Amrit Amritavalli | The English and Foreign Languages University (original) (raw)
Papers by Amrit Amritavalli
Teachers at the primary level may not be subject specialists, but they need to be specialists in ... more Teachers at the primary level may not be subject specialists, but they need to be specialists in two important respects: they need to understand what it means to learn, and they need to understand what it is to be a child. Today I wish to share with you some of my understanding about these two topics, in order to address the question of how we can bring about learning (including language learning) in our classrooms.
Linguistic Analysis Seattle, Wash, 1980
Entrusting students with the responsibility of creating a programme brings into play various cogn... more Entrusting students with the responsibility of creating a programme brings into play various cognitive and linguistic abilities as well as organizational and team work skills, such as researching a topic, planning and visualizing the format and presentation, editing a collection of shots and clips into a coherent whole, interviewing people, narrating and sub-titling, as well as dealing with weather, noise, unexpected technical and human problems, and the varied personalities and abilities within a team. This article briefly discusses the kind of assignments that have been given to students of the Media and Communication programme of the EFL University (formerly CIEFL) over the years, and details some of the responses that have been generated.
The Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2003
This research investigates the effects of definitional information, in the form of dictionary ent... more This research investigates the effects of definitional information, in the form of dictionary entries, on second language learners' vocabulary learning in an instructed setting. Indian students of English (with Hindi as the mother tongue) received monolingual English dictionary entries of five previously unknown words from four different learner's dictionaries. Subjects were asked to look up words in a dictionary compose a sentence for each and translate the composed sentences into their mother tongue (the LUCAS task). The English sentences were judged for their idiomaticity and correctness, and the translations helped us to find out the strategies used by the learners. The results exposed certain drawbacks of instructional vocabulary learning. Subjects' comprehension of the dictionary entries was most of the times incomplete and often totally wrong. Subjects commonly substituted a relevant part of the definition for the target word. Lexical errors occurred for various r...
The goals for a language curriculum (Sec. II) are twofold: attainment of a basic proficiency, suc... more The goals for a language curriculum (Sec. II) are twofold: attainment of a basic proficiency, such as is acquired in natural language learning, and the development of language into an instrument for abstract thought and knowledge acquisition through, for example, literacy. This argues for an across-the-curriculum approach that breaks down the barriers between English and other subjects, and other Indian languages.
Self-correction data from the oral performance of adult learners of English at an intermediate le... more Self-correction data from the oral performance of adult learners of English at an intermediate level of proficiency are here analyzed from two perspectives: the Monitor model (Krashen 1977), which posits error-correction from the learnt system, accessible to consciousness: and a psycholinguistic model of speech production (Levelt 1989), which provides for self-monitoring from the acquired system in native speaker speech. It is shown that while Monitoring in the sense defined above is almost non-existent in the data (there being only six instances of error correction out ofa potential 132 occasions for Monitoring), there occur a variety of self-corrections (seventy five in number), at linguistic levels ranging from discourse to sentence grammar, which parallel the self-monitoring data of native speakers. We therefore argue for a psycholinguistic, speech-production approach to learner self-correction, with components for lexical search and sentence planning in addition to localized gr...
Creativity in Language and Literature, 2011
Non peer reviewe
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2007
... 54 R, Amritavalli The distribution of i<> h [u'this much', as... more ... 54 R, Amritavalli The distribution of i<> h [u'this much', ash [u'that much'is similar across these cat-egories. ... and case-marks N; and shows that be licenses, but does not case-mark, A, which 9. What is attested is the-aagi or'as' complement, eg avanu nanage shatru-vaagi huftida ...
Typological Studies in Language, 2004
Can learners of English choose their own materials to learn from? Should they do so? English in D... more Can learners of English choose their own materials to learn from? Should they do so? English in Deprived Circumstances: Maximising Learner Autonomy is a narrative of how learners learn when they take charge of what they read, listen to or write. The author makes a case for learner autonomy from her experiences with fifteen first generation learners, working children attending a non-formal afternoon school, and a group of adult learners from outside India. Key issues discussed:- Autonomy and authenticity in language learning- What is authentic for deprived learners?- Emergent features of learner-chosen texts- Assessment of acquisition- A new approach to the choice of materials
Woman as Spectator and Spectacle
A difficulty in learning to read, traditionally known as dyslexia, has now been shown to belong w... more A difficulty in learning to read, traditionally known as dyslexia, has now been shown to belong with a language-specific disorder that manifests in oral language difficulties predating reading (Specific Language Impairment: Leonard, 1998), and may develop into Specific Reading Disability (Bishop and Snowling, 2004). This presentation is about identifying populations at risk for SLI or SRD in a second language situation, specifically, English in India. We report the results of a series of tasks designed to elicit inflectional morphology-in particular, the regular and irregular past tense markings on verbs-in English and Malayalam. Our subjects are 17 children between 8 and 9 years of age (mean age 8;5) in an "Englishmedium" school, who have been schooled in English for about 5 years (since their enrolment at around 3 years). Their home language is Malayalam, of which they are fluent speakers but in which they are literate only to the extent of alphabet and word recognition. * We would like to thank the staff and students of the Choice School, Tripunithura, whose cooperation made this study possible.
