Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period
second language acquisition简介
★1. SLA (Second language acquisition) is the process by which a language other than the mother tongue is learnt in a natural setting or in a classroom.★2. Acquisition vs. Learning (Krashen1982)Acquisition refers to the learning of a language unconsciously under natural settings where learners pay attention only to the meanings or contents rather than forms or grammars.Learning refers to the learning of a language consciously under educational settings where learners mainly pay attention to forms or grammars.3. The study of second language acquisition is a branch of applied linguistics.It mainly deals with how the second language is acquired. The process not only involves linguistics but also a great many subjects including linguistic physiology, psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive science and so on.4. Factors affecting SLASocial factors (external factors)Learner factors (internal factors)Social factors (external factors)Social contextLanguage policy and the attitude of the public sector;Social demandWith the trend of globalization of the world economy , it is widely accepted among educators and national leaders that proficiency in another language is an indispensable quality of educated peopleLearner factors (internal factors)MotivationAgeLearning strategy5. Through observations and experiments they have found that children all undergo certain stages of language development.Babbling stage (articulating certain speech sounds)(6 -12)One word or Holophrastic stage (using single words to represent various meanings)（12-18 months)Two –word stage (18-20 months)Telegraphic speech stage (using phrase and sentences composed of only content words.)(2-3 years )。
Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition and the Critical PeriodHypothesisBirdsong, David (Ed.) (1999)Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum AssociatesIs there a single key issue in the field of second language acquisition / learning, an as yet unresolved matter on which all else depends? A good case could be made for the question of whether or not there is a critical period for second language learning being just such a key issue. In other words, does the nature of second language acquisition change if the first exposure to the new language comes after a certain age? This question is closely linked to the question of whether first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) acquisition are essentially the same process, or very similar processes, and if so whether this is the case for some learners, or for all. In practical terms, it could be central not only to such issues as the optimal age at which children should start learning foreign languages, but also to the best teaching/learning approach for adults. Krashen's Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1985) is totally undermined if a critical period does indeed exist, since the hypothesis assumes not only that L2 acquisition is similar in nature to L1 acquisition, but also that this is the case for learners of any age. Alhough many would claim that Krashen's theoriesare seriously flawed in any case, their influence in the field of second language teaching can hardly be denied. Issues such as the relative importance of lexis and syntax in teaching materials must ultimately link back to the way in which second language knowledge is organised in the brain. If that organisation is different in learners who have first been exposed to L2 after a certain age, then this has a bearing on choice of teaching approach. Yes, I believe there is a strong prima facie case for regarding the debate over the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) as a central issue.The concept of a critical period is well known in nature. One example is imprinting in ducks and geese, where it is claimed that ducklings and goslings can be induced to adopt chickens, people, or even mechanical objects as their mothers if they encounter them within a certain short period after hatching. (Note, however, that the exact nature of even this apparently well-documented instance of a critical period is now coming under fire; see Hoffmann, 1996). In humans, on the basis of extant evidence, it seems that there is a critical period for first language acquisition; those unfortunate persons who are not exposed to any language before puberty seem unable to properly acquire the syntax of their first language later in life. (Inevitably, our knowledge in this area is sketchy and unreliable, being based solely on a very few cases, of whichthat of "Genie" is the most celebrated and best known; see Eubank and Gregg's article in Birdsong for a discussion.) [-1-]Provided that a person learns a first language in the way, the question is then whether there is a certain biologically-determined critical period during which that person can acquire further languages using one mental mechanism, probably resulting