Gass & Selinker's SLA Chapter 4,5

ChAPTER4. CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION :
FIRST AND SECOND

4.1 CHILD FORST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
There are lots if questions about language acquisition for L1 learners and L2 learners. However, this is not to say that all questions are appropriate or relevant to both areas (L1 and L2) of inquiry. There are a number of questions that relate to one or the other field, but not to both. At the onset of the language learning, a child has much to determine about the language that she of he hears. At the end of that process, every normal child has an intact linguistic system that allows him or her to interact with others and express his or her needs. Language is a form of communication but children communicate by using a variety of means such as a crying long before they have language.

4.1.1. Babbling
At approximately six months of age, infants turn to be more language-like sounds in what is called babbling, even if their babbling has no meaning, just sound, parents tend to think of it as a word. One device that children use fairly early to express meaning is into nation. Even before children have grammatical knowledge, they can use the appropriate stress and intonation contour of their language to distinguish among such things as statements, questions, and commands. How does babbling turn into word usage? While decreasing in babbling, there is an increase in words. Also, there is a point where a child gets the concept of words as referring to something.

4.1.2. Words
Words in early child language fulfill a number of functions: they can refer to objects, they can indicate a wide range of grammatical functions, they can serve social functions. Furthermore, words in an adult’s language do not always correspond to words in a child’s language. Children often overextend the meanings of words they know. In addition to overextension, children often underuse words.

4.1.3 Sound and Pronunciation
In the early stages, it is clear that the pronunciation of children’s words is not exactly identical to that of adult speech. Among the earliest tasks, while some sounds are distinguished quite early, others are of course learned later. Even when children start using words that more or less resemble adult words, at least in meaning, there are pronunciation differences such as substitutions, and deletion.

4.1.4. Syntax
After several months in the one-word stage, children start to combine words. What is typical of this phase is that the words that are used are content words. Function words are notably lacking. As children move beyond the two-word stage, speech becomes telegraphic It is important to recognize the fact that there is a predictable development for all children.

4.1.5. Morphology
There is a predictable order of acquisition of certain inflectional morphemes in English. The order does not reflect the frequency of the morphemes in the speech of the children’s parents. The reasons why this order versus some other order exists are salience, a lack of exception, and the order of morpheme acquisition.

4.2 THEORIES OF LEARNING
Language came to be seen not as a set of automatic habits, but as a set of structured rules. These rules are claimed to be learned not by imitation, but by actively formulating them on the basis of innate principles as well as on the basis of exposure to the language being learned. Neither imitation nor reinforcement are sufficient explanations of a child’s linguistic behavior. Children construct grammars. Then make generalizations, they test those generalizations or hypotheses, and they alter or reformulate them when necessary—or abandon them in favor of some other generalization. Another important consideration is that it became clear that the utterances of children display systematicity. Their language could be studied as a system, not just as deviations from the language they were exposed to. This assumption comes to guide work in SLA as well.

4.3. CHILD SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
The modern period of SLA had much of its impetus from studies on child second language acquisition. Child SLA refers to “acquisition by individuals young enough to be within the critical period, but yet with a L1 already learned”, or “successive acquisition of two languages in childhood”. What is eliminated from this definition is simultaneous acquisition of two (or more) languages in childhood. The interlanguage hypothesis originally formulated for adult SLA could be extended to nonsimultaneous child SLA.If the child has target language peers, and then there is a greater social context where the child recapitulates the L2 rules as if the L2 were an L1 with no language transfer occurring. Both L1 and L2 learners use the same strategies in learning a L2. However, there could be counterevidence to this. In child SLA, reliance on L1 structures may be greater, the more intractable the structural problem is. In general, children have better phonology but older learners often achieve better L2 syntax. They show a gradual progression toward the acquisition of L2 forms. They seem not to use a direct language-transfer strategy; also, there is no uniform pattern of the acquisition of L2 structure.

