00 Linguistic A 2

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz
APPLIED LINGUISTICS
PART I. General Introduction to
the Discipline of Applied Linguistics
1. An overview of Applied Linguistics
There are several key terms that should be taken into account:
- Narrow definitions: short, specific, restricted, limited, just focusing on one
aspect.
- Broad definition: unrestricted, non-limited, general. The traditional vision
focuses on a narrow definition, just focused on one aspect.
- Problem-driven discipline: guided by the problems that are given on a context.
- Interdisciplinarity
1.1. What is Applied Linguistics?

There are several definitions of Applied Linguistics. Applied Linguistics, at least in America,
was first officially recognized as an independent course at the University of Michigan in
1946. In those early days, the term was used both in America and in England to refer to
applying a so called scientific approach, to teaching foreign languages, including English
for non-native speakers.
1946, end of World War II. The idea of forming these people in another language, in order to
act undercover, involved investing large amounts of money in learning languages. They
provided them with everything necessary for this learning and teaching of a language:
laboratories, dictionaries
In Europe, the emergence of Applied Linguistic as an academic discipline was closely
related to the foundation of AILA, The Association Internationale De Linguistique
Applique. The creation of AILA was agreed upon the international colloquium of Applied
Linguistics, at the University of Nancy (France) in 1964. They meet every year in one
country. Each country has its own AILA.
Traditionally, Applied Linguistics is concerned with language teaching in mother tongue
education or with the teaching and learning of foreign or second language. This is the
narrow definition of this term, given by Wilkins in 1972, Kaplan in 1990 and Sridhar in
1993.
At present, this definition has changed, giving a broad definition. Applied Linguistics refers
to the application of linguistic research to the solution of practical, educational and social
problems of all types. This definition was given by Trudgill in 1984.
But, what is Applied Linguistics?
- Applied Linguistics is essentially a problem-driven discipline, rather than a
theory-driven one (McCarthy, 2001:4)
- Its also defined as an activity. The application of linguistic knowledge to
some object, situation or problem (Corder, 1973:15) Corder is probably the
father of Applied Linguistics.
Some examples of Applied Linguistics are:
1. In communities with more than one language, which ones should be used at
school? Any language can be said, but giving a strong explanation to why that
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language should be studied: German, French, Chinese, Italian, Russian

2. Should everyone learn foreign languages? And if so, which one or which
ones? Which is the best method to do so?
3. Should deaf children learn a sign language, or a combination of lip reading
and speaking?
1.2. The development of Applied Linguistics.

In addition to AILA, there are other national associations:
- The British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) in 1967.
- The American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in 1979.
- The Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics (AESLA) in 1982.
- The Cameroon Association of Applied Linguistics (CAMAILA)
- and over 40 different associations world-wide
This is a very world-wide movement. All these associations reflect the good health of the
discipline and its fast growth. The topics are very diverse; they cover all type of fields:
To an observer, the most notable change in Applied Linguistics has
been its rapid growth as an interdisciplinary field (Richard Tucker in
the AILA conference 2005)
Success in the Applied Linguistics enterprise depends on:
1. Identifying and defining problems. Everybody has overcome this problem. A
linguist does this because he or she wants to know more.
2. Contextualizing those problems within linguistic study and developing a
theoretical stance. Look more into the problem.
3. Employing appropriate resources for the exploration of possible solutions.
4. Evaluating the proposed questions.
This, in a teaching context, is quite common.
1.3. The Interrelationship of the Disciplines

At present, Applied Linguistics is regarded as an interdisciplinary discipline, that is, one that
uses or cuts across several established disciplines or traditional fields of studies.
Interdisciplinary approaches typically focuses on problems felt by the investigators to be too
complex or vast to be dealt with the knowledge and tools of a single discipline. There is a
linguistic visible element, but there is more that deals with this. Some examples of this
interdisciplinarity are:
- Clinical linguistics: the application of linguistic theories and methods to the
analysis of disorders of spoken, written or signed language. A patient that suffers
aphasia or dysphasia loses total or partially the speech. So the linguists have to
study the problem and find a language to be used by this patient. For that, you
have to document yourself in order to know what type of language these types of
patients use.
- Forensic linguistics: the study of any text or item if spoken or written language
which has relevance to a criminal or civil dispute, or which story goes on in a
court of law or to the language of the law itself. For example: with the suicide
notes, you could compare his idiolect with how the note is written, his
handwriting Other examples are: police confessions, wills, declarations of
war
- Ecolinguistics: it is a new branch of linguistics, which investigates the role of
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language in the development and possible solutions of ecological and

environmental problems.
Reading 1: Schmitt, N. An Overview of Applied Linguistics.

1. What are the traditional areas that Applied Linguistics covers?
The narrow definition is the teaching and learning of second or foreign languages. The broad
definition refers to the second language acquisition, second language pedagogy and its
interface.
2. List the other areas that Carter and Nunan (2001:2) include as sub-disciplines of
Applied Linguistics. Find out what these sub-disciplines study by looking in your
glossary, checking encyclopedias or using the Internet.
- Literacy: ability to read and write, the ability to use language. It is important in
order to socialize.
- Speech pathology: study of abnormalities in the development and use of language
in children and adults. It is a disorder.
- Deaf education: sign language, lip language. People that have special needs.
- Interpreting: oral part.
- Translating: written part.
- Communication practices: strategies used for communicating purposes.
- Lexicography: writing dictionary and other kind of reference material.
- First language acquisition: study of the development of the process of mother
tongue acquisition.
3. In the section entitled Applied Linguistics during the Twentieth Century there are
a number of movements that need special attention due to their influence on language
learning and teaching. Look for the following teaching methods and explain them
briefly: Grammar-translation method, Direct method, Reading method.
- Grammar-translation method: attempted to make language learning easier through the
use of example sentences instead of whole texts (vocabulary, 1 or 2 grammar rules and
translation). It doesnt emphasize on the use of language. Reading and writing. No theory of
learning behind it. It gives you grammar rules, but you dont get to use them.
- Direct method: exposure to oral language (listening and speaking). Imitated how mother
tongue is naturally learnt, with the learning of the first language.
- Reading method: promote the reading skills through vocabulary management, and
changing less frequent words with others that are more frequent.
4. Behaviourism and Chomskys Cognitivism are two opposite views of the process of
language acquisition. Can you explain briefly how they oppose one another?
As behaviourism says that language is a habit-formation, cognitivism tells that language is
governed by cognitive factors (rules that are assumed to be innate).
5. In what ways does Hallidays Systemic Functional Grammar differ from Chomskys
approach? And what are the three types of functions that Halliday identifies in
language?
Language was not seen as something exclusively internal to a learner, but as necessary to
function on society. Depending on what we want to do on society, there are different
functions:
- Ideational: tell facts or experiences.
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- Interpersonal: maintain personal relationships with others.

- Textual: connection and organization in a text.
You use a particular form to have different functions. Functional approaches several types
of forms that express lots of functions.
6. In the 1980s a new learning method appeared, known as Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). What were its main objective?
- to focus on learners message and fluency rather than their grammatical accuracy.
- teach no-language-related subject, such as history or politics in the L2. The learners would
acquire the L2 simply by using it to learn the subject matter content, without the L2 being
the focus of explicit instruction.
7. Explain the meaning of the acronym CALL.
Computer-assisted language learning. In here, learners work in the computers with audios
and videos, in order to learn more of the language. A characteristic of this is that its very
interactive.
8. In the section Incorporating Social/Cultural and Contextual Elements into Applied
Linguistics the name of Wundt (1877) is mentioned. Explain why he is important in
the discipline psychology.
He splited psychology into 2 strands:
- physiological psychology: on elementary functions (sensory experience); its research
method would rely on experimental research. More physical
- higher psychology: a process that includes deliberate remembering, reasoning and
language. It includes elements of human interaction and knowledge gained from society. It
requires descriptive methods, such as ethnography and interview, which could capture the
social elements. There is human interaction.
9. What is Sociocultural Theory? What are its theoretical principles?
It emphasizes individual-social integration by focusing on the neccessary and dialectic
relationship between the sociocultural endowment (between a person and his or her
environment) and biological endowment (mechanisms and processes of a person), out of
which emerges the individual. Only through social interaction with others does the human
develop their language and cognition. Combination of the social and biological factors that
were explained by Chomsky.
10. The concept of learner strategies has changed the view of language teaching. In
what way?
Because it gives a several list of strategies that facilitate language learning. After a study
made, they took the strategies that good learners used in order to learn the language. The
learner is like a glass, in which you fill it with water (knowledge). Like a tabula rasa.
PART II: Traditional areas

covered in Applied Linguistics
2. Applied Linguistics
Acquisition (L1)
and
First
Language
2.1. Theories of first language acquisition