in a high level of achievement if learning continues, and after which the learning process for new languages changes, so that the learning outcome will not be as good. Note that we are not talking here about the commonly-observed and widely-accepted generalisation that learning gets harder as one gets older; nor is the question one of whether changes in attitudes or situation alter the learning process as one gets older. The issue is whether a fundamental change in the learning process and thus in potential learning outcomes related to second languages occurs in the brain at a fairly fixed age, closing a biological "window of opportunity" (although as Birdsong points out in his introduction to this book, there is no single formulation of the Critical Period Hypothesis, but a number of different versions of the theory).This book contributes to the debate by juxtaposing a number of papers which consider the CPH from a variety of points of view, and which arrive at a variety of conclusions. Most of the papers in the book are based on talks given at an AILA symposium on the CPH which tookplace in Finland in 1996. It must have been quite a conference; the names of the contributors to this book make up a Who's Who of researchers in fields related to the CPH issue, and the diversity of the opinions held by the contributors must have made for some sharp exchanges. The book contains research papers by both proponents and opponents of a CPH for SLA, thus drawing the reader into the controversy.What you get in the book is what you might expect from the above description. First, it must be said that it is a fairly tough read. Some of the writers are easier to follow than others, but these are research papers, and anyone unfamiliar with the fields covered--and there is a considerable range of fields--is likely to have to work quite hard at some of the texts at least. Second, there is no overall conclusion, even though the editor does have his own clearly-expressed view. This is not because of differences in the interpretation of data; it is because the various writers operate in different areas of research, each casting a different light on the central issue. These varied areas of research produce conclusions which point in different directions, and because of the lack of common ground on which to debate, the differences cannot easily be resolved. Third, there is an unevenness about the book. Some writers report on tentative conclusions from ongoing research; others simply reproduce material on completed projects which can be found in almost identical form elsewhere. The relevance of the research presented to the central issue also varies. Thesepoints might be regarded as drawbacks. But the compensation comes in having so much relevant and fairly up-to-date material on the issue collected together in one volume, providing insights into current knowledge and thinking from a variety of angles.In his introduction, Birdsong briefly surveys the background to the debate, outlining some of the arguments previously advanced for and against the existence of a critical period. He is particularly well suited to this task, having "changed sides" on the issue in the early 1990s. After the background section, Birdsong goes on to present a careful summary of each of the chapters in the book. While admitting his adherence to the "anti-CPH" camp, he makes no attempt to resolve the evidence presented in the various chapters, and concludes that in total the contributions to the book demonstrate "the richness, depth and breadth of the critical period enquiry" and that they "testify to the unmistakable centrality of the CPH in L2A research" (p. 18). The introduction is clearly written, and since it contains so much summarising material it can stand as a valuable survey of the field in itself. However, some of the chapters in the book do not lend themselves to brief summaries (the chapter by Eubank and Gregg, for example, is far too broad in scope) and thus reading the introduction is no substitute for reading the entire book. [-2-]There are three chapters providing evidence for the existence of an SLA critical period. First, Weber-Fox and Neville take a frontal approach to the issue with an investigation of neural activity while performing L2 tasks in subjects whose first exposure to L2 was at different ages. Their paper has the rather daunting title of "Functional Neural Subsystems Are Differentially Affected by Delays in Second Language Immersion: ERP and Behavioural Evidence in Bilinguals." The findings do not point to the existence of a single critica l period; the patterns of change vary for different language tasks. The authors claim, fairly circumspectly, that "our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the development of at least some neural subsystems for language processing is constrained by maturational changes, even in early childhood. Additionally, our results are compatible, at least in part, with aspects of Lenneberg's . . . original hypothesis that puberty may mark a significant point in language learning capacity and neural reorganization capabilities" (pp. 35-36). Eubank and Gregg, in a wide-ranging paper entitled "Critical Periods and (Second) Language Acquisition: Divide et Impera," recognise the importance of neurological investigation in their consideration of whether second language learners retain access to Universal Grammar, and find Weber-Fox and Neville's line of research a promising one. Sandwiched between these two chapters comes a paper by Hurford and Kirby which takes a very different approach to the problem. The writers' argument isan evolutionary one; they produce computer models to suggest that a critical period for language acquisition finishing at puberty inevitably evolves in order to produce maximum language learning by the time a reproductive age is reached. However, their argument appears predicated on the assumption that the level of an individual's language knowledge governs the likelihood of his or her being able to reproduce. Alas, it has never been my personal experience that linguistic ability provides a crucial advantage in the competition for sexual partners, and I do not find myself convinced in any great measure by this application of the currently fashionable evolutionary approach to exploring the nature of the human mind.Then come three chapters arguing against the existence of a critical period. James Flege provides research evidence to show that level of achievement in pronunciation is closely related to age of first exposure to the second language. He claims that, even for children, the later in life the first exposure to L2, the greater the degree of foreign accent, with no sudden discontinuity in the figures at a certain age to suggest that a critical [-3-] period has ended, a window of opportunity suddenly closed. Other hypotheses, he claims, can be advanced to explain the linear nature of the relationship between age of first exposure and L2 pronunciation, notably that pronunciation of L2 varies as a function of how well one pronounces L1. Theo Bongaerts takes a very different approach in hispaper, which again focusses on pronunciation; his view is that people who begin learning L2 later in life can sometimes achieve native-like pronunciation. If such learners do indeed exist, and Bongaerts presents evidence to suggest that they do, then there can be no biological window of learning opportunity that closes at a fixed age; instead, there must be other explanations for the lack of success.。
二语习得SecondLanguageAcquisition资料讲解
eg. watashiwa Nihonjin desu
第二语言习得的调查以参数的重新设定为主。例如说日语的人学英语就得重新设 定’中心参数’,使之从‘中心词为后’,调整至’中心词为先’。 79xx
Second Language Acquisition
UG principle The principle of structure-dependency（结构依存关系）which states
Second Language Acquisition
Implicit learning is coming to learn the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operations. Explicit learning is a more conscious operation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses.
二语习得Second Language Acquisition教学内容
explicit knowledge
L2 Input
noticed input
ห้องสมุดไป่ตู้
comprehended input
intake
implicit knowledge
L2 output
Second Language Acquisition
Noticing In order for some feature of language to be acquired, it is
Second Language Acquisition
Implicit learning is coming to learn the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operations. Explicit learning is a more conscious operation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses.
《英语语言学导论》(第四版Chapter11 Second Language Acquisition
11.2.2 Learner’s factors
• Learner’s factors mainly cover the following aspects:
• Motivation • Language aptitude • Age • Learning strategy
11.2.1 Social factors
Discussing Task
Group work: Have a discussion on the following questions.
1. How does (second) language acquisition take place?
2. How is foreign language learning different from second language acquisition?
The Symbolic Function of Words
Teaching Aims
1. To know what SLA is, and how the theories account for SLA. 2. To understand different factors affecting SLA 3. To know how learner’s language is analyzed 4. To cultivate students’ research awareness and innovative spirit in discovering and solving problems by analyzing the different kinds of errors and individual differeneces in SLA.
最新二语习得Second Language Acquisition教学提纲
Theoretical i of
how language is represented in the mind and whether there
is a difference between the way language is acquired and
75
Second Language Acquisition
1. The Grammar-Translation Method (structuralism) 2. The Audio-Lingual Method (听说法) (structuralism, behaviorism s-r) 3. Communicative Language Teaching （交际法语言教学） (cognitive science, linguistic competent, communicative competent) 4. Content-based, Task-based Approaches （学科性方法）
Second Language Acquisition
Implicit learning is coming to learn the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operations. Explicit learning is a more conscious operation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses.
英语语言学名词解释补充
Chapter 11 : Second Language Acquisition1. second language acquisition:It refers to the systematic study of how one person acquires a second language subsequent to his native language.2. target language: The language to be acquired by the second language learner.3. second language:A second language is a language which is not a native language in a country but which is widely used as a medium of communication and which is usually used alongside another language or languages.4. foreign language:A foreign language is a language which is taught asa school subject but which is not used as a medium of instruction in schools nor as a language of communication within a country.5. interlanguage: A type of language produced by second and foreign language learners, who are in the process of learning a language, and this type of language usually contains wrong expressions.6. fossilization: In second or foreign language learning, there is a process which sometimes occurs in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks or writes a language.7. contrastive analysis: a method of analyzing languages for instructional purposes whereby a native language and target language are compared with a view to establishing points of difference likely to cause difficulties for learners.8. contrastive analysis hypothesis: A hypothesis in second language acquisition. It predicts that where there are similarities between the first and second languages, the learner will acquire second language structure with ease, where there are differences, the learner will have difficulty.9. positive transfer:It refers to the transfer that occur when both the native language and the target language have the same form, thus making learning easier. (06F)10. negative transfer:the mistaken transfer of features of one’s native language into a second language.11. error analysis: the study and analysis of errors made by second and foreign language learners in order to identify causes of errors or common difficulties in language learning.12. interlingual error:errors, which mainly result from cross-linguistic interference at different levels such as phonological, lexical, grammatical etc.13. intralingual error:Errors, which mainly result from faulty or partial learning of the target language, independent of the native language. The typical examples are overgeneralization and cross-association.14. overgeneralization:The use of previously available strategies in new situations, in which they are unacceptable.15. cross-association: some words are similar in meaning as well as spelling and pronunciation. This internal interference is called cross-association.16. error: the production of incorrect forms in speech or writing by a non-native speaker of a second language, due to his incomplete knowledge of the rules of that target language.17. mistake:mistakes, defined as either intentionally or unintentionally deviant forms and self-corrigible, suggest failure in performance.18. input: language which a learner hears or receives and from which he or she can learn.19. intake: the input which is actually helpful for the learner.20. Input Hypothesis:A hypothesis proposed by Krashen , which states that in second language learning, it’s necessary for the learner to understand input language which contains linguistic items that are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence. Eventually the ability to produce language is said to emerge naturally without being taught directly.21. acquisition: Acquisition is a process similar to the way children acquire their first language. It is a subconscious process without minute learning of grammatical rules. Learners are hardly aware of their learning but they are using language to communicate. It is also called implicit learning, informal learning or natural learning.22. learning: learning is a conscious learning of second languageknowledge by learning the rules and talking about the rules.23. comprehensible input:Input language which contains linguistic itemsthat are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence.(06F)24. language aptitude: the natural ability to learn a language, notincluding intelligence, motivation, interest, etc.25. motivation:motivation is defined as the learner’s attitudes andaffective state or learning drive.26. instrumental motivation: the motivation that people learn a foreignlanguage for instrumental goals such as passing exams, or furthering acareer etc. (06C)27. integrative motivation:the drive that people learn a foreign languagebecause of the wish to identify with the target culture. (06C/ 05)28. resultative motivation: the drive that learners learn a secondlanguage for external purposes. (06F)29. intrinsic motivation: the drive that learners learn the secondlanguage for enjoyment or pleasure from learning.30. learning strategies:learning strategies are learners’ consciousgoal-oriented and problem-solving based efforts to achieve learningefficiency.31. cognitive strategies: strategies involved in analyzing, synthesis,and internalizing what has been learned. (07C/ 06F)32. metacognitive strategies:the techniques in planning, monitoring andev aluating one’s learning.33. affect/ social strategies: the strategies dealing with the wayslearners interact or communicate with other speakers, native ornon-native.Chapter 12 : Language And Brain1. neurolinguistics: It is the study of relationship between brain andlanguage. It includes research into how the structure of the braininfluences language learning, how and in which parts of the brain language is stored, and how damage to the brain affects the ability to use language.2. psycholinguistics: the study of language processing. It is concerned with the processes of language acqisition, comprehension and production.3. brain lateralization: The localization of cognitive and perceptive functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain.4. dichotic listening:A technique in which stimuli either linguistic or non-linguistic are presented through headphones to the left and right ear to determine the lateralization of cognitive function.5. right ear advantage: The phenomenon that the right ear shows an advantage for the perception of linguistic signals id known as the right ear advantage.6. split brain studies: The experiments that investigate the effects of surgically severing the corpus callosum on cognition are called as split brain studies.7. aphasia: It refers to a number of acquired language disorders due to the cerebral lesions caused by a tumor, an accident and so on.8. non-fluent aphasia:Damage to parts of the brain in front of the central sulcus is called non-fluent aphasia.9. fluent aphasia: Damage to parts of the left cortex behind the central sulcus results in a type of aphasia called fluent aphasia.10. Acquired dyslexia: Damage in and around the angular gyrus of the parietal lobe often causes the impairment of reading and writing ability, which is referred to as acquired dyslexia.11. phonological dyslexia:it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems to have lost the ability to use spelling-to-sound rules.12. surface dyslexia: it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems unable to recognize words as whole but must process all words through a set of spelling-to-sound rules.13. spoonerism:a slip of tongue in which the position of sounds, syllables, or words is reversed, for example, Let’s have chish and fips instend of Let’s have fish and chips.14. priming: the process that before the participants make a decision whether the string of letters is a word or not, they are presented with an activated word.15. frequency effect: Subjects take less time to make judgement on frequently used words than to judge less commonly used words . This phenomenon is called frequency effect.16. lexical decision: an experiment that let participants judge whethera string of letter is a word or not at a certain time.17. the priming experiment:An experiment that let subjects judge whethera string of letters is a word or not after showed with a stimulus word, called prime.18. priming effect:Since the mental representation is activated through the prime, when the target is presented, response time is shorter that it otherwise would have been. This is called the priming effect. (06F)19. bottom-up processing: an approach that makes use principally of information which is already present in the data.20. top-down processing:an approach that makes use of previous knowledge and experience of the readers in analyzing and processing information which is received.21. garden path sentences: a sentence in which the comprehender assumesa particular meaning of a word or phrase but discovers later that the assumption was incorrect, forcing the comprehender to backtrack and reinterpret the sentence.22. slip of the tongue:mistakes in speech which provide psycholinguistic evidence for the way we formulate words and phrases.（注：可编辑下载，若有不当之处，请指正，谢谢!）。
Main Theories of Second Language Acquisition and Their Implications
Main Theories of Second Language Acquisition and TheirImplicationsAbstract: Language learning and language teaching are vital to everyone’s daily life.What is the best way to learn a second language? D. Brown’s Principles of Language Learning and Teaching is one of books to work on it. This paper tries to review the main theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and to explore their implications for us. Key Words: Second Language Acquisition; Theory; Implication1. IntroductionLanguage is the center of human life. It is one of the most important ways of expressing our love or our hatred to people; it is vital to achieve many of our goals and our careers; it is a source of artistic satisfaction or simple pleasure. Some people are able to use more than one language. Knowing another language may mean: getting a job, a chance to get educated, the expression of one’s opinion and affective gains. It affects people’s careers and possible future and their lives. In a word, with the globalization of the world, language learning and language teaching are vital to everyone’s daily life.What is the best way to learn a second language? This question arouses many a study in the field of English Curriculum and Instruction research. Many books, articles experiments and theories have been spawned from it, D. Brown’s Principles of Language Learning and Teaching is one ofthem.Although there seem to be some neatly-packaged programs in society which claim to help anyone learn English quickly, effectively and with little work, there are no quick and easy ways. Because learning a new language is complex and multifaceted, the process is equally fascinating and miraculous .This paper tries to review the main theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and to explore their implications for us.2. The Nature and Goal of SLASLA research began to be recognized as an independent disciple during the 1970s, SLA