“The ■monitor hypothesis says, consciously learned language can only monitor language output; it can never be the source of spontaneous speech”. I heard about the theory ■when I studied, and I thought it was some Cold War. “You folks from the bloc don’t even think about knowing this”, or something of such sorts would have Mr. Krashen been implying.
Let me rephrase. The theory would be, if a language is not the speech and writing you have “absorbed” since your earliest of times, that is, it is not your language natural acquisition, it is a consciously learned tongue. In such consciousness you get to monitor things; you do not get to be creative.
If you are German, French, Russian, Polish or another and you learn American, you could not write a book in American, because your American is a monitor, it is not source. Hmm… ?
I have happened to think in such contexts, American linguistics could gain from knowledge about immigration and tongues, legal as it is, and reference to foreign acquisition too, that is people who learn American outside of the USA. Experience is the key. I discuss some experience along with ■Larry Selinker’s interlanguage.
If a student or teacher report an “interlanguage” is not my concern, because it will depend on the learning idea. If people take a test and pass, it would not be honest to grade them according to the way they have learned rather than results.
“Interlanguage” is unlikely with language as cognitive variables, because there is no ground for the so-called “language interference” then.
American English Generative Grammar
Planet Earth has been a human natural habitat for millennia. In thousands of years, people to think what there is {ON} a map, have not denied plausibility for places {IN} areas, routes {TO} places, as well as locations {AT} them. Early childhood learning to walk has gotten along with learning to talk, whereas nobody has had real time enough to quote rules and definitions in mind, to speak a language. ■THE TRAVEL IN GRAMMAR.
Inside the USA things could not be much different: language acquisition and learning are not strictly separate; they are ■pursuit of patterns for valid behavior. I am far from approving behaviorism for linguistics. I simply think, it would be exaggerated to ascribe a lot of another intention to kids, because they obviously are curious or want to fit in, or both. Me, I was just curious about dictionaries, and I was allowed to play with them.
If your American is strong enough, it may become “the learner”. It will mediate your learning other tongues, as French, German, or Italian (though here Latin might have a bit of a say), before those become stronger. All along, your American English will remain a language; it never becomes just a monitoring device.
By a strong language skill I mean a style that would allow Thoreau’s opinion on Massachusetts at a diplomatic dinner. That’s real skill. Of course, part is paraphrase then.
Now, science would have inputs and outputs. It has become known that evolution has had programs, DNA for example, and feedback — the biological closed loop that works intrinsically, inside the body. To include language is more than just a temptation: after all, humans are a talking species, and humans are evolved.
Mother Nature trick here yet would be, humans can return to part own input. Intrinsic feedback is not “return of output” only, within brain structures. Bruce Derwing remains of relevance with the maxim, “no other, special mechanisms or secret abilities are necessary for learning language than learning anything else”, and languages are well off, learnable.
TERESA PELKA.COM 