Metalinguistic Performance and Interlinguistic Competence

ISBN-13: 9783642741265 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 246 str.

David Birdsong

Opis

It is often assumed that metalinguistic performance (e.g., detection of ambiguity, judgments of grammaticality) straightforwardly reflects linguistic knowledge. The inadequacies of such an assumption are explored in this volume, which documents the subtleties of the relationship between metalinguistic performance and knowledge of a second language (interlinguistic competence) from the perspectives of language acquisition theory and cognitive and developmental psychology. This thorough and up-to-date examination of metalinguistic phenomena offers insight to those involved in designing elicitation materials, analyzing and interpreting metalinguistic performance data, and applying such evidence to descriptions of interlanguage grammars and to second-language acquisition theory. The book also contributes constructively to the current debate concerning the role of metalinguistic variables in second-language acquisition, that is, how they ultimately affect success or failure in learning a second language.

Spis treści

I Points of Departure and Points of Contention.- 1 The Development of Metalinguistic Ability.- Development of Metalinguistic Abilities in the Native Language: A Chronology.- Individual Differences.- Correlates, Causes, and Consequences of Metalinguistic Ability.- Linguistic Development and Metalinguistic Development.- Literacy and Metalinguistic Development.- Cognitive Development and Metalinguistic Development3.- Correlates, Causes, Consequences: Reprise and Speculation.- 2 Epistemological and Psychological Factors in Metalinguistic Performance.- Is Metalinguistic Ability a Unitary Concept?.- Metalinguistic Skill.- Modelling Metalinguistic Performance.- The Vagaries of Metalinguistic Performance.- Judgments are Not Stable.- The Experimenter Effect.- Nominal Categories Are Perceived as Scalar.- The Language-as-Fixed-Effect Fallacy.- Contingent Variables.- Overview.- 3 Theoretical Concerns.- A Terminological, Conceptual, and Empirical Dispute.- Pros and Cons of Judgment Data in Linguistic Theory.- Linguistic Theory and the Psychology of Metalinguistic Performance.- II From Metalinguistic Performance to Interlinguistic Competence.- 4 Limitations and Potential of Metalinguistic Data in Second-Language Acquisition Theory.- The Pitfalls of Judgment Data in Second-Language Acquisition Theory: A Case Study.- The UG/L2 Paradigm.- The “Logical Problem”.- The Mechanics of Language Acquisition:Parameter Setting and Markedness.- The UG Paradigm Applied to L2 Acquisition.- Research Within the UG/L2 Paradigm.- A Closer Look at the Logical Problem of L2 Acquisition.- The Logical Problem of the Data for the Logical Problem of L2 Acquisition.- Non-Universality of Evidence for the Logical Problem in L2 Acquisition.- Response Biases and the Limited Informativeness of Judgment Data.- A Confounding and Confounded Variable: Error Detection.- Avoiding the Pitfalls.- 5 Negative Evidence in First- and Second-Language Acquisition.- The Relevance of the Negative Input Question to LI and L2 Acquisition Theory.- Types of Negative Evidence.- Distribution of Response Types and Negative Evidence.- Non-Occurrence as a Type of Negative Evidence.- What Qualifies as Negative Evidence?.- Parameters of Variation in the Question of Negative Evidence.- Does Negative Evidence Exist?.- Is Negative Information in a Usable Form?.- Is Negative Information Used?.- Is Negative Evidence Necessary?.- Is Negative Evidence Beneficial?.- Negative Evidence and Information Processing.- Individual Differences in Use of Negative Evidence.- Experts and Novices.- Individual Differences in Metalinguistic Awareness..- Consciousness and the Negative Input Question.- Processing of Negative Information in L1 Acquisition.- Preface.- Relevant Research.- Summary.- Caveat: Not All Errors Are Alike.- Contingencies (A) and (C).- Contingency (B).- Contingency (D).- Aside: Hypothesis Types, Their Development and Disconfirmation.- Conclusions.- 6 The Known and the Unknown in Metalinguistic Performance.- A Parable.- The Birdsong and Kassen (1988) Study.- The Unknowns.- Coda.- Envoi.- Appendix A.- References.- Name Index.