Interlanguage and latent Structures

Selinker

Summary

The term interlanguage was first used by Selinker (1969) to describe the linguistic stage second language learners go through during the process of mastering the target language.

There is a psychological structure which is latent in the brain, activated when one attempts to learn a SL. Interlanguage is an in between system that is among the native language and the target language, the one that the learner attempts to learn. Those latent structures àWeinreich àInterlingual identifications àphonemes – grammatical – semantic     (differences of these structures in two languages)àpsychological structures which are in the brain and are activated at the time that the learner attempts to learn an L2.

Latent psychological structure
Lennenberg	Selinker
An already arrangement formulated in the brain  Is the biological counterpart to UG  it is transform through a certain maturation in the infant´s brain.	No guarantee of the activation of the latent structures No direct counterpart to any grammatical concept like UG No genetic time table
Reactivation of the latent structures àsuccessful learning of L2	No guarantee of successful learning of L2

It is not the same attempting to learn and be successful in the learning of the L2, successful second language learning, for most learners, is the reorganization of linguistic material from an IL to achieve the competence of the TL.

Behavioral event --> Interlanguage --> learner´s attempted production of a TL norm. --> meaningful performance.

Fossilization: 

                     When incorrect language become in an habit it takes time in correct those erros.

Five central processes:
1.- Language transfer: This process occur in our IL performance and it is modified by our NL, the fossilizable items, rules and subsystems. 
2.- Transfer of training: Are the result of identifiable items in training procedures
3.- Strategies of second language learning: If they are the result of an identifiable approach by the learner to the material to be learned.
4.- Strategies of second language communication: They are the result of identifiable approach of the learner to communication with a native speakers of TL. 
5.- Overgeneralization of TL linguistic material: They are a result of a clear overgeneralization of TL rules and semantic features.

Problems with the perspective

-          IL linguistic structures are never really eradicated for most L2 learner.

-          Conditions --> anxiety, shifting attention and second language performance.

-          Language errors that are fossilized.

-          Linguistic systems (NL, IL and TL) activated in latent psychological structure.

1st problem --> how we learn? storage or retrieval - language transfer or transfer of training.

2nd problem --> Nonreversibility of fossilization effects for no apparent reasons.

-          How do I recognize fossilizable structures in advanced?

-          Why do the some things fossilize and others do not?

*  Is very difficult to recognize which are those units and who  fossilize those or other units, we can say that it depends on the person who is learning and the conditions which he or she is expose.

3rd problem 

-          Unsuccessful learning at the second language.

-          Emphasis on what the teacher does in order to help learner´s learning be successful.

-          Learning a second language --> successful learning of a second language --> reorganization of linguistic material from an IL to identify a particular TL.

4th problem--> Learners tend to overgeneralize units of language for the linguistic systems = (NL, IL and TL)

These units become available to the learner only after she/he has switched her/his psychic set or state from the native speaker to the new domain of interlingual identifications.

5th problem

- How can we experiment with the three linguistic systems, creating the same experimental conditions for each, with one unit which is identified interlingually across these systems?

*The syntax structures will be similar in many of them (languages). 

                             

Workshop

A) Short essay questions.

1. - Explain the five central processes with your own words.

- Language transfer: This process occurs in our IL performance and it is modified by our NL, the fossilizable items, rules and subsystems.

- Transfer of training: Are the result of identifiable items in training procedures.

- Strategies of second language learning: If they are the result of an identifiable approach by the learner to the material to be learned.

- Strategies of second language communication: They are the result of identifiable approach of the learner to communication with native speakers of TL.

- Overgeneralization of TL linguistics material: They are a result of a clear overgeneralization of TL rules and semantic features.

2.-Which of these processes can be apply to you in terms of your L2 acquisition?

I think that the processes that can be applied to me are the overgeneralization and transfer.

3. -Which aspects have you fossilized?

Is kind of difficult to say what kind of mistakes or errors I´ve fossilized, but some aspects that I think I´ve fossilized are grammatical and phonological mistakes for example at the time of speaking, sometimes I say I´M AGREE instead of I AGREE and the pronunciation of the word variety I always say /vərieti/ instead of /vəˈraɪə.ti/

B) True or false (justify the false)

a) Unsuccessful second language learning refers to the generalization problem. F (the generalization problem refers to the use of different units of language, and these units are used for all languages the NL, IL, TL )

b) Storage refers to the process of recalling information that is stored in memory. F (Retrieval In psychology, retrieval refers to the process of recalling information that is stored in memory, and storage refers to the process of storing information in the brain, those are mental processes)

c) Some conditions that affect in the process of learning a new language are anxiety, shifting    attention and second language performance. T

d) Fossilization cannot be reversible. T

NL--> Native Language 

TL--> Target Language

IL--> Interlanguage

How language is shaped

Chomsky 

Workshop

I) Indicate IF TRUTH OR FALSE, provide the correct info.

Chomsky claimed that:

1.- We have a predisposition to speak. T

2.- We have not been genetically programmed with mental structures. F (We have been   genetically programmed with mental structures.)

3.- Nouns, adjective and adverb are not used in our universal grammar. F (YES, they`re used in our universal grammar, because language is universal  and  innate of human beings, meaning that, nouns, adjective, adverb are used in all language but their differences are where they are situated in the grammar structures)

4.- We are able to learn an Alien´s language. F ( If their language violates the principles of our universal grammar We couldn´t be able to understand their language because it could have different codes)

5.- Skinner, Chomsky and Piaget agreed on their theories. F

6.- Skinner believes that a language organ can develop regarding the environment. F (Skinner says that language can be develop through training and experience)

Chomsky	Skinner	Piaget
He had differences with : Language Organ	Skinner’s Behaviorist theory of language, learning, and mind. Skinner agreed that humans were genetically programmed to see and hear. He claimed that all our learning it could develop it with TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE.	The child passes through cognitive states, but he wasn´t really clear about what produced a new stage of cognitive development He claimed that all our cognitive stages could develop with our experiences.

II) Match the following pictures to the corresponding theory, and therefore author. 

 Chomsky  --> language organ

Skinner--> Training and experience

Piaget --> stages cognition 

The innateness hypothesis 9.3

The innateness hypothesis is a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some linguistic knowledge exists in humans at birth, others characteristics of the innateness hypothesis are:

• Genetically predisposed.
• We born with this ability.
• Knowledge about common characteristics.
•  As any other organ it grows through our life
•  It is located in our brain.

Workshop


1.- Complete the following comparative table.

Mains Researchers	Lennenberg	Yule	Chomsky
Point of view.	“species-specific” behavior Language acquisition Device (LAD)	Physically capable of sending and receiving sound signals in a language.	It is a biological schedule Maturation of the brain as any other organ
Others.	UGàUniversal Grammar: - Ability to distinguish speech sounds. -Ability to organize linguistic data. -Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible. -Ability to engage in constant evaluation.

2.- Vocabulary: Complete the correct meaning the following words.

Isolation: To be in a place or situation separate form others.

Innateness: Belonging to the essential nature of something
Sleep spindle: Represent periods where the brain is inhibiting processing to keep the sleeper in a tranquil state.

3.-  Complete the sentences.


a) Genie explored her new environment.
b) Genie could not speak because she had all ready pasted her critical period.
c) With Genie case what Chomsky holds is refuse.

 

First language acquisition

George Yule.

First language acquisition is the language that children acquire in their first years of life, children acquire language without overt instruction it is an innate predisposition in the children, even though this isn´t enough, we can say that this is called language faculty, the fact that every human being is endowed with language.

Basic requirements

-          Interactions with other language users, children must to hear language and that way reproduce language.

-          The exposure to the language.

-          The cultural transmission, which means that language is, acquired in particular language – using environment, it is not genetically transmitted.

-          The crucial requirement appears to be the opportunity to interact with others via language.

The acquisition schedule

At the same time that motor skills like walking, sitting, using the hands among others physical activities are developed children develop language, their mother tongue.

Language acquisition depends on the interplay with social factors in the child´s environment.

Children have a natural capacity to identify some aspects of linguistic input during their early years of life, this acquisition capacity need a constant exposure to the language where the children will be actively practicing language, and then prove it when they speak.

Some controversies

Language will vary from culture to culture, because of the milieu where the child is expose for the first time.

Noam Chomsky proposed that language development should be described as language growth, because language can be considered as an organ that develops just like another human organ.

Children´s speech as a whole single unit without considering morphology or syntax.

Caretaker speech

Children are helped by the adults that surround their environment on their language acquisition; this is given for the typical behavior of adults in the environment, adults that spend the most part of their time with children, the mother, father or grandparents, among others. The characteristic of caretaker speech is that is a simplified speech style adopted by the caretaker, who interacts with a child.

The caretaker speech is characterized by simple structures and a lot of repetition, if the child is indeed in this process of working out a system of putting words and sounds together, then the child will be internalized with language.

Language´ stages

Stages	Ages	Explanation
Pre-language stages	Three months to ten months By six months Around nine months Eleventh months	Cooing: the first recognizable sounds.  This are velar sounds  (k) and (g) and usually high vowels: (i) and (u) Babbling:  the child is able to produce a number of different vowels and consonants such as fricatives and nasals, sounds like mu and da. Babbling: Intonation patters Babbling: The infant child made use of vocalizations to express emotions and emphasis. A late babbling is characterized by imitations too.
The one word or holophrastic stage	Twelve and eighteen months	A single form or unit, function as a phrase or sentence. Production of single unit utterances.
The two-word stage	Eighteen to twenty months	The child´s vocabulary now is beyond fifty words. The combinations of words that the child forms, will be interpret in different ways by the caretaker, depending on the context of the situation. The child only intend communicate expression, but the caretaker is concerned with grammar. The child produce an utterance and receives a  feedback, which one means that the utterance worked.
Telegraphic speech	Two and three years old By the age of two and a half Three years old	This stage is characterized by strings of lexical morphemes in phrases such as cat drink milk. Child´s vocabulary is expanding rapidly. The child´s vocabulary resembles at the vocabulary of an adult.

The acquisition process

When the child is actively constructing forms in the process of acquisition of language, the child is being taught and tested, that way the child will have a better notion of language and develop it correctly.

The use of sounds and word combinations are important either  in the practice and interaction with the language.

Morphology (word – formation)

• Inflectional morphemes: -ing and –s
• Overgeneralization process: is the widespread application of grammatical forms.

-          Plurals: e.g. foot – foots or footses instead of feet.

-          The use of irregular plural

-          Possessive inflections

-          The use of past-tense morphemes ‘ed’ in the majority of verbs and words. E.g. go, goed, instead of went.

Syntax (word order)

Syntax is against the imitation because the child not only repeat utterances, the child has his own way of expressing things.

Formation of questions and negation:

Stages	Questions	Negation
1st stage	The use of rise intonation in Wh- questions.	The use of no or not is much more common.
2nd stage	Intonation rise continues. The use of Wh- questions is more constant, now there are complex expressions.	The use of no and not plus auxiliaries, like do and can, which are placed in front of the verb.
3rd stage	The inversion of subject and verb appears.	The use other auxiliary forms like didn´t and won´t, then a late acquisition of isn´t.

Semantics (the meaning of words)

The meaning of words is stuck and is difficult to know what the child really wants to express.

Overextension: when the child uses the name of an object for all the objects with the same characteristic, e.g. ball, for all rounded objects.

Hyponymy: the generalization of a term, to describe other terms.