Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Developing Bilingualism

Fall 2007

Week 5 - Answers

Hamers and Blanc Chapter 4: Cognitive development and the sociocultural context of bilinguality

1. According to Hamers and Blanc, what is the relationship between language and cognition? (pp. 82-83)

According to Hamers and Blanc language and cognition are interrelated in a profound way. The nature of their relationship and the reality of which aspect is actually driving the other takes several different turns during the lifetime of the average person. According to the theory, early linguistic development is dependent on general cognitive development, but they are initially separate. At some point, however, when both have reached a certain level of sophistication, cognition and language merge. The child has to learn what language is really for and this requires a threshold level of forms. After language and cognition merge, a person enters a stage in which effective cognition is achieved through language. From this point on people actually need to use language to achieve some cognitive tasks like problem solving. It also means that cognition might be limited by the level of language one has (the amount of forms one has as the types as well as possible uses). As the level of cognition rises, we find that language and cognition are able to split apart. At a high level of abstraction people do not need to use language to interpret or understand certain concepts. The concepts exist apart from language. At this stage of development thought and language are separate but they do not have to be. Often language is still used to grease the mechanisms of cognition. Just because they are separated at times does not mean they have to be or can`t be connected as well and the reality is that you switch back and forth between integration and separation every day as you find yourself in more or less formal (more familiar/less familiar) situations.

2. Before language can develop and be used as a cognitive tool, what must first be developed? (p. 83)

Before language can be developed as a cognitive tool it must first be developed as a communicative tool. This shows us that communication is the primary or more basic function of language and cognitive ability must, therefore, develop from this. Take, for example, Koreans who learned English in very traditional ways. The hallmark of these traditional ways is that they do not involve communication. Almost everything that goes on in the classroom is practice in basic cognitive (not communicative) skills. This is the hallmark of formal foreign language education as commented on in Kecskes and Papp (2000), chapter 1. As a result, Korean learners of English have not developed ANY communicative competence. Knowing now that cognition in a language has to be developed from communicative functions, we can posit the idea that such Korean learners of English are not really thinking in English. This is bluntly clear to us as their frustrated teachers. They are thinking using Korean and then translating as best they can (not well) into English. That is, despite all their years of schooling they really have acquired nothing of except a few vocabulary items which they do not know how to use.

This paints a rather bleak picture of English education in Korea, but before you go out and try to kill someone, look at yourselves. As products of this same system you have somehow managed to develop communicative functions despite the best efforts of your teachers to stop you from doing so. This fact just reiterates the point that good learners will develop strategies which are able to supercede even the least effective teaching methodology. But at the same time, wouldn`t it be better if we enhanced and facilitated this imperative process rather than impede it or remain oblivious to it?

3. What role does language socialization play in the language acquisition process? (pp. 83-84)

Children basically learn the functional side of language by mimicking, imitating, and observing what they see around them. It is reported that we (primates) even have special sets of neurons (mirror neurons) for just this purpose. In the earliest stages of life, a child`s experience is generally limited to their immediate family. They learn how to use language from their family members and, therefore, will use it the same or similar ways as those closest to them with whom they spend the most time. Likewise, feelings (attitudes) about certain words, structures, etc. will be picked up from family members. If a child comes from a rich family which values using language formally and for cognitive or academic purposes, then the child will naturally do so as well. As the child gets older and their social world expands (they are exposed to different people with different attitudes and they have a chance to experience things on their own) their valorization levels will certainly change but much of what they value has already been set and is harder to change. Valorization is set by socialization and has been linked to motivation, but it really is more than that. Valorization will motivate a person to do something, but it will also stop someone from doing something as well. The affects of socialization on language acquisition are profound.

