The
Subconscious Mind's Role in Language Acquisition:
The
Challenge for Second Language Learners
As an ESL instructor at the College of Eastern Utah's San Juan Campus, near
Navaho land, I teach many native speakers of Navaho, for whom English is a
second language. Doing college-level
course work in a second language is a challenge that few U.S. professors
experience. In spite of two to five
years of college course work in each of five languages, I would flunk miserably
if I had to write papers and absorb lectures in Arabic or Navaho, while
competing with native speakers. Too many
people expect that an ESL program should automatically process second language
learners to become writers of relatively flawless and fluent English. They assume that English grammar is found in
English books. However, English books
contain not a hundredth of the rules and intricacies needed for fluency in
English. Lack of patience toward second
language learners on the part of educators is partially due to neither group
understanding the nearly infinite extent of the complexities and the
significant role of the subconscious mind for internalizing the rules governing
those complexities (Chomsky 1957; Pinker 1995, 1-24; White 1995, 1-32). Correcting ESL papers is a linguistic
adventure, which regularly illuminates oddities of English that we native
speakers are hardly aware of.
For example, one ESL student wrote:
"My sister uses three blankets on cold winter nights, but I use only one
blanket on nights, whether winter or summer." 'On cold winter nights' is okay, but 'on
nights' is not. The mistake is natural
enough: if 'on ... nights' is fine with adjectives, why not without? On further investigation, the rule is
verified that ‘night’ can be the object of the preposition ‘on’ only when
accompanied by adjectival elements that modify or further specify the
night. (An asterisk indicates an
utterance unacceptable to native speakers or one that native speakers would not
say.)
1. I use three blankets on cold winter nights. OK
2. *I use three blankets on nights. NOT OK
3. I used three blankets on those nights.
(previously specified) OK
4. I use three blankets on nights when it is
cold. OK
5. It happened on a dark night. OK
6. *It happened on a night. NOT OK
7. It happened on a night that was remembered by
all. OK
8. It happened on a night in May. OK
9. It happened on a night of suffocating
darkness. OK
Sentences 1 and 5 clearly show
adjectives modifying 'night.' Sentences
4 and 7 have adjective clauses that follow and modify 'night.' Sentences 3, 8, and 9 have adjective-like
specifiers that more specifically identify the night(s). In contrast, sentences 2 and 6 do not have
any such adjectives or specifiers and are thus ungrammatical or sound wrong to
native speakers.
What a peculiar rule! Yet typical of thousands! And how many English books explain that the
preposition 'on' can take 'night' as its object only if accompanied by
adjectives/specifiers? None! because
native speakers already know that rule ... in their subconscious minds ...
though their conscious minds do not know that they know it. Yet that is only begins the prepositional
intricacies involving the noun 'night' as object. Note that 'in' does not require adjectives
like 'on' does.
10. I wake up in the night. OK
11. *I wake up on the night. NOT OK
However, 'in' does
require 'the.'
12. I wake up in the night. OK
13. *I wake up in night. NOT OK
On the other hand,
'at' does not allow 'the.'
14. *I wake up at the night. NOT OK
15. I wake up at night. OK
The above sentences reveal four
prepositional intricacies with regard to only one noun as object of a
preposition. The unacceptable
(asterisked) structures are typical of what ESL students produce, and
understandably so, since acceptable structures exist parallel to them. Yet we native speakers of English know all
that detail, not by any conscious awareness nor from instruction, but by our
subconscious minds sifting through and figuring out the acceptable structural
details from thousands of sentences heard through childhood.
Another ESL error (16b below) found
in student writing highlights an additional item of subconscious knowledge that
we native speakers take for granted. In
English we use different structures for questions as opposed to statements: ‘he
went’ vs. ‘did he go?’ While they do
not know it consciously, native speakers of English subconsciously know that
‘not only...’ often triggers question-like structures even in statements:
He went. (statement structure)
Did he go? (question structure)
16a. Not only did he go, but he took me with
him.
16b. *Not only he went, but he took me with
him.
17a. Not only am I cold, but I'm hungry too.
17b. *Not only I am cold, but I'm hungry too.
