Language is a means of communication, in this case human uses language as a tool to convey the ideas and decode the message. Human always uses language to communicate with one another. Basically, there are two kinds of languages that human learned in their life, the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). The first language is human’s mother tongue, the language when they firstly hear and try to acquire after they were born. While second language is the language that they learn after they have mastered their first language. Usually they learn the second language in the formal school. The most important thing that we should notice is that we acquire rather than learn the first language and the other way around. When we learn the second language, memory plays the important role. Memory is one of factors which can be used to predict the performance of a student’s learning foreign language (Lightbown and Spada, 1999). Moreover based on the finding by Taiwanese researcher, Li Yuch Wang, there is a strong relationship between short term memory and language learning.
There are two kinds of memories in our mind, sort term memory and long term memory. Short term memory or better known as working memory plays three important roles before the messages is being transferred to the long term memory or permanent memory. In this paper, I will explain three important roles of working memory in learning language, the language processing, namely language comprehension, language production, and vocabulary acquisition.
In language comprehension, working memory provides the temporary storage space for the information before it sent on in a recorded form to the long term memory. When comprehending the interlocutor’s messages, a person must do more than retrieve the meanings of the individual words. Moreover a person must determine the relations among the word meanings, based on the syntactic structure of the sentence. Regarding of this fact, we need the temporal storage to storage the string of the words and then process it so that we can comprehend the language that is being uttered by the interlocutor including foreign language or utterances.
According to the famous psycholinguist, George Miller, When people hear someone speaking they can recall five to nine chucks of information in short period of time. These chunks of information must be first be reordered into analysis unit before it held in working memory. In this case, when we learn language we try to remember a chunk of the words that is being uttered by our teacher or native speaker. These words are stored in our working memory. Then, we try to not only retrieve the meaning of the individual words but also to determine the relations among the word meanings, based on the syntactic structure of the sentence. In learning a new language this process may become long.
In language production, working memory becomes the place where the pronunciations of the words are put in linear order on the basis of the syntactic and semantic relations in the intended utterance before the construction of a motor program that produces the utterance. When we try to say something or produce the utterance from the foreign language, certain sound must be presented in working memory so that we will not make error in speech. Lashley (1951) gives us an example that to be able to pronounce the sentence “Consider Reverend Spooner's our queer old dean in place of our dear old queen” correctly, the /kw/ sound to be inserted in the intended word dear, must already be presented in working memory, waiting its turn for phonological integration.This means that speech cannot be produced by simple chaining of words one to another; rather some overall planning must be going on in advance.
In acquiring the new vocabulary, working memory has a limited-capacity that is called“phonological loop”in which phonological material is stored, maintained in sequence, and rehearsed. Neuropsychological studies have provided strong evidence suggesting that the phonological loop plays a critical role in vocabulary acquisition. The phonological loop system is specialized in storing verbal material and is composed of two subsystems: a phonological store and an articulatory rehearsal process. The phonological store receives directly and unvoidably any information auditorily presented and stores it in terms of a sound-based code. Although material in this store is subject to decay and interference, it can be maintained and reinforced through the articulatory rehearsal mechanism. The phonological store is also able to receive visually presented items but these must first be converted into an articulatory form before gaining access to the store. These items are conveyed to the store by the articulatory rehearsal process.
In conclusion, memory has three important roles in learning a language. Working memory is the place where language is being processed. Working memory provides the temporary storage that is very useful in language comprehension process. In language production, working memory becomes the place where the pronunciations of the words are put in linear order on the basis of the syntactic and semantic relations in the intended utterance before the construction of a motor program that produces the utterance. Moreover through phonological loop the new vocabulary is being stored and rehearsed in working memory before it transfer to the long term memory. This information is very useful to not only the teacher who teaches the second language in formal class but also for the independent learner who tries to learn language. In this case they can maximize the function of memory in learning language.
References
Cairns, Helen & Fernandez, Eva. 2011. Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Jackendoff, Ray. 2003. Foundations of language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Learning, memory, and language, (online), (www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/.../learning_memory_language.pdf, accessed on May, 11 2011).
Whitaker, A. Harry. 1998. Handbook of Neurolinguistics. California: Academic Press.
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