In the same year that the Peal and Lambert study came out (1962), Vygotsky (from the grave) was making similar claims about the effects of bilinguality on cognition, namely that bilinguality had a profoundly positive effect on cognitive ability. In fact, Vygotsky went so far as to say that bilinguals are actually more intelligent than mono-linguals. While I must say I do not agree with Vygotsky`s use of the term intelligent (for me intelligence is the potential for problem solving that we are born with), it is now accepted as a fact that certain types of bilinguals, balanced bilinguals for example, do have several advantages over mono-linguals not just in metalinguistic skills, which we would expect, but also in general cognition. Exactly what the nature of these advantages is will be discussed below.

4. What was the basic belief held by researchers working in the psychometric tradition? (pp. 86-87)

Workers in the psychometric tradition focused on the negative effects of bilinguality and thus believed that bilinguals were greatly hampered by their condition to the point of being almost retarded. The psychometric tradition was popular in the hundred or so year prior to the publications of Vygotsky and Peal and Lambert. It is easy to see how they arrived at their findings when we look at their rather unscientific research methods. In the countries were they were working the vast majority of bilinguals were immigrants coming from poor countries with native languages of low valorization levels to countries where the L2 was very highly valorized. This was a perfect setting for what we now know as subtractive bilinguality and of course is was from these subtractive bilinguals that they often got their samples. Since their subjects were immigrants they tended to be poorly educated and quite poor. The psychometric researchers simply did not understand the cultural setting of their subjects. In chapter 2 of Hamers and Blanc (2000), we had a brief look at some of the pitfalls in trying to measure bilinguality in cultural minority groups and unfortunately the psychometric researcher fell for all these traps. They used unscientific methods and went in with preconceived notions. With the advent of more scientifically valid research methods, much of what the psychometric researchers claim is indeed true, but only in subtractive bilingual situations, which we now know are not the representative case in bilinguality.

The Peal and Lambert study of 1962 blew the lid of research on bilinguality. Using highly scientific methods Peal and Lambert were able to study a wide variety of bilinguals and came up with exactly the opposite idea as those working in the psychometric tradition. What they found was that the condition of bilinguality was actually positive in many ways to the person in the areas of metalinguistic and general cognition. Bilinguals were shown to have distinct advantages over monolinguals on a wide variety of different cognitive tasks. The Peal and Lambert study was a milestone in the field of bilingual research and has encouraged many new people to jump into the field.

5. What are some of the main advantages that bilinguals are reported to have over mono-linguals and what conditions are necesary? (pp. 89-92)

Over the years since the Peal and Lambert study many researchers have sought to identify exactly what kinds of advantages bilinguals have over monolinguals. Below is a list of many of those advantages.

       Greater metal flexibility

       Better at concept formation

       Better at classification

       Greater metalinguistic awareness

       Greater verbal creativity - verbal originality/verbal divergence

       Greater ability in restructuring perceptual situations

       Greater sensibility to semantic differences

       Better at discovering rules

       Greater degree of divergent thinking

       More creative

       Better at correcting ungrammatical sentences

       Better at analogical reasoning

       Better at symbol substitution

You can see from this list that the majority of the attested advantages are language related but many others are not. This seems to make sense if you follow the cognitivist view that all functions of the brain are interconnected into one highly integrated system. The above evidence argues against the idea of Chomsky (1965) and Fodor (1983) that language is a separate system in the brain and that linguistic knowledge is a special type of knowledge. It is easy to see how the fact that bilinguals have to somehow differentiate, negotiate between, and build two language systems (often simultaneously) will initially effect their metalinguistic ability, but from the data here it is obvious that the same strategies and processes used to work with and develop the two or more languages are also part of general cognition.

From studying bilinguality for a few weeks now we have come to know that there are various types and, more importantly here, degrees of bilinguality. The Peal and Lambert study focused only on so-called balanced bilinguals as did many other studies after them. This poses a problem because it has been argued, as a result, that to become an balanced bilingual a certain amount of intelligence might be necessary. The effects mentioned above then might be the result merely of greater intelligence and might not at all stem from the bilingual situation. Recently, however, studies have been conducted on a variety of subjects in different levels of bilinguality to show definitively that such advantages come from the bilingual state itself and not just greater intelligence.