Finding a sentence like 18b in an
ESL student's writing reminded me that certain uses of the word 'so' also
trigger similar structures:
18a. They have studied hard, and so have we.
18b. *They have studied hard, and so we have.
19a. He can jump high, but so can you.
19b. *He can jump high, but so you can.
20a. The fifth graders are working hard, but
so are the fourth graders.
20b. *The fifth graders are working hard, but
so the fourth graders are.
21a. I ate a piece of pie, and so did you.
21b. *I ate a piece of pie, and so you
did.
Another ESL student wrote of a
fellow who 'lost his both arms.'
Obviously, native speakers do not make mistakes like that, yet the
mistake is quite logical in view of the fact that 'both' behaves syntactically
much like numbers in most structures ... except that one.
22. lost two arms lost
both arms OK
23. he has two he
has both OK
24. lost two of his limbs lost both of his arms OK
25. lost his two arms but
not: *lost his both arms NOT OK
Only an ESL student
would produce such a logical exception to a rule.
Consider adjectives that can be made
verbs by suffixing -en: blacken, whiten, redden, but not *greenen, *yellowen,
nor *brownen; we can also say shorten, fatten, soften, harden, sadden, gladden,
sicken, lighten, deepen, widen, and weaken, but not *tallen, *thinnen, nor
*biggen. Strengthen and lengthen are
formed from nouns instead of adjectives (*strongen, *longen). How many English books teach that? Though many native speakers are not
consciously aware of such distinctions, their subconscious knowledge of the
matter prevents them from making mistakes like second language learners: *Can
you smallen our homework assignment?
Consciously learning all of the
structural and semantic complexities of a language is next to impossible. Few are known at the conscious level, and
previously unknown subconscious rules continue to be discovered. Even second language learners learn some
aspects of a second language subconsciously.
For example, the rules governing the
order of adjectives are known entirely at the subconscious level by native
speakers and largely by second language learners as well. English has eight or more categories of adjectives,
and specific rules govern their order (Quirk and Greenbaum 403-4), yet how many
native speakers (or non-native speakers) can quote the rules governing the
order of adjectives? While twenty-four
possible orders exist for four adjectives, usually one of the twenty four is
preferred, perhaps two or three permissible.
26. the best young Japanese exchange students
27. a new gray rock retaining wall
28. the simple old brown adobe house
Very few of the other
23 possible orders for four adjectives are produced:
26a. *the Japanese
young exchange best students
26b. *the exchange
best Japanese young students
27a. *a rock new
retaining gray wall
27b. *a retaining
rock gray new wall
28a. *the adobe
simple brown old house
28b. *the adobe brown
old simple house
While native speakers approach 100%
on order-of-adjectives tests, advanced second language learners also do fairly
well without consciously knowing the rules either. In other words, even second language learners
absorb more subconsciously than either they or their instructors generally
realize.
Another example of subconscious
language acquisition presents itself on a regular basis. Native speakers often have difficulty
identifying a sentence's grammatical subject and object consciously, though
they were drilled in such for most of their twelve years of public
schooling. Students are taught about
subjects and objects annually, yet after a summer vacation, they forget and
must be retaught year after year from about fourth grade to twelfth. Then in college I put a sentence on the
board, ask for the subject, and many still cannot remember how to identify
subjects and objects consciously. Yet
subconsciously they knew before ever starting school what subjects and objects
are, and exactly where they go in a sentence's structure. Evidence for that lies in the fact that
native speakers do not make errors like the following:
29. *Her saw he.
30. *Him would like to ask she to the
dance.
31. *After them beat we in tennis, us
treated they to dinner.
32. *The tracks were hard for I to see,
but me followed they until him appeared and nearly scared I to death.
In the above sentences, the subject
and object pronoun forms were simply switched.
In English we have subject pronoun forms (I, he, we, they) to be used as
subjects of verbs and object pronoun forms (me, him, us, them) to be used as
objects of verbs and prepositions. The
lack of the above kinds of errors demonstrates that students/children
subconsciously internalize the distinction between subjects and objects, and
know exactly where subjects and objects are respectively located, long before
they ever learn the words subject and object.
