Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

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correlations between structural complexity of caretaker speech, and linquistic maturity in children. Some sample correlations are presented in Table 2. Table 2. Degree of fine-tuning in caretaker speech ________________________________________________________________________ Child language variables Input characteristics __________________________________________________ VP aux. a NP infl. a MLU a MLU b compr. b age b ________________________________________________________________________ S-node/utterance 0.21 -0.05 0.37 0.30 0.55 * 0.36 MLU 0.34 0.10 0.37 0.56 * 0.75 + 0.51 * ________________________________________________________________________ a: Newport, Gleitman, and Gleitman, 1977. b: Cross, 1977. Key: VP aux. = auxiliaries such as modals, progressive and perfective elements. NP infl. = nominal inflections, primarily plural markers. MLU = mean length utterance. compr. = score on a comprehension measure (see Cross, p. 157). age = child's age in weeks. * = p < 0.05. + = p < 0.01. The third "fact" of interest to us here is that according to scholars working in the area of child language acquisition, the relative "simplicity" of caretaker speech is probably not due to any conscious effort on the part of the caretaker to teach language. Rather, caretakers modify their speech in order to communicate with children, in order to control their behavior, in order to make them understand what they are saying. (For detailed discussion, see especially Newport et al., pp. 124-130). These three findings lead to the following generalization concerning the relationship of input and the child's developing grammar. Children progress by understanding language that is a little beyond them. That is, if a child is at stage i, that child can progress to stage i + 1 along the "natural sequence" (where i and i + 1 may be a block of structures; more correctly the child who has just acquired the members of i can then acquire a member of i + 1) by understanding language containing i + 1. The child understands language containing structure that is a bit beyond him or her with the aid of context. The fact that caretaker 126
speech is so well rooted in the "here and now" probably provides this helpful context to a great extent. (It is of interest that the "here and now" quality of caretaker speech is one of its "best tuned" aspects: Cross (1977) reports strong correlations between the degree to which parental speech is concerned with immediate events and the child's competence: more linguistically mature children encounter more discourse that is displaced in time and space (r = 0.72, p < 0.01 between reference to "non-immediate events" and scores on a comprehension test).) Caretaker speech does provide input at the i + 1 level that is understood, but, as explained above, this is not the conscious goal of the caretaker. The caretaker is not consciously aiming at i + 1. Rather, the caretaker estimates the child's level of competence via the child's own linguistic output and his or her reactions to caretaker speech, and in attempting to communicate with the child provides input that covers i + 1 as well as some structures that the child has already acquired (i, i - n) and some that the child has not yet acquired (i + n). In other words, the caretaker's speech provides a "net" of structure that generally includes i + 1, but contains a bit more. The size of the net, however, is not as large as is the case in adult-adult speech. A very interesting hypothesis is that the net of structure cast by caretaker speech in an attempt to communicate with the child is of optimal size. A wider net might contain too much noise, too much language that is not understood by the child, for optimum acquisition. A more narrow net, a "finely-tuned" net hitting i +1 and little else, may also be less efficient. The caretaker's net may have these advantages: by including some of the i - n and i + n structures, by including more than i + 1, it provides built-in anticipation and review, which may be useful. Second, the wider, roughly-tuned net guarantees that i + 1 will always be covered. Also, a wider net allows more than one child to be helped at one time. On the other hand, the caretaker net is not so wide that the child has difficulty understanding, and "tunes out" (see, for example, Shipley, Smith, and Gleitman, 1969). Brown (1977), after reviewing current studies of caretaker speech, suggests the following answer to the question "How can a concerned mother facilitate her child's learning of language?": 127
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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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second language acquisition in adul
Page 79 and 80: hemisphere is removed, and the pati
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Page 83 and 84: advantage in the first language. En
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
Page 99 and 100: what utterances mean by observing h
Page 101 and 102: Furthermore, she associated strings
Page 103 and 104: and patterns other than as discours
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Page 107 and 108: understanding language that is "a l
Page 109 and 110: up to the intermediate level. As Wa
Page 111 and 112: practical only in a foreign languag
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 and 128: language in Los Angeles. S. K. also
Page 129: Caretaker Speech and Language Acqui
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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