SLA exam questions and answers
Operating Principles ✔✔Guides children in processing the input for learning. A list
was offered with statements that described what children were "looking for" in
the input data in order to learn the L1 grammar. Examples of statements are "Pay
Attention to the End of Words", which explains why children learn suffixes earlier
than prefixes or "Avoid Exceptions", which explains overgeneralization.
Input Processing theory ✔✔1) learners will process content words before anything
else (telegram-style).
2) they will also process lexical encodings before synonymous grammatical
encodings (yesterday before -ed) as well as semantic or non-redundant encodings
before formal or redundant ones (he before -s).
3) they will interpret first nouns in sentences as subjects (the eraser hits the cat,
eraser = doer)
Usage based theories ✔✔1) they hold that grammar learning is not rule-based or
deductive, but driven by experience or inductive.
2) they take frequency and salience in the input, and cognitive processes of
attention and categorization in the learner, as explanatory cornerstones of
language learning.
3) the contemporary cognitivist-emergentist perspectives afford variability an
unprecedented importance, as variability is thought to be a major property of
systems and a manifestation of development.
,4) they hold that learner language development cannot be explained by recourse
to isolated causes or back to a single force. Instead, explanations must account for
the simultaneous interaction of multiple forces.
Formulas (items/exemplars) ✔✔The first step of usage-based language learning.
The pairing of a form and a meaning that is experienced in a particular language
use event.
Low-scope patterns ✔✔The second step of usage-based language learning.
Enabled by repeated experience of the same formula. If the formula is frequent
enough, and the formal and functional cues to how they work salient enough,
they will extract information that cumulatively leads to vernalization from such
experiences.
Construction or schema ✔✔The third step of usage-based language learning. It
makes the inductive analysis progressively "less item-based and more schematic".
Inventory of usage-based language learning ✔✔Includes formulas, low-scope
patterns and constructions/schemas. It is misguided to think that once formulas
are annualized and give way to abstract constructions and schemata, they
'disappear' or dissolve themselves into general knowledge. Instead, they remain in
the inventory.
Four ways in which learners build, revise, expand and refine L2 representations as
L2 as new grammar develops. ✔✔1) simplification
2) overgeneralization
,3) restructuring
4) U-shaped behaviour
Simplification ✔✔A process that is called upon when messages must be conveyed
with little language. It appears at very early stages of L2 development.
Overgeneralization ✔✔Is the application of a form or rule not only to context
where it applies, but also to other contexts where it does not apply.
Restructuring ✔✔The process of self-reorganization of grammar knowledge
representation. Restructuring covers a range of processes by which existing
knowledge schemata may be quite radically modified, or a new or organization
may be imposed on already stored knowledge structures so as to accommodate
smaller-scale knowledge changes that may have occurred previously. It is
therefore assumed that restructuring involves knowledge changes that can be
large or small, abrupt or gradual, but aways qualitative and related to
development or progress.
U-shaped behaviour ✔✔Typically manifests itself as part of restructuring. In U-
shaped learning curves, the linguistic products of the final phase cannot be
distinguished from those of the first phase, as both are seemingly error free.
When children use the past tense of 'see' they will use 'saw' since this is what
their parents use. However, when they learn in school dat past tense is formed
with '-ed' they will transfer to 'seed'. After some time they will learn about the
irregular forms and go back to the correct form 'saw'. This is an example of the U-
shaped behaviour.
, Flooding ✔✔Extreme overgeneralization
Often seen in interlanguage development ✔✔Gradual application of a rule that
spreads from a subset of simpler contexts to increasingly more complex contexts
is often seen in interlanguage development.
ESF project's strengths ✔✔It was a longtudinal and cross-linguistic study.
The Basic Variety (Klein & Perdue, 1997) ✔✔It can be described by recourse to a
few simple principles for how utterances must be structured (i.e. phrasal
constraints) and how constituents must be ordered and information organised
along pragmatic and lexical resources (i.e. semantic and pragmatic constraints).
Early SLA discovery ✔✔A set of English inflectional morphemes is mastered by L2
English users in a certain order. There can be variation within the content of the
particular stages, but the development of the stages themselves are not
interchangable.
Aspect Hypothesis ✔✔This hypothesis predicts that the developmental pathway
of emergence of tense and as[ect will reflect prototypical pairings, that is,
combinations where the semantics of the verb morphology is congruent with the
semantics of the meaning of the verb to which the morphology is attached.
