第二语言习得概论

作者简介

《第二语言习得概论》的目的是通过对语言学习者的语言及其形成过程进行讲座来帮助教师把这种模糊的、无意识实施的理论变成明确的、有意识地贯彻的理论。《第二语言习得概论》主要是针对两种读者而设计的：一是涉此领域、希望全面了解第二语言习得研究概况的学生；二是从事第二语言习得研究、希望全面掌握第二语言习得研究动态的教师。

书籍目录

1 Key issues in Second Language Acquisition

2 The role of the first language

3 Interlanguage and the ''natural''route of development

4 Variability in interlanguage

5 Individual learner differences and Second Language Acquisition

6 Input,interaction,and Second Language Acquisition

7 Learner strategies

8 The Universal Hypothesis and Second Language Acquisition

9 The role of formal instruction in Second Language

10 Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Conclusion

Glossary

References

Indes

编辑推荐

　　《第二语言习得概论》也可供对语言熟练程度测试等方面感兴趣的应用语言学研究人员参考。

章节摘录

　　it was in fact degenerate, as Chomsky claimed. Empirical studieswere able to show that the mother's speech was remarkably wellformed, containing few ungrammatical utterances or sentence frag-ments. Furthermore this speech was characterized by a number offormal adjustments in comparison to speech used in adult-adultconversations. Snow（1976）lists a number of these: a lower meanlength of utterance, the use of sentences with a limited range of grammatical relations, few subordinate and co-ordinate construaions,more simple sentences,the occurrence of tutorial questions （i,e.questions to which the mother already knows the answer）,and,overall, a high level of redundancy. There are also adjustments inpronunciation. Sachs 1977）shows that mothers tune the pitch,intonation, and rhythm to the perceptive sensitivity of the child. Theseadjustments were considered to constitute a special use of language orregister, known as motberese.　　2　The functions of 'motherese'Given that mothers do tune their speech in the ways described above,the question arises of what purposes motherese serves. Ferguson（1977）suggests that there are three main functions:（1）an aid tocommunication,（2）a language teaching aid, and（3）a socializationfunction. It is the former, however, that motivates motherese.Mothers seek to communicate with their children, and this leads themto simplify their speech in order to facilitate the exchange ofmeanings. Mothers pay little attention to the formal correctness oftheir children's speech, but instead attend to the social appropriate-ness of their utterances. Brown（1977）describes the primarymotivation as 'to communicate, to understand and to be understood,to keep two minds focused on the same topic'. Thus if motherese alsoserves to teach language and to socialize the child into the culture ofthe parents, it does so only indirectly as offshoots of the attempt tocommunicate.　　3 The basis of adjustments made by mothersAnother question concerns how mothers determine the nature and theextent of the modifications which are needed. Gleason and Weintraub（1978） suggest that parents have a general idea of their children'slinguistic ability, particularly their ability to understand, but they lackan accurate knowledge of what specific linguistic features theirchildren have mastered. Parents may internalize a model of a 'typical'child of a given age and then adjust their speech upwards anddownwards on the basis of feedback from an individual child. Ofcruaal importance, therefore, is the extent to which the childcomprebends what is said to him and the extent to which he signalshis comprehension or lack of comprehension to his caretaker.Thisconclusion is supported by Cross （1977）, who found little evidencethat mothers were able to monitor either their own or their children's Thus, whereas a behaviourist view of language acquisition seeks to explain progress purely in terms of what happens outside the learner, the nativist view emphasizes Iearner-internal factors. A third view, however,is tenable. This treats the acquisition of language as the result of aninteraction between the learner's mental abilities and the linguisticenvironment. The learner's processing mechanisms both determine andare determined by the nature of the input. Similarly, the quality of theinput affects and is affected by the nature of the internal mechanisms.The interaction between external and internal factors is manifest in theactual verbal interactions in which the learner and his interlocutorparticipate. It follows from this interactionist view of languageacquisition that the important data are not just the utterances producedby the learner, but the discourse which learner and caretaker jointlyconstruct. Three different views regarding the role of input in languagedevelopment have been discussed. The behaviourist view emphasizes theimportance of the linguistic environment, which is treated in terms ofstimuli and feedback. The nativist view minimizes the role of the inputand explains language development primarily in terms of the learner'sinternal processing mechanisms. The interactionist view sees languagedevelopment as the result both of input factors and of innatemechanisms. Language acquisition derives from the collaborative effortsof the learner and his interlocutors and involves a dynamic interplaybetween external and internal factors.　　The discussion of the role of the linguistic environment in SLA whichis the main purpose of this chapter is conducted largely within theinteractionist framework. However, many of the early studies of inputand interaction concerned the acquisition of a first language rather thana second language. The next section, therefore, looks at the way motherstalk to young children.　　'Motherese' and L1 acquisition　　The first challenge to the prevailing nativist views occurred in firstlanguage acquisition research. Gradually during the 1970s a consider-able bulk of empirical research was built up which investigated howmothers talked to their children （e.g. Snow and Ferguson 1977;Waterson and Snow 1978）. As this research served both as a model forsimilar research in SLA and has also been drawn on directly in justifyingsome theories of SLA （e.g. Krashen 1981a）, it is important to considerthe major findings. These are summarized below.1 The nature of 'motherese' Much of the early research into the mother's language was concerned with identifying its linguistic properties in order to establish whetherinput data. On the other hand, the Iearner can be seen as 'a grandinitiator'; that is, he is equipped with just those abilities that are neededto discover the L2, no matter how impoverished the L2 data are. Also, ofcourse, there are intermediate positions in which the learner is seen asactively contributing to SLA, but dependent on the provision ofappropriate input. Behaviourist accounts of SLA view the learner as 'a language-producing machine'. The linguistic environment is seen as the crucialdetermining factor. In this model of learning, input comprises thelanguage made available to the learner in the form of stimuli and alsothat which occurs as feedback. In the case of the former, the learner'sinterlocutor models speafic forms and patterns which are internalizedby the learner imitating them. Thus the availability of suitable stimuli isan important determining faaor in SLA. Behaviourist theories emphasizethe need to regulate the stimuli by grading the input into a series of steps,so that each step constitutes the right level of difficulty for the level that the learner has reached. Feedback serves two purposes. It indicates when the L2 utterances produced by the learner are correct and so reinforcesthem, and it also indicates when the utterances are ill formed by correcting them. The regulation of the stimuli and the provision of feedback shape the learning that takes place and lead to the formation of habits.　　……

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