UNIT 1: APPLIED LINGUISTICS

APPLIED LINGUISTICS IS OPPOSED TO THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS. FIELDS OF STUDY:

Language teaching and language learning (SLA): concerned with both the teaching and

the learning of second languages. E.g.: teaching methods, treatment of the four skills

(reading, writing, listening and speaking), etc.

Translation studies: it deals with the transfer of linguistic information from one language

to another.

Clinical Linguistics (speech pathology): presents suitable models and hypotheses to

explain the functioning of language in our brain. E.g.: disorders in the production of lexical

units; clinical description of aphasia; disorders of syntactic comprehension.

Language planning and policy: refers to all the activities of intervention over linguistic

practices. E.g.: the problems associated with the standardization of the Galician language;

lexical revolution as an expression of nationalism in the Balkans.

Computational linguistics: it tries to develop theories and techniques that serve to process

natural languages into machine language. E.g.: the automatic oral translation systems; the

simulation of speech systems.

Forensic linguistics: the application of linguistic research and methods to the law.

WHAT IS SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION?

Refers both to the study of individuals who are learning a language different than their first one,

and to the process of learning that language. SLA began in the late 1960s.

First language, native language or mother tongue (L1): the language(s) that an

individual learns first.

Second language (L2): any language other than the first language learned (in a broader

sense). A language learned after the first language in a context where the language is used

widely in the speech community (in a narrower sense). E.g.: For many people in Taiwan,

their L1 is Taiwanese and L2 is Mandarin.

o Foreign Language (FL): language learned in a context where the language is not

widely used in the speech community. E.g.: English for Taiwanese people.

o Target language (TL): a language which is being learned, where it’s the 1st language

or 2nd or 3rd. Any language that is the aim or goal of learning. E.g.: English for us.

1

TYPES OR LEARNING L2

Informal L2 learning: takes place in naturalistic contexts. E.g.: child from Japan who is

brought to the USA and “picks up” English in the course of playing and attending school

with native English-speaking children without any specialized language instruction.

Formal L2 learning: takes place in classrooms. E.g.: high school student in England takes

a class in French.

L2 learning: involves a mixture of these settings and circumstances. E.g.: a student from

the USA takes Chinese language classes in Taipei or Beijing while also using Chinese

outside of class for social interaction and daily living experiences.

SOME DISTINCTIONS

A library language is one which functions primarily as a tool for further learning through

reading, especially when books or journals in a desired field of study are not commonly

published in the learners’ native tongue.

An auxiliary language is one which learners need to know for some official functions or

will need for purposes of wider communication, although their first language serves most

other needs in their life.

Language for specific purposes is one language it is learnt because it is needed for some

reason or purposes, such as English for Academic Purposes (EAP).

PATTERNS IN L1 DEVELOPMENT

Characteristics of the language of children:

Their language development shows a high degree of similarity among children all over the

world with predicable patterns in their L1 development (predictability).

Their language reflects the word order of the language that they are hearing (learning

through imitation).

Their language also shows they are able to apply the rules of the language to make

sentences which they have never heard before (creativity).

1. Before First Words:

2

The earliest vocalizations

o Involuntary crying (when they feel hungry or uncomfortable)

o Cooing and gurgling – showing satisfaction or happiness

“Babbling”

o Babies use sounds to reflect the characteristics of the different language they are learning.

2. First Words:

Around 12 months (“one-word” stage):

o Babies begin to produce one or two recognizable words (esp. content word);

producing single-word sentences.

By the age of 2 (“two-word” stage):

1) At least 50 different words

2) “Telegraphic” sentences (no function words and grammatical morphemes) such as

for example: “Mommy juice” or “baby fall down”.

3) Reflecting the order of the language. E.g., “kiss baby”, “baby kiss”

4) Creatively combining words. E.g.: “more outside” or “all gone cookie”.