There are some things that human beings naturally do, given the mere opportunity to do so. Walkin... more There are some things that human beings naturally do, given the mere opportunity to do so. Walking and talking are the foremost examples of such skills. Babies are not born walking and talking, but by the age of three they usually are doing both. Walking and talking occur naturally in the course of a human being's physical or mental maturation; these abilities are not “taught,” or “learnt” consciously. Similarly, we talk of unconscious language acquisition by the human infant, rather than language learning
A pre-verbal focus position. Jayaseelan (2001, 2010), noticing that wh-question words have to be ... more A pre-verbal focus position. Jayaseelan (2001, 2010), noticing that wh-question words have to be immediately pre-verbal in the SOV Dravidian language Malayalam, argues that whmoves to an IP-internal focus position. His data and analysis generalize to the other literary Dravidian languages Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Here we discuss child Tamil. In (1), the subject question word ‘who’ appears below the object, to the verb’s left: a position that cannot be COMP. 1. Tamil. onn-e yaarɨ aɖicc-aa? OSV you-ACC. who beat.PST-Q ‘Who beat you?’
A parametric difference between Hindi-Urdu and Dakkhani, the latter allowing a tense-bearing auxi... more A parametric difference between Hindi-Urdu and Dakkhani, the latter allowing a tense-bearing auxiliary to co occur with the epistemic modal, is explicated. It is suggested that the difference is due to a change in Dakkhani in the putatively universal order of functional heads in clause structure postulated by Cinque (1999).
Teachers at the primary level may not be subject specialists, but they need to be specialists in ... more Teachers at the primary level may not be subject specialists, but they need to be specialists in two important respects: they need to understand what it means to learn, and they need to understand what it is to be a child. Today I wish to share with you some of my understanding about these two topics, in order to address the question of how we can bring about learning (including language learning) in our classrooms.
Linguistic Analysis Seattle, Wash, 1980
Entrusting students with the responsibility of creating a programme brings into play various cogn... more Entrusting students with the responsibility of creating a programme brings into play various cognitive and linguistic abilities as well as organizational and team work skills, such as researching a topic, planning and visualizing the format and presentation, editing a collection of shots and clips into a coherent whole, interviewing people, narrating and sub-titling, as well as dealing with weather, noise, unexpected technical and human problems, and the varied personalities and abilities within a team. This article briefly discusses the kind of assignments that have been given to students of the Media and Communication programme of the EFL University (formerly CIEFL) over the years, and details some of the responses that have been generated.
The Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2003
This research investigates the effects of definitional information, in the form of dictionary ent... more This research investigates the effects of definitional information, in the form of dictionary entries, on second language learners' vocabulary learning in an instructed setting. Indian students of English (with Hindi as the mother tongue) received monolingual English dictionary entries of five previously unknown words from four different learner's dictionaries. Subjects were asked to look up words in a dictionary compose a sentence for each and translate the composed sentences into their mother tongue (the LUCAS task). The English sentences were judged for their idiomaticity and correctness, and the translations helped us to find out the strategies used by the learners. The results exposed certain drawbacks of instructional vocabulary learning. Subjects' comprehension of the dictionary entries was most of the times incomplete and often totally wrong. Subjects commonly substituted a relevant part of the definition for the target word. Lexical errors occurred for various r...
The goals for a language curriculum (Sec. II) are twofold: attainment of a basic proficiency, suc... more The goals for a language curriculum (Sec. II) are twofold: attainment of a basic proficiency, such as is acquired in natural language learning, and the development of language into an instrument for abstract thought and knowledge acquisition through, for example, literacy. This argues for an across-the-curriculum approach that breaks down the barriers between English and other subjects, and other Indian languages.
Self-correction data from the oral performance of adult learners of English at an intermediate le... more Self-correction data from the oral performance of adult learners of English at an intermediate level of proficiency are here analyzed from two perspectives: the Monitor model (Krashen 1977), which posits error-correction from the learnt system, accessible to consciousness: and a psycholinguistic model of speech production (Levelt 1989), which provides for self-monitoring from the acquired system in native speaker speech. It is shown that while Monitoring in the sense defined above is almost non-existent in the data (there being only six instances of error correction out ofa potential 132 occasions for Monitoring), there occur a variety of self-corrections (seventy five in number), at linguistic levels ranging from discourse to sentence grammar, which parallel the self-monitoring data of native speakers. We therefore argue for a psycholinguistic, speech-production approach to learner self-correction, with components for lexical search and sentence planning in addition to localized gr...
