CLAS & CSLS
Virginia Scott
Academic Director, Vanderbilt University
Center for Second Language Studies
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 1

Franco, Fabbro. 2002. The Neurolinguistics of L2 Users. In Portraits of the L2 User, edited by Vivian Cook, 199-220. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Hagoort, Peter, Colin M. Brown, and Lee Osterhout. 1999. The Neurocognition of
Syntactic Processing. In The Neurocognition of Language, edited by Colin M. Brown and Peter Hagoort, 273-316.
Kroll, Judith F. and Gretchen Sunderman. 2003. Cognitive Processes in Second Language
Learners and Bilinguals: The Development of Lexical and Conceptual
Representations. In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by
Catherine J. Doughty and Michael H. Long, 104-129. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.
Paradis, Michel. 2004. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
Tomasello, Michael. 2002. The Emergence of Grammar in Early Child Language. In The
Evolution of Language out of Pre-Language, edited by T. Givón and Bertram F. Malle,
309-328. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Ullman, Michael T. 2004. Contributions of Memory Circuits to Language: The
Declarative / Procedural Model. Cognition, 93, 231-270.
Wartenburger, Isabell, Hauke R. Heekeren, Jubin Abutalebi, Stefano F. Cappa, Arno
Villringer, and Daniela Perani. 2003. Early Setting of Grammatical Processing in the
Bilingual Brain. Neuron 37: 159-170.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 2

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Short-term memory:
(working memory) processes and stores limited amount of information for a few seconds.
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Long-term memory:
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Procedural: knowledge that cannot be retrieved consciously.
Declarative: knowledge that can be consciously retrieved.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 3

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Procedural memory
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“stores” knowledge that can be used without
 conscious reflection, such as the rules of one’s native language; knowing how.
Also called “implicit” learning.
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Declarative memory

“stores” facts and experiences that can be
 consciously recalled, such as words associated with the category ‘fruit,’ or the names of countries in
Europe; knowing what.
Also called “explicit” learning.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 4

Evidence suggests that for native language (L1) processing …
 words may be stored and processed in declarative memory.
 grammar may be stored and processed in procedural memory.
Evidence suggests that for adult* second language (L2) processing …
 words and grammar may be stored and processed in declarative memory.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 5

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There is general agreement that humans have a critical period / sensitive period for language learning.
(Lenneberg’s CPH, 1967)
Although there is no agreement about how long this sensitive period lasts, most research suggests that it lasts from birth through puberty.
The term “adult” in SLA refers to a learner who is past the sensitive period for language learning.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 6

When children acquire their first or second (or third) language, evidence indicates that grammar is supported by procedural memory and words are supported by declarative memory.
 L1 and L2 acquisition involve the same memory systems.
L1
L2 procedural LTM grammar grammar
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 declarative LTM words words
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When adults acquire a second language, evidence indicates that that both words and grammar are supported by declarative memory systems.
(Ullman’s, 2005 DP model of SLA)
 L1 and L2 acquisition involve different memory systems.
L1
L2 procedural LTM grammar
---
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 declarative LTM words grammar & words
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In people who have acquired a L2 after the sensitive period for language acquisition, it appears that the two languages access a common semantic system.
(Dehaene et al., 1997; Illes et al., 1999; Klein et al., 1995; Marian, 2003; Marian, Spivey, & Hirsch, 2003;
Xue et al., 2004)

“The frontal lobe structures organize the syntactic components of a language only if it is learnt before the critical age. Afterwards, other brain structures account for the organization of the grammatical aspects of the second language, probably through explicit learning.”
(Fabbro, 1999, p. 101)
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 9

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The monolingual and the bilingual brain are physiologically different.
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A bilingual person processes language differently than a monolingual person.
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Brain imaging technologies suggest that when L2 is acquired during the sensitive period, L1 and L2 tend to be represented in the same areas.
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Increasing L2 proficiency changes brain organization.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 10

1)
2)
3)
When students say “I hate grammar” they are expressing real frustration related to the disconnect between knowing what and knowing how .
Learning and practicing grammar rules is unlikely to promote spontaneous use of those rules.
Learning words and meaning-bearing phrases may lead to spontaneous grammatical utterances.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 11

(Wong, Wynne. 2003. Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the
Classroom. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, p. 34.)
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