Metalinguistic Knowledge and Oral Production
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METALINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE AND ORAL PRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
It is widely believed by second language acquisition (SLA) experts that the ability to explain a grammatical rule and the ability to use that rule while speaking reflect two qualitatively different kinds of knowledge (Lightbown, 2000). Explaining rules involves what is referred to as explicit or metalinguistic or declarative knowledge whereas oral production involves implicit or linguistic or procedural knowledge (see list of other labels in White and Ranta, 2002, p. 260). Although the terms implicit/explicit are preferred by some influential scholars (Ellis, 2004) and declarative/procedural by others (DeKeyser, 1998), there is an advantage in using the term “metalinguistic” because it links knowledge about language to other metacognitive abilities. Thus, “metalinguistic knowledge” is used here to refer to the mental representations that underlie the ability to perform metalinguistic tasks; such tasks require a shift of attention away from meaning to the formal aspects of language. Explaining grammatical rules, probably the most demanding of metalinguistic tasks, requires what Berry (2005) calls “metalingual” knowledge, that is, technical terminology like noun and verb. Metalinguistic knowledge is characterized by its explicitness, which makes it more readily available for verbalization (Bialystok, 2001; Ellis, 2004). In contrast, the ability to use grammatical forms accurately in fluent speech relies upon implicit knowledge, which is highly accessible for use, but typically unanalyzed, formulaic, and unavailable for verbal report (Ellis, 2004) (see Ellis, Implicit and Explicit Knowledge about Language, Volume 6). The body of theory and research dealing with the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and the linguistic knowledge underlying oral production has two clear strands, one of which relates primarily to first language (L1) acquisition and childhood bilingualism, the other to second language (L2) acquisition. In this review, I briefly discuss the L1 acquisition context as a backdrop to the L2 acquisition issues, which is the main focus. Furthermore, although the term metalinguistic can be applied to phonological, lexical, and pragmatic knowledge, the discussion focusses exclusively on the relationship between
J. Cenoz and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 6: Knowledge about Language, 205–216. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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L E I L A R A N TA
metalinguistic knowledge of grammar and the use of grammatical structures in oral production, an emphasis that reflects the predominant trends in the literature. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
L1 Acquisition All normal children develop the ability to formulate grammatical utterances in their mother tongue and to produce them fluently according to a more or less universal schedule. Although the pattern of development of metalinguistic abilities is subject to much greater variation, there is a clear pattern in how children’s metalinguistic a
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