Adquisition of language

Natural Order Hypothesis
The natural order hypothesis states that we acquire the rules of language in a predictable order, some rules tend to come early and others late. The order does not appear to be determined solely by formal simplicty and there is evidence that it is independent of the order in which rules are taught in language classes.
Learners follow a more orless invariant order of acquisition of the rules of a language, irrespectively of the type of exposure to that language
The standard order will manifest itself when the learner is engaged in communication
The Affective Filter Hypothesis
The filter is part of the internal processing system that controls the kind of input that is attended to, and how much of that input is turned into intake bythe reaching the LAD

Different degrees of motivation, self-confidence and anxiety will determine the amount of input that is obtained and let in, and, therefore, the level of competence acquired.
The Affective Filter Hypothesis

The Contrastive Hypothesis and the role of the learner’s L1
Popular beliefs about the role of the L1 in SLA:
1. SLA is strongly influenced by the learner’s L1(foreign accents)
2. The role of the L1 in SLA is a negative one (i.e. the L1 interferes with the learning of the L2, and features of the L1 are transferred into the L2)
In the past, the role of L1 was seen in terms of transfer theory (behaviourism) Þ Errors were the result from interference from the entrenched habits of the L1
The Contrastive Hypothesis and the role of the learner’s L1Contrastive Analysis (CA) was developed in order to predict the areas of difficulties that learners with specific L1s would experience
Research showed that many of the many of the errors predicted by CA did not in fact arise and many errors which were not predicted did occur
The CAH was incorporated into a cognitive framework by reinterpreting “interference” as a strategy for communicating when therewere insufficient L2 resources
The role of the learner’s L1 in SLA
The learner’s L1 is an important -but not the only- determinant of the SLA process
The L1 is a source of knowledge which learners will use (consciously and subconsciously) to interpret the L2
The influence of the L1 is likely to be most evident in L2 phonology (the ‘foreign’ accent) but it will occur in all aspects of the L2The learners’s L1 can be viewed as a contributing factor to SLA, which, as the learner’s proficiency grows, will become less powerful
The Interlanguage Hypothesis
The Interlanguage Hypothesis
L2 learning is now seen as a creative process of constructing a system in which learners are consciously testing hypothesis about the target language (TL) from a number of possible sources of knowledgeThe learners construct what to them is a legitimate system of language in its own right - a structured set of rules- which for the time being provide order to the linguistic chaos that confronts them
The Interlanguage Hypothesis
L2 acquisition is a gradual process of trial and error and hypothesis testing (closer and closer approximations to the system used by native speakers of the language)The Interlanguage Hypothesis
Definition I: a system which has a structurally intermediate status between the native and the TL, based upon the best attempt of learners to provide order and structure to the linguistic stimuli surrounding them
Interlanguage theory generated empirical research into SLA (Initially, Error Analysis): many of the errors that L2 learners made were no traceable tothe L1
Increasingly, SLA research focused on identifying the developmental route along which learners passed
Like L1 learners, L2 learners tend to follow natural sequences in internalizing the system (in main outline, these sequences are similar for different learners)
The Interlanguage Hypothesis
As well as formig rules on the basis of the data they are exposed to, learners also imitate...