Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

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modified their speech so that communication in Hebrew was possible. S. K.'s experiences with Amharic were quite different. The only formal instruction he received was as a Peace Corps trainee for 2 months in the United States. The language of the classroom was English, and the class focused on explanation of the Amharic writing system and rules of grammar. During his 2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer, S. K. never used Amharic as a lingua franca with other non-Ethiopians, as other common language were used. In addition, despite his interest in the language, S. K. reported that few Ethiopians would speak to him in Amharic; S. K. was stationed near the capital, Addis Ababa, and used Amharic only with noneducated Ethiopians for instrumental purposes. Despite the fact that S. K. used Amharic daily for 2 years, he reports that his proficiency in that language is quite low. While he feels he has "acquired" Hebrew, and has some feel for correctness in that language, his Amharic feels artificial to him: he relies a great deal on English surface syntax with Amharic vocabulary, applying whatever grammar rules he remembers when he can, and understands only the simplest conversations. The Amharic-Hebrew contrast is consistent with the hypothesis that simple codes like teacher-talk and interlanguage-talk are extremely useful in attaining initial levels of fluency, in acquiring (as opposed to learning). Again, this one case history is presented only as an example, and others are necessary to determine just how universal these experiences are. Linguistic Analysis of Simple Codes We turn now to a different approach, the linguistic analysis of simple codes. This analysis is done with one goal in mind: to determine whether the inputs provided by teacher-talk, interlanguage-talk, and foreigner-talk are linguistically appropriate, that is, whether they can serve as true "intake" for language acquisition. To do this, we will first examine caretaker speech, language addressed to young children acquiring their first language, and discuss how this simple code might encourage language acquisition on the part of the child. We will then compare our conclusions for caretaker speech with what is known of the simple codes we are dealing with here. 124
Caretaker Speech and Language Acquisition A great deal of current literature confirms that the speech directed to children acquiring first languages is different from adult native speaker-native speaker speech. It is known to be composed of shorter sentences, it is more intelligible, contains utterances that are more well formed, with less subordination, has a more restricted vocabulary, and refers to a more restricted range of topics (i.e. the "here and now"), among other features. Of course, "the finding that mother-ese exists cannot by itself show that it influences language growth" (Newport, Gleitman, and Gleitman, 1977; p. 112). If caretaker speech does help, or "catalyze" language acquisition, it may do so by supplying crucial input, what the child needs at that moment, without the distraction of excess noise, or language the child does not understand. The following section expands on this point in more detail. I present first three "facts" about child language acquisition and caretaker speech, followed by a personal interpretation as to how and why caretaker speech might be effective. Following this, we explore the question of whether the simple codes the second language performer might encounter work the same way. Here are the three "facts". First, it is by now a well-established finding that structures are acquired in a relatively predictable order for children acquiring a given language (for English, see Brown, 1973; Klima and Bellugi, 1966; and the excellent review in Clark and Clark, 1977). This is not to say that order of acquisition is absolutely invariant, that children will acquire all grammatical structures in a strict linear order; rather, there are clear tendencies and one can talk about an "average" order of acquisition. Another finding relevant to our discussion deals with the relationships between the complexity of structure in parental input and the child's current linguistic level. While caretaker speech is typically simpler than native speaker-native speaker speech, it is not "finely tuned" to the child's growing competence. According to studies by Newport et al. (1977) and Cross (1977), the syntactic complexity of caretaker speech does not grow in exact proportion to the child's competence. Caretaker speech, however, may be "roughly tuned" to the child's level: we see positive, but not always significant, 125
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Second Language Acquisition and Sec
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Acknowledgments I would like to tha
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Introduction This book is concerned
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performance..." (p.35). Corder (196
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when it does not get in the way of
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language (some similarities to firs
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In the second part of this chapter,
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far more valuable then the exercise
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Monitoring generally improves accur
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overconcern with correctness, howev
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language is spoken or may be expose
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2. Attitude and Aptitude in Second
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1973, p. 8). Carroll also suggests
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outines and patterns, and at a more
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Sentences, Paired Associates, and S
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stay-ins appeared to be integrative
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motivation played no role because o
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(1977), after interviewing teachers
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did not produce the same results. T
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a stage many people, but not all, r
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The Good Language Learner Revisited
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predict differences in student achi
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settle the issue of whether adults
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language had higher scores than stu
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Table 1. English proficiency and ye
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The "self-study" reinterpretation o
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series the evidence for learning is
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4. The Domain of the Conscious Gram
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Ann Fathman, confirmed our earlier
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significant differences for any of
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Table 1. Studies analyzing grammati
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Table 3. Counterexamples to orderin
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Table 4 (cont.) ___________________
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ut *der Katze Ohr (The cat's ear).
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Research Findings 1. First language
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First-language-influenced errors he
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and (4) Ich weiss nicht, I know not
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ain", the right hemisphere, appears
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Page 85 and 86: while English "orients its users to
Page 87 and 88: 7. On Routines and Patterns in Lang
Page 89 and 90: adulthood. A. Smith (1966) describe
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Page 93 and 94: variation. Nelson, for example, dis
Page 95 and 96: which he had learned by imitation.
Page 97 and 98: and often incorporated them into hi
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Page 101 and 102: Furthermore, she associated strings
Page 103 and 104: and patterns other than as discours
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Page 109 and 110: up to the intermediate level. As Wa
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Page 113 and 114: is making some effort at making him
Page 115 and 116: It may be useful to distinguish thr
Page 117 and 118: the luxury of building up acquired
Page 119 and 120: marker /-s/, and the regular and ir
Page 121 and 122: to speak the language they were lea
Page 123 and 124: 9. The Theoretical and Practical Re
Page 125 and 126: contact with. "Teacher-talk" is the
Page 127: language in Los Angeles. S. K. also
Page 131 and 132: speech is so well rooted in the "he
Page 133 and 134: speech is: they are simpler than na
Page 135 and 136: Freed (1980) reports that foreigner
Page 137 and 138: e boredom. When they overshoot, the
Page 139 and 140: class was conducted entirely in Fre
Page 141 and 142: more expansions as well as repetiti
Page 143 and 144: Broen, P. (1972) The Verbal Environ
Page 145 and 146: Dulay, H. and M. Burt (1977) "Remar
Page 147 and 148: Hakuta, K. and H. Cancino (1977) "T
Page 149 and 150: Learning Aptitude. Rowley, Ma.: New
Page 151 and 152: Academy of Aphasia. Victoria, Briti
Page 153 and 154: Smith, A. (1966) "Speech and other
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