Acculturation Defination:- Acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological change that results when two cultures meet. There are various effects of acculturation. Such as acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and social institutions for e.g. changes in food, clothing, and language. The concept of acculturation have been primarily focused on the adjustments and adaptations made by minorities such as immigrants, refugees, and indigenous peoples in response to their contact with the dominant majority
History:- In Sumerian inscriptions 2370 B.C the earliest thoughts of acculturation were found.These inscriptions talked about ,how to limit acculturation and save traditional customs. Plato stated that acculturation would lead to social disorder. He proposed that no one less than must travel abroad. J.W. Powell coined the term "acculturation" in 1880, defining it as "the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation." The first psychological theory of acculturation was proposed in W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki's 1918 study, "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America." From studying Polish immigrants in Chicago, they illustrated three forms of acculturation corresponding to three personality types:- (i) Bohemian (adopting the host culture and abandoning their culture of origin) (ii)Philistine (failing to adopt the host culture but preserving their culture of origin) (iii)Creative-Type (able to adapt to the host culture while preserving their culture of origin). In 1936, Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits provided the first widely used definition of acculturation as "those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups…under this definition acculturation is to be distinguished from…assimilation, which is at times a phase of acculturation.’’ And since then hundreds of theories of acculturation have been proposed.
Conceptual Model of Acculturation Though there has been so many models of acculturation but the most widely used is Eric Kramer's theory of Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation.Kramer's theory of Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation (DAD) . Kramer's DAD theory how do different cultures interact with each other generally and then how the process of acculturation progresses.
Fourfold Model:- The fourfold model categorizes acculturation strategies along two dimensions. a) The first dimension concerns the retention or rejection of an individual's minority or native culture (i.e. "Is it considered to be of value to maintain one's identity and characteristics?"). b)The second dimension concerns the adoption or rejection of the dominant group or host culture (i.e. "Is it considered to be of value to maintain relationships with the larger society?" Following are the four acculturation strategies:- 1. Assimilation – Assimilation take place due to adoption of the cultural norms of a dominant or host culture, over their original culture. A society where harmonious and homogenous culture is promoted, assimilation is the endorsed acculturation strategy 2. Separation – Separation happens when an individual rejects the dominant or host culture so as to keep his culture safe. Separation is often facilitated by immigration to ethnic enclaves. A society, in which humans are separated into racial groups in daily life, a separation acculturation strategy is endorsed. 3.Integration – Integration occurs when individuals are able to maintain balance between cultural norms of the dominant or host culture. Integration leads to biculturalism. A society, in which multiple cultures are accepted and appreciated, individuals are encouraged to adopt an integrationist approach to acculturation 4. Marginalization – Marginalization occurs when individuals reject both the dominant host culture and there own. In societies where cultural exclusion is promoted, individuals often adopt marginalization strategies of acculturation.
Criticism of four fold model:- Several theorists have stated that the fourfold models of acculturation are too simplistic to have predictive validity. Some common criticisms of such models include the fact that individuals don't often fall neatly into any of the four categories, and that there is very little evidence for the applied existence of the marginalization acculturation strategy. In addition, the bi-directionality of acculturation means that whenever two groups are engaged in cultural exchange, there are in fact 16 permutations of acculturation strategies possible (e.g. an integrationist individual within an assimilationist host culture).The Interactive Acculturation Model represents one proposed alternative to the typological approach by attempting to explain the acculturation process within a framework of state policies and the dynamic interplay of host community and immigrant acculturation orientations.
Impact of acculturation on language
1. Acculturation results in the adoption of another country's language, which is then modified over time to become a new, distinct, language. For example, Hanzi, the written language of Chinese language, has been adapted and modified by other nearby cultures, including: Japan (as Kanji), Korea(as Hanja), and Vietnam (as Chữ-nôm). 2. Acculturation on language is the formation of pidgin language. For example, Pidgin English is a simplified form of English mixed with some of the language of another culture. Eric Kramer (2009) introduced the concepts of co- and pan-evolution to help explain acculturation and interculturual communication.
