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Re: [xmca] DA-L2: II -- Indicators of Conscious Control of Language



Your question at the end gets to my own question by different means, Jay.
The shift in
word usage suggested to me some form of choice among alternatives and all
the adults present believe the word choice was deliberate. Not sure how
deliberatness is linked to consciousness, flexibility, control, etc.

That's why I asked about it!
mike
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:

>
> One way we might understand this boy and his lucky/yucky dog could be to
> relax our cultural dichotomy between intentional or consciously controlled
> vs. automatic or reactive or externally controlled a bit.
>
> If we imagine that we don't entirely control our own utterances, that
> circumstances speak through us, that languages and registers and cultures
> and histories speak through us, that utterances are produced by a system
> bigger than just us, with input factors on timescales longer, even "within
> us," than the moment of "deciding" what to say --
>
> then the boy is as much "forced by circumstances" as he is, also,
> "creatively deploying linguistic resources" in his hesitation and shift in
> reference for Lucky.
>
> So it's not necessarily a big qualitative shift or developmental leap. It
> does require that Sasha has developed a linguistic repertoire that includes
> 'John's dog' or 'my dog' as some sort of "equivalent" for naming the dog ...
> but that would have to have as part of it some sense of when you use one and
> when you use the other. "Free variation" or full semantic equivalence is
> fairly rare in language use, there are usually associations, connotations,
> etc. The shift here may have been just a small shift in the sense of
> appropriateness or possible contexts of use among these expressions.
>
> Finally, my imagining of this narrative adds an affective quality to the
> instances of calling "Yucky": a tone of eagerness, demandingness,
> playfulness, and perhaps intimacy or close friendship with the dog. I find
> it hard to imagine the same affect being layered into "John's dog". And this
> may be related to another shift: of the speech act situation itself, from
> calling the dog, to asking about the dog. And in that second context of use,
> "John's dog" might again represent a smaller shift from other practices (3rd
> person reference vs. 2nd person vocative, invocative?).
>
> Not to deny that the embarrassment factor was a key circumstance, or that
> the bodily obstacle (speech impediment) blocked some other options and
> pushed Sasha toward a lexical alternative as a solution.
>
> Maybe in any case what we want are not so much indicators of conscious
> control of language, as indicators of flexible, responsive, appropriate,
> creative, imaginative use of language?
>
> JAY.
>
> Jay Lemke
> Research Scientist
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> University of California - San Diego
> 9500 Gilman Drive
> La Jolla, California 92093-0506
>
> Adjunct Professor
> School of Education
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
>
> Professor Emeritus
> City University of New York
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 4, 2010, at 11:27 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
> > I am still trying to digest the second language-scientific concept
> > discussion but have a question about
> > how one know's that a child is acquiring conscious control of language
> > output. If I understand correctly,
> > conscious control appears as a part of the 5-7 year shift in
> psychological
> > function conceived of by LSV, Piaget, Freud, and other developmentalists
> in
> > various ways .
> >
> > How do I interpret this:
> >
> > Sasha is about 29 months of age. He is walking and talking, but he has
> > difficulty with some sound combinations. L's at the beginning of words is
> > one such. So, he pronounces lucky as yukky. OK.
> >
> > Sasha's parents take him to visit friends who have a dog that Sasha
> really
> > likes. His name is Lucky. For a couple of months, Sasha happily calls out
> > for "Yuckky" who obligingly turns up. The older folks around laugh at the
> > error. Sasha is oblivious. After all, his buddy came to play!! But a few
> > months later, arriving at the dog's house, Sasha says, "Where is.......
> > where is ...... where is John's dog?" People just stare and the moment
> > passes.
> >
> > My interpretation is that Sasha has learned that in this case, there is
> > something about calling the dog Yukkie that evokes laughter and that he
> is
> > the subject of the laughter. He may have learned that dirty stuff is
> > referred to as yukky. Either way, he wants to avoid making a mistake that
> > will result in him being laughed at. He "catches himself in the act" of
> > saying Yukky and finds a grammatically and semantically acceptable
> > substitute.
> >
> > How ought I to interpret this incident? Did he deliberately change what
> he
> > was saying?. If so, how could this be possible at such a young age? If
> not,
> > how did he do it?
> >
> > mike
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 5:25 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> On p. 223 of Thinking and Speech (Minick translation) Vygotsky addresses
> >> precisely this problem (that is, the problem of whether word meanings
> >> develop in foreign language learning the same way they do in the
> learning of
> >> science concepts). Here's what he says:
> >>
> >> "Problems arise, however, if we attempt to extend this analogy further.
