Understanding second language acquisition

PART ONE: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LANGUAGE TEACHING PART TWO: ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE PART THREE: ASPECTS OF TEACHING

语言教学面面观 = Aspects of language teaching

Preface. 1. Introduction:. Scope and Focus. Method. Historical Background. Significance. Organization of the Book. 2. Basic Terms, Concepts, and Issues:. Patterns of Communication. Communicative Functions. Speech Community. Communicative Competence. The Competence of Incompetence. Units of Analysis. Categories of Talk. Language and Culture. Social Structure and Ideology. Routines and Rituals. Universals and Inequalities. 3. Varieties of Language:. Language Choice. Diglossia and Dinomia. Code--Switching and Style--Shifting. Code--Markers. Varieties Associated with Setting. Varieties Associated with Activity Domain. Varieties Associated with Region. Varieties Associated with Ethnicity. Varieties Associated with Social Class, Status, and Role. Varieties Associated with Role--Relationships. Varieties Associated with Sex. Varieties Associated with Age. Varieties Associated with Personality States and 'Abnormal' Speech. Non--Native Varieties. 4. The Analysis of Communicative Events:. Relationship of Ethnographer and Speech Community. Types o f Data. Survey of Data Collection and Analytic Procedures. Identification of Communicative Events. Components of Communication. Relationship among Components. Elicitation within a Frame. Analysis of Interaction. Sample Analyses of Communicative Events. Further Illustrations of Ethnographic Analysis. 5. Contrasts in Patterns of Communication:. Comparative Rhetoric. Historical Development. Ethnographic Perspective. Establishing Validity. Situated Event Analysis. Other Data Collection and Analytic Procedures. Cross--Cultural Communication. Concepts of 'Face' . Constructing an Unseen Face. 6. Attitudes toward Communicative Performance:. Methodology. Attitudes Toward Language and Language Skills. Attitudes Toward Languages and Varieties. Stereotyping. Appropriateness. Language and Identity. Language Maintenance, Shift, and Spread. Taboos and Euphemisms. 7. Acquisition of Communicative Competence:. Early Linguistic Development. Social Interaction. Language and Enculturation. Definition of Stages and Roles. Communicative Strategies. Formulaic Expressions. Nonverbal Communication. Peer Influence and Extended Acquisition. Speech Play. Formal Education. Multilingual Contexts. Children's Beliefs about Language. 8. Politeness, Power, and Politics:. Language and Politics. Language and Social Theories. Linguistic Signs of Power. Linguistic Performances of Power. Linguistic Resistance and Rebellion. Language Planning. Responsibilities and Limitations. 9. Conclusion:. References. Index of Languages. General Index.

Tbe Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction

Contrastive rhetoric examines differences and similarities in writing across cultures. Although mainly concerned with student essay writing in its e rst 30 years, the area of study today contributes to knowledge about preferred patterns of writing in many English for specie c purposes situations. This article discusses some of the new directions contrastive rhetoric has taken. Following a brief review of the goals, methods, and accomplishments of research in contrastive rhetoric during the past 30 years, the article examines how contrastive rhetoric has been pursued with varying aims and methods in a variety of EFL situations involving academic and professional writing. Recent criticisms of contrastive rhetoric and their effects on changing directions are then surveyed.

New Directions in Contrastive Rhetoric

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Second language acquisition research methodology 3. SLA - Types of data analysis 4. Interlanguage studies: Substantive findings 5. The linguistic environment for language acquisition 6. Explanations for differential success among second language learners 7. Theories in second language acquisition 8. Instructed second language acquisition Bibliography Index

第二语言习得研究概况 = An introduction to second language qcquisition reserch

Forty-five adult second language learners of English participated in this study, which investigated syntactically ambiguous sentences in which a prepositional phrase is interpreted as either an NP (noun phrase) attachment or VP (verb phrase) attachment (e.g., The cop saw the spy with binoculars). One group of 23 students performed comprehension tasks, first by listening to the sentences produced with no distinction in intonation favoring the NP or the VP interpretation, then by listening to the sentences produced with an intonation that favored the NP interpretation. A second group of 22 students performed comprehension tasks, first by reading the sentences with no preceding context, then by reading them preceded by a referential context. The students also did 2 sentence-completion tasks, one manipulating “action verbs,” the other “psych and perception verbs,” to evaluate the verb-based lexical biasing effect. Statistical analyses of the results showed lexical, syntactic, prosodic, and contextual constraints on processing of ambiguous sentences.

Multiple Constraints on Processing Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence from Adult L2 Learners.

Dans le cadre de l'acquisition d'une L2, l'A. examine les notions d'input et d'intake developpees par Gass et Selinker (1994), et propose deux concepts essentiels pour que l'input devienne intake

What sort of input is needed for intake

Connor (1996, 1997) claims that the origin of early contrastive rhetoric lies in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. This article argues that her claim does not appear tenable. The Sapir-Whorf view of language as a causal determination is not compatible with Kaplan's (1966) position that rhetoric is evolved out of a culture. Furthermore, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is actually rooted in German ideas which also conflict with Kaplan's view. On the other hand, Hymes’ethnography of communication approach can be seen as an important historical antecedent for contrastive rhetoric. Kaplan's view appears to reinforce Hymes’position that it is culture rather than the linguistic form which is the frame of reference for the use of language.

The origin of contrastive rhetoric revisited

The publication in 1986 of Relevance: Communication and Cognition by Dan Sperber and Dreidre Wilson set in motion a wide-ranging program of research into human communication (for a recent overview, see Yus Ramos, 1998). But actual relevance-theoretic research in second language acquisition (SLA) has barely begun (Foster-Cohen, 2000). Although fairly well studied in generative grammar (e.g., Fiengo and May 1994; Johnson 2001), reflexive anaphora in VP-ellipsis ((1) below) has not been studied in second language acquisition research.

www.lingref.com/cpp/gasla/6/paper1059.pdf

L2 Learners' Interpretation of Reflexive Anaphora in VP-Ellipsis: A Relevance Theory Perspective

I appreciate this opportunity to respond to Matsuda’s comments on my article. In his comments, Matsuda agrees with two basic arguments I made in my paper: (1) Kaplan’s view of the relationship between language and culture is not the same as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, and (2) it is very unlikely that the origin of contrastive rhetoric can be pinned down to a single source — the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity/determinism. But he raised the question about whether Kaplan’s view of the relationship between language and culture is ‘incompatible’ with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, as I put it in my paper. He also raised the question about my argument that the ethnography of communication (Hymes 1962) can be an important antecedent for contrastive rhetoric. My reply will thus take up each of these two questions.

H. G. Ying

Papers

Multiple Constraints on Processing Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence from Adult L2 Learners.

What sort of input is needed for intake

The origin of contrastive rhetoric revisited

L2 Learners' Interpretation of Reflexive Anaphora in VP-Ellipsis: A Relevance Theory Perspective

On the origins of contrastive rhetoric: a reply to Matsuda