Lingüística aplicada a la lengua inglesa Dra. Emma Dafouz Milne PDF

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Apuntes de la asignatura lingüística aplicada a la lengua inglesa con la Dra. Emma Dafouz Milne. Asignatura obligatoria de segundo...

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ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS Dra. Emma Dafouz Milne

Course 2013-2014

1.1.

What is Applied Linguistics? Some definitions. What is the scope of Applied Linguistics?

Applied Linguistics, at least in USA, was first officially recognized as an independent course at the University of Michigan in 1946. The term was used both in the USA and in Great Britain to refer to applying a socalled ‘scientific approach1’ to teaching foreign languages, including English for non-native speakers. During WWII the US Army trained in foreign languages. Having good pronunciation was essential. In Europe, the emergence of Applied Linguistics as an academic discipline was closely connected to the foundation of AILA (the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée) at the University of Nancy (France) in 1964. Before that, teaching a language was basically by books. Traditionally, Applied Linguistics is concerned with language teaching in mother tongue education or with the teaching and learning of foreign/second languages → the “narrow” definition L2 acquisition theory (what), L2 pedagogy (how) and the interface between the two At present, Applied Linguistics refers to the application of linguistics research2 to the solution of practical, educational and social problems of all types → the “broad” definition (Trudgill, 1984; Cook & North, 2009) Other definitions: 1. Applied Linguistics is essentially “a problem-driven discipline, rather than a theory-driven one” (McCarthy, 2001: 4) 2. Applied Linguistics is also defined as an activity. “The application of linguistic knowledge to some object, situation or problem” (Corder, 1973: 15)

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= strategy

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= investigation

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1.2.

The development of Applied Linguistics in the 20th century and its st transition to 21 century.

The founding of other national associations of Applied Linguistics The British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) in 1964 The American Association (AAAL) in 1979 The Spanish Association (AESLA) in 1982 The Cameroon Association (CAMAILA) An over 40 different associations world-wide… → Reflects the good health of the discipline and its fast growth SUCCESS IN THE APPLIED LINGUISTICS ENTERPRISE DEPENDS ON: 1) Identify and defining problems. Everybody has overcome this problem. A linguist does this because he or she wants to know more 2) Contextualising those problems within linguistic study and developing a theoretical stance (Look more into the problem) 3) Employing appropriate resources for the exploration of possible solutions 4) Evaluating the proposed solutions. In a teaching context is quite common

1.3.

The interrelationship of the disciplines.

At present, Applied Linguistics is regarded as an interdisciplinary discipline, that is, one that uses or outs across several established disciplines or traditionally fields of study Interdisciplinary approaches typically focus on problems felt by the investigators to be too complex or vast to be dealt with the knowledge and tools of a single discipline. (Aphasia= language loss) Disciplines in Applied Linguistics 1. Language planning: the systematic approach to developing language as a national or regional resource. (Davies, 1999, glossary) /official intentions and policies affecting language use in a country. (Crystal, 1987: 424). 2. Lexicology: the study of the history and present state of a language’s vocabulary. (Crystal, 1987: 424) 3. Pragmatics: it studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others. This field overlaps with other areas, such as sociolinguistics or discourse analysis, among others. (Crystal, 1987: 120) 2

