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Matthew Saxton

Testing Assumptions about the Input: Empirical Evidence on Negative Evidence. Matthew Saxton. January 29 th 2008. Errors in language acquisition. defining feature of a language learner all (typical) children retreat from error but how?. Negative evidence.

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Matthew Saxton

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  1. Testing Assumptions about the Input:Empirical Evidence on Negative Evidence Matthew Saxton January 29th 2008

  2. Errors in language acquisition • defining feature of a language learner • all (typical) children retreat from error • but how?

  3. Negative evidence • evidence that a given structure is ungrammatical • parental correction of child errors

  4. ‘No negative evidence’ problem • longstanding assumption: • parents do not correct their children’s errors • ‘no negative evidence’

  5. “A basic premise of almost all work on language acquisition in a generative framework is that learning must progress without the aid of overt correction ― that is, the learner will not receive "negative evidence," in the form of adult feedback telling the child that his or her utterances do not conform with those of the adult grammar.” Weissenborn, Goodluck & Roeper (1992, p.9)

  6. Does it matter? • ‘no negative evidence’ assumption • “ ..... one of the most important discoveries in the history of psychology”(Pinker, 1988, p.104)

  7. Empirical support for APS • parental Approval and Disapproval: Eve: Mama isn’t boy, he a girl. Mother: Yes, that’s right. (Brown & Hanlon, 1970)

  8. There is not “even a shred of evidence that approval and disapproval are contingent on syntactic correctness.” Brown & Hanlon (1970, p.201)

  9. Forms of correction • signal of Disapproval • informant • meaningful look or pause • explicit grammar lesson • differential responding • clarification requests • direct contrast between child and adult forms

  10. Beyond disapproval “repeats of ill-formed utterances usually contained corrections and so could be instructive.” Brown & Hanlon (1970, p.197)

  11. Direct Contrast hypothesis • Child: He was the baddest one. • Adult: Yeah, he sounds like the worst. • juxtaposition of erroneous and correct forms: • unique discourse context • child may perceive adult form as being in contrast with their own

  12. Immune to correction? “Anyone who has attempted to correct a two-year-old’s grammar will know that it can’t be done” Jackendoff (1993, p.22)

  13. McNeill (1966, p.69) Child: Nobody don’t like me. Mother: No, say “nobody likes me”. Child: Nobody don’t like me. [ repeated 8 times ] Mother: No, now listen carefully. Say “NOBODY LIKES ME”. Child: Oh, nobody don’t likes me.

  14. Diary study • Matthew with Alex (aged 4 years) • aim: deliberately correct child’s errors and gauge effect

  15. A: That .... that ... that says you can’t go there. M: Hmm. A: That says you can’t go there. M: Why can’t you go there? A: Cos that’s the part who you / l / .... who you see .... M: It’s the .... A: .... over. M: It’s the part where you what? A: Where you look over.

  16. A: I’m easy to eat you up. M: You can eat me up easily? A: Yeah. M: What? A: I can eat you up.... [ bang ] M: I bet you can’t. A: I bet you I .... I, I, I can. I bet you can’t eat me up easily.

  17. M: What you doing? A: I’m rolling about. M: You’re spinning round, are you? A: I’m rolling .... I’m spinning around .... .... on your chair. M: Hmm.

  18. M: You have to shut the doors / w / in winter. A: Yeah, but I don’t want to. It’s too bored if I shut the door every day. M: It’s not boring. A: It is. M: What do you mean? A: What? M: Why do you say that? A: Because it’s .... because it’s .... too.... It’s too boring.

  19. A: I drawed a lovely picture for you,didn’t I? M: You drew a picture? Where? A: I drew lots of lovely pictures.

  20. A: I don’t like Marmite. M: Mm, yummy. ‘Course you like Marmite. You always have Marmite. A: But I don’t ... but I ^ gone off it now. M: You have not gone off it. A: I have. I have gone off it. I have. M: Well, you’re a terror.

  21. Effects of direct contrasts • % switch from error to correct: • Farrar (1992): 12 - 45 • Morgan et al. (1995): 23 – 58 • Saxton (2000): 8 • Strapp & Federico (2000): 11

  22. An experimental approach • compare effects of positive versus negative input • control over input information via novel verbs • irregular past tense forms

  23. Positive input • any linguistic form modelled by an adult

  24. Novel verbs • longstanding paradigm (Berko, 1958) • aim: isolate the effects of input

  25. Supplying negative evidence Adult: What happened? Child: He pelled his leg. Adult: Oh yes, he pold his leg.

  26. Supplying positive input Adult: Look, he pold his leg.

  27. Negative > positive • % production of correct form: • negative: 43 • positive: 0 • 81% of children produced at least one correct form following negative evidence

  28. Empirical support I • experimental and observational(Farrar, 1992; Saxton, 1997) • mother, father, siblings (Strapp, 1999) • working class (Post, 1992) • immediate and longer-term effects(Saxton, 2000; Saxton et al., 2005)

  29. Empirical support II • beyond L1 English: French; Japanese; Korean (Chouinard & Clark, 2002; Izumi, 2002; O’Grady & Lee, 2006) • L2 acquisition (Mackey et al., 2003)

  30. Theoretical status • universality • inevitability • necessity

  31. Mother eased out “in many communities of the world, parents do not indulge their children in Motherese” Pinker (1994, p.40) “motherese is not a universal part of L1 acquisition” Ayoun (2003, p.51)

  32. Trackton “Now just how crazy is dat? White folks uh hear dey kids say sump’n, dey say it back to ‘em, dey aks ‘em ‘gain ‘n’ ‘gain ‘bout things, like they ‘posed to be born knowin’. You think I kin tell Teegie all he gotta know? Ain’t no use me tellin’ him: learn dis, learn dat. What’s dis? What’s dat? He just gotta learn, gotta know” (Heath, 1983, p.84).

  33. Haggan (2002) • the way people say they talk to children versus • the way people actually talk to children

  34. Myth of non-universality • selective focus on anthropological data absent features of CDS ≠ absence of CDS in toto • critical features that are present have been ignored

  35. Universality “understanding of language is made easier by the habit that mothers and nurses have of repeating the same phrases with slight alterations”Jespersen (1922, p.142) “random affection for repetitiousness makes an excellent atmosphere in which the child acquires speech”Mead (1930, p.35)

  36. Universal negative evidence • Arabic, Danish, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Manus, K’iche Mayan, Samoan • and English: • every single child and every single structure examined so far (> 20 studies)

  37. Inevitability • recasts (including negative evidence): • an artefact of conversation between a linguistic sophisticate and a cognitively naive learner • adults naturally follow the child’s lead

  38. Necessity • facilitative, yes • necessary? • onus on nativists to find even one deprived child

  39. APS revisited • no empirical support for ‘no negative evidence’ assumption • of little value in specifying principles of Universal Grammar

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