> In
> >> learning a foreign language, a system of developed meanings is given
> from
> >> the outset int he native language. The existing system is a prerequisite
> for
> >> the development of the new system. In the development of scientific
> >> concepts, on the other hand, the system emerges only with the
> development of
> >> the scientific concept and it is this new system that transforms the
> child's
> >> everyday concepts. This difference is more critical than the kinship
> between
> >> these processes because it identifies what distinguishes the devleopment
> of
> >> scientific concepts from the development of new forms of speech such as
> >> foreign languages or writing."
> >>
> >> This isn't actually the first time Vygotsky's raised this problem, which
> I
> >> think ultimately stems from the fact that every foreign language is
> somebody
> >> else's native language. In his remarks on Tolstoy on p. 172 Vygotsky
> notes
> >> that Tolstoy "is not concerned with the concepts that the child acquires
> in
> >> learning a system of scientific knowledge, but with words and concepts
> that
> >> are woven into the same fabric as those that have developed in the
> child."
> >> (Interestingly, though, many of the literary "Russian" words that
> Tolstoy is
> >> teaching the kids, e.g. "impression", are really French words in a
> Russian
> >> disguise.)
> >>
> >> There's an even more interesting example of how foreign language
> learning
> >> is different from scientific concept learning, and in some respects less
> >> conducive to developing a new system, in Poehner and Lantolf's own data.
> >> This example MIGHT seem to refute what I am saying, because it's really
> a
> >> grammatical example and not a lexical example at all, but I think if we
> look
> >> at it on the continuum of lexicogrammar (that is, on a continuum of
> modes of
> >> meaning which emphasize repetition and other modes of meaning that
> emphasize
> >> variation) we will see that it only EXTENDS my argument rather than
> refuting
> >> it.
> >>
> >> On p. 320 of Poehner and Lantolf, Donna is trying to retell a scene from
> a
> >> movie. She begins correctly, with the passe compose and then switches to
> the
> >> imparfait. There is a long analysis of this incorrect "correction" which
> >> focuses on the actions of the mediator.
> >>
> >> But there are three things which do NOT figure in the analysis which are
> >> really much more important.
> >>
> >> First of all, Donna is uptaking, that is, taking up the last tense she
> >> used, and sticking with it, as we often do in telling a narrative.
> That's
> >> why she unthinkingly gets it right. If you start off in one tense you
> tend
> >> to stick with that tense, unless there is some good reason to change it.
> >> This is normal, and it is one reason why deliberate, concept based
> decisions
> >> often produce INCORRECT decisions as in this case. The language is
> designed,
> >> nonintentionally and nonvolitionally, but nevertheless designed, by
> >> the everyday narrative activities of native speakers, and it's designed
> to
> >> NOT be deliberate or intentional or volitional in any way.
> >>
> >> Secondly, Donna is uptaking from her own native language. That is why
> she
> >> THINKINGLY gets it wrong. The problem is that "elle a dit" really
> resembles,
> >> externally, the English imperfect, that is, "she has said". So, sure
> enough,
> >> Donna is taking over a meaning which is ready-made from her own
> language,
> >> and that is the whole source of the problem.
> >>
> >> Thirdly, the "mediator" DOES uptake this mistake, but sticks to the the
> >> "therapist" role of simply being an echo chamber. The mediator does not
> >> mediate PRECISELY where this mediation would be useful in a
> revolutionary
> >> seizure of conscious awareness. Instead of showing Donna that "ella dit"
> is
> >> only EXTERNALLY similar to "she has said", allowing Donna a
> metalinguistic
> >> understanding of how the two aspects instantiate the same story in very
> >> different systems. (I think this is probably due to the fact that the
> >> mediator himself/herself is not particularly sure of what s/he is
> doing--at
> >> least this is suggested by the fact that the transcript actually
> >> mistranslates "il a e/te/" as "has been" in line 5.)
> >>
> >> Now, I am not arguing that the concepts of time are different in English
> >> and in French (as Neguerela has done). I guess I don't think that tense
> or
> >> even aspect is time at all, and therefore I don't think that tense or
> aspect
> >> is a concept. It seems to me that both tense and aspects are sprawling
> chain
> >> complexes, formed precisely through narrative use of the language.
