3. (I) Review the sections that dealt with Universal Grammar. Is it some thing different from the nativists' concept of LAD?
4. (G) In a group, look at the two samples of speech on pages 31 and 32 (one by a five-year-old, and the other by a professional golfer). Identify what you would consider to be "performance variables" in those transcripts. Then, try to reconstruct an "idealized" form of the two monologues, and share with other groups.
5. (C) Competence and performance are difficult to define. In what sense are they interdependent? How does competence increase? Can it decrease? Try to illustrate with non-language examples of learning certain skills, such as musical or athletic skills.
6. (G) In a group, recall experiences learning a foreign language at some point in your past. Share with others any examples of your comprehension exceeding your production abilities. How about the reverse? Share your findings with the rest of the class.
7. (I) Name some forms of language and some functions of language. In your own experience learning a previous foreign language, did you experience any difficulty with the latter?
8. (C) In what way do you think Gouin reflected some ideas about language and about language acquisition that are now current more than a hundred years later? Would the Series Method or the Direct Method work for you as a teacher? Discuss pros and cons.
Carroll, David W. 1994. Psychology of Language. Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Holzman, Mathilda. 1998. The Language of Children. Second Edition.Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Most of the topics covered in this chapter are given full treatment in these two textbooks, which survey issues in first language acquisition.
Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow and Company.
Steven Pinker's book hit the best seller list a few years ago. It offers a wealth of information for the lay reader on such topics as child language acquisition, innateness, thought and language, and linguistics in general.
Cook, V. and Newson, M. 1996. Chomsky's Universal Grammar: AnIntroduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Saleemi, A. 1992. Universal Grammar and Language Learnability.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
These two books provide introductory surveys of research on Universal Grammar. They are more readable than the technical research studies themselves, which are often difficult to comprehend without a substantive background in linguistic theory.
Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers.
Derek Bickerton's book, which focuses principally on the topic of creolization, also outlines his theory of bioprogramming mentioned in this chapter.
Diller, Karl C. 1978. The Language Teaching Controversy. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers.
A summary of Francois Gouin 's language learning experiences and his Series Method can be found in this survey of language methodology.
[Note: See pages 18 and 19 of Chapter 1 for general guidelines for writing a journal on a previous or concurrent language learning experience.]
• As you learn(ed) a foreign language, did you feel any of the learning was due to a "knack" you had for it? Think of some examples to illustrate either the presence or the absence of some ability to pick up the language.
• Is your class focused more on the forms of language than the functions? Illustrate with examples.
• Go through the issues discussed in this chapter and ask yourself if, in your foreign language class, you have had opportunities to understand and to speak, to imitate the teacher, to practice discourse and conversation?
• Consider how children learn their first language and figure out inductively (before you go on to Chapter 3) what some of the child's "secrets" are that enable them to acquire a language seemingly efficiently.
CHAPTER 3
The increased pace of research on first language acquisition in the last half of the twentieth century attracted the attention not only of linguists of all kinds but also of educators in various language-related fields. Today the applications of research findings in first language acquisition are widespread. In language arts education, for example, teacher trainees are required to study first language acquisition, particularly acquisition after age five, in order to improve their understanding of the task of teaching language skills to native speakers. In foreign language education, most standard texts and curricula now include some introductory material in first language acquisition. The reasons for this are clear. We have all observed children acquiring their first language easily and well, yet individuals learning a second language, particularly in an educational setting, can meet with great difficulty and sometimes failure. We should therefore be able to learn something from a systematic study of that first language learning experience.
What may not be quite as obvious, though, is how the second language teacher should interpret the many facets and sometimes conflicting findings of first language research. First language acquisition starts in very early childhood, but second language acquisition can happen in childhood, early or late, as well as in adulthood. Do childhood and adulthood, and differences between them, hold some keys to language acquisition models and theories? The purpose of this chapter is to address some of those questions and to set forth explicitly some of the parameters for looking at the effects of age and acquisition.