Creativity in Language and Literature, 2011
Non peer reviewe
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2007
... 54 R, Amritavalli The distribution of i<> h [u'this much', as... more ... 54 R, Amritavalli The distribution of i<> h [u'this much', ash [u'that much'is similar across these cat-egories. ... and case-marks N; and shows that be licenses, but does not case-mark, A, which 9. What is attested is the-aagi or'as' complement, eg avanu nanage shatru-vaagi huftida ...
Typological Studies in Language, 2004
Can learners of English choose their own materials to learn from? Should they do so? English in D... more Can learners of English choose their own materials to learn from? Should they do so? English in Deprived Circumstances: Maximising Learner Autonomy is a narrative of how learners learn when they take charge of what they read, listen to or write. The author makes a case for learner autonomy from her experiences with fifteen first generation learners, working children attending a non-formal afternoon school, and a group of adult learners from outside India. Key issues discussed:- Autonomy and authenticity in language learning- What is authentic for deprived learners?- Emergent features of learner-chosen texts- Assessment of acquisition- A new approach to the choice of materials
Woman as Spectator and Spectacle
A difficulty in learning to read, traditionally known as dyslexia, has now been shown to belong w... more A difficulty in learning to read, traditionally known as dyslexia, has now been shown to belong with a language-specific disorder that manifests in oral language difficulties predating reading (Specific Language Impairment: Leonard, 1998), and may develop into Specific Reading Disability (Bishop and Snowling, 2004). This presentation is about identifying populations at risk for SLI or SRD in a second language situation, specifically, English in India. We report the results of a series of tasks designed to elicit inflectional morphology-in particular, the regular and irregular past tense markings on verbs-in English and Malayalam. Our subjects are 17 children between 8 and 9 years of age (mean age 8;5) in an "Englishmedium" school, who have been schooled in English for about 5 years (since their enrolment at around 3 years). Their home language is Malayalam, of which they are fluent speakers but in which they are literate only to the extent of alphabet and word recognition. * We would like to thank the staff and students of the Choice School, Tripunithura, whose cooperation made this study possible.
There are some things that human beings naturally do, given the mere opportunity to do so. Walkin... more There are some things that human beings naturally do, given the mere opportunity to do so. Walking and talking are the foremost examples of such skills. Babies are not born walking and talking, but by the age of three they usually are doing both. Walking and talking occur naturally in the course of a human being's physical or mental maturation; these abilities are not “taught,” or “learnt” consciously. Similarly, we talk of unconscious language acquisition by the human infant, rather than language learning
A pre-verbal focus position. Jayaseelan (2001, 2010), noticing that wh-question words have to be ... more A pre-verbal focus position. Jayaseelan (2001, 2010), noticing that wh-question words have to be immediately pre-verbal in the SOV Dravidian language Malayalam, argues that whmoves to an IP-internal focus position. His data and analysis generalize to the other literary Dravidian languages Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Here we discuss child Tamil. In (1), the subject question word ‘who’ appears below the object, to the verb’s left: a position that cannot be COMP. 1. Tamil. onn-e yaarɨ aɖicc-aa? OSV you-ACC. who beat.PST-Q ‘Who beat you?’
A parametric difference between Hindi-Urdu and Dakkhani, the latter allowing a tense-bearing auxi... more A parametric difference between Hindi-Urdu and Dakkhani, the latter allowing a tense-bearing auxiliary to co occur with the epistemic modal, is explicated. It is suggested that the difference is due to a change in Dakkhani in the putatively universal order of functional heads in clause structure postulated by Cinque (1999).
Nanzan Linguistics 17, 2022
I argue that the Hindi plurals require an approach to suppletion as a failure of regular inflecti... more I argue that the Hindi plurals require an approach to suppletion as a failure of regular inflection, and to syncretism as a morpho-syntactic occurrence between adjacent functional heads in a hierarchy, contingent perhaps on their reversal. The DM machinery that allows formalization of the syncretism and suppletion facts so as to merely ensure appropriate vocabulary insertion for the Hindi plurals is too powerful to be explanatory. My account centres on the syncretism of Number with Case. I argue for Case as a syntactic feature, and the spell out of nominative case as an N-feature. The shapes of the Hindi plurals, which obviously vary by case, are seen to derive systematically from a case-feature. This account of the Hindi plural morphemes amounts to catching a tiger by its tail, as it addresses the nature of Case, of syncretism and suppletion, and morphological features; while also revealing aspects of the Hindi morphosyntax beast that constitute three of its well-known, if apparently exotic, puzzles: the occurrence of “default agreement” aa in the face of agreement failure; of a single morpheme ee interpreted as either “nominative plural” or “oblique singular;” and of a specific morpheme aa restricted to the nominative projection.