1. In the following exchange, the linguist parent is attempting to correct the child (learning English as an L1). Child: Nobody don’t like me. Parent: No, say nobody likes me. Child: Nobody don’t like me. The child and parent repeat this exchange eight times. Then, exasperated at the parent who seems more interested in grammar than in what is being expressed, the child says with some passion: Child: Oh, nobody don’t likes me. Two questions: 1. What does this example suggest to you about the role of habit formation in L1? 2. Where does the child’s incorrect sentence Nobody don’t like me come from? Where does the child get it from?

2. Question: What does «putted» suggest us about child L1 acquisition? Child: I putt ed the plates on the table. Mom: You mean, I put the plates on the table. Child: No, I putt ed them on all by myself.

3. The input that the child receives from the environment is not perfect and is full of false starts, slips of tongue etc. So, how does a child reach L1 competence?

4. Criticisms on behaviorism: Behaviorism seems to offer a reasonable way of understanding how children learn some of the regular and routine aspects of language, especially at earlier stages. However, children who do little overt imitation acquire language as fully and rapidly as those who imitate alot. And although behaviorism goes some way to explaining the sorts of overgeneralizations that children make, classical behaviorism is not a satisfactory explanation for the acquisition of the more complex grammar that children acquire.

5. Criticisms on behaviorism: Imitation and practice alone cannot explain some of the forms created by children. Children appear to pick out patterns and generalize them to new contexts. They create new forms or new uses of words.

6. The Innatist Perspective & Noam Chomsky

7. Noam Chomsky Born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928, Noam Chomsky was an intellectual prodigy who went on to earn a PhD in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 1955, he has been a professor at MIT and has produced groundbreaking, controversial theories on human linguistic capacity. Chomsky is widely published, both on topics in his field and on issues of dissent and U.S. foreign policy.

8. The innatist perspective (Mentalism or nativist approach) The innatists perspective is the belief that the mind (and all things associated with it, like consciousness, thoughts, etc.) is important for determining not just human behavior, but also the way we ‘do’ science. The linguist Noam Chomsky claims that children are biologically programmed for language and that language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop. For example, every child will learn to walk as long as adequate nourishment and reasonable freedom of movement are provided. The child does not have to be taught. Most children learn to walk about the same age, and walking is essentially the same in all normal human beings.

9. The Innatist Perspective The innatist perspective is related to Chomsky’s hypothesis that all human languages are based on some universal principles.

10. The Innatist Perspective The role of environment in language acquisition is slight. The role of mind (the child’s biological endowment) in language acquisition is supreme. Environment Mind

11. The Innatist Perspective Poverty of Stimulus The language the child is exposed to in the environment is full of confusing information (for example false starts, incomplete sentences, or slips of tongue) and does not provide all the information which the child needs. It is well known that children make mistakes during the course of acquiring their mother tongue, but they are neither corrected, nor do they pay much attention to these corrections. If this is the case, how do they recover from their mistakes? We end up knowing far more about language than is exemplified in the language we hear around us.

12. The Innatist Perspective According to Chomsky, children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled by imitating language they hear in the environment. Instead, he hypothesized, children are born with a specific innate ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules of a language system on the basis of the samples of a language they are exposed to. (Examples on pages 20 and 21)

13. The Innatist Perspective Poverty of Stimulus and Transformational Linguistics (1)John is easy to please S+A+V (2)John is eager to please S+A+V (3)It is easy to please John (4)*It is eager to please John These two sentences would be described as having an identical Surface structure, but the English speaker knows that in first case "John" is the subject of "eager to please” i.e. John pleases other people; and that in the second case "John" is the object of "easy to please” i.e. other people please John.

14. 1. John saw himself. It looks as if the reflexive pronoun must follow the noun it refers to. But the following sentence disproves this. 2. Looking after himself bores John.

15. 1. John said that Fred liked himself. 2.*John said that Fred liked himself. 3. John told Bill to wash himself. 4. *John told Bill to wash himself. We might conclude that the closest noun phrase is usually the antecedent. However, the following statement shows that this rule won’t work either. 5. John promised Bill to wash himself.

16. 1. John believes himself to be intelligent (non- finite). 2. *John believes that himself is intelligent (finite clause). The reflexive can be in the subject position in (1) but not in (2). In some cases more than one antecedent is possible, as in (3) where the reflexive could refer to either John or Bill (3) John showed Bill a picture of himself. How do children discover the rules about reflexive pronouns?

17. The Innatist Perspective Researchers who study language acquisition from the innatist perspective argue that such complex grammar could never be learned purely on the basis of imitation and practicing the sentences available in the input. They hypothesize that since all children acquire the language of their environment, they must have some innate mechanism or knowledge that allows them to discover such complex syntax in spite of limitations of the input.

18. Language Acquisition Device (LAD) Chomsky claimed the existence of innate properties of language to explain the child’s mastery of a native language in such a short time despite the highly abstract nature of the rules of a language. This innate knowledge, according to Chomsky, was embodied in a metaphorical «little black box» in the brain, a language acquisition device (LAD).

19. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Developmental and cognitive psychologists have focused on the interplay between the innate learning ability of children and the environment in which they develop. They argue that innatists place too much emphasis on the final state and not on the developmental aspects of language acquisition.

20. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives In their view, language acquisition is but one example of the human child’s ability to learn from experience, and they see no need to assume that there are specific brain structures devoted to language acquisition. They hypothesize that what children need to know is essentially available in the language they are exposed to as they hear it used in thousands of hours of interactions with people and objects around them.

21. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Psychologists attribute considerably more importance to the environment than the innatists do even though they also recognize a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain. They see language acquisition as similar to and influenced by the acquisition of other kinds of skill and knowledge, rather than as something that is different from and largely independent of the child’s experience and cognitive development. Environment Mind

22. Jean Piaget (9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives

23. I NTERACTIONIST /D EVELOPMENTAL P ERSPECTIVES In the early decades of the 20th century, Piaget observed infants and children in their play and in their interaction with objects and people. He was able to trace the development of their cognitive understanding of such things as object permanence, the stability of quantities regardless of changes in their appearance, and logical inferencing. object permanence.mp4Object Permanence Experiment.mp4Conservation task.mp4object permanence.mp4Object Permanence Experiment.mp4Conservation task.mp4 Thus, Piaget argued that children’s language development is built on their cognitive development.

24. I NTERACTIONIST /D EVELOPMENTAL P ERSPECTIVES It is easy to see how children’s cognitive development would partly determine how they acquire language. For example, the use of certain terms such as «bigger» or «more» depends on the children’s understanding of the concepts they represent. The developing cognitive understanding is built on the interaction between the child and the things that can be observed or manipulated.

25. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Lev Vygotsky (1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet Belarusian psychologist, the founder of a theory of human cultural and biosocial development commonly referred to as cultural-historical psychology.

26. Sociocultural theory: Emphasizes role in development of cooperative dialogues between children and more knowledgeable members of society. Children learn the culture of their community (ways of thinking and behaving) through these interactions.

27. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Vygotsky argued that language develops primarily from social interaction. He argued that in a supportive interactive environment, children are able to advance to higher levels of knowledge and performance.

28. Vygotsky Zone of Proximal Development: is the area where a child cannot solve a problem alone, but can be successful under adult guidance or in collaboration with a more advanced peer.

29. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Scaffolding: Vygotsky observed the importance of conversations that children have with adults and with other children and saw in these conversations the origins of both language and thought. The conversations provide the child with scaffolding, that is, a kind of supportive structure that helps them acquire new knowledge. Scaffolding Language Skills.mp4 Scaffolding Language Skills.mp4

30. Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives Scaffolding: Support for learning and problem solving. The support could be clues, reminders, encouragement, breaking the problem down into steps, providing an example, or anything else that allows the student to grow in independence as a learner.

31. The Interactional Instinct John Schumann Namhee Lee Anna Joaquin Lisa Mikesell Gail Adams Bahiyyih Hardacre Jessica Roehrig

32. A biologically instantiated language organ is not a requirement for the emergence of language. Language is a culturally inherited artifact whose transmission requires social agents who are hardwired with an instinct to interact. Several behavioral manifestations displayed by infants represent their interactional readiness and innate capacity to interact with conspecifics. (Read the importance of interaction part on page 27)

33. Interactional Readiness Imitate several actions Follow gaze Focus more on humans than objects Joint attention Express and read emotions

34. Neuropeptides such as vasopressin, oxytocin, and dopamine are produced during infant- caregiver interaction. As these opiates are released during the interactions, infants are psychologically rewarded due to the morphine like effects of these opiates.

35. The Study of Second Language Acquisition What is the study of second language acquisition? 1. It is the study of how second languages are learned. 2. It is the study of how learners create a new language system with only limited exposure to a second language. 3. It is the study of what is learned in a second language and what is not learned. 4. It is the study of why most second language learners do not achieve the same degree of proficiency in a second language as they do in their native language. 5. It is the study of why some learners appear to achieve native-like proficiency in more than one language.

36. The Study of Second Language Acquisition Definitions (refer to pages 4 and 5) Native language (NL) Target Language (TL) Second Language Acquisition (SLA) First Language (L1) Second Language (L2) Foreign Language (FL) Foreing Language Learning (FLL)

37. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language Fundamental to the understanding of the nature of SLA is an understanding of what it is that needs to be learned. 1. Sound systems 2. Syntax 3. Morphology and Lexicon 4. Semantics 5. Pragmatics

38. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language 1.Sound systems As native speakers of language we know not only what sounds are possible sounds and what sounds are not possible sounds. We know what are possible combinations of sounds and what sounds are found in what parts of words.

39. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language 2. Syntax When we talk about syntax we talk about descriptive grammars. Prescriptive grammar is not related to syntax. Native speakers of a language know which are possible sentences of their language and which are not. Not only do we know which sentences are acceptable in our language, we also know which sentences are grossly equivalent in terms of meaning. Another aspect of language that we know is how meaning is affected by moving elements in a sentence. For example, adverbs can generally be moved in a sentence without affecting the meaning, whereas nouns cannot. Knowing a language entails knowing a set of rules with which we can produce an infinite set of sentences.

40. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language 3. Morphology and the Lexicon Not only do we know how to form words using affixes but we also know that words can go with other words.

41. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language 4. Semantics Knowledge of the semantics of a language entails knowledge of the reference of words. For example, in English, we know that a table refers to an object with a flat top and either three or four legs. We also know that the way we combine elements in sentences affects their meaning.

42. The Study of Second Language Acquisition The Nature of Language 5. Pragmatics Pragmatics is the way in which we use language in context. For example, when we answer the telephone and someone says Is Samuel there? We know that this is a request to speak with Samuel.