This article outlines the mechanism by which brokerage provides social capital. Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Brokerage across the structural holes between groups provides a vision of options otherwise unseen, which is the mechanism by which brokerage becomes social capital. I review evidence consistent with the hypothesis, then look at the networks around managers in a large American electronics company. The organization is rife with structural holes, and brokerage has its expected correlates. Compensation, positive performance evaluations, promotions, and good ideas are disproportionately in the hands of people whose networks span structural holes. The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable. I close with implications for creativity and structural change.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/421787.pdf

Structural Holes and Good Ideas.

This article shows how language processing is intimately tuned to input frequency. Examples are given of frequency effects in the processing of phonology, phonotactics, reading, spelling, lexis, morphosyntax, formulaic language, language comprehension, grammaticality, sentence production, and syntax. The implications of these effects for the representations and developmental sequence of SLA are discussed. Usage-based theories hold that the acquisition of language is exemplar based. It is the piecemeal learning of many thousands of constructions and the frequency-biased abstraction of regularities within them. Determinants of pattern productivity include the power law of practice, cue competition and constraint satisfaction, connectionist learning, and effects of type and token frequency. The regularities of language emerge from experience as categories and prototypical patterns. The typical route of emergence of constructions is from formula, through low-scope pattern, to construction. Frequency plays a large part in explaining sociolinguistic variation and language change. Learners' sensitivity to frequency in all these domains has implications for theories of implicit and explicit learning and their interactions. The review concludes by considering the history of frequency as an explanatory concept in theoretical and applied linguistics, its 40 years of exile, and its necessary reinstatement as a bridging variable that binds the different schools of language acquisition research.

/pdf/frequency-effects-in-language-processing-a-review-with-5cpmq4hz5y.pdf

Frequency Effects in Language Processing: A Review with Implications for Theories of Implicit and Explicit Language Acquisition.

This paper presents an extended formulation of the Competition Model. The extended model is designed to account for a larger range of phenomena in first and second language acquisition, including bilingualism. As in the classic version of the Competition Model, competition is at the core of a set of non-modular interacting forces. However, now the various inputs to competition are described in terms of six additional subcomponents: arenas, cues, chunking, storage, codes, and resonance. Learning is viewed as a resonant process that relies on storage, chunking, and support to acquire new mappings. Unified Competition Model 2 A Unified Model of Language Acquisition First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in several fundamental ways. First, infants who are learning language are also engaged in learning about how the world works. In comparison, second language learners already know a great deal about the world. Second, infants are able to rely on a highly malleable brain that has not yet been committed to other tasks (MacWhinney, Feldman, Sacco, & Valdes-Perez, 2000). Third, infants can rely on an intense system of social support from their caregivers (Snow, 1999). Together, these three differences might suggest that it would make little sense to try to develop a unified model of first and second language acquisition. In fact, many researchers have decided that the two processes are so different that they account for them with totally separate theories. For example, Krashen (1994) sees L1 learning as involving “acquisition” and L2 learning as based instead on “learning.” Others (Bley-Vroman, Felix, & Ioup, 1988; Clahsen & Muysken, 1986) argue that Universal Grammar (UG) is available to children up to some critical age, but not to older learners of L2. Even those researchers who emphasize the differences between L1 and L2 acquisition recognize the fact that these two processes are intimately interwoven in actual language learning (Felix & Wode, 1983). For example, the method we use for learning new word forms in a second language is basically an extension of the methods we used for learning words in our first language. Similarly, when we come to combining second language words into sentences, we use many of the same strategies we used as children when learning our first language. Furthermore, the fact that L2 learning is so heavily influenced by transfer from L1 means that it would be impossible to construct a model of L2 learning that did not take into account the structure of the first language. Thus, rather than attempting to build two separate models of L1 and L2 learning, Unified Competition Model 3 it makes more sense to consider the shape of a unified model in which the mechanisms of L1 learning are seen as a subset of the mechanisms of L2 learning. Although these L1 learning mechanisms are less powerful in the L2 learner, they are still partially accessible (Flynn, 1996). Therefore, it is conceptually simpler to formulate a unified model. We can use this same logic to motivate the extension of a unified model to the study of both childhood and adult multilingualism. In the case of childhood multilingualism, there is now an emerging consensus (De Houwer, this volume) that children acquire multiple languages as separate entities. However, there is also good evidence that multiple languages interact in children through processes of transfer and code switching (Myers-Scotton, this volume) much as they do in adults. These processes are best understood within the context of a unified acquisitional model. Similarly, current theories of adult bilingualism have tended to emphasize bilingual competence as a steady state with minimal developmental inputs (La Heij, this volume). However, this view fails to consider how dynamic aspects of code-switching and interference (Meuter, this volume) arise from years of interaction between the languages during the child’s development. Furthermore, adult multilinguals continue to develop competence in particular domains such as the skill of simultaneous interpretation (Chirstoffels & De Groot, this volume). These acquisitions depend on many of the same learning mechanisms we see operative in the earliest stages of first language acquisition, as well as other mechanisms evidenced in second language learners. These initial considerations suggest that we need to at least consider what it might mean to construct a unified model for first language acquisition, childhood multilingualism, second language acquisition, and adult multilingualism. This chapter outlines the first stages of this attempt. It relies on the Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982; MacWhinney, 1987a) Unified Competition Model 4 as the starting point for this new unified model. Although the Competition Model was not originally designed to account for all aspects of second language learning and multilingualism, it has certain core concepts that fit in well with a broader, fuller account. In particular, we can build on the core Competition Model insight that cue strength in the adult speaker is a direct function of cue validity. However, the unified account needs to supplement the theory of cue validity with additional theoretical constructs for dealing with cue cost and cue support. Figure 1 represents the overall shape of the model that I will develop here. chunking resonance codes competition arenas cues storage Figure 1: The Unified Competition Model This figure is not to be interpreted as a processing model. Rather, it is a logical decomposition of the general problem of language learning into a series of smaller, but interrelated structural and processing components. Unified Competition Model 5 Earlier versions of the Competition Model included the core concept of competition, as well as the three components of arenas, mappings, and storage at the top the figure. The new aspects of the Unified Competition Model include the components of chunking, codes, and resonance given at the bottom of the figure. Before examining the operation of the new model, let us briefly define its seven components. 1. Competition. At the core of the model is a processing system that selects between various options or cues on the basis of their relative cue strength. In the classic version of the model, competition was based on cue summation and interactive activation. In the unified model, competition is viewed as based on resonance, as well as cue summation. 2. Arenas. The linguistic arenas within which competition occurs are the four traditional levels recognized in most psycholinguistic processing models -phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax, and conceptualization. In production, these arenas involve message formulation, lexical activation, morphosyntactic arrangement, and articulatory planning. In comprehension, the competitive arenas include auditory processing, lexical activation, grammatical role decoding, and meaningful interpretation. Processing in each of these different arenas is subserved by a different combination of neuronal pathways. In addition to the eight competitive arenas we have listed, older learners also make use of two arenas of orthographic competition, one for reading and one for writing. 3. Cues. At the core of the Competition Model – both in its classical form and the newer unified form – is a notion of the linguistic sign as a mapping between form and function. The theory of mappings is similar in many ways to the theory of linguistic options articulated in Halliday’s systemic grammar. In these mappings, forms serve as cues to Unified Competition Model 6 functions during comprehension and functions serve as cues to forms during production. In other words, in production, forms compete to express underlying intentions or functions. In comprehension, functions or interpretations compete on the basis of cues from surface forms. The outcome of these competitions is determined by the relative strength of the relevant cues. For example, in English, the positioning of the subject before the verb is a form that expresses the function of marking the perspective or agent. Or, to give another example, the pronoun “him” is a form that expresses the functions of masculine gender and the role of the object of the verb. The Competition Model focuses primarily on the use of forms as cues to role assignment, coreference, and argument attachment as outlined in MacWhinney (1987a). Mappings are social conventions that must be learned for each of the eight linguistic arenas, including lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, and mental models. 4. Storage. The learning of new mappings relies on storage in both short-term and long-term memory. Gupta and MacWhinney (1997) have developed an account of the role of shortterm memory in the construction of memories for the phonological forms of words and the mapping of these forms into meaningful lexical items. Short-term memory is also crucially involved in the online processing of specific syntactic structures (Gibson, Pearlmutter, Canseco-Gonzalez, & Hickok, 1996; MacWhinney & Pléh, 1988). Recently, MacWhinney (1999) has examined how the processes of perspective switching and referent identification can place demands on verbal memory processes during mental model construction. The operation of these memory systems constrains the role of cue validity during both processing and acquisition. For example, the processing of subjectverb agreement for inverted word orders in Italian is not fully learned until about age 8 Unified Competition Model 7 (Devescovi, D'Amico, Smith, Mimica, & Bates, 1998), despite its high cue validity and high cue strength in adult speakers. 5. Chunking. The size of particular mappings depends on the operation of processes of chunking. Work in first language acquisition has shown that children rely on both combinatorial processing and chunking to build up syllables, words, and sentences. For example, a child may treat “what’s this” as a si

A Unified Model of Language Acquisition

This is a position paper modelling the domain of linguistic literacy and its development through the life span. It aims to provide a framework for the analysis of language development in the school years, integrating sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic notions of variation, language awareness, and literacy in a comprehensive model. The paper focuses on those aspects of literacy competence that are expressed in language as well as aspects of linguistic knowledge that are affected by literacy competence, tracing the route that children take in appropriating linguistic literacy as part of their cognitive abilities and examining the effect of literacy on language across development. Our view of linguistic literacy consists of one defining feature: control over linguistic variation from both a user-dependent ('lectal') and a context-dependent (modality, genre, and register) perspective; of one concomitant process: metalanguage and its role in language development; and of one condition: familiarity with writing and written language from two aspects: written language as discourse style--the recognition that the kind of language used for writing is essentially different from the one used for speech; and written language as a notational system--the perception and growing command of the representational system that is used in the written modality. Linguistic literacy is viewed as a constituent of language knowledge characterized by the availability of multiple linguistic resources and by the ability to consciously access one's own linguistic knowledge and to view language from various perspectives.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0305000902005111

Developing linguistic literacy: a comprehensive model.

The Speech Community

Kim, Hyesouk. 2004. Theories and Developments of Sociolinguistics. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 12(1). The purpose of this article is to understand a current status of sociolinguistics by reviewing previous studies and attempting to see the future of the discipline as linguistics. As Milroy and Milroy (1990:485) have defined, sociolinguistics is "the study of language as it is used by real speakers in social and situational contexts of use." It has four characteristics. (1)Those who study sociolinguistics are linguists but they have great interests in adding social variables to pure linguistics. Sociolinguists believe that criteria of correct language usage be based upon not only pure grammatical standards but also societal norms in terms of its relevance and general acceptance. (2)The goal of sociolinguistics is to identify a co-variance between language and society and to establish a theory of language performance. (3)Sociolinguistics regards synchronical and diachronical traits as an identical frame. (4)Sociolingustics pays attention to language usage in societal contexts and extends language competence, which is the main subject of pure linguistics, to communicative competence. D. Hymes predicts that the core areas of linguistics is actually sociolinguistics and, thus, the prefix 'socio' will not be necessary. Although we still have that prefix, it is true that sociolingusitics has already had its own identity and is growing rapidly as an independent discipline. In conclusion, this paper argues that sociolinguistics will receive more attention from linguists and play a key role in linguistics by explaining variation in language more systematically, and by interpreting and eliminating language conflict in everyday life.

김혜숙

Papers

사회언어학(Sociolinguistics)의 이론과 전개