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Descriptors:
Grammar; Classification; Acoustics; Phonology; Learning Processes; Performance; Language Patterns; Language Acquisition; Language Research

Abstract:
Some of recently proposed phonotactic learners are tier-based bigram learners that restrict their hypothesis space to patterns between two segments that are adjacent at the tier level. This assumption is understandable considering that typologically frequent nonadjacent sound patterns are predominantly those that hold between two tier-adjacent segments. However, it is not clear whether the assumption is psychologically justified, i.e., whether speakers are indeed exclusively attentive to patterns between two tier-adjacent segments when it comes to learning nonadjacent sound patterns. In general, many recent studies suggest that learnable sound patterns are not limited to typologically observed sound patterns. Specifically, Koo and Callahan (2012) argue that adult speakers in laboratory settings have no trouble learning artificial patterns that cannot be explained by tier-based bigram learners. In this paper, we replicate their results in a more carefully controlled setting and argue that the assumption of tier-based bigram learning must be relaxed in order to properly explain human performance. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Educational Change; Grammar; Models; Language Usage; Pragmatics; Language Research; Language Classification; Discourse Analysis; Context Effect

Abstract:
The Functional Discourse Grammar model has a twofold objective: on the one hand, to provide a descriptively, psychologically and pragmatically adequate account of the forms made available by a typologically diverse range of languages; and on the other, to provide a model of language which is set up to reflect, at one remove, certain of the stages the analyst assumes the speaker would go through in producing such forms, in terms of the types of discourse acts that may be performed in so doing. The article argues that these goals do not sit easily the one with the other. In practice, the whole emphasis of the levels, components and modules provided by the grammar is designed to achieve only the first of the two objectives. The Contextual component is restricted to representing only those aspects of the context of a given utterance which have a systematic influence on the form of that utterance. So in practice, the analytic approximation to the speaker's performance of discourse act types is far removed from the complexity of the contextual factors which impinge on his or her actual utterance acts in some specific context. The problem is compounded by the lack of any systematic differentiation between considerations relating to the language system, and those having to do with the use of that system in some context. The need to provide for such a distinction is motivated here by a consideration of various types of indexical reference (specifically, "anadeixis" and anaphora) within a discourse. Here an important distinction is made between the nature of the indexical referring procedure being applied, and the particular expression types being used to carry it out. "In fine", the article argues that it is only by attempting to subsume the grammatical apparatus of the modular FDG system within a model of the wider utterance context in which it may be used by a speaker, that the problems raised earlier may be satisfactorily resolved. (Contains 2 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Native Speakers; Learning Experience; Nouns; Spanish; Second Language Learning; Morphology (Languages); Heritage Education; Form Classes (Languages); Language Proficiency; Task Analysis; Pictorial Stimuli; Language Research; Oral Language; Error Patterns; Graduate Students; Advanced Courses

Abstract:
This study examined whether type of early language experience provides advantages to heritage speakers over second language (L2) learners with morphology, and investigated knowledge of gender agreement and its interaction with diminutive formation. Diminutives are a hallmark of Child Directed Speech in early language development and a highly productive morphological mechanism that facilitates the acquisition of declensional noun endings in many languages (Savickiene and Dressler, 2007). In Spanish, diminutives regularize gender marking in nouns with a non-canonical ending. Twenty-four Spanish native speakers, 29 heritage speakers and 37 L2 learners with intermediate to advanced proficiency completed two picture-naming tasks and an elicited production task. Results showed that the heritage speakers were more accurate than the L2 learners with gender agreement in general, and with non-canonical ending nouns in particular. This study confirms that early language experience and the type of input received confer some advantages to heritage speakers over L2 learners with early-acquired aspects of language, especially in oral production. (Contains 8 tables, 5 figures and 7 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Research Methodology; Second Language Learning; Interdisciplinary Approach; Data Collection; Books; Language Research