studies how a second language is learned and used. It is a scientific discipline that tries co describe how people learn and use another language. Therefore, SLA is a study of second and foreign language learning in natural and classroom settings, with a focus on the underlying competence of second language knowledge through their performances that show their knowledge of L2 rules.SLA is a multidisciplinary field of study. Second language learning process is cognitive, social, psychological as well as linguistic. As Brown put it, “ Second language learning is not a set of easy steps that can be programmed in a quick do-it-yourself kit”. The complexity of second language learning is partially due to the multidisciplinary nature of SLA. It draws theories and ideas from related disciplines for its own construct,such as linguistics, psychology, sociology and even neurolinguistics. SLA aims to describe and explain what happens when someone learns and uses a second language. It constitutes the how and why about second language learning. The goal of SLA can be simply and clearly stated as the description and explanation of L2 learning. It describes what L2 learner language looks like. Also, it explains how the language development is brought about and how the internal and external factors contribute to the mastery of a second language.SLA helps teachers understand the learning process better. SLA, with the description and explanation of L2 learning directly serves the teaching practice. It provides learners’perspectives on, and insight into, the processes of teaching and learning a second language. It enables teachers to reflect critically on the methodological procedures, adjust to the learners' condition and subsequently, create and construct a facilitative classroom atmosphere to promote SLA. Though the knowledge of SLA cannot give you a definite warrant for teaching success, the fruitful teaching practice comes about only when it is in harmony with the integrated understanding of the learning process and learner.3. Models of SLA3.1 An Innatist Model: Krashen’s Input HypothesisIn recent years the “Input Hypothesis”has come to identify what is really a set of five interrelated hypotheses. These fivehypotheses are summarized below.The Acquisition-learning Hypothesis. Krashen claimed thatadult second language learners have two means for internalizing the target language.The first is “acquisition”, a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the system of a language, not unlike the process used by a child to “pick up” a language. The second means is a conscious “leaming” process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process. According to Krashen, “fluency in second language performance is due to what we have acquired, not what we have learned”. Adults should, therefore, do as much acquiring as possible in order to achieve communicative fluency; otherwise, they will get bogged down in rule learning and too much conscious attention to the forms of language and to watching their own progress.The Monitor Hypothesis. The “monitor” is involved in learning, not in acquisition. It is a device for “watchdogging” one’s output, for editing and making alterations or corrections as they are consciously perceived. Only once fluency is established should an optimal amount of monitoring,or editing, be employed by the learner.The Natural Order Hypothesis. Krashen has claimed that we acquire language rules in a predictable or “natural” order.The Input Hypothesis. The Input Hypothesis claims that animportant “condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understand input language that contains structure “a bit beyond”his current level of competence.... If an acquirer is at stage or level i, the input he or she understands should contain i +1”.The Affective Filter Hypothesis. Krashen has further claimed that the best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent, or, in Krashen's terms, in contexts where the “affective filter” is low.3.2 Cognitive Models3.2.1 McLaughlin’s Attention-processing ModelMcLaughlin’s Attention-processing Model juxtaposes processing mechanisms and categories of attention to form four cells.Controlled processes are “capacity limited and temporary”, and automatic processes are a relatively permanent. We can think of controlled processing as typical of anyone leaming a brand new skill in which only a very few elements of the skill can be retained.Automatic processes, on the other hand, refer to processing in a more accomplished skill, where the “hard drive”of your brain can manage hundreds and thousands of bits of information simultaneously The automatizing of this multiplicity of data isaccomplished by a process of restructuring in which “the components of a task are coordinated, integrated, or reorganized into new units, therebyallowing the ... Old components to be replaced by a more efficient procedure”.Both ends of this continuum of processing can occur with either focal or peripheral attention to the task at hand; that is, focusing attention either centrally or simply on the periphery. It is easy to fall into the temptation of thinking of focal attention as “conscious” attention, but such a pit-fall must be avoided. Both focal and peripheral attention to some task may be quite conscious. When you are driving a car, for example, your focal attention may center on cars directly in front of you as you move forward; but your peripheral attention to cars beside