2.1.1. Behaviourist approaches: Bloor and Skinner
Each one is different and opposite to the previous one. Behaviourist Approaches
(Bloomfield, Language 1933):
- Language is regarded as a collection of habits. Thus, language learning is
based on imitation, memorization and drilling. We learn language by habit
forming, repetition For them, language is a matter of habit.
- Language is stimulus-bound. To a particular stimulus responds the learner. I
train the learner with certain stimulus and the student will respond to that.
- Language descriptions are based on the analysis of a corpus (performance or,
better, parole). Observable behaviour.
- Study of surface structure.
- Accused of neglecting meaning and focusing on form and correctness.
- Primary interest in the phonetic system of language. Lots of studies have been
made of contrasting phonetics from different languages.
- Study of the different and unique characteristics of each language.
Linguistic determinism: the language you speak conditions the way you think (Sapir and
Whorff). The language reflects a view of the world. The Hopi language is an example of
this: different ways of viewing the world because it doesnt have verb tenses.
Behaviourist implications for language teaching audio-lingual method:
- Language is viewed as mainly spoken. For the first time, we can start analyzing
spoken language. The areas of language in which it emphasizes are:
a. pronunciation
b. vocabulary
c. (later) structures
- Role of the teacher = provider of input teacher centred approach. Make
students overlearn (en exceso para que se convierta en algo natural) structures
and pronounce accurately.
- Role of the learner = path follower or sponge. The interaction between teacher
and learner is frequent but mechanical (no meaning exchange). Typical
repetitions with very little message.
- The mother tongue is absolutely forbidden.
- Assessment (how do we measure students performance):
Through multiple-choice tests (for vocabulary).
Discrimination exercises (for pronunciation) distinguish the

different sounds: see sea sit seat
Errors are regarded as something undesirable, in which there is little

room for them. Very little meaning to exchange: how are you?, whats your
mothers name?. The errors give you information of the learners process or
development, but in the other situation there is no room for them.
2.1.2. Nativist approach: Chomsky (50s/60s)
- Language is regarded as a rule-governed system. Learning a language involves
internalising the rule. This is cognitive habit, which is very important.
- It emphasizes on the productive or creative character of the language. Thus, Generative
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Grammar.
An infinite number of sentence can be produced by what seems to be a
rather small finite number of grammatical rules. A speaker does not have
to store a large number of ready-made sentences in his head: he just
needs the rules for creating them and undestanding them
- Language description as the description of the native speakers norm
(competence).
- Study of deep structures grammatical rules.
- Later, after the study, we have the incorporation of semantic structure meaning.
- Phonetics is not so central superficial aspects.
- Study of the universal common characteristics of all languages (Universal
Grammar).
- Knowledge of language is acquired through Universal Grammar (UG).
- The Universal Grammar gives the child advanced knowledge of many abstract
and complete properties of language, so that these do not have to be learnt from
linguistic input or by general learning strategies data you receive.
For nativist, there is some evidence from this assumption. These are 3 basic explanations for
why language learning is innate
1. Acquisition goes far beyond the actual input received. A child has a capacity
of creating sentences without having heard that sentence before.
2. Degeneracy: input isnt always perfect. Even thou some sentences are
ungrammatical, the language a child acquires is perfect.
3. Lack of negative evidence: how do learners learn about ungrammatical
sentences? A child has an internal capacity. There are not explicit rules of
grammatic or ungrammatic, we just tell the kid what is worng and what is right.
With this, they start to form their own rules.
Chomsky introduces the distinction between competence and performance in 1965 in his
book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax:
Linguistic theory is primarily concerned with an ideal speaker-listener,
in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its
language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant
conditions as memory, limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and
interest, and errors in applying his knowledge of language in actual
performance (Chomsky 1965:3)
We thus make fundamental distinction between competence (the
speaker-hearers knowledge of the language) and performance (the
actual use of language, in concrete sit (Chomsky 1965:4)
Chomsky is concerned, here, with linguistics theory. The final goal is to discover the mental
realities underlying in the way people use language: competence is seen as an aspect of our
general psychological capacity. Chomsky works with an artificial construct, that is, with an
idealisation and with a homogeneous community, in order to provide an appropriate
description of language.
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Language Acquisition Device (LAD). See also Reading 2:

INPUT
LAD
OUTPUT
the verb follows

the subject
production
The child has innate ability to learn a language. To learn better a foreign language (English,
German, Spanish), the exposure to that language helps you in the process of L2 acquisition.
How often do we encounter homogeneous community? The idea of a homogeneous
community is not always so. In 1972, the challenge is that its necessary to take into account
the social and contextual aspects of language the intentions and perceptions of the language
use. We use language different.
As a result of this challenge, there is a notion of communicative competence (Hymes). For
Hyme, communicative competence can be defined in terms of 4 components, as the ability
to use language accurately, appropriately and flexibly. Pragamatically, theyre not accurate.
Depending on the context, he uses one type of language or another.
- Grammatical Competence: the accurate use of morphology and syntax.
Children can master this competence at a very young age.
- Sociolinguistics Competence: the ability to adjust out utterances to the social
context. More important these social principles.
- Discourse Competence: the ability to interpret the larger context and how to
construct longer stretches of discourse, so that different parts make a coherent
whole.
- Strategic Competence: the ability to organize a message effectively and to
compensate, via strategies, for any difficulty in communication. It is essential in
a L2 learning. A dictionar will be an example of strategic competence.
We naturally acquire these competences in our native language. Even thou in the L2 is
different, we need to live abroad in order to acquire these competences.
Primary
linguistic
data (adult
speech)
General
language
learning
principles
Grammatical
knowledge
(rules)
Childs
speech
The startegic competence compensates the breakdown in your language and improves it at
the same time.
Andrews Pivot Grammar as given in Braine:
- Combinations with all: all broke, all buttoned, all done, all wet
- Combinations with no: no be, no fix, no home, no mama
- Combinations with more: more car, more cereal, more fish
- Calico all done = Said after the death of Calico, the cat.
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2.1.3. Functional approaches: cognition and language

development (Piaget) and Social Interaction.
Functional Approaches aim at accounting for the contextual aspects of language.
Louis Bloom (1971) pointed out that telegraphic utterances could mean different things to a
child depending on the social context. She found at least 3 possible underlying relations in
the utterance mommy sock:
agent-action: mommy is the one putting the sock on.

agent-object: mommy sees the sock.
possessor-possessed: mommys sock.
These varied meanings were inadequately captured in a Pivot Grammar (Nativist
Approach). Likewise, Brown (1973) puts forward that childrens two-word utterances
could be interpreted as expressing a range of semantic relations.
There are various early semantic relations and examples of it:
RELATION
EXAMPLE
Attributive
big house
Agent-action
daddy hit
Action-object
hit ball
Agent-object
daddy ball
Nominative
that ball
Demonstrative
there ball
Recurrence
more ball
Non-existence
all-gone ball
Possessive
daddy chair
Blooms research, along with that of Piaget, Slobina and others paved the way for a new
wave of child language study what children learn about language is determined by what
they already know about the world. Language development is thus connected with cognitive
development and with childrens interaction with their environment.
Cognition and language development
According to Piaget, there is a reltionship between cognitive development and first language
acquisition. Linguistic structures will emerge only if there is an already established cognitive
foundation. For example, before children can use structures of comparison (e.g. this car is
bigger than that), the need to make relative judgements of size. If you dont understand
something cognitively, you cant explain it linguistically.
Piaget (1972) challenged the behaviourist view that cognition is too mentalistic to be studied
by the scientific method. Piaget claimed that cognitive development is at the very center of
the human organism and that language is dependent on cognitive development (Brown
2000:37)
In Piagets model of cognitive development, there are 4 stages:
1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth-2 years)
Children are developing in terms of movement and senses. There is a linguistic
explosion.
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Infants mainly make use of senses and motor capabilities to experience the
environment. For instance, if infants make cannot see or touch an object, they stop
trying to find it. Once infants develop the capability to recognize that a hiden object
still continues to exist, they start searching for it.
During the later part of this period (around 2 years old), children develop a sense
of object permanence, in which they will begin to search for objects that they have
seen hidden. At this stage children construct a mental picture of a world of objects
that have independent existence (Crystal, 1987:235)
The character limitation of this stage is thinking only by doing. Th
sensorimotor infant gains physical knowledge.
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7)
Children start to use symbols such as language to represent objects. For instance,
the child understands the word apple, although a real apple is not seen. In the
video, when the little girl only calls banana to a physical one.
However, the preoperational child still learns from concrete evidence while
adults can learn in abstract ways. The preoperational child is also unaware of
another persons perspective. They exhibit egocentric thought and language.
3. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11)
Children start to think logically. The concrete operational child begins to think
logically. Operations are in concrete situations, but not in abstract manipulations.
Concrete operations allow children to classify several classes into a bigger group
or to combine a number of classes in any order. The ability to classify the world
into different classes.
4. Formal Operational Stage (11-beyond)
Students have the ability to consider many possibilities for a given condition.
They are able to deal with propositions that explain concrete facts. They have the
ability to use planning to think ahead and they can think abstractly. They are able to
choose which of the 2 different options is the best one.
Functional perspectives and social interaction (1980-1990)
These theories pay special attention to the communicative and pragmatic function of
language. Berko-Gleason (1982:20) emphasizes on the role of interaction in language
acquisition. He describes this functional perspective in the following terms:
While it is used to be generally held that exposure to language is
sufficient to set the childs language generating machinery in motion, it
is now clear that, in order for successful L1 acquisition to take place,
interaction rather than exposure, is required; children do not learn
language from overhearing the conversations of other or from listening
to the radio, and must, instead, acquire it in the context of being spoken
to (Cited in Brown, 2000:42)
While conversation is a universal human act performed routinely in the course of daily
living, the means by which children learn to take part in conversations appear to be very
complex. The child learns not only how to initiate a conversation but how to repond to
anothers initiating utterance. Questions are recognized functionally as requests for
information, for action or for help. At a relatively young age, children learn that utterances
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have both a literal and an intended meaning.
Reading 2: Brown, H.D., First Language Acquisition

