Conférence Susanne Carroll

[Bridget Copley]

L'Université Américaine de Paris a le plaisir d'annoncer le séminaire  
suivant sur l'acquisition d'une langue seconde :

Susanne E. Carroll, University of Calgary
"Salience in segmentation and second language learning: Processing  
output? Or acquisition input?"

DATE : 20 mars 2008 à 17h00
LIEU : 31 av Bosquet, Paris
METRO : Ecole Militaire
CONTACT : Rebekah Rast (rrast at aup.fr ou rebrast at gmail.com) - Veuillez  
nous contacter si vous pensez
assister à ce programme et apporter une pièce d'identité le jour du  
séminaire.

Résumé :

Segmentation refers to the ability to impose discrete units on a  
continuous speech signal. Segmentation is of interest to first  
language acquisition researchers because of claims that the initial  
segmentation of sound units of various sizes may help 'bootstrap' the  
learner into the morpho-syntax before the child has a grammar of the  
target language (Fernald & McRoberts 1995). Second language  
acquisition (SLA) researchers have been less interested in  
bootstrapping as a route into grammar due to overwhelming evidence  
that older learners rely on the L1 grammar as a path to the L2 morpho- 
syntax. Nonetheless, segmentation gets some attention due to evidence  
that in early stages child and adult L2ers often segment 'formulae' or  
extended stretches of speech which are not morpho-syntactically  
analysed (Wong Fillmore 1972; Ellis 1996, 2003). In addition, there  
are claims that the 'ends' of sentences are more salient and hence  
better positions for segmentation and word learning than the  
'middles' (Barcroft & VanPatten 1997), and that high pitch is  
intrinsically salient (Klein 1986).
Although the SLA literature often refers vaguely to 'stress',  
confounding rhythmic phenomena (lexical stress) with intonational  
phenomena (focal accent), I will limit myself to a discussion of  
intonation and its potential role in segmenting words and phrases. In  
my presentation, I will attempt to flesh out the logic of the  
acquisition issues, showing how a number of separate issues are often  
confounded. I will then discuss my own experimental research (target  
language = German) as well as some studies involving the acquisition  
of miniature artificial languages to show how difficult it is to draw  
conclusions about cause and effect, starting point vs. end point of  
acquisition on the basis of current data. I will claim that this is  
not merely a problem of 'not enough data!' but rather a problem of a  
lack of theorising about how processing interacts with acquisition  
mechanisms and how acquisition changes processing.

References
Barcroft, J., & VanPatten, B. 1997. Acoustic salience of grammatical  
forms: the effect of location, stress, and boundedness on Spanish L2  
input processing. In W.R. Glass & A.T. Pérez-Leroux (eds.),  
Contemporary Perspectives on the Acquisition of Spanish, Vol. 1,  
Developing Grammars. Somerville, Ma: Cascadilla Press, 109-121.
Ellis, N.C. 1996. Sequencing in SLA: Phonological memory, chunking,  
and points of order. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18(1):  
91-126.
Ellis, N.C. 2003. Constructions, chunking and connectionism: The  
emergence of second language structure. In C.J. Doughty & M.H. Long  
(eds.), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, U.K:  
Blackwells, 63-103.
Fernald, A., & McRoberts, G. 1995. Prosodic bootstrapping: A critical  
analysis of the argument and the evidence. In J.L. Morgan & K. Demuth  
(eds.), Signal to Syntax: Bootstrapping from Speech to Grammar in  
early Acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J: Erlbaum, 365-88.
Wong Fillmore, L. 1976. The Second Time around: Cognitive and social  
strategies in
     second language acquisition.

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