Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Second Language Learning Theories

Spring 2007

Week 6 - Answers

M&M, Chapter 5: Functional/pragmatic approaches to second language learning

1. What is it that researchers engaging in functional/pragmatic approaches focus on?

Functional approaches are different from the generative approaches in that they look at language development from a very different point of view. In a way, we can say that they marry the idea of competence and performance by making no reference whatsoever to the formal system of language set up by Chomsky In fact they are at the same time. In fact, they are both younger and older than Chomskyan or Chomsky-inspired models which accounts for their almost total separation. Instead, they seek to find how learners endeavour to express meaning through the use of specific forms. This is necessarily determined in the context of actually producing language and is generally not amenable to the type of pencil and paper testing done in UG models (there are a few questionable exceptions). Also, due to the focus of the functionalist approaches, research is almost exclusively conducted on natural learners as opposed to those stuck in a classroom or lured to a laboratory.

An important distinction must be made between functional and pragmatic approaches to SLA. While the two are related, they are not the same. The basic area of focus in functional approaches is on forms (morphemes, words or, in a very few cases, multi-word units/chunks) and their functional/semantic uses. Functional studies deal with form-to-function mapping at the very basic level. Interlanguage pragmatics, on the other hand, focusses on the choices learners make in coding their language based on contextual concerns/variables. The scope of interlanguage pragmatic investigations is much wider with more variables being considered. Such research revolves around speech acts and the completion of larger functions than those investigated in the functional approaches, which are still often grammatically focussed.

2. What are some of the different orientations a researcher in the functionalist approach might take to language acquisition?

In the functionalist tradition researchers have tended to minimize how they analyse the available data. The basic concept is that it is extremely difficult to analyse language use holistically. For this reason most people tend to use one way of dealing with the entire scope of language. For those, however, who do try to analyse language holistically, they come up a really generalized views.

Cognitive

The idea here is what we already mentioned last week regarding particular stages in the development of structural patterns as constrained by universal cognitive constraints, for example the idea that agents need to come first in the acquisition process, followed by objects.

Textual

In this approach the researcher examines specific form elements in a text (or series of texts). A text here can be both spoken and written, but interactional elements have been little studied from the functional perspective yet.

Social

From this perspective researchers examine how the world surrounding the learner effects their language use and development. Frequency effects and the relative saliency of certain elements in the environment (articles, for example) are often cited as sources of learning effects.

Multifunctional

Here the researcher looks at learner language from a variety of different angles and tries to ascertain how they work together to effect the development of learner language.

3. What is form-to-function analysis and how does it work?

The basic underlying idea in the form to function analysis is that language is principally made up of connections between the particular forms of the language and how these forms are used. This is a very different viewpoint than we find in UG or even some of the UG-supporting cognitive models we have looked at. These models have looked at forms separate from functions or actual use. Form to function analysis is all about the process of how learners go about mapping these two aspects of language together. They argue that this is the basis of our language ability and therefore, makes up the central question of language acquisition.

Depending on the researcher, these two aspects can be seen as being separate or integrated. In the integrated view, form to function mapping IS the entire linguistic system. This might seem overly simplistic but once we realize that the mappings between form to function are many too many then it becomes a system which is sophisticated enough to actually describe how language might work. It should be noted that it is on the basis of form to function mapping that functionalist and pragmatic approaches to second language acquisition actually meet. Both rely on the same basic form to function mapping system but they focus on different levels of forms and functions.

One of the great beauties of a form to function mapping system is that it is simple but extremely powerful. It is powerful enough to actually become a basic model for where language comes from, provided we are ready to accept the idea of a connectionist model for language processing and organization. This concept is as reliant on the idea of connectionism as UG is on the idea of modularity. To make this idea work, we also need to change the standard idea of both the function and the form of the lexicon in particular.

The form to function analysis states that forms (particular lexical items/units) will develop (be used by learners) before they actually know how to use them in any way resembling native speaker patterns of usage at least in FLA. There are arguments about the directionality of the system in SLA (form-->function, or visa-versa) and the reality of the situation is that individuals will probably map in both directions at different times depending on their learning situation as well as their background knowledge, including knowledge from preexisting linguistic systems. Thus, somebody learning a language very similar to their first language will probably be able to use the forms of their first language initially to help decide what some of the functions are and vice versa. For someone dealing with a new language quite different from their native language they might actually need to rely on functionability before forms, but this depends on whether their learning is naturalistic or classroom based. Naturalistic is functional, while classroom based learning is almost wholly form-based.

4. How has the European Science Foundation project contributed to our understanding of functional approaches to SLA?

As this is the largest study to be conducted using a functionalist framework the effects are obviously worth mentioning. The main result from the study has been to be able to posit, with some degree of confidence, the stages that learners go through in their development and use of forms. As we can see functional approaches are still on the SLA bandwagon of trying to identify regularities in the process of learning through stages. It is hard for us to necessarily make effective use of all this research, interesting though it is, because the learning experience as well in affective factors of the subjects of this study are so outside of our realms as English practitioners in Korea.

5. How have the issues of `time` and `aspect` been used to forward functionalist models?

The issues of time and aspect have been used as a way of analysing more deeply just one small element of overall language. By narrowing the focus of the investigation to just one element researchers have been able to pinpoint more and various effects relating to development. The idea is that all elements of language will work in similar ways and the findings for just one element can be extended once they are satisfactorily identified.

6. What have been the major effects of the functionalist approaches to date?

The major effect of the functionalist model is to give hope for those researchers not completely entranced by the generative model. In the functionalist model attention is paid to how the usage of forms develop in relation to a series of concerns not normally addressed in the generativist literature, and most compellingly semantics or meaning. Thus, functionalist models can be credited for putting the meaning back into SLA studies. In addition functionalist studies have gone far in showing that SLA is a complicated process indeed and that learners are affected by many things, both linguistic and extra-linguistic. The use of linguistic forms is determined by a multitude of different concerns all of which work together and simultaneously and can vary substantially from one learner to the next.