Abstract:
The central goal of the field of second language acquisition (SLA) is to describe and explain how second language learners acquire the target language. In order to achieve this goal, SLA researchers work with second language data, which can take a variety of forms, including (but not limited to) such commonly used methods as naturalistic production, responses to questionnaires about motivation and attitudes, grammaticality judgments, and reaction times in online tests. Given the interdisciplinary nature of SLA, the field has drawn on the methodologies used in other fields, including linguistics, first language acquisition, psychology, sociology, and education, among others. As the number of data collection and analysis methodologies used in SLA has grown, so has the number of books describing and explaining these methodologies. In this review article, the author describes and evaluates the volume edited by Alison Mackey and Susan Gass (2012), which provides a comprehensive overview of a broad variety of different data collection and analysis methods used in SLA. She also evaluates selected chapters from the volume edited by Elma Blom and Sharon Unsworth (2010), which covers formal experimental methodologies for language acquisition in general; she evaluates only those chapters that have direct relevance for research in SLA. Finally, she briefly reviews the volumes by Zoltan Dornyei with Tatsuya Taguchi (2010, second edition) and by Kim McDonough and Pavel Trofimovich (2008), which take an in-depth look at two specific methodologies used in SLA research. All four books are evaluated with regard to their utility for courses on research methodology and design; features that make the books particularly useful for instructional purposes are pointed out. (Contains 1 note.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Grammar; Nouns; Language Processing; Control Groups; Language Proficiency; Morphemes; Native Language; Morphology (Languages); Phrase Structure; Korean; Second Language Learning; Task Analysis; Language Research

Abstract:
This study examined the second language (L2) acquisition of the Korean plural marker -"tul" by native speakers of English. Seventy-seven learners at four Korean proficiency levels along with 31 native Korean-speaking controls completed five tasks designed to probe for knowledge of particular features and restrictions associated with so-called intrinsic and extrinsic plural-marking in Korean. The results suggest that knowledge of both types of plural developed with increasing proficiency. However, the features associated with the intrinsic plural, which is more similar to the English plural in terms of grammatical function, were more easily acquired than those of the extrinsic (distributive) plural, which requires recruiting the features of a completely distinct morpholexical item from the first language (L1). We also found some developmental evidence for a feature hierarchy in quantified Korean noun phrases, in which the most deeply-embedded featural co-occurrence restriction on intrinsic plural-marking was the latest acquired. (Contains 15 tables, 2 figures and 19 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Grammar; Nouns; Language Processing; Second Language Learning; Syntax; Advanced Students; Form Classes (Languages); Computational Linguistics; Morphology (Languages); Adults; English; Native Speakers; German; Language Research; Control Groups; Eye Movements; Task Analysis; Language Tests; Placement

Abstract:
In order to identify the causes of inflectional variability in adult second-language (L2) acquisition, this study investigates lexical and syntactic aspects of gender processing in real-time L2 production and comprehension. Twenty advanced to near-native adult first language (L1) English speakers of L2 German and 20 native controls were tested in a study comprising two experiments. In elicited production, we probe accuracy in lexical gender assignment. In a visual-world eye tracking task, we test the predictive processing of syntactic gender agreement between determiners and nouns. The findings show clear contingencies (1) between overall accuracy in lexical gender assignment in production and target predictive processing of syntactic gender agreement in comprehension and (2) between the speed of lexical access and predictive syntactic gender agreement. These findings support lexical and computational accounts of L2 inflectional variability and argue against models positing representational deficits in morphosyntax in late L2 acquisition and processing. (Contains 7 tables, 3 figures and 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Literacy Education; Written Language; Interaction; Educational Change; Educational Practices; Researchers; Educational Research; Language Research; Oral Language; Correlation; Cooperation; Educational Improvement; Teaching Methods; Learning Processes

