is the latest.
I didn’t caught it.
She won’t let go.
He not taking it.
Semantic
During the holophrastic stage, many children use their limited vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects ( bow-wow to refer to a dog ). Sometimes children use bow-wow ot refer to cats and horses. This is called “ overextension “ which is done on the basis of similarities of shape, sound and size. The semantic development in child is use of words is usually a process of overextension initially,followed by a gradual process of narrowing down the application of each term as more words are learned. In terms of hyponomy, the child will almost always use the middle level term in a hyponymous set such as animal – dog –poodle. It also seems that antonymous relations are acquired fairly late. ( after the age of 5 )
* By the age of 5, the child has completed the greater part of basic language acquisition process. According to some, the child is then in a good position to start learning a second language.
UNIT 17 : SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION/LEARNING
Acquisition Barriers
1- Most people attempt to learn another language during their teenage or adult years.
2- In a few hours each week of school time.
3- With a lot of other occupations.
4- With an already known language available for most of their daily communicative requirements.
5- Adults’ tongues get stiff from pronouncing one type of long and just can not cope with the new sounds of another language. ( There is no physical evidance to support it. )
Acquisition & Learning
Acquisition refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations.
Learning refers to conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of a language.
• Even in ideal acquisition situations, very few adults seem to reach native-like proficiency in using a second language. There one individuals who can achieve great expertise in writing, but not in speaking. This might suggest that some features ( vocabulary, grammar ) of a second language are easier to acquire than others ( phonology ) .
• After the Critical Period ( around puberty ) , it becomes very difficult to acquire another language fully. Because long faculty being strongly taken over by the features of the L1 loses its flexibility or openness to receive the features of another language. For the second language, the optimum age may be during the years from ten to sixteen when the flexibility of the language acquisition faculty hasn’t been completely last and the maturation of cognitive skills allows a more effective “ working out “ of the regular features of the L2 encountered.
The Affective Filter
Affect is a type of emotional reaction. Affective filter is a kind of barrier to acquisition that results from negative feelings or experiences. If you are stressed, uncomfortable, self-conscious or unmotivated, you are unlikely to learn anything.
• Children seem to be less constrained by the effective filter.
Focus on Method
A variety of educational approaches and methods which are aimed at fostering L2 learning has been led. In 1483, William Caxton used his newly established course material for L2 learners. It was in phrase book format.
Grammar-Translation Method
Long lists of words and a set of grammatical rules have to be memorized and the written language rather than the spoken language is emphasized. It is inefficient because it is not focused on how the language is used.
Audio-Lingual Method
It emphasizes the spoken language moving the simple to the more complex in the form of drills which the student had to repeat. FLL is a mechanical process of habit formation. Its critics pointed out that isolated practise in drilling language patterns bears no resemblance to the interactional nature of actual language use. It can also be boring.
Communicative Approaches
Against the artificiality, the functions of language should be emphasized rather than the forms of the language. ( Asking for things in different social contexts rather than the forms of the past tense in different sentences. )
Focus on Learner
An error is not something which hinders a student’s progress, but is a clue to the active learning process being made by a student as he or she tries out ways of communicating in the new language.
Creative Construction
Creative construction is used by the learner in accordance with tyhe most general way of making forms in English. ( Women’s is formed by using the most general way of making plural forms which is also called overgeneralization. )
Some erors may be due to the transfer of expressions or structures from the L1. If the L1 and the L2 have similar features, then the learner may be able to benefit from the Positive Transfer of L1 knowledge. Tranfering a L1 feture that is really different from L2 results in Negative Transfer which isn’t effective for L2 communication. (inference)
Interlanguage
There is some in-between system used in L2 acquisition which contains aspects of L1 and L2 but which is an inherently variable system with rules of its own. This system is called an Interlanguage and it is basis of all L2 production. If a learner’s L2 forms contain many features which don’t match the target language, they don’t progress any further and their interlanguage is fossilized.
