Psycholinguistics
is the study of the mental structures and processes involved in the acquisition
and use of language.
L1 Transfer
L1 transfer refers to the influence that the learner’s L1
exerts over the acquisition of an L2. This influence is apparent in a number of
ways. First, the learner’s L1 is one of the sources of error in learner
language, negative transfer. However, in some cases, the learner’s L1
can facilitate L2 acquisition, positive transfer. L1 transfer can also
result in avoidance (learners make fewer errors in relative
clauses). Finally, L1 transfer may be reflected in the overuse of
some forms. Behaviourist theories cannot account
for L2 acquisition. This led to two developments. The first development sought
to play down the role of L1 transfer. The second development was to
reconceptualize transfer within a cognitive framework (This was begun by Larry
Selinker). The learner’s stage of development has also been found to influence
L1 transfer. This is clearly evident in the way learners acquire speech
acts like request, apologies, and refusals. When language transfer
takes place there is usually no loss of L1 knowledge. A better term for
referring to the effects of the L1 might be ‘cross-linguistic influence’.
The Role of Consciousness in L2 Acquisition
There are two opposing positions on the role of
consciousness in L2 acquisition. First, Stephen Krashen has
argued the need to distinguish ‘acquired’ L2 knowledge and ‘learned’ L2
language. He claims that the former is developed subconsciously through
comprehending input while communicating, while the latter is developed
consciously through deliberate of the L2.
Second, Richard
Schmidt has
pointed out that the term ‘consciousness’ is often used very loosely in SLA and
argues that there is a need to standardize the concepts that underlie its use.
For example, he distinguishes between consciousness as ‘intentionally’ (learner
makes a conscious and deliberate decision to learn some L2 knowledge) and
consciousness as ‘attention’. Schmidt argues that learning cannot take place without noticing (the process of
attending consciously to linguistic features in the input). Explicit knowledge may aid learners in developing implicit
knowledge in a number of ways. First, a direct interface may occur. Second, explicit
knowledge may facilitate the process by which learners attend to features in
the input. Third, explicit knowledge may help learners to move from intake to
acquisition by helping them to notice the gap between what they have observed
in the input ant the current state of their interlanguage as manifested in
their own input.
Processing Operations
1. Operating Principles
Dan Slobin has argued about operating principles, the identification of a number of general strategies which children use to extract and segment linguistic information from the language they hear. Operating principles provide a simple and attractive way of accounting for the properties of interlanguage.
2. Processing Constrains
Multidimensional model proposed that some grammatical features can be acquired at any stage of development. Thus, it distinguishes a developmental and a variational axis. Progress along one axis is independent of progress along the other axis. To account for progress along it,a number of processing constrains have been proposed. It is possible for a learner to move from one stage to another.
Communication strategies
If learners do not know a word in the target language they
may ‘borrow’ a word from their L1 or use another target-language word that is
approximate in meaning, or try to paraphrase the meaning of the word, or even
construct an entire new word. As Selinker has pointed out, communication
strategies constitute one of the processes responsible for learner errors. We
might expect that the choice of communication strategies will reflect the
learner’s stage of development.
The Role of Consciousness in L2 Acquisition
There are two radically different types of apparatus have
been proposed.
1. Serial Processing
Information is processed in a series of sequential steps and results in the representation of what has been learned as some kind of ‘rule’ or ‘strategy’.
2. Parallel Distributed Processing
This credits the learner with the ability to perform a number of mental tasks at the same time. Models based on it reject the whole notion of ‘rule’.
Questions:
- What can you explain about ‘cross-linguistic influence’?
- What is the difference between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge?
