Congratulations
everybody! We made it through the language components. For some of you it may
have been wonderful and for some of you.... well - a necessary evil. Over the
next week you will read about communicative competence, interlanguage, and the
role of the native language in L2A.
Communicative
competence and interlanguage are two concepts that you need to master. They
underlie everything we talk about in our course, and are also very central
concepts in Meth and ICC.
The
Gass chapter outlines the role of the native language in L2A and is the
starting point from which we'll dive into L2A theory. From this point forward,
the readings may be a little bit longer; however, I believe you will find them
easier to read and personalize.
This week
you will use the Gass reading for the dialogue journal. After a brief summary,
group leaders should address one of the following questions in
the comments (from Gass).
Andrew, Evan, *Swati, Sean
Young, Justin, *David
Greg, Michael, *Julie
a As described in this
chapter, beginning second language learners produce sentences such as He
comed yesterday where regular rules are extended to irregular
cases. What does this suggest about the formation of early interlanguage?
Can you think of cases in your own language learning where you have tried
to impose such regularity improperly? Relate your characterization to the
strengths and weaknesses of the contrastive analysis hypothesis.
b Consider the process
of looking at structures across languages. Do you agree that one can
easily note similarities of structures and differences of structures? Do
you agree that these cannot equal ease and difficulty of learning? In what
circumstances might similarities/differences be compatible with ease/difficulty
of learning?
c Consider the two types of interference discussed in this
chapter: retroactive and proactive. In terms of the former, under what
circumstances might it be possible to lose some of your native
language fluency? What parts of the native language might you predict
would be most affected? Have you had this experience?
The role of native language is a subfield of SLA better known as language transfer. In the 50's and 60's the theory of behaviorism was established. in this position it states that language is speech and not writing. Speaking consists of mimicking and analogizing. Think of the creation of habits when acquiring a language. Speech is the practical response to some stimulus. Thus learning involves the creation of habits by means of which these stimulus responses set become associated. The simple example they give is you learn to play tennis and one day someone gives you a table tennis paddle. You take your knowledge of how to play tennis and apply it in some forms to table tennis therefore transferring your knowledge. There are two types of transfer facilitation and interference and two types of interference retroactive inhibition and proactive inhibition. The basic concept of this theory is that language is learnt through habits.
ReplyDeleteFrom this theory came the contrastive analysis hypothesis which looks at languages in terms of their similarities and their differences. Once you have contrasted the two languages it is said to make the acquisition of L2 easier.
This theory is said to be oversimplified and even Lado agreed his hypothesis lacked empirical basis. Now the focus has been put on learner errors, comparing mistakes with target language rather than native language.
C) I chose this question because over the last ten years or so I've noticed a loss of fluency in one of my native languages: French. I guess the main reason for my loss in fluency is the fact that I don't use the French language as much as I used to to. They say practice makes perfect and because I don't practice as much well I've lost some of my fluency.
In my case I've noticed this happening with some of the grammar rules. It used to be automatic but now I actually have to stop and think about the rules before I can continue. Simple and complex vocabulary is sometimes an issue...I just forget words. One part of the French language that I haven't forgotten is the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns and if I think about it this is one of the first things we learnt in school. Whereas the grammar rules came later on. Maybe age has something to do with it. What do you think?
As someone who's never been fluent in any language but English it's hard to relate to "retroactive inhibition"... but if I squint really hard and press my fingers to my temples, I can imagine it happening. In fact, every once in a while I hear myself saying something that's suspect or I'll write something, reread it, and then have trouble deciding whether or not I've just made a mistake. I don't think I speak enough Korean in my daily life that it can really affect my English in a serious way, but perhaps just hearing Korean being spoken every day is starting to plant certain rule changes in my subconscious.
DeleteRegarding the other questions, the one I feel most equipped to address is (B), the question of language similarities and differences. While I agree with the inadequacy of any theory that attempts to draw line-by-line differences and similarities, I do think there's something to be said in support of the alleged ease or difficulty as it relates to what L1 and L2 have in common. I've heard from several learners of Korean that Chinese and Japanese learners seem to "get it" faster than westerners. I've also witnessed this firsthand when I was studying Korean in one of those intensive classes.
