Real Language Users & Variations in Native Speaker Competence: Implications for First-language Teaching

1. Real Language Users&Variations in Native SpeakerCompetence: Implications forFirst-language Teaching By Ngoni Chipere

2. Table of contents • The classical assumptions • Evidence from past researches • Experiment I – findings and conclusions • Experiment II - findings and conclusions • Summary

3. “Ideal Language Users” Uniform Same linguistic competence Generative Parsing is based on grammar Autonomous Independent of semantic factors Automatic syntactic processing is an automatic process Constant Does not adapt to experience

4. Holes in the Theory ? From Prof. N. Chomsky: I would be inclined to think, even without any investigation, that there would be a correlation between linguistic performance and intelligence; state attained is rather different among people of different educational level […] it is entirely conceivable that some complex structures just aren’t developed by a large number of people, perhaps because the degree of stimulation in their external environment isn’t sufficient for them to develop[added emphasis].

5. Preliminary Discussion • Uniform Competence • Empirical evidence for individual differences in linguistic ability has been found along at least eleven dimensions. • Reported effects of education on comprehension skill. • Evidence that individual differences in cognitive style are reflected in patterns of language comprehension. • Generativity • No experimental tests which demonstrate that the ability to understand complex sentences increases indefinitely as processing constraints are reduced. • Large number of studies show positive effects of training on native speakers’ syntactic skills.

6. Preliminary Discussion – Cont. • Autonomy • Chomsky’s “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously” vs. “Antepenultimate idiosyncratic elocution paragraphs bright” • “The horse raced past the barn fell” might produce a reliable garden path effect in naive subjects, “The landmine buried in the sand exploded” does not. • Lexical choice seem to matter, contrast“The man whom the farmer whom the girl saw sued died” with “The fact that the man who Andrew looked up to was a criminal bothered Sarah.”

7. Preliminary Discussion – Cont. • Automaticity • Automaticity is generally regarded in automatic processing research as an effect of practice. • If parsing is truly a reflex, then it should always occur regardless of the nature of the experimental task. • Constant • Training can enhance the syntactic performance of normal adult native speakers, normal child native speakers and native speaker children with specific language impairment. • The relationship between education and grammatical skill is form of evidence for environmentally induced changes in the linguistic representations.

8. Does the Language User act like a PC ? Test if between and within subject differences remain when performance constraints are neutralised. Uniform Same linguistic competence Generative Parsing is based on grammar Test if sentences with the same structure but different lexical items are parsed equally well. Autonomous Independent of semantic factors Automatic syntactic processing is an automatic process Test if subjects always carry out complete syntactic analysis of test sentences. Constant Does not adapt to experience Test if there are any order effects during an experiment.

9. Experiment I (From “Real Language Users”)

10. Hypothesis graduate native and non-native speakers of English comprehend grammatically challenging English sentences more accurately than non-graduate native speakers of English.

11. 12 graduated native speakers 12 postgraduate non-native speakers of English 12 native speakers ofEnglish whose formal education didn’t extend beyond high school. Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Subjects

12. Materials • Test Sentences: • CNP – Complex Noun PhrasePeter knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential surprises Tom. • TM – Tough movementAlison will be hard to get Tim to give a loan to. • PG1 – Parasitic Gap type 1The servant who Tim visited before overhearing the lady proposing to dismiss had lunch in a café. • PG2 - Parasitic Gap type 2The solicitor who the man met after discovering his mother arranging to leave a lot of money for was having coffee. • Questions • Q1 – Key question – diagnostic of correct parsing • Q2 – Backup question • Q3 – Subjects awareness to structural ambiguities. • Q4 – Giveaway question • Q5 – Grammatically judgment

13. Design

14. Results – Uniform Competence • Graduated native outperformed non-graduate natives

15. Results - Generativity • Performance was not consistent across structures. The greatest inconsistencies were found in the performance of native non-graduates followed by native graduates. • Unexpectedly, the non-native graduates performed most consistently across structures and Conditions.

