Different Theories of Language Acquisition
...petitions and imitations. As mentioned above, when language learners’ responses are reinforced positively, they acquire the language relatively easily. These claims are strictly criticized in Chomsky’s “A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”. Chomsky (1959) asserts that there is “neither empirical evidence nor any known argument to support any specific claim about the relative importance of feedback from the environment”. Therefore, it would be unwise to claim that the sequence UST --> URE --> PRE and imitation can account for the process of language acquisition. What is more, the theory overlooks the speaker (internal) factors in this process. The behaviorists see errors as first language habits interfering with the acquisition of second language habits. If there are similarities between the two languages, the language learners will acquire the target structures easily. If there are differences, acquisition will be more difficult. This approach is known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH). According to the hypothesis, the differences between languages can be used to reveal and predict all errors and the data obtained can be used in foreign/second language teaching for promoting a better acquisition environment. Lightbown and Spada (1993: 25) note that: “… there is little doubt that a learner’s first language influences the acquisition of second language. [But] … the influence is not simply a matter of habits, but rather a systematic attempt by the learner to use knowledge already acquired in learning a new language.” This is another way of saying that mother tongue interference cannot entirely explain the difficulties that an L2 learner may face. It is true that there might be some influences resulting from L1, but research (Ellis, 1985:29) has shown that not all errors predicted by CAH are actually made. For example, Turkish learners of English simply use utterances just as “No understand” even though the corresponding structure of Turkish ("Anlamiyorum" literally, “UNDERSTAND-NO-ME”) is thoroughly different. In brief, Skinner’s view of language acquisition is a popular example of the nurturist ideas. Behaviorism, as known by most of us, was passively accepted by the influential Bloomfieldian structuralist school of linguistics and produced some well-know applications in the field of foreign/second language teaching – for instance, the Audiolingual Method or the Army Method. The theory sees the language learner as a tabula rasa with no built-in knowledge. The theory and the resulting teaching methods failed due to the fact that imitation and simple S-R connections only cannot explain acquisition and provide a sound basis for language teaching methodology. 2.3. Piaget’s View of Language Acquisition Even though Piaget was a biologist and a psychologist, his ideas have been influential in the field of first and second language acquisition studies. In fact he studied the overall behavioral development in the human infant. But his theory of development in children has striking implications as regards language acquisition. Ellidokuzoglu (1999:16) notes that “many scientists, especially the psychologists are hesitant to attribute a domain-specific built-in linguistic knowledge to the human infant.” Accordingly, they view the human brain as a homogeneous computational system that examines different types of data via general information processing principles. Piaget was one of those psychologists who view language acquisition as a case of general human learning. He has not suggested, however, that the development is not innate, but only that there is no specific language module. Piaget’s view was then that the development (i.e., language acquisition) results mainly from external factors or social interactions. Piaget (cited in Brown, 1987:47, Eyseneck, 1990:51) outlined the course of intellectual development as follows: - The sensorimotor stage from ages 0 to 2 (understanding the environment) - The preoperational stage from ages 2 to 7 (understanding the symbols) - The concrete operational stage from ages 7 to 11 (mental tasks and language use) - The formal operational stage from the age 11 onwards (dealing with abstraction) Piaget observes, for instance, that the pre-linguistic stage (birth to one year) is a determining period in the development of sensory-motor intelligence, when children are forming a sense of their physical identity in relation to the environment. Piaget, unlike Vygotsky, believes that egocentric speech on its own serves no function in language development. 2.4. Cognitive Theory: The Language Acquisition View Cognitive theory is based on the work of psychologists. Piaget’s work, which dwells on the idea that students can learn things when they are developmentally ready to do so since learning follows development, can be regarded as a starting point of the cognitivist ideas. Cognitive psychologists emphasized the importance of meaning, knowing and understanding. According to them, 'meaning' plays an important role in human learning. ‘Learning’ is a meaningful process of “relating new events or items to already existing cognitive concepts.” (Brown, H.D. 1987:47); and it is thought to involve internal representations that guide performance. In the case of language acquisition, these representations are based on language system and involve procedures for selecting appropriate vocabulary, grammatical rules, and pragmatic conventions governing language use. David Ausubel (cited in Brown, 1987:80), who criticized the popular Audiolingual method for its theory based on reinforcement and conditioning, stated that adults learning a second language could profit from certain grammatical explanations. Whether adults do really profit from such explanations depends on (1) the suitability and efficiency of the explanation, (2) the teacher, (3) the context, and (4) other pedagogical variables. Though children do not use deductive presentations of grammar and they do not have