The first step in investigating age and acquisition might be to dispel some myths about the relationship between first and second language acquisition. H.H. Stern (1970: 57-58) summarized some common arguments that cropped up from time to time to recommend a second language teaching method or procedure on the basis of first language acquisition:
1. In language teaching, we must practice and practice, again and again. Just watch a small child learning his mother tongue. He repeats things over and over again. During the language learning stage he practices all the time. This is what we must also do when we learn a foreign language.
2. Language learning is mainly a matter of imitation. You must be a mimic. Just like a small child. He imitates everything.
3. First, we practice the separate sounds, then words, then sentences. That is the natural order and is therefore right for learning a foreign language.
4. Watch a small child's speech development. First he listens, then he speaks. Understanding always precedes speaking. Therefore, this must be the right order of presenting the skills in a foreign language.
5. A small child listens and speaks and no one would dream of making him read or write. Reading and writing are advanced stages of language development. The natural order for first and second language learning is listening, speaking, reading, writing.
6. You did not have to translate when you were small. If you were able to learn your own language without translation, you should be able to learn a foreign language in the same way.
7. A small child simply uses language. He does not learn formal grammar. You don't tell him about verbs and nouns. Yet he learns the language perfectly. It is equally unnecessary to use grammatical conceptualization in teaching a foreign language.
These statements represent the views of those who felt that "the fit language learner was looked upon as the foreign language teacher's dream a pupil who mysteriously laps up his vocabulary, whose pronunciation, spite of occasional lapses, is impeccable, while morphology and syntax, instead of being a constant headache, come to him like a dream" (St( 1970: 58).The statements also tend to represent the views of those who were dominated by a behavioristic theory of language in which the first language acquisition process was viewed as consisting of rote practice habit formation, shaping, overlearning, reinforcement, conditioning, association, stimulus and response, and who therefore assumed that the second language learning process involves the same constructs.
There are flaws in each view. Sometimes the flaw is in the assumption behind the statement about first language learning, and sometimes it is in the analogy or implication that is drawn; sometimes it is in both. The flaws represent some of the misunderstandings that need to be demythologized for the second language teacher. Through a careful examination of those shortcomings in this chapter, you should be able, on the one hand, to avoid certain pitfalls, and on the other hand, to draw enlightened, plausible analogies wherever possible, thereby enriching your understanding of the second language learning process itself.
As cognitive and constructivist research on first language acquisition gathered momentum, second language researchers and foreign language teachers began to recognize the mistakes in drawing direct global analogies between first and second language acquisition. Some of the first warning signals were raised early in the process by the cognitive psychologist David Ausubel (1964). In foreboding terms, Ausubel outlined a number of glaring problems with the then-popular Audiolingual Method, some of whose procedures were ostensibly derived from notions of "natural" (first) language learning. He issued the following warnings and statements:
• The rote learning practice of audiolingual drills lacked the meaningfulness necessary for successful first and second language acquisition.
• Adults learning a foreign language could, with their full cognitive capacities, benefit from deductive presentations of grammar.
• The native language of the learner is not just an interfering factor—it can facilitate learning a second language.
• The written form of the language could be beneficial.
• Students could be overwhelmed by language spoken at its "natural speed," and they, like children, could benefit from more deliberative speech from the teacher.
These conclusions were derived from Ausubel s cognitive perspective, which ran counter to prevailing behavioristic paradigms on which the Audiolingual Method was based. But Ausubel's criticism may have been ahead of its time, for in 1964 few teachers were ready to entertain doubts about the widely accepted method. (See the vignette at the end of this chapter for a further discussion of the Audiolingual Method.)
By the 1970s and 1980s, criticism of earlier direct analogies between first and second language acquisition had reached full steam. Stern (1970), Cook (1973, 1995), and Schachter (1988), among others, addressed the inconsistencies of such analogies, but at the same time recognized the legitimate similarities that, if viewed cautiously, allowed one to draw some constructive conclusions about second language learning.
