Second Language Acquisition Theories

Week 6

Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

(CAH)

•Theoretical bases: structural linguistics and behaviourist psychology

•Structural linguistics: detailed descriptions of particular languages from a collection of utterances produced by native speakers (i.e. corpus)

•Behaviourist psychology:

•habit formation by means of ‘stimulus-response-reinforcement’

the ability to perform any tasks

•new learning situations helped

by means of the transfer of the

old habits

•CAH logic: if the acquisition of the L1

involved the formation of a set of habits,

then the same process must also be

involved in SLA

•1950s - 1960s: language seen as habit

•L1 seen as the major cause for lack of success

•Types of habit formation in SLA

•L1 = L2 habits

•L1 habits modified or eradicated in the context of L2

•Newly-acquired L2 habits

•CAH tenets: detailed comparisons

between the two languages in order

to determine areas that will be easy

or difficult to learn for pedagogical

purposes

•Teaching method: Audiolingualism

•stimulus, reinforcement and reward

•Strong view: prediction of learning

difficulties and success (of teaching

materials) based on comparison

between two languages i.e. predictive

contrastive analysis

•Language transfer: positive (easy)

and negative (difficult) transfer

•Hierarchy of difficulty

(most difficult --> easiest)

(NL)S1S1 a

S1 b(TL)

English ‘know’ Italian ‘sapere’ ‘conoscere’

•Differentiation (Split)

•Underdifferentiation/ Overdifferentation

English Vs. Japanese (The Article system)

English --> Japanese

(absent or underdifferentiation)

Japanese --> English

(new or overdiffirentiation)

•Coalescing

Opposite to Differentation

•Correspondence

L1 = L2 (positive transfer)

•Criticisms

•English Vs.French

English: postverbal pronoun placement

He wants them again.

The dog has eaten them.

1. Overprediction L1-L2 contrast learning difficulty

French: preverbal pronoun placement

Il les veut encore.

Le chien les a mange.

•Negative transfer: English --> French

*Il veut les encore.

*Le chien a mange les.•Positive transfer: French --> English

•no errors produced

2. Underprediction

L1-L2 similarity positive transfer

Spanish Vs. English: copular Vs. be

*That very simple.

*The picture very dark.

3. Only a small number of errors as a

result of contrasting properties

between L1 and L2, i.e. 25%

*He comed yesterday.

4. Difficulty errors

But in that moment it was 6:00.

•Difficulty in tense usage rather

than the preposition from the

learner’s viewpoint

5. Evidence from morpheme studies

Dulay and Burt (1974)

Natural sequences in child second

language acquisition

Subjects: 60 Spanish and 55 Chinese childrenMethodology: Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM)

•seven coloured pictures to elicit

responses on English grammatical

morphemes

Pronoun caseArticle

Singular form of to be

Singular auxilary

Possessive

Past -regular -irregular

-ing

Plural

3rd person singular

•Result

•same developmental patterns across learners of different L1s, i.e natural order

•Conclusion

•language learners = active participants

•learning guided by universal innate mechanisms

•transfer no longer seen as a major

factor, i.e. lack of importance of L1

influence

•Criticisms

1. BSM biased the results

•Same results in other studies not using BSM

2. Morphemes with different

meanings grouped together ,i.e.

English articles

3. Accuracy order = developmental sequences?

• Correct forms not necessarily mean correct underlying rules

4. Grouped data obscured individual

variation

Error analysis (EA)

•Corder’s 1967: ‘The significance of

learner’s errors’

•Errors = evidence of the state of the

knowledge of L2 learners, not products

of imperfect learning

•Errors = evidence of an underlying

rule-governed system

•Errors vs. Mistakes

•Errors = systematic, not usually recognisable

•Mistakes = slips of the tongue

•From TL norm, deviant forms are errors but from the learner’s linguistic norm, they are mistakes.

•EA methodology: comparison between L2 learners’ errors and the TL system

•Criticisms

•Total reliance on errors (other

information needed)

Schachter (1974)’s study of the

production of relative clauses by

Persian, Arabic, Chinese and

Japanese students

Data

No of errors Total

Persian 43 174

Arabic 31154

Chinese 9 76

Japanese 563

•Avoidance factor

•Discrepancy between what linguists

interpreted and the learner’s actually

performance

•Cause of errors: wrong assumption

that correct usage of a structure

implies correct rule structures

•absence of errors may be due to a limited sampling bias

•Source of errors: multiple sources of errors possible

•The English article system

•absence of the learner’s L1

•many functions of English articles

•EA only provides a partial picture to the linguistic system of L2 learners

•Interlangauge

•Transitional competence

•Approximative system

•Interlanguage

•‘A separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner’s attempted production’ (Selinker1972: 214)

•L2 learners = creators of their own linguistic systems

•Independent of L1 and L2 influence

•Errors = indicators of progress, learning strategies, procedures

•Errors = window to the learner’s built-in syllabus

•Permeability: ‘the penetration into an IL system of rules foreign to its internal systematicity, or the overgeneralisation or distortion of an IL rule’

•basic grammar --> complicated grammar

•Fossilisation: ‘a cessation of further systematic development in the IL’

•imperfect L2 system

•Language transfer

•Interlingual identification (units of equivalence)

•same units --> positive transfer

•different units --> errors

•not an all-or-nothing process (i.e. selective transferability)

•Role of L1 influence (Cross-linguistic influence)

•Avoidance

•3 possible causes

•L1 different from L2

•L1 same as L2

•complexity of L2 structures

•Rate of learning

•L1 = L2 --> faster learning

•Route of learning

•acquisition of English ‘the’ by

Chinese and Spanish learners

Chinese: this Spanish: this/ the

•Overproduction

•Topic prominent structures by Chinese and Japanese learners of English

•Phonology

Eckman’s Markedness differential hypothesis

unmarked --> marked: difficult to learn

marked --> unmarked : easy to learn

•Psychotypology

•Learners’ perception of the

distance between L1 and TL

•Transferability and selectivity

•some structures are more

sensitive to transfer than others

•CAH and Interlanguage

•CAH serves as a tool that helps L2 learners to find some equivalent between L1 and TL.

•Source for testable hypotheses

•CAH provides a picture of what L2 learners may do in learning TL structures.

•Indication of the learner’s progress

•CAH prepares L2 learners for the fact that they will have some problems learning TL

•unsuccessful learning i.e. fossilisation