superior cognitive capacities, they acquire their mother tongue quite successfully. Cognitive psychologists see second language acquisition, on the other hand, as the “building up of knowledge systems that can eventually be called automatically for speaking and understanding” (Lightbown and Spada, 1993:25). Language learning, in this sense, has some Gestalt characteristics in that language learning is a wholistic process and not analysable as stimulus-response associations. Language learners pay attention to any aspect of the language that they are attempting to understand and produce. Then, step by step, they become able to use certain parts of their knowledge through experience and practice. In short, the cognitivists claim that language acquisition can be automatically attained. However it is not clear how it will be automatized. And what L1 structures can be automatized through practice in L2 and what structures can be transferred to L2 are not clearly accounted for. 2.5. The Discourse Theory The Discourse Theory has resulted from a theory of language use. The theory emphasizes that language development should be viewed within the framework of how the learner discover the meaning capacity of language by taking part in communication. Del Hymes’ description of communicative competence (Brown, 1987: 200, 201; Ellis, 1986:259), for instance, reflects the principles of the Discourse Theory. Communicative competence includes knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary, knowledge of rules of speaking, knowledge of how to use and respond to different types of speech acts and social conventions, and knowledge of how to use language appropriately. It is believed, according to discourse theorists, that language acquisition will successfully take place when language learners “know” how and when to use the language in various settings and when they have successfully “cognized” various forms of competence such as grammatical competence (lexis, morphology, syntax and phonology) and pragmatic competence (e.g., speech acts). A language learner needs to “know” conversational strategies to acquire the language. Halliday (cited in Ellis, 1985: 259), for example, conducted a study on his own son’s first language acquisition experience and asserted that basic language functions arise out of interpersonal uses and social interaction. Dwelling on the ideas above, first language acquisition notion of the theory is that children accomplish actions in the world and develop rules of language structure and use. Accordingly, in the case of L2 acquisition, language learners are encouraged to deal with accomplishing actions, which are thought to help them acquire the target language. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the best known example of such a theory. In the communicative classes, students are expected to learn by doing (discovery learning) and expected to acquire the language through the PPP (presentation, practice and production) principle. It is another issue whether or not the CLT techniques promote L2 acquisition. The Discourse Theory has a number of drawbacks. It overemphasizes the role of external factors in the process of language acquisition and gives little importance to internal learner strategies (i.e., innate processes). The Discourse Theory is similar to the behavioristic view of language acquisition in that environmental factors and input (or positive stimulus) are at the very center in attempting to explicate the acquisition process. The Discourse Theory is of course more sophisticated than the Skinner’s views in accounting for the complex structure of communication. Yet it overstresses the role of “knowledge of competence and functions” in acquiring a language, and hence fails to notice universal principles that guide language acquisition. 2.6. The Speech Act Theory This theory holds that saying something is a way of doing something. In speech act theory, two kinds of meaning are seen in utterances. The fist is the prepositional meaning and the second is the illocutionary meaning. The former refers to the basic literal meaning of the utterance conveyed by the particular words or structures. The latter refers to the “effect” the spoken or written text has on the listener or reader. For instance the utterances including “threatening” or “apologizing” might have “presupposition” or “environment where learners know only “about” them. Can it be labeled “acquisition”? 2.7. The Universal Grammar Theory Among theories of language acquisition, Universal Grammar (UG) has recently gained wider acceptance and popularity. Though noted among L2 acquisition theories, the defenders of UG are not originally motivated to account for L2 acquisition, nor for first language (L1) acquisition. However, UG is more of an L1 acquisition theory rather than L2. It attempts to clarify the relatively quick acquisition of L1s on the basis of 'minimum exposure' to external input. The 'logical problem' of language acquisition, according to UG proponents, is that language learning would be impossible without 'universal language-specific knowledge' (Cook, 1991:153; Bloor & Bloor: 244). The main reason behind this argument is the input data: "…[L]anguage input is the evidence out of which the learner constructs knowledge of language – what goes into the [brain]. Such evidence can be either positive or negative. … The positive evidence of the position of words in a few sentences [the learner] hear[s] is sufficient to show [him] the rules of [a language]." (Cook, 1991: 154) The views supports the idea that the external input per se may not account for language acquisition (Ellidokuzoglu, 1999:20). Similarly, the Chomskyan view holds that the input is poor and deficient in two ways. First, the input is claimed to be 'degenerate' because it is damaged by performance features such as slips, hesitations or false starts. Accordingly, it is suggested that the input is not an adequate base for language learning. Second, the input is devoid of grammar corrections. This means that the input does not normally contain 'negative evidence', the knowledge from which the learner could exercise what is 'not'possible in a given language. As for L2 acquisition, however, the above question is not usually asked largely because of the frequent failure of L2 learners, who happen to be generally cognitively mature adults, in attaining native-like proficiency. But why can't adults who have already acquired an L1, acquire an L2 thoroughly? Don't they have any help from UG? Or if they do, then how much of UG is accessible in SLA? These and similar questions have divided researchers into three basic camps with respect to their approach to the problem: Direct access -L2 acquisition is just like L1 acquisition. Language acquisition device (LAD) is involved. No access - L2 learners use their general learning capacity. Indirect access - Only that part of UG which has been used in L1 acquisition is used in L2 acquisition. Proponents of UG, for example, believe that both children and adults utilize similar universal principles when acquiring a language; and LAD is still involved in the acquisition process. This view can be better understood in the following quote. [A]dvocates of [UG] approach working on second-language learning... argue that there is no reason to assume that language faculty atrophies with age. Most second-language researchers who adopt the [UG] perspective assume that the principles and parameters of [UG] are still accessible to the adult learner. (McLaughlin, 1987:96) To support the view above, the acquisition of the third person “-s” can be given as an example. According to research (1996, Cook: 21) both child L1 and adult L2 learners (e.g. Turkish learners of English) acquire the third person “-s” morpheme at a later stage of their overall acquisition process and have a great difficulty in acquiring it when compared to other morphemes such as the plural morpheme “-s” or the progressive morpheme “-ing”. This shows that such learners are somewhat affected by UG-based knowledge. However, in the case of foreign/second language teaching it is very well known that the third person “-s” is taught at the very beginning of a second language learning program and presented in a great majority of textbooks as the first grammatical item. Accordingly, Fodor’s views have some parallels with the UG Theory. Jerry Fodor studied the relationship between language and mind and his view that language is a modular process has important implications for a theory of language acquisition. The term modular is used to indicate that the brain is seen, unlike older views such as behavioristic view of learning and language learning, to be organized with many modules of cells for a particular ability (for instance, the visual module). These modules, according to Fodor (1983:47), operate in isolation from other modules that they are not directly connected. The language module, if we are to follow Fodor’s ideas, is one of such modules. This modular separateness has been termed as “informational encapsulation” by Fodor. To put it simply, each module is open to specific type of data. In other words, modules are domain specific. This is another way of saying that conscious knowledge cannot penetrate your visual module or language module or any other subconscious module. Basically, Fodor’s arguments are somewhat similar to that of Chomsky or the proponents of UG Theory in that the external input per se may not account for language acquisition and that language acquisition is genetically predetermined. Add to this, such a modular approach to language acquisition is totally different from the views of Piaget and Vygotsky who have laid the primary emphasis on the role of social or environmental factors in language development. In the case of foreign/second language teaching, the common view is that inductive learning (teaching a language through hidden grammar or) leads to acquisition. However, dwelling on Fodor’s views as discussed above, it is obvious that inductive learning is confused with acquisition and that by learning something via discovery learning, students just improve their problem-solving skills, but not acquire a language. As for the problems with Universal Grammar, it can be said that UG’s particular aim is to account for how language works. Yet UG proponents had to deal with acquisition to account for the language itself. “Acquisition part” is thus of secondary importance. A second drawback is that Chomsky studied only the core grammar of the English language (syntax) and investigated a number of linguistic universals seems to be the major problem. And he neglected the peripheral grammar, that is, language specific rules (i.e., rules of specific languages which cannot be generalized). Thirdly, the primary function of language is communication, but it is discarded. The final and the most significant problem is a methodological one. Due to the fact that Chomsky is concerned only with describing and explaining 'competence', there can be little likelihood of SLA researchers carrying out empirical research. In summary, UG has generated valuable predictions about the course of interlanguage and the influence of the first language. Also, it has provided invaluable information regarding L2 teaching as to how L2 teachers (or educational linguists) should present vocabulary items and how they should view grammar. As Cook (1991:158) puts it, UG shows us that language teaching should deal with how vocabulary should be taught, not as tokens with isolated meanings but as items that play a part in the sentence saying what structures and words they may go with in the sentence. The evidence in support of UG, on the other hand, is not conclusive. If the language module that determines the success in L1 acquisition is proved to be accessible in L2 acquisition, L2 teaching methodologists and methods should study and account for how to trigger this language module and redesign their methodologies. The UG theory should, therefore, be studied in detail so as to endo...