Also, I think about my years of high school Spanish and all the cognates that were so easy to pick up. This doesn't mean I have ever been good at speaking Spanish, but having a built-in vocabulary to draw from certainly didn't hurt. If I were to pursue learning Spanish again, however, I think it would be just as hard as learning Korean. Sentences like "let's go to the beach" can be easily learned, repeated, and committed to memory, but constructing meaning with complex grammar is another story.
Thanks Julie. I find retroactive interference relevant when trying to learn lists of things. In Korean I learned a number of colors all together, and found it very confusing. However, when I heard colors used in an independent context, it was much easier. I think that’s why people so often confuse stalactite and stalagmite (even when told the “m” looks like it is “growing up” and therefore represents the formation that points up).
DeleteI experienced proactive interference when I first came to Korea. I found myself thinking and speaking French words at first. I got over that fairly quickly, but then just started to rapidly forget any French that I had learned in school.
Susan Gass divided the chapter " The Role of Native Language: An Historical Overview" in three main sections.
ReplyDelete1. Introduction to Behaviorism.
2. Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
3. Error Analysis.
1. INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIOURISM - The psychological and linguist school of 1950's had roots of behaviourism in it .Behaviourist position stressed that "Language is speech ,rather than writing."
Which they justified through these facts:
* Children without cognitive impairment learn to speak ,before they learn to write.
*All societies have oral language,but not compulsorily written language
* There are no societies with only written and no oral language.
Bloomfield emphasizes that language acquisition is a structured process of various language rules and sounds.
Behaviorist school believes that language is a cumulative process,of learning new knowledge with the support of previous training.For eg. A tennis player when asked to try table tennis,will first apply his knowledge of tennis to be comfortable with the new game.
With this belief of behaviourist school, emerged the concept of" Contrastive Analysis"
2. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS HYPOTHESIS - Is based on the theory of language that claims language as a habit,which revolves around establishing new habits.
*Major error in second language is due to application of knowledge from Native language.
*If difference from both L1 & L2 are considered then errors can be easily detected.
*Higher number of differences in two languages ,lead to higher number of errors.
*For better understanding of L2, the differences in both the languages should be focused upon.
The level of difficulty and ease depends upon the similarities and differences between both languages.
Contrastive Analysis was later demised in 1960's, when it was researched that language is lot more then acquiring habits.That language is a structured set of rules.
3. ERROR ANALYSIS - Two main error types within this framework are
*Interlingual-Errors occurred due to dependence on native language,while learning new language
*Intralingual-Errors occurred due to language learned independent of native language.
Error analysis is a six step process:
1.Collecting Data
2.Identifying Errors
3.Classifying errors
4.Quantifying errors
5.Analyzing Source
6.Remediating
Error Analysis was criticized because It only considered errors,not the non-errors which could not give the clear picture of language acquisition.
Ans. B) I believe that the structures can be easily detected in any language,It however do not help in easing the learning process.Hindi and Korean language have some similarities as well as dissimilarities.
ReplyDelete.For eg.Sentences in both Korean and Hindi language follow the pattern of SOV.Despite being the similar pattern it plays little role in easing the language for native Hindi speakers.
Since other grammar rules do matter,In HIndi the articles are freely and extensively used,though the Korean language have no articles.
On the other hand the Hindi phonology consists of too many sounds,then too few Korean sounds are having there own stress and intonation.
The study of these two languages are compatible when the sounds,sentence structure etc every thing comes in similar order,which is rare.
I find the double dd,double kk sounds of Korean tough to deal with ,because they put extra stress there,while in Hindi language the double kk,double dd will be having high pitch but same stress as in the single alphabet.
I agree that it's easy to note similarities and differences in structures when comparing two languages. However, doing that kind of analysis in depth requires a fairly high understand of both languages and probably cannot be done correctly by most people - especially language learners.
