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UG and SLA

Supervised by:
Dr.M.Larouz

Presented by:
Aabla BIQICHE

Theories of Language
Acquisition
Theories
Nativist

Chomsky

Non Nativist

Cognitive

Piaget

Behaviorist

Skinner

Linguistic Universals

Outline
1-History
2- Universal Grammar (UG)
3- UG and First Language
Acquisition
4- UG and (SLA) Second Language
Acquisition

History of UG

History of UG
Before the 1960s: Structuralism
Description of levels of procuction
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Lexicon

But no Framework or Model of how


learning takes place!

History of UG (continued)
Skinner 1950s
Behaviorism
Sitmulus-response-reinforcement
Habit formation

Children learn by imitating and


repeating
Mind is a blank slate at birth

History of UG (continued)
Chomsky 1960s viewed Skinners
work
Inadequate of describing the more complex
aspects of lge acquisition
like Grammar and Syntax

His critique had 3 main points:


1.Poverty-of-the-stimulus.
2.Constraints and principles cannot be
learned.
3.Patterns of development are universal

History of UG (continued)
1. Poverty-of-the-stimulus: the logical
problem of lge acquisition.
Ungrammatical and incomplete input.
Grammatically acceptable output.
Children hear only a finite number of stces
Abstract the rules and principles of the lge
Produce an infinite number of possible
stces
No formal training or correction

History of UG (continued)
2. Constraints and principles cannot be learned:
Primary lge= L1
Children are very young when learning L1
Single words around age 1
Basic grammar around 6
At age 6 no one has cognitive ability to understand the
principles of grammar as a system
But because of some innate capacity, the child is
capable of using it

History of UG (continued)
3. Patterns of development are
universal
Children learn the various aspects of lge in
a very similar order.
If children only learned what they were
taught the order of what they learned
would vary in different learning
environment
But that is not the case

History of UG (continued)
Brown 1973
Found a very specific order of MORPHEME
acquisition for children learning English as their
first lge:
1. Present progressive-ing ( Daddy jump-ing)
2. Plural-s ( Many book-s)
3. The irregular past forms ( I run- I ran)

The sequence is quite fixed in order but not in


rate
All children learn n the same order, but some
take longer than others.

History of UG (continued)
Chomsky attributed all this to what he
calls:
Language Acquisition Device
A function of the brain that is specifically for learning lge
An INNATE biological function common to human
beings.

He called the the theoretical framework


Transformational Generative Grammar.
The mind generates a basic stce, and then transforms it
to comply to the grammatical restraints of the lge

History of UG (continued)
Chomsky later added two concepts:
1. The Minimalist Program:A distinction
between
Lexical
Functional category development
Learners need to learn only the lexical
information of words.
Syntactic function develops automatically.

2. The prinicples and parameters model

History of UG (continued)
2. The prinicples and parameters model:
Is more complicated since we all have LAD
independent of lge ( same across lges).
We also have built in rules for grammar
modification of target lge.
These are the princples

Lges are different in syntactic order:


Arabic: ( the ball red)
English: The red ball

History of UG (continued)
This means according to Chomsky that when
learning a lge whether 1st, 2nd or 3rd , while
learning the grammar your mind
automatically adjust the already existing
rules so that they fit the target lge
In that case the parameter would be set so that
in Arabic comes after the noun t describes
whereas in English it comes before.

History of UG (continued)
Chomsky and his followers combined all the
theories into one framework for lge
acquisition and called it

GRAMMAR;

UNIVERSAL

a set of rules or principles


that can have the parameter changed to fit
any lge in a very simple way and without a
conscious knowledge of it.
Innateness

UG

The system of principles, conditions, and rules


that are elements or properties of all human
languages. The essence of human language.
(Chomsky, 1976)
Children are born with knowledge that are
common to all human languages. (Freeman, 2004)

All human beings share part of their knowledge of


language; UG is their common possession regardless
of which language they speak. (Cook, 1996)

UG is unique to humans
A set of principles and parameters that
constrain
all human lges
A set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that
are common to all languages (Noam Chomsky)
UG is a framework and a theory of how people
learn a lge.

