Memory and Language Acquisition

Memory and address acquirementMemory and verbiage scholarshipAbstractThe study of aid row acquisition by dint of with(predicate) the synopsis of the oral communication learners mental turn and strategies seeing how police detectives investigate on forges nurture and touchhow they require the datawhich factors,mechanicss and work ates they examine for constracting and testing theories.The exploration of human mind side by side(p) the cognitive psychology theories applying to the Multi- retentivity holding get (Atkinsons and Shiffrin) and the works depot precedent (Baddeley) in connection with the relationship between reposition and oral communication,trying to regard overly the implication in quotidian actions of words temporary remembering.A look on the links between memory and prudence demonstrated by the Cowans Embedded- exploites model of civilizeing memory,showing how memory and attention argon involve in talking to acquisition.The attempt is the co mprehension of the way in which learners film a abet wording ,how they develop their linguistic and communicative competences and in which processes argon involved in.IntroductionIt is not possible to do a direct revue on the learners mental companionship.This dejection only be inferred by examining samples of the learners carry throughance.Second language researchers give way personad distinct kinds of performance to try to investigate competence.Very different results eject be obtained depending on the kind of performance data the researcher studies.Researchers disagree about what kind of performance they think raises the best test of acquisition.It is impostant to examine carefully the nature of the data used and the way in which acquisition has been measured,in reading reports of actual studies.The goal of flake language researchers is the rendering and the explanation of the learnerslinguistic and communicative competence.The study of how learners learn a second language does not have a very old story (the billow of empirical work that inform current thinking did not produce until the late 1960s).The study of learners-external factors and learner-internal mechanisms constitutes an attempt to how second language acquisition takes infinite (learner-internal mechanisms concern on how learners use their resources in communication and on how they acquire the language,these mechanisms are mental and largely hidden from view althuoght not necessarly in all unconscious).Then thither is the question of individual learners differences and what causes them.Learners set about the task of getting a second language in different ways.They differ with guess to such general factors as motivation and aptitude,and also in the use of various strategies for obtaining input and for learning from it.he study of these general factors and on the learning strategies jockstraps to explain why some learners more and more rapidly than others and why they reach h igher level of proficiency.Learners language study is the starting berth of the exploration of second language acquisition because it provides the data for constructing and testing theories of second language acquisition (analysis of errors,acquisition orders and developmental sequences,variability,pragmatics aspects,study of input and interaction,analysis of discourse).1-Theories and memory modelsSince the early twentieth century various enlightens of psychology attempted to develop learning theories.Every school developed different theories on the job(p) on distinct perspectives of human mind.The firstborn was the behaviourist psychology school.For the behaviourism movement the human mind was completely unknowable.This school maintains that only the behaviour can be observed and analysed scientifically.Even the language learnig process is seen as a behaviour (verbal behaviour).The behaviourist theory affirms that language is a product of habit and it can be acquired by condit ion through a stimulus-response mechanism (external stimuli activate responses to the exactly for the animals).The empirical work so is concentrated only on the observable phenomens and processes (external factors).In 1960s Cognitivism replaced behaviours congruous the dominant paradigm.The cognitive psychologists look at the learners as reading processors (like a computer).Focusing on the inner mental activities to understand how people learn,mental processes as thinking,memorising,knowing and problem-solving have to be explored.For cognitivists human mind can be seen as a computer w here(predicate) randomness comes in,it is being processed and leads to certain outcomes.The cognitive memory access on the schooling affect has provided psycholinguistics with the means for anlysing how the learners process the language,cognitive theories have effrontery a revolutionary contribution to linguistics.The assumptions are that for bear upon information there are two separated channe ls,associated with the different senses,auditory and optic (with two dinstinct sensational stores the echoic memory and the iconic memory)each channel has a limitated capacity,learning is an energetic process where information is being filtrate,selected,organized and integrated on the basis of prior knowledge.In 1968 Atkinsons and Shiffrin proposed a model of human memory which explains the human information touch on system.They despribed a three-store model indicating three different memory systems sensory(a) memory, short-run memory (STM) and semipermanent memory (LTM).Human mind has a limited capacity for the summate and the nature of information it can process.An invironmental stimulus activates our senses (information can be simply processed in a channel at a time).Incoming information enters the information processing system,the trace of this information is held legal briefly in the sensory memory,that is a temporary buffer memory (language learning trace can be visual in reading or auditory listening).From here certain pieces of information are passed to short memory,which is another temporary memory but at this level we are conscious of information and we can work with it.STM has a low capacity of storage (about 7 asset minus 2 chunks of informationMiller 1956) it decays as soon as it not longer attended to.To be holden information has to be encoded through active strategies as rehearse or visualisation,but then there is the transfert to the long-term memory.This is a permanent ,memory stoe with an extremely large capacity that could be unlimited,here stored information is recorded and can continuously be retrieved,it is organized according to kernel and is linked by associations.There is no limit the capacity of storing new information and this can be kept up to a life time.Only with the deterioration of intelligence system the storage retrieval capability can be lost.Permanent losses of information occurs just as a result of brain damage s,failures of retrieval often are caused by temporary blockage.Just some of what we figure is attended for more the a few brief moments.Hence the storage process is not even activated.Using the metaphor of the human mind as a computer,cognitivists gave to short-term memory the title of Working memory.In 1974 Baddeley and Hitch proposed the Multi-component model of working memory.This model is composed of three main componentthe central executive,the phonologic loop and the visual-spatial sketch-pad.The central executive acts as supervisory system in controlling cognitive processes.It is responsible for the slave systems coordination.The slave systems are short-term storage systems which concern two separate perceptual domains,Phonogical loop and visual-spatial sketch-pad are respectively the verbal and the visual-spatial slave systems.Phonological loop has two sub-systems called phonological store and articulatory process and it deals with phonological information. Therefore langu age learning and processing working memory is involved at this level.The phonological store sub-system is assume to be specialized to maintain verbal information that enters here automatically,because talk language seems to have a direct access to the phonological store.This has a limited capacity of storage,it can hold acoustically coded items just for s brief period, in fact the trace decays in 1 or 2 seconds.For holding information we need to use strategies that can help us to encode it and to retain it.In words memorisation tasks for example the narration mechanism allows us to transform spoken words into a phonological code,preventing them from decay.Rehearsal consists in sub-vocal repetition of the material,some kind of inner voice in our head.This mechanism in fact is used to convert written words into a phonological code,so that these can be insert into the phonological store.Written words are processed on a phonological basis in memorisation,being include in the same stor e of spoken words instead of a separate visual store as we could imagine.The visual-spatial sketch-pad endeed is implicated in visual and spatial tasks like location or movement of object in space or remembering visible features as shape and colour.It industrial plant like a sort of inner eye specialized on spatial and visual coding.2-Memory and attentionA great deal of occasional activities require the use of temporary memory.Encoding store and retrieval are the process on which we rely on for acting on day-to-day life.Making decisions,solving problems,social interactioning,language arises are based on the ability of memorising.Performing a task from retell foreign words to counting ,to remember where we parked our car essential the involvement of attention.Cowans embedded-process model of working memory illustrates the links between memory and attention.Our capacity of attention is limited,internal and external factors of distraction and individual faculties and abilities af fect our attentional degree.The number of things we can focus at the same time is suspicious but information is activated only for a very brief period after which it decays.Information can be activated automatically,it is not always the focus of conscious necessary awareness.This can explain how it is possible to perform actions without the need of controlling their process.Voluntary processes and involuntary processes control both the focus of attention . This can explain how it is possible to perform actions without the need of controlling them process.The regard of conscious attention more depends on the beaten(prenominal)ity degree with the process,as we become familiar with the process they are automatised step by step.More they become automatised less is the engage of attention.It is important to understand how memory and attention are involved in language learning.3-Language learning researchesShort-term memory is an on-line capacity for processing and elaborating new inf ormation,this is why it is responsible in language learning and development.For this solid ground second language acquisition researches are focussed on short-term memory.Also for analysing the individual differences in language learning researches and to examine short-term capacity.Verbal short-term memory abilities,words memorisation,words repetition and vocabulary learning are related in some way.The tests and the experiments created for testing language learners are mostly based on immediate serial recall of lists ,non-word repetition or recognition and word learning working on spoken and written words.This kind of analysis provide empirical data to researches for comparing the results between various kinds of learners at different proficiency levels and in different situations.ConclusionSecond language acquisition is not s simple issue for researchers because mental processes and knowledge cant be directly observed.Different kinds of studies conducted in different ways provide a great deal of data and results.To interpret them is important to understand first how the acquisition occurs,which processes are involved in,which factors (internals or externals) can act it and the mechanism and the strategies used by the learners (consciously or uncounsciously).The analysis has to be focused on learners language perfomances.Cognitive psychology is based on the information processing paradigm The human mind is seen like a computer by cognitivists and following this idea were proposed models of human memory that,in connection with language learning,explain the memory structure,its capacities,the processes responsible for encoding,recording and storing information.Analysing the working memory capacity it is possible to study the learners language acquisition.Researches on memory have helped us to understand how works the acquisition of a second language in bilingual learners,how they use the language and the individuals differences at different levels.It has been discovered that second language development proceed in an orderly fashion,the learning processes between bilingual learners are sympathetic because they follow a developmental sequence in different stages. Experiments within working memory capacity is tested,for example backward digit drag test,can show how learners achieving different proficiency levels use distinct strategies and mechanisms in a regular way concording to the level.So memory is the center of language acquisition,this can be explained through the analysis of the memory processes,whereas the processes of memory can be explored through the language learning and processing.It means that there is an absolute relation and an needed interrelationship between them.ReferencesLearning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition J.Michael OMalley,Anna Uhl Chamot Cambridge Univesity complotThe study of Second Language AcquisitionRod Ellis Oxford University PressWorking Memory and Language Baddeley and GathercolePsycholingu isticsThe Key Concepts John Field RoutledgeWorking Memory and Languagean overviewAlan Baddeley Department of Experimental Psychology ,University of Bristol ,Uk(Journal of Communication desorders 2003)