The comparison of first and second language acquisition can easily be oversimplified. At the very least, one needs to approach the comparison by first considering the differences between children and adults. It is, in one sense, illogical to compare the first language acquisition of a child with the second language acquisition of an adult (see Schachter 1988; Scovel 1999). This involves trying to draw analogies not only between first and second language learning situations but also between children and adults. It is much more logical to compare first and second language learning in children or to compare second language learning in children and adults. Nevertheless, child first language acquisition and adult second language acquisition are common and important categories of acquisition to compare. It is reasonable, therefore, to view the latter type of comparison within a matrix of possible comparisons. Figure 3.1 represents four possible categories to compare, defined by age and type of acquisition. Note that the vertical shaded area between the child and the adult is purposely broad to account for varying definitions of adulthood. In general, however, an adult is considered to be one who has reached the age of puberty.
| CHILD | ADULT | L1 = First languageL2 = Second languageС = ChildA = Adult |
| L1 | C1 | A1 |
| L2 | C2 | A2 |
Figure 3.1. First and second language acquisition in adults and children
Cell A1 is clearly representative of an abnormal situation. There have been few recorded instances of an adult acquiring a first language. In one widely publicized instance, Curtiss (1977) wrote about Genie, a thirteen-year-old girl who had been socially isolated and abused all her life until she was discovered, and who was then faced with the task of acquiring a first language. Accounts of "wolf children" and instances of severe disability fall into this category. Since we need not deal with abnormal or pathological cases of language acquisition, we can ignore category Al. That leaves three possible comparisons:
1. first and second language acquisition in children (C1-C2), holding age constant
2. second language acquisition in children and adults (C2-A2), holding second language constant
3. first language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults (C1-A2).
In the C1-C2 comparison (holding age constant), one is manipulating the language variable. However, it is important to remember that a two-year-old and an eleven-year-old exhibit vast cognitive, affective, and physical differences, and that comparisons of all three types must be treated with caution when varying ages of children are being considered. In the C2-A2 comparison, one is holding language constant and manipulating the differences between children and adults. Such comparisons are, for obvious reasons, the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second language classroom instruction. The third comparison, C1-A2, unfortunately manipulates both variables. Many of the traditional comparisons were of this type; however, such comparisons must be made only with extreme caution because of the enormous cognitive, affective, and physical differences between children and adults.
Much of the focus of the rest of this chapter will be made on C2-A2 and C1-C2 comparisons. In both cases, comparisons will be embedded within a number of issues, controversies, and other topics that have attracted the attention of researchers interested in the relationship of age to acquisition.
Most discussions about age and acquisition center on the question of whether there is a critical period for language acquisition: a biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired more easily and beyond which time language is increasingly difficult to acquire. The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) claims that there is such a biological timetable. Initially the notion of a critical period was connected only to first language acquisition. Pathological studies of children who failed to acquire their first language, or aspects thereof, became fuel for arguments of biologically determined predispositions, timed for release, which would wane if the correct environmental stimuli were not present at the crucial stage. We have already seen, in the last chapter, that researchers like Lenneberg (1967) and Bickerton (1981) made strong statements in favor of a critical period before which and after which certain abilities do not develop. Second language researchers have outlined the possibilities of extrapolating the CPH to second language contexts (see Bialystok 1997; Singleton & Lengyel 1995;Scovel 1988,1999 for useful summaries).The "classic" argument is that a critical point for second language acquisition occurs around puberty, beyond which people seem to be relatively incapable of acquiring a second language. This has led some to assume, incorrectly, that by the age of twelve or thirteen you are "over the hill" when it comes to the possibility of successful second language learning. Such an assumption must be viewed in the light of what it really means to be "successful" in learning a second language, and particularly the role of accent as a component of success. To examine these issues, we will first look at neurological and phonological considerations, then examine cognitive, affective, and linguistic considerations.
One of the most promising areas of inquiry in age and acquisition research has been the study of the function of the brain in the process of acquisition (see Schumann 1998, Jacobs & Schumann 1992, and Scovel 1988 for synopses). How might neurological development affect second language success? Does the maturation of the brain at some stage spell the doom of language acquisition ability?