The Study on Second Language Acquisition based on Cognitive Procedure

Abstract. This paper describes the theoretical foundation, the main content, and the significance of the CPSLA, and its specific application in SLA as well. To bring about procedural knowledge of the target language is the core of the CPSLA. Procedural knowledge is obtained mainly through language input and output, rather than learning rules by rote. Of course, appropriate attentional teaching activities are advocated. Language input and output are behavioral and procedural process, while rote learning is feeding process. Perhaps humans were engaged in procedural cognitive activities earlier than they were engaged in feeding cognitive activities, therefore, human organs in charge of procedural cognitive activities are developed better than those in charge of feeding cognitive activities, thus, procedural cognitive activities are more lasting and efficient.

Key words: second language; cognition; cognitive procedure

Introduction

Since the 60s and 70s of the twentieth century, when SLA was emerging as an independent subject[1], it has been examined by a variety of theoretical assumptions from different perspectives. This paper puts forward a new assumption on SLA: Cognitive Procedure in Second Language Acquisition (CPSLA). The Speech Act Theory of British philosopher J. L. Austin (1962) argues that speaking is the implementation of an act [2], and the CPSLA also maintains that SLA is the implementation of an act. The difference is that Austin is talking about semantics and pragmatics, while the CPSLA is discussing SLA.

The theoretical basis of the CPSLA

The theoretical basis of the CPSLA is Chomsky's "Universal Grammar" and Anderson's (1976, 1980, 1983) Adaptive Control of Thought, referred to as ACT.

In Chomsky's view, the corpus which children have access to is not enough for acquisition of mother tongue, and this is his "the poverty of stimulus argument". He then proposed "universal grammar" hypothesis and that linguistic creativity comes from universal grammar with which children are born. Universal grammar is composed of a number of principles and parameters. British scientist Richard Dawkins created the word "meme" in his book The Selfish Gene[3], which refers to the thing that plays the similar role in the transfer of such things as languages, ideas, beliefs, behaviors and so on to the role the gene plays in the process of biological evolution. That is to say, meme is the social inheritance of the human culture through imitation from one generation to another. In this study, we enrich the connotation of the word to have it also include the physiological inheritance of the human culture and intelligence. The fact that each new generation excels the last one should be caused by inheritance of physiological meme of human culture and intelligence within the human body.

Anderson's Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT) distinguishes between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge of SLA. Declarative knowledge is knowledge of facts themselves, which is static; procedural knowledge is knowledge about how to use declarative knowledge, which is dynamic. Anderson pointed out that in the process of learning the language the rule-bound declarative knowledge will be transformed into autonomous procedural knowledge. That is, when learners keep using the same knowledge of the language, their performance will become programmed, and the error will disappear. In the early stages of learning, learners might use declarative knowledge consciously as a learning strategy, but after a period of language practice, declarative knowledge could possibly be transformed into procedural knowledge. Anderson (1983) also noted that the transition of declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge has three stages: the cognitive stage, the integrative phase, and the automated stage.

Both the CPSLA and the ACT accept the statement that declarative knowledge is static and procedural knowledge is behavioral and dynamic, but the scopes of the study of the two models are different. The ACT focuses on how the rule-bound declarative knowledge is transformed into autonomous procedural knowledge. It studies explicit language rules. The study scope of the CPSLA includes both explicit and implicit language rules. It examines the entire procedural memory of how vocabulary is connected into sentences and how sentences are connected into paragraphs and articles.

The main content of the CPSLA

The CPSLA maintains that the process of SLA is just like swimming, playing balls, or building a house. It is a behavior, an action. It is to do things. The only difference is that hands or feet are used when swimming, playing, or building a house and mouth is used in SLA. Construction materials need to be connected by a certain sequence when building a house; in SLA, you need to connect vocabulary (including words and phrases) into a sentence and further into paragraphs and articles according to certain rules.

