Language Acquisition is Language Change

According to the theory of Universal Grammar, the primary linguistic data guides children through an innately specified space of hypotheses. On this view, similarities between child-English and adult-German are as unsurprising as similarities between cousins who have never met. By contrast, experience-based approaches to language acquisition contend that child language matches the input, with nonadult forms being simply less articulated versions of the forms produced by adults. This paper reports several studies that provide support for the theory of Universal grammar, and resist explanation on experience-based accounts. Two studies investigate English-speaking children’s productions, and a third examines the interpretation of sentences by Japanese speaking children. When considered against the input children are exposed to, the findings of these and other studies are consistent with the continuity hypothesis, which supposes that child language can differ from the language spoken by adults only in ways that adult languages can differ from each other.     

Spoken Language Activation Alters Subsequent Sign Language Activation in L2 Learners of American Sign Language

A large body of literature has characterized unimodal monolingual and bilingual lexicons and how neighborhood density affects lexical access; however there have been relatively fewer studies that generalize these findings to bimodal (M2) second language (L2) learners of sign languages. The goal of the current study was to investigate parallel language activation in M2L2 learners of sign language and to characterize the influence of spoken language and sign language neighborhood density on the activation of ASL signs. A priming paradigm was used in which the neighbors of the sign target were activated with a spoken English word and compared the activation of the targets in sparse and dense neighborhoods. Neighborhood density effects in auditory primed lexical decision task were then compared to previous reports of native deaf signers who were only processing sign language. Results indicated reversed neighborhood density effects in M2L2 learners relative to those in deaf signers such that there were inhibitory effects of handshape density and facilitatory effects of location density. Additionally, increased inhibition for signs in dense handshape neighborhoods was greater for high proficiency L2 learners. These findings support recent models of the hearing bimodal bilingual lexicon, which posit lateral links between spoken language and sign language lexical representations.     

少数民族双语者的语言表征和语言联系

我国少数民族学生一般掌握本民族语言、汉语和英语。少数民族双语者的语言的认知特点, 是语言学和心理学共同关心的问题, 也是了解少数民族学生语言认知机制的重要途径。已有研究围绕少数民族学生的语言表征、语言联系方式以及言语理解与言语产生的加工特点展开。本文系统地介绍了已有研究, 并提出未来研究应关注少数民族学生的语言认知加工的异同比较、少数民族文字的加工特点、少数民族学生加工汉字词的特点,以及少数民族学生第三语言的加工特点及其影响因素。     

语言理解转换中非目标语言影响目标语言的时间进程

运用跨语言即时启动和延时启动范式,要求被试完成生物属性的语义判断任务,研究语言理解转换中非目标语言影响目标语言语义理解的时间进程。实验1非目标语言为英文,目标语言为中文,结果表明,无论是即时启动(t = -0.423, p = 0.676),还是延时启动(t = -0.82, p = 0.419),语义相关组与语义无关组都无显著差异。实验2非目标语言为中文,目标语言为英文,结果表明,在即时启动条件下,语义相关组显著快于语义无关组(t = -3.05, p = 0.006),但延时条件下语义相关组与语义无关组无显著差异(t = -0.63, p = 0.536)。综合两个实验结果表明,晚期熟练双语者在双语语言理解转换过程中语义的即时启动影响存在不对称性,语义相关的非目标语言中文对目标语言英文语义理解起促进作用;但是语义启动效应没有得到延时体现。     

中-英双语者语言理解中非加工语言的自动激活

采用长时重复启动范式探讨母语为汉语的中-英双语者语言理解中非加工语言的激活状况。实验1和实验2使用词汇判断任务, 实验3和实验4使用概念判断任务。在每个实验的第一个小实验中, 非加工语言是英文, 在每个实验的第二个小实验中, 非加工语言是中文。实验1和实验3探讨学习阶段的非加工词在测验阶段呈现时能否出现长时重复启动效应, 从而检验双语者语言理解中非加工语言有没有自动激活; 实验2和实验4探讨学习阶段的非加工词在测验阶段以翻译对等词呈现时能否出现长时重复启动效应, 从而检验双语者语言理解中非加工语言的语义有没有自动激活。总的实验结果表明, 母语为汉语的中-英双语者在语言理解过程中, 加工一种语言(目标语言)时, 非加工语言(要求被试忽略的另一种语言)会自动激活, 但在词汇任务情境中, 非加工语言只在词汇层面上激活, 其语义不会自动激活, 而在概念任务情境中, 非加工语言的词汇层面和语义层面都会自动激活。     

On Language Rights

In social and political philosophy, linguistic differences are usually seen as one item in the long and indefinite list of Cultural Differences; consequently, language rights are discussed and criticized together with other cultural rights. In this essay, it is argued that a right to use one's own language can be justified by appeal to the practical role of language in human life. The ability to communicate effectively is essential for human autonomy and well-being; thus there is no need to argue that linguistic groups, as groups, are entitled to special treatment, or that language rights are group rights. Because learning a new language is invariably a costly matter, by recognizing some languages as official languages the state (re)distributes burdens and benefits among its citizens. The task of language rights is to guarantee that these burdens are not distributed in a too unequal way.     