1. Creative construction is the pocess in which children gradually reconstruct the
rules for the speech they hear, guided by innate mechanisms (Dulay and Burt, 1974).
How do the following examples relate to this phenomenon?
-I holded the bunny rabbit: the child makes a regular form of an irregular verb. Because of
analogy, he uses the same rules for different verbs
- There were three mens in the park: the child adds an s to make the plural form of this
noun but using, at the same time, the plural form of the word. Hypercorrection.
Overgeneralization of a rule.
- I goed to the park: the child uses worngly the past tense of an irregualr verb.
2. Could you provide any other examples of this phenomenon both in your L1 and L2?
In my L1: anduve, ponido, cocreta, agela, murciagalo, hac, comiste, biciclista, autobusero,
caballera, nia peza (sirenita), medica, villancinco
In my L2: childs, singed, waterman, gardenman, foots
3. Why does Brown claim that the childs language is always systematic? Explain.
The child is constantly forming hypotheses on the basis of the input received and then
testing those hypotheses in speech (and comprehension). Those hypotheses are constantly
revised, reshaped or sometimes abandoned.
4. What is a pivot grammar in nativist terms? Provide examples.
There is some innate ability. The nativist prove this by taking the early grammar of children,
the pivot grammar has one or two words its an early grammar, we have two words
sentences: My cap open word
pivot
Pivot words are functional (closed class)
Open word you can put whatever you want. The pivot grammar is trying to show that this
combination: My that doesnt appear because children know which category the words
belong to.
5. What are the main characteristics of the functional approach?
The main characteristics of the functional approach would be that the sequences of
development are determined more by semantic complexity than by the structural one.
Another important characteristic would be the social interaction and langauge development language functioning extends well beyond cognitive thought and memeory structure.
2.2. General stages in the L1 Acquisition Process:

phonological, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic.
- Pre-language stage:
In the first stages, babies produce cooing and babbling sounds. With cooing velar consonants
such as /k/ and /G/ are usually present as well as high vowels, such as /i/ and /u/.
By 6 months, the child is usually able to sit and can produce a number of different vowels
and consonants such as fricatives and nasals.
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- The 1-word/holophrastic stage:

Between 12-18 months. Single unit utterances for everyday onjects (milk, cookie, cat).
These singles forms are functioning as a phrase or sentence.
- The 2-word stage:
Between 18-20 months. Vocabulary increases to 50/60 distinct words. Expressions of the
type baby chair, mommy eat, cat bad will appear. Adult interpretation of such combination is
tied-to context of utterance. So these sentences are multiple depending on the context.
- The telegraphic stage:
Between 2/3 years old. Multiple-word utterances of the type:
Andrew want bat.
This shoe all wet.
Cat drink milk
The child has developed some sentence-building capacity and can order the forms correctly.
Grammatical inflections begin to appear and simple preposition.
Grammatical development morphology + syntax
Morphology
By 3 years old, incorporation of some inflectional morphemes which indicate the
grammatical function of nouns and verbs used:
1. -ing form: cat sitting, mum reading.
2. regular plural: boys, cats Overgeneralization: foots-footses, boy-boyses
(following the houses patterns)
3. possessive inflections: girls dog, daddys tie.
4. different forms of the verb to be: is, are, was.
5. regular past tense: walked, played. Overgeneralization: wented, comed.
6. regular -s marker on 3rd person singular verbs: comes, looks. Then followed
with auxiliaries: does, has.
There is a lot of inconsistency because the rules have not been totally internalized. These are
the basic ones.
Syntax
- Question formation:
1st stage:
wh- forms added to the sentence: where mum?
rising intonation: sit chair?
nd
2 stage:
more wh- forms: what, why.
rising intonation: see my doggie?
3rd stage:
inversion subject-verbal: can I have a piece?
combines with no inversion: why kitty cant eat?

- Negatives:
pre-verbal negation: no fall, no sit here.
introduction of: dont and cant.
no and not begin to be placed in front of the verb rather than at the
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beginning of the sentence: he no bite you.
incorporation of other auxiliaries forms such as: didnt and wont. Later,
the form is added.
QUESTIONS
NEGATIVES
Stage 1 - wh- forms added to the

(18-26 beginning of the sentence:
months) where mum?
- utter the expression, rising
intonation:
sit chair?
- no/not at the beg of any

expression:
no sit here
no fall
not a teddy bear
no mitten.
Stage 2 - more wh- forms, more

(22-30 complex expressions:
months) why you smiling?
- rising intonation, the strategy
continues:
see my doggie?
- dont and cant

- no and not begin to be placed in
front of the verb:
dont know
he no bite you
there no squirrels
Stage 3 - inversion subject-verb but

(24-40 not always in wh- forms:
months) can I have a piece?
how that open?
- combined with no inversion:
why kitty cant eat?
did I cauight it?
what did you do?
- incorporation of other auxiliary

forms such as didnt and wont
(dissappearance of the Stage 1 forms)
- form isnt: very late acquisition
(some Stage2 forms still used)
Semantic development
The learning of vocabulary is the most noticeable feature of the early months of language
acquisition. Children do not learn a word with its meaning ready made. They have to work
out for themselves what it must mean, and in so doing they make errors. Three types of
errors occur often between 2 and 3 yeas old.
Overextension: children use limited vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated
objects. The most common pattern is for the child to overextend the meaning of a word on
the basis of similarities of shape, sound and size (to a lesser extent of movement and
texture). For example, the girl in the video uses the word apple to refer to all rounf fruits.
Some other examples of overextension are:
Word
1st referent
Subsequent extension
quack
duck
all bird and insects, flies, coins (those that have an

eagle in one side of the coin)
tick tock
watch
clocks, gas-meter, fire hose on a spool, scale with

round dial
candy
candy
cherries, anything sweet

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fly
fly
specks of dirt, dust, small insects, childs toes,

crumbs of bread
turtle
turtle
fish, seals
apple
apple
balls, tomatoes, cherries, onions, bicuits
box
boxes
elevators
belt
belts
watch strap
moon
moon
cookie
cookie
any type of cake
kitty
cats
rabbits, any small and furry animal
half grapefruit, lemon slice, dial on a

dishwasher, vegetables in a picture, a crescentshaped piece of paper
Underextension: children use the word with a narrower meaning than it has in the adult
language. Its not so common as overextension. An example of this is the use of the word
dog only to refer to the family animal, not to the rest of the animals.
Mismatch: children use certain terms wrongly, but there is no apparent basis for the wrong
use. There is usually no way of tracing back the association of ideas that has caused such
mismatch. For example he uses the word tractor to refer to telephone.
Child Language: Coinage of new words.
All children share the same destination, but no 2 follow exactly the
same path or travel at exactly the same speed (OGrady 2005:6)
There are 3 main ways to create new words:
1. Conversion: use a word that already exists and use it in a new way. This is
category change or functional shift:
- butter (noun) I like butter on my toast
butter (verb) I butter my toast
- ink (verb) To ink a contract (to sign a contract)
ink (noun) To pencil ink
But sometimes they use it wrongly: *the workers dirtied the floor.
2. Derivation: add an inflection to the original word:
- to teach teacher
- to wait waiter, waitress
- to cook *cooker (my father is a cooker)
He/she is applying the general rule: teach-teacher
3. Compounding: the joining of 2 separate words to produce a single form.
Combining process:
- policeman, policewoman, highchair
- *washman, *cup egg (boiled egg), *carsmoke (tubo de escape),
*skycar (airplane)
Noun compounds are one of the earliest derivational constructions. Children
create novel compounds out of familiar elements in order to convey their first agent
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or instrument nouns. Because of this, there is a process of conventionality: abandon

the new words in favor of the conventional or existing forms.
2.4. The Critical Period Hypothesis in L1 Acquisition:

Genies study (CPH)
The age factor is important for first language acquisition. The notion of a critical period was
first used by ethologists studying the origin of species-specific behaviour. It was found that
with certain species (e.g. rats), there were periods in which a particular kind of stimulus had
to be present if the baby was to develop normal behaviour. The question was, then, raised:
are there critical periods also in human maturation?
Its in first language acquisition were there is a critical period. Eric Lenneberg (1921-1975)
American Psycholinguist, argued that such a period existed in the area of language
acquisition. Main claim the potential for the language function in humans existed in very
young cildren. With increasing age, This linguistic ability deteriorated.
The development of language was said to be the result of brain maturation: the 2
hemispheres are equipotential (the same capacity) at birth, with language gradually
becoming lateralised in the left hemisphere.
left side linguistic abilities
The process of lateralisation begins at around age 2 and end at puberty (this period depends
of the race, culture), when the brain is fully developed and lateralization is complete. At
this point, there is no longer any neural plasticity (cuando puedes moldear algo), which
would enable the right hemisphere to take over the language function if the left side was
damaged.
Arguments in favour:
- patterns of recovery in brain-damaged adults and children. Adults seem to
have less of that ability to recover language if lost, whereas children showed an
ability to recover over a longer period. They could even make a complete
recovery if they were very young at the time of the damage.
Arguments against:
- controversial evidence.
- the pathological evidence is mixed. Comparisons of child and adult cases are
difficult to make. Paths of linguistic recovery have not been studied in a
detailed way. This is what we call: aphasia (total lost of speech) and disphasia
(partial lost of speech). Some people recover vey well some part of the speech,
but others dont. But these cases arent very reliable because the conditions of
research are limite, due to the fact that were dealing with a small number of
subjects.
- the evidence of normal language acquisition is also mixed. Aspects of
phonological and grammatical acquisition do continue around puberty, but
most of these skills are very well established before age 5. Other aspects
(semantics and pragmatics) are still developing in young children. For
example: children dont understand ironies.
Generally speaking, lateralization takes some years befoe its firmly established, and this
overlaps the main period of language acquisition in a way that is not yet understood. The
relationship between hemiphere specialization and language is a complex one that prevents a
continuing research challenge.
Reading 3: OGrady, W., How do they do it?