By age three or four their subconscious minds have analyzed the data and
correctly formulated most of the structural complexities of their native
language simply through exposure to the language. Even usage errors (as English teachers call
them) are learned subconsciously and according to specific patterns. For example, the first person singular object
pronoun (me) is sometimes used as part of a compound or plural subject ‘me and
Jim went to the store’, but not when singular *‘me went to the store.’ (I
asterisk usage as a linguist rather than as an English teacher.) Though one- to three-year-olds do make
pronoun-case errors while still internalizing structures from the data they
hear, like ‘me want a cookie’, by age three or four most children have
subconsciously figured it out and correctly put subject pronouns in subject
slots and object pronouns in object slots before they even start school. Yet explanations designed to help them
identify subjects and objects consciously are quickly forgotten year after year
by millions of students nationwide.
Consider another example of native
speakers' subconscious knowledge. In a
context of playing tag, one can ask, "Who's it?" But in a context of answering the door, a
person wondering who is knocking cannot use the contraction "who's
it?" but must separate the contraction and ask, "Who is
it?" How many native speakers are
consciously aware of that rule? Or how
many English books teach that distinction?
Navaho speakers use 'again' in
interesting ways. An ESL student wrote
about a horse that was owned by three successive owners:
33.
First, David bought the horse from a farmer, then sold it to Jim. Jim soon realized that he could not afford to
keep it, so he put it up for sale a year later, and Harold bought the horse
again.
Harold only bought the horse once,
but it was the third time that someone bought the horse. We teach students that adverbs (again) modify
verbs (buy). Yet the difficulty with the
last clause (in italics) shows that adverbs do not always modify only verbs,
but sometimes subject-verb or verb-object combinations. If the adverb 'again' were modifying only the
verb or the verb-object combination, then 'Harold bought the horse again'
should be okay; for 'buying' (the horse) was happening 'again'—for the third
time—even if Harold himself bought it only once. Leave it to an ESL student to dash our
presumed precepts to pieces.
Another
Navaho speaker wrote:
34.
I had (gave birth to) Jimmy when I was seventeen, then three years later
I had Nancy
again.
She
did bear again, but did not bear the same baby twice. So in this case, 'again' apparently modifies
a verb-object combination, but the object changed, disallowing an acceptable
use of 'again,' though the ESL student considered the repetition of the same
subject-verb combination to warrant 'again' as okay. Other verb phrases (such as 'gave birth to')
may more easily allow it: At twenty I gave birth again—this time to Nancy. In any case, the Navaho language obviously
uses the iterative mode (again) differently than English 'again.'
In contrast to 'again' not being
able to modify the verb-object combination when different subjects are buying a
horse in succession, members of a deer-hunting group can have different
subjects shooting a deer in succession while 'again' modifies the verb-object
combination: 'David shot the deer; then Jim shot it again; and as it escaped
over the hill to where Harold was, Harold shot it again.' What English book lists the verbs or
verb-object combinations that 'again' can vs. cannot modify when the subjects
change?
We could go on indefinitely, for the
list of oddities is endless. The above
examples are but a glimpse into the nearly infinite expanse of lexical
categories, syntactic structures, and semantic dimensions of a single
language. In addition to
categorizations, structures, and semantics, the mutual effect of each item of
each category upon every other item of the other categories creates possible
combinations that run into the millions.
In other words, two language elements (whether word, phrase, clause,
paragraph, or story) joined together produce a language entity greater than the
sum of the two and sometimes quite different than the sum of the two. The following anecdote illustrates this well:
35.
Auntie is at death's door, but the doctor's trying to pull her through.
At
death's door means 'be deathly ill,' and trying to pull someone through
(an illness) means 'attempting to help them get better.' But the juxtaposition of these two phrases
does more than cancel the intended meaning of each. It backfires to mean the
opposite: the doctor is trying to pull her through death's door. Similarly, the presence of any word or
structure can affect the structure, meaning, or possible interpretations of
every other word, phrase, or structure for quite some distance in either direction.
The nearly limitless intricacies of
language are far too many to be numbered and specified, let alone learned
consciously. Matters normally taught are
but drops in a bucket compared to the oceans of existing intricacies. Furthermore, much of the ocean has not yet
been mapped. Linguists continue
discovering rules and properties previously unknown—unknown consciously, that
is. For that is the crux of the matter:
native speakers know the language, for the most part, subconsciously, having no
idea how much of that total language knowledge is subconscious.