The Stoics and Leibniz thought that the language and the world have the same structure. Languages are used to express the world. The same structure provides a great convenience for the understanding and acquisition of the language. The existing perception of the world (genetic and acquired) and language capability (genetic and acquired) of second language learners provide basic rules of grammar for people to understand and acquire the second language. The existing perception of the world and language capability is equivalent to Noam Chomsky's "universal grammar." It must be mainly through language practice or language behaviour that peripheral grammar is transformed into procedural knowledge. In the sentence I like the beautiful flower, the reason why the beautiful flower forms a noun phrase while like the doesn't form a phrase is that the property beautiful is attached to the flower. So is the structure of the world. The language which is used to describe the world should be much in the same way. Thus, the three words the beautiful flower form a phrase. Similarly, the whole structure of a sentence is also the subject of human cognition to the world and the structure of the world. Such a sentence as I beautiful like flower the is absolutely impossible. As the world is not so. The structure of the world is not so messy, neither is the sentence which is used to describe the world.

The CPSLA argues that SLA is a memory of behaviors, a memory of behaviors of hearing organs, visual organs, speech organs and the brain. When the learner's procedural knowledge of the target language is near to perfection in the guidance of universal grammar and marginal grammar，the task of SLA is complete.

The significance of The CPSLA

The CPSLA has a distinct value of innovation. It has important theoretical and practical significance:

The CPSLA's criticism to the aural-oral approach The theoretical base of the aural-oral approach is structuralism linguistics and behavioral psychology. Although the aural-oral approach began to meet with more and more challenges from the 60s of the 20th century, so far, it still appeals to many who lose sight of its weakness. Thus, it still makes important significance to evaluate the aural-oral approach. One of the main features of the aural-oral approach is: in order to make the learner's second language habitual in the shortest possible time, he is encouraged and even forced to repeat the learning material and do some learning activities mechanically. The repetition frequency in the aural-oral approach is much higher than in other approaches. Undue mechanical repetition can lead to protective inhibition of the cerebral cortex and the learner's psychology of tiredness and reduce acquisition efficiency.

The CPSLA is based on humanism and cognitive psychology, stressing the forming of language habit based on physical and mental easiness，innovation and emotion involvement and pursuing the best combination of consciousness and unconsciousness. The CPSLA maintains that SLA doesn't have to rely on excessive mechanical repetition because the learner has the support of universal grammar. Interlanguage is just natural and normal in some stages of learning[4]. The CPSLA pursues the effect of "approaching perfection gradually in the language practice"[5].

The CPSLA's transcendence over the cognitive approach Cognitive approach is raised by cognitive psychologists and applied linguists in the 60s of the 20th century, and its representatives are J. B. Carroll, and K. Chastain [6]. The theoretical foundation of the cognitive approach is Gestalt psychology. This approach advocates the functional integrity of SLA. Because people can create sentences they have never heard of, the cognitive approach emphasizes the creativity of the language and denies the statement that SLA is just the formation of the habit of the target language. The cognitive approach regards SLA as the acquisition of rules and systems of knowledge rather than the formation of language habits.

The CPSLA admits that the process of SLA inevitably involves the formation of habits. SLA is composed of a series of actions, including actions of hearing organs, visual organs, speech organs and conation of the brain. Language input and output are a process, in which there is naturally inertia, namely, language habits. In addition, the so-called rules and system of knowledge in the cognitive approach also need to be attached to the habit-oriented language process, which is an entity, to exist.

The CPSLA's development to the natural approach Montaigne in the 16th century, Gouin and Sauveur in the 18th century, all have done pioneering explorations to the natural approach. The Natural Approach by Krashen and Terrel published in 1983 is an important development and innovation of the natural approach.[7].

Krashen stresses sufficient quantities of language input, but ignores the importance of language output. As a matter of fact, language output plays an important role in the formation of language habits and mastering of language rules and vocabulary. Perhaps Krashen worries that if language output is involved too early, affective anxiety will be caused. In fact, appropriate use of language output in SLA will speed up the process of SLA. In the first language acquisition, language output is involved as early as at around 1 year old. The combination of language input and output can enrich language activities. Their alternative work or their work in parallel can also avoid excessive tension of cognitive organs, which is conducive to acquisition efficiency.

