LIN5000 Forum topic 2.3: Gender-based differences

Do you believe that there are gender-based differences in terms of how males and females process and use language? Discuss.


We need to note the difference between sex (the physical property) and gender (the social condition) to fully explore this question. An informed response needs to consider the opposite views that:

• language creates and informs cultural identity, vs
• cultural identity creates and informs language

as well as questioning whether the language in question has gender, and understanding any gender-bias of the culture to which the language belongs.

In her acclaimed text You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation, Tannen (1990) highlights a gender-based difference in terms of “rapport-talk” and “report-talk”, in that:

• women speak a language of connectivity and intimacy
• men speak a language of status and independence

and also discusses a common relationship ‘norm’ – one would presume in reference to middle-white culture, at least – in which one partner (typically the husband) is almost mute at home but overly talkative publicly, while the other partner (in Tannen’s discourse the wife) is the reverse. Obviously it would be inappropriate to apply this generalisation to all relationships and cultures; it excludes gay relationships and assumes stereotypes; it is, however, thought provoking.


Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Men and women in conversation. New York: Morrow.

LIN5000 Forum topic 2.2: Language impairments

Have you ever known someone with a language impairment? If so, provide some background information about this individual, and describe his/her linguistic behaviour. What sorts of efforts were made to alleviate her/his difficulties? Were they effective?

My wife and I fostered a sibling pair of children, aged 5 and 7 at the time of their arrival, for 12 months. The children were 'semi-feral' in language, cognition and behaviour as a result of extreme neglect - including deprivation of adult interaction, nutrition, and safety - during their critical period, during which they lived in a high-risk environment of drug abuse.

Note here that I use the word 'feral' to indicate children that have severely diminished social capacity as a result of environment rather than biological impairment, and not in the sense of children 'raised in the wild'.

The children had not developed a recognisable complete first-language as they entered into our care - that is, they could not speak Australian English (or any other language) and certainly could not read or write. They communicated with each other in their own form of pidgin comprised largely of soft vowel sounds and a limited range of distorted, 'lazy' consonants, some of which approximated English. They were almost completely unable to communicate effectively with others, however some adults who engaged with them over time (e.g. case workers, individual school teachers) could communicate with them through the use of massive repetition and restatement, and mime and gestures.

Both children exhibited primitive ('animal') behaviour, especially when afraid or confused, and the older child would physically attack when challenged, or at the perception of any challenge.

My wife and I worked for 2 - 3 hours a day with each child individually, and later together, using regression techniques and then working from a 'baby state' to establish phonetics, first-50 and then first-100 words, initially in speech, then reading, and later in writing. We actively used 'parentese' from the outset, using recasting techniques to model correct vocabulary and syntax, and the children responded almost immediately, and then exponentially. Approximately 9 months into the placement we sought professional speech therapy to address specific issues that we were unable to address in a home setting, and the children 'normalised' to the degree that they were capable given their history.

However, many of the classic syntactical issues explored in the text remained inherent, and resisted training, for example:

Boy: *Her did it, isn't she (casting blame on his sister)
Girl: *Dat Hoh-heh (pointing out the cat, Moses)

and we were confident that at the higher-level, demonstrated improvements in performance were 'practiced' in the sense of being rehearsed and performed for reward (in the form of acknowledgement and attention from carers) and that the children would revert to their own pidgin language if given the opportunity.

We had occasion to meet the children immediately after the end of their placement with us, and then at three months and six months (purely by chance) and were dismayed to discover that in the absence of concerted effort by carers, the children lapsed back into their own language, marginally at first and then at an accelerated rate, to the degree that they were no longer comprehensible to an untrained ear.

To me, this supports the notion of the 'critical period' in FLA and the nature of hard-coding that occurs to middle-childhood, and that attempts to retrain or extend learning beyond that time may be 'in resistance to' earliest learning.

LIN5000 Forum topic 2.1: Lateralisation and modularity

Some of the most important evidence for the lateralisation and modularity of language has come from investigating brain-damaged individuals. Do you think this is a good strategy? Why (not)?

In the journal Neuroscience, Chris Rorden and Hans-Otto Karnath (2004) explore neurolinguistic research focused on patients with brain lesions ('brain-damage' as per the topic question) in the 1860s, and again in the 1950s and '60s, and acknowledge this research provided insights into lateralisation and modularisation that are an "enormous contribution ... to our understanding of the human brain". However they go on to identify limitations of this research:

1. The research is based on lateralisation and modularity as established assumptions that do not allow for the existence of any degree of distributed processing, that is, parts of the brain working together in a plastic fashion
2. The brain-damage within regions of the brain in question is rarely limited to just that region - this damage is  typically caused by oxygen starvation (e.g. as the result of stroke, etc.) to a more general area of the brain, and the assumptions drawn from these studies cannot be isolated only to the specific physical areas of study
3. The very plasticity of the brain allows it to 'rewire' to compensate for such damage - as discussed in the text - in various degrees and with varying success depending on factors including age, and the research does not address 're-routing' changes in process as a result of plasticity, after injury. That is, the research does not "allow access to the time-course of information processing"

I also believe that while the early research was critical to current and future understanding it is limited in two ways: first, the research sample was restricted to patients with existing brain damage only; and second, the research (by nature) could not compare the capabilities of patients individually, pre- and post-injury.

So, from a perspective of scientific method, the research had great limitations. In terms of value to the field, it was foundational and ground-breaking.


References
Rorden, C., and Karnath, H. (2004). Using human brain lesions to infer function: a relic from a past era in the fMRI age? Nature Reviews Neuroscience. doi:10.1038/nrn1521
Available from http://faculty.washington.edu/somurray/psych506/readings/lesion-methods.pdf

LIN8001 Journal 1.2

As we're heading toward the end of the module I find that the principles, theories, concepts, etc. are taking form from the original 'overload soup'. The distinctions between first- and second-language acquisition are becoming more obvious and so far the course content is in relatively 'pedestrian' language.

L1 learners are highly motivated to learn, have no hangups about learning, and 'know' far less than L2 learners. They are immersed in the culture of L1 and pay no attention to grammar, although it seems they extract the grammar instinctively and then perform 'abstraction' with it as a creative function. On the other hand, L2 learners will never achieve the same success as L1, have all the learning quirks of adults who have already experienced the world, and do not possess the motivation of L1 learners.

Interesting. On with the journey...

LIN8001 Learning activity 1.4

Given below are some second language scenarios. Provide a plausible explanation for the level of achievement in the SL in each case:

1. Catherine is a 25 year old when she moves from Moscow to Sydney. She had six years of high school English as a subject. She is 35 years old now, is married to an Anglo-Australian, has one child and speaks English well but with a Russian accent.

Although immersed in an Australian English speaking culture for 10 years and studying (as opposed to acquiring) English as a school subject, we have no information about how much L2 practice/immersion was available to Catherine during the critical period (as per critical period hypothesis, CPH). Her speech production would be instinctive at age 25 as a result of 'muscle memory' and therefore the tendency to accent her sounds according to her L1 would be automatic. The range of morphemes that are dissimilar between English and Russian would be the most problematic for Catherine.

2. Jagit Singh moved from Fiji to USA when he was 3 years old. He is now 22 years old and one cannot distinguish his speech from the speech of peers in that particular area where he has lived all his life since migrating.

Although we have insufficient information to provide a full observation, Jagit was relocated to USA during his critical period for FLA, and would therefore have started acquiring American English as a 'second L1'. We are not informed as to what language Jagit's family spoke in the home either before or after the relocation.

3. Paul moved to Japan to teach English when he was 28 years old. He has been in Japan for 10 years and speaks Japanese with a foreign accent and has limited fluency.

Although not stated, we can probably assume that Paul is a native-speaker of English. Although immersed in a SL culture, his primary motivation for being in Japan is to teach English, not to acquire a L2. His social position in Japanese culture would lead native-speaking Japanese to attempt to speak to him in English. Japanese dialects are pitch accented beyond what is experienced in English (which may use inflection to differentiate between a declarative statement and a question, at best) and Paul may be unable to hear/produce the pitch variations without formal training.