Motivation
Students who experience some success are among the most motivated to learn. And motivation may be as much a result of success as a cause. The learner who is willing to guess, risks making mistakes and tries to communicate in the L2 will tend, given the opportunity to be more successful.
Input & Output
Input is the language that the learner is exposed. It has to be compressible by using simpler structure and vocabulary in a variety of speech known as foreigner talk. It provides the beginning learner with clearer examples of the basic structure of the L2 as input.
Negotiated input is the L2 material that the learner can acquire in interaction through requests for clarification and active attention being focused on what’s said.
Output is the language which learners produce in meaningful interaction. The opportunity to produce it is the most crucial factor in the learner’s development of L2 abilities. Task-based learning provides learners opportunities to interact with each other.
Communicative Competence
Communicative competence is using the L2 accurately, appropriately and flexibly. It has got three components. The first component is grammatical competence which involves the accurate use of words and structures in the L2. Sociolinguistic competence provides the learner with the ability to interpret or produce language appropriately. Strategic competence is the ability to organize message effectively and to compensate for any difficulties. ( using a communicative strategy not to stop talking – defining the word you don’t know )
Applied Linguistics
It is the area which investigates the ralation between language and other fields as Education, Psychology, Sociology.
How language – users interpret what other language users intent to conveny is based discourse.To interpret discourse , we use correct and incorrect form and structure.But that is not enough.Because an ungrammatical sentence may convey a message , we make sense of it As language users , we have more knowledge than that.
Cohesion
Cohesion can be described as ties and connections which exist within a text. Pronouns , references , lexical connections , terms which share a common element of meaning , connectors are cohesive links within a text which give us some insight in our judgements on whether something is well-written or not.
Coherence
We need to create meaningful connections which are not actually expressed by the words and sentences. We need to fill in a lot of gaps which exist in the text. This factor is described as coherence. If there are no cohesive ties within a fragment of discourse , we can understand them in terms of the conventional actions performed by the speakers.
Speech Events
We need to specify the roles of speaker and hearer and their relationship , whether they were friends , strangers , young , old , of equal or unequal status and many other factors.All of these factors will have an influence an what is said and how it is said.
Conversational Interaction
Two or more people take turns at speaking. Participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished , usually by signaling a completion point. We have different conventions of turns – taking ; cutting in an another speaker or waiting for an opportunity to take a turn.
The Co-operative Princible
In a conversational exchange , the participants are co-operating with each other.We have four maxims to be obeyed.
Quantity : As informative as required
Quality : Say that which you believe to be true.
Relation : Be relevant
Manner : Be clear , brief and orderly
Implicature is an additional conveyed meaning.To describe the conversational implicature , we have to appeal to some background knowledge that must be shared by the conversational participants.
Background Knowledge
We actually create what the text is about based on our expectations of what normally happens.
A Schema is a term for a conventional knowledge.Structure which exists in memory.One particular schema is a script.A script is dynamic in which a series of conventional actions takes place.
UNIT 15 : LANGUAGE & THE BRAIN
Neurolinguistics, the study of relationship between language and the brain.
Parts of the brain
The brain has two basic parts : The left hemisphere, and the right hemisphere. We will first concentrate on the left hemisphere.
Broca’s Area ( the anterior speech cortex )
It deals with producing speech.
Wernicke’s Area ( the posterior speech cortex )
It deals with comprehension.
The Motor Cortex
It controls movement of muscles, when speaking face, jaw, tongue, and larynx.
The Arcuate Fasciculus
It forms a crucial connection between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area .
The Localization View
The word is heard and comprehended by Wernicke’s area , the signal is transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area where preparations are made to produce it. A signal is then sent to the motor cortex to physically articulate the word.
But this is an oversimplified version of what may actually takes place. We have neglected to mention the intricate interconnections via the central nervous system, the complex role of the brain’s supply, and the extremely interdependent nature of most brain functions.
The localization view is one way to say that our linguistic abilities have identifiable locations in the brain.