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1. According to the text, in which aspects of language acquisition is imitation

involved? Can the imitation explanation fully account for the process of language
acquisition? Justify your answer.
Most of the time they imitatewods. With every words they hear, they construct sentences.
Imitation doesnt simply involve memorizing. They dont imitate sentences because they
know they arent very good at it. They can produce sentences that they have never heard.
The former instructions of the native language arent necessary
2. What are the recasts? Are they always effective? Why (not)?
Not correcting the child, but continuing the conversation using the childs sentence in the
correct way. It is a partial repetition. The mother retakes the sentence and fomulates it in a
different way in order to give them the right input. They can and cannot be effective at the
same time. It isnt effective because they dont start using the the correct form in response to
their parents recasts. And it is effective when a child has already learn those structures, not
when they acquire it for the first time. It is helpful but not absolutely necessary because
sometimes the recast can be wrong.
3. What is motherese? Can you describe three noticeable features of motherese?
When the parents speak to their children in a special way. It involves pronunciation
(intonation), vocabulary and meaning, and sentences.
Some properties of motherese are:
- Pronunciation:
Slower speech with longer pauses between utterances and after content
words.
Higher overall pitch: greater pitch range.
Exaggerated intonation and stress.
Fewer words per minute.
- Vocabulary and meaning:
More restricted vocabulary.
Three times as much paraphrasing.
More reference to the here and now.
- Sentences:
Fewer broken or run-on sentences.
Shorter: less complex utterances (approx. 50% are single words or short
statements)
More well-formed and intelligible sentences.
More commands and questions (approx. 60% of total)
More repetitions.
4. What type of speech is considered a key contribution to language acquisition?
The type of speech that is about what they can see or hear, what they want to know about,
and what they have just experienced or are about to it.
5. What evidence is provided in the text for the relation between genetic factors and
language capacity?
A study was made for identical twins that were adopted. (page 180-182)
6. What is meant by the acquisition device? Explain Chomskys view (View 1) of
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how the language acquisition device works.

Scientists talk of a black box, a term that they use to describe a device whose contents
cannot be directly observed. Well, in this box there is a part concerned with language
learning, and this is called the acquisition device. this device turns experience into
knowledge.
According to Chomsky, the acquisition device includes a pre-made grammar, which is
generally called Universal Grammar. Thanks to that, the acquisition device is going to tell
that all languages are going to have particular categories (nouns and verbs, for example) and
it gives them some clues that help them figure our which words belong to which category. In
other words, the acquisition device is something innate, and helps children acquire faster a
language and its characteristics. (182-184)
7. According to the view of the language acquisition device as a more general tool
(View 2), what two strategies are involved in learning a language?
- Mutual exclusivity: it ensures that things should have just one label (187-188)
- Statistical learning: keep track of the relative probability two or more things happening
together. (pg 189)
8. What is the main reason for the dispute over the nature of the acquisition device?
Some linguists see language as a highly complex formal system that is best described by
abstract rules that have no counterparts in other areas of cognition. On the other hand, some
linguists think that language has to be understood in terms of its communicative function
(how language works). Be conservative laws. (pg. 190-192)
9. How can you explain
a. that children do not produce sentences such as tired I am?
Even thou they over generalize most of the grammatical rules, they know when to avoid this
overgeneralization. They know that three words can go together, but they know which 3
words cant go together. Thats why they dont construct sentences like this type, because
they know is wrong. (p. 192)
b. that children gradually replace words such as goodly, eated by well and
ate?
By the Principle of Constrast. The child learns that no two words have the same meaning.
Due to the fact that the mother forms sentences with the correct form, and even thou that
form is similar to the one the child uses, the child starts to use the correct form, thanks to the
principle and the acquisition device. (p 195)
10. According to the author, what different abilities make it possible for children to
learn language?
- speech sounds and ability to reproduce them
- ability to learn the meaning of the word very quickly, with just an exposure to it
fast map
- notice recurrent stress patterns
- ability to learn to form generalizations
- ability to pick the building flocks of language out of the speech stream
Video Session: L1 Acquisition

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1. How many sounds/phonemes are there in human languages?150 sounds.

2. What do you observe about the way mothers talk to their little children on the
video?
She uses melodic tones, easy words so the baby can process them easily and pay more
atention. Exagerated pitch. Motherese: the language a mother use to speak with babies.
3. What type of sounds are produced during the babbling stage? Are these sounds
learnt from the language that children hear around them?
Babbling sounds, repeat syllables every time. This is good for them, because they exercise
their vocal chords. They dont learn this from the adults, this technique is already acquired
when theyre born. Its universal, in all places, the babbling sounds are the same. But this is
not a form of community.
4. According to the video, what is the relationship between production and
comprehension? Which one comes first?
They first need to comprehend what surrounds them, then produce whatever they want. But
there is also some production without comprehension coming first.
5. Drawing on Piagets theory of cognitive development, how would you explain that
the baby on the video uses the word lala only to refer to a real banana?
They dont understand that one word can refer to a group. For her, she uses only lala to
refer to those bananas that she can eat, when it refers to a tangible, concrete, physical object.
This occurs during the Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years).
6. How does the word apple seem to be used by children when they are around on
year old? What is the name for this type of semantic error?
The word apple is used to refer to any type of round fruit: peach, plum She understands
that one word can refer to a big group of things that have the same characteristics. This type
of semantic error is called overextension of the word.
7. What type of words are first learnt by children? Can you think of a reason for this?
Words that dont have anything to do with the sentence. These type of words are: names,
adjectives and verbs. These words are used to relate concepts. They are stressed words.
8. Are childrens first sentences built at random? What type of grammar do they show?
Theyre not built at random. They use only the most important words. They can be not
related to the adults speech; however, these sentences have rules, but with a rudimentary
grammar. This type of grammar is called pivot grammar.
9. Between one year old and a half and five years, at what frequency do children
increase their vocabulary?
They learn around 60 words per week, or 10 words per day. Linguistic explosion.
10. What grammatical features does this girls story about the Beauty and the Beast
illustrate?
She uses language to express herself. She makes up sentences that she hadnt heard before,
by picking up words that she heard. She knows some rules for negotiating, interacting
Uses grammatical structures and the correct plural.
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11. How does the video explain the symbolic function of language?
Language can refer to things that are not present, each object has a name. They want to
categorize all the objects into groups. So they use language to represent objects. This
happens during the Pre-operational stage (2-7 years old).
12. What process underlies the creation of mouses as the plural form for mouse?
She creates it herself. She applies the logical rules for plural form: just adding an s, until
she is taught the irregular forms of some nouns. This process is called overgeneralization.
13. What type of thought does the recurrent use of I/Me show? With what stage
proposed by Piaget would you relate this reference to I/Me?
She thinks that it makes her be a separate person from everybody else. This is called selfawareness: they can recognise their image, but theyre not conscious of their self-awareness.
This takes time to develop, when they have 14 months, they dont have it, but when theyre
25 years old, they start to develop it. It occurs during the Pre-operational stage.
14. Explain the relationship between a childs IQ (intelligence quantifier) and his/her
ability to lie with the experiment conducted by professor Michael Lewis.
The higher the IQ of a child, the more they lie. This is a crucial stage. They know that if they
tell the truth, theyll get punished. 70% of the kids that peeked, lied. The ability to lie is a
sign of cognitive development. (De qu va?: se le sienta a un nio de espaldas a un tren
teledirigido, que va haciendo un recorrido. La supervisora se marcha y le dice que no puede
ver hasta que ella no haya llegado. El 70% de los nios se da la vuelta y le hecha un vistazo
al juego. Cuando llega la supervisora, les pregunta si se han dado la vuelta. Ellos mienten y
dicen que no. Al final pueden jugar con el juguete)
15. Explain what the Theory of Mind consists in and at what age it usually takes place.
It marks the transition from babyhood to childhood. It takes place when theyre around 4
years old. It is a neccessary aspect for social development and interrelations. They start to
understand that there are different ways of understanding the world. This is a big
accomplishment for them because they find out that nobody thinks the same. This is located
in the brain, in the frontal part.
Theory of Evolution: language as a defense mechanism. It gives us advantage over the
species. The fastwe you speak or understand, the safer youll be.
Video Session: Genie

1. What was Genies behaviour when she was newly found?
- she walked in a weird way, almost inhuman
- only smelled and scratched
- spitted
- she hardly spoke and expressed sounds
- she was very shy
- she used diapers
2. How did she recognise different objects?
She explores it by touching and getting it near her lips and smelled it. This looked as if she
were blind.
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3. How many words did Genie learn at first? What kind of words were they?
She learned more than a 100 words that spring. She learned them by repetition. This words
were used to express emotions (sadness, happiness, fear), shapes and colors. They were
different words that a child used to learn.
4. Which linguistic premises did Genies investigation follow?
Chomskys Theory of Nativism. Also Eric Lenneberg proposal of the Critical Period of
Hypothesis.
5. There are two major questions that the research could not answer, which ones?
- Was Genie mentally retarded from birth? The sleep spindles proved that she was
birth-retarded.
- Or is she functionally retarded? This was a result of the severe isolation.
6. Genie produced the following kind of sentences: What red blue is in? or
Applesauce buy store. What does this prove from a linguistic point of view?
This proved that there was a CP for language learning and acquisition. She formed
ungrammatical sentences, negatives in pre-sentences, interrrogatives not well-constructed.
You can learn isolated words, but you dont know how to put them together and in order in a
sentence.
3. Applied Linguistics and

Language Acquisition/Learning
Foreign/Second
3.1. Linguistic theories of Foreign/Secong Language