Language Promotes False-Belief Understanding: Evidence From Learners of a New Sign Language

ABSTRACT— Developmental studies have identified a strong correlation in the timing of language development and false-belief understanding. However, the nature of this relationship remains unresolved. Does language promote false-belief understanding, or does it merely facilitate development that could occur independently, albeit on a delayed timescale? We examined language development and false-belief understanding in deaf learners of an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. The use of mental-state vocabulary and performance on a low-verbal false-belief task were assessed, over 2 years, in adult and adolescent users of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Results show that those adults who acquired a nascent form of the language during childhood produce few mental-state signs and fail to exhibit false-belief understanding. Furthermore, those whose language developed over the period of the study correspondingly developed in false-belief understanding. Thus, language learning, over and above social experience, drives the development of a mature theory of mind.     

双语者语言转换中非目标语言的加工机制

语言转换是指双语者由所掌握的一种语言转换到另一种语言的现象, 这一现象近些年来引起了研究者的广泛关注。针对语言转换中双语者在从心理词典中顺利提取所需要的语言(称之为目标语言)时如何加工在当前任务中不使用的那种语言(称之为非目标语言), 研究者进行了大量研究。仔细分析这些研究, 可以看出这些研究主要围绕着3个核心问题: (1)语言转换中双语者使用目标语言时非目标语言是否激活; (2)若非目标语言激活, 这种激活发生在何种层面(概念层面还是词汇层面); (3)激活的非目标语言会对目标语言产生什么样的影响。以此为基础, 本文从语言产生转换和语言理解转换两大领域对相关研究进行了总结和梳理, 最后对未来的语言转换研究进行了展望。     

Language localization and variability

Language localization data from 11 neurosurgical patients undergoing cortical resection for medically intractable focal epilepsy were obtained by mapping with bipolar electrical stimulation at current levels below sensory and after-discharge thresholds, during an object-naming task. The topographical extent of language cortex in an individual subject can be wider than that proposed in the classic maps. Within this zone, language is discretely localized, with different sites variably committed to language as measured by the naming function. The naming data from the left cortex of eight patients, all left-brain-dominant, were pooled to determine the variability within the primary language zone. Only a narrow band of posterior, inferior frontal lobe, immediately anterior to motor strip, showed involvement in all of the patients in whom it was sampled. This is a motor speech area; it constitutes only a small portion of the frontal language area. Other infero-frontal, parietal, and postero-temporal sites showed considerable variability, with naming involvement in only 50–80% of the patients sampled. There is a suggestion that some of these patterns of language localization may correlate with poorer verbal abilities. Data were also obtained on language localization in the left insula in a patient who was left-hemisphere-dominant for language. Mapping of the right hemisphere in a left-brain-dominant patient demonstrated no naming function. Mapping of the right hemisphere in one and the left hemisphere in another patient, both of whom were right-hemisphere-dominant for language, suggests more diffuse language representation with right hemisphere dominance.     

Maturational Constraints on Language Learning

This paper suggests that there are constraints on learning required to explain the acquisition of language, in particular, maturational constraints. First, empirical evidence for this claim is reviewed. The evidence from several studies of both first and second language acquisition suggests that normal language learning occurs only when exposure to the language begins early in life. With exposure beginning later in life, asymptotic performance in the language declines: the effects over age of first exposure are approximately linear through childhood, with a flattening of the function in adulthood. These outcomes argue that some type of constraints ensuring successful language learning exist early in life, and weaken with increasing maturation. Second, two hypotheses are considered as to the nature of these maturational changes. One hypothesis is that constraints on learning particular to language acquisition undergo maturational decay. A second hypothesis, which is considered in more detail, suggests that language learning abilities decline because of the expansion of nonlinguistic cognitive abilities.     

On the Epistemology of Language

Epistemology of language, a branch of both epistemology and the philosophy of language, asks what knowledge of language consists in. In this paper, I argue that such an inquiry is a pointless enterprise due to its being based upon the incorrect assumption that linguistic competence requires knowledge of language. However, I do not think the phenomenon of knowledge of language is trivial. I propose a virtue‐theoretic account of linguistic competence, and then explain the phenomenon from a virtue‐semantic point of view.     

Language Without Linguistics

Synthese - Though Mr. Lin purports to attack “Chomsky's view of language” and to defend the “common sense view of language”, he in fact attacks “views” that...     

语文教学中的内隐学习

本文作者根据语文教学的目的,语文教学的结果和语文教学的内容特点,认为内隐学习在语文教学中,特别是汉语教学中,可起重要作用。然后．介绍了他们对这个问题进行的阔查和实验研究。实验证实,内隐学习和外显学习的效果没有磬异,或内隐学习的效果优于外显学习。而且,内隐学习具有较好的保持效果。因此,作者提出应充分重视内隐学习在语文教学中的作用。     

Language and know-how

I address the assumption that communicative interaction is made possible by knowledge of a language. I argue that this assumption as it is usually expressed depends on an unjustified reification of language, and on an unsatisfactory understanding of ‘knowledge’. I propose instead that communicative interaction is made possible by (Rylean) know-how and by the development of (Davidsonian) passing theories. We then come to see that our focus ought to be, not on propositional knowledge of a language which we internally represent, but on the practical application of know-how in our understanding and interpretation of others.     

语言耗损研究述评

本文概述语言耗损研究的历史与现状,包括语言耗损研究的主要内容和意义,以及目前存在的若干问题和难点。作者强调指出,语言耗损乃语言习得的伴生产物,关系极其密切．研究习得决不能忽视研究耗损。此外,由于环境因素对语言耗损有重要影响以及非同源语言对语言习得具有负面作用,研究汉语语言环境下外语耗损对中国的外语教学具有特殊的重要意义。     

Practical Knowledge of Language

One of the main challenges in the philosophy of language is determining the form of knowledge of the rules of language. Michael Dummett has put forth the view that knowledge of the rules of language is a kind of implicit knowledge; some philosophers have mistakenly conceived of this type of knowledge as a kind of knowledge-that. In a recent paper in this journal, Patricia Hanna argues against Dummett’s knowledge-that view and proposes instead a knowledge-how view in which knowledge of the rules of language is a kind of practical knowledge, like an agent’s non-propositional knowledge of counting. In this paper I argue, first, that Hanna misunderstands Dummett’s conception of knowledge of linguistic rules, and, second, that Dummett’s considerations of practical knowledge of language pose a problem for Hanna’s knowledge-how view. At the end of the paper, I briefly sketch an account of practical knowledge of language that meets the requirements set by Dummett.     

焦虑在歧义容忍度与英语学习成绩之间的中介作用分析

本研究采用问卷法,选取石家庄市210名普通高校大学生为被试,探讨了焦虑在歧义容忍度和英语学习之间的中介作用。结果发现:(1)在英语学习成绩方面,高歧义容忍度的学生显著优于低歧义容忍度的学生,中歧义容忍度的学生显著优于低歧义容忍度的学生;(2)高、中、低不同歧义容忍度的学生,在焦虑水平上存在显著差异。(3)焦虑感中介作用分析发现,焦虑在歧义容忍度和英语学习成绩之间关系有完全中介作用。     

Language Organization and Reorganization in Epilepsy

The vast majority of healthy individuals are left hemisphere dominant for language; however, individuals with left hemisphere epilepsy have a higher likelihood of atypical language organization. The cerebral organization of language in epilepsy has been studied with invasive procedures such as Wada testing and electrical cortical stimulation mapping (ESM), and more recently, with noninvasive neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Investigators have used these techniques to explore the influence of unique clinical features inherent in epilepsy that might contribute to the reorganization of language, such as location of seizure onset, age of seizure onset, and extent of interictal epileptiform activity. In this paper, we review the contribution of these and other clinical variables to the lateralization and localization of language in epilepsy, and how these patient-related variables affect the results from these three different, yet complementary methodologies. Unlike the abrupt language changes that occur following acute brain injury with disruption of established language circuits, converging evidence suggests that the chronic nature of epileptic activity can result in a developmental shift of language from the left to the right hemisphere or re-routing of language pathways from traditional to non-traditional areas within the dominant left hemisphere. Clinical variables have been shown to contribute to cerebral language reorganization in the setting of chronic seizure disorders, yet such factors have not been reliable predictors of altered language networks in individual patients, underscoring the need for language lateralization and localization procedures when definitive identification of language cortex is necessary for clinical care.     

Analogical Processes in Language Learning

ABSTRACT— The acquisition of language has long stood as a challenge to general learning accounts, leading many theorists to propose domain-specific knowledge and processes to explain language acquisition. Here we review evidence that analogical comparison is instrumental in language learning, suggesting a larger role for general learning processes in the acquisition of language.