File 9.3

File 9.3 The innateness hypothesis and Language & Theories of language acquisition a) The Innateness Hypothesis: ·         The human being has the ability for to understand and speaking language this is innate. B) Language: ·         Humans are genetically predisposed to learn and use language. ·         Concept of noun and verb are characterizes common to all language that is Linguistics Universal.

Universal Grammar: These are a set of characteristics shares by all language.  The biologist Eric Lenneberg says all humans have linguistics ability because it is innate them. He had studied some animals and their behavior and characteristics, so  he did a list about the concept “behaviorism”. 1.       The  behavior  emerges before it is necessary 2.       Its appearance is not the result of a conscious decision. 3.       Its emergence  is not triggered by external events (though the surrounding environment must be sufficiently “rich “ for it to develop----- quietly 4.       Direct teaching and intensive practice have been related little effect. 5.       There is regular sequence of “milestones” as the behavior develops, and these can usually be correlated with age and other aspect of development. 6.       There is likely to be a “critical period” for the acquisition of the behavior.

These points only consider the concept behaviorism but it is not totally owner in the human being. What is Critical Period? This is a period of time in an individual`s life during which a behavior. There are 2 types of periods. 0-2 years:  The Child needs to be exposure to language in order to develop the brain structures and they are necessary for acquisition and acquiring native speaker competence. 10-16 years: the child can obtain a language but he/she cannot acquire native competence. The critical period claims that If a child doesn`t have these period he/she cannot development his/her language skills or acquire them.

There are at least two sources of information available to linguistics which support the claims that there a critical periods for acquisition language.

Critical-age Hypothesis 1.       Children were exposed to little or no language in their early life. 2.       Critical –age hypothesis involves comparing the acquisition of a second language by children and by adults. 3.       Adults find it much more difficult to learn a language than children do it.

Worksheet

Complete the following comparative table.
Mains Researchers
Point of view.
Others

Vocabulary.

Complete with the correct meaning the following words. Isolation: _______________________________________________________ Innateness:_____________________________________________________ Sleep spindle:___________________________________________________

Complete the sentences.   1.-  Genie explored her new ____________________________   2.-  Genie could not speak because she had all ready pasted her ______________________   3.-   With Genie case what _____________ holds is refuse.



FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (Yule)

This occurs without over instruction, this is innate in a humans being because there is a predisposition in the human infant to acquire language. If a human being need to acquire a language He needs to have a basic requirements likes Language- faculty: this is a ability to acquire a language. Cultural Transmission: a child needs to have an enter who transmits language If a child doesn´t hear or speak a language he won´t be able to acquired language because learning is not genetically inherited. The acquisition schedule includes biological capacity and acquisition capacity. Biological is a determinate development of motor skills Acquisition capacity is useful when a child receive a constant input. Some controversies: There are some controversies about this topic for example Noam Chomsky says that this acquisition has been acquired for as language growth, because a language is an organ then it needs to maturate and this is not innateness.

Caretaker speech Is a way like mother or principal person that have contact with a baby in his first month or year of his life. This is his first input for acquired language. Some features of this type of speech is called Motherese and it is associated a lot of forms with BABY – TALK. It is also characterized by simple sentences structures and a lot of repetition of first adult that have contact with a baby. It Is useful because baby can produce more and more language in his process learning.

Pre-language stages These are sounds that baby produce very early age and his acquisition are simply called: Cooing and Babbling. Cooing: it happens when a baby is 3 month. A child produces velar consonant such as /k/ and /g/ and usually vowels such as /i/ and /u/.

Babbling: It happens when children are 6 months. They are usually able to sit up and can produce a number as different vowels and consonant such as fricatives and nasal.

What is holophrastic stage? This occurs between 12 and 18 months when a child is able to produce one. Word like Milk, Cookie cat. This term is a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence. Telegraphic speech Between 2 and 3 years old the child will be able to produce a large number of utterances which could be classified as multiple- word utterances. And in this stage is called too telegraphic speech because it is characterized by strings of lexical morphemes in phrases such as Andrew want ball, cat drink etc. The acquisition process Morphology Syntax Semantics In this process a child incorporates some inflexional morpheme which indicates the grammatical function of the nouns and verbs used. A child uses a morpheme like S but he overgeneralizes the rule S in all words. Here, they use imitation then they ask and repeat what they heard The semantics development in a child´s use of words is usually a process of overextension initially, followed by a gradual process of narrowing down the application of each term as more words are learned.

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (BROWN)

First Language Acquisition

Theories of first Language Acquisition

First Year children make specific attempts to imitate words and speech sounds they heard around them.

18 month they begin to appear in two-word and three-word sentences.

Two years age they can comprehend more sophisticated language and their production repertoire is mushrooming.

Three years age they can comprehend and amazing quantify of linguistics input

This fluency and creativity continues into school age as children internalize increasingly complex structures, expand their vocabulary, and sharpen communicative skills.

Behavioral Approaches:

Language is a fundamental part of total human behavior and behavioral psychologists examined it as such and sought to formulate consistent theories of first language acquisition.

This envolve aspect of linguistics behavior, the publicity observable responses and the relationships or association between those responses and events in the world surrounding them.

Skinner´s theory of verbal behavior was an extension of his general theory of learning by OPERANT CONDITIONING.

This theory refers to conditioning in which the organism (in this case, a human being) emits a response, or operant (a sentence or utterance) without necessarily observable stimuli; that operant is maintained (learned) by reinforcement.

The Nativist Approach

The term Nativist is derived from the fundamental assertion that language acquisition is innately determined, that we are born with a genetic capacity that predisposes us to a systematic perception of language around us, resulting in the construction of an internalized system of language.

Language Acquisition device (LAD) is :

1.       The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment

2.       The ability to organize linguistic data into various classes that can later be refined.

3.       Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and that other kinds are not.

