Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: In the field of second language acquisition, there is a dominant theory of language learning, specifically, the claims that the input for language learning consists of language by famous linguist Noam Chomsky (1964) and his followers.However, Douglas W Coleman (Thesis adviser), Samuel Johnston, Yifei Xin, and the author hypothesized in ENGL 6150, a master's course in Fall 2011, that a person cannot learn a target language from the speech input alone.The findings of that study were published in Xin's (2012) study which showed that the relevant input for language learning consists of the sound of speech in parallel with other sensory experiences, and what people learn is the ability to communicate.An even earlier study by Postica and Coleman (2006) indicated that mental imagery, the capacity of human brain to recreate sensory experience without external stimuli, could be a substitute to the required 'parallel sensory input' in Second Language Acquisition.Implementing a variation of Postica (2006) and Xin (2012) experiments, this study aimed to further investigate the role of mental imagery in generating sensory input for communication learning.Thus, the study set out to explore if mental imagery could be a substitute to the sensory input required for learning to communicate in a target iv language.The findings of the study differ from the findings of Postica's (2006).The variation in instrument design of this study from Postica's (2006) design might have contributed to the different outcome of this study.To my husband without whose support, sacrifice, and inspiration, I could not complete this thesis and the master's study at the University of Toledo.
Author: Sultana Mahbuba Nargis
Institution: University of Toledo
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2339758614