UG and First Language


Acquisition

Questions to Linguists

Chomskys
Chomskys answer
answer to
to the
the 11
question
question
1 Knowledge of lge
The LA task: input

Linguistic competence
Grammar

( knowledge of lge)

The LA problem:
All (normal)children acquire this linguistic competence, which extends beyond the
primary input.
Children and adults can understand and produce stces which they have never heard
before

Input

UG

Grammar

1. Underdetermined input
2. Degenerate input
3. Lack of negative evidence

Input underdetermines the final


grammar
Ex: wanna-contraction: a rule in
informal spoken English which allows the
sequence want to to contract to wanna
1 a- Who do you want to see?
b- Who do you wanna see?
2 a- Who do you want to babysit the child?
b- Who do you wanna babysit the child?

The acquisition of wanna-contraction can be


explained
by means of principles of
UG.
wh-questions are derived by movement of the
wh-word from an underlying position to the front
of the sentence.
an empty category or trace (t) marks the position
from which the wh-question word has been
moved.
1-a who i do you want to see t?
1-a who i do you want t to babysit the child?

Degeneracy
The language that the child hears is not always
perfect; adults make mistakes, hesitate, change their
minds about what they are going to say.
This kind of input, that is, input which includes
ungrammatical or partial forms as well as grammatical
ones, is sometimes referred to as degenerate.
The existence of degenerate data has constituted
another argument for UG; knowing that children have
built-in knowledge of what a grammar must be like,
then the presence of degenerate data zill not mislead
them.

Lack of Negative evidence


Adult linguistic competence includes
unconscious knowledge of
ungrammaticality as well as
grammaticality.

The question is how is this achieved,


how do children find out that certain things
are impossible?

Direct negative evidence


Consists of direct correction by
parents: you mustnt say that
Jimmy

the kind of errors that parents


responded to were not at all the kinds of things
UG principles are concerned with.
even when correction of childrens lge
does occur , children seem to ignore it.

research on l1 suggest that children


usually do not get corrected when they make
mistakes of grammatical form (Brown and
Hanlon 1970) and when they are corrected,
they ignore it (Braine 1971).

EX : (from Pinker 1994, 281 attributed to


Martin Braine)
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy
Adult: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please
Daddy.
Adult: Can you say the other spoon?
Child: Other one spoon
Adult: Say other
Child: other
Adult: spoon
Child: Spoon.
Adult: other spoon
Child: other spoon. Now give me other one
spoon.

Example of grammatical over-extension


and resistance to correction:

Child:

he falled down

Mom:

no Timmy, he fell down

Child:

yeah, he falled down

Indirect negative evidence


Consists of what does not occur in the
lge: ex null subject sentences do not
occur in non pro drop lges.
Children do not make certain kinds of
mistakes because they never hear the
ungrammatical forms produced by
anyone else.

children do produce utterances which


they have never heard

Saleemi suggests that indirect


negative evidence is only useful when the
child can supplement it with positive
evidence

Positive evidence
Consists of things that are actually
present in the input (as to what is possible
in a lge)
The word order parameter for English may be
triggered by hearing stces such as:

John ate an apple


WO for Arabic by hearing:

The evidence for triggering the setting for


the pro drop parameter is more problematic
since pro-drop lges have stces both with
and without overt subjects:
And even non-pro-drop lges have
occasional null-subject stces : cant buy
me love in English for instance

Hence the knowledge about what is


possible
stems from UG.

Evidence from child lge


The mismatch between input received and
knowledge attained motivates proposals for UG
There must be innate linguistic principles guiding
lge acquisition
Ex:
children de not make errors that violate
principles of UG
children know (unconsciously) that certain stces
are ungrammatical because they violate principles
of UG .

CHOMSKYS ANSWER TO THE 3 QUESTION: HOW IS


KNOWLEDGE OF LGE PUT TO USE

Use of lge
Chomsky makes a distinction between
competence and performance.
Between theories of our underlying
knowledge and theories which account
for our use of that knowledge.

Performance: Performance deals with the nature of childs rule system;


the psychological processes the child uses in learning the language,
and how the child establishes meaning in the language input
The behavior itself.

Competence: Linguistic competence is concerned with the childs grammar,


the linguistic input and construction of the grammatical structures
The underlying ability which allows linguistic behavior to take place
and the behavior itself.

