ESL/EFL prescriptivists

[Stephen Jones]

Non-native speakers, however, make the same mistakes as our five-year-olds, and additional mistakes that carry though from their own language, but scientists can't describe any phenomena as mistakes like the teacher can.

This is total nonsense. Linguists and psychologists routinely characterize the speech of five-year olds and comment on the mistakes, and there are trillions of strings which any descriptive linguist will tell you do not form part of the language.

I would also like to see the evidence that adult foreign learners make the same mistakes as native-speaker five-year olds. I suspect it is almost non-existent, or at best coincidental.

I suspect you're simply making up things because you don't know any better.

It might be helpful to illustrate non-native common errors of what not to do. But this is a method that prescriptionists ordinarily use---for non-native and native speakers.

What your kind of prescriptionists commonly do is, as Crystal said in metal56's quote, choose a structure that is definitely correct and then try and persuade the rest of the world it isn't because they say so. On being challenged some then often refer to cooking, hairdressing or honky-tonk piano.

[metal56]

choose a structure that is definitely correct and then try and persuade the rest of the world it isn't because they say so. On being challenged some then often refer to cooking, hairdressing or honky-tonk piano.

Indeed they do.

[stephen]

Non-native speaker learners use the same language as native five year olds?

I have yet to have a conversation about shopping involving Gucchi handbags, Versace, or Burrberry (which my students assured me is from England -amazing what you learn in class isn't it ) with a bunch of 5 year olds of any native speaking language; I have, however, had such a lesson with a class of elementary (admitidely entirely female) students. I must add that they knew considerably more about this subject (the English language element aside) than I did. Hence, I now know that Burberry make quite expensive women's shoes and handbags.

Adults have different interests, problems, and life experiences from five year olds; hence, they will have different communicative goals. They will also be fully capable of abstract thought, which if I remember correctly only develops in children fully around 10 or 11.

Stephen

[stephen]

On descriptive vs pescriptive language, I think that Stephen Jones has it right. A descriptivist perspective takes a form as acceptable or not acceptable based on whether it is standard usage in a large enough group of native speakers. On the other hand, a pescriptive perspective tells you all that your English isn't good enough because it is not exactly the same as theirs.

However, there is by necessity a degree of prescription in the language selected for the EFL classroom. How else could appropriacy be achieved? Personally, I would be happy with a student saying
"Please give me a pen"
or ""Could you give me a pen?"
but would be far from happy with
"Give me a f***ing pen"
Despite the fact that in purely descriptive terms it is quite possible.

Stephen

[metal56]

but would be far from happy with
"Give me a f***ing pen"
Despite the fact that in purely descriptive terms it is quite possible

Me too. I much prefer a student to learn "Give me a f***ing break, will you?".

[jotham]

I would also like to see the evidence that adult foreign learners make the same mistakes as native-speaker five-year olds. I suspect it is almost non-existent, or at best coincidental.

I'm not talking about their mental capacity or their choice of topic. I'm talking about their tendency to understand basic rules but misapply them in other situations that seem like they should work, like with irregular verbs: "It was hot yesterday, so we swimmed in the pool." Even though I don't teach ESL, I live in Taiwan, and I witness things like this. This would be a mistake that doesn't necessarily carry over from their own language, such as when they say he for both genders because there's no difference in spoken Chinese.

[jotham]

This is total nonsense. Linguists and psychologists routinely characterize the speech of five-year olds and comment on the mistakes, and there are trillions of strings which any descriptive linguist will tell you do not form part of the language.

Yes, I agree that a descriptivist comments on "mistakes," but I said that they don't (or shouldn't) describe them as mistakes — maybe they can be described as departing from the norm. But essentially, these "mistakes" are data. Maybe for practical reasons, they might be called mistakes, and the need for correction is acknowledged, but technically speaking, wouldn't that be crossing into prescriptionist's territory once that happens? Or is it acceptable to say that five-year-olds or nine-year-olds make mistakes and need correction, but not those who are eighteen or above? By the way, do you agree that psychologists are scientists? I would have guessed you woudn't have acknowledged that.

[stephen]

This would be a mistake that doesn't necessarily carry over from their own language, such as when they say he for both genders because there's no difference in spoken Chinese

Yes, I also live in Taiwan and agree that these mistake happen, but this does not mean that mistakes by adult L2 learners and native speaking children are always synonymous. Take the case of regular verbs in the past simple (eg. walked, talked) which you brought up. I do not agree with the view on their aquisition by Taiwanese learners that you express above.

