Rate of Acquiring and Processing L2 Color Words in Relation to L1 Phonological Awareness

Hu
1. This article falls within processing theory (and, more specifically, as described in our book, into the Lexical/Functional Grammar), as the authors attempt to account for both ELLs’ grammar and the cognitive processing speed and accuracy of their grammars. The authors also discuss saliency, and therefore also write within the Teachability Hypothesis.
2. This article addresses Transition theory, as it concentrates on language learners’ processing models.
3. I think this study lends support to the Hierarchical nature of language, in that people who have trouble with lower strata of language, like phonology, will also have trouble with higher levels of the hierarchy, like vocabulary. I would not be surprised if the author found that students who have poor phonological awareness have trouble at all levels of the grammar.

sound to meaning correspondences facilitate word learning

Nygaard et al. 2009

1. This article appears to fall into the processing theories category of cognitive approaches to SLA. While most cognitive theorists are concerned with transition theories and this one (I think) is driven by property theory, the authors of this article assume that language ability is innate and also that processing time will decrease as practice increases. These assumptions are central to processing theories of cognition.

2. The article addresses property theory because it challenges an assumption about the nature of natural language—that the sound-symbol relationship is arbitrary—and is not primarily concerned with how people acquire language. The authors do note that sensitivity to cross-linguistic sound symbols can facilitate language learning, but they are actually focused more on what this means in terms of the nature of human languages.

3. I find the entire article fascinating and inherently significant. Challenging long-held assumptions is always important and this study introduces a very mysterious phenomenon. It reminds me of those studies that try to show that people have some ESP. It sends a chill down my spine. This is a great article.

ACQUIRING /R/ IN CONTEXT

Colantoni & Steele 2007

1. This article seeks to explain the order of acquisition of a certain target allophonic phoneme based on the Universal Grammar approach. The authors explain English-speaking French language learners’ errors in terms of order of acquisition and the introduction and conclusion imply that this order of acquisition based on complicated principles of aerophonetics might be universal across all learners of all languages.

2. The article addresses property theory because it takes as a basic assumption that in order to generalize findings found for ESL, it is necessary to “expand the empirical base to include an even greater variety of target languages.” The authors hope to deduce universal constraints from this study and others like it.

3. While I believe the authors focused on universal constraints on targetlike production of French rhotics, I was most interested in the finding that just the act of production gives the language learners practice with the target phonemes and helps them move toward more targetlike production. I feel that this indirectly supports Swain’s Output Hypothesis.

Training English Word-final Palatals to Korean Speakers of English

Yeon 2008

Trained Korean ESL students who came to the US after critical period in ending syllables in "sh" and "ch." FOund that intensive training and focused learning helped production and perception.

1. The article is based on a connectionist theory of SLA. Yeon based his or her treatment on the assumption that repeated exposure to the target forms and frequent practice with perceiving and producing these forms might improve the learners; production and production of the forms. While Yeon does not mention the neural networks which might be strengthened by the training, the underlying assumption is that frequent and intensive practice is necessary for the acquisition of rule-governed behavior.

2. The article addresses transition theory, as it attempts to identify classroom tasks that can aid in listening and speaking activities for Korean English language learners.

3. The most significant aspect of this study is that all the learners “had come to the US after critical period” (53) and yet benefitted from the intensive perception training. Yeon has found not only that the critical period is not necessarily the “cut-off for language learning,” but also has identified a classroom activity for Korean ELLs that can eradicate this common error.

Gender and Sociolinguistic Variation

by Eckert

We cannot consider gender an independent variable, but must consider it in relation to other variations such as socioeconomic status, identity, and regional variation.

Eckert challenged Labov's generalization that women's speech is more conservative than men's by examining two groups of white teenagers at a Detroit high school. The groups were the jocks and the burnouts, who together accounted for about half the school's populations.

Eckert examined phonological variation among jock and burnout males and females. She found that there was a complex relationship between nonstandard vowels and identity, concluding that we cannot look at gender differences without examining the communities of practice in which the women and men use language.

Second language research using magnetoencephalography: a review

schmidt and roberts

This article first touts MEG as a very useful tool in studying SLA and neurolinguistics, then summarizes previous SLA MEG studies.

MEG is the magnetic version of EEg. Subjects are more comfortable doing an MEG than other neuroimaging devices. But it is expensive and subjects must stay very still.


Phiko and others (2001;2002) found that the L2 is processed more like the L3 than the L1 in early bilinguals.

Zhang and others (2001; 2005) found that Japanese can detect the difference in /r/ and /l/ when there is no vowel afterwards. This suggests "backward masking."


The MEG was used with Japanese and German speakers to determine that both groups recognized kanji "holistically, rather than piecemeal."


Ihara and Kakigi found that Koreans process Hangul and Kana in different parts of their brains.

Phonology can also be studied with the MEG. Differences in pitch changes resulting in changed meaning of words can be taught to SLL. French and Spanish speakers show different areas of the brain allotted to vowels because French has 7 more vowels than Spanish.

Bialystok et al 2005 examined whether bilinguals perform better than monolinguals at the Simon task. The two groups had speedy responses when different areas of the brain were activated. Bilinguals were fast when the "cingulate and superior and inferior frontal regions" and slower with the "right visual cortex." Monolinguals were fast with the "left middle frontal activation" and slow with the "right motor cortex."

Valaki et al (2004) found that Mandarin speakers' brains were less strongly lateralized.