This book is a short but comprehensive introduction to the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). The same scope, perspective and design is retained in the second edition of this book.
KEY TERMS
CHAPTER PREVIEW
What is SLA?
Linguists emphasize the characteristics of differences and similarities in the languages they learn, and the language competence (basic knowledge) and language performance (actual production) of learners at different stages of acquisition. As in the fable about the elephant, three different perspectives are represented here: linguistic, psychological and social.
What is a second language?
I make no presumption that any one perspective among these is "correct" or more privileged, but I believe that all are necessary to provide a more complete understanding of the complex phenomena of SLA. A library language is a language that primarily serves as a tool for further learning through reading, especially when books or journals in a desired subject area are not commonly published with students.
What is a first language?
A foreign language is a language that is not commonly used in the learner's immediate social context and can be used for future travel or other cross-cultural communication situations, or can be studied as a curriculum requirement or elective in school, but without immediate or necessary practical application. An auxiliary language is one that students need to know for some official positions in their immediate political environment, or that they will need for wider communication, although their first language serves most of the other needs in their lives.
Diversity in learning and learners
Chapter summary
Activities
Most of us, especially in countries where English is the majority language, are not aware of the prevalence of multilingualism in today's world, nor the prevalence of learning a second language. We follow this by reviewing the theoretical frameworks and interests that have been most relevant to the study of SLA within each of the three perspectives.
The world of second languages
Linguistic information is often not officially collected
Census forms in many countries do not include questions about language background, probably because there is no particular interest in this information, because it is impractical to collect, or because it is considered to be of a sensitive nature. In cases where responses regarding language will essentially identify minority group members, sensitivity may be either personal or political: personal sensitivity may arise if identification may lead to undesirable individual, family and societal consequences; political sensitivities may be at play if the government does not want to recognize how many speakers of minority languages there are to downplay the political importance of a group, or to emphasize cultural/linguistic homogeneity and cohesion by not following cultural recognition. /linguistic diversity.
Answers to questions seeking linguistic information may not be reliable
Others may similarly overreport dominant language use because they feel it is the appropriate response to give official representatives, or to qualify for civic privileges, such as being allowed to vote. There may also be over-reporting of minority language use to gain more recognition, resources or services for the groups with which they identify.
There is lack of agreement on definition of terms and on criteria for identification
Linguists classify Creole as a separate language because its grammar and usage are quite distinct from French. For example, when teachers realize that native Haitian Creole speakers are really learning a second language to learn French, they are likely to use different teaching methods.
The nature of language learning
On average, children have mastered most of the distinctive sounds of their first language before they are three years old, and an awareness of basic discourse patterns such as conversational turns occurs at an even earlier age. Children master most of the basic L1 grammatical patterns before they are five or six, although complex grammatical patterns continue to develop throughout the school years.
The role of natural ability
Others have argued that children's language acquisition is intentional, that they develop language because of their urge to communicate their wants and needs with the people who care for them. Children's ability to create new utterances is remarkable, and their ability to recognize when a string of common words does not constitute a grammatical sentence in the language is even more so.
The role of social experience
This is because the rate can be influenced by individual factors, while the order is "primarily determined by the relative semantic and grammatical complexity of constructions" (Brown 1973:59). As long as children experience sufficient L1 input interaction from people around them, the rate and sequence of their phonological and grammatical development does not appear to vary systematically according to its source, although children's pronunciation is naturally influenced by the regional and social varieties or styles of the L1 they hear.
L1 versus L2 learning
Extension may play a role in developing children's ability to understand new forms, but it cannot be considered necessary since many children do not receive this type of input and still develop language at essentially the same rate. When young children's social experience includes people around them who use two or more languages, they have the same innate ability to learn both or all, along with the same ability to learn the language-specific features of each. without guidance.
Initial state
However, there is complete agreement that since L2 acquisition follows L1 acquisition, a major component of the initial condition for L2 learning must be prior knowledge of L1. Thus, the initial state of L1 learning consists solely of an innate capacity for language acquisition that may or may not be available to L2, or may only be available in certain limited ways.