THE MONITOR MODEL The most ambitious theory of the second language learning process is Stephen Krashen's "Monitor model", The theory evolved in the late 1970's in a series of articles, and was elaborated and expanded in a number of books. Krashen has argued that his account provides a general or overall theory of Second language acquisition with important implications for language teaching. According to Krashen, the theory is supported by a large number of scientific studies in a wide variety of language acquisition and learning contents. This research is keen to provide empirical validation for a particular method of validation for a particular method of language teaching the Natural Approach. Krashen's theory of second language acquisitions, popularly known as Monitor Model, consists of five main hypothesis: 1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis 2. The Monitor Hypothesis 3. The Natural order Hypothesis 4. The Input hypothesis 5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis
1. THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING HYPOTHESIS Krashen maintained that adult second language learners have at their disposal two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a second language "Acquisition" and "Learning". Acquisition is a subconscious process identical in all important ways to the process children utilize in acquiring their first language. Learning is a conscious process that results in "knowing about language". Acquisition comes about through meaningful interaction in a natural communication setting. Speakers are not consumed with form, but with meaning, and there is no explicit correction. This contrasts with language learning situation in which error detection and correction are central as in the case of class room teaching, where formal rules and feedback provide the basis for language acquisition. Thus is the conscious attention to rules that distinguishes language acquisition. Thus is the conscious attention to rules distinguishes language acquisition from language learning. According to Krashen, "Learning" is less important than acquisition. 2. THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS: The Monitor Hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning. According to Krashen, learning and acquisition are used in very specific ways in second language performance. The monitor hypothesis states that "learning has one function, and this is as Monitor or editor, learning comes into play only to make changes in the form of our utterance, after it has been produced by the acquired system. Acquisition initiates the speaker's utterances and is responsible for fluency". Thus the monitor is thought to alter the output of the acquired system before or after the utterance is actually written or spoken, but the utterance is initiated entirely lay to acquired system. This hypothesis is important implication for language teaching. Krashen believes that conscious knowledge of rules does not help acquisition, but only enables the learner to “polish up” what has been acquired through communication. The focus of language teaching, for Krashen, should not be rule-learning but communication.
Three conditions of Monitor use: As we have seen, the Monitor acts as a sort of editor that is consciously controlled and that makes changes in the form of utterance produced by acquisition. Krashen has specified three conditions for the use of the Monitor: i) Time: In order to think about and use conscious rules effectively, a second language performer needs to have sufficient time for most people, normal conversation does not allow enough time to think about and use rules. The overuse of rules in conversation can lead to trouble i.e. a hesitant style of talking and inattention to what the conversational partner is saying. ii) Focus on rules: To use the monitor effectively, time is not enough. The performance must be focused on form, or thinking about correctness. Even when we have time, we may be so involved in “what” we are saying that we do not attend to “how” we are saying it. iii) Know the rules: This may be very formidable requirement linguistics has taught us that the structure of language is extremely complex and the linguists have described only a fragment of the best known languages. The students are surely exposed only to a small part of the total grammar of the language, and we know that even the best student do not learn every rule they are exposed to. Individual differences: Krashen also suggests that there are individual differences among language learners with regard to “Monitor use”. He has distinguished three types of monitor users: i. Monitor over-users: There are people who attempt to monitor all the time, performers who are constantly checking that output with their conscious knowledge of the second language. As a result such performers may speak hesitatingly; often self correct in the middle of utterances, and are so concerned with correctness that they cannot speak with any fluency. ii. Monitor under-users: There are performers who have not learned, or if they have learned, prefer not to use their conscious knowledge even when conditions allow it underusers are typically uninfluenced by error-correction, can self-correct only by using a “feel” for correctness and rely completely on the acquired system. iii. The optional monitor user: Those learners who are the monitor “approximately” are called “optimal monitor users” by Krashen. Our pedagogical goal is to produce optimal users, performers who use the monitor when it is appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication. Many optional users will not use grammar in ordinary conversation where it might interfere. In writing and planned speech, however, when there is time optimal users will typically make whatever corrections they can to raise the accuracy of their output. 3. THE NATURAL HYPOTHESIS: This hypothesis states that the acquisition of the rules of the second language follows a natural order which is predictable. For a given language some rules tend to be acquire early while others late. This order seems to be independent of the learner’s age, background, conditions of exposure etc. Evidence for a natural order hypothesis was provided by a series of research studies investigating morpheme acquisition orders. 4. THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS: The input hypothesis is only concerned with ‘acquisition’, not “learning”. According to this hypothesis, the learner improves and progresses along the ‘normal order’ when he/she receives second language “input” which is one step beyond his/her current state of linguistic competence. For example, if a learner is at a stage ‘I’, then acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to “comprehensible input” that belongs to level “i+I”.