Acquisition (SLA).
Second language is like a second mother language. SLA refers to the learning of another
language after the native language has been learned. Sometimes the term refers to the
learning of as 3 or 4th language.
Foreign language learning is generally differentiated from second language acquisition in that
the former refers to the learner of a non-native language in the environment of ones native
language.
Second language acquisition: a general overview
1. 1950s-1960s:
Behaviourist view Contrastive Analysis
Chomskys view common things of language. This doesnt have an
application in second language acquisition. It has to do with the abstract part of
languages.
2. 1970s:
Krashens Input Hypothesis (refined and expanded in the early 1980s)
Selinker. Concept of interlanguage kind of language we produce

when were in the process of second language learning.
Disillusionment with Contrastive Analysis. It focuses on Error

Analysis source to know how they learn.
3. 1980s:
Swain: The Output Hypothesis

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Long: Interaction Hypothesis

4. Vygotsky (1896-1934). The Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding
(andamiaje). This is a metaphor: give the learner support and then we take it
gradually until the learner doesnt need it anymore. Between 1970 and 1980,
publication of his work.
3.1.1. Innatist models: Krashens Input Hypothesis
Very successful Krashen. He convinced you perfectly.
1. Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis
Adults have 2 distinctive ways of developing competences in second languages:
acquisition which is using language for real communication
learning knowing about (Krashen y Terell 1983)
ACQUISITION
LEARNING
implicit, subconscious
explicit, conscious
informal situations
formal situations
use grammatical feel

(grammatical intuitions)
use grammatical rules
depends on the attitude
depends on the aptitude
stable order of acquisition all

simple to complex order of
members learn a similar order learning we start with basic tenses
when learning a foreign language
to more complex tenses
In theory is easy to divide both terms, but in practice is harder. A child acquires the language
without being conscious of it, while an adult learns it, seen mostly when he/she does
exercises to practice.
2. Natural Order Hypothesis
Second language acquisition (primarily morphemes) takes place in a predictable order. This
order seems to be independent of the learners age, the conditions of exposure and the
background of the first language development.
This is seen as teachers when teaching an international group: you see the different errors the
different learners make. All learners have to share a similar level in the target language in
order to see common patterns (predictable order), without caring of the different ages.
Natural order patterns of the second language acquisition do not follow those of the first
language acquisition patterns. Nonetheless, there are patterns to second language
development. We do not learn a second language following the same patterns that we use to
learn a first language. However, there is a kind of transfer: first language can affect
positively in the learning of second language.
3. Monitor Hypothesis
The language that one has subconsciously acquired initiates our utterances in a second
language and is responsible for our fluency, whereas the language that we have consciously
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learned acts as an editor in situations where the learner has enough time to edit.
The monitor is responsible for correcting the language we produce. It is focused on form,
and knows the rules (such as on a grammar test in a language classroom or when carefully
writing a composition). This conscious editor is called the monitor.
You have to be exposed to data, but also you need to be aware of the form you learn. If not,
it doesnt work.
Krashen (1994) explains that in order to use a monitor well, 3 factors must be met:
1. Time: not available in normal conversation (or unplanned linguistic
exchanges)
2. Focus on form: awarenes of form, correctness.
3. Knowledge of the rules only partially known (not internalised). If you
correct yourself it means that you know the rules.
Types of learners (from a monitor perspective):
1. Monitor over-users: rely too much on grammatical knowledge.
2. Monitor under-users: rely too little on grammatical knowledge.
3. Monitor optional-users: rely on grammar when needed (not interfering with
communication).
4. Comprehensible Input Hypothesis
Humans acquire language in only one way-by understanding messages or by receiving
comprehensible input.
The learner improves and progresses along the natural order when he/she receives second
langauge input that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence i+1.
This refers to something new but not too compex to understand, language which is slightly
beyond his/her knowledge.
There are 3 key elements to this hypothesis:
a. Language is acquired, not learned, by learner receiving comprehensible input
that has arrangements or structures (elements, items) just beyond the learners
current level of mastry (i+1).
b. He pays a lot of attention to the speaking and listening part. Speech should be
allowed to emerge on its own. There is usually a silent period and
Speech will come when the acquirer feels ready. The readiness state
arrives at different times for different people (Krashen, 1994, p.55)
It should not be taught directly and a period of grammatically incorrect speech is
typical but with these constant repetition, the learner abandons these utterances
and starts using them in the corect way.
c. The input should not deriberately contain grammatically programmed
structures.
If input is understood, and there is enough of it, i+1 is automatically
provided (Krashen, 1994, p.57)
But we need, for example, to be careful when learning a romance language (italian, french,
spanish) because of the similarities between them, which can do you wrong when learning
this type of languages.
5. Affective Filter Hypothesis
- Low filter if I want to learn a second language, language will be received without any
problem.
- High filter if Im nervous, anxious or not interested in learning the language, I will receive
it with some problem.
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Affect is defined as:

The effect of personality, motivation and other affective variables on
second language acquisition (Krashen, 1994, p.57)
Krashen applies this theory to language learning and looks at its influence on the rate of
second language acquisition in 3 areas: anxiety, motivation and self-confidence. All of these
are interrelated:
- anxiety: -anxiety +acquisition
- motivation: +motivation +acquisition
- self-confidence: +self-confidence +acquisition
If a learner has low anxiety, high motivation or high self-confidence, he/she is said to have a
low affective filter. This in turn assists with allowing in more information and providing a
fertile venue (place) for learning. On the contrary, if a person has high anxiety, lower
motivation or a lower self-esteem, the affective filter will be higher and does not provide the
learner with as many subconscious language acquisition.
-anxiety +acquisition = LOW FILTER
+anxiety -acquisition = HIGH FILTER
But an excessive self-confidence can be negative for the child because he/she thinks that
he/she knows everything. For that, there is a high-affective filter.
6. Critique to Krashens Input Hypothesis
There are different critiques:
a. Difficult to verify empirically
Provision of i+1 does not mean that input aids automatically language
development. Counter-evidence: learners are able to understand more than they
can actually produce.
b. Input preferences also affect acquisition
Not all input is processed in the same way. Learners are active participants in
choosing the target models they prefer (affective filter). Your preference is going
to help you acquire it high motivation.
c. Difficulty in determining what is comprehensible input and what is not
Special efforts to provide students with exposure to specific types of authentic
discourse that represent language students need to acquire.
d. Too much reliance on input in detriment of output
We need more that exposure to the language. Communication is a two-way
system that requires interaction. If a teacher does not interact deprived of
feedback he/she needs to make linguistic adjustements (hypothesis testing). Other
proposals: Interaction Hypothesis (Long) the interactional nature of conversation
facilitates language development.
3.1.2. The Output Hypothesis: Swain
The Output Hypothesis: comprehensible second language input is insufficient to ensure allround interlanguage development. You dont just need to understand what youre listening or
reading, you need to learn to speak and write (output) in order to have a correct second
language acquisition. If you listen a german programme for 24 hours, this will not help you
to speak and write in german because youre not practicing.
Research: evidence from Canadian schools. 1960s Englis speaking parents demanded their
child to be taught French in schools. The immersion students exposed to French-medium
instruction (for extended periods of time) achieved comprehension abilities in French, close
to native speakers. However their productive ability was lower.
Swains claim: only second language production (e.g. output) really forces learners to
22
undertake complete grammatical processing, and thus drives forward most effectively the
development of second language syntax and morphology. But they had a lot of syntax
problems, so they had to process the language and realice what were their mistakes.
In the UK, for example, they want the kids to start producing earlier.
Most language learning researchers agree that output is necessary to increase fluency, e.g.
learners must practice producing second language utterances if they are to learn to use their
interlanguage system. Krashen didnt agree with this. He thought that a person acquires
fluency through the exposure.
Swain (1995:128) proposes 3 further functions for learner output:
1. The noticing/triggering function or what might be referred to as the
consciousness-raising role. The activity of producing the target language may
push learners to become aware of gaps and problems in their current second
language system. In other words, you need to be conscious of what youre
learning and what your needs are.
2. The hypothesis-testing function: the activity of prducing the target language
provides learners with opportunities to experiment with new structures and forms.
Production then
may force te learner to move from semantic processing to syntactic
processing (Swain 1985:249)
3. The metalinguistic function, or what might be referred to as its reflective
role; the activity of producing the target language provides learners with
opportunities to reflect on, discuss and analyse problems explicitly.
Several studies on the role of output in second language development show clear benefits,
especially vocabulary. However, regarding grammar development, the benefits of pushed
output remain somewhat elusive and hard to demonstrate.
3.1.3. Social Constructivist models: Longs Interaction
Hypothesis and Vygostkys ZPD
In order to succeed in foreign language, interaction is fundamental.
This model (in 1985 started, in 1996 was retaken) emphasizes the dynamic nature of the
interplay between learners-peers, teachers and others with whom they interact. The
interpersonal context gains importance.
The focus is on the role that negotiated interaction between native and non-native speakers,
and between two non-speakers plays in the development of a second language. Conversation
is not only a medium practice but also the means by which learning takes place.
Conversational interaction in a second language forms the basis for the development of
language.
Negotiation for meaning facilitates acquisition because it connects:
- input
- internal learner capacities
- particular selective attention
- output
All of Krashen and Swains hypothesis are retaken and included in this hypothesis. Thus,
comprhensible input is the result of modified interaction. In other words, the various
modifications that native speakers and other interlocutors create in order to make their input
comprehensible to learners.
What is intended is that through focused negotiation, the learners attentional resources may
be oriented to:
- a particular discrepancy between what he/she knows about the second
language and the real use of it.
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- an area of the second language about which the learner has little or no
information.
Learning may take place during the interaction or it may be an initial step in learning it. But
for learning to occur, there are 3 requirements:
- positive evidence (input)
- negative evidence (feedback) this is like recasts, important but not sufficient
because learners need to be conscious of it.
- output
In a second language teaching context, this hypothesis fosters (promotes, encourages):
- project work
More input more output
- task-based activities
- cooperative learning
However, interactionist research has only just begun. It has shown interesting findings in
areas such as pronunciation and lexis.
There was a big improvement in lexis and pronunciation. However, in the bilingual schools
of Spain, the pronunciation hasnt experienced a big rise.
Future research will need to determine the long-term effects of interaction on other parts of
language. But also expand contents of study (current research in western contexts, where
learners value and are taught a second language through conversations).
Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development (1896-1934)
Vygotsky adopts a sociocultural perspective on second language learning. target language
interaction cannot be viewed simply as a source of input for autonomous and internal
learning mechanisms. The social context has a much more central role to play in learning.
- Scaffolding and ZPD
It gives the students some help and support for the students to learn better.
The nature, skilled individual is capable of autonomous functioning, that is self-regulation.
However, the child or the unskilled individual learns by carrying out tasks an activities under
the guidance of other more skilled individuals (such as caregivers or teachers). That is, the
child or learner is inducted into a shared understanding of how to do things through
collaborative talk, until eventually they take over (or appropriate) new knowledge or skills
into their own individual consciousness. So, successful learning involves a shift from
collaborative inter-mental activity to autonomous intra-mental activity.
The process of suppportive dialogue which directs the attention of the learner to key features
of the environment, and which prompts them trhough successive steps of a problem, has
come to be known as Scaffolding. The domain where learning can most productively take
place is known as the Zone of Proximal Development, e.g., the domain of knowledge or
skill where the learner is not yet capable of independent functioning, but can achieve the
desired outcome given the relevant scaffolded help.
The Zone of Proximal Development is the time when the learner is able to work without
help. This was defined by Vygotsky as:
The difference between the childs development level as determined by
independent problem solving and the higher level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.
3.1.4. The Interlanguage theory: Selinker (IL)
The term interlanguage was coined by Selinker (1972). There are various alternative terms
that have been used to describe basically the same phenomenon:
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- approximative system
- transitional competence
- idiosyncratic dialect
- learner language
Interlanguage is when the learner constructs a system of abstract linguistic rules which
draws, in part, on the learners L1 but is also different from it and also from the target
language. This system of rules is viewed as a mental grammar. The learners create this
language system. They impose structure on the available linguistic data and formulate an
internalized system. The learners language is neither the system of the mother tongue, not
that of the second language, but contains elements from both.
L1 Interlanguage Grammar L2
This interlanguage is not equal to your mother tongue nor to your second language. Its in
the middle because its influenced by both.
Characteristics of the Interlanguage
1. It is permeable. Rules are not fixed but open to alterations and influences.
2. It is dynamic. The learners interlanguage is constantly changing from one time to
another, learners change their grammar (e.g. they add or delete rules and restructure
the whole system). This result is an interlanguage continuum. The changes are
gradual. That is, learners construct a series of mental grammars or interlanguage as
they gradually increase the complexity of their second language knowledge.
The interlanguage evolves in the direction of the second language as long as the
process of acquisition takes place.
Initial IL systems = less complex, developmental continuum vs restructuring
continuum:
- developmental continuum: similar to IL continuum. You construct
different stages of IL. Youre learning rules in different stages, which
develops your second language.
- restructuring continuum: when learning a second language, you
restructure your mother tongue.
Davies (1999:148) definition of IL is: the various stages of the learners second
language development.
3. It is systematic. In spite of the variability of interlanguage, it is possible to identify
the rule-based nature of the learners use of L2. At any given time of the acquisition
process, the learners transitional system has a grammar. This grammar is
describable in terms of rules.
4. It can be fossilized. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language
(1987:755) defines fossilization of a linguistic form or rule in the following way:
To become permanently established in the interlanguage of a second
language learner in a form that is deviant (doesnt follow the rules)
from the target language norm and that continues to appear in
performance regardless of further exposure to the target language
Some errors may become permanent features of their learners speech: fossilized errors
(these type of errors are always with you) vs. transitional errors (theses erros dissappear
25
because you master the rule and they finally dissappear).

