The competition model is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing, developed by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney (1982). The claim in MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984) is that "the forms of natural languages are created, governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions." Furthermore, the model holds that processing is based on an online competition between these communicative functions or motives. The model focuses on competition during sentence processing, crosslinguistic competition in bilingualism, and the role of competition in language acquisition. It is an emergentist theory of language acquisition and processing, serving as an alternative to strict innatist and empiricist theories. According to the Competition Model, patterns in language arise from Darwinian competition and selection on a variety of time/process scales including phylogenetic, ontogenetic, social diffusion, and synchronic scales.
The classic competition model The classic version of the model focused on competition during sentence processing, crosslinguistic competition in bilingualism, and the role of competition in language acquisition.
Sentence processing The competition model was initially proposed as a theory of cross-linguistic sentence processing. The model suggests that people interpret the meaning of a sentence by taking into account various linguistic cues contained in the sentence context, such as word order, morphology, and semantic characteristics (e.g., animacy), to compute a probabilistic value for each interpretation, eventually choosing the interpretation with the highest likelihood. According to the model, cue weights are learned inductively on the basis of the extent to which the cues are available and reliable guides to meanings in comprehension and to forms in production.
Because different languages use different cues to signal meanings, the competition model maintains that cue weights will differ between languages, and users of a given language will use the cue weights associated with that language, to guide their interpretation of sentences. Thus, when people learn other languages, they must learn which cues are important in which languages, in order to successfully interpret sentences in any language. 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). Each cue has a certain level of cue validity, the joint product of availability and reliability. Cues of the same basic type, such as case-marking, animacy, or word order may have markedly different levels of validity in different languages. For example, the cue of animacy plays a minimal role in English, but a major role in Italian.
The model holds that cues both compete and cooperate during processing. Sometimes cues cooperate or converge by pointing to the same interpretation or production. Sometimes, cues compete by pointing to conflicting interpretations or productions.
Language acquisition The application of the model to child language acquisition focuses on the role that cue availability and reliability play in determining the order of acquisition of grammatical structures. The basic finding is that children first learn the most available cue(s) in their language. If the most available cue is not also the most reliable, then children slowly shift from depending on the available cue to depending on the more reliable cue.
Methods
The competition model implies that language emergence on the developmental or ontogenetic timescale can be examined in at least two ways. One methodology uses neural network models to simulate the acquisition of detailed grammatical structures. Competition model researchers have constructed connectionist models for the acquisition of morphology, syntax, and lexicon in several languages, including English, German, and Hungarian. In addition, the ontogenetic emergence of language has been examined from a biological viewpoint, using data on language processing from children with early focal lesions. 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. These results have allowed researchers to evaluate a series of hypotheses regarding sensitive periods for the emergence of language in the brain.
The unified competition model The classic competition model accounts well for many of the basic features of sentence processing and cue learning. It relies on a small set of assumptions regarding cues, validity, reliability, competition, transfer, and strength—each of which could be investigated directly. However, the model is limited in several important ways.
Brain structure: The classic model makes no contact with what we now know about the organization of language in the brain. As a result, it provides only incomplete understanding of patterns of language disorder and loss. Critical period: The classic model fails to come to grips with the idea that there is a biologically-determined critical period for language acquisition. Motivation: The classic model provides no role for social and motivational factors governing language learning, preference, code-switching, and attrition. Mental models: The classic model fails to include a role for mental model construction during comprehension and formulation during production. Microgenesis: The classic model does not provide a microgenetic account for the course of item acquisition, fluency development, and cue strength learning.
Extending the classic model to deal with these challenges involves borrowing insights from related theories. The resultant broader theory is called the Unified Competition Model or UCM, because it seeks to unify a variety of independent theoretical frameworks into a single overall model. The transition from the classic version of the model to the unified version worked to bring the model into fuller accord with the theory of emergentism, as developed in the biological (West-Eberhard, 2003), social (Kontopoulos, 1993) and physical sciences (von Bertalanffy, 1968).
Unifying the L1 and L2 learning models 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. It is widely accepted that children end up acquiring a second language more completely than adults. One account proposes that this "fundamental difference" (Bley-Vroman, 2009) between child and adult L2 learning arises from the expiration of a biologically-based critical period for natural language learning. In contrast, the framework of the Competition Model emphasizes that all forms of language acquisition make use of the same set of cognitive and social processes, although they differ in the relative reliance on specific processes and the extent to which these processes interact with other learning.
Specifically, the UCM holds that adults are more challenged than children by a set of four risk factors that can impede L2 acquisition.
The entrenchment of first language (L1) patterns (Schmid, 2017) leads to competition with L2 patterns. The role of entrenchment and competition as shaping adult L2 performance was already a major features of the classic Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1981; McDonald, 1989). It is important to consider that entrenchment is fundamental property of neural network functioning (Zevin, 2012), rather than a species-specific genetic mechanism of the type involved in critical periods. Adults rely heavily on transfer of patterns from L1 to L2. This leads to quick initial learning which then fails to accurately acquire L2 patterns. In addition to these negative effects of transfer, adult reliance on translation from L1 creates a parasitic relation of L2 on L1 (Kroll, Van Hell, Tokowicz, & Green, 2010). When acquiring new words, adults tend to apply overanalysis by isolating content words in phrases without regard to inflections and function words. Children, on the other hand, are more likely to learn language by acquiring words as parts of larger chunks. Adults may be subject to isolation from interactions with the L2 community.
Adults can counterbalance these four risk factors through an emphasis on four protective or preventive factors.
Adults can learn and consolidate new forms through an emphasis on resonance – the process of creating meaningful links between L2 forms (Schlichting & Preston, 2015). Adults can bring themselves to think in L2 (Vygotsky, 1934). This process of internalization leads to further strengthening of links between L2 patterns, producing greater fluency. When learning new forms and combinations, adults can emphasize chunking of large phrasal units. Adults can avoid social isolation and maximize participation by reading L2 materials, watching L2 programs, and socializing with L2 groups (Firth & Wagner, 2007).
All of these processes can impact both children and adults. What differs across age is the relative social status of the person and the degree to which they have already consolidated L1.
Three components of emergentism 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. However, we know that there are variations in the learning of different types of linguistic structures. For example, although adults outperform children in terms of learning of the L2 lexicon, they encounter significantly more problems in acquiring a nativelike L2 pronunciation. To understand these differences, we need to think about language in terms of its component structural levels. Emergentist theory emphasizes three major dimensions that control physical, biological, and social processes. These are competition, structural levels, and time/process frames. The classic version of the Competition Model describes and quantifies the role of competition in language. However, in a fuller emergentist account, this analysis of competition must be supplemented through an analysis of structural levels and time/process scales.
Structural analysis Structural linguistic analysis (Harris, 1951) distinguishes the levels of input phonology, output phonology, lexicon, semantics, morphology, syntax, mental models, and interaction. Processing on these levels can be analyzed in terms of the related theories of statistical learning (input phonology), gating and fluency (output phonology), embodied cognition and hub-and-spoke theory (semantics), DevLex (lexicon), item-based patterns (syntax), perspective theory (mental models), and CA theory (interaction). The theories for lexicon, syntax, and mental models have been elaborated in specific ways that help unify the approach. These elaborations include specifically the theory of item-based patterns and the theory of perspective shifting.
Item-based patterns