5. THE EFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS: DULAY and BURT have defined the affective filter in the following words, “The filter is that part of the internal processing system that subconsciously screems incoming language based on what psychologists call “effect”: the learners’ motives, needs, attitudes, and emotional states.” Krashen believes that comprehensible input was necessary but not sufficient condition for successful acquisition. Affective factors can play an important role in acquiring a second language. According to Affective Filter hypothesis comprehensible input may not be utilized by second language acquirers if there is a ‘mental block’ that prevents them from profiting from it. The affective filter acts as a barrier to acquisition. Low motivation, low self esteem and anxiety can combine to ‘raise’ the affective filter and form a “mental block” that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. In other words, when the filter is up, it impedes language acquisition. On the other hand, learners with high motivation, self confidence, good self image and low level of anxiety are better equipped for success and second language acquisition. CONCLUSION: Despite its popularity, the Monitor Model was criticized by theorists and researchers on the grounds of its definitional adequacy. Gregg rejects the most fundamental of Krashen’s hypothesis, the acquisition learning dichotomy. Mc Laugeslin also finds that some of its central assumptions and hypothesis are not readily testable. Despite its various criticisms, Krashen’s Monitor Model had a great impact on the way the second language learning was viewed, it initiated research towards the discovery of orders of acquisition.
Kulwinder Kaur DAV Roll.no.7927 Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition Universal grammar (UG) is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, proposing that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain. The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught, and that there are properties that all natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are innate and what properties are shared by all languages. History The idea of a universal grammar can be traced to Roger Bacon's observation that all languages are built upon a common grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo accidental variations, and the 13th century speculative grammarians who, following Bacon, postulated universal rules underlying all grammars. The concept of a universal grammar or language was at the core of the 17th century projects for philosophical languages. The 18th century in Scotland saw the emergence of a vigorous universal grammar school. Later linguists who have influenced this theory include Noam Chomsky and Richard Montague, developing their version of the theory as they considered issues of the Argument from poverty of the stimulus to arise from the constructivist approach to linguistic theory. The application of the idea to the area of second language acquisition (SLA) is represented mainly by the McGill linguist Lydia White. Most syntacticians generally concede that there are parametric points of variation between languages, although heated debate occurs over whether UG constraints are essentially universal due to being "hard-wired" (Chomsky's Principles and Parameters approach), a logical consequence of a specific syntactic architecture (the Structure approach) or the result of functional constraints on communication (the functionalist approach). During the early 20th century, in contrast, language was usually understood from a behaviourist perspective, suggesting that language learning, like any other kind of learning, could be explained by a succession of trials, errors, and rewards for success. In other words, children learned their mother tongue by simple imitation, listening to and repeating what adults said. Definition of Universal Grammar A set of principles and parameters that constrain all human languages. UG is part of the human genetic endowment and is encoded in the Language Acquisition Faculty (LAF).
What is the LAF? “An innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with presented experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.” Chomsky (1986)
Argument If human beings growing up under normal conditions (not conditions of extreme deprivation), then they will always develop a language with property X (for example, distinguishing nouns from verbs, or distinguishing function words from lexical words) and therefore property X is a property of universal grammar in this most general sense (here not capitalized). There are theoretical senses of the term Universal Grammar as well (here capitalized). The most general of these would be that Universal Grammar is whatever properties of a normally developing human brain cause it to learn languages that conform to universal grammar (the non-capitalized, pre-theoretical sense). Using the above examples, Universal Grammar would be the property that the brain has that causes it to posit a difference between nouns and verbs whenever presented with linguistic data. As Chomsky puts it, "Evidently, development of language in the individual must involve three factors: (1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible; (2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range; (3) principles not specific to FL." [FL is the faculty of language, whatever properties of the brain cause it to learn language.] So (1) is Universal Grammar in the first theoretical sense, (2) is the linguistic data to which the child is exposed. Sometimes aspects of Universal Grammar in this sense seem to be describable in terms of general facts about cognition. For example, if a predisposition to categorize events and objects as different classes of things is part of human cognition, and as a direct result nouns and verbs show up in all languages, then it could be said that this aspect of Universal Grammar is not specific to language, but is part of cognition more generally. To distinguish properties of languages that can be traced to other facts about cognition from properties of languages that cannot, the abbreviation UG* can be used. UG is the term often used by Chomsky for those aspects of the human brain which cause language to be the way it is (i.e. are Universal Grammar in the sense used here) but here for discussion it is used for those aspects which are furthermore specific to language (thus UG, as Chomsky uses it, is just an abbreviation for Universal Grammar, but UG* as used here is a subset of Universal Grammar). UG - aspects of human brain UG* - properties of language traced in cognition In the same article, Chomsky casts the theme of a larger research program in terms of the following question: "How little can be attributed to UG while still accounting for the variety of I-languages attained, relying on third factor principles?" (I-languages meaning internal languages, the brain states that correspond to knowing how to speak and understand a particular language, and third factor principles meaning (3) in the previous quote). Chomsky has speculated that UG might be extremely simple and abstract, for example only a mechanism for combining symbols in a particular way, which he calls Merge. To see that Chomsky does not use the term "UG" in the narrow sense UG* suggested above, consider the following quote from the same article: "The conclusion that Merge falls within UG holds whether such recursive generation is unique to FL or is appropriated from other systems."