For that reason, the kinds of
writing errors produced by native speakers of English are a relatively finite
set, and that small set is the focus of most grammar books: irregular verbs,
double negatives, avoiding the use of past participles for past tense (he seen
it, he done it), agreement errors, fragments, run-ons, clarity, and other
general editing skills. These are
perhaps one-tenth of one percent of the thousands of complexities facing the second
language learner. While grammar books
specifically designed for ESL learners cover much more than traditional
grammars do, both contain only a limited quantity of all that second language
learners must master. Already fluent in
English, a native speaker's task is essentially limited to learning the
mechanics of writing it down and avoiding informal usage in that process. At times it appears that some will never
learn that (and some never do), but it is still merely a cupful compared to the
ocean of intricacies baffling ESL students.
In view of that kind of potential for mistakes, one can better
appreciate the plight of the second language learner.
The fact that language acquisition
is largely subconscious, even for second language learners, explains another
matter—a matter of perpetual frustration for teachers and learners. The basics of a language—the more common
words, meanings, and structures—can be learned relatively quickly, in a year or
three. However, the less common words
and less frequent structures, the finer intricacies, the subtle shades of
meanings, a thorough sense of the mutual effect of all these on each other,
etc., are very difficult for second language learners to master because
exposure of the subconscious to these refinements is infrequent; therefore, the
last finishing touches toward fluency—extracting this numerous host of details
from rare data—continues through a lifetime.
For example, the most common 20% of
the words and structures of a language may constitute 90% of all language that
flows in speech or print. The second
most frequent 20% might be found in say another 7% of the language output. This leaves some 60% appearing in perhaps 3%
of the data; in other words, more than half of all the details of a language
surface very rarely. For example, how often
does the prepositional phrase 'on ... night' occur in English? The above percentages are hardly verifiable,
since word counts do not count; and the details of structure, mutual semantic
effect, etc., are not easily quantifiable mathematically, especially since they
are not all discovered yet, which leaves us not knowing what to divide by in
order to figure a percentage.
Nevertheless, these hypothetical or estimated proportions illustrate the
problem. It is no wonder why the final
polishing toward native-speaker-like fluency is so rarely achieved, especially
when much of that 60% is not in books, but is generally known subconsciously.
Many ESL students make tremendous
progress through two or three years, but as they approach that threshold to the
less frequent data, rapid improvement from that point onward can hardly be
militantly expected, because the learner's level of acquisition is now entering
that formidable realm encompassing the innumerable details of less frequent
exposure.
How can we not feel compassion for
ESL students grappling with such overwhelming odds? How can one view harshly an odd expression or
two in light of the immensity of the task?
The linguistic mountain that second language students are expected to
move (or master) is enormous.
By way of solution, how can we best
help ESL students learn English or help ourselves learn a second language? Of course, all of the language skills are
important—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—and numerous methodologies
litter the literature, explaining how best to teach those skills. Nevertheless, while a conscious focus on
basic grammar, vocabulary, etc, is indispensable to learning the basics, a
tremendous amount of reading should be the largest component of any second
language program: (1) Published reading materials generally expose a second
language learner's mind to a greater variety of structures, more sophisticated
structures, and higher levels of vocabulary than conversation normally
does. (2) The student can internalize the
data at his/her own rate when reading, an adjustment hardly possible in
conversation. (3) Reading three to six
hours per day allows lots of language data to pass through both the conscious
and subconscious minds for internalization, whereas it is difficult to find a
person willing to converse for six hours per day, let alone at the desired
level of vocabulary, rates, etc.
As I tell my ESL students, they
cannot learn English or any other second language by simply taking classes in
it. Passing classes provides a
foundation or beginning, but learning a second language requires much more
initiative, motivation, time, and effort than merely doing the assigned
homework for a series of classes. In
summary, I wish not to paint a hopeless picture, but only to portray the
magnitude of the challenge that second language learners face, to help us
better appreciate their side of the struggle and assist in that struggle.