4. Lexicography: the art and science of dictionary making (Crystal, 1987: 424) 5. Clinical linguistics: either the application of linguistics to a medical setting involving language disorders or the practice of professional such as speech therapists working in those areas. (Davies, 1999, glossary) 6. Psycholinguistics: the study of the relationship between linguistic behaviour and the psychological 3 processes (e.g. memory, attention) thought to underlie it. (Crystal, 1987: 412) 7. Sociolinguistics: the study of the interaction between language and the structure and functioning of society. (Crystal, 1987: 412) 8. Neurolinguistics: the study of the neurological basis of language development and use in human beings, especially of the brain’s control over the processes of speech and understanding. (Crystal, 1987: 412) 9. Computational linguistics: the study of language using techniques and concepts of computer science, especially with reference to the problems posed by the fields of machine translation, information retrieval, and artificial intelligence. (Crystal, 1987: 412) 10. Corpus linguistics: a use of the computer to collect a large sample of language both spoken and written for purposes of description. (Davies, 1999, glossary) 11. L1 Acquisition: the normal development in a child of his or her first language. (Davies, 1999, glossary) 12. Forensic linguistics: the study of any text or item of spoken/written language which has relevance to a criminal or civil dispute, or which relates to what goes on in a court of law, or to the language of the law itself. Thus the linguist may be called upon to analyse a very wide variety of documents, e.g. agreements relating to ancient territorial disputes, the quality of court interpreting, an allegation of ‘verballing’ (claims by defendants that their statements were altered by police officers), a disputed will, a suicide note, etc. (based on http://www.thetext.co.uk/index.html) 13. Critical Discourse Analysis might be defined as fundamentally interested in analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language. In other words, Critical Discourse Analysis aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed, constituted, legitimized, and so on, by language use (or in discourse). (Weiss and Wodak, 2003: 15) According to Davies (1999), this approach “analyses how linguistic choices in texts are used to maintain and create social inequalities.”

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Cognitive

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14. Ecolinguistics is a new branch of linguistics which investigates the role of language in the development and possible solution of ecological and environmental problems. Examples of questions that interest ecolinguists: How do environmental topics appear in texts? How does the language system transport ecological and unecological ideas? (http://wwwgewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/ed/project/eco.html) 15. L2 Acquisition: this is the common term used for the name of the field. It refers to the learning of another language after the native language has been learned. Sometimes the term refers to the learning of a third of fourth language (Gass and Selinker, 2001:4) Sub-disciplines (“non-traditional” areas) in Applied Linguistics: - Literacy: ability to read and write - Speech pathology: evaluation and treatment of communication disorders and swallowing disorders in both children and adults. - Deaf education: a broad and diverse professional field that centres on the education of children who are deaf or hard of hearing - Interpreting and translating: they are two close related linguistic disciplines. The difference between them is only the difference in the medium: the interpreter translates orally, while a translator interprets written text. Both interpreting and translation presuppose a certain love of language and deep knowledge of more than one language. - Communication practices: processes used to make people be able to communicate in different contexts. People need to be able to communicate and engage with an ‘external world’ (whether this is a public space or within the private sphere) - Lexicography: Lexicography - First language acquisition: the normal development in a child of his or her first language

1.4.

Examples of current Applied Linguistics research

A diachronic study of the subtitling of offensive and taboo language (translation and interpreting) El papel del lenguaje corporal en el sistema de toma de turnos: aportaciones desde el habla infantil: Conversation analysis Group work techniques in the English for Health Science syllabus: bridging the gap between the academic and the professional worlds. El español de los refugiados saharauis en la ciudad de Tin duf (Argelia): Sociolinguistics

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SOME EXAMPLES OF APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDIES: What do you think? 1) In communities with more than one language, which ones should be used at school? 2) Should everyone learn foreign languages, and if so, which one or which ones? Which is the best method to do so? 3) Should deaf children learn a sign language, or a combination of lip reading and speaking?

TEACHING METHODS → influenced language learning and teaching: ‘Grammar translator method’ (codified in the 19th c., Karl Plötz): made language learning easier through the use of example sentences instead of whole texts. The content focused on reading and writing literary materials, which emphasize the archaic vocabulary found in the classics. The problem is that it focuses on the ability to ‘analyse’ language, and not the ability to ‘use’ it. ‘Direct method’ (beginning 20th c.): emphasized exposure to oral language, with listening and speaking as the primary skills. It imitated how mother tongue is learnt naturally, with listening first, then speaking and later reading and writing. Meaning was related directly to the target language, without the step of translation, while explicit grammar teaching was also downplayed. It required teachers to be highly proficient in the target language, which was not always possible. It did not take into account the differences between L1 and L2 acquisition. ‘Reading method’ (Michael West): promoted reading skills through vocabulary management. He ‘substituted low-frequency “literary words” with more frequent items’. He also controlled the number of new words which could appear in any text. These steps had the effect of significantly reducing the lexical load for readers. This focus on vocabulary management was part of a greater approach called the ‘Vocabulary Control Movement’.