I.e. Merge is part of UG because it causes language to be the way it is, is universal, and is not part of (2) (the environment) or (3) (general properties independent of genetics and environment). Merge is part of Universal Grammar whether it is specific to language or whether, as Chomsky suggests, it is also used for example in mathematical thinking. The distinction is important because there is a long history of argument about UG*, whereas most people working on language agree that there is Universal Grammar. Many people assume that Chomsky means UG* when he writes UG (and in some cases he might actually mean UG*, though not in the passage quoted above). Some students of universal grammar study a variety of grammars to abstract generalizations called linguistic universals, often in the form of "If X holds true, then Y occurs." These have been extended to a variety of traits, such as the phonemes found in languages, what word orders languages choose, and why children exhibit certain linguistic behaviors.
Principles and Parameters of UG A principle of UG is a statement that is true for all human languages. For example: The principle of structure dependency.
A parameter must be set according to the requirements of the language being acquired. For example: The null subject parameter.
Principle of Structural Dependency Grammatical rules do not depend on the linear ordering of the words in the sentence, but on how these words are structured within constituents of specific types.
Principle of Structural Dependency Subject-auxiliary inversion in English – She will laugh.
Principle of Structural Dependency Subject-auxiliary inversion in English – She will laugh. – Will she laugh?
Principle of Structural Dependency Subject-auxiliary inversion in English – She will laugh. – Will she laugh? – The student who is taking good notes will get an A.
The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition • The linguistic input available to children underdetermines the linguistic competence of adults. • Thus children acquire properties of language that are not immediately obvious and that are not explicitly taught. • If the child possesses only some general cognitive ability to make generalizations from input, many features of the adult language cannot be acquired.
Binding Theory • Binding: The association between a pronoun and an antecedent. • Anaphoric: A term to describe an element (e.g. a pronoun) that derives its interpretation from some other expression in the discourse. • Antecedent: The expression an anaphoric expression derives its interpretation from. • Anaphora: The relationship between an anaphoric expression and its antecedent.
Chomsky's theory Linguist Noam Chomsky made the argument that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. In turn, there is an assumption that all languages have a common structural basis. This set of rules is known as universal grammar. Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions which violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1): (1) *What did John meet a man who sold? Such expressions are not available to the language learners, because they are, by hypothesis, ungrammatical for speakers of the local language. Speakers of the local language do not utter such expressions and note that they are unacceptable to language learners. Universal grammar offers a solution to the poverty of the stimulus problem by making certain restrictions universal characteristics of human languages. Language learners are consequently never tempted to generalize in an illicit fashion.
Presence of creole languages The presence of creole languages is sometimes cited as further support for this theory, especially by Bickerton's controversial language bioprogram theory. Creoles are languages that are developed and formed when different societies come together and are forced to devise their own system of communication. The system used by the original speakers is typically an inconsistent mix of vocabulary items known as a pidgin. As these speakers' children begin to acquire their first language, they use the pidgin input to effectively create their own original language, known as a creole. Unlike pidgins, creoles have native speakers and make use of a full grammar. According to Bickerton, the idea of universal grammar is supported by creole languages because certain features are shared by virtually all of these languages. For example, their default point of reference in time (expressed by bare verb stems) is not the present moment, but the past. Using pre-verbal auxiliaries, they uniformly express tense, aspect, and mood. Negative concord occurs, but it affects the verbal subject (as opposed to the object, as it does in languages like Spanish). Another similarity among creoles is that questions are created simply by changing a declarative sentence's intonation, not its word order or content. However, extensive work by Carla Hudson-Kam and Elissa Newport suggests that creole languages may not support a universal grammar, as has sometimes been supposed. In a series of experiments, Hudson-Kam and Newport looked at how children and adults learn artificial grammars. Notably, they found that children tend to ignore minor variations in the input when those variations are infrequent, and reproduce only the most frequent forms. In doing so, they tend to standardize the language that they hear around them. Hudson-Kam and Newport hypothesize that in a pidgin situation (and in the real life situation of a deaf child whose parents were diffluent signers), children are systematizing the language they hear based on the probability and frequency of forms, and not, as has been suggested on the basis of a universal grammar. Further, it seems unsurprising that creoles would share features with the languages they are derived from and thus look similar "grammatically."
Acculturation
ReplyDeleteDefination:-
Acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological change that results when two cultures meet. There are various effects of acculturation. Such as acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and social institutions for e.g. changes in food, clothing, and language.
