Language Acquisition Device

The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is an older term coined by Noam

Chomsky in the 1960s to describe an innate or biological endowment for

language and language acquisition. According to Chomsky, children cannot

possibly acquire a first language by mimicking, hypothesis testing, or generalizing

from input data because such strategies would lead them down the

wrong paths (e.g., wrong hypotheses) and cause delays in acquisition. What

is more, Chomsky noted that the language to which children are exposed

does not contain all the data they need to wind up with native-like competence

(see poverty of the stimulus). Yet, children are known to be rather

successful at language acquisition with most parts of the formal properties of

language in place prior to school age. To account for the phenomenon of

rapid and successful acquisition, Chomsky said that children have a LAD

that guides and constrains acquisition, a device that removes a lot of guess

work. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has refined his ideas and no longer speaks

of LAD, but instead refers to Universal Grammar, an innate knowledge

source that governs the shape of natural languages. (See also innatist

position and nativism.)

Learning strategies

The definition of learning strategies is not straightforward. However, a compilation

of the definitions offered by major scholars in the field suggests

that learning strategies are efforts by learners to enhance or assist their

language learning experience. Elements attributed to these strategies or

efforts include the following:

􀁺 they involve choice on the part of the learner;

􀁺 they involve conscious selection; that is, the learner is aware of deciding

to use a strategy;

􀁺 they are goal directed (i.e., they are purposeful in nature and geared

toward task completion);

􀁺 they are effortful.

102 Learning styles

Learning strategies are distinguished from communication strategies that

center on how learners compensate for incomplete competence during

interactions in the L2.

There is a vast literature on learning strategies that has focused on such

topics as a taxonomy of strategies (i.e., a classification of strategies); which

strategies are used by which learners (e.g., more proficient learners appear to

use a wider range of strategies in a greater number of situations than do less

proficient learners); which strategies are used for what kinds of tasks; how

strategies relate to successful learning; to what extent learners can be trained

in strategy use, and others. As examples of strategy types, here are five:

(1) metacognitive strategies for organizing, focusing, and evaluating one’s

own learning; (2) affective strategies for handling emotions or attitudes;

(3) social strategies for cooperating with others in the learning process;

(4) cognitive strategies for linking new information with existing schemata

and for analyzing and classifying it; and (5) memory strategies for entering

new information into memory storage and for retrieving it when needed.

Again, categorization and definitions of strategies vary from scholar to scholar.

In addition, most research on L2 strategies focuses on classroom learners and

classroom success, and it is not clear how learning strategies relate to SLA

more generally. Major researchers in L2 strategies include Andrew Cohen,

Rebecca Oxford, J. Michael O’Malley, Anna Chamot, and others.

Learning styles

Learning styles refer to the different ways in which learners perceive, absorb,

process, and recall new information and skills. As such, they are preferences

about how people go about learning and acquiring new information. They

are sometimes referred to as cognitive styles, although some scholars do not

equate the two. Unlike learning strategies that may be specific to tasks

(e.g., always underlining new words), learning styles encompass broad traits

concerning learning. For example, one distinction made in at least one model

related to learning styles is concrete versus abstract thinking. Concrete thinkers

are oriented toward experiences and specific human situations and

generally emphasize feeling over thinking. Abstract conceptualizers are

oriented toward logic, ideas, and concepts. Another difference in learning

styles that has been researched is field dependence versus field independence.

Field dependent people are said to have difficulty seeing the details of

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the field in front of them. They take in the whole. This kind of person might

have difficulty finding something small dropped on a floor, such as a pin or a

pill. Field independent people are the opposite and can more easily see details

or subtle differences. They could more quickly find the pin on the floor. Of

course, all of these contrasts are ideals, and most people fall on a scale rather

than to one extreme or another. In addition, people are composed of various

orientations involving different kinds of oppositions. In the two cases above,

a person could be measured on both concreteness and abstractness, as well

as field dependence/independence, and along with other traits about

learning or cognitive style, this information would tell us something about

how this person processes the world around him or her.

A number of scholars have researched the what of learning styles (i.e.,

their classification and what they mean), the how of assessment (i.e., what

measures to use in order to determine people’s learning styles), and the relationship

between learning styles and outcomes (success) in SLA. In the case of

outcomes, most research is related to classroom success. It is thus tied to

educational concerns rather than to, say, immersion environments, immigrant

situations, and other kinds of acquisitional contexts. Some names associated

with learning styles are Andrew Cohen, Rebecca Oxford, Madeline Ehrman,

Betty Lou Leaver, and Peter Skehan.

Lexicon

Lexicon is the word linguists use to refer to the mental dictionary we all carry

around in our heads. As such, it is composed of all the words we know and

each person has his/her own mental lexicon. Words