Many learners do not reach the end of the interlanguage continuum (e.g., they fail to reach
target language comptence)
Fossilization is unique to L2 grammars.
INTERLANGUAGE THEORY, BOTH GENERATIVE AND BENEFITED FROM
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH INTO SLA.
Error analysis reveals 2 main types of errors that learners make when actively constructing a
system for the L2:
1. Interlingual errors. Errors due to transferring rules from the mother tongue to
L2.
The influence of L1 as a source of error is known as negative transfer. For
example, there would be a positive transfer if you copy some Spanish words
when talking in Italian, but not if you do it to German or English.
2. Intralingual errors. These errors show that the learner is processing the L2 in its
own terms. Most of them are errors of overgeneralisation (also found in L1
acquisition):
house houses
*mouse mouses
*fish fishes
3.2. General stages in FL/L2 acquisition

How do learners progress on their way to target language competence?
GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES: the acquisition order for grammatical features has been
found to be more or less the same, irrespective of the subjects L1 backgrounds, of their age
and of whether the medium is speech or writing. There are similarities with the
developmental order of L1 acquisition (fo example, in both cases the ing is the firt form to
be acquired). But there are also some differences:
- possessive morpheme s acquired later in the L2.
- forms of the verb to be acquired earlier in L2 than in L1.
- (25.abril.08) gradual development.
- overlapping stages.
- show replacement of transitional forms.
- individual difference/preferences due to the linguistic background and
strategies the learners use.
Reading 5: Gass and Selinker, Non language influences

PART 1
Work with one/two classmates on ONE of the following areas mentioned in the article:
- Social distance
Schumanns (1978) Accuration Model:
- defined as the process of becoming adapted to a new culture
- social+affective variables (social distance and psychological distance)
- give examples of these variables
- evidence?
- link with question 2 (part 2) a key factor? provide reasons
- does this model account for the fact that attitude is not fixed and static but
26
potentially dynamic, fluctuating? No

MT/L1 L2
- Age differences
Common assumption: children are better language learners.
There is a dispute. Why?
Considerable evidence: L2 learners that begin learning as adults are unable to
achieve speakers competence in either grammar or pronunciation. But there is
some evidence that not all adult learners fail to achieve native speakers.
- Aptitude
Natural ability for learning L2.
Components:
- phonetic coding ability.
- grammatical sensibility.
- inductive language learning.
- Motivation
Appears to be the second strongest preeditor of success.
Problems: no clear definicin of it and different bies
Motivation involves 4 aspects (Gardners Model):
- a goal.
- effortful behaviour.
- favorable attitude towards the activities.
- a desire to attain the goal.
Criticism of Gardners Model for motivation:
- exclusively based on the Canadian context.
- cuestionable relliance of self-reported data.
Kinds:
- Interrogative vs. Instrumental.
- motivacin as the cause. But it can also be seen as the result of learning
(resultive motivation)
- more intrinsic motivation, less learning tasks are intrinsically motivating.
Arousal and maintenance of curiosity (Ellis, 1997)
- Anxiety
Intermediate stage between motivacin and personality.
Different types depending on the source of anxiety (e.g. social anxiety, test
anxiety)
Effect on performance? (for example, of how anxiety can affect L2 learning in
a negative way)
Low levels help, whereas HIGH level hurt question 7.
- Personality factors
Most classification schemes base on self-reported data.
Some of the more commonly discussed personality factors.
Extroversion vs. introversion Q.8. Advantages of both for L2 learning.
Risk taking
Many of the strategies associated with good language learners
27
involve a willingness to take risks (p.262)

E.g. attempt to use particular grammatical structures.
Connection with success?
Relatively weak (more correlation found between risk-taking and a classroom
participation, Ellis, 1986)
Field independence vs. field dependence (COGNITIVE STYLE)
The field independent person tends
- to be highly analytical.
- to ignore (potentially confusing) information in the context.
- to be safe reliant.
The field dependence person tends to pay greater attentionto context.
Field dependence would seen to help in social interactions.
BUT THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT ONE TRAIT IS GOOD.
- Learning Strategies
Some SLA studies eal with learning strategies in a separate section (I.e. not as
part of individual learner variables).
What are learning strategies?
- steps or actions taken by learners to improve the development of their
language skills (pg. 245)
Classification (photocopy):
- metacognitive strategies.
- cognitive strategies.
- social or affective strategies.
What is needed is research to show that strategy does really lead to language
improvement. Still preliminary research.
3.4. The role of formal instruction in FL/SLA learning:

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
CLIL movement: teaching of content, discipline, language through a foreign
language.
To begin
For any pedagogical innovation to be effective, teachers have to be
able to change their mental framework
1. What is CLIL?
An educational context in which an additional language is used for
the teaching and learning of subjects other than the language itself
(Marsh and Lang)
An example of this is when a kid learns biology, math in English.
CLIL adopts a dual focus.
In a CLIL class, attention is given to both topic (biology, history)
and language. () CLIL is an educational approach (set of
methodologies) which provides various forms of educational
development, including language (Marsh 2001)
28
CLIL encompasses a wide variety of approaches to integrated learning. Some authors identify
up to 20 types (Marsh 2001):
Language content
Origins: beginning of the 90s in Finland, based, in turn, on immersion programmes in
Canada (Genesse and Swain, 1987)
Other terms:
- bilingual programmes (Catalua, Pas Vasco)
- secciones europeasa
- immersion programmes
- content-based learning
- EMI (English as the Medium of Instruction)
- EAL (English as an Additional Language-content and Languageintegrated)
In Madrid, the bilingual schools are growing because its starting to be very urgent. Which
classes are given in English depend on the teacher. Spanish languge and Math arent allowed
to be given in English.
2. Rationale for CLIL: the 3 dimensions (Prez Vidal 2005):
Socio-European:
- promotes linguistic diversity (other countries try to promote minority
languages, also EEUU)
- enforces a laryngeal and floricultural approach
- takes into account different cultural perspectives. For example, different
perspectives of Phillip II.
- promotes European citizenship being European entalis speaking foreign
languages (FLs).
Linguistic:
- increases exposure to foreign languages input: more quantity (Krashen 1985,
comprehensible input) + more quality? (Long 1991). One doesnt presuppose
the other. Its the teachers task.
- language is the means to learn, not the object of learning. It is also to
communicate ideas
- incidental language learning not intentional
- promotes more quantity of output (more chances of production) and quality
(?). Children have more opportunities to speak other languages.
- authenticity of:
a. contents: new, useful and meaningful
b. materials: not using textbooks for FLs
c. skills + strategies
d. interaction modified/negotiated input (Long 1991)
- natural language acquisition (Krashen 1985): resembles more L1 acquisition
than L2 learning (unconscious, unplanned). Students get involved and learn
quickly. For example, a girl that is studying History in English knows that she
is learning History. Even thou she sees her English grades are better, she
doesnt realize she is learning it during History class.
Educational
- cross-curricular approach (combination of different subjects) to language
29
learning
- learning process becomes important and central per se (en s mismo)
- motivation is intrinsic KEY FACTOR
- learning in a CLIL context demans higher concentration and favours creative
thinking
- learning is achieved by deduction not instruction (Wolff 2006). Children
have to work out several rules
- deeper thinking and more retention of content: Cover less but uncover
more (Walqui 2006). Discovering language, but we might have less facts.
3. Results (with empirical evidence)
L1 literacy (reading and writing) is not affected by a CLIL approach. If anything,
there are more positive than negative effects (Bialystok 2004, Van de Craen 2007). If
a children starts to learn English when he/she is 3 years old, this will not affect on the
learning of his/her mother tongue.
BUT caution must be taken with migrant workers children.
Higher levels of motivation, self-esteen among teachers, students + all

stakeholders involved.
Language outcomes: (Dalton-Puffer 2007)

+++ IMPROVEMENT
Vocabulary
Morphology
Receptive skills (listening/reading)
Creativity (making up words), risk-taking, fluency, quatity
Syntax (complexity)
Writing (discourse skills - cohesion, coherence)
Informal/non-technical language
Pronunciation
Pragmatics?
Content outcomes: CLIL students possess same content knowledge as peers.
- If tested in L1, immersion students outperform peer controls
- If tested in L2, their advantage only shows in maths (Day/Shapson 1996, Van
de Craen et al 2006)
CLIL (www.clilcompendium.com)
Developes intercultural communication skills
Prepares for internalisation
Provides opportunities to study content through different perspectives
(multiculturalism)
Accesses subject-specific target language terminology
Improves overall target language competence
Developes oral communication skills
Diversifies methods and forms of classroom practice
30
PART III. Other Trends in Applied

Linguistics
4. Discourse Analysis and Applied Linguistics
(Handout of Gender and Discourse)
Gender is about seeing biological factors as leading to certain form of behaviour. E.g. the
traditional idea in medicine and early psychology that people with wombs were more likely to
become emotionally unstable. We can see this connection in the origin of the terms hysteria
and hysterical, which come from the Greek hysterikos, meaning of the womb. Hysterical
behaviour traditionally associated with women (biology as a cause).
The terms masculine/feminine and masculinity/femininity are about expected gender
characteristics of what women and men are spposed to be like.
Gender expectations and roles are reflected in language.
Language as a vehicle of meaning (it expresses the way we conceptualise the
world).
Examples of the idea of social roles:
1. The declaration of sentiments
( E. Cady Staton, 1848)
exclusion from public life
2. The laws that men have made
(E. Panhurst, 1908)
3. Equal rights for women inequality at work
(S. Chrisholm, 1969)
4. A 21st century feminism gain equality at home
(G. Steinem, 2002)
4.1. What is Discourse?

The traditional concern of linguistic analysis has been the construction of sentences, but lately
there has been an increasing interest in analysing the way sentences work in sequences to
produce coherent stretches (fragments) of language, known as discourse. Discourse is
everywhere. A number of sentences need to be coherent, because if not, there is no discourse
Some definitions of discourse are:
- Discourse analysis is concerned with the relationship between language and the
contexts in which it operates (McCarthy, 1991). Some examples:
This is hot depending on the context, it means one thing or another:

- food spicy food
- news breaking news
- learning
- drinks
- Discourse analysis is the discipline devoted to the investigation of the
relationship between form and function in verbal communication (Rekema,
1993). With one sentence, there are different interpretations, which are seen by
the speaker.
- Discourse analysis is the study of language of communication-spoken or written
(Schiffrin, 1994).
- Discourse analysis involves patterns of belief and habitual actions as well as
patterns of language (Josnstone, 2002). This deals with belief and ideology,
looking at language in a social context.
Some fields of study within discourse analysis:
31
1. Cohesion: a classical approach to text analysis. The use of various cohesive ties
to explicitly link together all propositions in a text results in cohesion of that text.
Halliday and Hansans (1976) model ofr cohesion. If a text has cohesion elements,
it doesnt mean its coherent. They go hand-in-hand.
Some cohesion elements are:
- substitution: replacement of one element for another:
Ive got a pencil. Do you have one?
Will we get there on time? I think so.
- ellipsis: a piece of structure is omitted and can only be recovered
from the preceding discourse:
Where di you see the car? In the street.
How are you? Fine.
- coreference: the act of referring to a preceding (anaphoras) or
following (cataphoras) element:
Several people approached. They seemed angy anaphoras
I told the boy, John, that it was getting late cataphoras
- conjunction: the use of explicit element to relate propositions:
I left early. However, Mark stayed till the end.
First, we went to the beard. Later to dinner.
- lexical cohesion: one lexical item enters into a structure relationship
with another:
The flowers were lovely. He liked the tulips best.
These are explicit items introduced to give the text cohesion, but it doesnt
mean that it gives it unity. An example of cohesion but no coherence:
A week has seven days. Every day I fed my cat. Cats have four legs. The cat is
on the mat. Mat has 3 legs lexically talking, it is well formed, but there is no
coherence.
2. Coherence: contributes to the unity of a piece of discourse such that individual
sentences or utterances hang together and relate to each other. This unity is partially
a result of recognisable top-down organisational, pattern for the propositions in the
passage.
In order to understand a text, we need, also, knowledge outside the text, not just
the meaning of it. In order to be coherent, there needs to be coherent
communication. The following example exemplifies it: A week has seven days.
Every day I fed my cat. Cats have four legs. The cat is on the mat. Mat has 3 legs.
A text has to be coherent in that the concepts and relationships expressed should be
relevant to each other, thus enabling us to make plausible inferences about the
underlying meaning.
3. Information structuring: messages are organised units of information.
When a speaker structures a message, the information is processed into units
and ordered in such a way as to produce the kind of message desired:
The waiter brought the shots.
It was the waiter that brought that shots.
The shots the waiter brought.
The shots were brought.
The factors which condition the choice of one structure or another can be
32
pragmatic:
- which element of the proposition represents the main topic (what the
clause is about)
- which part of the message the speaker considers most important.
- which part of the message the speaker treats as known to the hearer
(theme), and which is presented as new (rheme).
- what information, if any, is presupposed at any given point in the
discourse: the waiter brought the (some) shots.
- which element the speaker chooses as the point of departure of the
message: the waiter brought the shots, it was the waiter that brought that
shots, the shots the waiter brought, the shots were brought.
Theme: the information known already by the speaker. Rheme: the information
that the speaker doesnt know.
4. Conversation(al) analysis: the study of conversational structure that are based
on the techniques of the American sociological movement of the 1970s known as
Ethnomethodology. The central concern is to determine how individuals
experience, make sense of, and report their interactions. Were looking at how
people behave in conversations, by seeing his age, social groups, more/less
power All of these are seen in a conversation.
The data consists of tape recordings of natural conversation, and their associated
transcription. These are systematically analysed to determine what properties
govern the way in which a conversation proceeds. Video recordings are also
important because you see your gestures, how you sit, your movements
Because conversational discourse varies so much in length and complexity, analysis
generally begins by breaking an interaction down into the smallest units, then
examinig the way these units are used in sequences. The units have been called
exchanges or interchanges of the following type, each of these utterances are
turns:
- initiating utterance: whats the time?
- response utterance: ten past three.
The unit of analysis of speech is difficult to examine. But we can break it into small
units and examine how they work in different conversations.
An important aim of discourse analysis is to find out why conversations are not
always successful. Misunderstandings and mutual recrimination is fairly common.
Participants often operate with different rules and expectations, especially if they
come from different cultural backgrounds. Other variables that affect conversation
analysis are: gender (female/male conversation styles), age (youngsters/adults),
profession, education, culture The turn-taking is different in other cultures: in
here, the pause is longer. If you make it short, you break the pace of the
conversation.
5. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): CDA is a type of analytical discourse
research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance and
inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and
political context. In Spain, for example, the way a new is written depends on the
newspaper.
Critical discourse analysis takes explicit position, and thus wants to understand,
expose and ultimately to resist social inequality. The changes in society are seen in
discourse analysis.
33
Fairdough and Wodak (1997: 271-280) summarize the main tenuets of CDA as
follows:
1. CDA addresses social problems.
2. Power relations are discursive.
3. Discourse constitutes society and culture.
4. Discourse does ideological work.
5. Discourse is historical.
6. The link between text and society is medicated.
7. Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory.
8. Discourse is a form of social action.
Reading 6: Schmitt, N. (2002), Discourse Analysis

