Metacognitive processing in non-native language perception and production

Metacognition is the ability to monitor and control one's own cognition and behaviour. However, the role of metacognition in language remains poorly understood. Here we investigated metacognitive processing in non-native language perception and production, by asking participants to rate, on a trial-by-trial basis, their self-confidence in the accuracy in a phoneme identification and production task. The results revealed metacognitive ability in perception, as participants' confidence judgments aligned with the accuracy in the non-native speech discrimination task. In the production task, self-confidence did not align with a fine-grained precision measure of one’s own production - indexed by Mahalanobis distance to the target-vowel native space. However, self-confidence ratings predicted whether one’s production was within/outside the ‘native’ zone, suggesting that metacognitive monitoring in non-native language production operates on relatively coarse, yet meaningful sound level representations. While overall confidence ratings were similar and highly correlated between the perception and production tasks, there were no associations between the two language domains regarding the primary task performance or metacognitive ability. We discuss the ramifications of these findings for domain-generality/specificity in metacognitive processing in non-native language, and the unsettled debate on the relationship between language perception and production. Finally, we note future research directions that emerge from the present work.

Psychological features of the collocational competence development

In connection with the use of the communicative method in foreign language teaching, the collocational competence development becomes especially relevant. Based on the analysis of the researchers’ works on the topic, it is revealed that one of the problems of the collocational competence development is not following the principle of the learning consciousness. The essence of this principle is that the provision of all theoretical information should precede the practice of a foreign language. Perception is highlighted as the initial level of consciousness. It is noted that the perception of the language material by the native speaker and the learner is different. Weak con-nections between the elements of the learner’s mental vocabulary explain why learners “mix” col-locations. Noticing is the next level of consciousness. The analysis of scientific literature has shown that noticing is an important component of the successful study of a foreign language. The conditions that affect operations upon noticing are highlighted. Understanding is the last level of consciousness. The next logical step in the collocational competence development, following the principle of learning consciousness, is the use of communicative and pseudocommunicative tasks to consolidate the conscious theoretical material.

Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games

Austrian British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the greatest philosophers in the 20th century. He mostly works in analytic philosophical thought in topics as diverse as logic and language, perception and intention, ethic and religion, aesthetic and culture. Philosophers often create their own vocabularies by giving special meanings to ordinary terms and phrases. Wittgenstein coinages the term of “language games” and the ‘private language argument”. His argument on the language is the rules of the use of ordinary language is neither right nor wrong, neither true nor false, the language is merely useful for the particular applications in which they are applied . Language is defined not as a system of representation but as a system of devices for engaging in various sorts of social activity, hence ‘the meaning of the word is its use in the language.

LANGUAGE PERCEPTION AND LANGUAGE PRODUCTION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Language acquisition is a term to define the process of getting language ability naturally and subconsciously. In language acquisition, there is an optimal time for the children to acquire language optimally. The time is known as critical period that is believed when the critical time is passed by the children without get contact with the language, it will be (almost) impossible to acquire first language and be the native of second language, latter. In other hand, while children acquire language, they will do mistakes (often) and error (rarely). It is related how the children percept language and the way they produce it. In reference to develop language in human, this paper will explore theoretical frameworks related with the steps of children language acquisition which happened in the early childhood related with the transformational process of language perception into language production.