Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

"That's a _______") which were characterized by very high initial performance.
Related propositional forms, Brown notes, show a learning curve with a gradual
increase in accuracy over time. Patterns and routines, on the other hand, do not.
Brown is thus solidly behind position 2 for child language acquisition. Patterns and
routines may develop due to high frequency in input in advance of linguistic
maturity, but such automatic speech is independent of the creative construction
process; it may fall away in some situations and be reanalyzed by the language
acquisition process.
On the other hand, . Clark (1974), in a paper appropriately titled "Performing
without Competence", argues that for some children routines do evolve into patterns
which in turn become creative language. In her words, "our research finding suggest
that (child's speech) becomes creative through the gradual analysis of the internal
structure of sequences which begin as prepackaged routine" (p. 9). Clark's
conclusions are based on her analysis of her son Adam (not to be confused with
Brown's subject of the same name) who was about 3 years old at the time of the
study. Adam, according to Clark, would often use his own or another's previous
utterance as constituents for his own utterances. For example,
Adam R. C.
Mummy you go. Where?
Mummy you go swings.
Do you want to get off?
No I want to get on. (This was an error: Adam meant
to say "stay on".)
In addition to this use of patterns, Adam tended to use routines as well, trying to use
a phrase in situations close to where he heard it. For example, he would say, "I carry
you" when he wanted to be carried, having heard his father say this sentence on
numerous occasions.
This use of routines and patterns may not be atypical. Clark, however, suggests that
for Adam routines evolve into patterns, consistent with positions 1 and 3 above. For
example, when a hot meal was brought to the table
(1) Wait for it to cool
87