Consciously learned language can only monitor language output; it can never be the source of spontaneous speech, stated Stephen Crashen in his ■monitor hypothesis.
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”.
The neural reality
People do not have full insight into own brain processes for language. It does not depend on the language being first, second, or 100th.
Everyone is yet conscious while learning the first or another tongue, as long as you do not bring unconscious people into schools and then, carry them back home straight after grammar. There is not really anything interesting you could do with, for or about an unresponsive guy.
Noam Chomsky was right, saying there had to be some logic to the way people learned tongues.
Conscious logic
I have happened to think in such contexts, American linguistics could gain from knowledge about immigration, legal as it is of course to seek such insight, and from reference to foreign acquisition too, that is people who learn American outside of the USA. I tell about some experience with ■Larry Selinker’s interlanguage.
If a student or teacher report an “interlanguage” is not my concern. That “interlanguage” could be only in the speaker’s mind, whereas honestly, people are graded according to their results, and not for the way they have learned.
Cognitive variables give no ground to the so-called “language interference”. Voilà. There is logic.
American English Generative Grammar
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.
See the ■Travel in Grammar.
Acquisition and learning
Language acquisition and learning are not strictly separate. They are ■pursuit of patterns for valid behavior.
It would not be honest to ascribe a lot of another intention to kids, because they obviously are curious or want to fit in, and usually do just both. Me, I was 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 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 invoking Thoreau’s opinion on Massachusetts at a diplomatic dinner; part in paraphrase of course, and I would add, much has changed. Colloquially it may happen you get taboo terminology, so to speak, for strong language. This is not what I mean.
Output or input
Now, science would have inputs and outputs, to get along with information. Evolution would have programs and feedback, where DNA is example and Mother Nature has that trick for intrinsic feedback to return to part own input.
“Return of output” gives up as definition, for the intrinsic closed loop in a human being who thinks and learns.
The important reservation is, an input can be made by the brain only, and here personal relevance dominates. External management is not a realistic goal on a self-orienting structure. It could only be oppression and misnomers.
Bruce Derwing is relevant,
… no other, special mechanisms or secret abilities are necessary for learning language than learning anything else.
Languages are well off, learnable. Copyright, I trust, remains copyright.