I agree these are often the subject of over generalization in L1 learners while they are still young.

eg. Yesterday I goed swimming.

Amoungst native speakers, irregular verbs are aquired later and regular verbs are in general aquired first.

In Taiwan, I am sure you cannot have failed to notice the complete lack of existance of regular verbs in the past simple in the spoken English of most Taiwanese speakers of English. Where the past simple is used, it is generally only the irregular verbs that are in past simple form. When past simple is successfully aquired by Taiwanese adults, it is usually aquired as irregular verbs first; regular verbs second. This is the opposite of with native speakers and a result of problems that Taiwanese students of English have with hearing regular verbs. They often simply do not hear the t/d/id sound at the end of the word. While regular forms may be over generalized in written English, they are often never used in spoken English!

[jotham]

Hum, now that you mention it, I see what you mean. Often, though, maybe it's just we native speakers who don't hear their weak attempts at pronouncing those sounds. I often have trouble hearing a Taiwanese person's distinction between I can and I can't. I know they know the distinction and are making honest attempts to do it, but it just doesn't come off clearly to native ears. Stress may have to do with it. So maybe they really are saying the simple past, but we just can distinguish their irregular verbs more easily. I'm not sure.
At any rate, nothing I said was discounting this. I didn't say that all mistakes non-native speakers make are synonymous with those our children make. My original premise was that non-native speakers make mistakes usually in two categories. One is from their language, and the other is from wrongly applied rules (which our children also do). Your example, would probably be from their pronunciation problems, which is carried over from their language, and, I agree, not the same mistake our children would make.

[lucy lace]

Non-native speakers, however, make the same mistakes as our five-year-olds, and additional mistakes that carry though from their own language, but scientists can't describe any phenomena as mistakes like the teacher can.

This is total nonsense. Linguists and psychologists routinely characterize the speech of five-year olds and comment on the mistakes, and there are trillions of strings which any descriptive linguist will tell you do not form part of the language.

I would also like to see the evidence that adult foreign learners make the same mistakes as native-speaker five-year olds. I suspect it is almost non-existent, or at best coincidental.

I suspect you're simply making up things because you don't know any better.

OUCH! For what it's worth: Jeremy Harmer, (author of The Practice of English Language Teaching, 3rd ed, Longman Press; as well as the 'popular' How to Teach[English, Grammar, Pronunciation] series) states emphatically, "It is now widely accepted that there are two distinct causes for the errors which most if not all students make at various stages". He begins with a discussion on L1 interference such as the b/v problem with Spanish learners and the article problem with Japanese learners, and he continues with a discussion on the debate you guys seem to be snarking about:

"Developmental Errors: for a long time now researchers in child language development have been aware of a situation where a child who starts by saying Daddy went, They came, etc. perfectly correctly suddenly starts saying *Daddy goed and *They comed. What seems to be happening is that the child starts to 'over-generalise' a new rule that has been (subconciously) learnt, and as a result even makes mistakes with things he or she knew before. Later, however, it all gets sorted out, as the child begins to have a more sophisticated understanding, and he or she goes back to saying went and came whilst, at the same time, handling regular past tense endings.
Foreign language students make the same kind of 'developmental' errors as well. This accounts for mistakes like *She is more nicer than him where the acquisition of more for comparatives is over-generalised and then mixed up with the rule that the student has learnt - that comparatives are formed of an adjective + -er. Errors of this kind are part of a natural acquisition process. When second language learners make errors, they are demonstrating part of the natural process of language learning" (pg 100).

I'm not saying Harmer is God, nor that his word qualifies as empirical evidence; indeed, I find his 'widely accepted' and 'whilst'ing a bit pompous. But he is a mainstream linguist. The idea that developmental errors are common to both young L1 learners and second language learners is not an outrageous suggestion, Stephen! And in my opinion, the original comment was misunderstood, as no-one was suggesting that the content or nuance of the learner's conversation resembled in any way that of a five year old. And yes, Burburry is English; why is that surprising?

[jotham]

I think this point may represent a tension between major linguist groups. Harmer's statement fits well with Chomskian thinking and applied linguists. Foreign-language-eduation leaders are inspired by Chomskian theories, (even though that wasn't Chomsky's goal.) European-based linguists — like Halliday, for example — are anti-Chomsky. They don't like to think that children discover and process rules about language (which is where they sometimes butt heads with psychologists). To admit that would be to admit that the human brain has an untaught, inherent ability to understand language, which plays into Chomsky's universalism in language. To avoid admitting this, Halliday and that branch of linguists think that what people say is necessarily learned or instinct — is it close to Pavlovian thinking? — which they think fits in with an evolution (read scientific) point of view. They always say they are evidence driven, but they must ignore certain sets of evidence (like the phenomena you mentioned) when it doesn't fit their theories. For them, when there is conflict, the theory is more important than the evidence, which has to be discounted somehow.
I side with Chomsky on this.

[fluffyhamster]

What "evidence/phenomena" is being ignored by functionalists?

All that's been mentioned so far on this thread is learners forming overgeneralized analogues from "base" forms undeniably existing in the input; hazarding a guess in making an intuitively "well-formed" form is hardly the same thing as apparently generating language from nothing. But whilst we're on the subject of 'the "poverty" of the stimulus'...
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 00156.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 02358.html

If anyone's ignoring, massaging or shoe-horning data, it's Chomsky and his cohorts.

Jotham, you're a little off base trying to tar people like Halliday with a Skinnerian brush dipped in Pavlovian puppy drool. I suggest you try to get hold of Corpus-based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book (McEnery et al, Routledge 2006) for the paper it contains by Robert de Beaugrande, in which he defends empiricists from drivel like yours (I might quote from it when I have the time and the book around, if you like). And what about stuff like the following: http://www.continuumbooks.com/Books/det ... kID=123373

[jotham]

Jotham, you're a little off base trying to tar people like Halliday with a Skinnerian brush dipped in Pavlovian puppy drool.

My question — Is this close to Pavlovian thinking? — wasn't posed facetiously or mockingly. Although I can see that it might have come off that way, it wasn't my intention — and I couldn't think of Skinner's name at the time. I know the old behaviorist school of thought is different from today's functionalist in important ways, although I'm not sure exactly how. My knowledge is limited, but I know that Chomsky totally discredited the behaviorist in a way that functionalists admit; but in many ways, to me, the functionalists seem similar to behaviorists in other aspects. You can help educate me.
At any rate, my point was to show others that there is a real division between Chomsky and functionalists, and your reaction backs me up on that. My feeling is that Chomsky totally lambasted the behaviorists, but functionalists only rejected the bits that had to be honestly rejected.
Unlike functionalists, I believe that people can think without using words or language. I think they can think with words as well, but more importantly, I think they can think without words. Sometimes, I get excited about an idea and I talk 100 miles-per-hour talking about my succession of ideas, and then I have an idea that makes me stop, because, temporarily, I don't have the words or vocabulary to express it. Or sometimes, the right word is on the tip of my tongue; I know the concept and I know there's a word there describing it, but it takes me five minutes of thinking before it comes to me. During those times, I thought about something without having the necessary words.
This explains some of the differences grammarians and linguists have. Editors like to think that you can better express your thoughts if you just think about and carefully choose your words better. In other words, the thought is the same, but the words are a better vehicle. Linguists, on the other hand, generally think that what anyone says, however crassly, was the exact essence of their thoughts, and that changing the words (whether for "better" or "worse"), would necessarily change the thought as well to something different. So to them, editing and the concept that some people communicate their thoughts better than others is anathema. To them, it would be like saying that one's thoughts are better than others.

[metal56]

in which he defends empiricists from drivel like yours

Fluff's returned, everyone.

[fluffyhamster]

Actually I was meaning to type 'dribble', to link back to 'drool', but now that you've bought it up, what's so unforgivably nasty about 'drivel'? Jotham seems to be a big enough boy to take it, and what's more it appears to have had the desired effect of making him expand on things a bit (which is more than some of your jibes have done, metal, in case you were secretly wondering if I was taking a leaf out of your book). But hey, if you really do want to become Protector of the Cafe (TM) for a while, maybe you can pop up to disrupt chat between Stephen Jones and any other adult he had been amicably chatting with, if he ever becomes uncharacteristically curt enough (by shouting an offensive 'Sorry my old chap, but you're really #%&!* mistaken there!' or something similar).