4.       The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistics system so as to construct the simple possible system out of the available linguistics input.

Universal Grammar: this is a theory that suggests that there are properties that all possible natural humans language have. Noam Chomsky suggests that rules of grammar are hard –wider into the brain without being taught.

Challenges to Natives Approaches:

·         PDP: Parallel distributed processing is a model, based on the notion that information is processed simultaneously at several levels of attention.

·         Cognition and Language Development

·         Social Interaction and language Development

Behaviorist	natives	Functional
·         Tabula rasa ·         Stimuli: linguistics ·         Responses ·         Conditioning ·         Reinforcement ·	·         Innate ·         predispositions(LAD/UG) ·         systematic rule-governed acquisition ·         creative construction ·         “pivot” grammar ·         Parallel distributed processing	·         Constructivist ·         Social interaction ·         Cognition language ·         Functions of language ·         discourse

Issues in first language Acquisition

Competence: is in your mine

Performance: is observable and concrete manifestation or realization of competence.

Comprehension is listening and Reading. It could be competence

Production: is speaking and Writing.  It could be performance.

 Practice and Frequency

Practice is in the early stages of the child because he has to practice some words. Repetition and association are his keys like the operant conditioning.

Frecuency is when a child received some stimulates like sound constantly  

 

Input: The process of comprehending language (listening and reading).This is very important because is the way like people receive the language,

Discourse: Is a way like people express their ideas because in this aspect people show and do relationships between rules and sentences.

SUMMARY LANGUAGE,LEARNING AND TEACHING

Language Learning and Teaching

There many questions about second language acquisition:

• 1. Learner Characteristics
• 2. Linguistics Factors
• 3. Learning Processes
• 4. Age and Acquisition
• 5. Instructional Variables
• 6. Context
• 7. Purpose
• 8. Rejoicing
• 9. Rejoicing in our Defeats

What is Language?

Is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same very individual , and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently.

Language has differences definitions:

• 1. Language is systematic
• 2. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols
• 3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual
• 4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer.
• 5. Language is used for communication.
• 6. Language operates in a speech community or culture
• 7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans.
• 8. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and language learning both have universal characteristics.

Learning and Teaching

A search in contemporary dictionaries reveals that Learning is “acquiring or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study, experience, or instruction. And Teaching is defined showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something providing knowledge.

1. 1. Learning is acquisition or getting
2. 2. Learning is retention of information or skill
3. 3. Retention implies storage systems , memory, cognitive organization
4. 4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism.
5. 5. Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting
6. 6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.
7. 7. Learning is a change in behavior.

These concepts can also give way to a number of subfields within the disciple of psychology: acquisition processes, perception, memory, (storage) systems, short and long- term memory, recall, motivation, conscious and subconscious learning styles and strategies, theories of forgetting, reinforcement, the role of practice.

What is teaching?

Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Teaching is guiding and facilitating, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning.

Schools of thought

There are Schools: Behavioral Psychology, cognitive Psychology and Constructivism Psychology.

Behavior Psychology is focused on publicity observable responses. Those can be objectively perceived, recorded, and measured.

The Scientific Method represents this concept because it responds to behavior observable

QUESTION 2

What is permanent struggle in teaching/learning?

·         The culture is a permanent struggle because it interferences when a teacher has to teach a new culture with the different language.

2) Are we equipment with a do-it-yourself-kit to acquire language?

No, because if we would be equipped we could learn any language without problems then everybody would be bilingual.

3) Why do people learn or fail to learn a language.

There are many variables that interfere on the acquisition of language. Since stimulates and physical problems

4) Name the issues to consider in second language acquisition?

·         Context

·         Purpose

·         Age and acquisition

·         Learning process

·         Learning characteristics

·         Instructional variable

·         Rejoicing in our defects.

5) What are the motivations to learn a language?

They are emotional personal or intellectual reasons

Social interaction

6) What is a PARADIGM?

Is a model that is demonstrable this is theory that help us to identify something or knowledge,

7) Give 3 definitions for Language?

Language is used for communicates

Language is systematic

Language is own of the human being

8) What is the relation between language and cognition?

Their relation is that people need to know words and recognize sounds for transmit and organize ideas when they need to talk.

9) Which are some Learning Definition?

Learning is retention of information or skill

Retention implies storage systems memory, cognitive organization.

Learning is acquisition or getting

Learning involves active, conscious focus on and upon events outside or inside the organism

Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting

Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.

Learning is change a behavior.

10) Can we define Teaching apart from learning?

No, because teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the condition for learning.

Teacher is a guide and he brings some tools where students can learn like they can know more.

11) What is the importance of our Pedagogical Philosophy?

Pedagogical Philosophy is importance because teachers use and choose certain methods and techniques for to teach learn. It is like a theory of learning (Stood on its head)  

12) Refer to the 3 schools of thought in SLA

Structural Linguistics And behavioral Psychology	Generative Linguistics and Cognitive psychology	Constructivism
This school uses a method behaviorism. Description Observable performance Scientific Method Empiricism Surface structure Conditioning Reinforcement STIMULATE – ANSWER-	This school is Cognitive Generative Linguistics Acquisition Innateness Interlanguage Systematic Universal grammar Competence Deep structure LANGUAGE IS INNATE AND BIOLOGICAL INHERIT	This school is constructivism Interactive discovers Social cultural variable Cooperative learning Discovery learning Construction of meaning Interlanguage variability LANGUAGE IS A PROCESS THAT NEED LEARNING AND MAKE IT

 13) Describe the GTM

This is a classical Method Which it has some grammatical rules as the basic for translating from the L2 .

Is a traditional method of teaching, this method is able to read and translate literary masterpieces and classics