Discontinuity in Second Language Acquisition: The Switch between Statistical and Grammatical Learning: 80 - Hardcover

Rastelli, Stefano

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783092467 ISBN 13: 9781783092468

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

With a particular focus on the morphosyntactic features of second language, this book discusses the idea that language acquisition is a discontinuous and 'quantized' process and thus that some items might be learned twice, statistically and grammatically. It argues that the switch from one way of learning to another is statistically-driven and grammatically motivated. The volume brings together and discusses insights and evidence from learner corpora analysis and electrophysiological data in an attempt to provide the reader with a unified outlook and it suggests a new, developmentally-oriented interpretation of findings. The topics discussed will be of interest to researchers working in the field of psycho- and neurolinguistics and SLA.

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Stefano Rastelli teaches Second Language Acquisition at the Universities of Pavia and Verona, Italy. He is an associate member of CAROLE (Center for Advanced Research and Outreach in Language Education), University of Greenwich. His research focuses on second language processing and syntactic theory and he has published numerous research articles in international journals.

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Discontinuity in Second Language Acquisition

The Switch between Statistical and Grammatical Learning

By Stefano Rastelli

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2014 Stefano Rastelli
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78309-246-8

Contents

1 Second Language Acquisition Facit Saltus ('Takes a Leap'), 
2 Discontinuity as Chunks Feed into Grammar, 
3 Discontinuity in the Maturing and in the Adapting Brain, 
4 Discontinuity and the Neurocognition of Second Language, 
5 Statistical Learning of a Second Language, 
6 Parts of L2 Grammar That Resist Statistical Learning, 
Conclusions, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Second Language Acquisition Facit Saltus ('Takes a Leap')

1.1 Preview of the Volume: Second Language Acquisition in Adulthood is a Discontinuous Process

In this book, the idea is discussed that the acquisition of some morphosyntactic features of the second language (L2) by adult learners is a discontinuous process. The process is discontinuous because the learning principles and the brain structures that have supported the acquisition of those features up to a certain point can be juxtaposed with different learning principles and different brain structures. The latter principles and structures do not replace the former; rather, they cohabit with them. The consequence is that L2 representations, after a point of rupture, may duplicate in an L2 learner's competence. This fact will henceforth be referred to as 'discontinuity with gemination' or, more simply, as 'discontinuity' (Section 1.4). A representation of a discontinuous learning process with gemination is given in Figure 1.1 (Section 1.2). The graph in the figure illustrates that a discontinuous process is characterized by the presence of a cut-off point breaking a continuous line. The ascending continuous line can represent how an item/structure of the target language (TL) is increasingly mastered by a learner over time. Before the cut-off point, the item can be thought of as if it is represented and mastered in just one way in a learner's competence. After the cut-off point the item is represented and mastered in two different ways. This holds because the acquisition of that item splits along two qualitatively different developmental routes. The difference between these routes is qualitative because it is grounded in L2 neurocognition. Discontinuity in second language acquisition (SLA) precisely arises when the same item starts being represented and processed differently in a learner's brain over time. Up to a certain point, some morphosyntactic items of the TL may be represented and processed by learners only statistically as psychological units or chunks (words frequently occurring together to the extent that they are perceived as a whole; see Section 2.3). After that point, the same items, if certain conditions occur, may also be represented and processed by learners grammatically, as being projections of abstract features which are implicitly noted to be relevant for that and also for other, not necessarily similar, items. The consequence of discontinuity is that some morphosyntactic items might be learned (represented and processed) twice, each time in a different way (Section 1.3). Adult L2 learners – but also native speakers (albeit to a different extent) – may become capable of switching from one way of learning to the other depending on different factors.

In this volume, a description is provided of how the switch between one way of learning and another could take place in adult SLA. The former way of learning is called 'statistical learning' (SL) and the latter 'grammatical learning' (GL). In Chapters 2 and 5 we will see that SL occurs via learners' computation over 'transition probabilities' (henceforth, TP) and bottom-up category formation, while GL occurs via learners' computation over symbolic, abstract rules and top-down category formation. SL and GL are developmentally independent from one another, but interact in a learner's competence. To put it simply, SL provides the learners' developing L2 grammar with the cognitive environment to grow and develop. In this book it is proposed that the switch between SL and GL takes place as follows. The innate capacity of implicitly tracking frequently co-occurring items (which sustains SL) would provide adult learners with the necessary cognitive ground for successive grammatical generalizations. This capacity, despite being non-language specific, also provides adult learners with the necessary means to acquire parts of the grammar of a second language. Conversely, the abstract rules of 'combinatorial grammar' (Sections 1.9 and 4.8), which sustain GL, would provide adult learners with the appropriate labels for categorizing items which are also novel (never encountered before) or not frequent enough in the input and/or that appear to be very dissimilar from the majority of other category members. In the end, SL and GL are only two different ways of learning the same kinds of grammatical structures. From a certain point onwards, these two ways both may become available to L2 adult learners. We will see (in Chapters 2 and 5) how these ways of learning may cooperate as far as the acquisition of some aspects of L2 grammar is concerned.

