Comment il monte le chat ? en grimpant !

Cet article traite de l’acquisition des moyens de référence au domaine de l’espace. Ses objectifs sont triples : examiner l’impact des facteurs syntaxiques et sémantiques et des facteurs fonctionnels sur l’acquisition des moyens linguistiques ; distinguer ce qui est universel de ce qui est spécifique à la langue cible ; mesurer l’influence de la maturité cognitive sur le processus développemental. Les données sont constituées de récits produits à partir de séquences d’images en français, en allemand et en chinois comme langue maternelle et comme langue étrangère. Les résultats montrent que les adultes comme les enfants ont des problèmes pour maîtriser la plurifonctionnalité des moyens linguistiques et tendent à associer une forme à une fonction, conformément à la règle opérationnelle proposée par Slobin. Les résultats portant sur l’introduction des référents spatiaux montrent que les adultes tendent à utiliser des formes comme l’article pour marquer des fonctions discursives, alors que les enfants semblent maîtriser les fonctions au niveau phrastique (genre, cas, nombre) bien avant de commencer à marquer les fonctions discursives. La spécificité propre aux langues dans les modes d’empaquetage de l’information spatiale n’a pas d’incidence sur l’acquisition de la LM. Les adultes par contre apprennent difficilement les découpages du domaine spatial particuliers à la LE. Par ailleurs, ils sont plus sensibles à l’interaction entre type de situation et explicitation du Fond.This paper focuses on the acquisition of reference to space and has three main objectives : to examine the impact of phrasal and discourse factors on the acquisition process ; to distinguish between universal vs language specific aspects ; to study the impact of maturity on language acquisition. The data base consists of narratives produced on the basis of picture sequences in French, Chinese and German as a first and second language. The results show that both adult learners and children have trouble mastering the plurifunctionality of linguistic means and start out expressing only some of the functions (cf. Slobin’s operating principles). Whereas adult learners tend to express the discourse functions first, i.e., to make the distinction between new and given information or Figure and Ground, children tend to grasp the functions on a phrasal and purely referential level (using articles as the grammatical marker for number, gender and case). The language-specific mode of packaging spatial information has no overwhelming influence on first language acquisitio. This is in contrast to second language acquisition : adults have to acquire a new way of distributing spatial information whereas their conception of space seems fixed through the acquisition of their first language

Grounding Language to Autonomously-Acquired Skills via Goal Generation

We are interested in the autonomous acquisition of repertoires of skills. Language-conditioned reinforcement learning (LC-RL) approaches are great tools in this quest, as they allow to express abstract goals as sets of constraints on the states. However, most LC-RL agents are not autonomous and cannot learn without external instructions and feedback. Besides, their direct language condition cannot account for the goal-directed behavior of pre-verbal infants and strongly limits the expression of behavioral diversity for a given language input. To resolve these issues, we propose a new conceptual approach to language-conditioned RL: the Language-Goal-Behavior architecture (LGB). LGB decouples skill learning and language grounding via an intermediate semantic representation of the world. To showcase the properties of LGB, we present a specific implementation called DECSTR. DECSTR is an intrinsically motivated learning agent endowed with an innate semantic representation describing spatial relations between physical objects. In a first stage (G -> B), it freely explores its environment and targets self-generated semantic configurations. In a second stage (L -> G), it trains a language-conditioned goal generator to generate semantic goals that match the constraints expressed in language-based inputs. We showcase the additional properties of LGB w.r.t. both an end-to-end LC-RL approach and a similar approach leveraging non-semantic, continuous intermediate representations. Intermediate semantic representations help satisfy language commands in a diversity of ways, enable strategy switching after a failure and facilitate language grounding.Comment: Published at ICLR 202