The CPSLA's enrichment to universal grammar The CPSLA enriches Chomsky's concept of "universal grammar". In the CPSLA, universal grammar is the sum of the inheritance of physiological meme of human cognition to the world and language capability and those newly acquired. Human cognition to the world and language capability help the learner understands and acquires the second language in the general direction. As for in what form the existing perception of the world and language capability ((both genetic and acquired)) exist in the human brain or any other parts of the body, whether they exist in the form of symbols of mathematical logic just like information in the computer, or whether they are the same as Chomsky's principles and parameters of Universal Grammar, scientific experiments or further study in validation logic someday in the future may solve the riddle.

The specific application of the CPSLA in SLA

The CPSLA, taking in the advantages of various SLA models and discarding their negative factors, is a highly efficient mode of learning. The acquisitioned mode of the CPSLA is: "Input - Attention - Output - Quantitative control."

Input Second language input should be gradual. Curricular and extracurricular input, specified and autonomous input should be organically combined. Currently available information technology and audio-visual-reading facilities and other conditions should be made full use of.

Attention Attention can be divided into natural attention and conscious learning attention. During natural input, the learner's unintended attention to the language rules is natural attention. When learners teach themselves the grammar, memorize vocabulary, listen to the teacher explaining, read after the teacher, or do sentence imitation exercises, etc., they are paying conscious learning attention. The CPSLA stresses memorizing vocabulary in the sentence or paragraph. Drill exercises and those of imitation and repetition can be properly used. This kind of exercises, however, can only be interspersed in situations or meaningful teaching processes. Long period of dry mechanical drilling and excessive attention to language forms should be resolutely avoided.

Output The aural-oral approach based on behavioral psychology and structural linguistics sets too high standard of requirement to language output, potentially causing a pressure to the learner, resulting in Krashen's affective filter problem. It will surely reduce the learning efficiency. The CPSLA pursues Professor Zhang Shandong’s SLA concept of "approaching the perfection gradually in the language use." The learner is not required to master some certain linguistic phenomena in a too short time. Rather, he is required to output in a creative and generative way by virtue of "universal grammar" and the input and his knowledge and capability acquired in the course of conscious learning activities. Learners are required to express themselves in the normal speech rate. He is thought to reach the requirement as long as he can be understood. As long as the practice is adequate, the learner will gradually master the various language phenomena of the target language and his procedural memory will also gradually approaches the exactness of the second language. Do not worry that the learner will not pay attention to the accuracy of the target language due to the requirement reduction of the learner's output. In case of mother tongue acquisition, children with all kinds of personalities, regardless of careful or careless children, or even those who care nothing，can basically complete the acquisition task in both exactness and fluency(except some intelligently handicapped children). It proves no matter how low the requirements, the learner will not discard on purpose the language knowledge he has acquired in large amount of language practice.

Quantitative control To provide a certain amount output daily will help put the improvement of the acquisition level into practice. Learners can talk with the teacher or tell the teacher what he has read or listened in the target language. To provide output also means to provide input, since there will be no output without input.

CONCLUSION

Learning by rote and excessive repetition is more than often lead to physical and mental fatigue. Such learning activities can not be sustained, so few learners who acquire second language merely by rote succeed. Since there is a very complex and perfect supporting mechanism for language acquisition in the human body (most likely in the brain), as long as the right way is followed, procedural memory of the target language, including both explicit and implicit language rules, will surely be established, and if so, fluent and exact expression will be realized, and the CPSLA this paper describes is just such an exploration.

References

[1] Guoxin Feng. Theory of Cognitive Integration in Second Language Acquisition [M]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2008: (2)

[2] J. L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed.) [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975: (5)

[3] Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene (2nd ed.) [M]. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1989: (11).

[4] Selinker, L. Interlanguage [J]. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10 (3), 1972: (209)

[5] Zhengdong Zhang. Three Dimensional Approach of Foreign Language Teaching [M]. Beijing: Science Press, 1999: (12)

[6] Jinfen Xu. The Theory and Practice of Modern Foreign Language Teaching [M]. Wuhan: Huazhong University Press, 2006: (39)

[7] Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. Approaches and Method in Language Teaching: A Description and Analysis [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986: (128)