语言学四套课件二语习得class4b

1、The primary goal of theoretical linguistics is two-folded: to characterize what human languages look like; and to explain why they are that way.Chomsky is to answer three basic questions about human languages:1) What constitute knowledge of language?UG: all human beings inherit a universal set of pr

2、inciples and parameters which control the shape human language can take. 2)How is knowledge of language acquired?The logic problem: children learn languages so quickly and effortlessly on the basis of degenerated input, children create a mental representation of language which is not much more compl

3、ex than could be expected, but strikingly similar to that of the other native speakers of the same language variety.3)How is knowledge of language put to use?UG approach is concerned with the abstract mental representation of language all human beings possess: competence. A complete theory of langua

4、ge use also has to define how we access our knowledge base, and how it is affected by a number of sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic variables.1Within UG theory how are principles and parameters defined?Principles: unvarying and apply to all languages Parameters: a limited number of open values ch

5、aracterizing differences btw languages2What is the logic problem of language learning?Children learn languages so quickly and effortlessly on the basis of degenerated input children create a mental representation of language which is not much more complex than could be expected, but strikingly simil

6、ar to that of the other native speakers of the same language variety.3L2 learners are also faced with the task of constructing a L2 grammar, but what are two major differences between L2 learners and L1 learners? They already have a mental representation of language, with the parameters set to the v

7、alues of their native language. They are cognitively matured and presumably much more resourceful as far as their ability to solve problems and to deal with abstract concepts is concerned.4UG is concerned with competence not performance. What does this distinction mean and why is UG primarily concer

8、ned with competence?UG approach is concerned with the abstract mental representation of language all human beings possess: competence. A complete theory of language use also has to define how we access our knowledge base, and how it is affected by a number of sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic var

9、iables.5What is the evidence used to claim that language is separate from other aspects of cognition?Characteristics of childrens LA:They go through stages.These stages are very similar across children for a given language, although the rate at which individual children progress through them is vari

10、able.These stages are similar across languages.Child language is rule-governed and systematic, and the rules created by the child do not necessarily correspond to adult ones.5.Children are resistant to correction.Childrens processing capacity limits the number of rules they can apply at any time, an

11、d they will revert to earlier hypotheses when two or more rules compete.Childrens language does not seem to be linked in any way to intelligence. And it is one of the most complex and abstract pieces of knowledge children have to cope with at an early age. (normal children could be slow; Williams sy

12、ndrome: communicative; brain damage: loss of language capacity ).6How is the notion of a critical period related to L1 acquisition? to L2 acquisition? Human beings have to be exposed to language before puberty in order for language to develop.What is structure dependency? Language is organized in su

13、ch a way that it crucially depends on the structural relationships between elements in a sentence (word morpheme etc.): words are regrouped into higher-level structures the basis of language (movement depends on the structure of the sentence).8Chomsky has talked about language acquisition as process

14、 of “setting switches on or off”. What does he mean by this? A language is not a system of rules but a set of specifications for parameters in an invariant system of principles of UG. The initial state of language faculty consists of a collection of subsystems/modules, each is based on certain very

15、general principles admitting a certain very limited possibility of variation. Parameter sets it on and off. 9What are the logical possibilities: the role of UG in SLA? As a sophisticated tool for linguistic analysis, for well-defined and focused hypotheses which could then be tested in empirical wor

16、k. It has been useful in describing not only the language produced by learners, but also the language to be acquired as well as the L1 of the learners.10What is the distinction between functional and lexical categories and why this is problematic within UG(pp55-56)?Lexical category: content wordsFun

17、ctional category: determiners, complements The functional phrases are organized in the same way as any other phrase, with the function word or morpheme as head of that phrase, e.g., In the following example, the determiner this is the head of the DP,the NP book is the complement of the head( Note th

18、e complement is to the right of the head as in all phrases in English, be they lexical or functional). DP D NP N this book11Why should one be cautious about UG in relation to SLA(pp61-68)?SLL is complicated in a number of ways:L2 learners are cognitively mature; They already know at least one other language;They have different motivations for learning a second language. Even