The concept of acculturation have been primarily focused on the adjustments and adaptations made by minorities such as immigrants, refugees, and indigenous peoples in response to their contact with the dominant majority
History:-
In Sumerian inscriptions 2370 B.C the earliest thoughts of acculturation were found.These inscriptions talked about ,how to limit acculturation and save traditional customs.
Plato stated that acculturation would lead to social disorder. He proposed that no one less than must travel abroad.
J.W. Powell coined the term "acculturation" in 1880, defining it as "the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation."
The first psychological theory of acculturation was proposed in W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki's 1918 study, "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America." From studying Polish immigrants in Chicago, they illustrated three forms of acculturation corresponding to three personality types:-
(i) Bohemian (adopting the host culture and abandoning their culture of origin)
(ii)Philistine (failing to adopt the host culture but preserving their culture of origin)
(iii)Creative-Type (able to adapt to the host culture while preserving their culture of origin).
In 1936, Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits provided the first widely used definition of acculturation as "those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups…under this definition acculturation is to be distinguished from…assimilation, which is at times a phase of acculturation.’’
And since then hundreds of theories of acculturation have been proposed.
Conceptual Model of Acculturation
Though there has been so many models of acculturation but the most widely used is Eric Kramer's theory of Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation.Kramer's theory of Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation (DAD) .
Kramer's DAD theory how do different cultures interact with each other generally and then how the process of acculturation progresses.
Fourfold Model:-
ReplyDeleteThe fourfold model categorizes acculturation strategies along two dimensions.
a) The first dimension concerns the retention or rejection of an individual's minority or native culture (i.e. "Is it considered to be of value to maintain one's identity and characteristics?").
b)The second dimension concerns the adoption or rejection of the dominant group or host culture (i.e. "Is it considered to be of value to maintain relationships with the larger society?"
Following are the four acculturation strategies:-
1. Assimilation – Assimilation take place due to adoption of the cultural norms of a dominant or host culture, over their original culture. A society where harmonious and homogenous culture is promoted, assimilation is the endorsed acculturation strategy
2. Separation – Separation happens when an individual rejects the dominant or host culture so as to keep his culture safe. Separation is often facilitated by immigration to ethnic enclaves. A society, in which humans are separated into racial groups in daily life, a separation acculturation strategy is endorsed.
3.Integration – Integration occurs when individuals are able to maintain balance between cultural norms of the dominant or host culture. Integration leads to biculturalism. A society, in which multiple cultures are accepted and appreciated, individuals are encouraged to adopt an integrationist approach to acculturation
4. Marginalization – Marginalization occurs when individuals reject both the dominant host culture and there own. In societies where cultural exclusion is promoted, individuals often adopt marginalization strategies of acculturation.
Criticism of four fold model:-
Several theorists have stated that the fourfold models of acculturation are too simplistic to have predictive validity. Some common criticisms of such models include the fact that individuals don't often fall neatly into any of the four categories, and that there is very little evidence for the applied existence of the marginalization acculturation strategy. In addition, the bi-directionality of acculturation means that whenever two groups are engaged in cultural exchange, there are in fact 16 permutations of acculturation strategies possible (e.g. an integrationist individual within an assimilationist host culture).The Interactive Acculturation Model represents one proposed alternative to the typological approach by attempting to explain the acculturation process within a framework of state policies and the dynamic interplay of host community and immigrant acculturation orientations.
Impact of acculturation on language
1. Acculturation results in the adoption of another country's language, which is then modified over time to become a new, distinct, language. For example, Hanzi, the written language of Chinese language, has been adapted and modified by other nearby cultures, including: Japan (as Kanji), Korea(as Hanja), and Vietnam (as Chữ-nôm).
2. Acculturation on language is the formation of pidgin language. For example, Pidgin English is a simplified form of English mixed with some of the language of another culture. Eric Kramer (2009) introduced the concepts of co- and pan-evolution to help explain acculturation and interculturual communication.
SUSHMITA GAUR
DAV COLLEGE
MA (ENG) SEM- IV
Thanks, please keep up the hard work!
ReplyDeleteTHE MONITOR MODEL
ReplyDeleteThe most ambitious theory of the second language learning process is Stephen Krashen's "Monitor model", The theory evolved in the late 1970's in a series of articles, and was elaborated and expanded in a number of books. Krashen has argued that his account provides a general or overall theory of Second language acquisition with important implications for language teaching. According to Krashen, the theory is supported by a large number of scientific studies in a wide variety of language acquisition and learning contents. This research is keen to provide empirical validation for a particular method of validation for a particular method of language teaching the Natural Approach.
