Sie sind auf Seite 1von 5

I’ve quoted the Dutch linguist a few times in the past, but I hope I will be forgiven for doing

so again. What
he writes seems to me to be so similar to what Scott has been writing or quoting it is worth bringing his
ideas to the attention of those on the list that have not come across his writing.

I'm recycling a posting I made on February 11, 2008, because it still seems to
me that the work of Bod is stimulating and worth knowing about.

And it seems to me, too, that his thesis chimes in well with what Scott is
arguing about the acquisition of "grammar".

---
DJN Feb 11 2008 to dogme

But there is a theory that continues to interest me because if it


captures any truth it is highly suggestive for teaching TEFL.

I'm referring to DOP (data orientated parsing) by Rens Bod, researcher


and lecturer in computational linguistics in the Institute for Logic,
Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam.

Bod argues against Chomsky's idea of innate Universal Grammar. He


suggests that people learn and produce language not on the basis of
abstract grammatical rules but from representations of concrete past
language experiences.

"The knowledge of a speaker/hearer ...can be understood as a statistical


ensemble of language experiences that change slightly every time a new utterance
is processed."

Here is a short extract from his book:

Beyond Grammar:An Experience-based Theory of Language


Centre for Study of Language and Information – Stanford , California
1998 ISBN 1 57586 150-x
-------------

DOP

"Data Orientated Parsing ....embodies the assumption that human


language comprehension and production works with representations of
concrete past language experiences, rather than with abstract
grammatical rules . The models that instantiate this approach therefore maintain
corpora of linguistic representations of previously occurring utterances. New
utterance-representations are constructed by
productively combining (partial) structures from the corpus. A
probability model is used to choose from the collection of different structures
of different sizes those that make up the most appropriate representation of an
utterance. The knowledge of a speaker/hearer ...can be understood as a
statistical ensemble of language experiences that change slightly every time a
new utterance is processed.
...........
..... the main outcome of these tests suggests that the productive
units of natural language cannot be defined in terms of a minimal set of rules
(or constraints or principles) as is usually attempted in linguistic theory, but
need to be defined in terms of a redundant set of previously experienced
structures…… In particular it means the knowledge of a speaker/hearer cannot be
understood as a grammar, but as a statistical ensemble of language experiences
that change slightly every time a new utterance is processed.

The notion of "Universal Grammar" becomes obsolete, and should be


substituted by the notion of "Universal Representation" for language
experience…….The problem of language acquisition would be the
problem of acquiring examples of representations for new utterances
from linguistic experiences guided by the Universal Representation
formalism. Language change could be explained as a side-effect of
updating the statistical ensemble of language experiences. And if
there is anything in the human language faculty that is `innate', then it should
be (1) the Universal Representation for linguistic experience, and (2) the
capacity to take apart and recombine these experiences."
----------

Dennis
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEXT WEEK

At the regular meeting day of THURSDAY 23 April , but an hour earlier, (19:00 GMT):

Your local time: >>> http://tinyurl.com/dmkkmk

Nergiz (Daffodil) will introduce us to and enable us to practice with HOLODEKS.

Meeting place for Holodeks

http://slurl.com/secondlife/VIRTLANTIS/62/98/337

If this turns out to be WRONG, return to Osnacantab’s place where you will find the correct landmark on
a notice board.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/171/232/22

TOPIC

Nergiz writes:

“ First, we will go
and look at some different holodecks (first ~20 min) and while doing that ideas
might come up on how to use them. Then, I will show a scene build with the Builder's Buddy
script and everybody will get a chance to build a simple scene with it themselves. Meeting
point will be Virtlantis holodeks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next week on FRIDAY 24 April , Iffaf of Languagelab will give a participatory demo followed by a short
discussion on her favourite teaching tool: ‘Good Teaching Practice’

SL time: 3am

Local time http://tinyurl.com/deh9oo

At the time of writing I do not know the SLURL. I will post it as soon as I know it, but you can always
check out on the day on the noticeboard in Osnacantab’s Place.

List of wikis

http://dennisintro2sl.pbwiki.com/ An Introduction for Beginners to Second Life

List of blogs

Seven Tnings You Proably Don’t Know About Me

http://7things-dennis.blogspot.com/

English From Zero

http://englishfromzero.blogspot.com/

English from Zero Take 2

http://englshfromzerotake2.blogspot.com/

Praising Second Life

http://praisingsecondlife.blogspot.com/

EFL in Second Life

http://eflinsl.blogspot.com/

Second Life and EFL


http://slefl.blogspot.com/

Interview with Gavin Dudeney

http://slandtefl.blogspot.com/

Notes for refs to teaching in SL


---------

http://www.surfoffline.com/ Downloads websites

http://blog.languagelab.com/2008/07/ Accountss teaching in LL by teachers from LangLab

http://praisingsecondlife.blogspot.com/ English village

http://eflinsl.blogspot.com/ A guest lesson

http://slefl.blogspot.com/ Observing a lesson in LaanguageLab

Goethe Institute in SL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIjg0t6K-nU

Second Life Suppport Centre – a shortcut

http://secondlife.com/kb

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen