Blackwell Reference Online

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Learners' understanding of language and of how it works is based upon their experience of language. They have to estimate the system from a sample. This chapter considers the effects of input sample, construction frequency, and processing orientation on learning. It draws out implications for usage-based acquisition and form-focused instruction for second (L2) and foreign (FL) language learners. A language is not a fixed system. It varies in usage over speakers, places, and time. Yet despite the fact that no two speakers own an identical language, communication is possible to the degree that they share constructions (form-meaning correspondences) relevant to their discourse. Language learners have to acquire these constructions from usage, and beginners don't have much to go on in building the foundations for basic interpersonal communication. They have to induce the types of construction from experience of a limited number of tokens. Their very limited exposure poses them the task of estimating how linguistic constructions work from an input sample that is incomplete, uncertain, and noisy. How do they achieve this, and what types of experience can best support the process? Nativelike fluency, idiomaticity, and selection are another level of difficulty again. For a good fit, every utterance has to be chosen, from a wide range of possible expressions, to be appropriate for that ... log in or subscribe to read full text