THE MOVE FROM DISCRETE TO MORE HOLISTIC AND INTEGRATIVE PERSPECTIVES (1970s) The study of language use/ language communication: language use is not just a product of a number of individual language ‘knowledge bits’ which reside completely within ‘interlocutors’; it is also profoundly affected by a number of other factors, such as the social context, the degree of involvement and interaction, the mode of communication (written vs. spoken), and time constraints The view of cognition: traditionally, vocabulary and grammar were two discrete entities which could be taught and learnt separately. Today, vocabulary and grammar are not necessarily separate things, but may be viewed as two elements of a single language system referred to as ‘lexicogrammar’

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Language learning: without social interaction we cannot learn a language. ‘Learner strategies’: if learners were, in fact, active participants then it followed that what these learners did would make a difference in the quality and speed of their learning. Studies were carried out to find out what behaviours differentiated ‘good’ from ‘poor’ learners. From these studies, lists of good learning strategies which good learners used were developed and it was suggested that all learners could benefit from training in these strategies. It is clear that effective strategy use can facilitate language learning NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING THE FOUR SKILLS Skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Aspects involved in their classification/description: - Mode: oral or written - Process:  Receptive: Listeners and readers work to decode and construct meanings and messages  Productive: speakers and writers use language resources to encode and express meanings and messages - Processing:  Top-down: utilizes an appropriate interpretation or realization of textual meanings and messages.  Bottom-up: depends on language resources- lexico-grammar and phonology (pronunciation) or orthography- as aids to the accurate decoding or interpretation, or encoding or realization, of meaningful text

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2.1.

Theories of L1 acquisition

Behaviourism

Innatism

Interactionism

Connectionism

Skinner

Chomsky

Piaget

Elman

Bloor

Newport

Vygotsky Slobin

2.1.1. Behaviourist approaches: Skinner Traditional behaviourists: children imitated the language produced by those around them → their attempts to reproduce what they heard received ‘positive reinforcement’. - This could take the form of praise or just successful communication. - Thus encouraged by their environment, children would continue to imitate and practice these sounds and patterns until they formed ‘habits’ of correct language use. - The repetition is selective, they repeat what is new for them (mostly nouns) - RESULT: the quality and quantity of the language the child hears, as well as the stimuli given, would shape the child’s language behaviour Behaviourist maintained that children who do little over imitation acquire language as fully and rapidly as those who imitate a lot. Children’s language also shows signs of creativity, in their “personal” use of certain grammatical structures (i.e. question formation, order of events…) or unfamiliar words. Examples: ENGLISH

SPANISH

*So he can doc my little bump?

*Se ha rompido, me he ponido

*I’d like to propose a piece of bread

*No cabo

*Are those are my boots?

*Actora

*You took all the towels away because I *Almóndiga, cocreta, cocholate can’t dry my hands

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Classical behaviourism is not a satisfactory explanation for the acquisition of the more complex grammar children acquire Elements considered worthy of study: - Stimuli (teaching input) and reactions (student responses) because they can be observed - Social issues were not totally ignored, but they went on to influence other fields, such as sociology and anthropology, much more than psychology Behaviourism was often linked to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH): - Reason: the habits formed in the L1 would interfere with the new ones needed for the L2 in a person learning a second language - Main tenets of CAH: where the L1 and the target language are similar, learners should acquire target language structures easily, but where are differences, learners should have difficulties Behaviourism vs. Chomsky’s Cognitivism: - Behaviourism: language learning is a result of habit formation as the development of activities such as close attention to pronunciation, focus on sentence patterns and memorization. - Chomsky’s Cognitivism: language is governed by cognitive factors, a set of abstract rules which were assumed to be innate. It means that children are born with an understanding of the way languages work (UG)

