What Does Memory

Have To Do With It?

The Declarative/Procedural Model

Teacher Workshop
CLAS & CSLS

Virginia Scott
Academic Director, Vanderbilt University
Center for Second Language Studies

Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 1

 Cognitive neuroscience
informs SLA
Franco, Fabbro. 2002. The Neurolinguistics of L2 Users. In Portraits of the L2 User,
edited by Vivian Cook, 199-220. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Hagoort, Peter, Colin M. Brown, and Lee Osterhout. 1999. The Neurocognition of
Syntactic Processing. In The Neurocognition of Language, edited by Colin M. Brown
and Peter Hagoort, 273-316.
Kroll, Judith F. and Gretchen Sunderman. 2003. Cognitive Processes in Second Language
Learners and Bilinguals: The Development of Lexical and Conceptual
Representations. In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by
Catherine J. Doughty and Michael H. Long, 104-129. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.
Paradis, Michel. 2004. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
Tomasello, Michael. 2002. The Emergence of Grammar in Early Child Language. In The
Evolution of Language out of Pre-Language, edited by T. Givón and Bertram F. Malle,
309-328. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Ullman, Michael T. 2004. Contributions of Memory Circuits to Language: The
Declarative / Procedural Model. Cognition, 93, 231-270.
Wartenburger, Isabell, Hauke R. Heekeren, Jubin Abutalebi, Stefano F. Cappa, Arno
Villringer, and Daniela Perani. 2003. Early Setting of Grammatical Processing in the
Bilingual Brain. Neuron 37: 159-170.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 2
 What is the connection between
memory and language?
 Short-term memory:
(working memory) processes
and stores limited amount of
information for a few
seconds.
 Long-term memory:
 Procedural: knowledge that
cannot be retrieved
consciously.
 Declarative: knowledge
that can be consciously
retrieved.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 3
 Long-term memory
 Procedural memory
 “stores” knowledge that can be used without
conscious reflection, such as the rules of one’s
native language; knowing how.
 Also called “implicit” learning.

 Declarative memory
 “stores” facts and experiences that can be
consciously recalled, such as words associated with
the category ‘fruit,’ or the names of countries in
Europe; knowing what.
 Also called “explicit” learning.

Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 4

 Words and grammar in memory
Evidence suggests that for native language (L1)
processing …
 words may be stored and processed in declarative
memory.
 grammar may be stored and processed in
procedural memory.
Evidence suggests that for adult* second
language (L2) processing …
 words and grammar may be stored and processed
in declarative memory.

Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 5

 Note: What does “adult” mean?
 There is general agreement that humans have
a critical period / sensitive period for
language learning. (Lenneberg’s CPH, 1967)
 Although there is no agreement about how
long this sensitive period lasts, most research
suggests that it lasts from birth through
puberty.
 The term “adult” in SLA refers to a learner
who is past the sensitive period for language
learning.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 6
 Child language acquisition
When children acquire their first or second (or
third) language, evidence indicates that grammar is
supported by procedural memory and words are
supported by declarative memory.
 L1 and L2 acquisition involve the same memory
systems.

procedural LTM declarative LTM

L1 grammar words

L2 grammar words
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 7
 Adult SLA
When adults acquire a second language, evidence
indicates that that both words and grammar are
supported by declarative memory systems.
(Ullman’s, 2005 DP model of SLA)

 L1 and L2 acquisition involve different memory

systems.

procedural LTM declarative LTM

L1 grammar words

L2 --- grammar & words

Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 8
 More evidence …
 In people who have acquired a L2 after the
sensitive period for language acquisition, it
appears that the two languages access a
common semantic system.
(Dehaene et al., 1997; Illes et al., 1999; Klein et al., 1995; Marian, 2003; Marian, Spivey, & Hirsch, 2003; Xue et
al., 2004)

 “The frontal lobe structures organize the

syntactic components of a language only if it is
learnt before the critical age. Afterwards,
other brain structures account for the
organization of the grammatical aspects of the
second language, probably through explicit
learning.” (Fabbro, 1999, p. 101)
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 9
And more …
 The monolingual and the bilingual
brain are physiologically different.
 A bilingual person processes
language differently than a
monolingual person.
 Brain imaging technologies
suggest that when L2 is
acquired during the sensitive
period, L1 and L2 tend to be
represented in the same areas.
 Increasing L2 proficiency changes
brain organization.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 10
 Implications for the classroom
1) When students say “I hate grammar”
they are expressing real frustration
related to the disconnect between
knowing what and knowing how.
2) Learning and practicing grammar rules
is unlikely to promote spontaneous use
of those rules.
3) Learning words and meaning-bearing
phrases may lead to spontaneous
grammatical utterances.
Teacher Workshop, October 4, 2011 11
Final thought …
“I have seen instructors so caught up
in explaining things that very little
class time is left over for any kind
of meaningful language use.”
(Wong, Wynne. 2003. Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the
Classroom. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, p. 34.)

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