4.4 CHILD SECOND LANGUAGE MORPHEME ORDER STUDIES
In the early 1970s, a series of studies called the morpheme order studies was highly influential in the development of the field of SLA. Child SLA is similar to child FLA (L1=L2 Hypothesis). In creative construction tradition, there are L2 strategies that common to all children regardless of their NL. Processes involved in acquisition are assumed to be the same between NL and the language being learned because of innateness. Universal mechanisms for SLA have to be considered primary. Child SLA is constrained by universal principles and language transfer cannot be ruled out.


CHAPTER 5. RECENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF PREVIOUSLY KNOWN LANGUAGE

5.1. MORPHEME ORDER STUDIES
Whether would the same findings (Chapter 4) apply to the acquisition of L2 by adults? There appeared to be evidence for the lack of importance of native language influence for adult SLA. However, there are some challenges to the morpheme order studies. First, the results obtained may be an artifact of the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM). Second, morphemes with different meanings were categorized together. Third, a more serious criticism concerns the methodology itself: do accuracy orders reflect developmental sequences? In particular, what is lacking are those instances in which learners have generalized a form to an inappropriate context. Fourth, there appears to be individual variation in learner data, yet individual data are obscured with grouped data. The type of data elicited also appears to be problematic. Next, the morpheme order studies investigated a limited number of grammatical morphemes. Finally, it equates a behaviorist view of learning with the role of the NL. However, it is more appropriate to question whether transfer is a habit-based phenomenon or not. The factors such as perceptual saliency, NL influences, semantic factors, syntactic complexity, and input frequency all contribute to acquisition order. What is then left to be determined is the relative weighting each has.

5.2. REVISED PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE.
The role of the NL could be selectivity by learners in what is transferred and what is not transferred. One can view transfer as much a creative process as any other part of acquisition. The learner’s judgment or perception is more likely to work in the L2. The importance of the L1 in L2-learning is absolutely fundamental. The emphasis is on the determination of how and when learners used their native language and on explanations for the phenomenon. Most important in this discussion is the broadening and reconceptualization of language transfer and the concomitant examination of the terminology generally employed.

5.2.1. Avoidance
The basis of the choice to use or not to use particular structures to express given concepts is related to the NL. The major source of avoidance can be differences between the L1 and the L2, great similarities between the L1 and the L2, the complexity of the L2 structures in question. The best predictor of avoidance is the L1-L2 difference.

5.2.2. Differential Learning Rates
When many cognates exist between the NL and the TL, learners can focus more of their learning time on other aspects of language, which results in a facilitation of learning. A NL structure that corresponds to a TL developmental sequence is a factor in preventing learners from moving on to the next sequential stage.

5.2.3. Different Paths
In many instances, paths of acquisition are not identical for speakers of all languages. Facts of learners’ native languages lead them down different paths. There is a predictable order of structures and that certain developmental structures must be used by learners before the NL can be expected to have an influence on L2 production. Thus, learners must see some resemblance between the language they are learning and their native language before they are able to recognize that the NL might be useful to them.

5.2.4. Overproduction
There is an influence of NL function to L2 form.

5.2.5. Predictability / Selectivity
When something in the L2 is very different from the L1, there is a novelty effect. Also, perceptual saliency is the main contributing factor to the acquisition certain structures. What is it that makes something salient? It can be frequency of input. Through this, drawing learners’ attention is important.
Some L1-L2 differences may prove to be relatively easy to learn due to their saliency in the L2 input. How the learner relates the first to the second language is of primary importance in understanding how L2 learning is affected by knowledge of the L1.The role of the NL is the learner’s perception of the distance between the first and second languages. The learner is seen as making decisions about which forms and functions of the NL are appropriate candidates for use in the L2.If learners use the NL to make predictions about the TL, what is the basis on which these decisions are made? Linguistic information is categorized along a continuum ranging from language-neutral information to language-specific information. Language-neutral parts of language might include writing conventions, certain aspects of semantics, stylistics, and/or certain grammatical structures. Language-specific items are a great deal of the syntactic structure of a language, much of the phonology of language, items, inflectional morphology, slang expressions, and collocations. The knowledge reflected in this continuum is known as a learner’s psychotypology. However, an additional important variable is perceived language distance. What is crucial is that the degree of language closeness is based on a learner’s perception of both the distance between the languages and on the learner’s perception of the organization of his/her NL.
How are intuitions about NL semantic space used to predict translatability of times, from which one can infer transferability? The concept of coreness is important. Coreness is determined by a combination of such factors as frequency, literalness, concreteness, and listing in a dictionary. Core meanings are likely to be equivalent to language-neutral items, whereas the noncore meanings are likely to be equivalent to language-specific items. The greatest likelihood of transfer is in core elements. The second area of probable transfer is between languages perceived as close. Placing the learner in the center of the determination of transfer also implies that these predictions are not absolute across time. In summary, there are three interacting factors in the determination of language transfer: a learner’s psychotypology, perception of NL-TL distance, and actual knowledge of the TL. Transfer, then, is only predictable in a probabilistic sense.