2.1.2. Nativist approach: Chomsky Term “nativist”: derived from the fundamental assertion that language acquisition is innately determined, that we are born with a genetic capacity that predisposes us to a systematic perception of language around us Knowledge of language is acquired through Universal Grammar (UG). - It gives the child advanced knowledge of many abstract and complete properties of language, so that these do not have to be learnt from linguistic input or by general learning strategies data you receive. - Researches who study L2 acquisition from UG perspective are interested in whether the competence that underlies the performance or use of the L2 resembles the competence underlying the language performance of native speakers The child’s language at any stage at any stage is systematic (organized, structure) ‘Communicative competence’(1971, Hymes): language competence consists of more that just being able to ‘form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom’ → Accuracy (‘correctness’) and appropriacy (particular context) of the language

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3 basic explanations for why language learning is innate: 1. Acquisition goes far beyond the actual input received. A child has a capacity of creating sentences without having heard that sentence before. 2. Degeneracy: input isn’t always perfect. Even thou some sentences are ungrammatical; the language a child acquires is perfect. 3. Lack of negative evidence: There are not explicit rules of grammatical or ungrammatical, we just tell the kid what is wrong and what is right. With this, they start to form their own rules. Chomsky argued that children are biologically programmed for language: - Language develops in the child in the same way as other biological functions do (e.g. learn to walk) → Child does not have to be taught - The environment makes only a basic contribution and the child’s biological endowment will do the rest - Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) The language acquisition device (LAD)

Pivot grammars: - Definition: A loose grammar said to govern two-word utterances by children - Different meanings for the same expression - E.g. All gone, mommy sock, more juice… Connectionists (as Elman) differed sharply from the Chomskyan innatism: - Connectionist hypothesis: language acquisition does not require a separate ‘module of the mind’ but can be explained in terms of learning in general - What children need to know is essentially available to them in the language they are exposed to - Research → Computer simulations:  Language samples are provided as input to a fairly simple program  Goal: to show that the computer program can ‘learn’ certain things if it is exposed to them enough  The program can even generalize beyond what it has actually been exposed to and make the same kinds of creativity ‘mistakes’ that children make (e.g. putting a regular –ed ending on an irregular verb, for example, *eated) Overgeneralization 9

Cognitive and developmental psychologists argue that the innatist place too much emphasis on the ‘final state’ (the competence of adult native speaker) and not enough on the developmental aspects of language acquisition. View: - Language acquisition is but one example of the human child’s remarkable ability to learn from experience

- Not specific brain structures devoted to language acquisition - What children need to know is essentially available in the language they are exposed to as they hear it used thousands of hours of interactions with the people and objects around them Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar - VS. Chomsky’s approach because language was seen not as something exclusively internal to a learner, but rather as a means of functioning in society. - 3 types of function:  Ideational (ideas): telling people facts or experiences  Interpersonal: maintaining personal relationships with people  Textual: expressing the connections and organization within a text (e.g. clarifying, summarizing, signaling the beginning and end of an argument; oral texts: speeches)

2.1.3. Functional approaches: cognition and development (Piaget) and Social Interaction

language

FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES Aim at accounting for the contextual aspects of language: participants, situation, time, topic, means of communication, etc. Innatism and Chomsky’s views of L1 learning cannot explain adequately the complex nature of human language learning and its dependence on context. In child language the functional position claims that the infant acquires his cognitive capacities through interaction with the environment (the social context) The child needs to be flexible in order to deal with a changing environment.

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PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Swiss p...