> >>
> >> Yes, it is possible to conceptualize it. That's what linguists get paid
> to
> >> do. And that is what the mediator could have (and should have) done. But
> >> that is not what native speakers do for the very simple reason that
> every
> >> foreign language is also somebody else's everyday language, and as
> Vygotsky
> >> reminds us, a lot of what adults think may look conceptual but it really
> >> isn't.
> >>
> >> Jim has one part of my argument absolutely right. I am not arguing that
> >> vocabulary learning is learning, and grammar learning is development.
> That
> >> is obviously not true, and I don't think it would be true even if we
> could
> >> consistently and coherently specify where vocabulary learning stops and
> >> grammatical development starts.
> >>
> >> I am saying that if we plot ontogenetic word learning on a chart, we
> will
> >> discover that over the years it is relatively linear, and that is why we
> >> have people like Paul Bloom talking about the number of words learned,
> on
> >> the average, per month, from the age of twenty-four months to the age of
> >> twenty-four years. In contrast, grammar learning obeys WILD U-shaped
> curves
> >> of development, as any language teacher will tell you (and as Donna
> actually
> >> demonstrates, albeit microgenetically). And I am saying that there this
> >> difference is not accidental and tells us something very profound about
> the
> >> difference between learning and development that will ultimately apply
> to
> >> both grammar and vocabulary.
> >>
> >> Yesterday I had to judge a perfeclty dreadful "teaching contest" at our
> >> university. For the most part the "lessons" were set pieces, with none
> of
> >> the real excitement and interaction of real lessons and consequently no
> >> "development" not even in the narrow microgenetic sense (for one thing,
> no
> >> children!).
> >>
> >> But I did notice that every lesson had a particular point where the
> teacher
> >> asked the nonexistent children to somehow make some sentence of their
> own,
> >> e.g. "Let's go...blah, blah, blah" or "Can you ...bip bip bip" or "I'm
> >> very..jeom jeom jeom...today". That "X" marks the spot!
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >> Seoul National University of Education
> >>
> >> PS: I would like to agree VERY STRONGLY with Larry's gentle but
> insistent
> >> implicit criticism of the editors of this issue. All of the studies are
> >> indeed synchronic, and that means that the approach to truly ontogenetic
> >> DEVELOPMENT is only speculative and theoretical.
> >>
> >> There's an even worse problem. All of these synchronic studies are
> really
> >> first world studies: we are EITHER looking at the learning of English in
> >> English speaking countries or we are looking at the learning of foreign
> >> languages...in English speaking countries.
> >>
> >> This is the TESOL-USA view of the world, the view from the inner,
> >> Anglophone circle, where monolingualism is strongest and foreign
> language
> >> learning and teaching is weakest. It conveniently leaves out the VAST
> >> majority of language learners and the most exciting language teaching
> >> frontier in the world today.
> >>
> >> dk
> >>
> >> --- On Fri, 12/3/10, James P. Lantolf <jpl7@psu.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> From: James P. Lantolf <jpl7@psu.edu>
> >> Subject: [xmca] DA-L2: II
> >> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> Date: Friday, December 3, 2010, 1:32 PM
> >>
> >>
> >> 1.We appreciate Andy's comment that several scholars associated with
> >> Marxian theory have argued that the criterion for truth is found in
> >> practice. However, we don't agree that Marx "never talks about the
> criterion
> >> of truth." While Marx might not have actually used the exact wording
> >> "criterion of truth" his Second Thesis on Feuerbach does indeed address
> the
> >> issue rather directly. In the words of Sanchez Vasquez (1977, p. 120)
> >> "Thesis II is significant because it reveals a new dimension of the role
> of
> >> practice in knowledge; it provides not only the object of knowledge, but
> >> also the criterion of its truth." Sanchez goes on to expand on this
> point in
> >> greater detail.
> >> 2.Clarification of "natural" in our discussion of Education. Perhaps the
> >> way we phrased things is the reason for Mike's concern and justifiably
> so..
> >> We were certainly not saying that cultural concepts are acquired through
> a
> >> natural/biological process (e.g., we in no way buy into Chomsky's view
> of
> >> language acquisition as the mere triggering of pre-specified knowledge.
> In
> >> fact, in Lantolf and Thorne, 2006, we support Tomasello's usage-based
> >> approach to acquisition, including non-instructed adult language
> >> acquisition). We were trying to reflect Vygotsky's position that
> culture,
> >> whether everyday or formal education, empowers humans to gain control
> over
> >> processes that are part of our natural biological endowment. Here is a
> nice
> >> quote from A. N. Leontiev that reflects our orientation with specific
> >> reference to language: "language is the objective product of the
> activity of
> >> previous generations. In the process of development, the child
> appropriates
> >> language.
