At 19:33 27/3/03 -0500, Ana wrote:
>I would say that whichever language is the one that better serves certain
>cognitive activity, that language will tend to be preferred for that
>particular task.
AND
At 19:33 27/3/03 -0500, Kevin wrote:
The idea of "resorting to L1" may not be as accurate as thinking that
someone who has a large pool of language resources in L1 and L2 and will
access concepts and knowledge using whichever language resources are
readily and richly associated with the relevant experiences and concept
formations.
I think Ana and Kevin have good points here. Looking at the languages as
some of the mediational resources that aid or hinder (as Jim said) the L2
communicative act -- not as "either/ors" alters the perspective. A study
that I keep going back to, "Inner Speech and SLA" in Lantolf and Appel's
collection - "Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research" concludes
that the complex L1 ontogeny, including the formation of inner speech
structures and processes (incl. perception and memory formation of
linguistic structures gained from the sociocultural context, as well as an
awareness of language as a tool for reflecting on and acting upon the
world) is a primary support for L2 development.
This study reported that L2 is incorporated into the classification system
already available in the L1, and that L2 relies on the well-developed
semantic system of L1 as well as using L1 phonology. I like the closing
quote, "This all means that the main driving force is not so much inner
self-development as it is use of first language development. To put it
figuratively, second language is looking into the windows cut out by the
first language". (This is translated from Russian, so I'm not sure whether
the figurative intent is intact).
It would be interesting to hear what you eventually come up with, Karin.
Good luck!
Phil
P.S The link below is to a quite useful paper that I came across a while
back, Private speech: A cognitive tool in verbal communication Mohammed
Ahmed, who has done a lot of research in the area of private speech and
second language development from the perspective of Vygotsky's thinking.
http://www.iuj.ac.jp/faculty/mkahmed/privatespeech.html
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