PRVA PREZENTACIJA

1. What are the basic requirements, besides the language faculty, for a child to
acquire his/her first language?
- Interaction with other language-users in order to bring the language-faculty
into operation with a particular language crucial requirement
- Cultural transmission the language a child learns is not genetically inherited,
but is acquired in a particular language-using environment
- Physical capacity of sending and receiving sound signals in a language (i.e. A
child must be able to hear the language being used)
- Hearing language sounds is not enough (a reported case of a normal-hearing
child of deaf parents)
- The crucial requirement is: the opportunity to interact with others via
language
2. What is caretaker speech, and how is it characterized?
- The simplified speech style adopted by somenone who spends a lot of time
interacting with a young child is called caretaker speech (also called
motherese)
- e.g. Oh, goody, now Daddy push choochoo?
- Some features of this type of speech: frequent questions; exaggerated
intonation; a lot of forms associated with baby-talk (simplified words like
tummy, or alternative forms, with repeated simple sounds, for different objects
like choo-choo, wawa etc.); a type of conversational structure which seems to
assign an interactive role to the young child even before he/she begins to
actually speak, simple sentence structures and a lot of repetition.
3. What are the stages in the process of first language acquisition? Give a brief
description of each of the stages.
- pre-language stages: cooing and babbling
- The period from about 3 months to 10 months: 3 stages
- 1. first recognizable sounds cooing (velar consonants k and g, and high
vowels i and u)
- 2. by 6 months, the child can usually produce a number of different vowels
and consonants babbling
- 3. by 10 or 11 months, a child is capable of using his vocalizations to express
emotions and emphasis late babbling stage. It is characterized by a lot of
sound-play and attempted imitations. This pre-language vocalization gives
children some experience of the social role of speech because parents tend to
react to the babbling as if it is the childs contribution to social interaction
- The one-word or holophrastic stage: the period between 12 and 18 months;
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In this period children begin to produce a variety of recognizable unit

utterances single terms are uttered for everyday objects such as milk,
cookie, cat etc.
- The two-word stage: begins around 18 to 20 months, as the childs
vocabuilary moves beyond 50 distinct words.
- By the time the child is 2, a variety of combinations such as baby chair,
mommy eat, cat bad, appears. The adult interpretation of such combinatins is
tied to the context of their utterance
- Functional consequence of using such combinations: the adult behaves as if
communication is taking place, i.e. The child not only produces speech, but
receives feedback
- By the age of two, whether the child is producing 200 or 400 words, he/she
will be capable of understanding five times as many
- Telegraphic speech (strings of lexical morphemes such as Andrew want ball,
cat drink milk): between 2 and 3 years old, the child begins to produce a large
number of utterances which can be classifed as multiple-word utterances
- The basic feature of this stage: the variation in word-forms which begins to
appear
4. What is the acquisition sequence regarding English morphology?
- By the time the child is 3 years old, he is going beyond telegraphic speech and
incorporating some of the inflectional morphemes which indicate the
grammatical function of the nouns and verbs used
- -ing form is the first to appear in expressions such as cat sitting, mommy
reading book
- Then comes the marking of regular plurals with the s form. The acquisition
of this form is often accompanied by a process of overgeneralization the
child overgeneralizes the rule of adding -s to form plurals and we hear words
such as foots, mans
- Then come the use of possessive inflection s (Mummys book) and the
different forms of the verb to be such as are and was.
- Then comes the use of went and came irregular past-tense forms which
precede the appearance of ed inflection.
- Once the regular past-tense forms begin appearing in the childs speech, then
the irregular forms dissapear for a while and are replaced by overgeneralized
versions such as goed and comed.
- Often the ed inflection is added to everything, producing oddities such as
walkeded, wented.
- However, after the age of four the child works out which forms are regular
and which are not.
- Finally, the s marker on third person singular present tense verbs appears. It
occurs first with full verbs and then with auxiliaries.
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5. What are the stages in forming questions ?

- In the formation of questions and the use of negatives three stages:
- Stage 1 occurs between 18 and 26 months
- Stage 2 between 22 and 30 months
- Stage 3 between 24 and 40 months
- Stage 1 has two procedures: simply add a wh-form (where, who) to the
beginning of the expression or utter the expression with a rise in intonation
towards the end. e.g. Where kitty?, Where horse go?, Sit chair?, See hole?
- Stage 2 more complex expressions can be formed; the rising intonation
strategy continues to be used; more wh-forms come into use, e.g. What book
name?, Why you smiling?, You want eat?, See my doggie?
- Stage 3 the required inversion of subject and verb in English questions
appears, but the wh-forms do not always undergo the required inversion. In
fact, childern entering school may still form wh-questions without the
inversion, e.g. Can I have a piece?, Will you help me?, What did you do?, Did
I caught it?, How that opened? Why kitty cant stand up?
6. What are the stages in forming negatives?
- Stage 1 has a simple strategy which says that no or not should be stuck on
the beginning of any expression, e.g. no mitten, not a teddy bear, no fall, no
sit here.
- Stage 2 the additional negative forms dont and cant are used, and with no
and not, begin to be placed in front of the verb rather than at the beginning of
the sentence, e.g. He no bite you, You cant dance, There no squirrels, I dont
know
- Stage 3 incorporation of other auxiliary forms such as didnt and wont, and
the disappearance of the Stage 1 forms. A very late acquisition is the form
isnt, e.g. I didnt caught it, He not taking it, She wont let go, This not ice
cream.
7. What is overextension? Give an example.
- During the holophrastic stage many children use their limited vocabulary to
refer to a large number of urelated objects, f.e. Children often extend bowwow to refer to cats, horses and cows. This process is called overextension.
- The most common pattern of overextension is for the child to overextend the
meaning of a word on the basis of similarities in shape, sound and size, and, to
a lesser extent, of movement and texture. Thus the word ball is is extended to
all kinds of round objects.

DRUGA PREZENTACIJA
8. What are the goals of SLA?
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One of the goals of SLA, then, is the description of L2 acquisition, another is

explanation, which means identifying the external and internal factors that
account for why learners acquire an L2 in the way they do.
- The goals of SLA, then, are to describe how L2 acquisition proceeds and to
explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others.
9. What are external and what internal factors that account for why learners
acquire an L2 in the way they do?
EXTERNAL
- The social milieu in which learning takes place. Social conditions influence
the opportunities that learners have to hear and speak the language and the
attitudes that they develop towards it (f.e. Whether you respect and are
respected by native speakers of that language).
- The input the learners receive, i.e. the samples of language to which a learner
is exposed (f.e. Do learners benefit more from input that has been simplified
for them or from authentic language of native-speaker communication)
INTERNAL
- Cognitive mecahnisms of learners which enable them to extraf.e., that
plurality in English is conveyed by adding an s to a noun.ct information
about the L2 from the input, to notice,
- Knowledge that learners bring to the task of learning an L2. First, they have
already learned a language (mother tongue) and we can expect them to draw
on this when they learn an L2. Second, they possess general knowledge
about the world which they can draw on to help them understand L2 input.
Finally, they possess communication strategies that can help them make use
of their L2 knowledge. It is also possible that learners possess knowledge of
how language in general works.
- EXAMPLE
- Joan wanted Mary to help herself.
- Learners of L2 English may be able to rule out automatically the possibility
that herselfrefers to Joan rather than Mary, because they know how
these reflexive pronouns work in language in general.
- According to this view, there are inbuilt constraints on what is grammatically
possible in language in general.
- A final set of internal factors explain why learners vary in the rate they learn
an L2 and how successful they ultimately are. For example, people vary in
their language aptitude (their natural disposition for learning a L2), some
finding it easier than others.
TREA PREZENTACIJA
10. What are the reasons for focusing on learners errors in describing learner
language?
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Description of learner language may focus on the kinds of errors learners

make and how these errors change over time
- Why focus on learners errors? Three possible reasons:
- they are a prominent feature of learner language, raising the question Why do
learners make errors?
- it is useful for teachers to know what errors learners make;
- making errors may help learners to learn when they self-correct the errors they
make.
11. How would you distinguish errors from mistakes in learner language? Give
an example.
- One way - might be to check the consistency of learners performance (e.g.
contain)
- Another way - might be to ask learners to correct their own deviant utterances.
If they are unable to do so, the deviations are errors; where they are
successful, they are mistakes.
- However, if we take variability of learner language into account, it is not as
simple as this. Learners may consistently use a feature like past tense in some
contexts and consistently fail to use it in others. So,a clear distinction between
an error and a mistake may not be possible.
12. How can we classify errors in learner language?
- One way of describing and classifying errors is to classify them into
grammatical categories, e.g. errors in the past tense
Another way may be to identify general ways in which the learners utterances
differ from the target-language utterances. These general ways include omission
(leaving out an item that is required for an utterance to be grammatical),
misinformation (using one grammatical form in place of another grammatical
form), and misordering (putting the words in an utterance in the wrong order).
Classifying errors thus can help us diagnose learners learning problems at any
one stage of their development, and plot how changes in error patterns occur over
time.
13. Which errors in learner language can be considered universal, and which
more specific, depending on the mother tongue of the learner?
- Many errors are also universal. For example, many learners go through a stage
of learning where they substitute the simple form of the verb for the past tense
form (like Jean)
- Not all errors are universal. Some errors are common only to learners who
share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongues manifest the same
linguistic property.
14. What are global errors, and what local?

Global errors violate the overall structure of a sentence and thus may make it
difficult to process (e.g. The policeman was in this corner whistle - difficult
to understand because the basic structure of the sentence is wrong).
- Local errors affect only a single constituent in the sentence (e.g. vhe verb),
and are less likely to create any processing problems
15. What are the early stages of language acquisition?
- We can find out how a language is learned as a natural, untutored process by
investigating what learners do when exposed to the L2 in communicative
settings.
- In such circumstances, some learners, particularly children, undergo a silent
period. They make no attempt to say anything in the beginning. They learn
about language just through listening to or reading it. Some learners talk to
themselves in the L2 even when they refuse to talk to other people.
- When learners begin to speak in the L2 their speech manifests two
characteristics:
(1) formulaic chunks or fixed expressions such as How do you do?, My name
is... etc. They provide learners with the means of performing useful language
functions such as greetings and requests
(2) propositional simplification, i.e. learners leave words out because it is difficult
for them to speak in full sentences (e.g. Me no blue meaning I dont have a blue
crayon).
Reduced speech is very similar to the kind of speech children produce in the
early stages of learning their mother tongue. The occurence of basic language is
universal of both first and second language acquisition
16. What are the problems with the claim that there is a universal natural order
of SLA?
- Not all researchers believe that there is a universal natural order. Some have
pointed out that it may be wrong to assume that the order of accuracy is the
same as the order of acquisition. Sometimes learners begin using a structure
accurately early on only to start making errors with it later.
- Other researchers have shown that the order does vary somewhat according to
the learners first language, e.g. Wes performed plural s very poorly, much
less accurately than irregular past, so he didnt follow the natural order.
- Another problem L2 acquisition should not be seen as a process of
acumulating linguistic structures. Even the simplest structure is subject to a
process of gradual development, manifesting clear stages.
17. Give an example of the process of the acquisition of a particular grammatical
structure.

Stage Description

Example

Learners fail to mark the verb for past tense

eat

Learners begin to produce irregular past tense

forms

ate

Learners overgeneralize the regular past tense

form

eated

Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms

ated

Learners produce correct irregular past tense

forms

ate

18. What is meant by a U-shaped course of development in SLA? Why does it

occur?
- Acquisition follows a U-shaped course of development, i.e. initially learners
may display a high level of accuracy only to apparently regress later before
finally once again performing in accordance with target-language norms.
- This occurs beacuse learners reorganize their existing knowledge in order to
accommodate new knowledge.
19. Why can we say that variability in learner language is systematic?
- Learner language both systematic and variable.
- The fact that learner language is variable does not mean that it is not
systematic. It is possible that variability is also systematic.
- Evidence of systematic variabilty learners choice of past tense marker
depends, in part, on whether the verb refers to an event, an activity, or a state.
Thus learners vary in their use of the L2 according to linguistic context.

Learners also vary the linguistic forms they use in accordance with the
situational context. They are more likely to use the correct target-language
forms in formal contexts and non-target forms in informal contexts.
- There is also the psycholinguistic context whether learners have the
opportunity to plan their production.
- It is easier for learners to mark verbs for past tense if the verb refers to events
(arrive), more difficult if the verb refers to activities (sleep), and most difficult
if the verb refers to states (want).
20. How do learners vary in their use of L2 according to linguistic context,
situational context and psycholinguistic context?
19. PITANJE
21. Is all variability in learner language systematic, or is some random?
- Variability in learner language is not just random. The choice learners make is
determined by the linguistic context, the situational context, and the
availabilty of planning time.
- Is all variabilty in learner langauge systematic? It seems that some variabilty
is free. Learners do sometimes use two or more forms in free variation.
22. What is fossilization in SLA?
- Not all learners reach the completion stage for every grammatical structure.
Many show non-target language variability in at least some grammatical
features. This is why we can talk of fossilization many learners stop
developing while still short of target-language competence. Also, some
learners may succeed in reaching target-language norms in some types of
language use (f.e. planned discourse) but not in others (f.e. unplanned
discourse).
ETVRTA PREZENTACIJA
23. What is interlanguage?
- The conception of interlanguage the proposal that L2 learners have
internalized a mental grammar, a natural language system that can be
described in terms of linguistic rules and principles.
- Interlanguage a mental system of L2 knowledge, which is reflected by the
systematic development of learner language.
24. Describe briefly behaviourist learning theory.
- Behaviourist learning theory was the dominant psychological theory of the
1950a and 1960s.
- According to it, language learning is like any other kind of learning in that it
involves habit formation. Habits are formed when learners respond to stimuli