16. Results - Autonomy • Group 3 failed almost completely to answer questions on the implausible sentences correctly. • Native and non-native graduates were not affected by plausibility.

17. Results - Automaticity • Subjects were not able to answer all questions about the same sentence equally well, • Even when subjects answered questions correctly, however, they still took longer to answer the difficult questions compared to the easier ones

18. Results - Constancy • Comprehension scores increased and reading times decreased on successive presentations of each structural type.

19. Possible Conservative Explanations • Subjects differed in the availability of computational resources. • There are differences in the ability to map the syntactic analysis to a semantic interpretation. • All groups performed equally badly in terms of syntactic processing, except that the highly educated groups employed more sophisticated repair strategies. Wrong Conclusion Problems in Design Subjects not Significant

20. Memory Capacity Discussion • Evidence • the span of immediate memory is restricted to 7 +/- 2 items. • Subjects had difficulties in recalling sentences with more than oneself-embedding. • But… • “for all types of sentences the average percentage …increased on successive repetitions” • Compared to novices, skilled performers are a) more accurate; b) generally faster; c) reliant on less information; d) more consistent and e) in possession of more hierarchically developed knowledge structures

21. The Theory of Automatisation “Automatisationreflects a transition from algorithm-based performance to memory-based performance.” • “The man who Peter saw...”Group 3 displayed a significant increase in reading times at ‘Peter’. • “The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential surprises Tom”interpretedas either“The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself is essential”or“The doctor knows that the fact that taking good care of himself surprises Tom”.

22. Experiment II (From “Variations in Native SpeakerCompetence: Implications forFirst-language Teaching”)

23. 2 Theories of Working Memory • Just and Carpenter (1992) • Reported a correlation between working memory capacity and comprehension. • Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) • Skilled individuals make efficient use of long-term memory and thereby boost the limited capacity working memory. • Poor comprehension arises from insufficient linguistic knowledge. • Therefore comprehension training should also improve recall.

24. Aim and Prediction To determine the effect of memory training and comprehension training on the comprehension and recall of complex NP sentences. Memory training will result in higher recall but will not improve comprehension of complex sentences. Comprehension training will result in both higher recall and improved comprehension of complex sentences.

25. 18 English native speakers who either failed GCSE English or obtained poor grades 11 English nativespeakers who had obtained ‘A’ grades in GCSE English LAA HAA Subjects and Materials Complex NP sentences: Tom knows that the fact that flying planes low is dangerous excites the pilot.

26. Pre-Test • procedure • Recall task– recalling 15-word Complex NP sentences. • Comprehension task– answering comprehension questions regarding the same sentences. • Results Consistent with both theories Recall Scores Comprehension Scores

27. Post Test I • procedure • Memory training– LAA memorized the 10 pre-test sentences • Same Tasks as Pre-Test– but different sentences. • Results Inconsistent with Just & Carpenter Recall Scores Comprehension Scores

28. Post Test II • procedure • Comprehension training (for LAA groups) • Same Tasks as Pre-Test and Post-Test I • Results Fully consistent with Ericsson & Kintch Recall Scores Comprehension Scores

29. Questions to be Raised • How much lexical knowledge contributes to the comprehension of simple declarative sentences.( “Sleep stars radio green”)? • How many of the processing difficulties attributed in the past to resource limitations can be eliminated through training? • How reliably do subjects interpret novel structures in terms of familiar ones? • Can semantic processing outrun syntactic processing so as to bring about an early termination of syntactic processing? • Measure on-line differences in the way familiar vs. unfamiliar structures are processed and find out to what extent conscious sentence comprehension resembles conscious problem solving.

30. Conclusionsand Summary • “the idea that native speakers of a language know their language perfectly. … rests purely on an idealisation made byChomsky for descriptive purposes” • there are normal native speakers of English who are notfully syntactically productive. • non-native speakers of a language may be more productive than native speakers.