By the age of 4:

o Most children are able to ask questions, give commands, report real events, and create

stories about imaginary ones with correct word order and grammatical markers most

of the time.

o They have mastered the basic structures of the language or languages spoken to them

in these early years.

o They begin to acquire less frequent and more complex linguistic structures such as

passives and relative clauses.

o They begin to develop ability to use language in a widening social environment.

3

DEVELOPMENT OF METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS

Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to treat language as an object, separate from

the meaning it conveys.

A dramatic development in metalinguistic awareness occurs when children begin to learn

to read. They see words represented by letters on a page and start to discover that words

and sentences have multiple meaning.

E.g.: “drink the chair” (5 year-olds’ reaction: silly)

“cake the eat” (5 year-olds’ reaction: wrong)

“Why is caterpillar longer than train?” (a riddle)

DEVELOPMENT IN VOCABULARY

One of the most impressive language developments in the early school years is the

astonishing growth of vocabulary.

Vocabulary grows at a rate between several hundred and more than a thousand words a

year, depending mainly on how much and how widely children read.

Vocabulary growth required for school success is likely to come from both reading for

assignments and reading for pleasure. Reading a variety of text types is an essential part of

vocabulary growth.

Reading reinforces the understanding that language has form as well as meaning and a

“word” is separate from the thing it represents.

Another important development in the school years is the acquisition of different language

registers.

L1 DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES

1. Acquisition of Grammatical morphemes

Roger Brown’s study (1973):

o Approximate order of acquiring grammatical morphemes

- Present progressive –ing

- Plural –s (books)

- Irregular past forms (went)

- Possessive -’s (daddy’s hat)

- Copula (am/is/are)

- Articles (a/an/the)

- Regular past –ed (walked)

- Third person singular simple present –s

- Auxiliary ‘be’ (He is coming)

4

o Through the tests (such as “wug test”), children demonstrate that they know the rules

for the formation of plural and simple past in English.

o By generalizing these patterns to words they have never heard before, they show that

their language is not just a list of memorized word pairs such as ‘book/books’ and

‘nod/nodded’.

2. Acquisition of negation

Lois Bloom’s study (1991) – four stages:

o Stage 1 : ‘no’ – e.g., “No go”. “No cookie.”

o Stage 2: subject + no – e.g., “Daddy no comb hair.”

o Stage 3 : auxiliary or modal verbs (do/can) + not (yet no variations for different

persons or tenses). E.g.: “I can’t do it “, “He don’t want it.”

o Stage 4 : correct form of auxiliary verbs (did/doesn’t/is/are) + not

E.g.: He didn’t go. She doesn’t want it.

But sometimes double negatives are used:

E.g.: I don’t have no more candies.

3. Acquisition of questions:

Lois Bloom’s study (1991): Order of the occurrence of wh- question words

1) “What” - Whatsat? Whatsit?

2) “Where” and “who”

3) “Why” (emerging at the end of the 2nd year and becomes a favorite at the age of 3 or 4)

4) “How” and “When” (yet children do not fully understand the meaning of adults’ responses).

E.g.: Child: When can we go outside?

Mother: In about 5 minutes.

Child: 1-2-3-4-5! Can we go now?

Lois Bloom’s study (1991): Six stages of children’s question-making

1) Stage 1 : using single words or single two- or three-word sentences with rising

intonation. E.g.: “Mommy book?” “Where’s Daddy?”

2) Stage 2 : using the word order of the declarative sentence:

E.g.: “You like this?” “Why you catch it?”

3) Stage 3: “fronting” - putting a verb at the beginning of a sentence:

E.g.: “Is the teddy is tired?” “Do I can have a cookie?”

5

4) Stage 4 : subject-auxiliary inversion in yes/no questions but not in wh-questions:

E.g.: “Do you like ice cream?” “Where I can draw?”

5) Stage 5 : subject-auxiliary inversion in wh-questions, but not in negative wh-questions:

E.g.: “Why can he go out?” “Why he can’t go out?”