Second Language Learnerhood Among Cross-Cultural Field Workers

This dissertation studies second language learnerhood (ideologies about why and how to acquire a target language) among American field workers of a multinational, faith-based development organization, Love the World . This organizational ethnography is longitudinal, tracking how learnerhood changes across the first years of field service. It is also multi-sited, tracing learnerhood across an assemblage of interconnected nodes. Field workers\u27 learnerhoods are shaped by two larger ideologies of language learning which interact across the nodes of and individual trajectories through Love the World. One ideology, rooted in academic tradition, developmental second language acquisition and modernist missiological theory, valorizes the individual learner (the locus of abstract knowledge and skills) who seeks to acquire a reified heart language. Such heart language belongs to and defines host nationals living at each field site. Another ideology, rooted in sociocultural pedagogical methods, emphasizes distributed cognition, linguistic repertoires and community participation. Against the backdrop of changing realities of language use which accompany globalization, tensions between these two ideologies of learnerhood affect the success of field workers\u27 attempts to perform their host language identities and their organizational duties at 13 field sites across Europe. Because Love the World tends to devolve policy making and accountability for language acquisition to ever more local organizational scales, individuals are left to draw heavily from their own personal models of learnerhood and folk ideologies of language acquisition, rather than on institutional training, when deciding how to pursue target language proficiency. To analyze this process, the construct of learnerhood is grounded within sociolinguistic and second language acquisition theory, and then contextualized within the assemblage of missions and development organizations. This involves describing these organizations\u27 advocacy for and adoption of sociocultural pedagogical methodologies, such as Greg Thomson\u27s Growing Participator Approach. Next, learnerhood is described from three perspectives, first by identifying frequently emerging themes common across the different sites and then by analyzing these themes from both a spatial-hierarchical and an ontogenetic perspective. Finally, I identify consequences of the ways that learnerhoods develop within Love the World, suggesting practical applications for transnational organizations to better prepare language learners and implement sociocultural methodologies

English spatial prepositions with particular reference to Arabic-speaking learners.

The learner's first language (L1) plays a significant role in the learning of a second language (12). This role is depicted as interfering with acquisition and production of (L2). The notion of interference has emerged as a legitimate area of linguistic investigation (Lado, 1957; Selinker, 1972;James, 1980). This study explores and assesses the Arab learners' performance in using English spatial prepositions. It focuses on the role of the Arab learners' first language in learning English, particularly spatial prepositions, as a second/ foreign language. The data of this study consists of the results of five tests which are designed firstly: to examine the learners' performances in acquiring certain English prepositions, which are considered to be among the most difficult items for Arab learners of English (AI-Sayed, 1983; Mukattash, 1985; Zughoul, 1979); and secondly to assess the degree of interference from Arabic in learning English spatial prepositions, the main objective of this study. Three statistical techniques were employed in analysing the data: The ANOVA test, regression analysis and chi-square test These procedures were used to examine performance of the learners over the years, possible sources of errors, and the interchangeability of English spatial prepositions in the responses to tests. The results of this study confirm that a high percentage (48%) of errors committed in the use of English spatial prepositions by Arab learners of English can be attributed to the influence exerted by their first language (Arabic). These findings support the claims of Tadros (1966), Scott and Tucker (1974) and Mukattash (1988)

Disability does not negatively impact linguistic visual-spatial processing for hearing adult learners of a signed language

The majority of adult learners of a signed language are hearing and have little to no experience with a signed language. Thus, they must simultaneously learn a specific language and how to communicate within the visual-gestural modality. Past studies have examined modality-unique drivers of acquisition within first and second signed language learners. In the former group, atypically developing signers have provided a unique axis—namely, disability—for analyzing the intersection of language, modality, and cognition. Here, we extend the question of how cognitive disabilities affect signed language acquisition to a novel audience: hearing, second language (L2) learners of a signed language. We ask whether disability status influences the processing of spatial scenes (perspective taking) and short sentences (phonological contrasts), two aspects of the learning of a signed language. For the methodology, we conducted a secondary, exploratory analysis of a data set including college-level American Sign Language (ASL) students. Participants completed an ASL phonological- discrimination task as well as non-linguistic and linguistic (ASL) versions of a perspective-taking task. Accuracy and response time measures for the tests were compared between a disability group with self-reported diagnoses (e.g., ADHD, learning disability) and a neurotypical group with no self-reported diagnoses. The results revealed that the disability group collectively had lower accuracy compared to the neurotypical group only on the non-linguistic perspective-taking task. Moreover, the group of students who specifically identified as having a learning disability performed worse than students who self-reported using other categories of disabilities affecting cognition. We interpret these findings as demonstrating, crucially, that the signed modality itself does not generally disadvantage disabled and/or neurodiverse learners, even those who may exhibit challenges in visuospatial processing. We recommend that signed language instructors specifically support and monitor students labeled with learning disabilities to ensure development of visual-spatial skills and processing in signed language

Die Versprachlichung räumlicher Relationen als Herausforderung im Erwerb des Deutschen als Erst- und Zweitsprache: Warum „Kommissar Wuschel“ in einer Sprachstands-App über Stämme steigt und auf Stühlen steht

Im Basismodul eines neuen, am natürlichen Kommunikationsverhalten von Vorschulkindern orientierten Verfahrens zur Sprachstandsdiagnose, der „Kommissar Wuschel“-App, kann im Rahmen eines Serious Game die Kompetenz von 4;6 bis 6 Jahre alten Kindern untersucht werden, räumliche Relationen zu versprachlichen. Der Beitrag begründet die Wahl dieser Art von Sprachhandlungsaufgaben unter Rekurs auf die Grundlagenforschung zu Erst- und Zweitspracherwerb, aber auch auf die überzeugenden Ergebnisse der Pilotierung. Die Pre-Tests haben gezeigt, dass die Herausforderung, Positionen von Gegenständen und Lebewesen im Raum sowie deren Bewegungen unmissverständlich sprachlich auszudrücken, ein gutes Mittel dafür ist, Kompetenzniveaus differenziert zu unterscheiden.A recently developed language assessment app, called „Kommissar-Wuschel“, uses a Serious Game Scenario to test aspects of language competence of 4;6 to 6;0 year old children. The main part of the app is particularly designed to investigate ways of expressing spatial relations and builds on basic research in first and second language acquisition. The paper argues that speech act tasks of this kind—aiming at describing how objects are located and move in natural environments—allow to differentiate levels of language competence on a fine-grained scale

Grounding Language to Autonomously-Acquired Skills via Goal Generation

International audienceWe are interested in the autonomous acquisition of repertoires of skills. Language-conditioned reinforcement learning (LC-RL) approaches are great tools in this quest, as they allow to express abstract goals as sets of constraints on the states. However, most LC-RL agents are not autonomous and cannot learn without external instructions and feedback. Besides, their direct language condition cannot account for the goal-directed behavior of pre-verbal infants and strongly limits the expression of behavioral diversity for a given language input. To resolve these issues, we propose a new conceptual approach to language-conditioned RL: the Language-Goal-Behavior architecture (LGB). LGB decouples skill learning and language grounding via an intermediate semantic representation of the world. To showcase the properties of LGB, we present a specific implementation called DECSTR. DECSTR is an intrinsically motivated learning agent endowed with an innate semantic representation describing spatial relations between physical objects. In a first stage (G -> B), it freely explores its environment and targets self-generated semantic configurations. In a second stage (L -> G), it trains a language-conditioned goal generator to generate semantic goals that match the constraints expressed in language-based inputs. We showcase the additional properties of LGB w.r.t. both an end-to-end LC-RL approach and a similar approach leveraging non-semantic, continuous intermediate representations. Intermediate semantic representations help satisfy language commands in a diversity of ways, enable strategy switching after a failure and facilitate language grounding

The Interaction of Individual Working Memory Capacity with Cognitive Linguistics-Based and Translation-Based Instructional Treatments During the Acquisition of Polysemous L2 Spanish Spatial Prepositions

The present study investigated three areas in SLA related to the acquisition of polysemous L2 Spanish spatial prepositions. These three areas were (1) the effect of instructional method on the acquisition of productive knowledge of polysemous L2 Spanish spatial prepositions, (2) the effect of working memory capacity on the acquisition of productive knowledge of polysemous L2 Spanish spatial prepositions, and (3) the effects resulting from the interaction of working memory capacity with instructional method on the acquisition of productive knowledge of polysemous L2 Spanish spatial prepositions. The target learners were adult L1 English speakers 18 years of age or over with no prior knowledge of Spanish or any cognate language (ab initio learners). These target learners and these three areas of inquiry motivated three research questions and related hypotheses. The first research question and hypothesis examined the effectiveness of two techniques commonly used in the teaching of L2 polysemes. These two instructional methods were (1) Translation-based instruction (TBI), which treats the multiple meanings of polysemes as arbitrary, discreet and unrelated; (2) Cognitive linguistics-based instruction (CLBI), which treats the multiple meanings of polysemes as interrelated and motivated by an association to a common conceptual base via the processes of metaphor and metonymy. Immediate post-test scores suggest that these two instructional methods are equally effective in developing short- term productive knowledge, but delayed post-test scores suggest that learners under CLBI acquire a greater level of long-term productive knowledge The second research question and hypothesis examined the predictive nature of working memory in the acquisition of L2 polysemes. Immediate and delayed post-test results suggest that higher scores in working memory capacity directly correlate to higher scores in productive knowledge of the four target prepositions. Finally, the third research question and hypothesis examined effects resulting from the interaction of working memory with the two instructional treatments, CLBI and TBI. Immediate and delayed post-test results suggest that learner working memory capacity does interact with the instructional treatment. High working memory learners under TBI outscored their high working memory counterparts under CLBI, but low working memory learners under CLBI outscored their low working memory counterparts under TBI on the same immediate post-test