Krashen's theory of second language acquisitions, popularly known as Monitor Model, consists of five main hypothesis:
1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
2. The Monitor Hypothesis
3. The Natural order Hypothesis
4. The Input hypothesis
5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis
1. THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING HYPOTHESIS
Krashen maintained that adult second language learners have at their disposal two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a second language "Acquisition" and "Learning". Acquisition is a subconscious process identical in all important ways to the process children utilize in acquiring their first language. Learning is a conscious process that results in "knowing about language". Acquisition comes about through meaningful interaction in a natural communication setting. Speakers are not consumed with form, but with meaning, and there is no explicit correction.
This contrasts with language learning situation in which error detection and correction are central as in the case of class room teaching, where formal rules and feedback provide the basis for language acquisition. Thus is the conscious attention to rules that distinguishes language acquisition. Thus is the conscious attention to rules distinguishes language acquisition from language learning. According to Krashen, "Learning" is less important than acquisition.
2. THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS:
The Monitor Hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning. According to Krashen, learning and acquisition are used in very specific ways in second language performance. The monitor hypothesis states that "learning has one function, and this is as Monitor or editor, learning comes into play only to make changes in the form of our utterance, after it has been produced by the acquired system. Acquisition initiates the speaker's utterances and is responsible for fluency". Thus the monitor is thought to alter the output of the acquired system before or after the utterance is actually written or spoken, but the utterance is initiated entirely lay to acquired system. This hypothesis is important implication for language teaching. Krashen believes that conscious knowledge of rules does not help acquisition, but only enables the learner to “polish up” what has been acquired through communication. The focus of language teaching, for Krashen, should not be rule-learning but communication.
Three conditions of Monitor use: As we have seen, the Monitor acts as a sort of editor that is consciously controlled and that makes changes in the form of utterance produced by acquisition. Krashen has specified three conditions for the use of the Monitor:
ReplyDeletei) Time: In order to think about and use conscious rules effectively, a second language performer needs to have sufficient time for most people, normal conversation does not allow enough time to think about and use rules. The overuse of rules in conversation can lead to trouble i.e. a hesitant style of talking and inattention to what the conversational partner is saying.
ii) Focus on rules: To use the monitor effectively, time is not enough. The performance must be focused on form, or thinking about correctness. Even when we have time, we may be so involved in “what” we are saying that we do not attend to “how” we are saying it.
iii) Know the rules: This may be very formidable requirement linguistics has taught us that the structure of language is extremely complex and the linguists have described only a fragment of the best known languages. The students are surely exposed only to a small part of the total grammar of the language, and we know that even the best student do not learn every rule they are exposed to. Individual differences: Krashen also suggests that there are individual differences among language learners with regard to “Monitor use”.
He has distinguished three types of monitor users:
i. Monitor over-users: There are people who attempt to monitor all the time, performers who are constantly checking that output with their conscious knowledge of the second language. As a result such performers may speak hesitatingly; often self correct in the middle of utterances, and are so concerned with correctness that they cannot speak with any fluency.
ii. Monitor under-users: There are performers who have not learned, or if they have learned, prefer not to use their conscious knowledge even when conditions allow it underusers are typically uninfluenced by error-correction, can self-correct only by using a “feel” for correctness and rely completely on the acquired system.
iii. The optional monitor user: Those learners who are the monitor “approximately” are called “optimal monitor users” by Krashen. Our pedagogical goal is to produce optimal users, performers who use the monitor when it is appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication. Many optional users will not use grammar in ordinary conversation where it might interfere. In writing and planned speech, however, when there is time optimal users will typically make whatever corrections they can to raise the accuracy of their output.
3. THE NATURAL HYPOTHESIS: This hypothesis states that the acquisition of the rules of the second language follows a natural order which is predictable. For a given language some rules tend to be acquire early while others late. This order seems to be independent of the learner’s age, background, conditions of exposure etc. Evidence for a natural order hypothesis was provided by a series of research studies investigating morpheme acquisition orders.
4. THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS: The input hypothesis is only concerned with ‘acquisition’, not “learning”. According to this hypothesis, the learner improves and progresses along the ‘normal order’ when he/she receives second language “input” which is one step beyond his/her current state of linguistic competence. For example, if a learner is at a stage ‘I’, then acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to “comprehensible input” that belongs to level “i+I”.
5. THE EFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS: DULAY and BURT have defined the affective filter in the following words, “The filter is that part of the internal processing system that subconsciously screems incoming language based on what psychologists call “effect”: the learners’ motives, needs, attitudes, and emotional states.”
ReplyDeleteKrashen believes that comprehensible input was necessary but not sufficient condition for successful acquisition. Affective factors can play an important role in acquiring a second language. According to Affective Filter hypothesis comprehensible input may not be utilized by second language acquirers if there is a ‘mental block’ that prevents them from profiting from it. The affective filter acts as a barrier to acquisition.
Low motivation, low self esteem and anxiety can combine to ‘raise’ the affective filter and form a “mental block” that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. In other words, when the filter is up, it impedes language acquisition. On the other hand, learners with high motivation, self confidence, good self image and low level of anxiety are better equipped for success and second language acquisition.
CONCLUSION:
Despite its popularity, the Monitor Model was criticized by theorists and researchers on the grounds of its definitional adequacy. Gregg rejects the most fundamental of Krashen’s hypothesis, the acquisition learning dichotomy. Mc Laugeslin also finds that some of its central assumptions and hypothesis are not readily testable. Despite its various criticisms, Krashen’s Monitor Model had a great impact on the way the second language learning was viewed, it initiated research towards the discovery of orders of acquisition.
Kulwinder Kaur
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Universal Grammar
in Second Language Acquisition
Universal grammar (UG) is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, proposing that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain. The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught, and that there are properties that all natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are innate and what properties are shared by all languages.
History
The idea of a universal grammar can be traced to Roger Bacon's observation that all languages are built upon a common grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo accidental variations, and the 13th century speculative grammarians who, following Bacon, postulated universal rules underlying all grammars. The concept of a universal grammar or language was at the core of the 17th century projects for philosophical languages. The 18th century in Scotland saw the emergence of a vigorous universal grammar school. Later linguists who have influenced this theory include Noam Chomsky and Richard Montague, developing their version of the theory as they considered issues of the Argument from poverty of the stimulus to arise from the constructivist approach to linguistic theory. The application of the idea to the area of second language acquisition (SLA) is represented mainly by the McGill linguist Lydia White.
Most syntacticians generally concede that there are parametric points of variation between languages, although heated debate occurs over whether UG constraints are essentially universal due to being "hard-wired" (Chomsky's Principles and Parameters approach), a logical consequence of a specific syntactic architecture (the Structure approach) or the result of functional constraints on communication (the functionalist approach).
During the early 20th century, in contrast, language was usually understood from a behaviourist perspective, suggesting that language learning, like any other kind of learning, could be explained by a succession of trials, errors, and rewards for success. In other words, children learned their mother tongue by simple imitation, listening to and repeating what adults said.
Definition of Universal Grammar
A set of principles and parameters that constrain all human languages. UG is part of the human genetic endowment and is encoded in the Language Acquisition Faculty (LAF).
What is the LAF?
“An innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with presented experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.”
Chomsky (1986)
Argument
ReplyDeleteIf human beings growing up under normal conditions (not conditions of extreme deprivation), then they will always develop a language with property X (for example, distinguishing nouns from verbs, or distinguishing function words from lexical words) and therefore property X is a property of universal grammar in this most general sense (here not capitalized).
There are theoretical senses of the term Universal Grammar as well (here capitalized). The most general of these would be that Universal Grammar is whatever properties of a normally developing human brain cause it to learn languages that conform to universal grammar (the non-capitalized, pre-theoretical sense). Using the above examples, Universal Grammar would be the property that the brain has that causes it to posit a difference between nouns and verbs whenever presented with linguistic data.
As Chomsky puts it, "Evidently, development of language in the individual must involve three factors: (1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible; (2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range; (3) principles not specific to FL." [FL is the faculty of language, whatever properties of the brain cause it to learn language.] So (1) is Universal Grammar in the first theoretical sense, (2) is the linguistic data to which the child is exposed.
Sometimes aspects of Universal Grammar in this sense seem to be describable in terms of general facts about cognition.
For example, if a predisposition to categorize events and objects as different classes of things is part of human cognition, and as a direct result nouns and verbs show up in all languages, then it could be said that this aspect of Universal Grammar is not specific to language, but is part of cognition more generally. To distinguish properties of languages that can be traced to other facts about cognition from properties of languages that cannot, the abbreviation UG* can be used. UG is the term often used by Chomsky for those aspects of the human brain which cause language to be the way it is (i.e. are Universal Grammar in the sense used here) but here for discussion it is used for those aspects which are furthermore specific to language (thus UG, as Chomsky uses it, is just an abbreviation for Universal Grammar, but UG* as used here is a subset of Universal Grammar).
UG - aspects of human brain
UG* - properties of language traced in cognition
In the same article, Chomsky casts the theme of a larger research program in terms of the following question: "How little can be attributed to UG while still accounting for the variety of I-languages attained, relying on third factor principles?" (I-languages meaning internal languages, the brain states that correspond to knowing how to speak and understand a particular language, and third factor principles meaning (3) in the previous quote).
