#3

WILD CHILD
#5: I think Victor's case supports the Critical Period Hypothesis because it supports the idea that "children have only a limited number of years during which normal acquisition is possible" (Saville 82). Although Victor was able to understand the form of words based on his ability to correctly match household items with their corresponding representations, I don't think he would have had the ability to use those words to project different meanings or be able to use them in any syntactic context. However, although he wasn't able to acquire a spoken language, he was able to communicate to other people using gestures--gestures that he had to learn in the new context he found himself in.



One of the models that Chapter Four tackles in trying to explain how languages are acquired is the Competition Model. Researched by Brian MacWhinney (1945), the Competition Model assumes that "all linguistic performance involves 'mapping' between external form and internal function" (Saville 78). In short, we view words as items that have both form and function. The form of a word is represented by the sounds we make in trying to pronounce the word while the function involves the meaning of the word.
This model further stipulates that L1 learning requires an understanding of this form-function mapping. However, once you've internalized this mapping system, you can then be able to modify it to suit your target language.

I found this interesting because I realized that this is what I've mostly been doing in trying to learn Japanese. I'm using my knowledge of English (how it is grammatically, semantically) in hope of understanding the grammar of Japanese. Just like Saville states, one of the similarities that both Japanese and English have is their reliance on inflections in conveying a meaning. In knowing this, I could just easily modify my mapping system of English to cater to my Japanese. I've also found interesting is the fact that I'm now using my knowledge in L2 in order to acquire another language instead of my L1.

#2

One of the things that truly caught my eye while reading Chapter Three was Chomsky's argument that "the acquisition of vocabulary has become much more important...because lexical items are thought to include rich spefication of properties that are needed for parameter setting and other features of grammar, as well as for interpretation of semantic meaning" (Saville-Troike 49). I believe in his argument because learning vocabulary in Japanese not only helps me learn the Japanese equivalent for English words, it also helps me understand the intricacies of Japanese grammar as well. For example, knowing the word "ikimasu" not only means knowing it is a verb "go," it also means that it only accepts the post-particle "e" because it is a motion verb (e.g. "shokudou e ikimasu" ~go to the cafeteria). Another example is knowing the vocabulary of adjectives. For example, I know that adjectives that end in -i are adjectives that describe inanimate things while adjectives that end in -na are adjectives that describe animate things.

In reading How Languages are Learned, one of the concepts that I've come across was Krashen's affective filter hypothesis. He used the term, affective filter, as the "metaphorical barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language even when appropriate input is available" (Spada 37). This has some validity towards my learning Japanese because I find myself understanding the concept learned in class better when I'm at home compared to when I'm actually in class. Sometimes, the professor would expect the students to know the difference between the "ni" particle and the "ga" particle in .25 seconds. That feeling of being rushed would just prevent me from learning and I'd just draw out that proverbial whaaa?? The difference would then occur to me after I've reviewed my notes at home without the pressure of knowing the answer right away.

#1

Chapter 1 mainly talks about the three different questions that needed to be answered in the process of SLA (the what, the why and the how) and it points out that one cannot fully understand SLA by using only one perspective. One cannot understand the process of SLA by just using the linguistic approach or the social approach. One has to take into account different perspectives. You have to consider what is being learned, why someone is learning the language, what social or political aspects should be gained etc.

In Chapter 2, it was said that, “bilingualism is present in practically every country…in fact it is difficult to find a society that is genuinely monolingual…” (8). As someone born in the Philippines, I can attest that this is the case. When I was studying there, I had to learn both Tagalog and English for my classes. Not only did we have a grammar class for Tagalog, the school also had an English grammar class. Moreover, celebrities and government leaders also spoke in English (or at least tried to) either to be considered as educated, exotic etc. Aside from English and Tagalog, there are many other languages being spoken in Philippines. One of them was Ilocano—a language in which I didn’t receive any formal learning.

While reading this chapter, I also learned some of the reasons why linguistic information isn’t gathered. Some of the reasons listed intrigued me such as the fact that a government might not gather any linguistic information to downplay the importance of a group and to present a more homogenous front. It saddens me that some people think that the only way to be more united is to ignore the differences from a society rather than in accepting these differences.

Aside from learning why linguistic information may not be collected as much, the chapter also talked about the many capabilities that children had in terms of learning a language. The fact that 6-month-children can already distinguish phonemes from different languages and be able to discard the phonemes that aren’t useful to them is just astonishing to me. Another fact that was interesting was that children already know what is “grammatically correct” even if they aren’t taught how the syntax should be in the first place.

One of the early theories presented in the third reading was the behaviorist theory. According to behaviorism, language acquisition was merely “the acquisition of a new behavior” (19). In this theory, there was no thinking involved when people learned a language. This acquisition was a result of people associating events and from reinforcement or punishment. For example, a person could learn an L2 by imitating others. If s/he learned how to imitate the language, s/he could receive rewards and vise versa. From this cycle of reinforcement/punishment, the individual would be able to learn the language.