6) Stage 6 : overgeneralizing the inverted form in embedded questions:

E.g.: “I don’t know why can’t he go out.”

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORIES

1. Behaviorism: Say what I say

Skinner: language behavior is the production of correct responses to stimuli through

reinforcement.

Language learning is the result of 1) imitation (word-for-word repetition), 2)

practice (repetitive manipulation of form), 3) feedback on success (positive

reinforcement), and 4) habit formation.

The quality and quantity of the language that the child hears, as well as the

consistency of the reinforcement offered by others in the environment, would shape

the child’s language behavior.

Children’s imitations are not random:

o Their imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. They

choose to imitate something they have already begun to understand, rather than

simply imitating what is available in the environment.

Children’s practice of new language forms

o The way they practice new forms is very similar to the way foreign language

students do substitution drills.

o Their practice of language forms is also selective and reflects what they would

like to learn. They are often in charge of the conversation with adults.

However, children do use language creatively, not just repeat what they have heard.

(see examples on pp. 13-14)

o Patterns in language

Mother: Maybe we need to take you to the doctor.

6

Randall (36 months): Why? So he can doc my little bump?” (showing the

understanding of the suffix ‘er/or’)

Son: I putted the plates on the table!

Mother: You mean, I put the plates on the table.

Son: No, I putted them on all by myself.

(showing the understanding of using ‘ed’ to make the past tense for a verb” and

the focus on the meaning, not form)

o Unfamiliar formulas

Father: I’d like to propose a toast

Child: I’d like to propose a piece of bread.

Mother: I love you to pieces.

Child: I love you three pieces.

Question formation

- Are dogs can wiggle their tails?

- Are those are my boots?

- Are this is hot?

Order of events

- You took all the towels away because I can’t dry my hands.

o Imitation and practice alone cannot explain some of the forms created by children.

Children appear to pick out patterns and then generalize or overgeneralize them to

new contexts. They create new forms or new uses of words.

2. Innatism: It’s all in your mind

Chomsky’s viewpoints:

o Children are biologically programmed for language and language develops in the child

in just the same way that other biological functions develop.

o The environment makes only a basic contribution, that is, the availability of people

who speak to the child. Therefore, the child’s biological endowment (LAD) will do

the rest.

7

o 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 natural

language they are exposed to.

Chomsky argues that behaviorism cannot provide sufficient explanations for children’s

language acquisition for the following reasons:

1. Children come to know more about the structure of their language than they could be

expected to learn on the basis of the samples of language they hear.

2. The language children are exposed to include false starts, incomplete sentences and

slips of the tongue, and yet they learn to distinguish between grammatical and

ungrammatical sentences.

3. Children are by no means systematically corrected or instructed on language by

parents.

LAD (an imaginary “black box” existing somewhere in the brain):

o LAD contains the principles which are universal to all human languages (i.e.:

Universal Grammar – UG).

o For the LAD to work, children need access only to samples of a natural language,

which serve as a trigger to activate the device.

o Once the LAD is activated, children are able to discover the structure of the language

to be learned by matching the innate knowledge of basic grammatical principles (UG)

to the structures of the particular language in the environment.

Evidence used to support Chomsky’s innatist position:

1. Virtually all children successfully learn their native language at a time in life when

they would not be expected to learn anything else so complicated (i.e. biologically

programmed).

2. Language is separate from other aspects of cognitive developments (e.g., creativity

and social grace) and may be located in a different “module" of the brain.

3. The language children are exposed to does not contain examples of all the linguistic

rules and patterns.

4. Animals cannot learn to manipulate a symbol system as complicated as the natural

language of a 3- or 4-year-old child.

8

5. Children acquire grammatical rules without getting explicit instruction. Therefore,

children’s acquisition of grammatical rules is probably guided by principle of an

innate UG which could apply to all languages.

