Richard Schmidt presents on the role of consciousness in second language learning at the 1988 Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) held in at the University of Hawai‘i.

/pdf/the-role-of-consciousness-in-second-language-learning-4tc4iwvjpu.pdf

The role of consciousness in second language learning

This article argues that language teaching would benefit by paying attention to the L2 user rather than concentrating primarily on the native speaker. It suggests ways in which language teaching can apply an L2 user model and exploit the students' L1. Because L2 users differ from monolingual native speakers in their knowledge of their L2s and Lls and in some of their cognitive processes, they should be considered as speakers in their own right, not as approximations to monolingual native speakers. In the classroom, teachers can recognise this status by incorporating goals based on L2 users in the outside world, bringing L2 user situations and roles into the classroom, deliberately using the students' L1 in teaching activities, and looking to descriptions of L2 users or L2 learners rather than descriptions of native speakers as a source of information. The main benefits of recognising that L2 users are speakers in the own right, however, will come from students' and teachers' having a positive image of L2 users rather than seeing them as failed native speakers. Language professionals often take for granted that the only appropriate models of a language's use come from its native speakers. Linguists look at the intuitions of native speakers or collect quantities of their speech; language teachers encourage students to be like native speakers. This article argues that the prominence of the native speaker in language teaching has obscured the distinctive nature of the successful L2 user and created an unattainable goal for L2 learners. It recommends that L2 users be viewed as multicompetent language users rather than as deficient native speakers and suggests how language teaching can recognise students as L2 users both in and out of the classroom.

/pdf/going-beyond-the-native-speaker-in-language-teaching-1jddqjg77o.pdf

Going Beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching

This study was designed to test the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-Vroman,
 1988), which states that, whereas children are known to learn language almost completely
 through (implicit) domain-specific mechanisms, adults have largely lost the ability to learn a
 language without reflecting on its structure and have to use alternative mechanisms, drawing
 especially on their problem-solving capacities, to learn a second language. The hypothesis
 implies that only adults with a high level of verbal analytical ability will reach near-native
 competence in their second language, but that this ability will not be a significant predictor of
 success for childhood second language acquisition. A study with 57 adult Hungarian-speaking
 immigrants confirmed the hypothesis in the sense that very few adult immigrants scored within
 the range of child arrivals on a grammaticality judgment test, and that the few who did had high
 levels of verbal analytical ability; this ability was not a significant predictor for childhood
 arrivals. This study replicates the findings of Johnson and Newport (1989) and provides an
 explanation for the apparent exceptions in their study. These findings lead to a
 reconceptualization of the Critical Period Hypothesis: If the scope of this hypothesis is limited to
 implicit learning mechanisms, then it appears that there may be no exceptions to the age effects
 that the hypothesis seeks to explain.

/pdf/the-robustness-of-critical-period-effects-in-second-language-4any0zzynz.pdf

The Robustness of Critical Period Effects in Second Language Acquisition.

This article reviews the second language research on age-related differences, as well as first language work needed to disambiguate some of the findings. Five conclusions are drawn, (a) Both the initial rate of acquisition and the ultimate level of attainment depend in part on the age at which learning begins. (b) There are sensitive periods governing language development, first or second, during which the acquisition of different linguistic abilities is successful and after which it is irregular and incomplete. (c) The age-related loss in ability is cumulative (not a catastrophic one-time event), affecting first one linguistic domain and then another, and is not limited to phonology, (d) The deterioration in some individuals begins as early as age 6—not at puberty as is often claimed. (e) Affective, input, and current cognitive explanations for the reduced ability are inadequate. The capacity for language development is maturationally constrained, and its decline probably reflects a progressive loss of neural plasticity, itself possibly associated with increasing myelination.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0272263100009165

Maturational Constraints on Language Development

In this article, the motivation for Universal Grammar (UG), as assumed in the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (Chomsky, 1981a, 1981b), is discussed, particular attention being paid to the logical problem of first language acquisition. The potential role of UG in second language (L2) acquisition is then considered. Three different positions are reviewed: (a) the claim that UG is not available to L2 learners; (b) the claim that UG is fully available; and (c) the claim that the L2 learner's access to UG is mediated by the mother tongue. This raises the issue of what kind of evidence can be used to decide between these three positions. Recent experimental research which argues for one or another of these positions by investigating the L2 status of the Subjacency Principle is reviewed, and the implications of this research are discussed.

/pdf/second-language-acquisition-and-universal-grammar-37ve6piazx.pdf

René Coppieters

Papers

Competence Differences between Native and Near-Native Speakers

Variation theory and second language acquisition