These studies have shown that there seem to levels in relation not only to bilinguality itself, but also to the advantages that come with being bilingual. Not surprisingly, balanced bilinguals will receive the greatest effects (advantages) of being bilingual. The effects drop sharply from the balanced bilingual condition but are present in a small degree even in the lowest levels of bilinguality. This means that learning or being exposed to a second language, no matter what the age or situation (kind of), will provide the learner with some cognitive advantages and these advantages will increased in accordance with increased proficiency in the L2 (provided, of course that the L1is still used or is already further developed). Aside from the balanced bilingual situation there seems to be another threshold level at which the advantages of being bilingual take a dramatic leap. This is the level of cognitive processing. We mentioned above that language is used at some point as a medium of cognition. After all, we all sometimes think using language. Well, it is this level of being able to use the L2 as a cognitive device that the advantages of being bilingual take another big leap. In this way we can see how cognitive processing is central to the idea of bilinguality and visa versa.

6. What are the four mechanisms that children in bilingual environments use to overcome interference? (p. 94)

Interference is one of the most interesting areas of bilinguality research. We know that children exposed to two language below a certain age will not get them mixed up after a brief period of confusion even if one of the languages is dominant. This contrasts sharply with what we find in adult second language learners, for whom interference is often seen as the greatest obstacle to language learning. It is, therefore, important that we take a look at some of the mechanisms that children have been reported to use to avoid interference in the hope that we might be get our own students to use similar strategies or develop similar skills. These skills are: 

       Greater capacity for language analysis

       Sensitivity to feedback and context

       Maximization of differences between the two languages

       Neutralization of structures within each language

These skills do not seems hard to replicate in the classroom if we think about them. If we teach inductively guiding the students to the answers, but not telling them, we can get then used to doing their own analysis of the language material. As teachers we need to try very hard to give authentic types of feedback, both positive and negative in order to make the class as realistic as possible and create a pseudo-social situation. We also need to make sure that all the material (every bit of it) we give is highly contextualized. Over exaggerate unfamiliar aspects of the systems of the new language. Also, make sure to try to get the student to adopt a more neutral position to language, both the L1 and the TL. All languages are equal as are all possible linguistic forms. It is important that you get you students to share this attitude with you. If you do these things you just might see less interference in your students.

The semi-lingual state is a state in which a person has not developed the ability to use language as an effective cognitive tool or medium. This can occur to both bilinguals and monolinguals. Central to this state is valorization. The basic idea is that in order to develop language as a cognitive tool one must have the right valorization levels. Simply put, cognition must be highly valued or the learner will simply not go to all the bother of doing so. Think about it this way. For many people education and the type of reasoning that comes with education is not at all highly valued. There are plenty of people in the US for whom education and getting good grades in school is not at all important. These are the people who often end up semi-lingual.

Semi-linguals are often very adept at using language for communicative purposes. They can chew you ear off about many different topics but they have difficulty reasoning or logically following carefully planned steps. Obviously in bilingual semi-linguals we know how this comes about because semi-lingualism is often the product of subtractive bilinguality which also occurs as a result of valorization.

7. How are Cummins` thresholds used to explain cognitive phenomenon in bilinguals? (pp. 95-99)

What Cummins gives us is a nice little chart which can help us visualize and better understand not only how people come to be semi-lingual but also how some people receive much higher benefits from their bilinguality. In this chart there are two threshold levels based on proficiency levels which lead to three different states: semi-lingual, neutral, and additive. The first threshold level is the level at which language can be used as a cognitive tool. In order to avoid the semi-lingual state a person must pass this threshold in at least one language. They have then entered a neutral state wherein one language is fully developed, but the other is not. To get to the additive state both languages need to pass the threshold and this catapults them past the second threshold and there they are in the additive world.

Based in what we read about the positive effects of bilinguality I do not think there really is a totally neutral state. Also, I do not see the need for a second threshold that has no place in reality. Despite these criticisms the diagram of Cummins does help to envision and understand both how people come to be semi-lingual and balanced bilinguals.

Because the use of Korean in everyday situations and in fact for all purposes with Koreans is so highly valorized in Korea, and the fact there is no real non-Korean speaking community here, it is safe to assume that the effects of learning English will be positive. The situation here is interesting in that English is extremely highly valorized, certainly even higher than Korean, but English is not valorized for any specific purpose beyond test-taking. It simply must be learned, not necessarily as a communicative tool, but just because. The bottom line is that Korea is still a rather isolated country. If Koreans interact with non-Korean speakers it is almost always outside Korea. For this reason, despite the higher valorization of English, Korean is the sole language of use here and will continue to be dominant. Since full development of Korean is absolutely necessary then we can continue to expect a potentially additive situation here.

8. How do social networks relate to bilingual development? (pp. 101-104)

I think we have discussed this same question over and over again, so I will not take much time here. Valorization levels are set and constantly reset based on what a child/adult/person observes and experiences in the realm of their social networks. Since we know that valorization affects not only our feelings about language but also which language forms we will use, it therefore also effects language acquisition.

9. Why is literacy considered such an important component in bilingual development? (pp. 104-106)

The skills we need to master in order to read and write are quite different than those we need to speak and are the stepping stones to using language as a cognitive tool. When you are reading you need to reason through the text, gathering bits of information and converting them into meaningful data which in turn you need to make comprehensible. In a simple way reading, and especially writing, are problem solving in its most basic state. According to Ong (1982) illiterate people go about learning in a very different ways than literates. Following this idea, literacy teaches one how to learn and, therefore, think differently and is a necessary prerequisite for being able to use language as a cognitive tool.

Hamers and Blanc`s additive-subtractive continuum is not that different from that of Cummins, except they have decided to add the further dimension of valorization. The addition of valorization is important to them because they believe strongly that it is only with the proper level of valorization for the cognitive uses of language that real cognitive development will take place. The Hamers and Blanc diagram takes great pains to show how socio-cultural surroundings (as evidenced in valorization rates) is the main backbone which determines whether additive or subtractive bilinguality will develop.

Kecskes and Papp 2000, Chapter 4

1. Words are obviously linked to concepts and thought, but what is the nature of this link: that is, how do words differ from concepts?

In the language processing model of Levelt (1989) the conceptualizer is divided into two parts or levels, the macroprocessor and microprocessor. The macro level of conceptualization is based on the intent, the need for the speech event and this seems to be the same (mostly) for all languages a multilingual might be able to use. This has to do with things like need or functions and researchers in interlanguage pragmatics have shown that they are largely similar across languages (Kasper and Rose, 2002). The micro level, which prepares the basic conceptual form of the message has been claimed by several researchers into multilinguality to be more language specific. This configuration about the miro level is based on observations made about the connection or link between thought (concepts) and words.

While concepts and words are not the same thing they are related. And while it has often been argued that most learners are aware of certain concepts before they lexicalize them, in reality much learning occurs where concepts and their lexical representations are encountered simultaneously. Really one does effect the other. It is important to understand the nature of how words actually function in language. While a concept has a fixed meaning and a word is drawn (projected) from its corresponding conceptual base in order to be used in a linguistic utterance, it must be acknowledged that words themselves do not have fixed meanings. Maybe the simplest way of thinking about this is that when you look in the dictionary you often find a primary meaning of a word and really this is not the word`s meaning but this is the conceptual base of the word. What you also find in the dictionary are what are often termed secondary meanings or meanings which come from the context of the utterance. The secondary meanings are really the word related meanings and not the concept. Based on this it is probably easy to see how words and their conceptual bases are connected. Also, for multilinguals it may be easy to see how they could have a similar conceptual store (CUCB even) but actually have different words related to a common concept. The words themselves in each of the languages might very quite a bit depending on different lexical (word) properties but they can still spring from the same underlying concept. A word is actually used in language as a connected but separate meaning from the concept itself from which it is drawn.

