Lianxin Wang #homework 1#

The purpose of this passage is to distinguish
the learning and acquisition in written
language and in second language with
comparison of several aspects of different
views, demonstration of diverse hypotheses
and indication of factors of two views. From
my perspective, I prefer acquiring knowledge
to learning.

The acquisition pays all attention to invention,
such as the “construction of meaning” and the
comprehension of vocabulary and
lectures.  Individuals who support acquisition
would accentuate "background knowledge
and cues from linguistic systems".
Shakespeare once said that, ‘ There are a
thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s
eyes’. Different people have different levels of
knowledge, social background, life perception,
and ability to accept external events, which
means that different people construct different
meanings of words and passages. In this way,
after understanding brand new words, people
can easily make a sense of their meaning and
use such words in their own articles or oral
language. For instance, in the field of art
industry, artists create their  masterpieces
through their own thought and convey their
feelings of some certain stuffs through
artifacts; nonetheless, distinctive appreciators
possess diverse comprehension of the art and
their thought will be not necessarily the same
as artists’ thought. This fact has a same effect
on acquisition. For example, when I prepared
for SAT, my teacher asked me to do some
reading section without dictionary. When I had
a problem understanding the word ‘wistful’,
the only thing I could do was to attempt to
figure out the meaning through contexts. After
reading between lines, I found that it could be
used when I tried to express feelings such as
reminiscence, sense of distance and
homesickness. Gradually, I knew how and
when to use ‘wistful’ in my articles and oral
language. Hence, acquisition is actually
another way to learn the brand new issues,
which is different from learning because
people ought to explore the answers by
themselves instead of receiving instruction
from others.

By contrast, based on the learning view, the
author basically indicates that traditions such
as understanding the meaning of passages,
writing brilliant texts and correcting language
forms play significant roles, either in reading
and writing or foreign language development.
However, if students focus on learning the
meaning in a passive manner instead of
acquiring by themselves, to some extent, they
won't have their unique understanding.To be
specific, when I learned English at school, we
had a vocabulary book and we had to
remember a list every day. After several
weeks, though my vocabulary increased, I still
did not know how and when to use them.
Indeed, remembering the meaning of
vocabulary assisted me to read essays, but it
had no practical use in some other ways, like
writing and speaking. On the other hand, if
everyone only concentrates on the meaning,
then there will always be only one explanation
for a sentence or a fiction. For instance, in
China, in order to guide students pass the
College Entrance Exam, teachers instill
students a notion that every question  has a
certain answer; under such situation, when
students take exams, their answers are
always like the same without any creation.
The example is the same as learning the
meaning of vocabulary, which will cause the
monotony of the understanding of articles.

In a nutshell, I would rather acquire than learn
knowledge, because based on convention,
innovation is increasingly essential in our
daily life. People pays more attention to make
meaning in different ways instead of decoding
in similar thought.