Tongue Tips & Slips
• The Tip of the Tongue : You feel that some word is just eluding you, that you know the word.
• Slip of the tongue : Tangled expressions.
e.g. long shorty stort ( long story short )
or word reversals : ( spoonerism )
e.g. use the door to open the key
Although the slips of the tongue are mostly treated as errors of articulation, it has been suggested that they many result from “ slips of the brain “ as it tries to organize linguistic messages.
• Slip of the ear : A type of misunderstanding.
e.g. Have you seen the great ape ?
But the speaker said “ grey tape “
Aphasia
Aphasia is defined as impairment of language function due to localized cerebral damage which leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing linguistic forms.
Broca’s Aphasia ( Motor Aphasia )
It is serious language disorder characterized by a substantially reduced amount of speech, distorted articulation and slow often effortful speech. They generally use lexical morphemes but not functional morphemes. In Broca’s aphasia comprehension is typically much beter than production.
Wernick’s Aphasia ( Sensory Aphasia )
The type of language disorder which results in difficulties in auditory comprehension is sometimes called “ sensory aphasia “ someone suffering fom this disorder can actually produce very fluent speech which is, however, often difficult to make sense of it.
Conduction Aphasia
It is identified with damage to the arcuate fasciculus. This time people do not have articulation problems but may have disrupted rhythm because of pauses and hesitations.
Comprehension of spoken words is normally good. But repeating a word or phrase ( spoken by someone else ) will create major difficulties. What is heard and understood can not be transferred to the speech production area.
Dichotic Listening
Anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain and anything on the left side is processed in the right hemisphere. So a signal coming in the right ear will go to the left hemisphere and a signal coming in the left ear will go to the right hemisphere.
In Dichotic Listening Test, a subject sits with a set of earphones on and is given two different sound signals simultaneously. When asked to say what was heard, the subject more often correctly identifies the sound which came via the right ear. This is known as right-ear advantage. The right hemisphere appears to have primary responsibility for processing a lot of other incoming signals of non linguistic nature. So the right-hemisphere handles non-verbal sounds and the left-hemisphere handles language sounds.
UNIT 16 : FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
There is some innate disposition in the human infant to acquire language. This can be called as the “ language-faculty” of the human with each newborn child is endowed. By itself, this faculty is not enough.
Basic Requirements
1- Acquiring the first language interaction with other language users in order to bring the language faculty into operation.
2- The child who does not hear or isn’t allowed to use language will learn no language. Hearing is necessary but not enough.
3- The crucial requirement appears to be the opportunity to interact with others ula language. Since it is not genetically inherited, it is acquired in a particular language using environment.
The Acquisition Schedule
Language acquisition schedule has the same basis as the biologically determined development of motor skills. This biologically schedule is tied to the maturation of the infant’s brain and the lateralization process. This biological program is dependent on an interplay with many social factors in the child’s environment. Acquisition requires constant input from which the basis of the regularities in the particular language can be worked out.
Caretaker Speech
The simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends a lot of time interacting with a young child is called caretaker speech. ( Motherese ) Frequent questions, exaggerated intonation, simplified words and structures and a lot of repetition characterize caretaker’s speech.
Pre-language Stages
The pre-linguistic sounds are called “cooing” and “babbling” ( from about 3 months to 10 months ). First recognizable sounds are described as Cooing with velar consonants such as [k] and [g] as well as high vowels such as [I] and . ( By 3 months )
By 6 months, the child can produce a number of different vowels and consonants such as fricatives and nasals. Babbling stage may contain syllable type sounds such as “mu” and “da”. Around 9 months, there are recognizable intonation patterns to the consonant and vowel combinations being produced. Around 10th and 11th months, they are capable of using their vocalization to express emotions and emphasis.