In this book predictions for SLA in adulthood are also discussed. It is claimed that there exist features of L2 grammar which are less likely to be learned because they cannot be learned discontinuously. Features such as null subject or wh- constituents extraction, for example, cannot be learned first statistically and then grammatically, because they imply a learner's capacity for categorizing 'over absences', that is, over empty categories or displaced items (Chapter 6). It is predicted that these non-discontinuous aspects of the grammar are more difficult to learn than discontinuous aspects of the L2 grammar (such as auxiliary selection in compound tenses in L2 Italian; see Sections 1.6 and 6.3), or even that they are unlikely to be acquired by adult L2 learners, independent of the fact that they are less frequent in the TL input (Section 6.12). It will also be suggested that discontinuous acquisition in adulthood mimics the process of early language acquisition in childhood, which is discontinuous as well. Discontinuities in childhood and in adulthood differ as to the extent to which they are successful. While the former, under normal conditions, is successful, the latter is only partially successful because the optimal neuroanatomical and neurofunctional conditions that accompany a child's brain maturation cannot be replicated in adulthood (Chapter 3).

Finally, some reasons will be also listed in this book as to why innatist (modular) and cognitive (general domain) theories are not necessarily contradictory in adult SLA research. In fact, different pieces of the TL are expected to be learned in different ways. This is because the linguistic nature of those items is different and because the neural resources at a learner's disposal change with a learner's age. If the pure grammatical computation of some aspects has become more difficult for the aging brain, the statistical pretreatment of grammatical features, which is a nonlanguage-specific competence, may become necessary. Grammatical features of the TL that, due to their nature, cannot undergo this statistical pretreatment are less likely to be learned in adulthood.

1.2 The Term 'Discontinuity' and its Meaning for SLA

The term discontinuous identifies a kind of mathematical function which is not continuous. A function f(x) is continuous if – when one plots data on the graph – the pencil never detaches from the sheet. Instead, if the line in the graph is interrupted and then restarts from another point, whether upper or lower, we have two limits instead of one in either axis; the function underlying such a graph is discontinuous. A rupture point signaling discontinuity with gemination (Section 1.4) can be depicted as in Figure 1.1.

Discontinuity as a mathematical function means that some points on the line (such as at 3 in the x axis in the graph) have a twofold limit (a; b) upon the y axis because at that point the line interrupts and facit saltus ('takes a leap'). In acquisitional terms, the twofold limit upon the y axis envisages the twofold idea that: (a) a grammatical item of the TL may be learned twice, at two different cognitive levels; and (b) the same grammatical item of the TL may have split representations in a learner's competence.

Discontinuous L2 development should not be confused with inconsistent, uneven or reversible developmental paths. For example, in the literature there is a well-known stage-developmental model called the 'U-shaped developmental path' or 'U-shaped behavior' (VanPatten & Benati, 2010: 28). According to this model, a learner initially progresses in the use of a form; then there is a sudden drop off which indicates loss of ability or knowledge which is eventually followed by an increase in performance. When plotted over time, the resulting performance/accuracy graph resembles a U shape (VanPatten & Benati, 2010: 164). A discontinuous developmental trend is a different concept from a U-shaped developmental trend, though. However reversible and nonuniform the U-shaped progression might be, it is a continuous progression-regression, because the line marking a learner's mastering of the form is always one and the same. To put this a different way, in the U-shaped developmental path there is no gemination of forms. Rather, there is a replacement: eventually one form prevails and the less target like one subsides. On the contrary, the discontinuity hypothesis predicts that, as their proficiency increases, adult L2 learners happen to have two processing/representational routes at their disposal. When this happens, the line (the developmental path) splits in two as in Figure 1.1.

We have just seen that discontinuity has nothing to do with uniformity or reversibility. It instead concerns the idea of 'quantization' of the developmental trend. In Section 1.5 the idea will be discussed in detail that SLA is also quantized – a characteristic that has been attributed to other fundamental phenomena in nature. According to this idea, SL and GL feature in the form of two discrete, non-continuous packets or 'levels of energy', having different representational/processing costs and benefits (for the learning brain) in a hypothetical discontinuous scale of language development. For the sake of clarity, let us anticipate what the term 'discontinuity' may further suggest by looking at how it is used in the natural sciences. In the quantum physics of the 20th century the term 'discontinuity' was used to refer to the fact that electrons were found not to traverse all the continuous points between energy levels when they changed energy levels. Electrons orbiting around a nucleus in fact cannot change their orbit gradually along a continuous, gradient-like scale of energy. Instead, they must 'jump' from one energy level to another. The energy values of these discontinuous levels are predictable. The shift of electrons from one level to another does not follow a smooth curve: electrons disappear from one level and simultaneously (after a few nanoseconds) appear at the next. Ever since this 20th century physics, a system has been known as discontinuous when changes in its configuration did not cover every theoretically possible discrete transition state. Many changes in the physical world have been found to occur suddenly or in an unexpectedly fast manner (Buchanan, 2011). We will see that – if applied to adult SLA – the idea of discontinuity suggests that: (a) the learning curve, even though some points of its trajectory seem to be predictable, might not necessarily be smooth (Section 1.11); (b) some specific items of the TL could be learned twice, each time in a qualitatively different way; and (c) some neural processes relative to language acquisition in an adult's brain may be carried on simultaneously and be redundant (Section 4.4).