CHOMSKYS ANSWER TO THE 2 QUESTION

UG claims that all human beings inherit a


universal set of principles and parameters
which control the shape human language
can take

1-The content of UG

1-1-Levels of representation


S-structure:
*
S

VP

D-structure:

*
S

Comp
i
NP

INFL
present

VP

V
ti

Comp

INFL
present
V

NP

NP

NP

1-2-Subsystems of UG

UG is
assumed to
consist of a
number of
different
principles, or
constraints
which form
different
subsystems
of UG

theory
D-structure

X bar
theory

S-structure
Subjacency
L.Form

The E.C.P

More than one level: The binding theory.


All levels: The projection principle.

X bar theory
An approach to
syntax

Based on 4 main
lexical categories

V N Adj Prep

These categories
become heads
of phrases

Bar notation is
a device used
to give a more
detailed and
consistent analysis
of constituents

*
Ex. The noun Pirate
becomes the head
of the following
phrase:

The pirate of the


Caribbean

Det
the

N
PP
pirate
of the
Caribbean

The substance of the change is that the black box now has
definite contents; it produces the grammar of the language
through instantiating principles and setting values for
parameters

Input

UG
Principles and
parameters

L1 Grammar

The LAD is an inventory of principles and parameters

UG and SLA

Now we shall see whether the


argument that UG constraints L1A
still holds true for non-primary lge
acquisition (SLA).
L1 Grammar

L1 Input
UG
principles
and parameters
L2 Input

L2 Grammar

L2 knowledge of Lge
1- ILge Grammars: refer to the learners internalized
competence which underlie the ILge hypothesis.
2- L2 Knowledge of lge:
1-1- Competence;
Knowledge of a particular speaker
Embodied in the mind\brain
Systematic

1-2- Performance;
Utterance in a particular situation
Acoustically perceptible
Subject to accidental and non-linguistic
constraints

The logical problem of L2


1-The logical problem: how do speakers of L2
come to know more than is present in the
input (L2 competence transcending the
input).

2-The developmental problem: why are some


properties acquired earlier than others?

If the three problems with the input still


hold in this context, then it is possible that
UG also mediates L2 acquisition

L2 Input

UG

L2 Grammar

Differences between L1Acq &


L2Acq
2- Mother tongue
1- Degree of success
L2Acqs have prior
L1Acqs are totally successful
Mo
knowledge of
L2Acqs fail to acquire the
st L
5
2Ac - Ag
another lge
target lge fully
e
qs
are
A- T
E.g.: Phonology and
her
L1s olde
e
r th
inflectional morphology
s a
an
B- A
crit
f
o
r Lg ical
t th
e
has
end e Acq perio
d
of t
or b som
h
e
eco
e
me how d CP U
e
ina
G
cce cayed
ssib
le.
3- Fossilization
L2Acqs often get stuck at
4- Input
A point short of a native
L1Acqs Naturalistic input
like grammar and continue
L2Acqs Depending on
to produce non-target forms
the learning environment
Which are ineradicable
and the teaching methd
(White 1989:43)

SLA & Poverty of the Stimulus


Argument
How do we come to have
such rich and specific
knowledge or such
intricate system of belief
and understanding, when
the evidence available to
us is so meager? (Chomsky 1987)

The structure of this argument


as summarized in Cook (1991
b)

Step A
A native speaker of a
particular lge knows
a particular aspect of syntax.
E.g. Binding principle

Step B
This aspect of syntax could
not have been learnt from the
lge input typically available
to children.., the input to
the black box is not sufficient
To show the children that the
Binding principles are necessary

Step C
This aspect of syntax is not
learnt from outside.
If binding principles are present
(step A), but are not learnt
(step B), they can not come
from outside the childs mind

Step D
This aspect of syntax is built
in to the mind
binding
principles are part of the
black box it self.

