FROM THE META-PROCESS TO THE CONSCIOUS ACCESS

evidence from the metalinguistic data and from repair produced by children

Abstract

This work explores the possible relationship between the unconscious metaprocess and those that are available to the conscious access and to the verbalization. It is argued that the issue of conscious access should be conceptualized from a developmental perspective in order to be able to understand their role in human cognition. A theoretical framework is specified in the form of a recurrent pattern of three phases (differentiated stage models) with emphasis on the distinction between implicit and explicit representations defined representational progressive multiple processing levels, culminating in the possibility of conscious access. The role of conscious access as well as the positive and negative feedback are discussed in light of a distinction between models of developmental sequence and flow models of information processing in real time. It is emphasized a model of representational change based on the success as opposed to a model of behavioral change based on the failure. The data consist of a detailed comparison of metalinguistic and repair spontaneous responses of children. It is argued that metalinguistic awareness has little or no role in language acquisition macro developmental level, and a secondary role in language processing in real time, but verbally coded representations play a key role general macro development. The implications of the model are briefly examined in relation to the representational status of language fluently some children with low IQ and adult speakers fluent in a language not native. Is given due consideration to the fact that some aspects of language, but not others, are available to the conscious. This leads to speculation about the plausibility of considering modularity a product of some aspects of development rather than restrict it only to what is innate.