1.3 The Core Idea of the Discontinuity Hypothesis

The core idea of discontinuity is that the process of adult acquisition of L2 grammar is not uniform and incremental, but differentiated and redundant. To learn a second language, adults apply two different procedures to the same linguistic materials: redundancy means that the same language items may happen to be learned twice. The process is differentiated because the ways of learning are different. First learners implicitly record that some words come together. They can do that by exploiting recurrent patterns of variable length in input distribution and by using some portions of the brain – especially in the left temporal cortex and in the left temporal lobe – which are specialized for this kind of learning from birth. In the literature (and in this book), this way of learning is referred to as SL. Afterwards, adult learners record implicitly not only that some words come together, but also why they do so. Here why means: by virtue of the identification of some formal properties of items. These abstract properties include both uninterpretable (purely formal, devoid of content) and interpretable (semantic) features (for a classification of these features in generative theory, see Adger, 2003: 22–60). Whether devoid of semantic content or not, all these abstract properties are conceived as being separate entities from the words where they are instantiated. Adult learners gradually realize that these features are abstract; that is, they live a separate life from that of the words with which they can combine. As an instance, being singular rather than plural or being nominative rather than accusative are eventually understood by learners of Italian as properties that overarch other meaning-related or distributional features, respectively, of nouns and pronouns to which these properties apply. Implicit recording which does not simply abstract over word co-occurrences but also over formal properties and which drives learners to property-based categorization is often (and also in this book) referred to as GL. Learners can categorize over abstract properties because part of an adult's brain – especially in the left-frontal cortex, in the pre-motor cortex and at the basal ganglia level – could be sensitive to property-based hierarchies. In Chapter 3 we will survey current research on the brain structures that promote a kind of learning which is not based on surface similarities and analogy. Neither measures based on accuracy percentages in mandatory contexts nor speed of processing nor fluency rates alone are reliable markers of SL or GL.

The idea of discontinuity in SLA is not new: it has sometimes been acknowledged and alluded to or mentioned by some linguists during the last 10 years (Section 1.14). This book attempts to provide the reader with a less fragmentary picture by composing different insights and sources of evidence from different fields under a unified perspective. This perspective will sometimes in this book be referred to as the 'discontinuity hypothesis' and at other times, more vaguely, as 'the idea of discontinuity' or the 'discontinuity approach'. Crucially, the word 'theory' is avoided purposely in this book for the reasons that will be explained below. Basically, there cannot be a theory of discontinuity yet because the evidence provided so far can be interpreted in different ways (see Chapter 4). An expression such as 'discontinuity hypothesis' better conveys the image of the embryonic stage of a prospective theory of discontinuity. At this stage, data from different sources are collected and claimed to converge towards the intended interpretation, but this interpretation still awaits to be confirmed further by experimental data (in the sense specified in Section 1.6).

Even though the idea of discontinuity might not be new, it is only in the last decade that the motivations for discontinuity have been looked at and accounted for in terms of human neurocognition (McLaughlin et al., 2004: 705; see Chapter 4). Osterhout et al. (2008) and Tanner et al. (2009) used event-related potentials (ERPs) and found out that, during the acquisition of verb morphology, learners pass through 'discontinuous stages'. The nature of discontinuity is made explicit in McLaughlin et al. (2010: 138–142): initially L2ers do not simply memorize whole-word sequences (chunks and formulas, see Chapter 2), but are sensitive to statistical rules (TP, see Chapter 5) which involve both adjacent and also non-adjacent morphemes. At a certain point, these learners go beyond statistically based patterns in the input to inducing productive rules. The central tenet of L2 neurocognition theories is that this passage is mirrored by the electrophysiological shift between N400–P600 ERP components. To give an example of this shift, in Osterhout et al. (2008), the same wrong sequence (e.g. *Tu adorez) after one month of instruction was found to elicit an N400-like effect in 14 L1 English, L2 French initial learners. In four months, the effect was replaced by a P600 component which was even larger at the third session (after 80 hours of instruction) and at that point comparable to native controls. Osterhout et al. (2008) claim that the N400–P600 'biphasic pattern' is a cue of discontinuity, that is, a cue of a sudden change in the neural source of SLA of morphosyntax (see Chapter 4). McLaughlin et al. (2010: 142) also concluded that 'there are qualitative changes in the neurocognitive mechanism underlying language processing during the first year of instruction'. The first step of such qualitative and physiological change is that 'learners initially learned about words, but not rules' (Osterhout et al., 2004: 290). Learners then step up from SL to GL not because they become able to 'estimate from a sample' (as in Ellis, 2009), but because they can see a grammar beyond frequently encountered examples (see Chapter 2).

(Continues...)

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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783092467
• ISBN 13: 9781783092468
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 268
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar