Dora

Audrey

Conference Presentation on Natural Language Processing (NLP) Project: How the News Portrays Political Candidates

Every language you learn brings with it a new way of seeing and experiencing the world, through its unique syntax, vocabulary, and idioms, as well as the cultures that are tied to it. You may want to learn a new language in order to study its literature, film, and music; to travel, work, and do business in a new part of the world; or to connect with a part of your own family heritage. Whether you’re learning Mandarin, the world’s most widely spoken language, or an indigenous language with only a handful of speakers remaining, there is great value in the undertaking that will enrich you as a critical thinker. Acquiring a new language is a powerful tool in your research toolbox, whether you want to be a literary scholar or a globe-trotting biologist.

Languages

PhD candidate

Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis (CIH) is a widely known idea in the linguistics community that theorizes that language learners benefit from exposure to linguistic input slightly above their current understanding of a foreign language (L2). It has been implemented in several language learning strategies that rely heavily on input to develop fluency in another language. However, the current research body is lacking a clear consensus as to how effective this hypothesis is when implemented in a classroom, and while it has been applied to English, Spanish, and Latin learning, it is unclear how useful it would be for other languages, such as Japanese. In this paper, I will review existing literature on CIH and relevant linguistic literature with a specific lens on how CIH could play a role in a wide range of foreign language learning classrooms. To do so, I will compare and contrast the existing research looking at CIH in the classroom trying to identify the key components of CIH that were successful, examine the previous studies that investigated the role of CIH within the context of English, Spanish, and Latin learning, and contrast the experience of learning those languages with the experience of learning other foreign languages to begin to determine how CIH may similarly or dissimilarly affect other language learning. I will end my review with a synthesis of my findings and provide a recommendation on how to use CIH in the classroom for a multitude of languages. The findings of this review could inform educators as to how to best develop foreign language curriculums for learning in a large range of classrooms. The potential benefits of a language learning curriculum informed by CIH span across the entire language learning process, including faster comprehension, enhanced discourse, improved confidence in language learning, better pronunciation, as well as greater overall fluency.

In what ways can Krashen's Input Hypothesis apply to students in a wide range of foreign language learning classrooms?

A Review of Krashen's Input Hypothesis: Applications for Foreign Language Classrooms

Language is coined as an ability unique to humans. However, studies have begun to show that other animals, including species of birds and primates, have complex languages with morphosyntactic syntax. Moreover, animals, especially those in symbiotic and predatory relationships, use and respond to other species' languages: as exhibited through alarm calls. Communication is any interaction between 2 or more organisms that cause a change in behavior. This paper examines the evolution of communication behaviors with hopes of better understanding language as a social behavior that’s not unique to humans. First, some similarities and differences in how animals learn and interact with their own language, including human infants, are surveyed. Differences and similarities in vocal, reinforcement, and social learning are discussed. Next, whether those comparisons contribute to the evolution of communication-related biological structures or not is discussed. Finally, some possibilities to facilitate interspecies communication using technology are explored.  Since animals in social systems that require more cooperation show more communicative behaviors, a variety of animals are reviewed to present a variety of life-history categories including slow vs fast development, dependency on parental care, immature vs mature perception systems at birth, social structure, monogamy, parental care system, etc, with a focus on multicellular vertebrates. This paper pushes the limit that language is unique to humans and focuses on non-anthropomorphizing methods, and could have great implications for improving our understanding of the evolution of language with applications in improving animal welfare and AI. Future directions such as  research in invertebrate communicative behaviors, plant, and bacteria communication, etc will be introduced. 


How is language learned, processed, and used across different species, and what are some ways to facilitate cross-species communication?


This review examines the neuro-cognitive correlates of simultaneous language acquisition, primarily focusing on children under the age of 14. It will examine the associated linguistic and neurological processes including the following: discrimination and selection, prosodic classification, inhibitory control, and code switching. These processes employ cognitive systems unique from those of monolingual communication and even cause alterations in neuroanitomical structure. Analysis of these alterations will be presented in the forms of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Additionally, the review will also investigate the presence of a developmental disparity between monolinguals and bilinguals, considering several major hypotheses regarding causation and seeking to determine long-term impact.

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