Research Interests: Emergentism and second language acquisition

References to my work

Cited References

Learners of English as a second language (ESL) begin by saying and writing relatively simple constructions such as He saw [a fly] and The frog watch a kid’s boat [in the lake].  Over time, some learners are able to make remarkable progress and then produce complex constructions such as He went upstairs and looked through the window to see [if mom was coming] and The first thing [they did] was going to mom and dad’s room. Linguists have had a very difficult time predicting and explaining the developmental paths that language learners will follow. 

Scientists constantly encounter very complex phenomena that seem to be difficult to explain. Language, consciousness, emotions, personality, group behaviour, cellular biochemical pathways, and weather are just a few examples of these very complex phenomena. Although approaches to explanation have a long and complex history in science and philosophy, three basic approaches can be distinguished: simple holism, simple reductionism, and emergentism. The first approach to explaining these phenomena is SIMPLE HOLISM: analyzing and explaining complex phenomena without reference to component parts. Noam Chomsky (1965, 1986, 1995) has used a holistic approach to explain language and language acquisition (i.e., Chomskian Universal Grammar - CUG). CUG includes a number of hypothetical, abstract, innate principles that are not used for any other cognitive functions (are language-specific), are not learned from exemplars, and are not composed of more basic units. CUG principles lead to very abstract representations of linguistic capacities, including phonetically-null elements and atemporal stages of derivation (i.e., movements or transformations). Simple holism and CUG principles are problematic when evaluated in relation to a fundamental criterion that guides scientific development, Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor requires that theorists use the most economical system of constructs to explain phenomena.           

In contrast to simple holism, SIMPLE REDUCTIONISM is an approach that explains a complex phenomenon as the sum of its component parts. Reductionist theories are highly valued according to Occam’s Razor because their constructs are relatively simple, basic units. However, simple reductionism is insufficient. For example, water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, but the properties of water are not the sum of the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. Similarly, walking, breathing, and sculpting are all systemic properties that are not possessed by the component parts of these actions. With respect to language acquisition, a simple reductionist approach would be to claim that language is the sum of all of the input that a learner comprehends. However, we can create and understand utterances that we have never heard or comprehended before. The limitations of this explanatory approach are often characterized as 'poverty of the stimulus' or 'underdetermination by the input'.

EMERGENTISM expands upon simple reductionism in order to explain complex phenomena (for further discussion, see Sawyer, 2002; Stephan, 1999). In my research, I use the following definition of emergentism: a complex phenomenon results from the aggregation, organization, and interaction of its component parts within a particular constellation, system, or context. In order to understand complex phenomena that have a very large number of component parts and processes, emergentists often use computational or connectionist simulations to understand these interactions and their development over time.

Linguistic emergentism assumes that language use and acquisition emerge from basic processes that are not specific to language (for further discussion see Ellis, 1998, 2003; Ellis and Larsen-Freeman, 2006; MacWhinney, 1997, 1998; O'Grady, 2005). I am using an emergentist approach to describe and predict the increasing complexity that is exhibited in longitudinal studies of language learning. My approach has been informed by Bates and MacWhinney's Competition Model, by Tomasello's construction-based analyses, by O'Grady's emergentist analyses of complex syntactic phenomena, and by the sign-based, lexicalist analyses within Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (e.g., Sag, 1997; Sag, Wasow, and Bender, 2003). Emergentist analyses seek to provide multi-factorial accounts of developmental tendencies across subtypes of constructions. For example, Mellow (2006) accounted for an acquisition order across subtypes of relative clauses in terms of processing complexity, compositionality, input frequency, and functional purposes of language use. Given the diversity of factors and processes that are considered, emergentist analyses do not fit into the individual theoretical approaches that are often discussed in SLA overviews (i.e. functional, cognitive, or linguistic theories; see Mitchell and Myles, 2004; VanPatten and Williams, 2007). Linguistic emergentism has much in common with a number of other approaches to the study of language and language acquisition, including chaos complexity/complex systems theory (e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 1997), cognitive linguistics (e.g., Robinson and Ellis, 2008), dynamic systems theory (e.g., De Bot, Lowie, and Verspoor, 2007) and usage-based theories (e.g., Tomasello, 2003). Importantly, emergentism attempts to minimize hypothetical universals so that the full diversity languages and cultures can be understood rather than being obscured by exogenous constructs (Mellow, 2010).