Mentalist accounts of FLA

(1)?Mentalist theories

①?Chomsky

1)?stress the active contribution of the child: minimize imitation and reinforcement

2)?the child’s L1 knowledge → Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar:

a.?a set of innate linguistic principles

b.?which controlled the essential form that any natural language could take

3)?model for FLA: primary linguistic data → AD → G

a.?Acquisition Device(AD)

a)?contained the Universal Grammar

b)?shape the process of acquisition

b.?primary linguistic data: trigger for activating AD

c.?Grammar(G): learned through AD

②?Lenneberg

1)?biological prerequisite: only homo sapiens was capable of learning language

2)?the child’s innate propensity

a.?the child’s brain: specially adapted to the process of language acquisition

b.?lost as maturation took place

3)?age of resonance(before puberty): language acquisition took place as a genetic heritage

③?McNeill: hypothesis testing

1)?form hypotheses

transformation of innate knowledge into the surface form of L1

2)?test out and modify the hypotheses

against primary linguistic data

3)?build up competence

by successive approximations

④?conclusion

1)?Language is a human-specific faculty.

2)?Language?exists as an?independent faculty in the human mind i.e.although it is part of the learner's total cognitive apparatus, it is separate from the general cognitive mechanisms responsible for intellectual development.

3)?The primary determinant of L1?acquisition is the child's 'acquisition device', which is genetically endowed and provides the child with a set of principles about grammar.

4)?The 'acquisition device' atrophies with age.

5)?The process of acquisition consists of hypothesis-testing, by which means the grammar of the learner's mother tongue is related to the principles of the 'universal grammar'.

(2)?Empirical research

①?issues

1)?theoretical developments in syntax

Syntactic Structures?(Chomsky, 1957)

2)?mentalist views of SLA

3)?the child’s underlying semantic intentions

②?features

1)?longitudinal

2)?naturalistic data: actual speech

3)?elicited speech: imitation

③?result

1)?the children’s early utterances were unique (no native-speaking adult could have produced them)

a.?the children’s early utterances are different in form from adult’s (more than imitation)

b.?the internal processing

2)?development was continuous and incremental, but could be characterized as a series of stages

a.?incremental: growth of mean length of utterance (MLU)

a)?an index of development

b)?increase in utterance length + revision of grammatical rules

c)?MLU increases as the child develops memory capacity and acquires grammatical information

b.?process(stages)

a)?sequence of development

i.?fixed sequence of development: the stages of development

ii.?a descriptive term

b)?factors that determine how acquisition takes place

i.?how the child constructs internal rules

ii.?how he adjusts them from stage to stage

iii.?an explanatory term

3)?there must be underlying mechanisms which are common to all learners and which are responsible for the route taken