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University of Atacama School of Humanities and Education Language Department

The document discusses language universals and their relevance to language teaching. It begins by defining language universals as common features found across many languages. It then discusses how language universals relate to theories of language such as Chomsky's Transformational Grammar and theories of language acquisition. Finally, it discusses how an understanding of language universals can help anticipate stages of first and second language learning, allowing teachers to better organize their teaching.

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Paulina Tapia Caballero
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182 views12 pages

University of Atacama School of Humanities and Education Language Department

The document discusses language universals and their relevance to language teaching. It begins by defining language universals as common features found across many languages. It then discusses how language universals relate to theories of language such as Chomsky's Transformational Grammar and theories of language acquisition. Finally, it discusses how an understanding of language universals can help anticipate stages of first and second language learning, allowing teachers to better organize their teaching.

Uploaded by

Paulina Tapia Caballero
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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University of Atacama

School of Humanities and Education


Language Department

Paulina Tapia Caballero


English Pedagogy
Level 400
Linguistics II
 Language Universals: Common features we might
find in several languages.
 Related to:
T-G grammar, by N. Chomsky.
Language Learning.
Natural order of Acquisition .
 Contribution to Language Teaching: Anticipation of
learning stages.
 A language pattern or
phenomenon which occurs in
all known languages [1]
 Some element, aspect, or
principle that is found in every
language of the world. [2]
 School: Transformational –
Generative Linguistics
[1] Richard, J., Schmidt, R. (1985) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. United Kingdom:
Longman
[2] Crane, L., Yeager, E., Whitman, R. (1981) An Introduction to Linguistics. Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company.
 Isolation of facts and principles true for all languages.

How all How humans


natural can learn 1st
languages are and more
similar. languages

 Learning the grammar of a 2nd language: discovering how to


set the parameters for the new language.
 Contribution: Understanding of the stages that language
learners experience for first and second language
development.
 Mistakes non-systematic Performance
 Errors Systematic Competence
 LAD vs. ‘blank slate’: Chomsky's acquisition hypothesis.

 System of principles that children are born with that helps them
learn language.
Order.
 Accounts for When children learn a language.
Mistakes
.
 Second language learning theory: 1) Acquisition is possible in second
and subsequent languages, 2) Learning programmes have to create
the conditions for it.
 All languages have Vs and Cs. (Vs: at least “a”, “i”, “u”)
 All languges have affirmative, negative and
interrogative forms.
 All languages have pronouns.
 Language reflects culture.
 High probability that the word referring to the female
parent will start with Nasal consonant. E.g: /m/
English: Mother; German: Mutter; Spanish: Mamá;
Chinese: Muqin.
 Brown’s 14 morphemes study
 Krashen’s study
 Diane Larsen-Freeman’s order of
grammatical morpheme acquisition for
learners of English in a natural setting:
 -ing
 Third person singular
 copula  Irregular past
 article Possessive
 auxiliary
 regular past
 Teachers may anticipate their students
learning by knowing what to teach them first,
and maybe knowing where and when they
might fail in their learning process.
 Language Universals are somewhat useful in
order to anticipate language learning and its
mistakes, however they do not define
learning.
 They help teachers to organize the teaching
process of L2.
 Grammar Acquisition and Pedagogy. URL:
http://www.ielanguages.com/documents/papers/SLA%20Grammar
%20Acquisition%20and%20Pedagogy.pdf
 British Council BBC Teaching English. URL:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-wiki/language-
acquisition-device
 Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. URL:
http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/013.html
 Richard, J., Schmidt, R. (1985) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching
and Applied Linguistics. United Kingdom: Longman.
 Crane, L., Yeager, E., Whitman, R. (1981) An Introduction to Linguistics.
Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company.
 O’Grady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., Rees-Miller, J.,(2001)
Contemporary Linguistics, An Introduction 4th Edition. Boston, New York:
Bedford / St. Marin’s

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