CAS LX 400 Second Language AcquisitionInput, intake, interactionClassroom applications?Doughty (1991)Slide 5Slide 6Slide 7Procedure…Slide 9Slide 10PretestPosttestGroup mean gain scoresResultsCommentsInput, interaction… UG?Parameters, triggersSlide 18Slide 19Slide 20Slide 21Slide 22Ungrammatical FTAn interesting idea (courtesy of Carol Neidle)Some French “irregulars”Slide 26Slide 27Slide 28Slide 29Slide 30“Incomprehensible input”Week 10b. Input and interaction IICAS LX 400Second Language AcquisitionInput, intake, interaction•Last time:–Input vs. intake–Foreigner talk as improving comprehension–Krashen: Comprehension required for intake–Long: Interaction (negotiation for meaning) important for calling attention to gaps, achieving intake.Classroom applications?•What should we do in language classrooms in light of this?•A goal of the language classroom should presumably be to enhance the input, to make it as likely as possible to be used as intake.•What makes the most effective enhancement? Surprising few clear results are out there.•Often differentiating between focus on form vs. focus on meaning approaches.Doughty (1991)•Investigating several issues at once:•Effectiveness of type of instruction–Meaning oriented–Rule oriented•Effectiveness of teaching “down the markedness hierarchy” (teaching a marked structure and allowing learner-internal generalization to an unmarked structure).Doughty (1991)•Subjects: 20 international students taking intensive ESL courses, without much prior knowledge of relative clauses. Average length of stay in the US was 3.7 months.•Tasks:–Grammaticality judgment–Sentence completionDoughty (1991)•Subjects were pretested, then over two weeks (10 weekdays) they came in to a computer lab to take a “language lesson”. Then, immediately afterwards, subjects were posttested.•In the language lessons, one of three possible things happened:–Subject got the “meaning oriented treatment”–Subject got the “rule oriented treatment”–Subject got the “control treatment”Doughty (1991)•Daily lessons were a text of 5-6 sentences (of a two-week long “story”) containing an relative clause formed on the object of a preposition.–This is the book that I was looking for.•Recall: Noun phrase accessibility hierarchy:SU > DO > IO> OP > GEN > OCOMPProcedure…•Three steps:–Skim–Reading for understanding (experimental section)–Scan•Skim: Subjects saw the text for 30 seconds, with title, first sentence and last sentence highlighted—this is to “get the idea” of what the text is about.Procedure…•Reading for understanding: Each sentence displayed consecutively at the top of the screen. Three different possibilities:–MOG: Also saw dictionary help (2m) and semantic explanations (referents, synonyms) (2m), including relationship between head noun and relative pronoun.–ROG: Saw a little animated presentation of deriving a OPREP sentence from two sentences (This is the book, I was looking for the book, This is the book which I was looking for)–COG: Saw each sentence, 2.5 minutes.Procedure…•Scan. Re-scan paragraph in order to be able to answer two questions about it, then write out a summary (NL).PretestS SU DO IO OP GE OC3 + + - - - -5 + - - + - -21 + - - + - -7 + - - - - -2 + - - - - -6 + - - - - -4 + - - - - -1 - - - - - -S SU DO IO OP GE OC17 + + - - + -20 + - - - - -15 + - - - - -19 - - - - - -14 - - - - - -16 - - - - - -S SU DO IO OP GE OC9 + + + + + -8 + + - + + -10 + - - - - -13 + - - - - -12 - - - - - -11 - - - - - -MOGROGCoGPosttestS SU DO IO OP GE OC3 + + + + + +5 + + + + + +21 + + + + + +7 + + + + + +2 + + + + - -6 + + + + - -4 + - - - - -1 + + - - - -S SU DO IO OP GE OC17 + + + + + +20 + + - + + +15 + + - - - -19 + + + + - -14 + - - - - -16 + - - - - -S SU DO IO OP GE OC9 + + + + + +8 + + + + + +10 + + - + - -13 + - - - + -12 + - - - - -11 - - - - - -MOGROGCoGGroup mean gain scores0510152025303540SU DO IO OP GEN OCMOGROGCoGResults•Both experimental groups showed strong positive effects (“Second Language Instruction Does Make a Difference”).•The control group did too (simply from exposure) but not as dramatic.•Both types of instruction appear to be equally effective with respect to gain in relativization ability.•Comprehension-wise, MOG scored 70.01 vs. ROG’s 43.68 and CoG’s 40.64. Significant.•Subjects improved basically following the NPAH by being taught just a marked position.Comments•Note that:–ROG subjects improved in their ability to relativize, yet didn’t do so well on the comprehension tests—meaning isn’t utmost in getting the structural rules.–MOG subjects got the structural properties even though not directly instructed in them (meaning didn’t get in the way).Input, interaction… UG?•UG hasn’t played a very big role in the discussion of the importance of interaction, converting input into intake, negotiating for meaning. How can we connect them?Parameters, triggers•Recall that one of the crucial features of parameters is that (ideally) each parameter setting has a cluster of effects.–It’s not just that the verb appears before adverbs—it is that the verb moves into the tense position, which means it appears before adverbs and before negation. Coming before adverbs and coming before negation are a cluster of properties tied to the single verb-raising parameter.Parameters, triggers•In order to set a parameter in the way which matches the setting reflected by the language in the environment, the learner needs to look for consequences of a particular setting.•Designated bits of data which can serve as unambiguous indicators of one parameter setting over another are sometimes called triggers.Parameters, triggers•So, for example, the L1’er’s task is to examine the input for instances of these triggers and use them to set the parameter to the correct value.•Some of the consequences of any given parameter setting might be fairly obscure, not likely to show up in frequent (or easily analyzed) ambient speech data accessible to the kid. This might make it hard to set one’s parameters—but for the clustering property.Parameters, triggers•Indications that the verb moves:–Seeing verbs before negation–Seeing verbs before adverbs•Indications that the verb doesn’t move:–Do-support (The verb does not usually move)•Indications that null subjects are allowed:–Null subjects are observed.–Postverbal