Behaviorism

1
Behaviorism

• Until 1960s contrastive analysis
• the audiolingual method
• Focus on the learners external environment
• stimulus
• for the processes of learning
  (habit formation)
• The learners mental processes were disregarded
• (too subjective, too hidden for
  observation, measurement, and verification)
• Subjects were treated like objects in a lab
  experiment
• The individuality of subjects intentions is
  disregarded

2
Behaviorism and Second Language Learning

• Contrastive Analysis (CA) 1940s - 1960s
• Language Learning of Behavioristic tradition
• stimulus-response related habit formation
• Behaviorism undermined the role of mental
  processes
• L1 Acquisition? imitation of utterances
• learn by repeating
  and imitating
• habit formation

3
American Structuralism

• - Bloomfield, Leonard (1933) Language
• - Oral language gt written language
• - Pyramidally structured language organization
• 
  
• 
  Syntactic from the
  lower-level system
• 
  Level to the
  higher-level system
• (phrases,
  clauses,
• 
  sentences)
• Morphological
  Level
• 
  (morphemes)
• Phonological
  Level
• 
  (phonemes)
• Phonetic
  Level
• 
  (phones)

4
Behaviorism and Second Language Learning

• Charles Fries The basic problems of L2
  acquisition arise not out of any essential
  difficulty in the features of the new language
  themselves, but primarily out of the special
  set created by the first language habits.
  (Lado 1957)
• Robert Lado Individuals tend to transfer the
  forms and meanings, and . (Lado 1957, 2)
• Fries (1945, 9) The most efficient materials
  are those that are based upon a scientific
  description of the language to be learned,
  carefully compared with a parallel description of
  the native language of the learner.

5
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

• Strong version
• (a priori version)
  priori in
  advance
• We can predict and describe the patterns that
  will cause difficulty in learning, and those that
  will not cause difficulty, by comparing
  systematically the language and culture to be
  learned with the native language and culture of
  the student. (Lado 1957, vii)
• vs. Weak version
• (a posteriori version)
• compares languages after the actual problem
  occurred (a posteriori), based on the actual and
  recurring difficulties exhibited in the learners
  performance
• starts with the evidence provided by linguistic
  interference and uses such
• evidence to explain the similarities and
  differences between systems (Wardhaugh 1970, 10)
• The learners errors provided evidence for the
  learners bad habit formation.
• Errors were regarded as sins (Brooks 1964)

6
Error Analysis (EA)

• - The explanations for the learners errors were
  sought not in the learners native
• language but in the target language
• - In EA, the learners errors were not regarded
  as sins that needed to be avoided
• at all costs errors gained a new status and
  significance
• - Mistakes vs. Errors
• Errors are due to memory lapses, physical
  states such as tiredness and
• psychological conditions such as strong
  emotion.
• The weak version of the CAH
• The observed learners errors in the target
  language were compared with the learners
• native language TL ? NL
• Error Analysis
• The observed learners errors in the target
  language structures were compared with the
• target languages TL ? TL

7
Corder (1967)-1

• Errors the systematic errors of the learner
  his transitional competence
• Focus on the learners errors, not mistakes
• Errors may not be perceived as such because they
  represent an integral part of the learners
  knowledge of the language to date. they are
  only errors from the native speakers
  perspective.
• Errors are not recognizable to the learner as
  errors because they are part of his or her
  current state of knowledge of the target
  language, or transitional competence, which
  represents an autonomous system of grammar with
  its own rules and regulations.
• Interlanguage (Selinker 1972)

8
Corder (1967)-2

• Three significant points of the learners errors
• The errors provide important information to the
  teacher as to how far towards the goal the
  learner has progressed and, consequently, what
  remains for him to learn
• The errors provide to the researcher evidence of
  how language is learned or acquired, what
  strategies or procedures the learner is employing
  in his discovery of the language
• They reveal some valuable insights as to
  the nature of an innate universal mechanism the
  built-in-syllabus
• (iii) The errors are important to the learner
  because they are used for testing his hypotheses
  about the nature of the language he is learning

9
Corder (1967)-3

• L2 learning is similar to L1 acquisition
• Let us say therefore that, given motivation, it
  is inevitable that a human being
• will learn a second language if he is exposed
  to the language data
• (Corder 1967, 164)
• The learners errors are similar to the childs
  native language errors.
• They cannot be viewed as evidence of bad habit
  formations
• Errors are not to be regarded as signs of
  inhibition, but simply as evidence of his
  strategies of learning.
• Until we learn more about how the learners
  built-in-syllabus functions, we should refrain
  from imposing our preconceived notions regarding
  language learning on language teaching.

10
the Morpheme Order Studies

• contributed to the final rejection of CAs claim
  that language transfer is the
• main cause of errors in L2 acquisition
• tried to empirically validate the claim that L2
  acquisition is similar to L1 learning and that L2
  acquisition is guided by universal, innate
  mechanisms
• (L1L2 hypothesis)
• I propose therefore as a working hypothesis that
  some at least of the strategies adopted by the
  learner of a second language are substantially
  the same as those by which a first language is
  acquired (Corder 1967, 164-64)
• The grammatical features of the L2 will be
  acquired in a predictable and invariant order,
  regardless of the learners native language
  background.
• Cf. Empirical Studies of
• Heidi Dulay Marina Burt (1974), Roger Brown
  (1973)
• Nathalie Bailey, Carolyn Madden, and Stephen
  Krashen (1974) adult L2 learners the Bilingual
  Syntax Measure (BSM)
• Innate mechanism, creative construction,
  gradually reconstruct rules