DeleteThese types of analysis cannot be the sole determiners for gauging the ease/difficulty of language learning. What about accounting for differences in languages' roots and phonologies? That ties in to what Swati is saying about Korean vs Hindi sounds.
In some cases, like with languages such as French, Italian and Spanish that share a common root and so have very similar phonologies, looking at differences/similarities in structures may be indicative of difficulty. However, in cases where the pronunciation and phonology are different, but the structures are similar, the similar structures are probably misleading. Someone told me that Chinese and English grammar are very similar, but the word origins are pronunciation are so different that the structural similarities are not representative of difficulty.
*this reading was very difficult for me, so I might not be completely on the mark here...
I think the ease of learning a new language highly depends on how similar the structure of the target language is. In my own experience of studying Korean, my most consistent struggle is remembering not to apply a subject-verb-object word order to Korean sentences (which follow a subject-object-verb pattern). I do think one of the biggest obstacles in SLA is the subconscious adherence to the syntax of one's native language. It's much easier if one is learning another language with a positive transfer of word order, such as Italian to Spanish (as depicted on pg 94), because you're not fighting against linguistic instincts. Of course there's other problems that cause frustration, such as dropped categories when transferring from native language to target language (eg: Unlike English, Japanese doesn't have articles) or learning a new category (when learning Korean, I also had to learn about the different kinds of honorific markers and time-place markers that follow most nouns). I agree with Evan that the reading was difficult, because after I'd take notes about one theory the next page would detail how that same theory's been largely criticized and dismissed (such as the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis).
DeleteVery nicely summarized Swati.
DeleteI agree that structures and differences of structures can easily be noted between languages. For example Korea uses subject and object markers, unlike English. This allows sentences to vary more in terms of word order. Getting my head around the use of subject and object markers took quite some time. In Japanese, they are also used, Japanese people can simply learn the markers and then apply them with ease.
I disagree that noting differences cannot equal ease and difficulty of learning another language. The more differences, the harder a language is to learn. The more similarities, the easier a language is to learn. Maybe for children or people who aren't very good at analyzing and understanding grammar, this wouldn't be the case. I think pointing out the differences can allow one to focus on specific areas. Pointing out similarities can allow one to overlook something as the concept is already well known. If a class isn't taught exclusively in L2, such as here when learning English, this sorting of language is vital. If a French person or a Russian was in the class, spending extra time explaining 3rd person or the concept of 'you', wouldn't be necessary. These languages contain many more changes in verb endings due to the subject than English does, so understanding the concept isn't challenging. Alternatively when studying French, an English person has to learn masculine and feminine nouns and verbs. This is difficult. If I (a man) live in a house (feminine noun), I must use a feminine marker. Italians, who also have m/f differences wouldn't have a problem and thus wouldn't need a detailed explanation. The more experience one has learning different languages, the more useful these analyses would become.
Susan Gass - The role of the native language: An Historical Overview
ReplyDelete(summary)
Early Study of Language Learning borrowed from two approaches
- Linguistic - that believed language was a set of habits
- Psychological - learning is a cumulative process
(the more we know, the more our experience will inform
what is being learned)
* this causes transfer.
Transfer can a) facilitate
b) interfere
i) retroactive inhibition - language loss
ii) proactive inhibition - old rules new situations
The thinking was that if L1 is causing the errors, then we must contrast L1 and L2
Two traditions of contrasting:
1) North American tradition - applied contrastive analysis (CA)- the goal is better teaching materials - to predict areas that will be easy or difficult.
2) European tradition - sub-field of linguistics - goal is to understand the nature of language (NOT IMPORTANT FOR SLA)
Assumptions of Contrastive Analysis (Lado’s)
1) language is a habit
2) L1 is a major source of interference
3) Errors can be accounted for by considering differences
4) the greater the distance between l1 and l2 the more difficult
5) what is dissimilar must be learned
6) its the differences and similarities that affect language learning
Two types of CA
a priori (strong) - predictive
a posteriori (weak) - analyze the recurring errors
Problems with CA
*not all predicted errors occurred
*not all errors were predicted
*differences are not a real measure of difficulty
Shift in thought, now language is seen as a set of structured rules.
