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
Lexicon 103
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
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