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LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

SLA Final Exam Study Guide Cognition Lightbown & Spada (2013): Chapter 4 

behaviorist vs. innatist SLA perspectives Behaviorist vs. innatist SLA perspectives Behaviorist: Learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit formation Learning language primarily through imitation Innatist: innate knowledge of the principles of universal grammar. Permits all children to acquire the language of their environment during a critical period of their development “People are naturally wired to learn language” Behaviorist: explains learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habit formation Innatist: was triggered by chomsky’s critique of behaviorist theory and he argued that the innate knowledge of the principles of UG permit all children to acquire the L of their environment during the crit period Behaviorist- learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habit formation Early research done with lab animals Innatist- Chomsky and Universal Grammar

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Krashen’s “Monitor Model” o Two Parts  Acquisitional learning hypothesis: suggests that we acquire language as we are exposed to samples of language and that when we do there’s no conscious attention paid to language form  Monitor Hypothesis: all the acquired language is used to engaged in spontaneous communication and the rules and patterns are learned by the editor or monitor, which allows them to perfect the acquire system – change it. Monitoring is a conscious process. o Natural Order Hypothesis  Easier language rules don’t need to be the first acquired rules. No hierarchy of simple to complex  SLA progresses in predictable sequences o Comprehensible input  Language acquisition only occurs when the language you’re exposed to is of the form i+1 and is comprehensible (i represents inter-language or the already acquired language and 1 is the language that is “1” above that level)  acquisition occurs when one is exposed to language that is comprehensible and contains i+ 1 o Affective Filter  Even though some people are exposed to large quantities of comprehensible input they do not acquire language

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

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successfully because they have an affective (bad feelings you have) filter that prevents acquisition  Bad feelings = bad learning  metaphorical barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language despite the availability of appropriate input; negative feelings may cause learner to filter out input o Acquisition vs. Learning  Acquisition: Acquiring a language through exposure and using it for spontaneous communication  Not conscious – naturally learned o Like children do  Krashen believes that adult L2 learners should approach learning through acquisition – teach with this setting in mind  Learning: Conscious attention to language – conscious learning o Issues/problems with this model  Can’t test it empirically – big problem Information-processing o This model sees SLA as the building up of knowledge that can eventually be called on automatically for speaking and understanding

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usage-based learning o Learners develop a stronger and stronger network of associations or connections between these features as well as between language features and the context in which they occur o Example: Learner may get the subject-verb agreement correct but it is not because they know a rule but because they have heard examples of it (“I say,” “He says,” etc.) so each subject-pronoun activates the correct verb form

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competition model o Through exposure to thousands of examples of language associated with particular meanings, speakers of a particular language come to understand how to use the cues that signal specific functions o Example: the relationship between words in a sentence may be signaled by word order, grammatical markers, and the animacy of the nouns of the sentence

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interaction hypothesis o Development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication o Negotiation for Meaning  Effectiveness of input increases when negotiating for meaning. This occurs when there’s a breakdown in communication that interlocutors attempt to overcome. Participants will use communication strategies to help the interaction process. o Modified Interaction  The interaction that comes about from negotiating for meaning. Comes from the “repairing” of the gap of information with strategies such as clarification requests, comprehension checks, and incorporations into the learners speak. o Comprehensible Output Hypothesis

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

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Learning takes place when a learner encounters a gap in their linguistic knowledge of the L2. By noticing this gap, learners become aware of it and they can modify their output to fill it in and learn about the language. Three Functions:  Noticing function, hypothesis testing function, metalinguistic function

Ortega (2009): Chapter 5 

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Performance vs. Behavior o Performance is observable (inspecting what is observable during processing / while performing tasks) o Behaviorist theories are stimulus response explanations for human learning Representation vs. Access o Representation is knowledge and access is the processing o 3 kinds of representation  Grammar  Lexical  Schematic (Pragmatics) Automatic vs. Controlled processing o Automatic- lower effort, can run in parallel (multitasking) o Controlled- (voluntary) top-down, serial/ cannot be parallel Central Executive o Our voluntary attention Limited Capacity Model o Someone can’t do 2 serial tasks at the same time Dual-task condition o Where the researcher creates processing stress by asking participants to carry out 2 tasks simultaneously, a primary task and a distracting task Long-term memory o About representation; unlimited; there are 2 kinds Declarative/ explicit knowledge -> procedural/ implicit knowledge o As knowledge becomes more implicit, it becomes more automatic o Explicit- verbalizable and consciously recalled; recollection effects or events and is in the hippocampus o Implicit- skills and habit learning, in the neocortex Semantic vs. episodic memory o 2 types of explicit memory o Semantic – decontextualized knowledge; facts that everyone knows o Episodic- knowledge of the events in which people are personally involved or the events we go through Vocabulary o Strength- ability to use a word productively and recognize it passively o Size- total number of words o Depth- how well the word is known; how it sounds, how it is spelled, and affixes that come with it, multiple meanings of the word Working memory o We hold info and that is the storage, then we combine new and known information and that is processing. We have a limited capacity. It is the site for executive control.