Operating Principles ✔✔Guides children in processing the input for learning. A list
was offered with statements that described what children were "looking for" in
the input data in order to learn the L1 grammar. Examples of statements are "Pay
Attention to the End of Words", which explains why children learn suffixes earlier
than prefixes or "Avoid Exceptions", which explains overgeneralization.
Input Processing theory ✔✔1) learners will process content words before anything
else (telegram-style).
2) they will also process lexical encodings before synonymous grammatical
encodings (yesterday before -ed) as well as semantic or non-redundant encodings
before formal or redundant ones (he before -s).
3) they will interpret first nouns in sentences as subjects (the eraser hits the cat,
eraser = doer)
Usage based theories ✔✔1) they hold that grammar learning is not rule-based or
deductive, but driven by experience or inductive.
2) they take frequency and salience in the input, and cognitive processes of
attention and categorization in the learner, as explanatory cornerstones of
language learning.
3) the contemporary cognitivist-emergentist perspectives afford variability an
unprecedented importance, as variability is thought to be a major property of
systems and a manifestation of development.
,4) they hold that learner language development cannot be explained by recourse
to isolated causes or back to a single force. Instead, explanations must account for
the simultaneous interaction of multiple forces.
Formulas (items/exemplars) ✔✔The first step of usage-based language learning.
The pairing of a form and a meaning that is experienced in a particular language
use event.
Low-scope patterns ✔✔The second step of usage-based language learning.
Enabled by repeated experience of the same formula. If the formula is frequent
enough, and the formal and functional cues to how they work salient enough,
they will extract information that cumulatively leads to vernalization from such
experiences.
Construction or schema ✔✔The third step of usage-based language learning. It
makes the inductive analysis progressively "less item-based and more schematic".
Inventory of usage-based language learning ✔✔Includes formulas, low-scope
patterns and constructions/schemas. It is misguided to think that once formulas
are annualized and give way to abstract constructions and schemata, they
'disappear' or dissolve themselves into general knowledge. Instead, they remain in
the inventory.
Four ways in which learners build, revise, expand and refine L2 representations as
L2 as new grammar develops. ✔✔1) simplification
2) overgeneralization
,3) restructuring
4) U-shaped behaviour
Simplification ✔✔A process that is called upon when messages must be conveyed
with little language. It appears at very early stages of L2 development.
Overgeneralization ✔✔Is the application of a form or rule not only to context
where it applies, but also to other contexts where it does not apply.
Restructuring ✔✔The process of self-reorganization of grammar knowledge
representation. Restructuring covers a range of processes by which existing
knowledge schemata may be quite radically modified, or a new or organization
may be imposed on already stored knowledge structures so as to accommodate
smaller-scale knowledge changes that may have occurred previously. It is
therefore assumed that restructuring involves knowledge changes that can be
large or small, abrupt or gradual, but aways qualitative and related to
development or progress.
U-shaped behaviour ✔✔Typically manifests itself as part of restructuring. In U-
shaped learning curves, the linguistic products of the final phase cannot be
distinguished from those of the first phase, as both are seemingly error free.
When children use the past tense of 'see' they will use 'saw' since this is what
their parents use. However, when they learn in school dat past tense is formed
with '-ed' they will transfer to 'seed'. After some time they will learn about the
irregular forms and go back to the correct form 'saw'. This is an example of the U-
shaped behaviour.
, Flooding ✔✔Extreme overgeneralization
Often seen in interlanguage development ✔✔Gradual application of a rule that
spreads from a subset of simpler contexts to increasingly more complex contexts
is often seen in interlanguage development.
ESF project's strengths ✔✔It was a longtudinal and cross-linguistic study.
The Basic Variety (Klein & Perdue, 1997) ✔✔It can be described by recourse to a
few simple principles for how utterances must be structured (i.e. phrasal
constraints) and how constituents must be ordered and information organised
along pragmatic and lexical resources (i.e. semantic and pragmatic constraints).
Early SLA discovery ✔✔A set of English inflectional morphemes is mastered by L2
English users in a certain order. There can be variation within the content of the
particular stages, but the development of the stages themselves are not
interchangable.
Aspect Hypothesis ✔✔This hypothesis predicts that the developmental pathway
of emergence of tense and as[ect will reflect prototypical pairings, that is,
combinations where the semantics of the verb morphology is congruent with the
semantics of the meaning of the verb to which the morphology is attached.