4. Chen Suqin moved from Hong Kong to Brisbane when she was 12 years old. She is now 18 years old and in Year 11 at a high school. She is doing very well academically, especially in the sciences and maths. Her spoken English is a little hesitant and is accented. Her written work is quite acceptable though she does not have a complete grasp of the idioms of the English language.

As the scenario states the Chen is doing well academically, and we would assume that classes are taught in Australian English, it is clear that comprehension is not a factor. Researchers differ as to when the critical period ends, although there is general agreement that it fades rather than ends abruptly, and from the literature we can assume that Chen would have still been in the critical period to some degree during her 6 years in Brisbane, so child L1 / adult L2 factors are not as significant. Chen's language production is likely to be impacted by affective factors, possibly including anxiety, introversion, and self-esteem, resulting from changing cultures during puberty. The scenario does not provide information on what language is spoken in Chen's family home. If her L1 and her family-language is Mandarin (for example) she is possibly thinking in Mandarin and translating to English on-the-fly.

There are no right or wrong answers so you may wish to discuss your responses with your fellow students on the Discussion Board.

LIN8001 Journal 1.1

I find I am delighted to be unexpectedly studying Linguistics as a field. I have always held a fascination with language, and especially word etymology, so an eleventh-hour change to a TESOL major for my Master of Education program introduces new challenges and great rewards. I have printed the readings and skimmed through them to gauge the nature of the content, and frankly I’m intimidated by the volume and scope.

Based on a surface scan I can identify that the content compares first language acquisition (FLA) and second language acquisition (SLA) which is novel to me – I have always assumed the learning of a ‘new’ language to be the same process as learning a ‘birth’ language. Incidentally I have struggled to learn new languages – and so this concept offers a degree of hope for teaching and for my own language learning.

The first module includes a crash-course in the specific vocabulary of linguistics and also looks at the recent historical markers in the field, the various competing theories and personalities. I'm not sure how much will be of later use, or remembered, but it's an interesting journey to date.

Reading 1.2 Brown (2000)

Reading 1.2

Brown, D. (2000). First language acquisition. In Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed., pp. 20-48). White Plains, NY: Longman.

H. Douglas Brown (born 1941) is a professor emeritus of English as a Second Language at San Francisco State University. He was the president of International TESOL from 1980 to 1981, and in 2001 he received TESOL's James E. Alatis Award for Distinguished Service (Wikipedia)

A summary of the keypoints of First language acquisition, by H. Douglas Brown (2000)

Readers should refer to the reading for the list of references for inline citations - this document is a summary of a peer-reviewed literature, and the rights of the original author are acknowledged. This document is for educational purposes only.

Meaningful research into FLA by children first occurred in mid-20th century and accelerated for a ‘few decades’. Educators attempted to use this research to relate FLA and SLA however the marked differences between these two should be noted. An understanding of FLA will aid SLA teaching, but the two are not to be confused.

THEORIES OF FLA

1. Around 12 months, children attempt to imitate words and speech sounds, and produce their first words
2. Around 18 months, they have increased their vocabulary and are developing 2 or 3 word sentences
3. Around 3 years, they have massively increased comprehension and speech
4. At school age, they are improving their communicative and social skills

Three positions of FLA

1. Behaviourist approach
2. Nativist approach
3. Functionalist approach

Behaviourist approach

A behaviourist approach suggests that children are born with a tabula rosa (clean slate) and are then shaped by environment and conditioned through reinforcement. The approach views imitation and practice as primary processes in LA.

Skinner (1957, 1968) introduced operant conditioning, which focuses on whether an operant (a sentence or utterance in this context) is reinforced or extinguished by the response provided.
utterance -> good response -> behaviour maintained/reinforced
utterance -> bad response -> behaviour weakened/extinguished

Skinner’s work was criticised by Chomsky (1959) and others, and later defended by MacCorquodale (1970). Today, the model is considered insufficient as it does not account for abstraction.

A variation on Skinner’s model is mediation theory, especially by Osgood (1953, 1957), which is considered a relatively weak theory as it discusses supposed subtle or invisible internal processes, and also fails to account for abstraction.

Mediation theory is further expanded by Jenkins and Palermo (1964) who focussed on imitation, yet still failed to account for abstraction.

Nativist approach

A nativist approach suggests that LA is innately determined through genetics and predisposition.

Lenneberg (1967) proposed that language is a human behaviour that is biologically determined.

Chomsky (1965) argued that children achieve FLA rapidly due to innate properties, using the concept of a Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

McNeil (1966) described LAD has having four innate linguistic properties:

1. speech sounds that are distinguishable from environmental sounds
2. ‘linguistic data’ can be ordered into classes
3. a certain kind of language system is possible, others are not
4. the ability to refine a linguistic system to its simplest form

The nativist approach is currently considered ‘more adequate’ than the behaviourist approach.

The LAD was later expanded to universal grammar (UG) - see Cook (1993) and Mitchell & Myles (1998) – in which all humans are said to be genetically disposed to LA.

Nativist theories post that at a given time a child’s language is ‘complete’ for that child and ‘systematic’ in that the child is constantly testing and developing their language mastery.

Berko (1958) demonstrated that children use language as a system (“wugs”, “glings” etc.) rather than rote-learned words or phrases.

Nativists studied child FLA using a generative framework as opposed to structural methodology which enabled rapid progress, including the development of the notion of pivot grammars (classes found in two-word utterances).

Pivot grammars provided a rule for generative frameworks:
sentence -> pivot word + open word
which led to other rules that nativists argue are innate.

Chomskyist tradition was later challenged (Spolsky 1989) with parallel distributed processing (PDP) or connectionism which posits that language performance is directly related to physical neural connections, and that sentences are constructed as a result of ‘simultaneous interconnection of a multitude of brain links’.

The nativist framework offers:

1. freedom from ‘scientific method’
2. a description of FLA using rules or PDP
3. UG

Functional approach

More recently the nature of research has changed to more deeply explore “the essence of language” resulting in the emphases:

1. language is one manifestation of the human capacity to engage with the world, and
2. the nativist framework discussed forms of language (morphemes, words, sentences and rules) but neglected the functional levels of meaning (meaningful interaction within a social context).

Cognition and Language Development

Bloom (1971) criticised pivot grammar by demonstrating that a superficiality in the theory, and concluded that “children learn underlying structures, and not superficial word order”.

Research by Bloom and others focussed on the relationship of cognitive development to FLA, with an emphasis on overall development as a “result of children’s interaction with their environment” – with cognitive and linguistic development seen as complementary rather than divergent.

“What children learn about language is determined by what they already know about the world”.

Slobin (1971, 1986) argued that semantic learning depends on cognitive development, and that semantic complexity is a higher determinant than structural complexity on the sequence of development:

1. function – rate of LA is directly related to rate of conceptual and communicative development, within constraints of innate cognition
2. form – rate of LA is directly related to rate of perception and information-processing development, within constraints of innate grammar

Bloom (1976) summarised LA as depending “upon an explanation of the cognitive underpinnings of language: what children know will determine what they learn about the code for both speaking and understanding messages”.

Social Interaction and Language Development

Language is more than “cognitive thought and memory structure.”

Holzman (1984) proposed a reciprocal model which focuses on the reciprocated interaction between the learning infant and the teaching adult in a “socialising-nurturing-teaching” role. Later research considered social systems (Berko-Gleason 1988, Lock 1991), and the function of discourse (Budgwig 1995, Kuczaj 1984) – “what do children know and learn about talking with others?”

This genre is more interested in performance, which was eliminated in earlier research by generative linguists who focussed on competence. Extraneous utterances are now considered as part of language.

“A complete, consistent, unified theory of first language acquisition cannot yet be claimed; however, child language research has manifested some enormous strides toward that ultimate goal. And even if all the answers are far from evident, maybe we are asking more of the right questions.”

ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Competence and performance

Competence refers to the “unobservable” knowledge that enables you to do something. Performance is the “doing” of the thing.

In linguistics, “competence is one’s underlying knowledge of the system of a language – its rules of grammar, its vocabulary, all the pieces of a language and how those pieces fit together. Performance is actual production (speaking, writing) or the comprehension (listening, reading) of linguistic events.”

The competence-performance model attracts criticism, including that it assumes an “idealised” subject without performance variables. Critics argued that linguists should study only the actual use of language (Stubbs 1996), and that speech ‘goofs’ are heterogeneous competency or part of the performance development process (Tarone 1998).

When used cautiously, studying performance may give insights while allowing for other findings.

Comprehension and product

Comprehension and product can be elements of both performance and competence.

It follows that there is a distinction between production competence and comprehension competence.

Linguistic competence takes multiple forms (reading, writing, etc.).

It is a myth that comprehension is production, while product is performance.

Most research suggests that comprehension is more significant than production – “children seem to understand ‘more’ than they actually produce”.

Nature or Nurture?

The theory of LAD is incomplete in that it does not explain the how LA is transmitted genetically, although this is likely to be added – the author suggests the future discovery of “language genes”.

While noting that LA is universal Brown raises the nature/nurture question and suggests that this “muddies the waters” of the innateness debate.

Bickerton (1981) suggests that humans are “bio-programmed” to progress from stage to stage in LA and cognitive development.

Universals

Building on the innateness stance is the suggestion that the “deep structure” of language is universal (Leopold 1949, Greenberg 1963 & 1966, Bickerton 1981, Slobin 1986 & 1992) and this is continued with Universal Grammar (UG), which is based on the ‘commonalities’ of languages.

UG centres around principles and parameters – principles specify a definable scope of variations expressed as parameters that need to be set (Saleemi 1992).

An example of a principle is structure dependency, which states that language is dependent on the structures within a sentence. This principle appears in both comprehension and production.

Systematicity and Variability

Current research focuses on the systematicity of LA, on children’s ability to “infer the phonological, structural, lexical, and semantic system of language”, as per Berko’s speech experiments (1958) with nonsense words (“wug” etc.).

In contrast, variability remains a factor in LA, both in FLA and SLA, and researchers (Bayley & Preston 1996, Tarone 1988) seek to determine how to make the variable factors systematic.

Language and Thought

What is the relationship between language and thought?

Behaviourists contend that cognition cannot be studied by the scientific method, while nativists argue that language is dependent on cognitive development, as cognitive development is at the core of ‘being human’.
Others argue that language (Bruner, Olver & Greenfield 1966) and social interaction (Vygotsky 1962 & 1978)  influences cognitive development.

“Thought and language were seen as two distinct cognitive operations that grow together (Schinke-Llano 1993).”

The zone of proximal development is the difference between actual cognitive capacity and potential development (Vygotsky 1978).

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity states that each language forces a particular view on its speaker.

The ongoing debate is to what degree thought affects language, and vice versa.

Imitation

Children imitate
.
This is a factor of LA. Echoing is used in early LA for phonological acquisition.

Imitation in LA is discussed at different levels – behaviourists use it when describing the surface level of phonological imitation as opposed to semantic imitation.

Foreign-langague classes often use repetitive drills without understanding.

As children develop they attach greater ‘meaning’ to the utterances they are imitating, leading to deep-structure imitation.

Practice

Researchers are interested in whether children practice language, and how this can be observed, and conclude that practicing is critical to LA.

Practice is not limited to production, but also refers to comprehension, with evidence suggesting that more frequently used language forms are acquired first – the language of the care giver is a strong predictor of how a child’s speech will emerge (Brown & Hanlon 1970).

The “frequency of meaningful occurrence may well be a more precise refinement of the notion of frequency.”

Input

Input in LA is critical.

Early research claimed that input from adults is random and non-contributing to early LA (McNeill 1966) however this was refuted by others (e.g. Labov 1970) and indeed speech aimed at children was “carefully grammatical and lacked the usual hesitations and false starts common in adult-to-adult speech” (Bullugi & Brown 1964, Drach 1969, Lande 1975, Hladik & Edwards 1984, Moerk 1985). Recent research shows that children will, over time and with repetition, eventually correct their own speech to align with that of adults.

Discourse

Conversational or discourse analysis suggests that for successful FLA interaction rather than exposure to language is required – children do not learn from overhearing, they acquire FL by being spoken to.

“The child learns not only how to initiate conversation but how to respond to another’s initiating utterance.”

Children learn the difference between assertions and challenges.

LIN8001 Learning activity 1.3

Learning activity 1.3: Before we begin to look at similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition write down ways in which you think SLA might be different from FLA. Post your response on the Discussion Board.

The following are my assumptions based on life-to-date experience and not from an informed or academic perspective. I'm sure this course will highlight erroneous thinking!

1. We all (typically) acquire a first language commencing at birth/infancy - second language acquisition (typically) occurs in later life, that is, beyond childhood.
2. Children are motivated for successful FLA, however successful SLA is (typically) optional, or at least less imperative than FLA.
3. Knowledge/experience of the FL may impede learning a SL
4. Unless L2 mastery is achieved that approximates L1 mastery, the speaker is likely to think in L1 - given that languages have different grammars, this may pollute L2 performance. It is hard to selectively 'work-around' an existing grammar that has become instinctive.
5. During SLA, the learner will have 'muscle memory' issues with physically producing sounds that are outside the ambit of the L2
6. Native speakers of an L1 that is atonal will have difficulty hearing and reproducing a tonal L2.

Reading 1.1 Bowerman and Levinson (2001)

Reading 1.1

Bowerman, M., & Levinson, S. (Eds.) (2001). Introduction. In Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 1-16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Melissa Bowerman (April 3, 1942 – October 31, 2011) was a leading researcher in the area of language acquisition. She was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Wikipedia).

Stephen C. Levinson is an influential social scientist, known for his studies of the relations between culture, language and cognition, currently one of the scientific directors of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands (Wikipedia).

Epistemology

This reading is the introduction to an edited book of readings on language acquisition and conceptual development, edited by Bowerman and Levinson (hereafter "the authors"). The introduction discusses epistemology from the perspective of child development, and the authors assert that this "relatively new field of investigation" is worth 'keeping an eye on'.

The authors discuss recent (mid '80s) research and techniques for understanding what infants know, and their capacity for abstraction¹. This work has paralleled studies in language acquisition (LA) including claims that LA occurs before language production².

A broader spectrum of research³ questions our understanding of universal processes, and the development of new theories is being contested.

The authors posit that while the fields of conceptual development and language acquisition have existed as separate, divergent investigations (suggesting a difference in methods;  an inability to to correlate the findings of the two fields; the marked recent evolution of linguistics; and the belief that LA is distinct from other learning by merit of it being a 'biologically-endowed special cognitive capacity') it is time to reconcile the two fields.

They suggest a common ground in exploring conceptual content as opposed to (the traditional focus of) the structural properties of language vs. thought: that there is critical similarity in the concepts of the abstract and the physical from each field. In examining how children learn, they ask two opposed questions:

1. Does understanding occur before speech? (In which case, concepts are independent of language)
2. Does speech shape understanding? (If so, concepts are language-induced)

In essence, what is the nature of the relationship between language and understanding?

The authors note that research into the relationship (or not) between early semantics/cognition is yet to occur, and suggest a number of strategies including, in part: primate studies (as primates are believed to have limited conceptual understanding but no language); exploring how children 'make meaning' outside of language; developing better methods to explore child understanding at younger ages; and discovering the commonalities between languages.

Innateness

The authors suggest that given the complexity of LA, children "must have some kind of head-start in terms of either conceptual content or learning principles" that provide prompts, else LA would not be possible, and question what the nature and degree of innateness might reasonably be. They introduce work by authors in the same volume⁴ that:

"suggest that language-specific patterns may have at least some influence on fundamental ontological categories."

They question whether, on the other hand, 'ontological assumptions' are not fixed before speech production, the learning mechanisms are set, citing the "naming explosion" common to two-year-olds⁵ before concluding this is not so - the capacity for word memorisation in young children is known to be greater than other learning, with little distinction between learning vocabulary and other concepts⁶. They highlight that a focus on the provision of "attentional and intentional cues" reduces the mystery of FLA and eliminates the need for further "special mechanisms"⁷.

The authors introduce ontological work⁸ which explores why logic problems - such as quantification - repeatedly occur for children if an innate logical reasoning exists. The work suggests that logic problems are an error in linguistic mapping; the thinking is correct while the speech is not.

They further explore Chomskyist (and other) theories on why children achieve FLA so rapidly, including "theory theory"^9, and LA and other learning as the refining and replacement of simple theories with more complex - or 'more correct' - theories as a child attempts to better understand their world. This theory is especially attractive as it proposes that language is transformative to cognition¹⁰, however the authors suggest "theory theory" may be overstated when contrasted with 'associative learning coupled with attentional biases'¹¹, and when considering the child as an active participant (and not a passive sponge) in a 'rich interactional situation'¹².

Comparativeness

The authors introduce work on the need for comparative perspectives such as those developed to compare primate species¹³ which suggest 'preconditions' for LA. This work explores both precedence and simultaneous timing in cognitive development in a healthy child, citing speech delay as an example of failure in a more fundamental area. They introduce research¹⁴ that further relates cognitive preconditions and LA, and works that examines the 'differences' between languages to better understand the authors' asserted relationship between linguistics and cognitive development¹⁵, with these works suggesting (in part) that:

• there is disagreement on whether "the naming explosion" is focussed on naming objects (nouns) or whether certain languages focus on verbs,
• children consider 'categories' from languages other than their FL as part of their "working hypotheses" of morphemes
• an a priori concept of natural grammaticalisable categories does not exist across languages
• grammatical patterns that influence non-linguistic classification exist across languages, but these do not emerge until a child has mastered the syntax of their FL
• comprehension before speech production does not seem to support a universal cognitive foundation
• differences in spatial (and other) concepts and descriptions occur between languages

The authors highlight that in the absence of ethically-unacceptable controlled experimentation on children certain absolutes cannot be determined, however research within natural family environments can be useful¹⁶, e.g. comparing linguistic development in  first- vs second-born siblings, or between twins; or the effect of attentional stimuli.

Themes

1. Advances in research into infant cognition is yet to be fully realised in LA research.
2. Advances in research into how children acquire radically different FLs is yet to be applied to research in cognitive development

These two statements appear to be at conflict. Research suggests that a degree of innateness is inarguable, however overstating innateness does not explain the existence of clear milestones in cognitive development. The authors query whether innateness as an explanation of the ability of children to 'equally' acquire greatly-diverse languages (from a presumed "equivalent base") glosses over semantic variation¹⁷.

Variations are explored further, including the treatment of nouns as 'individuated physical objects' in some languages, and be references to substances in others (e.g. flour and water in English), and spacial semantics, and the authors contend that children could not possibly be sufficiently 'encoded' with this knowledge to suit the specific language of the culture to which they are born.

The authors contend that to resolve the two perspectives (linguistics vs. cognitive development) to each other, it is valuable to query the role of language in human cognition:

"knowing a language, then, is knowing how to translate mentalese into a string of words and vice versa. People without a language would still have mentalese, and babies and many nonhuman animals presumably have simpler dialects" (Pinker 1994)

They argue, however, that Pinker's view is limiting as humans can achieve higher levels of thinking through 'repackaging' or processing thoughts. And so we continue to spin in unresolving circles, with discussion on the power of language to transform thinking... 'and vice versa'. They admit that "these chapters still do not fully bridge the gap between the differing views, from nonlinguistic and linguistic vantage points, of convergence and divergence in child development", etc. They introduce the famed Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the:

"doctrine of linguistic relativity, whereby it was supposed that 'users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations... and hence are not equivalent as observers, but must arrive at some what different views of the world" (Whorf 1956)

only to immediately refute the hypothesis citing "universals in cognitive structure and processing".

Interestingly, Levinson self-references his own work¹⁸ as being "recent fact and theory" while moving on to suggest that a blend of the key approaches may be closer to reality. The balance of the reading continues to flip-flop between contrasting articles - as, I am finding, does much early reading in linguistics - and I find that the chapter has successfully introduced competing perspectives on linguistics vs. cognitive development, however the authors declared their intent to draw the fields together.