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

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o L1- higher memory performance than in L2 o L2- metalinguistic insights from the working memory are honed Memory capacity o Long-term memory- no limit o Working memory- has limited capacity, so there are strategies like chunking  Digital span recall, on-word repetition span, word span, sentence repetition Learning conditions o Incidental- learning without intention while doing something else o Implicit- learning with no intervention of controlled attention, usually without providing rules or asking to search for rule o Explicit- learning with the intervention of controlled attention, used with provision or rules and the search for rules Detection vs. noticing o Detection- registration outside of focal or selective attention o Noticing- detection + controlled activation into the focus of conscious attention Noticing and L2 learning o Noticing facilitates L2 learning but may not be necessary  People agree and disagree with this Awareness o Unaware- no trace of noticing can be found in introspective data o Aware- if mention is made of the subjective experience of paying attention to the target o Aware with understanding- abstract comments are made involving partial formation of rules or generalizations Emergentist turn in SLA o Associative learning  Happens as we form memories o Probabilistic  Statistical inferences you make when faced with ambiguity  Rational contingency  Automatically computed expectations of outcomes on the basis of best possible evidence

Dekeyser (1997) – Automaticity KEY TERMS:  Automaticitiy- ability to produce utterance quickly, free of error, and without a large amount of cognitive effort or consideration  Comprehension- choosing between pictures displayed on the computer screen to match a sentence VS  Production- typing the correct sentence corresponding to a picture  Explicit- declarative info, “knowledge that”, turned into specialized procedural rules VS  Implicit- “knowledge how” for very specific behaviors through analogy with a series of examples and with the help of very general behavioral rules  Single task- no distraction VS  Dual-task- activities also include a task involving memorizing numbers of doing math What were his questions?  When SL grammar rules have been assimilated, practice will lead to gradual automation

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

What led to DeKeyser’s questions?  Previous studies were not sufficient and had not investigated longitudinal effect of systematic practice on real time performance in comprehension and production What language was taught?  Autopractan, a made up language What were some of its characteristics?  Agglutinative  Flexible word order  Null-subject (subject NP can be dropped) Why was this chosen instead of a more “useful” language?  No one would have any prior knowledge of it or of something related to it, no overlapping rules Why was a dual-task method used? In other words, what does the dual-task allow the researcher to examine?  Doing more than one thing at once effectively shows automaticity  Extra thing added is not automatic, shows if other thing was automatic 3 findings:  Once SL grammar rules have been explicitly assimilated, practice will lead to automatization  Reduction in reaction time and error rate will follow a power function for individual grammar rules  Practice effect will be skill specific in the sense that students that only practice comprehension will only improve in comprehensions and students that only practice production will only improve in production

Kroll et al. (2005) 

Stroop effect/test here: https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready2.html o

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Semanticaly realted distractors produce interference in picture naming o For bilinguals: Phonological relatives of the translation produce interference. How do they choose between the target word and the words affecting that word? o By taking more time. When interrupted they correctly select the right word.

Nation (2006) 

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What was the rationale behind this study? o Nation wanted to see what size vocabulary would permit an L2 English learner to successfully read and comprehend a various written texts and speech Text coverage o Proportion of words in a sentence that need to be known by the reader for the reader to understand the meaning of the sentence General conclusions o Found that a text coverage of 98% is needed for sufficient comprehension of speech and writing. o Vocabulary plays a much more important role in language teaching then is thought

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

There is a minimum threshold of vocab that you need to know Need a large vocab in order to attain L2 For words that occur a lot – if you do not know them, it won’t effect comprehension because you will learn eventually from context and recursion  Example: Shrek – Ogre occurs a lot and not a common word but learn fast in movie from context and frequency of use  

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Mackey & Sachs (2012) – Older Learners 

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Do old people show improvement in L2 question formation after learning with feedback? o Yes, only in the short-term. L2 learning did not maintain for 77% of participants. Is memory capacity and L2 learning related in these older learners? o Yes, the more capacity, the more improvement and learning. Phonological STM o ability to repeat series of sounds o Magic Number: 7 -/ + 2 pieces of info. o vocabulary learning o morphological rules o sentence span tasks o 2-6 sentences o questions: T/F? semantically (in)correct? o *memory: last word People do get better with feedback (if you are old). Not in the long term tho, only in the short-term.