Lado thought that everything could be classified as easy or difficult a new theory emerged that saw it as a
hierarchy of difficulty - the different ways in which languages can differ.
This lead to: birth of SLA
Error Analysis- which compares errors against the target language (instead of native language)
* errors are caused by learner applying structure to L2
**mistakes - slip of the tongue - once
***errors - repeated and systematic
TWO (OR THREE) types of errors
1) intERlingual- L1 interference
2) intRAlingual-imperfect learning
3) ambiguous goofs- interference like goofs
- L1 developmental goofs
PROBLEMS WITH EA
-focus is only on errors
-not understanding correctly what the error is
-assumes that if form is correct then the rule is correct
*EA DOESN'T TELL THE WHOLE STORY*
Because we already have a B and a C discussion started I will select A
ReplyDeleteI think that the role of inter-language is, as in mentioned in the reading, a way of a learner imposing rules on to the language they are learning. Our brains are trying to create pathways, that make sense to us (consciously or subconsciously). I have noticed this many times in my learning of Korean. The most specific example I can recall is that I learned that the word "다음" meant next so then I used it as a one to one translation, which is incorrect.
If I looked at a comparison analysis of English to Korean. (I haven't)
It would probably be able to predict this error, and a teacher would be able to say when teaching me about "다음" in which instances it is appropriate and when it is not, thus eliminating the habit from setting in my inter-language. However, this CA would also probably indicate that the past tense of Korean would be easy to learn, even though I consistently make errors.
A CA would also look at the cultural structure of Korean, meaning the "higher" and "lower" levels of Korean, but I'm not sure of the accuracy it would have in determining the impact it would have on a native English speaker learning Korean. In English we do alter our language to show respect, but with nowhere near the complexity and form that Korean displays. This would seem to not fit neatly into a Easy/difficult check box that CA requires.
If I look at the sentence ‘He comed yesterday’ where a regular rule has been extended to an irregular case, it implies a processing problem. The student probably knows the rules for regular and irregular verbs, but cannot process the differences fast enough when in the middle of forming sentences for conversation. I see this with my students in class all the time. I know that they know the differences in rules for regular and irregular verbs, because I've gone to great lengths to teach it to them.
DeleteYet time and again, in casual conversation they will say the incorrect form, and then perhaps backtrack to correct it (once their brain catches up to what they are trying to say). I think the time delay in processing what they want to say is coming from L1 influence on the formation of their interlanguage. They are thinking in Korean and then converting it to English.
For my own experience, I’m guilty of doing this with Korean sentence structure. Koreans don’t really use personal pronouns in a sentence. They either use the third person singular or just omit the subject altogether and let the context of the situation infer who they are talking about.
However I find myself trying to force my L1 structuring into my L2 sentences
e.g 그녀는 직모입니다. – She has straight hair.
그는 머리가 짧습니다. – He has short hair.
If my Korean wife hears me practices sentences like this, she is quick to tell me that it sounds unnatural. From a Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, the differences in syntax from my L1 and L2 can be easily detected.
Somehow I can't reply to Dave's, so I will just add my comment here.
DeleteI do see a lot of my students ‘assume’ when they have to change tense of unfamiliar verbs, just like ‘He comed yesterday’. It could be because they learn tense change of regular verbs. Also, they have hard time choosing correct part of speech when they are making sentences. For example, they say, ‘The different between A and B~.’ instead of ‘difference’.
I personally had an experience with my L1, Korean, interfering my English learning. One of the most common mistakes was that I was constantly using infinitive form of the verbs with third person singular. In Korean, we don’t distinguished use of verbs between subjects. Also, most of my native friends didn’t bother to correct me since I was still able to deliver the meanings, we were communicating just fine. And this proves Susan Gass’s CA Hypothesis that higher number of differences in two languages, lead to higher number of errors.