in the environment and subsequently have their responses reinforced so that

they are remembered.
- Thus, a habit is a stimulus-response connection.
- According to this theory, all behavior, including the complex behavior found
in language acquisition, could be explained in terms of habits. Learning took
place when learners had the opportunity to practice making the correct
response to a given stimulus. Learners imitated models of correct language
(i.e. stimuli) and received positive reinforcement if they were correct and
negative reinforcement if they were incorrect.
- Behaviourism cannot adequately account for L2 acquisition. Learners
frequently do not produce output that simply reproduces input. Also, the
systematic nature of their errors shows that they are actively involved in
constructing their own rules, which are sometimes different from the
patterns of target language.
25. Describe briefly mentalist theory of language learning.
- This theory emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and tried to answer the question
how the innate properties of the human mind shape learning.
- According to this theory:
- Only human beings are capable of learning language
- The human mind is equipped with a faculty for learning language, referred to
as Language Acquisition Device
- This faculty is the primary determinant of language acquisition
- Input is needed, but only to trigger the operation of the language acquisition
device
- The term interlanguage was coined by the American linguist Larry
Selinker. This term recognizes the fact that L2 learners construct a
linguistic system that draws, in part, on the learners L1 but is also different
from it and from the target language. The learners interlanguage is
therefore a unique linguistic system.
26. What does the concept Universal Grammar imply, and how can you account
for its importance in the acquisition of an L2?
- The generative tradition grammars are mental representations, and universal
principles constrain these representations.
- Linguistic universals are as they are because of properties of human mind, and
grammars are as they are because of these universal properties
- The interlanguage representations do not have to converge on the grammar of
native speakers of L2, and the endstate grammar of a L2 learner does not have
to be identical to that of a native speaker.
- An interlanguage grammar which diverges from the L2 grammar can
nevertheless fall within the bounds laid down by UG.
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The issue is whether the interlanguage representation is a possible grammar,

not whether it is identical to the L2 grammar
27. What are the premises about SLA?
- The learner constructs a system of abstract linguistic rules which underlies
comprehension and production of the L2. This system of rules is viewed as a
mental grammar and is referred to as an interlanguage.
- The learners grammar is permeable, i.e. it is open to influence from the
outside (e.g. through the input), and from the inside (e.g. the omission,
overgeneralization, and transfer errors are evidence of internal processing).
- The learners grammar is transitional. Learners change their grammar from
one time to another by adding rules, deleting rules, and restructuring the
whole system. This results in an interlanguage continuum.That is, learners
construct a series of mental grammars or interlanguages as they gradually
increase the complexity of their L2 knowledge.
- Some researchers have claimed that the systems that learners construct contain
variable rules. However, other researchers argue that interlanguage systems
are homogeneous and that variability reflects the mistakes learners make when
they try to use their knowledge to communicate. These researchers see
variability as an aspect of performance rather than competence. The premise
that interlanguage systems are themselves variable is a disputed one.
28. Describe a computational model of L2 acquisition.
- The concept of interlanguage can be viewed as a metaphor of how L2
acquisition takes place. It implies that the human mind functions like a
computer.
- In L2 acquisition, the learner is exposed to input, which is processed in two
stages. First, parts of it are attended to and taken into short-term memory
(these are referred to as intake). Second, some of the intake is stored in longterm memory as L2 knowledge. Finally, L2 knowledge is used by the learner
to produce spoken and written output.
- This basic model of L2 acquisition can be elaborated. For example, a
component labelled social context may be added to explain how the nature
of the input varies from one setting to another.
PETA PREZENTACIJA
-