Access to UG in SLA
*

UG

Other Mental
Faculties

L1
Grammar

Ac
ce
ss

Indirect Access

No Access

Di
re
ct

L2
Grammar

The direct access:


On this position, some researchers, for example (Otsu and Naoi,
1986 and Ritchie, 1978) believe that UG is available directly to L2
learners, i.e.they have access to it separately from the L1. These
studies aimed to test the availability of some principles in learning
some properties in an L2 by learners their mother tongue L1 does
not have the same properties.
For instance, Otsu and Naoi (1986 cited in White, 1989) suggest
that L2 learners have direct access to UG. This claim is based on
their study of Japanese L1 learners of English L2. They chose to test
the operation of the Subject-Dependency Principle in the L2. While
English allows the movement of the auxiliary is in sentence such
as (4) above, Japanese does not. In addition, yes-no questions are
formed in Japanese by adding a question particle to the sentences
without changing the order of the words. The subjects were 11
female teenagers (ages 14-15) who had studied English for two
years. They had been asked to transform 12 declarative sentences
containing relative clauses into questions. The result strongly
supported Otsu and Naois claim. They found that most of the
subjects (seven out of eight and three natural) were guided by UG
and produced the interrogatives correctly.

The indirect access:


Researchers on this model such as White (1986) and Flynn (1987)
propose that UG operates in L2 acquisition, but via the L1. In other
words, L2 learners start with the principles and parameters of their
L1. Then they try to reset the parameters of the L1, where the
parametric value differs from the L2.This happens on the base of L2
input and with activity of UG. White (1986) compared French learners
with Spanish learners of English (French and English are non-pro-drop
languages, while Spanish is pro-drop language). A grammaticality
judgement test was used. She found that Spanish learners, at first
stages, produced sentences with null subject much more than French
learners. She concluded that Spanish learners had been influenced
by their L1 parameters especially at first stages. White (1989)
summarised this model by pointing out that two different versions
emerge from this hypothesis:
a. UG is inaccessible but any aspects of it available in the L1 can be
used in the L2.
b. L2 learners initially assume the L1 value of UG parameters, but are
still able to tap UG. Hence, they can reset to L2 parameter setting.

The no-access position:


The view in this model is that UG is not available to L2 learners. UG is
accessible to L1 acquirers only and the parameters setting in the L1 cannot
be reset for L2 acquisition. Researchers, who support this model, claim that
there are major differences between L1 and L2 acquisition. Clahsen and
Muysken (1986) compared the acquisition of the word order in German by
German children with L2 learners from different L1 background. Their study
has shown that children start with SOV and gradually acquire SVO, whereas
L2 learners start with SVO and learn SOV. In the case of children, they argue
that this is because of learning capacities specified to language but in the
case of adults, they refer to acquisition strategies which may be derived
from principles of information processing and general problem solving
strategies
(Clahsen and Muysken, 1986: 111).
Schachter (1988, 1989) tried to test the accessibility of the Subjacency
principle through grammaticality judgement test. The results supported the
claim that UG is unavailable to L2 learners, since they do not use the
principle for structures that they know already. Schachter points out that the
principlesdo not access in an L2 unless if they activate in the L1. Bley-Vorman
(1989) has argued also that if there is inefficiency to L2 learning, it is because
L2 learners do not have UG available to them. They acquire L2 through other
mental processes. In other words, they resort to general learning strategies.

Implications of UG
Implications for the classroom can only be drawn for core areas of
grammatical competence. Classroom acquisition depends crucially on
the provision of appropriate syntactic evidence to trigger parametersetting; certain aspects of vocabulary are also crucial.
Existing textbooks already supply appropriate evidence for parametersetting; the grammatical component of syllabuses may be improved by
use of principles and parameters, even if this reveals what does not
need to be taught, as may the teachers awareness of language.
As the principles of UG are built-in to the mind, they do not have to be
learnt; the learner automatically applies them to whatever language he
or she encounters. It does not matter whether the learner is faced with
Japanese or English; the same principles of phrase structure apply.

Implications of UG
(continued)
The settings for parameters are not constant but vary from one
language to another; the crucial aspects of a language for the learner
to master are the appropriate settings for the parameters; since the
learner already knows the principles as they are part of his or her
mind, all that is needed is sufficient evidence to set the values for the
parameters.
Given the learner knows the phrase structure principles, all that has
to be learnt is whether the setting for the head parameter is headfirst or head-last.
For this the learner needs linguistic evidence in the form of actual
sentences spoken by the people around him or her; hearing John ate
an apple the child learns it is head-first in English. The learner needs
to hear relevant evidence for setting the parameters of the grammar.

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