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chapter1languageacquisitionandlanguagelearning
AccordingtoKrashen,ulearningdoesnot‘turninto’acquisition”(1982:83).His
theorycanthereforebereferredtoasanon-interfacemodel(seesection1.4.1).In
otherwords,explicitknowledgeaboutlanguagerulesandpatterns,builtthrough
conscious,intentional,andefortfulprocessesinsituationswherelearnersfocus
theirattentionontheformalpropertiesoflanguagecanneverbeconverted
intothetypeofknowledgelearnersdrawoninspontaneouscommunication,
i.e.acquiredknowledge.Acquiredknowledgecanonlybedevelopednaturally,
efortlesslyandoutsideofawarenessthroughexposuretocomprehensibleinput
andnormalinteractioninL2situationswherelearnersfocusonmeaningrather
thanform.WhilelearnedknowledgecanserveuasaMonitor,oreditor”(Krashen
1982:15)duringlanguageproduction,Krashenclaimsthatthisisitsonlyfunction,
andnoamountofpracticecanturnalearnedruleintoanacquiredone.Apart
frombeingastrongtheoreticalclaim,thenon-interfacepositionhasimportant
practicalimplications.AsnotedbyVanPattenandWilliams,utheutilityoflearned
knowledgewithinMonitorTeoryisnegligible.Itfollowsthatitisnotworth
spendingpreciousinstructionaltimeondevelopinglearnedknowledge,asis
typicallythecaseinL2classrooms”(2007:27).
AnothercontroversialissuerelatedtoKrashen’sviewoflanguageacquisition
ishisclaimthatuadultscanaccessthesamenatural‘languageacquisitiondevice’
thatchildrenuse”(Krashen1982:10),whichleadstofundamentalsimilarities
betweenchildfirstlanguageacquisitionandadultsecondlanguageacquisition.
Krashen’sMonitorTeoryisanexampleofso-calledlanguage-specific
nativism,atheoreticalperspectiveinthefieldbasedontheassumptionthat
languageacquisition,atleastinthecaseofthefirstlanguage,isimpossible
intheabsenceofaninnatebiologicallyendowedlanguagefaculty(seee.g.
Chomsky1975;White2003,2005;seealsoO’Grady2005foradiscussionof
diferenttypesofnativism).InKrashen’sview,anylanguage(firstorsecond)
isacquiredthroughtheinteractionbetweenlinguisticinformationembedded
inmeaningfulmessages(comprehensibleinput)andtheinnatelanguage
acquisitiondevice(LAD).Tispositionisclearlyunacceptabletoawide
spectrumofSLAtheoristswhosubscribetoconstructivistviewsoflanguage
acquisition,whichholdthattheprocessisessentiallygovernedbygenerallaws
ofhumanlearning,bothassociativeandcognitive,ratherthanbyanylanguage-
specificmechanismsworkingoninputandinnatelinguisticknowledge(seee.g.
Carroll2001,DeKeyser2001,N.C.Ellis2005b,Larsen-FreemanandN.C.Ellis
2006,MacWhinney2001,Pienemann1998,VanPatten2004).
Krashen’sclaimswouldnotbeunanimouslyacceptedinthenativistcamp,
either.SLAtheoristsinvestigatingsecondlanguageacquisitionfromthe
generativeperspectivetendtodisagreeontheavailabilityofUniversalGrammar
(acomponentofLADconsistingofasystemofgrammaticalcategoriesand
principlesdeterminingcorepropertiesofhumanlanguage)toL2learnersand
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