Second Language Acquisition

Prepared by:
Nur Asyiqin
Language and The Human Brain
(Article 1)
1. Composed of +/- 10 billion nerve cells (neurons).
2. Cerebral cortex (Highest level of the brain)
• Only found in mammals.
• Human has the greatest proportion of cortex.
• Mainly used for lg. representation & lg. processing.
1. Cerebral hemispheres :
• Right hemisphere : supervise left side of the body.
• Left hemispheres : supervise right side of the body.
 Modularity of the Brain

Left hemisphere
• Language, rhythmic perception, temporal-
order judgements, math-thinking skills
Right hemisphere
• Pattern-matching, tasks, recognizing face,
spatial orientation.
 Localization & Lateralization of The Brain

• Different human cognitive abilities and

Localization behaviours are localized in specific parts of
the brain

• any cognitive function that is localized

primarily in one side of the brain
Lateralization
• Language is lateralized to the left
hemisphere.
 Language Lateralization
(Evidence of Theory)
1. Split-brain patients
• In the past, some cases of severe epilepsy were treated by cutting the corpus
callosum, severing the connection between the two hemispheres.
2. Messages sent to the hemispheres cause different responses in split-brain
patients.
• Object placed in the left hand (right hemisphere): object can be used but not
named
• Object placed in the right hand (left hemisphere): object can be named and
described immediately
 Brain Lesions
1. Language usually does not develop
normally in children with early left-
hemisphere brain lesions .
2. Babbling, vocabulary-learning delayed
in children with right-hemisphere brain
lesions.
 Hemispherectomy : removing one
hemisphere of the brain
In adult hemispherectomy patients:
• left cerebral hemisphere removed
- lose most but not all of their linguistic competence
- lose the ability to speak and process complex
syntactic patterns
- retain some language comprehension ability
• right cerebral hemisphere removed
- difficulty in understanding jokes and metaphors
- cannot use loudness and intonation as cues to whether a
- speaker is angry, excited, or merely joking.

# So, the right hemisphere also has a role in normal

language use.
 Plasticity of Brain
1. To some extent, the brain may reassign functions to different areas of the brain.
2. Left hemisphere is predisposed to learn language.
3. During language development, the right hemisphere can take over many language
functions if necessary .
4. Child hemispherectomy patients are able to reacquire a linguistic system, albeit
delayed.
5. In adults, the right hemisphere cannot take over linguistic functions anymore.
6. Plasticity of the brain decreases with age.

Conclusion : Language faculty is autonomous, genetically determined, and consists of

multiple brain modules...

It is not derived from more general intelligence.

 Language Localization (Aphasia)
1. Aphasia : Any language disorder due to
brain damage caused by disease of
trauma
2. Aphasics :- selectively language
impaired, do not (necessarily) have
cognitive or intellectual impairments.
 Occurrence:
damage to
the front
part of the
left Intelligence
Difficulties hemisphere and
understandin understandin
g complex g are not
Area of sentences necessarily
affected
control: Broca’s
Syntax Aphasia
Difficulties Trouble
forming with
grammatical function
sentences words
Trouble with
inflectional
morphology
Examples of Speech
• "Yes ... Monday ... Dad, and Dad ... hospital,
and ... Wednesday, Wednesday, nine o'clock
and ... Thursday, ten o'clock ... doctors, two,
two ... doctors and ... teeth, yah. And a doctor
... girl, and gums, and I."

• "Me ... build-ing ... chairs, no, no cab-in-ets.

One, saw ... then, cutting wood ... working ..."
 Wernicke’s Aphasia
Area of
1. Strengths : Fluent speech & good control:
Semantics
intonation.
2. Weaknesses : Lexical errors, nonsense
words, “word salad”, comprehension
impaired
3. Area : In the parietal/temporal region in the
left hemisphere.
 Examples of Speech
•Doctor: How do you feel?
• Patient: I felt worse because I can no longer
keep in mind from the mind of the minds to
keep me from mind and up to the ear which
can be to find among ourselves
ARTICLE 4 : LANGUAGE
AND THE MIND
 Nativism (Chomsky’s LAD theory)
1. Language acquisition is innately determined, that we are born with a built-
in device of some kind that predisposes us to language acquisition.”
(Brown, 1973).
2. All people have an innate, biological ability to acquire a language.
3. People possess a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), a sort of
neurological wiring that, regardless of the language to be acquired, allows
a child to listen to a language, decipher the rules of that language, and
begin creating with the language at a very young age.
4. With the LAD they are able to make or understand utterances that they
have not previously heard. Their first language is acquired with no direct
instruction, no practice, no drills and with no apparent difficulty.
 Evironmentalism (Skinner’s Verbal
Behaviour)
1. An organism’s nurture, or experience, are of
more significance to development than its
nature or inborn contributions (but not
completely reject the innate factors).
2. Language development is the result of a set of
habits (behaviourism). Knowledge is the product
of interaction with the environment through
stimulus-response conditioning.
Stimulus (ST) – Response (RE) Learning

Unconditioned Stimulus (UST) Show the milk for first time

Unconditioned Response (URE) Say “want milk” for 1st time

Receive milk and learned the
Positively reinforced (PRE)
word
Show the milk after a few
Conditioned stimulus (CST)
times
Automatically say the words
Conditioned response (CRE)
and wait for milk
1. Both L1 and L2 acquirers receive linguistic input from speakers in their
environment, and positive reinforcement for their correct repetitions and
imitations.
2. When language learners’ responses are reinforced positively, they acquire the
language relatively easily .
3. Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH:
• Similarities of L1 and TL made TL acquisition easier, differences between L1 and
TL made the acquisition difficult.
• According to the hypothesis, the differences between languages can be used to
reveal and predict all errors and the data obtained can be used in L2 teaching for
promoting a better acquisition environment.
• The influence is not simply a matter of habits, but rather a systematic attempt
by the learner to use knowledge already acquired in learning a new language.
 Nature Aspect Nurture
Behaviourism
Nativism (Innate) Perspective
(Learned)
- People are born with some innate - People are born People are born
abilities that they use to interact with “tabula rasa” (or blank slate) and
and understand the world.
- Through prolonged use, learners will Basic Concept become who they are through the
course of their lives alone.
eventually achieve proficiency in the - Students need to be taught their
target language. language.

Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner

Noam Chomsky (UG, LAD),
Stephen Krashen (Monitor
Model), Howard Gardner
Theories (Verbal Behaviour),
Lev Vygotsky (ZPD),
Jean Piaget (Cognitivism)
 Universal Grammar
1. The system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements
or properties of all human languages (Chomsky, 1976).
2. All human beings inherit a universal set of principles and
parameters that control the shape human languages can take, and
which are what make the human languages similar to each other
(Mitchell, & Myles, 2004).
3. UG is an unconscious and potential knowledge which exists in
human brain without learning and determines the existing
appearance of human language which helps L2 learners acquiring
a language faster.
4. Parameter – A grammatical feature that can be set to any of
several values (Carroll, 2005)
 As a tool to
mediate
(facilitate)
the L2
learning
As a social- As s tool to
mediation, facilitate
to reduce metalinguis
frustration tic
and anxiety awareness
Role
L1 in
As a mean
L2 As private
for learners speech, a
to interact cognitive
with others tool

As a tool
for thinking