The biological basis for the innatist position:

o The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) – Lenneberg: There is a specific and limited

time period (i.e., “critical period”) for the LAD to work successfully.

The best evidence for the CPH is that virtually every child learns language on a

similar schedule in spite of different environments.

Three case studies of abnormal language development - evidence of the CPH

1. Victor – a boy of about 12 years old (1799)

2. Genie – a girl of 13 years old (1970)

3. Deaf signers (native signers, early learners, vs. late learners)

3. Interactionist/Developmental perspectives: Learning from inside and out

Problems of Innatism:

o The innatists placed too much emphasis on the “final state” (i.e. the linguistic

competence of adult native speakers), but not enough on the developmental aspects of

language acquisition.

o Language acquisition is an example of children’s ability to learn from experience.

What children need to know is essentially available in the language they are exposed

to.

o This position views that language develops as a result of the interplay between the

innate learning ability of children and the environment in which they develop.

o Developmental psychologists attribute more importance to the environment than the

innatists, though they also recognize a powerful learning mechanism in the human

brain.

o 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 largely independent of

the child’s experience and cognitive development.

Piaget : Language is dependent upon and springs from cognitive development. That is,

children’s cognitive development determines their language development. E.g., the use of

words as “bigger” or “more” depends on children’s understanding of the concepts they

represent.

9

He argued that the developing cognitive understanding is built on the interaction between

the child and the things which can be observed, touched, and manipulated.

For him, language was one of a number of symbol systems developed in childhood, rather

than a separate module of the mind. Language can be used to represent knowledge that

children have acquired through physical interaction with the environment.

Vygotsky : sociocultural theory of human mental processing. He argued that language

develops primarily from social interaction.

Zone of proximal development (ZPD): a level that a child is able to do when there is

support from interaction with a more advanced interlocutor. That is, a supportive

interactive environment enables children to advance to a higher level of knowledge and

performance than s/he would be able to do independently.

He observed the importance of conversations which children have with adults and with

other children and saw in these conversations the origins of both language and thought.

How Piaget’s view differs from Vygotsky’s:

o Piaget hypothesized that language developed as a symbol system to express

knowledge acquired through interaction with the physical world.

o Vygotsky hypothesized that thought was essentially internalized speech, and speech

emerged in social interaction.

Language socialization framework: observed from childrearing patterns (parent-child

interaction)

Child-directed Speech (modified language interaction):

o Phonological modification: a slower rate of delivery, higher pitch, more varied

intonation

o Syntactical modification: shorter, simpler sentence patterns, frequent repetition, and

paraphrase.

o Limited conversation topics: e.g., the ‘here and now’ and topics related to the child’s

experiences.

o More important than modification is the conversational give-and-take.

The interaction between a language-learning child and an interlocutor who responds in

some way to the child is important (Jim’s case).

o Exposure to impersonal sources of language such as television or radio alone are not

sufficient for children to learn the structure of a particular language.

10

o One-on-one interaction gives children access to language that is adjusted to their level

of comprehension.

o Once children have acquired some language, however, television can be a source of

language and cultural information.

o The sucking paradigm: when they don’t recognize the language, they suck. That’s why

it’s called like that.

4. Connectionism

Though both innatism and connectionism look at the cognitive aspect of language

acquisition, yet they differ in the following:

o Connectionists hypothesize that language acquisition dose not require a separate

“module of the mind” but can be explained in terms of learning in general.

o Connectionists argue that what children need to know is essentially available in the

language they are exposed to. They attribute greater importance to the role of the

environment than to any innate knowledge in the learner.

Connectionism views language as a complex system of units which become interconnected

in the mind as they are encountered together. The more often units are heard or seen

together, the more likely it is that the presence of one will lead to the activation of the

other.

Language acquisition is not just a process of associating words with elements of external

reality. It is also a process of associating words and phrases with the other words and

phrases that occur with them, or words with grammatical morphemes that occur with them.

11