Although people of different culture have many common areas of privacy or taboos, there are areas where our culture differs from Western culture. It is not appropriate for us to ask questions related to personal information like age, family background, money matters or questions on personal activities when we converse with English-speaking people. To great native English speakers, we should say “How are you?”, “How are you getting on?”, “How is everything?”.

1. Rounding off Numbers 数字禁忌

The way a speech community rounds off its numbers is not haphazard, rather, it is explainable as interplay between language and culture.

 Members of a speech community often gives preference to those numbers that their community regards as significant.

That the way speakers round off numbers is often a linguistic convenience is clearly seen by comparing how the Chinese and the Europeans state their age differently.

7. Cultural Overlap and Diffusion 文化交溶与文化扩散

As result of similarities in natural environment and psychology of human beings, there is greater or lesser degree of cultural overlap between two societies. In many English speaking societies, there are circumstances in which (as is more generally the case in Japanese and Chinese) the superior, but not the inferior, may refer to himself by means of the same kinship-term or tittle with which he is addressed.

Through communication, some elements of culture A enter culture B and become part of culture B, thus creating cultural diffusion, which has been shaped gradually but unceasingly.

Cultural diffusion leads to the creation of loan words Borrowing reflects the routes of cultural imports. Although many languages of the world have borrowed, through cultural diffusion, their vocabularies from other languages, they maintain their identity by preserving their onw grammatical structures.

8. Conclusion 结束语

Full understanding of the several kinds of meaning that are encoded in the grammar and vocabulary of a language comes only with a full understanding of the culture, or cultures, in which it operates. Language must be learnt as an integral part of learning about the target culture in order to gain a deeper insight into the target language. Cultural learning, on the other hand, will help promote language learning.

                                Exercise

1. Explain each of the following terms in no more than 50 words:

1. Culture                2. Language and meaning        3. Cultural overlap

4. cultural diffusion        5. Greeting

II. Develop each of the following topics into a 200-word essay:

1. Comment with examples the following statement “Differences across culture can be great barriers to communication.
2. What is the significance for cultural teaching and learning?
3. Explain with example the difference between culture and Culture.

X. Language Acquisition 语言习得

本章学习目的要求

本章学习的中心内容是人类语言能力的获得及其发展过程。全章含第一语言习得的原则、第一语言习得的阶段、语法知识的形成及第二语言习得等部分。本章的学习目的是让学生深刻认识语言的本质，了解人类习得本族语与外族语的过程和规律。本章要求学生通过对语言习得的学习，理解儿童习得母语的天赋能力以及这种能力的生物基础，弄清语言习得的内部机制与外部环境的关系，明白语言习得即语法规则习得的涵义，了解儿童语言习得的自然路径及发展阶段，并对成人习得第二语言所涉及的一些主要问题有一清楚的认识。

语言习得基本知识

1. Introduction 引言

1. Language Acquisition 语言习得

Language acquisition refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue. Human children everywhere develop a language without instruction, unless they are isolated during the critical acquisition years or unless they suffer from extreme mental deficiency. Some child do not have parents to instruct them but they learn to speak.

1. The Beginning of Language 语言的起始

The basic essentials of the first language are acquired in the short period between the age of one and a half years and 4 years. This is called the critical period for first language acquisition.

1. Stages in First Language Acquisition 第一语言习得阶段

1. Between birth and around six months --- children produce a series of sounds and this called the “babbling period”.
2. Around eight months --- babbling is replaced by syllables.
3. One year --- the child attempts to carry out simple commands and can speak a few words.
4. Eighteen months --- this age is cited as onset of speech. His vocabulary consists of between three and fifty words.
5. Two years --- two years --- the child can name most things which are familiar to him in his surroundings. He often utters two-word phrases.
6. Two and a half years --- the child seems to understand almost everything said to him.
7. Three years --- the child now has a vocabulary of about a thousand words. The grammatical complexity of the utterance is about equal to that of colloquial adult speech.
8. About four years --- the child has now mastered the essentials of his mother tongue.
   1. Age and Native Language Acquisition 年龄与本族语习得

Whether or not a child will speak a foreign language with an accent depends largely upon the age at which he learns the second language. A child who enters a foreign language speech community by the age of three or four learns the new language rapidly and without the trace of an accent. Around the age of puberty (10---13), the child loses his ability to learn a second language without an accent. Thus, there is a critical period for first language acquisition, and for acquiring a language with native-like control.

1. Common Order in the Development of Language 语言发展的一般顺序

In English, as in all languages, the sound (phonology) and the structures (grammar) develop in regular stages for all children.

In phonology, certain sounds will be produced before others ([m] or [d] before [s] or [z]).

In grammar, all children begin with simple one word utterances and proceed in regular stages to more complex sentences.

1. Different Rate of Language Development 语言发展的不同速度

Although there is a common order in first language acquisition, this does not mean that all children learn at the same rate.

So whenever an age guide is given (e.g. at 14 months children produce their first word), a variation of +6months is quite normal.

2. Phonological Development 语音发展
   1. Regular Sound Development 正常的语音发展

The sequence in which the sounds are acquired works like a system of pre-requisites, or like a mastery system. That is to say, the child must pass each stage before he can proceed to the next one. Thus, for example, the presence of palatal and velar sounds presupposes the presence of labials and dentals. But the presence of labials and dentals does not imply the presence of palatal and velar sounds.

1. Grammatical Development 语法发展

Around the time of their second birthday, children begin to produce two-word utterances. During this stage there are no syntactic or morphological markers.

About 6 months after the two-word utterances begin, sentences are developed which contain three main elements (daddy kick ball). These sentences are examples of telegraphic speech. They contain content words and lack the functor elements.

