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Acquisition by processing: A modular perspective on language development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2004

JOHN TRUSCOTT  and
MIKE SHARWOOD SMITH
JOHN TRUSCOTT
Affiliation:
National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
MIKE SHARWOOD SMITH
Affiliation:
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
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Abstract

The paper offers a model of language development, first and second, within a processing perspective. We first sketch a modular view of language, in which competence is embodied in the processing mechanisms. We then propose a novel approach to language acquisition (Acquisition by Processing Theory, or APT), in which development of the module occurs as a natural product of processing activity, without any acquisition mechanisms as such. The approach is illustrated and explicated through examples of the development of content words, derivational morphology, the functional category I with its variable features, and Case and thematic roles, as well as apparent cross-linguistic variation in processing strategies and the status of bootstrapping in the model. We then examine some possible applications to issues in second language acquisition – noticing the gap, the initial state, transfer, and the apparent limits of SLA – and finally offer a broader perspective on the model: its scope, its relations to other approaches, and its possible limits.

Type
Keynote Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , April 2004 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2004

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Footnotes

We wish to thank Suzanne Carroll, Kevin Gregg, Michael Long, Roumyana Slabakova, Paul van Buren, Lydia White, and three anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and the Edinburgh Linguistics Circle for helpful comments in a talk we gave at the University of Edinburgh in November 2000. Thanks also to Ray Jackendoff for clarifying some aspects of his model for us.