Listening in Language Acquisition

L1 VS L2 ACQUISITION PROCESSES

Themes

Conditions

Linguistic Processing

Semantic Processing

Pragmatic Processing

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Initial Conditions

“Under normal circumstances, with a healthy neurological system and a stable assembly of caretakers, all humans manage to acquire their first language (L1)  completely and successfully. In virtually all cases, an L1 is acquired primarily in an oral mode. We acquire the ability to use oral language through a lengthy immersive process which involves an abundance of listening and reciprocal oral interaction, particularly with caretakers who develop a nurturing relationship with the child (p. 109).”

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Linguistic Processing

L1 VS L2

L1

Language-General Capacity

• Ability to discriminate thousands of potential phonetic contrasts in any language
• Within 10-12 months this ability becomes considerably limited.

Phonotactic Knowledge

• “During their first year of life, infants develop the perceptual ability to discriminate various kinds of differences in utterances they hear around them. This ability provides them with the way of distinguishing one utterance from another and one speaker from another, and serves as a precursor to developing the ability to listen to connected language in context.”

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• “Learning what features mark word boundaries in utterances from a particular language seems to involve discovering how the sounds can be ordered, phonetically and prosodically, within words in the language. This exposure and gradual discrimination of allowable features is known as gaining phonotactic knowledge of the language.”

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• “Over the course of the first several months of being surrounded by sound, this ability seems to emerge naturally.”

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Lexis

Early Lexical Development

•  “At an early age, children discover that sequences of sound can be used as names for things. This challenge of symbolization is often simply depicted as a process in which parents point at an object and say the name of it so that the child can understand the connection between sound, object, and meaning. Of course, acquisition of the ability to actually label a word is not that simple from the child's perspective.”

The Packaging Task

• The ability of the child to use the same label to refer to a wide range of objects of the same type while also restricting the label when appropriate. Two common phenomena:

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• Overextension
• Underextension

Presentation Title

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9/3/20XX

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Network Building

Developing Schemata

• The challenge for the child is that relations between words and Concepts have to be worked out explicitly. This connecting task takes place slowly and precedes initially through collocation links, for example, when the child links table with eat in one network. Later the child coordinates words with other contexts and gradually builds broader networks.”

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L2 Acquisition

Challenges

• “In terms of auditory processing for L2 listeners, the fundamental goal of phonological processing is word recognition. Lexical processing in the L2 is the means by which the L2 user comes to use conceptual knowledge needed for understanding.
• Each language has its own preferred strategies for listening, which are readily acquired by the L1 child but often only partially acquired by the L2 learner.
• The L2 listener has to deal with what she may perceive as degraded phonetic quality do to assimilation, prosodic patterns disguising ustressed words, and varying speed of the input.

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L2 Acquisition

Advantages and Disadvantages

• Metacognitive Processing: The mature L2 learner can consciously use abstract thinking about syntactic categories and rules.
• Native Listening Hypothesis: L2 listeners process input through an “L1 screen”. Hearing “through the ears of our first language.”
• Cognitive Transfer: derailments of attention, P-400 effect, blips or lapses 400 milliseconds after unfamiliar syntax, taxes working memory, builds up, shallower syntactic processing.

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L2 Acquisition

Lexical Development

• It’s easier to map new terms onto existing concepts!
• Lexical transfer: many cognates between related languages.
• However: L1 acquirers learn words and concepts at the same time. “As soon as a language learner starts to learn an L2, the learner has to accept that there are no counterparts for already known words and concepts of their L1 and L2: There is no new discovery process. The principle may descrease the L2 learner’s motivation to discover new words in the L2 (p. 124.”

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Semantic Processing

L1 VS L2

L1 Acquisition

Development of Cogntive Structures

• Meaning and comprehension scaffolded through interactions with caregivers
• Stimulated by interaction with environment
• Children ask questions, observe others, and interact with siblings and use words in novel ways

Learning through Interaction

• “Children share songs and stories and games and use them to signify and build friendships, and they share knowledge of how to create and learn with new technologies. With age children expand their social networks and peers become more important and influential within the child’s social and linguistic development (p. 117).”

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L2 Acquisition

Strengths and Challenges

• The mature L2 learner already has a developed semantic network which makes it easier to transfer meaning.
• However, individual and cultural differences in metaphors, axioms, cultural concepts, and references may cause comprehension problems in the L2.

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Pragmatic Processing

L1 VS L2

Differences

Child-Directed Speech

• Repetitive patterns, modified intonation, reduced utterance length, special words (invented), and lexical selection.
• Facilitates children’s noticing and learning of phonology, syntax, lexis, and discourse patterns
• Contextual language routines: bath time, meal time, bed time, etc.
• Recasts by caregivers

L2 Learners

• Not exposed to these sheltered, supportive learning contexts
• Less intimate interaction opportunities with members of L2 speech community
• Must learn to react in ways that are seen as appropriate, functional, and supportive
• Must learn to achieve their desired outcomes in an interaction in socially appropriate ways

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Learning Interaction Patterns

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“It is not possible to gain proficiency in an L2 without strong, sustained motivation to acquire it, a long time frame to reach near-native levels, the development of success-oriented learning strategies for overcoming obstacles, and even social strategies for managing possible resistances from the TL community (p. 127).”

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