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THEORIES AND FOUNDATIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
MÀSTER DE FORMACIÓ DE PROFESSORAT DE SECUNDÀRIA BATXILLERATS I EOIs
Helena Roquet Pugès Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Oct 2013Grup d’Adquisició de Llengües des de la Catalunya Multilingüe
(ALLENCAM)
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN MULTILINGUAL CATALONIA
OUTLINE
Foreign Language Acquisition paradigms (L2/L3)
Structuralist Behaviorist period
Contrastive analysis
Chomskyan period
Acquisition studies. Interlanguage.
Environmentalist period
Language and communication: THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS
Structuralist/ Behaviorist period Contrastive analysis
Chomskyan period Acquisition studies
Environmentalist period Language and communication
Structuralist/Behaviourist (1)
Skinner. 1957. Verbal behaviour
L learning is a process of habit formation, a stimulus-response-reaction mechanism
Imitation, repetition, memorisation, practise and reinforcement Properties of L1 influence L2 learning: Positive/negative transfer
(interference). Errors are avoided!
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ERRORS
Structuralist/Behaviourist (2) Positive contribution:
Attention to oral language (emphasis on spoken L and pronunication)
Identification of factors present in LA Imitation Repetition Memory of strategies
Explanation of some types of errors Transfer errors Language distance (affecting achievement)
Structuralist/Behaviourist (3)Negative contribution:
Attention to form and not to meaning
Learner is a passive recipient
Learning proceeds by analogy
Creativity is not allowed
LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS
Structuralist/ Behaviorist period Contrastive analysis
Chomskyan period Acquisition studies. Interlanguage
Environmentalist period Language and communication
The Chomskyan period (1)
N. Chomsky. 1957. Syntactic Structures. 1959 Review of Verbal Behaviour
Acquisition: Rule-governed behaviour Learning by analysis and not by analogy Creativity in L: “Generate an infinite number of
sentences from a finite number of rules”
The Chomskyan period (2)
*I goed. *I eated it. *She no can go. *She doesn’t wants to go. *I saw these mans. *She cans come.
The Chomskyan period (5)
Research strands:
1. Stages of acquisition and INTERLANGUAGE 2. Variability (Sociolinguistic approaches) 3. Input studies 4. Linguistic universals (Aurora Bel)
INTERLANGUAGE (1)
Each of the stages the learner goes through on his/her way towards mastery of the target language. Each stage is a linguistic system in its own right, with specific features which characterize it, known as interlanguage.
INTERLANGUAGE (2)
It is different from the target language. It has its own internal structure. Errors are systematic. It is permeable to input. At each given moment a particular stage of
acquisition is apparent. Each stage includes forms typical of a previous
stage and forms anticipating the next one (Variability).
Past morpheme interlanguage development
John eat a banana yesterday. (ref. past no morf.)
She went. She broke. She jump. She walked. (sporadic use)
She goed. She eated. John breaked. (overegularitzation)
She went. She walked (correct use)
Legacy of the period
Several models among which Krashen (1983. The Natural Approach) Monitor
model. Based on 5 principles:
Comprehension precedes production
Production emerges in stages (students are not forced to speak before they are ready)
Communicative goals (classroom activities organised by topics, not by grammatical structures)
The instructor must create a good atmosphere
The Natural Approach (1983, Krashen)
5 hypothesis:
1.The Acquisition/Learning hypothesis
1.The Monitor hypothesis
1.The Natural Order hypothesis
§The Input hypothesis (emphasis on what the L learners here before they try to produce L)
§The Affective Filter hypothesis
LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS
Structuralist/ Behaviorist period Contrastive analysis
Chomskyan period Acquisition studies. Interlanguage
Environmentalist period Language and communication
Environmentalist period (1)
Language acquisition:
Complex interaction between the linguistic environment (input) and the learner's internal mechanisms, with neither viewed as primary. Verbal interaction is of crucial importance
Sociolinguistics (2)
Hymes (1971): Different levels of competence involved in language: Structural Discourse Communicative Strategic
ALL USED IN ‘CONTEXT’: Situation where discourse arises
Discourse Analysis (3)
Austin (1975): Speech act theory How language is used to do things
YOU CAN SAY ONE SAME MEANING WITH A VARIETY OF FORMS, AND ONE SAME FORM CAN HAVE A VARIETY OF MEANINGS
LANGUAGE IN USE IS COMMUNICATIVE
Real communication is based on interaction. It gives information which the person engaged in conversation with the speaker does not have.
Real communication is always with a purpose.
Real communication contains an element of unpredictability of choices of words. Only in very restricted formulaic expressions language is predictable.
The Communicative Approach
Language is seen as a tool for communicating
Real language practice in the classroom
To develop communicative competence in real communicative context
To develop communicative strategies through interaction
Language is communicative as well as linguistic:
grammar + pronunciation + social rules
Focus on functions, not on structures
View that students acquire a language when focusing on meaning, not only in form
The role of grammar in the CA
COMMUNICATIVE TEACHING
+ Focus on meaning + Group work interaction + Genuine questions + Opportunities to use lang. creatively + Opportunities to participate in task negotiations of
topics
ENVIRONMENTALISM
Interaction
Negotiation of meaning
‘Noticing’ new forms in the input
Instructional Implications?
Use of authentic materials and tasks
Communicative activities such as games and role plays
Group and pair work
Small number of students interacting
Emphasis on functions and meaning, not forms
Tolerate errors of form
…
CONCLUSION
Learning a second/foreign language it is not completely different from learning a first language, yet it is not
entirely the same…..