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

Language Development Ortega (2006): Chapter 6    

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Competence- the nature of the mental representations comprising of the internal grammar of learners Development- processes and mechanisms by which those representations and the ability to use them change over time Interlanguage- the language system each learner constructs at any given point in development Contrastive Analysis vs Learner Language o Contrastive Analysis- comparing similarities and differences between given language pairs, systematic L1-L2 comparisons would eventually allow researchers and teachers to predict when negative transfer will occur and what errors will e produced by particular L1 background groups of L2 learners o Learner Language- what learners actually produce, assumes homogeny among speakers of a language Universal Grammar- our innate ability to learn language, we all have the potential to speak any language at birth, it’s hard wired in our brains Nativism- humans are as a species biologically endowed with the basics of grammar knowledge prior to any experience with language Modularity- human mind has a language dedicated module where language learning and language use are handled Methods: o Grammaticality judgments and experiments- elicited o Language in use- naturalistic IL Processes: o Simplification- process called upon when messages must be conveyed with little language, used in early stages of L2 o Overgeneralization- application of a form or rule not only to contexts where it applies but also to contexts where it does not apply, often documented with morphology e.g. -ing o Restructuring- process of self-reorganization of grammar knowledge representations , existing knowledge schemata may be quite radically modified o U-shaped behavior- typically manifests as a part of restructuringthe appearance of correct or nativelike forms at an early stage of development which then undergo a process of attrition, only to be reestablished at a language stage, accuracy at first is purely coincidental English morpheme acquisition (see Jiang and Fuse, and the PPT) o –ing, plural –s, copula BE o Be AUX, a/the o Irregular, past o Past –ed, possessive –s, 3rd person –s semantics influence- aspect hypothesis- predicts that the developmental pathway of emergence of tense and aspect will reflect prototypical pairings, i.e. combinations of where the semantics of the verb morphology is congruent with the semantics of the meaning of the verb to which the morphology attached o duration verbs learned first syntactic markedness o NP Accessibility Hierarchy (relative clauses) o Subject o Direct Object o Indirect object

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

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Object of Preposition Genitive Object of Comparison Teachability hypothesis- teachers can only successfully teach what learners are developmentally ready for o Learner readiness- what it sounds like o You have to walk before you can run

Pettitt (Guest Lecture and Article) 

Be able to briefly describe Pettitt’s original study and how it led her to want to follow up with one of her participants. Also be able to explain why she chose her new methodology and what she found. PPT on BB. Learner did not seem competent based on tests. However, after transcribing his speech, it was found that he did improve. Confirmation bias at its best. Why him? He was very fluent, however, was using bad grammar and accuracy. Methodologies: 1st time) Initial interview Reverse interview Narrative task Retell task Then, post test: final interview Reverse interview Narrative task Retell task 2nd time: test for syntactic complexity: works. AND: Conversation Analysis Pragmatic competence is independent. “Roba” was a great conversationalist and had great pragmatic competence.

Han (2006) – Fossilization  

An interlanguage-unique phenomenon in which a semi-developed linguistic form or construction shows permanent resistance to environmental influence Grammaticality Judgment Tasks vs. Naturalistic Data (Over Time) o Previously, researchers had views on whether to use grammaticality judgment tasks or naturalistic data, and this study used both o Both the GJ task and the Naturalistic data remained consistent over time o The two tasks also remained consistent with each other  2 sets of data giving the same result

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

Jia & Fuse (2007) 

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Purpose: five year study investigating the acquisition of 6 English grammatical morphemes by ten native mandarin speaking children and adolescence in the U.S. Wanted to compare the acquisition trajectories and levels of mastery across the morphemes and also to identify when age related differences emerged and forms they took. The Six English Grammatical Morphemes o Regular and irregular past tense o Third person singular o Progressive –ing o Copula “be” o Auxiliary “do” Results: Language environment of individual differences was a stronger predictor than the age of arrival. Findings supports an environmental account for age related differences in L2 morphological acquisition

Aptitude Ortega (2008): Chapter 7       

Kaplan vs. Watson shared variance MLAT: what are the 3 cognitive abilities it measures, and how does it measure them? intelligence, L1 ability, FL ability (p. 152) memory capacity good memory: vocabulary vs. grammar (p. 157) Fundamental Difference Hypothesis

Abrahamsson & Hyltenstam (2008) – Near Nativeness   

The study- investigated proficiency and language aptitude of 42 near native speakers of Swedish Adult learners need a high degree of language aptitude o Don’t have late L2 learners who are fluent in L2 and have low aptitude Children don’t need high aptitude in order to be proficient in the L2

Erlam (2005) – Aptitude and Types of Instruction  

4 components of language learning aptitude Be able to describe the study and its findings

Motivation Ortega (2008): Chapter 8       

Kaplan vs. Watson correlation (positive, negative) Motivation vs. Aptitude ABCs of Psychology (affect, behavior/conation, cognition) L2 learning motivation Case study (Alice Kaplan p. 169) Antecedents (Integrativeness, Attitudes, Orientations)

LING 318 Final Exam Study Guide F14 J.A. Hardy

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Orientations – instrumental, knowledge, travel, friendship, integration Combinations of orientations: internal and external Problem with motivation studies (SL vs. FL)

Guilloteaux & Dörnyei (2008) – Effects of Motivational Strategies      

Vocab – pedagogical Self-report vs. Observational Study the circular diagram COLT – MOLT observation forms: Compare teacher motivational behavior with actual (self-reported) student motivation (also, filled in post-lesson evaluation form) Student motivation – attitudes towards L2 course, linguistic selfconfidence, classroom anxiety

Donitsa-Schmidt et al. (2004) – Arabic in ...