Because languages are learned (well sometimes) in context and used in context and context is socially embedded, there are certain cultural differences between words while there might not be with these underlying concepts. Basically what Kecskes and Papp (2000) say is that these underlying concepts are culturally vacuous but certainly not linguistically vacuous because language seems to be the major connection point between culture and thought. It is language which links culture to concepts through words.

In order to understand this we need to really see how words are actually used in languages. Here is an example of something which used to often happen to me in my old office. People often called but not for me and I needed to tell them that they had dialed the wrong number. I usually did this in English and not Korean because it convinced them more quickly that had made a mistake. Or I started in Korean and if they were not nice or were too persistent I shifted into English. This usually does the trick of getting rid of them. Still, however, some people didn`t believe me and keep on calling back repeatedly. It was at this point that I shifted into other, less spoken languages, to basically scare them off. English is not usually that frightening for Koreans. German is a little more frightening, and Danish is terrifying. Nobody has ever called back after I have spoken to them in Danish. So, below shows how you can tell someone that they have dialed the wrong number in these three different languages. All of them share the same underlying macro conceptualizations. Let`s see how we can analyze some of the micro and lexical differences.

(1) You`ve dialed (You have) the wrong number.

(2) Sie haben falsch gewaehlt./Sie haben sich verwaehlt.

      You have wrongly dialed/You have yourself wrongly dialed. 

(3) Det har du forkert nummeren.

      That have you wrong number-the

(4) I`m sorry but you have dialed the wrong number.

(5) Tut mir Leid aber Sie haben falsch gewaehlt./Tut mir Lied aber sie haben sich verwaehlt.

     Does me pain but ......

(6) Det maa du yndskyld men du har forkert nummeren

     That may you excuse but......

In the examples above we can see that the underlying intent is the same but how this intent is reached varies from each language. There are some striking differences between how German speakers and English speakers say the same very basic thing about dialing the wrong number. Likewise, in the more formal second set of examples we can see how making a kind of apology (although not for our own mistake) is lexically coded quite differently in each of the languages. These differences occur, in theory, because of what seems to be a connection between concepts themselves and the different lexical forms. Lexical forms not only shape the structure of the language but are shaped by the structure of the language. In short, we can say that concepts are generally quite similar between languages (although not the same) and are therefore quite simple, but it is the words themselves that are multifaceted and difficult.

In thinking about the nature of words, one of the main questions we need to think about is how words are supposed to code their meaning so that they can be used in context. Word meaning is a tricky variable in language and even words that spring from the same context will have different shades of meaning based on, to a large extent, the cultural and linguistic surroundings in which they find themselves. One of the simple things we know about word meaning is what is known as prototype theory. All words have in their very center core a prototype. These prototypes are based on frequent usages of the word and the word`s connection to the world. Most people studied will show a similar types of prototypes for words provided they belong to the same culture but people from other cultures will have different prototypes for the same concept. From this very simple example we can see that because of cultural context words do vary from their underlying conceptual base. An individual word will only cover part of the entire concept. English itself is a language which has a particularly large vocabulary, but the same applies in all languages. There is no such thing as completely equivalent words. Synonyms might all have at some point sprang from the same conceptual base but they cover different aspects of that base. Words and concepts are connected by their different aspects of meaning.

2. Not all words are the same. How do some words differ from others?

Certainly it is clear to all of us that not all words are the same. Words differ from other words in several important ways.

Scope of meaning - specificity

One of the main ways in which words may differ from each other is in their scope of meaning. Based on this we can organize words hierarchically. For example, a word like animal has a wider scope in its meaning than a word like dog, but dog has a wider meaning than poodle. This is a simple example from which we can see that words vary greatly depending on the scope of their particular meaning.