> >> This means that in the child specifically human abilities and functions
> >> are formed: the ability to speak and to understand, the functions of
> hearing
> >> and articulating spoken language. Naturally, these abilities and
> functions
> >> are not innate; rather they emerge in ontogenesis. What makes them
> emerge?
> >> Above all, the existence of language in the environment. With regard to
> the
> >> biological characteristics [e.g., human auditory apparatus, human vocal
> >> apparatus] inherited by the child, they constitute only the necessary
> >> conditions to enable the formation of these abilities and functions."
> >> (Principles of Mental Development and the Problem of Mental Retardation.
> >> 1959.)
> >> 3.With regard to learning L2s, we don't agree with David that learning
> of
> >> vocabulary is a linear process. It isn't simply learning new labels for
> >> concepts we already have in our first language (we aren't saying that
> David
> >> makes this claim, but many in the L2 literature have made this
> assumption,
> >> although, to be sure, things are beginning to change). Learning that the
> >> Spanish word for mother is madre, as Vygotsky argued, is the beginning
> not
> >> the end of the process. There is a rich set of cultural entailments that
> one
> >> must appropriate to fully know the Spanish word and these are radically
> >> different from Anglo-American concept of mother. On this topic see the
> 1997
> >> dissertation by Howard Grabois (1997). Love and power. Word
> associations,
> >> lexical organization and second language acquisition.
> >> 4.Gaining control over the feature of aspect in a language such as
> French
> >> or Spanish is indeed all about development. By control we mean the
> ability
> >> to consciously understand the concept of aspect and the ability to
> deploy
> >> that concept as a semiotic tool to make and convey the kinds of meanings
> one
> >> wants to make and convey in specific communicative circumstances. This
> does
> >> not mean using the concept in precisely the way native speakers do. It
> means
> >> the ability to use the concept in perhaps innovative ways. Indeed, the
> >> average native speaker (i.e., one who has not study language formally in
> >> school) do not have conscious and sophisticated understanding of the
> >> conceptual features (grammatical, lexical, pragmatic, discursive) of
> their
> >> language. Yanez-Prieto (2008) On literature and the secret art of
> invisible
> >> words : Teaching literature through language (Ph.D. dissertation), among
> >> other things, documents how L2 learners gain control over Spanish verbal
> >> aspect and use it to create communicatively powerful texts. One student,
> >> for instance, relates a story about her mother's illness using
> imperfective
> >> and perfective in what would otherwise seem to be a « non-native »
> manner.
> >> Normally, imperfective is used to set background information (set the
> stage)
> >> for a story and perfective is used to relate the major events of the
> story.
> >> The student intentionally used the imperfective to relate the major
> events
> >> of the story as a way of drawing the reader into the action as if it
> were
> >> unfolding before one's eyes. It seems to us that this type of control of
> a
> >> key temporal concept shows genuine development.
> >> 5.The examples that David provides deal with children learning an L2,
> this
> >> may or may not be a different process from adults learning an L2.
> Indeed, a
> >> recent book by one of the leading neurolinguists working on bilingual
> >> acquisition, Michel Paradis in his (2009) book (Declarative and
> Procedural
> >> Determinants of Second Languages) provides empirical evidence to support
> the
> >> position we are arguing for regarding learning languages in educational
> >> settings. In a nutshell, he proposes that adult language learning rarely
> >> entails the same kind of implicit, non-conscious learning that occurs in
> the
> >> case of L1 and possibly L2 learning in childhood. Instead, it involves
> >> conscious and intentional learning of explicit knowledge, which can
> never
> >> convert to implicit knowledge. This knowledge can, however, be used in
> an
> >> accelerated way in oral and written communicative activities. We
> integrate
> >> Paradis's model with Vygotsky's approach to formal education in our new
> book
> >> on
> >> instructed second language learning.
> >> 6.We have always interpreted "cultural" in sociocultural as a historical
> >> formation. It plays a major role in our approach to language education,
> >> since for one thing we have to confront the language educational history
> of
> >> our students, who, by the time they enter university language courses,
> have,
> >> in most cases, already internalized knowledge of a particular language
> that
> >> is by and large inappropriate, incomplete and in many cases wrong. To
> even
> >> begin the educational process, we have to first bring out the history
> and
> >> then get the students to confront it and recognize that in most cases it
> is
> >> problematic.
> >>
> >> Jim & Matt
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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