[u]The One Word or Holophrastic Stage
Between 12-18 months, they produce single units utterances. ( Milk, Cookie, Cat ) . It is holophrastic because the child can use a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence. ( What’s that ? )
The Two-Word Stage
Between 12 months and 24 months , the child’s vocabulary moves beyond fifty distinct words. A variety of combinations appear in this stage ( mummy eat, cat bed ) . The child not only produces speech but receives feedback which usually confirms that the utterance worked. Children can understand five times as many than they produce.
Telegraphic Speech
Between 2 and 3 years old, the child begins producing a large number of utterances which could be classified as multiple-word utterances. Word-form variations begin to appear. The child has clearly developed some sentence-building capacity by this stage and can order the forms correctly. By the age of two and a half, the child’s vocabulary is expanding rapidly and the child is initiating more talk. By three, the vocabulary has grown to hundreds of words and pronounciation has become closer to the form of the adult language.
The Acquisition Process
For the vast majority of children, no one provides any instruction on how to speak the language, the child is not being taught the language. Children actively construct, from what’s said to them, possible ways of using the language and test whether they work or not. It’s impossible to say that the child is acquiring the language through a process of consistently imitating adult speech in parrot-fashion. Adults simply don’t produce many of the types of expressions which turn up in children’s speech.
Morphology
By the time the child is 3 years old, he starts to use some of the inflectional morphemes which indicate the grammatical function of the nouns and verbs used. First, -ing form appears in expressions such as “ cat sitting “ . Then plural morpheme –s comes as in “boys” . Acquisition of this form is often accompanied by a process of overgeneralization ( adding –s to form plurals as in foots, mans ). Then possessive inflectional –‘s occurs as in “ Mummy’s book “. Irregular past-tense forms appear before –ed inflection in child’s speech. Finally the regular –s marker on third person singular present tense verbs appears. –s occurs with full verbs first ( comes,looks ) and then with auxiliaries ( does, has ) .
Syntax
In the formation of questions and the use of negatives there appear to be three identifiable stages. Stage 1 occurs between 18 and 26 months, Stage 2 between 22 and 30 months and Stage 3 between 24 and 40 months. ( Different children proceed at different paces ) .
Questions
Stage 1 : Simply add a WH- form to the beginning or utter the expression with a rising intonation.
Where kitty?
Sit chair ?
Stage 2 : More complex expressions can be formed but raising intonation strategy continues to be used.
Why you smiling ?
You want eat ?
Stage 3 : Inversion appears but the WH- forms don’t always undergo the required inversion.
Can I have a piece ?
Will you help me ?
Why kitty can’t stand up?
Negatives
Stage 1 : “No” or “Not” should be at the beginning of any expression.
No fall
No sit there
Stage 2 : “Don’t” and “ can’t” appear but “no” and “not” are stil used but in front of the verb.
He no bite you.
I don!t know.
You can’t dance.
Stage 3 : “Didn’t” and “ won’t” appear. Acquisition of the form “isn’t” is the latest.
I didn’t caught it.
She won’t let go.
He not taking it.
Semantic
During the holophrastic stage, many children use their limited vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects ( bow-wow to refer to a dog ). Sometimes children use bow-wow ot refer to cats and horses. This is called “ overextension “ which is done on the basis of similarities of shape, sound and size. The semantic development in child is use of words is usually a process of overextension initially,followed by a gradual process of narrowing down the application of each term as more words are learned. In terms of hyponomy, the child will almost always use the middle level term in a hyponymous set such as animal – dog –poodle. It also seems that antonymous relations are acquired fairly late. ( after the age of 5 )
* By the age of 5, the child has completed the greater part of basic language acquisition process. According to some, the child is then in a good position to start learning a second language.
UNIT 17 : SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION/LEARNING
Acquisition Barriers
1- Most people attempt to learn another language during their teenage or adult years.
2- In a few hours each week of school time.
3- With a lot of other occupations.
4- With an already known language available for most of their daily communicative requirements.
5- Adults’ tongues get stiff from pronouncing one type of long and just can not cope with the new sounds of another language. ( There is no physical evidance to support it. )
Acquisition & Learning
Acquisition refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations.
