Language Acquisition Seminar Real Language Users & Variations in Native Speaker Competence: Implications for First-language Teaching By Ngoni Chipere.

Language Acquisition SeminarLanguage Acquisition Seminar

Real Language Users&

Variations in Native SpeakerCompetence: Implications for

First-language Teaching

By Ngoni Chipere


Table of contents

1. The classical assumptions

2. Evidence from past researches

3. Experiment I – findings and conclusions

4. Experiment II - findings and conclusions

5. Summary


“Ideal Language Users”

UniformSame linguistic competence

GenerativeParsing is based on grammar

AutonomousIndependent of semantic factors

Automaticsyntactic processing is an automatic process

ConstantDoes not adapt to experience


Holes in the Theory?

From Prof. N. Chomsky:

I would be inclined to think, even without any investigation, that there would be a correlation between linguistic performance and intelligence;state attained is rather different among people of different educational level […] it is entirely conceivable that some complex structures just aren’t developed by a large number of people, perhaps because the degree of stimulation in their external environment isn’t sufficient for them to develop [added emphasis].


Preliminary Discussion

Uniform Competence– Empirical evidence for individual differences in linguistic

ability has been found along at least eleven dimensions.– Reported effects of education on comprehension skill.– Evidence that individual differences in cognitive style are

reflected in patterns of language comprehension.

Generativity– No experimental tests which demonstrate that the ability to

understand complex sentences increases indefinitely as processing constraints are reduced.

– Large number of studies show positive effects of training on native speakers’ syntactic skills.


Preliminary Discussion – Cont.

Autonomy– Chomsky’s “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously” vs.

“Antepenultimate idiosyncratic elocution paragraphs bright”– “The horse raced past the barn fell” might produce a reliable

garden path effect in naive subjects, “The landmine buried in the sand exploded” does not.

– Lexical choice seem to matter, contrast“The man whom the farmer whom the girl saw sued died” with “The fact that the man who Andrew looked up to was a criminal bothered Sarah.”


Preliminary Discussion – Cont.

Automaticity– Automaticity is generally regarded in automatic processing

research as an effect of practice.– If parsing is truly a reflex, then it should always occur

regardless of the nature of the experimental task.

Constant– Training can enhance the syntactic performance of normal

adult native speakers, normal child native speakers and native speaker children with specific language impairment.

– The relationship between education and grammatical skill is form of evidence for environmentally induced changes in the linguistic representations.


Does the Language User act like a PC?

UniformSame linguistic competence

GenerativeParsing is based on grammar

AutonomousIndependent of semantic factors

Automaticsyntactic processing is an automatic process

ConstantDoes not adapt to experience

Test if between and within subject differences remain when performance constraints are neutralised.

Test if sentences with the same structure but different lexical items are parsed equally well.

Test if subjects always carry out complete syntactic analysis of test sentences.

Test if there are any order effects during an experiment.


Experiment I(From “Real Language

Users”)


Hypothesis

graduate native and non-native speakers

of English comprehend grammatically

challenging English sentences more

accurately than non-graduate native

speakers of English.


Subjects

12 graduated native speakers

Group 1

12 postgraduatenon-native speakers

of English

Group 2

12 native speakers of English whose formal education

didn’t extend beyondhigh school.

Group 3


MaterialsTest Sentences:

– CNP – Complex Noun PhrasePeter knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential surprises Tom.

– TM – Tough movementAlison will be hard to get Tim to give a loan to.

– PG1 – Parasitic Gap type 1The servant who Tim visited before overhearing the lady proposing to dismiss had lunch in a café.

– PG2 - Parasitic Gap type 2The solicitor who the man met after discovering his mother arranging to leave a lot of money for was having coffee.

Questions– Q1 – Key question – diagnostic of correct parsing– Q2 – Backup question – Q3 – Subjects awareness to structural ambiguities.– Q4 – Giveaway question– Q5 – Grammatically judgment


Design


Results – Uniform Competence

Graduated native outperformed non-graduate natives


Results - Generativity

Performance was not consistent across structures. The greatest inconsistencies were found in the performance of native non-graduates followed by native graduates.Unexpectedly, the non-native graduates performed most consistently across structures and Conditions.


Results - Autonomy

Group 3 failed almost completely to answer questions on the implausible sentences correctly.Native and non-native graduates were not affected by plausibility.


Results - Automaticity

Subjects were not able to answer all questions about the same sentence equally well,Even when subjects answered questions correctly, however, they still took longer to answer the difficult questions compared to the easier ones


Results - Constancy

Comprehension scores increased and reading times decreased on successive presentations of each structural type.


Possible Conservative Explanations

Subjects differed in the availability of computational resources.

There are differences in the ability to map the syntactic analysis to a semantic interpretation.

All groups performed equally badly in terms of syntactic processing, except that the highly educated groups employed more sophisticated repair strategies.

Wrong Conclusion

Problems in Design

Subjects not Significant


Memory Capacity Discussion Evidence– the span of immediate memory is restricted to 7 +/- 2

items.– Subjects had difficulties in recalling sentences with more

than oneself-embedding.

But…– “for all types of sentences the average percentage …

increased on successive repetitions”– Compared to novices, skilled performers are a) more

accurate; b) generally faster; c) reliant on less information; d) more consistent and e) in possession of more hierarchically developed knowledge structures


The Theory of Automatisation“Automatisation reflects a transition from algorithm-based performance to memory-based performance.”“The man who Peter saw...” Group 3 displayed a significant increase in reading times at ‘Peter’.

“The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential surprises Tom” interpreted as either

“The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential” or

“The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself surprises Tom”.


Experiment II(From “Variations in Native

SpeakerCompetence: Implications for

First-language Teaching”)


2 Theories of Working MemoryJust and Carpenter (1992)– Reported a correlation between working memory

capacity and comprehension.

Ericsson and Kintsch (1995)– Skilled individuals make efficient use of long-term

memory and thereby boost the limited capacity working memory.

– Poor comprehension arises from insufficient linguistic knowledge.

Therefore comprehension training should also improve recall.


Aim and Prediction

To determine the effect of memory training and

comprehension training on the comprehension and

recall of complex NP sentences.

Memory training will result in higher recall but will not

improve comprehension of complex sentences.

Comprehension training will result in both higher recall

and improved comprehension of complex sentences.


Subjects and Materials

18 English native speakers who either failed GCSE

English or obtained poor grades

LAA

11 English native speakers who had obtained ‘A’

grades in GCSE English

HAA

Complex NP sentences:Tom knows that the fact that flying planes low is dangerous excites the pilot.


Pre-Testprocedure– Recall task – recalling 15-word Complex NP sentences.– Comprehension task – answering comprehension

questions regarding the same sentences.

Results

Recall Scores Comprehension Scores

Consistent with both theories


Post Test Iprocedure– Memory training – LAA memorized the 10 pre-test

sentences– Same Tasks as Pre-Test – but different sentences.

Results


Inconsistent with Just & Carpenter


Post Test IIprocedure– Comprehension training (for LAA groups)– Same Tasks as Pre-Test and Post-Test I

Results


Fully consistent with Ericsson & Kintch


Questions to be RaisedHow much lexical knowledge contributes to the comprehension of simple declarative sentences.( “Sleep stars radio green”)?

How many of the processing difficulties attributed in the past to resource limitations can be eliminated through training?

How reliably do subjects interpret novel structures in terms of familiar ones?

Can semantic processing outrun syntactic processing so as to bring about an early termination of syntactic processing?

Measure on-line differences in the way familiar vs. unfamiliar structures are processed and find out to what extent conscious sentence comprehension resembles conscious problem solving.


Conclusions and Summary “the idea that native speakers of a language know their language perfectly. … rests purely on an idealisation made by Chomsky for descriptive purposes”

there are normal native speakers of English who are not fully syntactically productive.

non-native speakers of a language may be more productive than native speakers.

Language Acquisition Seminar Real Language Users & Variations in Native Speaker Competence: Implications for First-language Teaching By Ngoni Chipere.

Documents

language teaching

specific language impairment

language user act

summary slide

native speaker competence

linguistic performance

linguistic ability

automatic processing