The child’s utterances are not simply randomly-strung-together words but, from a very early stage, reveal his or her grasp of the principles of sentence formation.

1. Vocabulary Development 词汇发展

When a child learns a word, he does not just learn how to pronounce the word. He must learn the meaning of each form, that is, the features of meaning associated with each word.

1. Over-extension 扩展过头

In the early stages, child only knows one or two features of meaning, he will use the word much more widely than an adult would use it. This incorrect wide use of a word is called over-extension. For example, if the child calls all men “Daddy”, he “over-extend” the meaning of the word.

2. Overgeneralization过度概括

An important point is that child speech is systematically different from the structure of adult speech. This means that the child is developing his own structures of speech, and that as he advances the structures develop until they are similar to those of an adult. That is to say, children talk according to their own rules rather than by producing the utterances of their parents.

1. Sociolinguistic Development 社会语言的发展

At the same time as the child is acquiring grammatical rules, he is also learning rules of the appropriate social use of the language. These include the greetings, the taboo words, the polite forms of address, the various styles appropriate to different speech situations of his community.

1. A Behaviorist View of Language Acquisition 语言习得的行为主义观

The behaviorist or empiricist answer holds that language is learnt in much the same way as anything else is learnt and that the essential similarities among environments in which general laws of learning operate accounts for observed sameness.

The chief exponent of the behaviorist view is Skinner. He argues that language is of special interest because language behavior is behavior which human beings alone can reinforce and which reinforces only its effect on others. He believes that reinforcement of selected responses is the key to understanding language development.

According to “reinforcement” theory, children learn to produce correct sentences because they are positively reinforced when they say something wrong.

However, a number of studies have revealed that all attempts to “correct” a child’s language are doomed to failure. Neither can “imitation” theory explain how children manage to acquire the adult language.

1. A Nativist View of Language Acquisition 语言习得的天赋观

The nativist, rationalist or mentalist answer holds that children are born with an innate ability to acquire languages of a specific type, and that they go about that learning using principles unique to language learning.

Chomsky sides with the rationalists. He explains the ability to acquire language in the following way:

1. Language serves for the expression of thought.
2. Human beings are innately endowed with the capacity to form some concepts rather than others. It is this human capacity to acquire language that has led to the “innateness hypothesis” of child language acquisition.

Exercises

1. Explain each of the following terms in no more than 50 words:

1. language acquisition         2. over–extension        3. over-generalization

4. vocabulary development

II. Develop each of the following topics into a 200-words:

1. Stages in first language acquisition.
2. A behaviorist view of language acquisition.

XI. Error Analysis and Second Language Acquisition 错误分析与第二语言习得

错误分析与第二语言习得基本知识

1. Differences and Similarities between First and Second Language Acquisition 第一语言习得与第二语言习得的异同

   While the first language is acquired, i.e. subconsciously, the second (or foreign) language is, more commonly, learned, i.e. consciously. We also note in acquiring their first language, children always concentrate on meaning, not on pattern, i.e. structure. The second language acquisition, however, concentrates on code, i.e. the system of the thought. Besides, one learns his first language directly from reality. The second language is learnt in manageable sequence, i.e. syllabus and course books. Furthermore, in the first language acquisition children apply the rules subconsciously, while the second language learners, after a period of training, are able to verbalise the rules.

2. The Inadequacy of Imitation Theory 模仿理论之不足

It has been proved that children are not simply imitating the speech of their parents, for adults do not produce sentences like “What she can read?”. In other words, the child forms his own rule in a systematic way as he teaches himself his mother tongue. It has been suggested that the differences between the way a second language is often spoken and the way the language is spoken by native speakers are systematic, just as children’s language follows a definite norm and developmental sequence of its own.

3. Interference 干扰

Language interference can be defined as the use of elements from one language while speaking another. Instances of mother tongue interference can be found at the level of pronunciation, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and meaning, and can be predicted by contrasting the grammatical or other systems of two languages. In other words, we can predict and describe the patterns that will cause difficulty in learning and those that will not, by comparing systematically the language and culture to be learned with the language and culture of the student.

1. Phonological Evidence 语音例证

1. Substitution of [t] for [ ] and [d] for [ ]

    b) Shortening of long Vowels

1. Lexical Evidence 词汇例证

Often a beginner may utter a sentence like

  I lost my rice bowl.

What he actually means is

  I lost my job.

1. Grammatical Evidence 语法例证

1. Indefinite Article Deletion

i.e. You got to have proper system here.

2. Subject + verb structure replaced by a single verb or complement

i.e. A: Are you coming?

   B: Coming.

4. Cross-association 相互联系

When two words are similar in meaning, and their spelling and pronunciation are alike, the close association of the two often leads to confusion. This aspect of internal interference is often referred to as cross-association.

5. Overgeneralization 过度概括

Overgeneralization is defined as the use of previously available strategies in new situation.

6. Strategies of Communication 交际策略

We may include errors that derive from the fact the communicative demands made on the second language may far outpace the speaker’s actual competence in second language learning. Thus the learners may simplify the syntax of the language in an effort to make the language into an instrument of his own intentions. Errors derived from such effort may be attributed to strategies of communication.

7. Performance Errors 语言运用错误

The speaker realized the mistake as he said it but forgot to correct it --- he would have corrected it if he had had more time to think about it.

Exercises

1. Explain each of the following terms in no more than 50 words:

1. Overgeneralization            2. Cross-association         3. Interference

4. performance errors

II. Develop each of the following topics into a 200-word essay:

1. Differences and similarities between first and second language acquisition.