5.3. INTERLANGUAGE TRANSPER
Reverse transfer was identified as being from the interlanguage back to the native language. In addition, the idea that transfers from a first foreign language to a second could exist. By definition, interlanguage transfer is the influence of one L2 (using the broad sense of this term) over another. Thus, interlanguage transfer technically cannot exist in second language (narrowly defined) acquisition per se. The principles of interlanguage transfer are phonetic similarity, meaning plausibility. A number of suggestions were outlined as to why native language transfer may have been blocked, with the “talk foreign” mode apparently appearing to be important for interlanguage speaker. Knowledge of more than one language facilitates the acquisition of additional languages within a UG model of acquisition. The qualities that help trigger UG parameters are metalinguistic awareness, enhanced lexical learning, and a less conservative learning procedure. Foreign-language proficiency determines lexico-semantic organization in multilingual speakers. In L3 production, certain functions tend to come from the L2 and not the NL.


Comments on chapter 4.5
이 부분을 읽으며 아이들의 모국어와 제2외국어를 동시에 같이 생각해 볼 수 있는 좋은 기회였다. 어린 아이들이 서투르게 하는 babbling까지 어른들은 언어로 생각한다는 부분에서는 이제 막 “맘마”라는 bilabial발음을 하는 조카생각이 나서 웃음이 났다. 겨우 입술을 부딪히는 것에 불과한 행위를 온 가족이 호들갑 떨며 말을 했다고 좋아했기 때문이다. 어른의 언어와 아이의 언어는 많은 면에서 차이점을 가지고 있으며 그전에는 미처 나누어 생각해보지 못한 부분을 다시 생각해 볼 수 있는 좋은 기회가 되었다.
아이에게 모국어와 제 2외국어가 동시에 습득되는 것인지 아니면 순차적으로 습득되는 것인지에 대한 주제가 나왔는데 그것은 책에도 나왔듯이 대답하기 힘든 질문이지만 내 생각에는 동시적인 경향이 있는 것 같다. 문법적인 구조나 여러 가지 면에서 더욱 확실히 자리 잡힌 어른들에 비교해서 아이들이 제 2외국어를 좀더 수월하게 배우고 그때 배운 것 들이 장기적으로 지속되는 면들을 볼 때 모국어가 이미 자리잡고 그에 맞춰 순차적으로 학습된다기 보다는 거의 동시적으로 함께 학습된다고 생각된다. 그러나 여전히 대답하기에는 애매한 부분이 많지만 말이다. 그리고 수업시간에도 많이 다루었던 Behaviorism과 Innatism에 대한 입장이 소개되었는데 이 부분 또한 어느 한곳의 입장에 서기에는 확신이 없는 것 같다. 그래서 사실 나는 교수님께서 설명해주신 Interactionism에 대해 가장 동의한다. 중간 입장을 택하는 것이 주관이 없어 보이긴 하지만 Behaviorism과 Innatism 둘 다 그럴듯하고 맞는 이론 같다. 그래서 타고난 지식에 기초하여 학습이 이루어진다는 이론이 가장 맞는 이야기라고 생각한다.