Polysemitism - number of meanings

Words also vary greatly depending on the number of meanings they have. A rather frequently used word like party is going to have many more meanings then a rather infrequently used word like solemnization. Most of these different meanings, of course, will not be listed in your dictionary but they will emerge from the context of the different situations. A child`s first birthday party, for example, is going to vary tremendously from the party of an 18-year-old, and someone`s 21^st birthday party will be different again. And these are just variant meanings of birthday party. Just think of all the different other meanings of the word party.

The nature of representation - concrete/abstract

Another way in which words vary is according to what they represent. Some words represent concrete things, these are objects or conditions which occur in the reality of the world and can be visually realized in a concrete way. Abstract things are objects, actions, or emotions, for example, which do not exist in the real world: they exist only in our cognitive structure. Abstract things are made up by human beings and are prey to our internal understanding of the world more than through a real relationship with the world at large. Based on this, obviously abstract words are more difficult to get the meaning of, particularly cross culturally and/or cross linguistically.

Semantic connections

Words also vary in their semantic connections. Some words have many different semantic connections and this is where their meaning comes from to a large extent. Think of the word cat, or house. Other words have quite limited semantic connections. Think of the word aviary. In general, more frequently used words have stronger and more semantic connections while less frequently used words have fewer semantic connections.

Schematic connections

Then we have schematic connections. While semantic connections are based on meaning and solely language, schematic connections are based on things that are connected because they often co-occur in the world itself. For example, the word knife has no semantic connection to eat or food, but there is quite a strong schematic connection between these words because we eat certain food with a knife.

Usage patterns - in which contexts does it more frequently occur

We also have usage patterns. Different words very in the contexts in which they will occur. If we look at the examples of apologize and sorry, it is quite clear that they are probably part of the same underlying conceptual store, but they occur in different contexts and are used in different ways in the actual language.

(7) I deeply apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you.

(8) Sorry for the trouble.

The reality is that they really do not happen to appear in similar situations and a quick search through any language corpora will show us that.

Collocational partnerships

Words also vary in the partners that they keep. Adjectives for example will be able to modify only certain words in a particular language. So we take a sample of two different color adjectives like black and white. You can have black coffee but not white coffee (except in New Zealand). You can have white snow but not black snow. Each word is able to be surrounded by a limited number of other words. Also, words vary dramatically in the number and strength of their collocational partnerships. Some words like good have a very extensive collocational range, while addled has an extremely limited range.

(Physical size)

Finally we can say that words also vary in their physical size. A word, if we want to think about it in this way, can be either just a single morpheme, such as un-, or a polysynthetic unit such as, come here right now. Lexically they are both going to function in a very similar way and be prey to the same types of conditions mentioned above.

From all this we can conclude, and I agree very strongly with Kecskes and Papp on this point, that we really need to look differently at language. It seems that much of what we understand as linguistic structure is determined not by some underlying universal syntactic element but rather by words themselves (lexis). We come to this conclusion based on the observation that the same word denoting a different meaning is going to require a different syntactic structure. We can`t simply slot lexical items into preconstructed syntactic structures based on their conceptual meaning. By looking at the above list we see that words vary from each other and from themselves way too much for the this type of slot grammar proposal to have any kind of validly in the real world.

3. How do bilinguals or multilinguals learn words in a new language?

Much of the discussion in this area relates to the timing as well as the type and intensity of the acquisition. Simply put we can describe two different types of bilingual or multilingual acquisition; simultaneous and consecutive. Simultaneous bilinguals or multilinguals are people who are exposed to these languages at more or less the same time, simultaneously. They may have more than one first language (maybe). A consecutive bilingual, on the other hand, has already acquired much of one language before they start learning the other. Consecutive bilinguals further vary based on whether the language they are learning is a second language or a foreign language. The basic observation here is that simultaneous bilinguals and consecutive bilinguals in a second language have what is often called a compound type of organization. This means that the words they have in their 2 or more languages may share a common conceptual store but they do not necessarily affect each other or hurt each other. What is often observed in consecutive foreign language bilinguality, on the other hand, is that a new word which is learned in the new language is linked first to the word (translation equivalent) of the first language and is somehow reliant on or controlled by this translation equivalent. Such learners may even develop a separate concept for the word in the new language because they have not experienced any of the new word in the real world. In a consecutive bilingual situation because the word in the new language is acquired after the concept has been learned and a word already exists in the first language for this concept, this word in the new language will be fused onto the translation equivalent from the pre-existing language. This can lead to confusion as we will see below.