Stylistic variation is understood in terms of amount of attention paid to speech

in different situations or while performing different tasks. It is found with both
native and non-native speakers.
29. What are the three major approaches to social aspects of SLA?
- The first views interlanguage as consisting of different styles which learners
call upon under different conditions of language use.
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The second concerns how social factors determine the input that learners use
to construct their interlanguage.
- The third considers how the social identities that learners negotiate in their
interactions with native speakers shape their opportunities to speak and to
learn an L2.
30. What is meant by stylistic continuum?
- Tarone proposed that interlanguage involves a stylistic continuum (Tarone, E.
1985: Variability in interlanguage use: a study of style shifting in morphology
and syntax. Language Learning, 35, 373403.)
- Interlanguage continuum proposed to account for variation in learner speech
by hypothesizing the existence of a number of varieties arranged along a
continuum, which also represents the progression from zero to ultimate
attainment. The learner moves up or down according to amount of attention
paid to speech.
- Tarone - learners develop a capability for using the L2 and this underlies all
regular language behaviour. This capability consists of a number of different
styles which learners access in accordance with a variety of factors.
- At one end of the continuum is the careful style. It is evident when learners
are conscious of their choice of linguistic forms, as when they feel the need to
be correct.
- At the other end of the continuum is the vernacular style, evident when
learners are making spontaneous choices of linguistic form, as in conversation
(see example with Japanese learners of English, slide 3).
- The idea of interlanguage as a stylistic continuum explains why learner
language is variable. It suggests that an interlanguage grammar, although
different from a native speakers grammar, is constructed according to the
same principles. It relates language use to language learning.
31. Describe accommodation theory.
- It was proposed by Howard Giles.
- According to this theory, people may adjust their speech to either reduce or
accentuate linguistic differences with their interlocutors. Adjustment toward
others is called convergence and away from others divergence.
- Convergence occurs when the speaker wants approval from people with
similar beliefs, values and attitudes.
- Divergence occurs when the speaker wants to assert distinctiveness from
interlocutors from another social group.
32. Describe the acculturation model of L2 acquisition.
- This theory (Schumanns acculturation model) originated in a case study, the
investigation of a thirty-three-year-old Costa Rican, who was acquiring
English in the USA.There was no evidence of any linguistic development in
this man over a ten-month period.He used a reduced and simplified English
11

throughout. He appeared to have fossilized, or pidginized, at a very early

stage of development.
- Schumann entertained a number of possible reasons, and dismissed them all.
He then considered whether the reasons that have been advanced for the
formation of a pidgin (a very simple contact language used among speakers
who have no common language) might also apply to L2 acquisition. He
proposed that pidginization in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to
acculturate to the target-language group, i.e. when they are unable or
unwilling to adapt to a new culture.
- The main reason for the failure to acculturate is social distance. This concerns
the extent to which individual learners become members of a target-language
group and therefore achieve contact with them.
- Factors that determine a learners social distance: a good learning situation is
one where there is little social distance because the target-language group and
the L2 group view each other as socially equal, both groups wish the L2 group
to assimilate, both groups share the same social facilities, the L2 group has
many contacts with the target-language group, L2 group is small, both groups
display positive attitudes towards each other, and the L2 group is relatively
permanent.
- In cases when social distance is indeterminate, psychological distance
becomes important and there is a set of psychological factors, such as
language shock and motivation, to account for this.
- According to this model, social factors determine the amount of contact with
the L2 that individual learners experience and thereby how successful they are
in learning.
- Two problems with this model:
- first, it fails to acknowledge that factors like integration pattern and attitude
are not fixed but, potentially, variable and dynamic, fluctuating in accordance
with the learners changing social experiences;
- second, it fails to acknowledge that learners are not just subject to social
conditions but can also become the subject of them they can help to
construct the social context of their own learning
33. What is meant by social identity and investment in L2 learning?
- This approach takes the view that people have multiple and changing social
identities.
- Investment a concept introduced in this approach in order to capture the
complex relationship between power, identity, and SLA. According to this
concept, learners will invest effort in using and acquiring the L2 because of
the returns they receive in resources such as friendship and education, as well
as material gains.
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However, since learners have complex social identities and a variety of

desires, the nature of their investment will always be changing.
When learners interact in the L2, they are continually renegotiating their new
social identity. Therefore, investing in the L2 also involves investing in ones
own constantly changing social identity.
Learning is successful when learners are able to construct an identity that
enables them to impose their right to be heard and thus become the subject of
the discourse. This requires investment.
Learners will make investment only if they believe their efforts will increase
the value of their cultural capital, i.e. give them access to the knowledge and
modes of thought that will enable them to function successfully in a variety of
social contexts.

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