Evidence for a bi(multi)lingual advantage on working memory performance in South African university students

Thesis (M.A (Social and Psychological Research))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Human & Community Development, 2016Due to linguistic diversity within South Africa, multilingualism is becoming increasingly prominent. Since South Africa is host to 11 official languages, it is the norm rather than the exception that South Africans are exposed to more than one language. This has social, educational and cognitive implications. Specifically, research indicates that the acquisition of additional languages to an individual’s mother tongue has a positive effect on working memory – the short-term storage and manipulation of information during the performance of cognitive tasks – which may confer a ‘bi(multi)lingual advantage’ and could improve academic performance. Consequently, the aim of this study was to determine whether working memory ability differs significantly between students who are monolingual or multilingual, while statistically controlling for intellectual ability and socio-economic status between these groups. Participants were 78 undergraduate students, comprising English first- (monolingual, Mage = 20.06 years, SD = .88) and second- or additional-language (multilingual, Mage = 20.03 years, SD = 1.03) speakers, matched for age, gender and socio-economic status. Language groups were compared on the Automated Working Memory Assessment (Alloway, 2007) and subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Third Edition (Wechsler, 1997). One-way between-group ANCOVAs showed that (a) the multilingual group outperformed the monolingual group across five of six non-verbal subtests, namely Mazes Memory and Block Recall (non-verbal simple span), and Odd One Out, Mister X and Spatial Recall (non-verbal complex span), (b) the multilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on two verbal subtests, namely Digit Recall (verbal simple span) and Listening Recall (verbal complex span), (c) the language groups performed equivalently on verbal simple and complex tasks of Word Recall, Non-word Recall, Counting Recall and Backwards Digit Recall. The findings contribute to the extant literature confirming a ‘bi(multi)lingual advantage’ in executive functioning. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of academic performance. Keywords: working memory, monolingualism, multilingualism, bi(multi)lingual advantage, South Afric

Working memory and phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness, and working memory, as a component of phonological awareness, have been found to be highly correlated, not only with the acquisition of reading skills, but also with each other. Existing data does not address this aspect of emergent literacy in South African children, for whom bilingualism may impact on their levels of phonological awareness, and possibly working memory. This research study was designed and conducted in an attempt to identify the relationship between these two skills in a sample of seventy-nine South African Grade 1 children (mean age 86 months). The sample consisted of two language groups, namely first-language English (EL1), an opaque orthography (n=42) and second-language English with first-language one of the nine official African languages of South Africa (EL2), a transparent orthography (n=37). The primary aim was to examine the relationship between phonological awareness (comprising a sound categorisation task, a phoneme deletion task, and a syllable splitting task) and working memory (comprising a verbal short-term memory task, a visuo-spatial short-term memory task, a verbal working memory task and a visuo-spatial working memory task). A measure of non-verbal intelligence was included as a control. Separate analyses were run for the two language groups in order to draw a comparison between their performance on the tasks. Results generally supported existing literature that showed that the relationship between working memory and phonological awareness appears to be dependent on the depth of analysis of phonological awareness, which determines the level of demand made on working memory, yet the relationship differed between the language groups, indicating that the EL2 children draw more on general or apparently unrelated skills to conduct working memory and phonological awareness tasks. A secondary aim of this study was to explore the predictive power of firstly, the four memory skills on phonological awareness; secondly, the sound categorisation skills on phoneme deletion and finally, non-verbal intelligence on working memory. Results again differed between the language groups, suggesting that a broader range of working memory skills predict performance on phonological awareness tasks in the EL2 group than in the EL1 group. The implications of these results are discussed in detail