Intermediate states
This prior knowledge of L1 is responsible for the transfer from L1 to T2 during second language development, which we will consider part of the second stage of L1 versus L2 learning. In contrast, the initial state for L2 learning has resources of L1 competence, world knowledge, and established skills for interaction, which can be both an advantage and a hindrance.
Final state
While children's L1 learning occurs without instruction, and while the rate of L1 development is not significantly affected by the correction of immature forms or the degree of motivation to speak, both the rate and the final level of L2 development may be facilitated or are inhibited by many social and individual factors. Identifying and explaining facilitating conditions essentially addresses the why-question of SLA: why some L2 learners are more successful than others.
The logical problem of language learning
Children’s knowledge of language goes beyond what could be learned from the input they receive
In addition, children hear only a limited subset of possible grammatical sentences, and yet they are able to abstract general principles and constraints that allow them to interpret and produce an infinite number of sentences that they have never heard before. Almost all L1 linguistic input to children is positive evidence or actual utterances from other speakers that the children are able to at least partially understand.
Constraints and principles cannot be learned
If general-purpose intelligence was sufficient to extract the principles of mental grammar, linguists (or psychologists or computer scientists), at least some of whom have more than sufficient general intelligence, would have discovered the principles long ago. The fact that we all still search and argue, while every normal child manages to extract the principles without help, suggests that the normal child uses something other than general-purpose intelligence.
Universal patterns of development cannot be explained by language-specific input
We also know that children do not learn language simply through imitation because they do not imitate adult language well when asked to do so. While this belief is probably true, it ignores the fact that many such children do not reach the same final state in each language.
Frameworks for SLA
The most influential cognitive model of learning that was applied to language acquisition at the time was behaviorism (Skinner 1957), which emphasized the notion of habit formation resulting from S-R-R: stimuli from the environment (such as linguistic input), responses. to those stimuli and reinforcement if responses result in some desired outcome. The intersection of these two models formed the disciplinary framework for the Audiolingual Method, an approach to language teaching that emphasized repetition and habit formation that was widely practiced in much of the world at least until the 1980s.
Linguistic
Some of them emphasize similarities and differences between the world's languages and relate them to order and relative learning difficulties; some emphasize acquisition largely as a process of mapping relationships between linguistic functions and forms, motivated by communicative need; and some highlight the resources learners have to structure information in L2 production and how this relates to acquisition. Functional framework approaches have dominated the European study of SLA and are widely followed elsewhere in the world.
Psychological
Connectionism is another cognitive framework for focusing on learning processes, beginning in the 1980s and becoming increasingly influential. The focus on student differences in SLA has been most concerned with the question of why some students are more successful than others.
Social
Lightbown and Spada present a very accessible overview of second language learning, with discussion of learning theories and factors influencing second language learning. Additionally, second language learning and teaching in the school setting is addressed, as are popular myths about language learning.
The nature of language
Yet the widespread occurrence in the world of high levels of multilingual competence testifies to the potential power and effectiveness of mechanisms for SLA. Nonverbal structures are often excluded from traditional linguistic analysis, but they are an important component of what is acquired in both L1 and L2.
Early approaches to SLA
Contrastive Analysis
The transfer is called positive (or facilitative) when the same structure is appropriate in both languages, as in the transfer of a Spanish plural morpheme -s on nouns to English (e.g. lenguaje s to language s. Lado gives examples of Spanish and English for some of the types of contrasts he describes, which I include in the accompanying box.
Error Analysis
Corder claimed that errors provide evidence of the language system a learner uses at any particular point in the course of L2 development, and of the strategies or procedures the learner uses in his "discovery of the language." In a sense, mistakes are windows into the language learner's mind. In the example I gave of the Korean L1 speaker making mistakes in a letter to me, the mistakes are not serious at all.
Interlanguage
Unlike L1 acquisition, there is also a high likelihood of fossilization for L2 learners—the likelihood that they will stop developing IL in some respects before reaching the norms of the target language, despite continued L2 input and the passage of time. The identification of fossilization or the cessation of IL development before reaching target language norms is even more controversial (although mainly for social and political rather than linguistic reasons).
Morpheme Order Studies
The concept of an IL as a system of learner language that is at least partially independent of L1 and L2 has been highly productive in the study of SLA. A claim was originally made that this evidence of similar morpheme order supports an Identity Hypothesis (or L1 = L2 ): that processes involved in L1 and L2 acquisition are the same.
Monitor Model
Development of L2 involves progression through a dynamic interlingual system that differs in significant ways from both T1 and T2. The development of both L1 and L2 generally follows predictable sequences, suggesting that L1 and L2 acquisition processes are similar in significant respects.
Universal Grammar
Why some students are more (or less) successful in SLA than others is largely related to the age of the student. One of the most important issues in a UG approach to the study of SLA has been whether this innate resource is still available to individuals who are acquiring additional languages beyond early childhood.
Principles and Parameters
Linguistic input goes into a "black box" in the mind, something happens, and the grammatical system of a particular language comes out.). This provides evidence that the Japanese parameter setting is head-final, because the verb ketta 'kicked' comes after booru-wo 'ball' in the VP.
UG and SLA
For example, knowing the noun foot in English means knowing how it is pronounced and what it refers to, that it is a noun and can function as the head of an NP, and that it has an irregular plural form; "Knowing" the verb chi 'to eat' in Chinese means knowing its pronunciation and meaning, that it is a verb and a VP head, and that it usually requires a direct object, often a "virtual object" fan (literally 'rice' '). While the question of why some learners are more successful than others is not relevant to basic L1 acquisition (since all children reach the native . "end state"), the question is very relevant to SLA.
Linguistic interfaces
Some learners may be more receptive than others to discrepancies between L2 input and existing L1 parameter settings. It follows that the learner must go through inflectional morphology to acquire meaning in the L2, so morphology is a bottleneck in acquisition.
Functional approaches
Despite the vastly increased focus on meaning, there are other issues in SLA that are still not or not satisfactorily addressed by a UG approach that essentially has an internal focus on the learner's mental organization.
Systemic Linguistics
- Nonverbal
- L2 formula or memorized routine
- Single L2 word
- L2 phrase or clause
- Complex L2 construction
Instrumental – language used as a means of getting things done (one of the first to be developed): the “I will” function. Regulatory – language used to regulate the behavior of others: the “do as I tell you” function.
Functional Typology
English sequences such as str eet [ str i:t] and fe nc e [fε nts ] are "marked" in this respect. Into is therefore "marked" as opposed to in because it is both structurally and conceptually more complex.
Function-to-form mapping
Instead, this work on linguistic universals indicates that the reason why some first language structures are transferred and others are not is related to the degree of markedness of the structures in the different ones. Certain factors that have been suggested are: perceptual salience, ease of cognitive processing, physical limitations (for example, the shape of the human vocal tract), and communicative needs (see Ramat 2003 for a collection of articles that consider all levels of linguistic analysis).
Information organization
Learners who continue interlanguage development beyond the IUO level then add grammatical morphemes to the verb (i.e., the verb becomes inflected or "finite"). In Japanese, the word order is subject-object-verb, so you would say "The man the child was talking to."
Languages and the brain
- How independent are the languages of multilingual speakers?
- How are multiple language structures organized in relation to one another in the brain? Are both
- Does the organization of the brain for L2 in relation to L1 differ with age of acquisition, how it is learned, or
- Do two or more languages show the same sort of loss or disruption after brain damage? When there is
Is there a specialized language capacity in the brain (as we read in the previous chapter), or are the same mechanisms involved in all learning? Still, there are a number of findings that shed increasing light on the representation and organization of multiple languages in the brain.
Learning processes
Research on this question also shows that not only can different languages be differentially affected by brain damage, but also different skills in the same language can be differentially affected: e.g. We can conclude that what is added in the brain when a second language is acquired is not much different from, and usually not entirely separate from, what is already there for the first language.
Information Processing (IP)
This is where learners move from controlled to automatic processing and where knowledge restructuring takes place. The later production of feet is evidence of the systemic restructuring that occurs when the common plural -s is added to the learner's grammar.
