I will illustrate the communication problems that result and examine the resolution the interactants negotiate. Finally, I will discuss the implications of this type of research for studies in second language acquisition and for the teaching of foreign languages. This paper reviews frequency effects in first, second and foreign language acquisition. Psycholinguistic and cognitive linguistic theories of language acquisition hold that all linguistic units are abstracted from language use. Language learning is the associative learning of representations that reflect the probabilities of occurrence of form-function mappings.
Frequency is thus a key determinant of acquisition.
Frequency underpins regularity effects in the acquisition of orthographic, phonological and morphological form, and learning accords to the power law of practice. Nevertheless, the effects of frequency in input are modulated by the need to simultaneously satisfy the constraints of all other constructions that are represented therein. In contrast, high token frequency promotes the entrenchment or conservation of irregular forms and idioms. An important goal of the theory of SLA is thus to account for the acquisition of grammatical constructions. Carl S. Blyth is Assistant Professor of French Linguistics in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Texas at Austin.