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SUMMARY:The role of statistical learning in early generative L2 grammars -
  Prof Roger Hawkins (Department of Linguistics and English Language\, Univ
 ersity of Essex)
DTSTART:20080214T170000Z
DTEND:20080214T183000Z
UID:TALK7833@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Christopher Lucas
DESCRIPTION:A number of recent studies have provided evidence that post-ch
 ildhood L2 learners retain the ability to rapidly compute the ‘transitio
 nal probabilities’ between syllables in strings of continuous\, unfamili
 ar linguistic material. For example\, in a study by Saffran et al (1996) a
 dult learners heard an unbroken 21 minute string of an artificial language
  made up of 3-syllable ‘words’ joined together in a random order. Foll
 owing exposure\, participants were presented with pairs of ‘words’ and
  ‘non-words’ and asked to ‘choose which alternative … sounded more
  familiar’ (Newport & Aslin 2000: 4). They were significantly better tha
 n chance at choosing the ‘words’. This ability appears to be a major c
 omponent in the identification of morphemes in L2 development.\n\nSome the
 ories propose that such statistical learning is a pervasive feature of sec
 ond language acquisition. In particular\, knowledge of L2s ‘emerges’ j
 ust from computing transitional probabilities and ‘tallying’ frequenci
 es of identified forms in the input\, without need for pre-existing knowle
 dge of linguistic properties. In contrast\, generative approaches to SLA a
 ssume that an important part of acquisition is guided by pre-existing know
 ledge of the kinds of features and computations that make up human grammar
 s\, this coming from innate endowment (Universal Grammar).\n\nIn this talk
  I will assume that both statistical learning and innate linguistic knowle
 dge play a role in early L2 acquisition. I will propose a model of how the
  two interact\, and discuss how this model helps us understand a number of
  robust observations about the early acquisition of English verb morpholog
 y by L2 learners.\n\nReferences\n\nNewport\, E. L.\, & Aslin\, R. N. 2000:
  Innately constrained learning: blending old and new approaches to languag
 e acquisition. Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference
  on Language Development\,. Cascadilla Press\, Somerville\, MA. Vol 1\, 1-
 21.\n\nSaffran\, J. R.\, Newport\, E. L. & Aslin\, R. N. 1996: Word segmen
 tation: the role of distributional cues. Journal of Memory and Language 35
 \, 606-621.\n
LOCATION:GR06-7\, English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
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