ASIC-IFDC-PROFESORADO DE INGLÉS

General Linguistics

Julio, Pablo Eduardo.Albornoz, Mauricio.

Torres, Gabriela.

2015

1. What is Psycholinguistics?

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical or educational schools of thought, due mainly to their location in departments other than applied sciences (e.g., cohesive data on how the human brain functioned). Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive, linguistics, and information science to study how the brain processes language, and less so the known processes of social sciences, human development, communication theories and infant development, among others.

2. Theories of language acquisition

There are essentially two schools of thought as to how children acquire or learn language, and there is still much debate as to which theory is the correct one. Jean Piaget’s theory states that all language must be learned by the child. The second view, that of Noam Chomsky, states that the abstract system of language cannot be learned, but that humans possess an innate language faculty (innatist perspective), or an access to what has been called universal grammar.

3. Language comprehension

One question in the realm of language comprehension is how people understand sentences as they read (also known as sentence processing). Typically these theories are concerned with what types of information contained in the sentence the reader can use to build meaning, and at what point in reading does that information become available to the reader. Issues such as "modular" versus "interactive" processing have been theoretical divides in the field.

A modular view of sentence processing assumes that the stages involved in reading a sentence function independently in separate modules. These modulates have limited interaction with one another. For example, one influential theory of sentence processing, the garden-path theory,[ states that syntactic analysis takes place first. Under this theory as the reader is reading a sentence, he or she creates the simplest structure possible in order to minimize effort and cognitive load.

In contrast to a modular account, an interactive theory of sentence processing, such as a constraint-based lexical approach assumes that all available information contained within a sentence can be processed at any time. Under an interactive account, for example, the semantics of a sentence (such as plausibility) can come into play early on in order to help determine the structure of a sentence

4. L1 Acquisition: Main referent.

Cognitive Theory

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist that was famous for his four stages of cognitive development

for children, which included the development of language. However,

children do not think like adults and so before they can begin to

develop language they must first actively construct their own

understanding of the world through their interactions with their

environment. A child has to understand a concept before he or she

can acquire the particular language which expresses that concept.

Essentially it is impossible for a young child to voice concepts that are

unknown to them and therefore once a child learns about their

environment then they can map language onto their prior experience.

Cognitivists believe that language emerges within the context of other

general cognitive abilities like memory, attention and problem solving

because it is a part of their broader intellectual development.

Piaget focused on two processes, which he named assimilation and

accommodation. To Piaget, Assimilation meant integrating external elements into structures of

lives or environments, or those we could have through experience. Is how

humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of fitting new information into pre-

existing cognitive schemas. Accommodation is the process of taking new information in one's

environment and altering pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information. This happens

when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new

object or situation.  

Piaget's understanding was that assimilation and accommodation cannot exist without the

other. They are two sides of a coin. To assimilate an object into an existing mental schema, one first

needs to take into account or accommodate to the particularities of this object to a certain extent.

There are four stages of Piaget's cognitive development theory, each involving a different

aspect of language acquisition.

1. Sensory-Motor Period- (birth to 2 years) Children are born with "action schemas"

to "assimilate" information about the world such as sucking or grasping. During the

sensory-motor period, children's language is "egocentric" and they talk either for

themselves or for the pleasure of associating anyone who happens to be there

with the activity of the moment

2. Pre-Operational Period- (2 years to 7) Children's language makes rapid progress

and the development of their "mental schema" lets them quickly "accommodate"

new words and situations. Children's language becomes "symbolic" allowing them

to talk beyond the "here and now" and to talk about things such as the past, future

and feelings.

3. Egocentrism- Involves "animism" which refers to young children's tendency to

consider everything, including inanimate objects, as being alive. Language is

considered egocentric because they see things purely from their own perspective.

4. Operational Period- (7 to 11 years) and (11 years to adulthood) Piaget divides this

period into two parts: the period of concrete operations and the period of formal

operations. Language at this stage reveals the movement of their thinking from

immature to mature and from illogical to logical. They are also able to "de-center"

or view things from a perspective other than their own. It is at this point that

children's language becomes "socialized" and includes things such as questions,

answers, commands and criticisms.

4.1. Second Language Acquisition

Second-language acquisition, second-language learning, or L2 acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition (often abbreviated to SLA) also refers to the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's first language; although the concept is named second-language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth, or subsequent languages. Second-

language acquisition refers to what learners do; it does not refer to practices in language teaching, although teaching can affect acquisition.

4.2 Stages of SLA

I- The first stage is preproduction, also known as the silent period. Learners at this stage have a receptive vocabulary of up to 500 words, but they do not yet speak their second language. Not all learners go through a silent period. Some learners start speaking straight away, although their output may consist of imitation rather than creative language use.

II- The second stage of acquisition is early production, during which learners are able to speak in short phrases of one or two words. They can also memorize chunks of language, although they may make mistakes when using them. Learners typically have both an active and receptive vocabulary of around 1000 words. This stage normally lasts for around six months.

III- The third stage is speech emergence. Learners' vocabularies increase to around 3000 words during this stage, and they can communicate using simple questions and phrases. They may often make grammatical errors. The stage after speech emergence is intermediate fluency. At this stage, learners have a vocabulary of around 6000 words, and can use more complicated sentence structures. They are also able to share their thoughts and opinions.

4.3. Differences between L1 and L2

L1 Learning L2 Learning (In the classroom)

Age

Baby to young child (L1 learning lasts into adolescence for some kinds of language and language skills e.g. academic writing.

Usually at primary school and/or secondary school. It can also start or continue in adulthood.

Ways of learning

By exposure to and picking up language.

By wanting and needing to communicate i.e. with strong motivation.

Through interaction with family and friends.

By talking about things present in the child’s surroundings.

By listening to and talking in language for many months before using it (silent period).

By playing and experimenting with new language.

Sometimes through exposure but often by being taught specific language.

With strong, little or no motivation. Through interaction with a teacher and

sometimes with classmates. Often by talking about life outside the

classroom. Often by needing to produce language

soon after it has been taught. Often by using language in controlled

practice activities.

The child hears the language around him/ her all the time.

Family and friends talk to and interact with the child

The learner is not exposed to the L2 very much-Often no more than about 3 hours per week.

Teachers usually simplify their language.

Context

a lot. The child has lots of

opportunities to experiment with language.

Caretakers often praise (tell the child he/she has done well) and encourage the child’s use of language.

Caretakers simplify their speech to the child.

Caretakers rarely correct the form and accuracy of what the child says in an obvious way.

Teachers vary in the amount they praise or encourage learners.

The learner receives little individual attention from the teacher.

Teachers generally correct learners a lot.

5. Interlanguage.

It´s a creative process driven by inner forces in interaction with the environmental factors and influenced both by L1and input from the L2.

It refers to an intermediate state of a learner´s language as it moves towards the target L2.

It has the following characteristics:

Systematically governed by rules which constitute the learner´s internal grammar. These rules are discoverable by analyzing the language that is used.

Dynamic: the system of rules which learners have in their minds change frequently or is in a state of flexibility , resulting in a succession of internal grammar.

Variable: differences in context result in different patterns of language use. Reduced system: both information and function less complex grammatical structures.

6. Biography Consulted.

SPRATT, M. PULVERNESS,A. & MELANIE, W. (2005) The TKT Teaching Knowledge Test Course. U.K,University Press, Cambridge.

ROD, E. (1994).The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press.

Web Pages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget . https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics/

Theories_and_Models_of_Language_Acquisition . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition