Second Language Acquisition Processes & Theories

1. Richard Montague, Lydia White, Steven Pinker

Anmerkungen:

• e.g. a distinction between nouns and verbs

Anmerkungen:

• "Language Acquisition Device" (LAD) UG provides a "metaphor for the human linguistic potential" (Razfar)

Anmerkungen:

• There are a finite number of grammatical structures possible.

Anmerkungen:

• "Poverty of Stimulus"

Anmerkungen:

• "Rules of language acquired in predictable order"

Anmerkungen:

• "Acquisition is using language for real communication"
• "Learning is knowing about language"

Anmerkungen:

• "conscious learning... is used as a monitor or editor"

Anmerkungen:

• "we acquire language by receiving comprehensible input"

Anmerkungen:

• "mental blocks/affective filters prevent input comprehensibility"

Anmerkungen:

• Language instruction just slightly above the student's comprehensible input is useful.
• Speaking cannot be taught directly; it is a result of internalizing comprehensible input.

Anmerkungen:

• Graduated process of procedurization

Anmerkungen:

• Automaticity is performing skill without conscious control

Anmerkungen:

• Progression from "controlled" processes to "automatic" ones

Anmerkungen:

• e.g. recent Degner, et al. study of affective connotations

Anmerkungen:

• Processing sub-components involved in a skill requires more attention resources.

1. James P. Lantolf

Anmerkungen:

• According to Vygotsky and later theorists, the idea that human minds function according to participation and accommodation of cultural and mediation integrated into social activities

Anmerkungen:

• The process whereby language and other social artifacts become part of a person's mental and psychological processes

Anmerkungen:

• Stages of focus where words focus on certain aspects or areas of an individual's environment to shape biological realities into cultural concepts

Anmerkungen:

• Difference between what someone can do alone and what someone can do with mediation

Anmerkungen:

• A psychological theory that argues that humans use higher-level cultural tools such as language, literacy, and logic in a conscious effort to control the biologically-endowed mental processes of the brain

Anmerkungen:

• Cognitive activity with the goal of forming conscious psychological development

1. Brian MacWhinney

Anmerkungen:

• Individuals use linguistic cues to get meaning from language, rather than relying on linguistic universals.

Anmerkungen:

• When aquiring an L2, learners sometimes receive competing cues and must decide with cue(s) is more relevant for determine meaning.