Theories regarding order of acquisition
Complexities include the type of instruction (eg, whether clear L1–L2 contrastive information on structure is presented) and the extent to which L1 knowledge can be applied. However, these complexities do not seem to invalidate the claims about order of purchase; even when students benefit from more advanced levels of instruction, they progress through the same developmental sequence.
Competition Model
The sign in English that horses is the subject in the sentence Horses eat hay is the word order - horses comes before the verb. In Japanese, for example, the case marker -ga attached to a noun phrase (unless another -ga occurred) would generally carry more weight in identifying that NP as the subject, regardless of where it occurred in the word order .
Connectionist approaches
The acquisition of appropriate form–function mappings is primarily based on the probability that a certain functional interpretation should be selected in the presence of a certain character. One counterargument is that some of the most common words in English (including the most common, ) appear relatively late and are among the last (if ever) to be mastered.
Complexity Theory
Regardless of one's theoretical perspective, however, frequency effects in SLA clearly deserve more attention than they have typically received since repetition drills fell out of fashion in language teaching. In a further departure from earlier more linguistic and psychological perspectives, descriptions and explanations of the dynamic processes of language change and development must take into account the variable effects of communicative functions and opportunities, the structural relations of L1 and L2, the intentions and actions of students and others, and a host of other internal and external factors.
Differences in learners
Some of the benefits reported for younger and older students are listed in Table 4.3. In the earlier part of this chapter on languages and the brain, we noted that there is a critical period for acquiring a first language: children have only a limited number of years during which normal acquisition is possible.
Aptitude
Most of the research on the relationship between learner gender and SLA has been concerned with cognitive style or learning strategies or questions about the variety of L2 being acquired or opportunities for input and interaction (social factors to be discussed in Chapter 5. There appear to be some gender differences in language acquisition and processing, but the research evidence is mixed.
Motivation
The findings that proficiency is an important predictor of differential success in L2 learning apply to both naturalistic contexts and formal classroom learning. L2 learning by a member of the dominant group in a society may benefit more from integrative motivation, and L2 learning by a member of the subordinate group may be more influenced by instrumental motivation.
Cognitive style
Cognitive style is also closely related to and interacts with personality factors and learning strategies, which will be discussed below. Another dimension that is sometimes considered a matter of cognitive style is sensory preference for processing input: visual, auditory, kinesthetic (movement oriented) or tactile (touch oriented).
Personality
Still other criticisms relate to the lack of attention to differences in cultural backgrounds, previous educational experiences, possibilities for change over time and stages of language learning. Little research has been done on other personality factors in relation to differences in L2 outcomes, but there is some evidence that being imaginative or creative, empathetic, and tolerant of ambiguity is beneficial.
Learning strategies
Age can have an influence on learning strategies; for example, children tend to use more repetition while adults use more synthesis. As with other correlational research, it is difficult to establish causality, or even directionality: for example, "good learners" may approach language tasks more actively because they are more proficient (not more proficient because they are more active), or because they are more selfconfident.
The effects of multilingualism
We have seen that the physical representation of the second language in the brain is not very different from the first, but there are differences in the organization of the brain related to how proficient people are in the L2 and how they learned it. Considering second language acquisition, a system of interrelated linguistic components and stages of the learner's language, combines linguistic, social, and psychological considerations of language acquisition.
Communicative competence
L2 learning can be part of second culture learning and adaptation, but the relationship of SLA to social and cultural learning varies greatly with circumstances. Communicative competence in a SL therefore often requires considerable knowledge of the larger community's culture and social structure, although learners can be selective in deciding which elements they want to adopt as part of their own identity.
Microsocial factors
An L is taught in a context where it will function for political or technological purposes and where its use will generally be limited to these social domains; to the extent that an AL is required at all for face-to-face interaction, it is likely to be used in linguistically diverse settings that require participants to use a common language code for a limited range of social functions. Examples might include the use of English by a Thai speaker for international trade, an Igbo speaker in Nigeria for political meetings at the national level, or a Chinese speaker for pan-Asian economic conferences.
Variation in learner language
In the examples given above, for example, the phonological variable [ŋ] in comin' is more likely to be used before a word beginning with a back consonant or before a pause, and the variable [n] in comin' is more probably before a front consonant. He hypothesizes that the nature of variability changes during the process of L2 development in the following stages:.
Input and interaction
Some of the oral modifications may make learning easier, but all L1 and many L2 learners can succeed without them. Members of the Chinese delegation reported that they had learned English through language laboratory exercises (especially translations of political slogans) and BBC broadcasts, and that they had not engaged in interaction in English until their (then) current trip to the USA.
Computer interaction
Questions with NSs' rising intonation that repeat part or all of the NNS's statement ("echoing" questions) often indicate that the statement was incorrect. Furthermore, this perspective addresses the evidence for universal sequencing in L2 learning in a limited way.
Interaction as the genesis of language
While inner speech is not necessarily linked to the surface forms of any specific language, private speech is almost always verbalized in L1 and/or L2. Private speech by these children provides good evidence that even when they were not interacting with others, they were not merely passively assimilating L2 input; they used intrapersonal interaction in an active process of engagement with the input they heard, and practiced to build their competence.
Acquisition without interaction; interaction without acquisition
I had accepted a last-minute opportunity to teach English there and arrived in the country with no prior knowledge of Chinese. In this event, English-speaking Michael (also four years old) approached a playhouse in the nursery yard and correctly interpreted Gege's repeated utterance in Chinese as a command to come inside, which he refused.
Macrosocial factors
Although neither child understood what the other was saying in this exchange, they successfully agreed to enter the social event, which then resulted in several minutes of continuous cooperative play. A strategy shared by Chinese- and English-speaking four-year-olds in this exchange was likely to be the use/interpretation of paraphrase as a “softening” effect.
Global and national status of L1 and L2
Great efforts were made to teach Hebrew as a L2 to all immigrants, and there were social sanctions against the use of Yiddish or other languages that might compete with Hebrew for ethnic identification or religious functions. Where knowledge of a particular language has few visible economic or social benefits, there will be little motivation to learn it as an L2.
Boundaries and identities
The function of unification is illustrated by the official use of Hebrew in Israel and English in Nigeria as part of the process of establishing these nation-states. When artificially created national borders cross language areas (as is the case for most former colonial territories or the American Southwest), social and political tensions can lead to discrimination against minority language speakers and to forced instruction in the dominant language.
Institutional forces and constraints
Although the acquisition of an L2 has been treated neutrally or positively as an additive gain from linguistic and psychological perspectives, from a social perspective it can be problematic for several reasons. Acquiring technical knowledge through an L2 may also render the learner unable to express this knowledge in his or her L1.
Social categories
Therefore, this is another level to consider in the macro-social context of SLA. Wallace Lambert's diverse education and experience explain his success as a researcher in the complex and sensitive field of bilingualism and biculturality.
Circumstances of learning
The author argues that face-to-face interaction is not necessarily necessary for second language acquisition. Along with some former students, Ellis reports on the role of interaction in second language learning.
Competence and use
This prior knowledge partly explains the advantages that older L2 learners, such as university students, usually have over children in expressing and understanding the information content of L2 writing and speaking, in perceiving the intent of the writer/speaker and in fulfilling interactional and instrumental communication goals. It also partly explains the interference that can occur when prior knowledge of content, context and culture (as well as L1 language elements) is inappropriately applied to situations of L2 use.
Academic vs. interpersonal competence
The knowledge that an L2 learner begins with includes everything that he or she has previously acquired as part of his or her general cognitive development and previous social experiences, as well as in his or her acquisition of L1. We focus here in particular on what knowledge of language is required for different types of language use, how activities in L2 reading, listening, writing and speaking are achieved and why students reach different levels of language use.
Priorities for L2 use
As with academic competence, vocabulary is the most important level of language knowledge for these students to acquire, although the areas of vocabulary involved are likely to be very different. Depending on the situation, the level of language to be used can be formal or informal.