4. What are some of the more serious potential problems for bilingual word learning?

There seem to be three major levels of word meaning or word structure which may pose serious problems for bilingual word learning. Here of course the important element of bilingual word learning is that the learner already has lexical codes (words) for these underlying concepts in her or his first language. So what we are really talking about here is interference, but these specific types of interference relate to what we already know about words themselves. So based on we know about words, as discussed above, we can say that this type of interference may occur on three different basic levels.

Conceptual level

One of the most common ways of teaching words in a new language by teachers all over the world is to simply offer a translation equivalent. So, we might say that the translation equivalent of pity in English is Mitleid (literally `with suffering`) in German. While these two seem to be similar it could be argued that they don`t actually come from the same conceptual base even though they are what we would call translation equivalents. Mitleid has a quite different shade of meaning than pity in English. It sometimes indicates not necessarily a true feeling of pity but one of maybe a false pity or what we would call in English crocodile tears. Problems result for language learners when they assume the translation equivalents automatically come from the same conceptual base or that a shared conceptual base leads to the same MEANING. These assumptions often lead learners to a less than clear understanding of the meanings of these new words. We discussed the possibly clearer example of [KALBI] and [RIBS] earlier. While the two are translation equivalents they certainly represent different underlying concepts. To link the concepts would be a mistake. So, in reality, proficient speakers of two languages have most of the concepts shared in the CUCB, but some concepts will NOT be shared and will be stored in a language(culture)-specific conceptual store. A proficient speaker needs to know which is which. They can achieve this knowledge through intensity.

Differences in metaphorical structure

We have already talked, albeit briefly, about languages (and thought at least at some levels as well) as being structured along the metaphorical structure. Thus, for example, ANGER=HEAT is a common metaphorical structure which is used in the English language almost universally and may also be used in other languages as well, albeit in different ways and forms. We could also argue that English also has another metaphor for structuring thought and language which we can phrase as HOME=CASTLE. This metaphorical structure is used to shape our thoughts and create specific linguistic structures which are meaningful to English speakers. I might be wrong but I don`t think the Koreans have this same metaphorical structure. Korean men, at least, have a similar but different metaphorical structure along the lines of; CAR=CASTLE. Because of these different metaphorical structures Korean learners of English may very easily misinterpret or simply fail to understand much of the language they hear. It is becoming more and more apparent that the language we use is, to a large extent, metaphorically structured. In order to learn a language well the learner must somehow be able to pick up on these metaphorical uses in the new language. Do you see what I mean?

Lexical level

Finally, we have differences on the lexical level. The basic idea revolves around what we already went over in class, namely, that there are vast lexical differences between words. These same differences will also occur across translation equivalents, to a rather high degree. When a word is learned in a new language and is, again, linked with a translation equivalent learners will often make the mistake of carrying over the lexical features from one language onto the lexical features of the language which they are learning. As we saw in class, because the lexical features are very much language and even context specific this can cause learners not only to use the word in strange ways but, more importantly, to misunderstand the word when they read or hear it. Learners tend to be functioning under the idea that words have fixed meanings which come directly from their conceptual base. In short, learners generally work with basic meanings. They are often unable to deal with or interpret loaded meanings. These loaded meanings are part of the lexical level of a word as opposed to the conceptual level of basic meaning.

References

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Fodor, J. (1983). Modularity of mind. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Kasper, G. and K. Rose. (2002). Pragmatic development in a second language. Language Learning 52: Supplement 1.

Levelt, W.P. (1089). Speaking. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Ong, W. (1982). From orality to literacy. London: Routledge.