Abstract:
This paper introduces the goals of the research project on which this special issue of "Linguistics and Education" is based. A case is made for considering contemporary education as saturated by and dependent on oral and written language, and on beliefs and practices that relate knowledge, talk, reading and writing. The project is directed at a better understanding of the relationship between oral and written language, and, through collaborations between researchers and teachers, at improving practices that encourage learning. This paper frames the special issue by pointing to a crucial but largely unremarked misalignment--between teaching and learning via classroom interaction and assessment via individual written performance--that lies at the center of current educational practice. A recognition of that misalignment and its significance for students together call for a theoretical and empirical re-engagement with the relationship between literacy education and knowledge on the part of educational practitioners and researchers. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Evidence; Syntax; Generalization; Language Acquisition; Infants; Sentences; Word Order; Psycholinguistics; Hypothesis Testing; Russian; Phonology; Morphology (Languages); Cues; Language Research

Abstract:
This study tests the hypothesis that distributional information can guide infants in the generalization of word order movement rules at the initial stage of language acquisition. Participants were 11- and 14-month-old infants. Stimuli were sentences in Russian, a language that was unknown to our infants. During training the word order of each sentence was transformed following a consistent pattern (e.g., ABC-BAC). During the test phase infants heard novel sentences that respected the trained rule and ones that violated the trained rule (i.e., a different transformation such as ABC-ACB). Stimuli words had highly variable phonological and morphological shapes. The cue available was the positional information of words and their non-adjacent relations across sentences. We found that 14-month-olds, but not 11-month-olds, showed evidence of abstract rule generalization to novel instances. The implications of this finding to early syntactic acquisition are discussed. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Inferences; Novelty (Stimulus Dimension); Preschool Children; Language Acquisition; Context Effect; Cognitive Structures; Language Processing; Language Research

Abstract:
Does making an inference lead to better learning than being instructed directly? Two experiments evaluated preschoolers' ability to learn new words, comparing their memory for words learned via inference or instruction. On Inference trials, one familiar and one novel object was presented and children were asked to "Point at the [object name (i.e., pizer)]." These trials required the child to infer that the novel label referred to the novel object and not to the familiar object. On Instruction trials, a novel object label directly referred to a novel object (e.g., "This is a glark") and no familiar distracter object was shown. We found that although children looked longer at the novel target on Instruction trials, they showed poorer retention of the newly learned label compared to words learned on Inference trials. Hence, we found that inferential learning was superior to instruction. Relevance for optimal learning contexts and education are discussed. (Contains 4 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Logical Thinking; Syntax; Brain; Learning Strategies; Language Acquisition; Computational Linguistics; Grammar; Language Universals; Linguistic Theory; Children; Child Language; Linguistic Input; Language Research; Language Processing

Abstract:
The induction problems facing language learners have played a central role in debates about the types of learning biases that exist in the human brain. Many linguists have argued that some of the learning biases necessary to solve these language induction problems must be both innate and language-specific (i.e., the Universal Grammar (UG) hypothesis). Though there have been several recent high-profile investigations of the necessary learning bias types for different linguistic phenomena, the UG hypothesis is still the dominant assumption for a large segment of linguists due to the lack of studies addressing central phenomena in generative linguistics. To address this, we focus on how to learn constraints on long-distance dependencies, also known as syntactic island constraints. We use formal acceptability judgment data to identify the target state of learning for syntactic island constraints and conduct a corpus analysis of child-directed data to affirm that there does appear to be an induction problem when learning these constraints. We then create a computational learning model that implements a learning strategy capable of successfully learning the pattern of acceptability judgments observed in formal experiments, based on realistic input. Importantly, this model does not explicitly encode syntactic constraints. We discuss learning biases required by this model in detail as they highlight the potential problems posed by syntactic island effects for any theory of syntactic acquisition. We find that, although the proposed learning strategy requires fewer complex and domain-specific components than previous theories of syntactic island learning, it still raises difficult questions about how the specific biases required by syntactic islands arise in the learner. We discuss the consequences of these results for theories of acquisition and theories of syntax. (Contains 5 tables, 6 figures, and 14 footnotes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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