Components of language knowledge
As shown in Table 6.2, the four language activity areas listed in Table 6.1 can be classified according to two dimensions: as receptive versus productive and as conveyed by written versus oral forms of communication. Such corpus-linguistic analysis can be especially useful in determining the relative frequency of different vocabulary items and grammatical patterns as a basis for deciding what to teach for specific purposes.
Vocabulary
On the other hand, 'everyday' vocabulary and expressions will most likely be very different in unrelated languages, as they are rarely borrowed. Regional differences are probably greatest at the informal level of interaction, and least at the more formal and academic level.
Morphology
L2 speakers may never acquire complete knowledge of some words that nevertheless become part of their productive repertoire. Grammatical accuracy in many languages requires knowledge of parts of speech that have meanings such as tense, aspect and number (called inflectional morphology or inflections), for example in English kick ed, com ing and book s.
Phonology
The following aspects of the sound systems are likely to differ for L1 and L2 (see Chapter 3. Especially in the early stages of acquisition, L2 learners are likely to perceive L2 pronunciation in terms of L1 phonemic categories which have already been established .
Syntax
Modern English has lost this flexibility, as the invariable form of de no longer reflects the noun's function in the sentence. Note, however, that word order in Old English was not entirely free, as the position of the article could not be interchanged with the noun.
Nonverbal structures
Because many of the grammatical structures common to interpersonal communication differ from those found in written academic texts, even developing significant fluency for everyday interactive purposes does not guarantee that a learner will acquire the syntactic knowledge necessary for advanced literacy, which will be perfect. requires academic qualification. In addition to very basic common structures, the syntactic knowledge required for any domain requires extensive input specific to the intended context of use.
Discourse
An example of cultural differences in the organizational pattern of this academic genre is that a Chinese scholar is likely to omit reviewing related research, whether written in Chinese L1 or English L2 (Taylor and Chen 1991. Comparative research on interaction genre with specific focus on such factors can be found in the domain of Intercultural Communication (see e.g. Scollon and Scollon 2001.
Receptive activities
The development of the ability to properly use elements of L2 discourse resembles the development of other elements of interlanguage. Bottom-up processing requires prior knowledge of the language system (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, phonology, syntax, nonverbal structures, and discourse structure) and interpretation of physical (graphic and auditory) cues.
Reading
Grabe (1991) reviews research on academic reading fluency in terms of six component skills and types of knowledge involved in the activity. The content knowledge that is applied in top-down processing of texts is not for the most part language specific.
Listening
In addition, academic listening often requires the ability to process the pronunciation of speakers of different native and non-native language varieties, which can be particularly challenging for L2 learners. It often takes several weeks for even advanced L2 learners to understand all the input they need in lectures and other oral events if they have not had extensive listening experience recently; the recordings allow the recovery of information that might otherwise be lost and the recontextualization of key vocabulary that has been recorded for later definition or elaboration.
Productive activities
Academic listening requires much of the same L2 language knowledge listed above for academic reading: a large recognition vocabulary of both basic and subject-specific terms; complex sentence structure; and organizational features at the sentence and discourse levels that distinguish new from old information and highlight important content. As with reading, developing advanced academic listening skills requires extensive exposure to oral, academic text.
Writing
It seems likely that pushing the limits of linguistic knowledge in written production contributes to SLA by stimulating syntactic development. Effective academic writing requires considerable knowledge of linguistic elements at the levels of vocabulary, morphology and syntax, mechanics of.
Speaking
Two-way communication requires students to listen as well as speak and cooperate in negotiating meaning. Communicative competence in the second language includes knowledge of linguistic elements as well as the knowledge necessary for correct use of L2 in different contexts.
Integrating perspectives
What exactly does the L2 learner come to know?
Pragmatic competence, or the knowledge of how to interpret and convey meaning in the context of social interaction. Communicative competence: all of the above as well as the social and cultural knowledge necessary for the appropriate use and interpretation of L2 forms.
How does the learner acquire L2 knowledge?
Why are some learners more successful than others?
We can conclude that ability is an important predictor of differential success in L2 learning, but it is not completely deterministic. Any answer to this question must be considered within the disciplinary framework in which it is posed.
Approaching near-native competence