Chomsky has speculated that UG might be extremely simple and abstract, for example only a mechanism for combining symbols in a particular way, which he calls Merge. To see that Chomsky does not use the term "UG" in the narrow sense UG* suggested above, consider the following quote from the same article:
"The conclusion that Merge falls within UG holds whether such recursive generation is unique to FL or is appropriated from other systems."
I.e. Merge is part of UG because it causes language to be the way it is, is universal, and is not part of (2) (the environment) or (3) (general properties independent of genetics and environment). Merge is part of Universal Grammar whether it is specific to language or whether, as Chomsky suggests, it is also used for example in mathematical thinking.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction is important because there is a long history of argument about UG*, whereas most people working on language agree that there is Universal Grammar. Many people assume that Chomsky means UG* when he writes UG (and in some cases he might actually mean UG*, though not in the passage quoted above).
Some students of universal grammar study a variety of grammars to abstract generalizations called linguistic universals, often in the form of "If X holds true, then Y occurs." These have been extended to a variety of traits, such as the phonemes found in languages, what word orders languages choose, and why children exhibit certain linguistic behaviors.
Principles and Parameters of UG
A principle of UG is a statement that is true for all human languages.
For example: The principle of structure dependency.
A parameter must be set according to the requirements of the language being acquired.
For example: The null subject parameter.
Principle of Structural Dependency
Grammatical rules do not depend on the linear ordering of the words in the sentence, but on how these words are structured within constituents of specific types.
Principle of Structural Dependency
Subject-auxiliary inversion in English
– She will laugh.
Principle of Structural Dependency
Subject-auxiliary inversion in English
– She will laugh.
– Will she laugh?
Principle of Structural Dependency
Subject-auxiliary inversion in English
– She will laugh.
– Will she laugh?
– The student who is taking good notes will get an A.
The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition
• The linguistic input available to children underdetermines the linguistic competence of adults.
• Thus children acquire properties of language that are not immediately obvious and that are not explicitly taught.
• If the child possesses only some general cognitive ability to make generalizations from input, many features of the adult language cannot be acquired.
Binding Theory
• Binding: The association between a pronoun and an antecedent.
• Anaphoric: A term to describe an element (e.g. a pronoun) that derives its interpretation from some other expression in the discourse.
• Antecedent: The expression an anaphoric expression derives its interpretation from.
• Anaphora: The relationship between an anaphoric expression and its antecedent.
Chomsky's theory
ReplyDeleteLinguist Noam Chomsky made the argument that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. In turn, there is an assumption that all languages have a common structural basis. This set of rules is known as universal grammar.
Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions which violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1):
(1) *What did John meet a man who sold?
Such expressions are not available to the language learners, because they are, by hypothesis, ungrammatical for speakers of the local language. Speakers of the local language do not utter such expressions and note that they are unacceptable to language learners. Universal grammar offers a solution to the poverty of the stimulus problem by making certain restrictions universal characteristics of human languages. Language learners are consequently never tempted to generalize in an illicit fashion.
Presence of creole languages
The presence of creole languages is sometimes cited as further support for this theory, especially by Bickerton's controversial language bioprogram theory. Creoles are languages that are developed and formed when different societies come together and are forced to devise their own system of communication. The system used by the original speakers is typically an inconsistent mix of vocabulary items known as a pidgin. As these speakers' children begin to acquire their first language, they use the pidgin input to effectively create their own original language, known as a creole. Unlike pidgins, creoles have native speakers and make use of a full grammar.
According to Bickerton, the idea of universal grammar is supported by creole languages because certain features are shared by virtually all of these languages. For example, their default point of reference in time (expressed by bare verb stems) is not the present moment, but the past. Using pre-verbal auxiliaries, they uniformly express tense, aspect, and mood. Negative concord occurs, but it affects the verbal subject (as opposed to the object, as it does in languages like Spanish). Another similarity among creoles is that questions are created simply by changing a declarative sentence's intonation, not its word order or content.
However, extensive work by Carla Hudson-Kam and Elissa Newport suggests that creole languages may not support a universal grammar, as has sometimes been supposed. In a series of experiments, Hudson-Kam and Newport looked at how children and adults learn artificial grammars. Notably, they found that children tend to ignore minor variations in the input when those variations are infrequent, and reproduce only the most frequent forms. In doing so, they tend to standardize the language that they hear around them. Hudson-Kam and Newport hypothesize that in a pidgin situation (and in the real life situation of a deaf child whose parents were diffluent signers), children are systematizing the language they hear based on the probability and frequency of forms, and not, as has been suggested on the basis of a universal grammar. Further, it seems unsurprising that creoles would share features with the languages they are derived from and thus look similar "grammatically."
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ReplyDeletethis is totally wrong