I'm afraid that, for this weary reader at least, they did not.


Following are the citations in the text, this is not intended to be a list of references:
1 Carey 1985, Keil 1989, Wynn 1992, Spelke 1993
2 Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, Cauley, & Gordon 1987
3 Slobin 1985, 1992
4 Carey, Gopnik, Gentner & Boroditsky, Lucy & Gaskins (same volume)
5 Clark 1993, Carey 1978
6 Bloom, Smith (same volume)
7 Tomasello (same volume)
8 Brooks, Braine, Jia, da Graca Dias, Drozd (same volume)
9 Carey 1985, Gopnik (same volume)
10 Spelke & Tsivkin (same volume)
11 Smith (same volume)
12 Tomasello (same volume)
13 Langer (same volume)
14 Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner 1993
15 Gopnik, Gentner & Boroditsky, Clark, Slobin, Lucy & Gaskins, Bowerman & Choi, Levinson, Brown, de Leon (same volume)
16 Deutsch (same volume)
17 Behrens
18 Levinson 1996, Levinson (same volume), Gumperz & Levinson 1996

LIN8001 Learning activity 1.1

Learning activity 1.1: Before we begin the course, why don't you jot down how you think children learn their first language. Post your ideas to the Discussion board

My current view is that children achieve FLA through constant immersion in the culture to which they are born, of which language is one aspect. They initially develop language for at least two reasons - first, as stimulus-response conditioning to have their physiological needs met, and second in imitation of their primary care givers (parents, carers, etc) as an expression of a desire to communicate as part of their hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1954), particularly the needs of 'belongingness' and 'love'. I believe that babies acquire language through immersion and patterned learning, however as they grow they develop the ability to 'play with' language to build on their repertoire through a process of experimentation and abstraction.

Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper.

LIN8001 Reading list

I post the reading list here for my own benefit as I will be exploring this literature through the semester and this provides me an easy cut-and-paste reference - and at this point I expect most readers will switch off, and go find a Sudoku or other amusement!

Bialystok, E. (Ed.) (1991). Metalinguistic dimension of bilingual language proficiency. In Language processing bilingual children (pp. 113-140). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bowerman, M., & Levinson, S. (Eds.) (2001). Introduction. In Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 1-16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, D. (2000). First language acquisition. In Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed., pp. 20-48). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Corder, P. (1967). The significance of learner's errors, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 5 (4), 162-170.

Dornyei, Z., & Scott, L. (1997). Communication strategies in a second language : definitions and taxonomies, Language Learning, 47 (1), 173-210.

Dornyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning, Language Teaching, 31, 117-135.

Ellis, R. (1994). Learning strategies. In The study of second language acquisition (pp. 529-560). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harley, B., & Hart, D. (1997). Language aptitude and second language proficiency in classroom learners of different starting ages, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19 (3), 379-385.

Jordan, G. (2004). Theory construction in second language acquisition (p. 183).

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

Mackey, A., & Gass, M. (2005). Second language research : methodology and design.

Mangubhai, F. (1997). Primary socialization and cultural factors in second language learning : wending our way through semi-charted territory, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics Special Issue : Teaching Language Teaching Culture, (14), 23-54.

Oxford, L. (1999). Anxiety and the language learner : new insights. In J. Arnold (Ed.), Affect in language learning (pp. 58-67). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.


Peacock, M. (2001). Pre service ESL teachers beliefs about second language learning : a longitudinal study. System, 29 (2), 177-330.

Schumann, H. (1986). Research of the acculturation model for second language acquisition, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7 (5), 379-392.

Singleton, D., & Lengyel, Z. (1995). Introduction : a critical look at the critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition research. In The age factor in second language acquisition : a critical look at the critical period hypothesis (pp. 1-29). Clevedon: Philadelphia : Multilingual Matters.

Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Skehan, P. (1989). Individual differences in second-language learning (pp. 25-48). London, UK: E. Arnold.