Krashen's acquisition-learning distinction theory in second language development

¶ … Language Acquisition

The language theory

According to Krashen 'communication' is the purpose of a language. Focusing on communicative abilities is just as important. The relevance of 'meaning' is also stressed upon. According to Terrell and Krashen, a language has its very own lexicon. The stress on vocabulary is apparent here and language is seen as a means to 'communicate meanings' as well as 'messages'. 'Acquisition' takes place in case where people understand messages in TL, according to Krashen. Natural Approach consists of 'messages', 'structures' and 'lexical items' in plain view. Production and perception are two lexicons on which clarification of messages and organization is dependent upon. According to Krashen, acquisition is a mere combination of rules of the language by employing language for communication. Linguistic competence is only attained by 'input' which contains structures at 'interlanguage+1' level (i+1). It is obtained by " comprehensible input'.

Learning theory of language

In his second theory of language acquisition (SLA), Krashen explains that adults develop competence in two ways in second languages: It is obtained by learning and acquisition. "The ability to learn second languages consists of two ways. 'Acquisition is the quintessential subconscious process which children employ during learning their first language…. [and] 'learning'…, [which is] is a cognitive process which results in acknowledging [rules of] a language" (Krashen 1985:1).

The fundamental hypothesis is nevertheless, Acquisition-Learning distinction in Krashen's theory. It is known widely in the language practitioners and linguists' groups.

In Krashen's own words, there are two systems for performance in second language. One is the 'the acquired system' and other is 'the learned system'. 'Acquisition' or 'acquired system' is a result of a cognitive process same as that observed in children when they learn their first language. Natural communication is needed for the meaningful interaction. The speakers are focused on not only their utterances but also bring in the communicative act.

Whereas the 'learned system' or the 'learning' is a result of formal instruction and it consists of a conscious process which produces meaning knowledge 'about' the language, for instance, the rules of the grammar are identified. In words of Krashen, 'acquisition' is more imperative than 'learning'.

Krashen seriously believes that learned competence (LC) is a result of learning works as an editor or a monitor. Meanwhile, AC is tasked with our fluent production of words and sentences. LC simply corrects the sentences before or after their production. This form of conscious grammar correction is often termed as 'monitoring' which appears in grammar exams. The learner can work with his form and use his cognitive knowledge to focus on grammar rules (LC) for aiding 'acquired competence'. Developing learned competence is quite easy: Analyze the grammar rules carefully and practice them afterwards. However, Acquisition/Learning Distinction Hypothesis foresees is that grammar rules hailing to a second/foreign language doesn't prove cognitive acquisition.

It means that, conscious learning doesn't result in subconscious learning including grammar exercises and relevant practices. Krashen presents his idea in a well-known statement that "learning doesn't result in acquisition." At this point, he receives severe criticism.

Development language acquisition

Language acquisition

The process of natural integration is known as language acquisition, it consists of subconscious learning and intuition. It involves real interaction with people which assists the learner. It's quite familiar to the way children learn their first language. It produces functional skill in verbal language without background in theoretical knowledge. The familiarity with phonetic characteristics of a language is acquired and certain command over structure and vocabulary is attained. This results in oral understanding, space for creative communication as well as for acknowledgement of cultural values. Teaching and learning are activities which assist in building a psychological plane. Thus, communicative act and self-confidence is built only by acquisition approach (Saxton, 2010).

A classic instance in case of language acquisition takes in consideration adults and young adults who dwell in student exchange program. The aim is to attain native fluency soon enough, while being unaware of the language on the whole. Without knowing phonology, they have a command on pronunciation. They are also not aware of the perfect tense, phrasal verbs, modal verbs for that matter. They do identify and know how to work with nearly all the structure (Saxton, 2010).

Behaviorism: Skinner (1904-1990)

B.F Skinner proposed a theory that explains language acquisition in human beings. B.F Skinner's is founded on "operant conditioning (learning is relative to change in external behavior). The child takes verbal behavior in times of unpatterned vocalizations, specially reinforced, slow takes some form which generates radical consequences in a spoken community" (Edberg, 2007).

Constraints in behaviorism

Language has some ground rules and structure which couldn't be solved by human interactions alone. Children can't always repeat the words of grownups. In the words of Noam Chomsky on behaviorism: Behaviorism may have served different purposes in the past. Now it's nothing more than a few set of constraints set arbitrarily on 'legal' theory constrictions… the sort of chains that physical scientists can't tolerate and that violates the scientific intelligence as useless." (Edberg, 2007)

Jean William Fritzn Piaget (1896-1098): Cognitive theory

Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist who put language acquisition in the cognitive development or mental map of a child. According to him, language is just one portion of child's entire intellectual development (Bates et al., 1992; Edberg, 2007).

Noam Chomsky (1928 till present): Innateness

In the words of Noam Chomsky, innate processes are responsible for language mechanism process. The theory is confirmed by children themselves who arrive at similar crossroads in grammar, dwelling in similar linguistic community (Chomsky, 1959).

"Children already are given a tool or template for learning a language. This assists in helping the child in correcting and rectifying her grammar." This is called "Innateness Hypothesis" (Chomsky, 1959).

Chomsky states: UG has its own principles and parameters. It doesn't have rules for every language. Principles and parameters is the source of rules of language.

Principles: the basic stipulations of grammar for instance nouns, verbs and structure dependency.

Parameters: altering factors in a language which forms the basis of grammar for instance drop pro and head direction. Parameters are decided at Language Acquisition. UG is present somewhere inside a brain (Chomsky, 1959).

Chomsky also proposes that "children have similar restrictions inside, which is responsible for their grammar correction" (Chomsky, 1959).

Noam Chomsky (1959): "Language development should be taken as language growth as the language organ grows similarly to every other human organ (the brain)."

Social interaction: Bruner's theory

The Constructivist theory was formulated by Bruner himself. Bruner is one of the pioneers of Constructivist Theory. "Learners shape new ideas and forms new concepts based on their present knowledge." Learning is a lifelong process and doesn't end (Burner, 1983)

Looking at the child's early surrounding it is clear how a child acts: A child communicates with the grown-ups around him/her. Constant chances are given for a child to learn his first language. Parents and grownupsprovide a valuable learning environment to their children (Burner, 1983).

An article was published by Burner in 1991, concerning "Critical Inquiry" named "The Narrative Construction of Reality." He disputed in this article that: "the brain forms its sense of reality by seeping through the cultural products such as language and symbolic systems "(Bruner, 1983).

John McNamara (the linguist) also solidified Bruner's concepts further:

"Children lack a built in device for language. They have a natural ability for reading meanings in social meetings. They can also comprehend understanding of language and can do so with ease instead of an LAD" (Bruner, 1983).

The repercussions

The debate on children and language acquisition dates as far as 1950's. The researchers started imploring the answers to such questions. In their theories, researchers were segmented into nativists and environmentalists. According to the environmentalists, the environment is responsible for the acquisition of language in children. B.F Skinner was at the frontrunner of this argument. He wrote in his book that language acquisition was merely reinforced, in his book called Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957).

He also believed that children were instrumentally conditioned by adults to communicate. As the transactional model given by Sameroff, Skinner proposed adults believe in babbling with their children. The influence of this bi-directional contact between child and parent results in reminiscing similar words. Also, Skinner believes that parents rectify the incorrect words and reject the wrong ones themselves in case of grammar acquisition. Last but not the least; Skinner anticipated that fortification and imitation did promote language development successfully.

Chomsky (1959) is a nativist who in contrast did strongly object Skinner and debated that language was a bit too complex to be acquired that easily in less period of time, simply by conditional instruments of mentally nascent children.

He also disputed that the early man with deficient mental capabilities that permitted to communicate in basic forms was quite similar to children trying to extract syntax and language rules with respect to time (Dehart, Sroufe, & Cooper, 2004). He called it LAD. It's an abbreviation for Language Acquisition Device. His argument was supported by language acquisition device. Languages are just structural characteristics. The brain of a child is equipped with LAD. It is already in motion when children are exposed to language. LAD begins working when it is exposed to language (Chomsky, 1959).

There are certain contemporary theorists that negate both theories mentioned before. They state their constraints and in turn validate new theories. As far as Skinner's suggestion is concerned for grammar's acquisition; Brown and Hanlon found that parents do reinforce such forms of statements which are false and incorrect. Grammatical errors are quite apparent (Brown & Hanlon, 1970).

Children do however learn to cope with the grammar issue at hand (Dehart, Sroufe, & Cooper, 2004). Hence, the debate for language acquisition is further fortified in case of responsibility of language acquisition. Keeping this in mind, Skinners suggestions are questionable and are unable to provide the exact factors responsible for acquisition for language.

The developmentalists strongly agree with Chomsky argument as it gave a solution to combination of both Skinner's and Chomsky solution. They didn't render the idea of reinforcement or mock the abilities of a child. Their argument is that children are in born with their own natural abilities for language learning; language acquisition wasn't plausible in the absence of input of the surroundings and evidence from different researches shows validation too.

In this context, the developmentlist is a bridge between acquisition and learning. Research has concluded that learning of a language is slow and eventual. It's a continuous process while language acquisition is a fast and furious process (Dehart, Sroufe, & Cooper, 2004).

Basically, language acquisition is subconscious and the attention is given to communication and reception of messages. The syntaxes and grammar is given importance in contrast to learning of language. Actually, the focus was more on grammar and syntax.

Slobin notes that there must be a correlation between language acquisition and cultures all over the world. The process is same to same and it doesn't takes in disparity of structure as well as practices of socialization (Slobin, 1985).The first language is assimilated and second one is learnt. The fluency of the first language was cleared out in this way. The second language wasn't so lucky. Motivation however does play a role in case of the second language. Its common knowledge now that children learn their first language by caregivers and people present in the surroundings. Most influences are negated. It's this hindsight and the language acquisition's entirety that fascinates every linguist.

In the end

Behaviorism entails language learning with respect to social and environmental surrounding in foreplay. It takes reinforcement and conditioning of behavior. Mentalism bases learning of language by concealed mental ability.

The focus of Piaget is on Cognitive, Conceptual and Intellectual Ability of children which is handy in Leaning/Language Acquisition as well as "Cognitivism." Bruner focuses only on acquisition / language learning which takes place by social interaction. It also takes place by caretakers/care givers of a child and "social interaction."