Learning refers to conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of a language.
• Even in ideal acquisition situations, very few adults seem to reach native-like proficiency in using a second language. There one individuals who can achieve great expertise in writing, but not in speaking. This might suggest that some features ( vocabulary, grammar ) of a second language are easier to acquire than others ( phonology ) .
• After the Critical Period ( around puberty ) , it becomes very difficult to acquire another language fully. Because long faculty being strongly taken over by the features of the L1 loses its flexibility or openness to receive the features of another language. For the second language, the optimum age may be during the years from ten to sixteen when the flexibility of the language acquisition faculty hasn’t been completely last and the maturation of cognitive skills allows a more effective “ working out “ of the regular features of the L2 encountered.
The Affective Filter
Affect is a type of emotional reaction. Affective filter is a kind of barrier to acquisition that results from negative feelings or experiences. If you are stressed, uncomfortable, self-conscious or unmotivated, you are unlikely to learn anything.
• Children seem to be less constrained by the effective filter.
Focus on Method
A variety of educational approaches and methods which are aimed at fostering L2 learning has been led. In 1483, William Caxton used his newly established course material for L2 learners. It was in phrase book format.
Grammar-Translation Method
Long lists of words and a set of grammatical rules have to be memorized and the written language rather than the spoken language is emphasized. It is inefficient because it is not focused on how the language is used.
Audio-Lingual Method
It emphasizes the spoken language moving the simple to the more complex in the form of drills which the student had to repeat. FLL is a mechanical process of habit formation. Its critics pointed out that isolated practise in drilling language patterns bears no resemblance to the interactional nature of actual language use. It can also be boring.
Communicative Approaches
Against the artificiality, the functions of language should be emphasized rather than the forms of the language. ( Asking for things in different social contexts rather than the forms of the past tense in different sentences. )
Focus on Learner
An error is not something which hinders a student’s progress, but is a clue to the active learning process being made by a student as he or she tries out ways of communicating in the new language.
Creative Construction
Creative construction is used by the learner in accordance with tyhe most general way of making forms in English. ( Women’s is formed by using the most general way of making plural forms which is also called overgeneralization. )
Some erors may be due to the transfer of expressions or structures from the L1. If the L1 and the L2 have similar features, then the learner may be able to benefit from the Positive Transfer of L1 knowledge. Tranfering a L1 feture that is really different from L2 results in Negative Transfer which isn’t effective for L2 communication. (inference)
Interlanguage
There is some in-between system used in L2 acquisition which contains aspects of L1 and L2 but which is an inherently variable system with rules of its own. This system is called an Interlanguage and it is basis of all L2 production. If a learner’s L2 forms contain many features which don’t match the target language, they don’t progress any further and their interlanguage is fossilized.
Motivation
Students who experience some success are among the most motivated to learn. And motivation may be as much a result of success as a cause. The learner who is willing to guess, risks making mistakes and tries to communicate in the L2 will tend, given the opportunity to be more successful.
Input & Output
Input is the language that the learner is exposed. It has to be compressible by using simpler structure and vocabulary in a variety of speech known as foreigner talk. It provides the beginning learner with clearer examples of the basic structure of the L2 as input.
Negotiated input is the L2 material that the learner can acquire in interaction through requests for clarification and active attention being focused on what’s said.
Output is the language which learners produce in meaningful interaction. The opportunity to produce it is the most crucial factor in the learner’s development of L2 abilities. Task-based learning provides learners opportunities to interact with each other.
Communicative Competence
Communicative competence is using the L2 accurately, appropriately and flexibly. It has got three components. The first component is grammatical competence which involves the accurate use of words and structures in the L2. Sociolinguistic competence provides the learner with the ability to interpret or produce language appropriately. Strategic competence is the ability to organize message effectively and to compensate for any difficulties. ( using a communicative strategy not to stop talking – defining the word you don’t know )
Applied Linguistics
It is the area which investigates the ralation between language and other fields as Education, Psychology, Sociology.
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