Awareness And Form-Meaning Mapping In Foreign Language Learning

Drawing on developments in cognitive science, psycholinguistics and second language acquisition, the present study presents an attempt to sort out from the voluminous literature the fundamental and crucial factors in operation in foreign language learning and testify empirically their contribution therein.The dissertation begins with a systematic review of studies on input and output processing in the past few decades which helps unveil their underlying logic of development, and an integrated model of foreign language learning is proposed to illustrate in great detail the different routes learners may take during their language learning. And this serves as the theoretical foundation for the whole dissertation. Then an in-depth survey is conducted from a psycholinguistic perspective into the underlying rationales of language comprehension and production processes, and some fundamental similarities emerge from the seemingly different processes: speech comprehension and production of a failure-driven nature which prompt learners to engage in syntactic mode of language processing will have greater potential in promoting learners'interlanguage development, and this can be attributed to the fact that learners are forced to pay more attention to the form-meaning mapping inherent in the linguistic structure.While researchers from cognitive science and SLA have generally agreed on the indispensible role that attention plays in the filtering in of the incoming input, and that the closely related notion of awareness is not necessarily involved in the operation of attention, the question of whether awareness is necessary for language learning is under fierce dispute. On the one hand, Tomlin and Villa (1994) argued for a dissociation between awareness and language learning. They argued that it is on the level of detection that language acquisition takes place. Even though detection is most closely associated with awareness, its operation does not necessarily require the presence of awareness.On the other hand, Schmidt (1990, 1993, 1994, 1995) and Robinson (1995) argued that learning without awareness is impossible. Since it is widely acknowledged that human attention system is limited in nature, and learners are incapable of processing input for form and meaning simultaneously. Instead, they are inclined to process input for meaning, and it is meaning that learners detect in natural language comprehension without awareness. Based on the distinctions between awareness at the level of noticing and awareness at the level of understanding, Schmidt argued that awareness at the level of noticing which involves learners'subjective experience of the detection of the linguistic structure in question is necessary for the conversion of input into intake. As awareness at the level of noticing indicates that learners are subjectively aware of the presence of the formal properties of the target linguistic structure, they can be thus made available for further processing and registration into long-term memory. However, it is assumed that awareness at the level of understanding which involves learners'subjective experience of drawing form-meaning mapping might be more facilitative to language learning than awareness at the level of noticing, since it engages learners in more advanced level of syntactic processing and increases the likelihood of the conversion of input into comprehended intake of a morphosyntactic nature.Based on such assumptions, an empirical study is carried out under five instructional conditions in an effort to address the following questions:1) Does the implementation of different instructional treatments have a differential effect on the learning of the present continuous tense by L2 learners? And which treatment is most effective in achieving that purpose?2) Does awareness of varying levels have a differential effect on the learning of the present continuous tense by L2 learners? And which level of awareness best promotes its learning?3) Is there a relationship between different levels of awareness of the target linguistic structure and the different types of teaching methodologies?And the major findings are as follows:1) Judging from the significant gains made by the participants in all the four experimental groups (PI group, TI group, IE group, and Output group) and one control group in the overall posttest than in the pretest, all the five instructional treatments are facilitative to language learning. But they differ in their efficacy. It turns out that processing instruction and traditional instruction are far superior to input enhancement, which in turn is more advantageous than output group and control group. 2) As shown by the significant gains made by participants in sum scores from the pretest to the posttest, all the three levels of awareness, that is, awareness at the level of understanding, awareness at the level of noticing and no awareness, appear to be conducive to language learning, though some differences do exist with regard to their relative efficacy. It seems that the higher the level of awareness is, the superior its effect on language learning is, since performances from participants reporting awareness at the level of understanding are significantly better than those reporting awareness at the level of noticing and those who made no reports of awareness. Moreover, participants reporting awareness at the level of noticing also improved significantly in comparison to those made no reports of awareness.3) All the five instructional treatments are helpful in raising participants'awareness of the target structure either at the level of understanding or at the level of noticing, while the presence of grammatical explanation and the involvement of syntactic mode of language processing or a focus on form are particularly relevant in making learners become aware of rule formation.Accordingly, the research findings have proved that the present study is significant both theoretically and pedagogically.Theoretically speaking, the study not only testifies the assumption that awareness is conducive to foreign language learning, but also proves that learners'subjective experience of drawing form-meaning mapping is most efficient in enhancing interlaguage development than awareness of the presence of linguistic structure as well as subliminal language learning. Moreover, the findings also reveal that both of the input and output processing which push learners to a syntactic mode of processing are facilitative to foreign language learning, which again provides evidence for the role of making form-meaning mapping in promoting language learning. Furthermore, the present study lends further empirical support to Krashen's argument about the possibility of language acquisition to take place in an implicit manner, and provides a middle course for the settlement of the dispute about the relationship between awareness and language learning, that is, language learning may take place with or without the presence of awareness, though the higher the level of awareness is, the superior its effect is. Last but not least, the integrated model of foreign language learning established in Chapter 2 presents a bold attempt to depict in a comprehensive way how learners deal with an L2 in a foreign context.Pedagogically speaking, the remarkable progress made by participants in the five instructional groups reveals that there is a rich pool of teaching methodologies for teaching practitioners to draw on. And it is advisable that Processing Instruction and traditional instruction which stand out as the most effective should be assigned a dominant position in the classroom. While learners, the subject of the learning process, should be instructed on the working mechanisms of attention and awareness so that learners themselves can extend their learning capabilities to the fullest. Through this cooperation from both teachers and learners in their joint effort to enhance the awareness at the level of understanding, language learning will be best promoted.