The Competition Model is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing, developed by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney (1982).
[1] The claim in MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984)[2] is that "the forms of natural languages are created, governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions."
The model defines a cue as an information source present in the surface structure of utterances that allows the language user to link linguistic form with meaning or function.
Cues vary in their type (morphological, syntactic, prosodic, semantic, and pragmatic), availability (how often they are present), and reliability (how often they lead to the correct interpretation).
[9] The results of studies of these children using reaction time methodologies and neuropsychological tests indicate that, although they have completely normal functional use of language, detailed aspects of processing are slower in some cases.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology, areas of neurological activation involved in specific linguistic tasks have been pinpointed in these children.
· Microgenesis: The classic model does not provide a microgenetic account for the course of item acquisition, fluency development, and cue strength learning.
[14] A major challenge facing an emergentist, functionalist, non-nativist model such as the UCM involves dealing with age-related changes in the outcome of second language (L2) acquisition.
The account given above for the effects of age on L2 learning emphasizes the role of competition as formulated in the classic version of the model.
For example, although adults outperform children in terms of learning of the L2 lexicon,[23] they encounter significantly more problems in acquiring a nativelike L2 pronunciation.
The theories for lexicon, syntax, and mental models have been elaborated in specific ways that help unify the approach.
In this way, the theory of item-based patterns can be viewed as an early instantiation of Construction Grammar,[34] albeit one specifically designed to account for child language learning.
The linked dependency structure provide by the operation of item-based and feature-based patterns serves as the input to mental model construction.
[29] This process allows the human mind to construct an ongoing cognitive simulation of the meaning of an utterance coded in linguistic abstractions, through the use of perceptual realities derived from one's embodied experience.
Grammatical devices such as pronouns, case, voice, and attachment can all be seen as ways of expressing shifts in a basically ego-centered perspective.
As noted by Chafe (1994)[37] and MacWhinney (1977, 2008), perspective-taking and perspective-shifting play a central role in linking together models of the actions of agents, referents, positions in space-time, and causation (Talmy, 2000).
Articulation of the links between the theory of perspective and the classic Competition Model depends on examination of online cue processing effects, as illustrated in studies such as McDonald and MacWhinney (1995)[38] which examined how verb-based implicit causality established mental models that influence anaphoric binding.
One major goal in this line of research is to better understand the brain mechanisms underlying perspective shifting during language comprehension.
Mental models are based on an interlocking system emerging from the levels of role assignment, space-time configuration, causal relations, and perspective taking.
The UCM assumes that these interconnections rely on methods for topological, i.e. tonotopic (Wessinger, Buonocore, Kussmaul, & Mangun, 1997)[42] or somatotopic (Hauk, Johnsrude, & Pulvermuller, 2004),[43] organization that are used throughout the cortex.
The operation of time/process frames and their constraints can be illustrated by looking at how a set of four structural levels determine the shape of proteins (Campbell, Reece, & Mitchell, 1999).
It is this final structure that allows each protein to serve its unique role, be it oxygen transport for hemoglobin or antigen detection for antibodies.
Understanding the interactions of these processes requires a model that can bring all of these forces and timeframes together in terms of competition, motivation, and consolidation.
To address certain limitations of this research, the Unified Competition Model sought to account in greater detail for age-related facts in the comparison between child and adult second language learning.
Specifically, · by linking linguistic structures to particular brain regions, the model is increasingly grounded neurolinguistically (MacWhinney, 2019),[51] · by delineating a set of risk and protective factors, the model deals more accurately with age-related patterns in L2 learning, · by providing a time/process frames account of social and motivational factors, the model accounts better for variation in L2 outcome by social groups, work environments, as well as providing accounts for patterns of code-switching and language attrition, · by linking in the theory of perspective-switching, we have a fuller understanding of online sentence processing, and · by developing corpus (MacWhinney, 2019)[52] and online experimental (eCALL) methods (MacWhinney, 2017),[53] the model now provides a fuller microgenetic account of the growth of fluency .