1. Explain the differences between utterances and sentences.
Utterances: sequences of words written or spoken in specific contexts. Pragmatic/discourse
notion. Does not conform to a rule, but has a meaning. They are more flexible than sentences.
Its the discourse.
Sentences: sequences of words conforming, or not, to the rules of grammar for the
construction of phrases, clauses. Unit of analysis for discourse and pragmatic. Grammatical
notion. It is a statement.
2. What does the following mean: one of the ways of approaching differences between
speaking and writing is to plot individual texts along scales and dimensions (page
57)?
There is not a straight division between both, but it is a cline (line) because there is a
continuous line. In order to see the differences between both discourses, in a scale we draw
the most formal interactions at one end, and in the other we draw the most informal
interactions. The most formal end refers to the written form, such as academic articles; while
at the most informal end, there is the spontaneous spoken interactions.
3. In conversation analysis there are two units of analysis turn-taking and
adjacency pairs. Explain what these units encompass and give your own example.
(page 61-62)
Turn-taking: any contribution of the speaker. Eac occasion that a speaker speaks and a turn
ends when another takes a turn. This is based on social interaction.
Adjacency pairs: one turn needs the other. It is a pair of turns that mutually affect one another.
4. What is a speech event and in which area of discourse analysis can we place it?
(page 63)
For spoken elements. Another way of approaching oral language. Speech event is every
component that is involved during a conversation. Some of these components are: setting
scene, participant, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalisties, norms of interaction and
interpretation, and genre (SPEAKING).
5. Provide a definition for Systematic Functional Linguistics. (page 66)
Looks at the relationship between the language text and social context. The central concern of
this is how people use language with each other to accomplish everyday social life and how
social worlds are, in turn, created in and through language.
34
5. Corpus Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

5.1. Why Corpus Linguistics?
- Mainstream (important) approach to linguistic study.
- Relevance in Discourse Analysis research.
- Interdisciplinary field: we mix it with other fields.
- Provides students with practical instruction and first-hand experience of naturally
occurring language (vs. language used for exemplification, for example syntax) and the
chance to regard computers as a research tool to analyze language.
- Useful tool for investigating L2 acquisition and Foreign Language learning and
teaching (FLl). It gives us information to see how they acquire it and how is it.
5.2. What is Corpus? What is Corpus Linguistics?

Definition of Corpus:
A Corpus is a large, principled (organized) collection of naturallyoccurring texts that is stored in electronic form (accessible on computer).
Corpora can include both written and transcribed spoken texts
(Conrad, 2002:76)
We need a broad number of things to analyze
Differences between a Corpus and a Text Archieve/Data
Corpus. Designed for linguistics analysis. It is systematic, planned and structured
compilation of texts.
Text Archieve/Data.A text repository (collection), often huge and opportunistically collected
(for some particular reason) and normally not structured (Project Gutenberg).
www.gutenberg.org not a Corpus because there is no linguistic analysis, but it can be used for
Corpus Linguistics analysis.
Definition of Corpus Linguistics
- A Corpus-based analysis (Biber, Conrad & Reppen, 1998:4):
- Its empirical, that is, analyses the actual patterns of use in natural texts (rather than
patterns of language structure)
- Utilises a large and principled collection of natural texts as the basis for analysis.
- Makes extensive use of computers for analysis, using both automatic and
interactive techniques.
- Depends on both quantitative (number of words) and qualitative (interpreting the
data we have) analytical techniques.
Types of Electronic Corpora
a. General Copora:
Body of texts with linguists analyze to seek answers to particular questions about the
vocabulary, grammar or discourse structure. Also known as balanced corpora or core corpora.
b. Specialized Corpora:
Designed with particular research projects in mind:
- sociolect corpora: social class.
- regional corpora: Spanish in Spain vs. Spanish in South America.
- non-standard corpora: language used between youngsters.
- learner corpora: my English.
c. Dynamic Corpora (monitor):
35
Open-ended language banks which are limited only by the financial resources and technology
used to maintain them. The Corpus of RAE is dynamic, because youre still adding words and
its growing at the same time. Some types of Corpora are in page 95, reading 7.
www.bnc.co.uk
www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk only a small part, you dont have access to the 100 million
words. In here, you search in which kind of novels do these terms appear.
http://corpus.rae.es/creanet.html xa ver el corpus espaol
micase
Relevant Corpora
CORPUS
NUMBER OF WORDS
The Survey of English Usage (SEU)

Spoken and written British English
1 million
The Brown Corpus

Written American English
1 million
British National Corpus (BNC)

Spoken and written British English
10 million
The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE)

Writing by English learners
3 million
The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English 2 million

(MICASE)
Spoken American English (by the students of university)
The Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (LOB)
Written British English
1 million
The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT)

Spoken British English (teenagers speech)
The Longman/Lancaster Corpus
Written English
30 million
5.3. Types of Corpus Linguistics studies: methodological

premises.
- Investigating the use of a linguistic feature (lexical or grammatical)
http://visl.hum.ou.dk/visl/en/parsing/automatic/ machine analysis, it gives you a complete
analysis of a word or sentence.
- Investigating varieties or texts (e.g. registers, dialects, historical periods)
Methodological premises
1. The size factor no, of words
no, of texts from different categories
no, of samples from each text
The wider the number, the wider the conclusion.
2. Representatives
36
3. Annotation system information that is attached to the discourse (reading 7,

markup and annotation
4. Theoretical framework:
- validity
- relability
(29.mayo.08) Corpus Linguistics is a complementary approach to language study,
rather than a goal in itself.
() quantitative measures are essential in language analysis, but they
are not sufficient. Surface differences require further qualitative
investigation. (Granger, 1998:36)
5.5. Implementation of Corpus-based research in the

EFL classroom.
- To study linguistic competence and/or performance as revealed in naturally-occurring data.
- http://micase.umdl.umich.edu/m/micase o http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micase/
- To design teaching materials to:
Build large lexicons: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Prepare vocabulary lists based on high-frequency lexical items:
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
Prepare cloze texts (fill-in the gaps)
Answer ad hoc (para el momento) learner questions:
http://www.cambridge.org/
Discover facts about learner language:
http://www.collins.co.uk/corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx. Concordance: how the
word is distributed in the text (reading 7, fig 6.1.)
Corpus Linguistics
- Is a concsiousness-raising and language awareness method.
- Calls for inductive learning.
- Favours learning by discovery.
5.7. The future of Corpus Linguistics.

- Availability of computer tools and increasing user-friendliness.
- Investigations in corpus sizes and sampling techniques.
- Standardisation.
- Application to other studies or areas.
Features of conversational features:
- phrasal verbs
- contractions
- think
- say
- cool
- yeah
- cos
Features of academic prose:

- passive voice
- more impersonal
- formal vocabulary
-mitigation/hedge
(protegerse, tener cuidado con lo que se
dice). Some examples of these: it could be
said, suggest, may/might be thought
37
Possible exam question

- How does the CPH relate to a nativist approach of language acquisition? And to a
social functional approach of language acquisition?
Nativist, Chomsky: LAD, innate language acquistion device, biological
predisposition to language. No need for CPH. Without exposure to the language
(or linguistic input), there wouldnt be no output or it is very much affected. There
is a pre-disposition of the language, because we have a biological capacity, but we
need to be exposed to the language.
Social-functional, Piaget: we need a linguistic input during CPH to produce
output, in order to be a successful learning of the language.
There are 6.800 languages in the world:
- all languages have consonants and vowels
- not all languages have nouns and sintactic elements.
There are more things in common between the different languages.
38

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Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

1.1. What is Applied Linguistics?

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

language should be studied: German, French, Chinese, Italian, Russian

1.2. The development of Applied Linguistics.

1.3. The Interrelationship of the Disciplines

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

language in the development and possible solutions of ecological and

Reading 1: Schmitt, N. An Overview of Applied Linguistics.

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

- Interpersonal: maintain personal relationships with others.

PART II: Traditional areas

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

2.1. Theories of first language acquisition

Through multiple-choice tests (for vocabulary).

Discrimination exercises (for pronunciation) distinguish the

Errors are regarded as something undesirable, in which there is little

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

Language Acquisition Device (LAD). See also Reading 2:

the verb follows

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

2.1.3. Functional approaches: cognition and language

agent-action: mommy is the one putting the sock on.

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

have both a literal and an intended meaning.

Reading 2: Brown, H.D., First Language Acquisition

2.2. General stages in the L1 Acquisition Process:

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

- The 1-word/holophrastic stage:

inversion subject-verbal: can I have a piece?

combines with no inversion: why kitty cant eat?

pre-verbal negation: no fall, no sit here.

introduction of: dont and cant.

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

beginning of the sentence: he no bite you.

Stage 1 - wh- forms added to the

- no/not at the beg of any

Stage 2 - more wh- forms, more

- dont and cant

Stage 3 - inversion subject-verb but

- incorporation of other auxiliary

all bird and insects, flies, coins (those that have an

clocks, gas-meter, fire hose on a spool, scale with

cherries, anything sweet

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

specks of dirt, dust, small insects, childs toes,

balls, tomatoes, cherries, onions, bicuits

any type of cake

rabbits, any small and furry animal

half grapefruit, lemon slice, dial on a

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

or instrument nouns. Because of this, there is a process of conventionality: abandon

2.4. The Critical Period Hypothesis in L1 Acquisition:

Reading 3: OGrady, W., How do they do it?

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

1. According to the text, in which aspects of language acquisition is imitation

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

how the language acquisition device works.

Video Session: L1 Acquisition

Applied Linguistics, Emma Dafouz

1. How many sounds/phonemes are there in human languages?150 sounds.