you and behind you, to potential hazards, and of course to the other thoughts “running through your mind”, is all very much within your conscious awareness.3.2.2 Implicit and Explicit ModelsIn the explicit category are the facts that a person knows about language and the ability to articulate those facts in some way. Explicit processing differs from McLaughlin’s focal attention in that explicit signals one’s knowledge about language. Implicit knowledge is information that is automatically and spontaneously used in language tasks. Children implicitly learn phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic rules for language, but do not have access to an explanation, explicitly, of those rules. Implicit processes enable a learner to perform language but not necessarily to cite rules governing the performance.3.3 A Social Constructivist Model: Long’s Interaction HypothesisOne of the most widely discussed social constructivist positions in the field emerged from the work of Michael Long. Taking up where in a sense Krashen left off, Long posits, in what has come to be called the interaction hypothesis, that comprehensible input is the result of modified interaction. The latter is defined as the various modifications hat native speakers and other interlocutors create in order to render their input comprehensible to learners.In Long’s view, interaction and input are two major players in the process of acquisition. In a radical departure from an old paradigm in which second language classrooms might have been seen as contexts for “practicing”grammatical structures and other language forms, conversation and other interactive communication are, according to Long, the basis for the development of linguistic rules.Long’s Interaction Hypothesis has pushed pedagogical research on SIA into a new frontier. It centers us on the language classroom not just as a place where learners of varying abilities and styles and backgrounds mingle, but as a place where the contexts for interaction are carefully designed. It focuses materials and curriculum developers on creating the optimal environments and tasks for input and interaction such that the learner will be stimulated to create his or her own learner language in a socially constructed process. Further , it reminds us that the manyvariables at work in an interactive classroom should prime teachers to expect the unexpected and to anticipate the novel creations of learners engaged in the process of discovery.4. Implication of SLA’s TheorySLA theories are developed on the basis of the study of the processes and rules SLA. Although they cannot be applied directly to solve the problems of foreign language teaching and learning, they provide insight and guidance for English teaching.According to Krashen's SLA theory, comprehensible input is the key to language acquisition. That is to say, during the course of second language or foreign language learning, a learner develops from his present level i to “i +W by means of understanding an input of “i十l” which is a little bit beyond his level. Therefore how to provide the learner with comprehensible language input is a vital problem of foreign language teaching. Considering the present English language teaching in China, we should make great effort on the quantity of comprehensible language input in order to improve the efficiency of foreign language learning. English is taught as a foreign language in our country. In most cases, learners have very little opportunity to acquire English. They learn English mainly in class, therefore classroom instruction is a very important channel to provide students with comprehensible language input. In traditional English classes with the teacher as the center,intensive reading is much more stressed than extensive reading. The teacher greatly emphasizes the explanation, understanding and practice of language rules but neglects students’reception and usage of language rules, which has resulted in the fact that students have little comprehensible input in class. This kind of classroom instruction hinders the improvement of students’language competence. In order to let the students receive more comprehensible language input, we must create as many chances as possible for them to use English in real communication, such as teaching in English, i.e. Using English to explain language rules and teaching materials and organize class activities; let students communicate with each other in English.Taking part in English activities after class is also an applicable means of receiving comprehensible input that should not be neglected in foreign language teaching and leaming. Students may talk in English in “English Corners”, visit foreign teachers and talk with them, or see English films. Thus they can receive more comprehensible language input and improve their language acquisition.However, traditional language classes over-emphasize the role of teacher’s instruction, and consider foreign language leaming as obtaining “knowledge” instead of acquiring a “skill”. Teachers do most of the job in classes, giving students little opportunity to practice. As a result, after learning English for several years, students still can not make effectivecommunication in English, though they may have learned a lot of linguistic knowledge. Practice has proved that this kind of classroom environment is very unfavorable to the cultivation and development of learners’ competence of using English in communication.According to SLA theories, an ideal classroom environment should be like this: it provides students with more conditions and chances to use the target language directly; it “immerses” students in the environment of the target language, and stimulates students to take part in the communicative activities where they solve problems and fulfill tasks.5.Conclusion:We can’t deny that something about SLA’s theories are not suitable for our teachers and students, but we must admit that they contribute greatly to English Teaching and Learning in our country. However, we still have a long road to progress.Reference:[1] Brown,H,Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching[M].London: Person Education Company.[2] 姜玫. Krashen二语习得理论带给英语教学的启示与思考[J]. 外语教学与研究，2009(23):71.[3] 王慧颖. 外语教学法与二语习得理论的互动关系[J].贵州师范学院学报，2010(4):55.。
Secondlanguageacquisition
Second language acquisitionSecond language acquisition or second language learning is the process by which people learn a . Second language acquisition (often capitalized as Second Language Acquisition or abbreviated to SLA) is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's ; although the concept is named second language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth or subsequent languages. Second language acquisition refers to what learners do; it does notrefer to practices in .The academic discipline of second language acquisition is a sub-discipline of . It is broad-based and relatively new. As well as the various branches of , second language acquisition is also closelyrelated to , , and . To separate the academic discipline from the learning process itself, the terms second language acquisition research, second language studies, and second language acquisition studies are also used. SLA research began as an field, and because of this it is difficult to identify a precise starting date. However, it does appear to have developed a great deal since the mid-1960s. The term acquisition was originally used to emphasize the subconscious nature of the learning process, but in recent years learning and acquisition have becomelargely synonymous.Second language acquisition can incorporate , but it does not usually incorporate . Most SLA researchers see bilingualism as being the end result of learning a language, not the process itself, and see the termas referring to native-like fluency. Writers in fields such as education and psychology, however, often use bilingualism loosely to refer to all forms of . Second language acquisition is also not to be contrasted with the acquisition of a ; rather, the learning of second languages and the learning of foreign languages involve the same fundamental processes in different situations.Comparisons with first language acquisitionPeople who learn a second language differ from children in a number of ways. Perhaps the most striking of these is that very few adult second language learners reach the same competence as native speakers of that language. Children learning a second language are more likely to achieve native-like fluency than adults, but in general it is very rare for someone speaking a second language to pass completely for a native speaker. When a learner's speech plateaus in this way it is known as .In addition, some errors that second language learners make in their speech originate in their first language. For example, speakers learning may say "Is raining" rather than "It is raining", leaving out the of the sentence. speakers learning English, however, do not usually make the same mistake. This is because sentence subjects can be left out in Spanish, but not in French. This influence of the first language on the second is known as .Also, when people learn a second language, the way they speak theirfirst language changes in subtle ways. These changes can be with any aspect of language, from pronunciation and syntax to gestures the learner makes and the things they tend to notice. For example, Frenchspeakers who spoke English as a second language pronounced the /t/ sound in French differently from monolingual French speakers. When shown afish tank, Chinese speakers of English tend to remember more fish and fewer plants than Chinese monolinguals. This effect of the second language on the first led to propose the idea of , which sees the different languages a person speaks not as separate systems, but as related systems in their mind.Learner languageLearner language is the written or spoken language produced by a learner. It is also the main type of data used in second language acquisition research. Much research in second language acquisition is concerned with the internal representations of a language in the mind of the learner, and in how those representations change over time. It is not yetpossible to inspect these representations directly with brain scans or similar techniques, so SLA researchers are forced to make inferences about these rules from learners' speech or writing.Item and system learningThere are two types of learning that second language learners engage in. The first is , or the learning of formulaic chunks of language. These chunks can be individual words, set phrases, or formulas like Can I have a ___? The second kind of learning is , or the learning of systematic rules.InterlanguageOriginally attempts to describe learner language were based on and on . However, these approaches weren't able to predict all the errors that learners made when in the process of learning a second language. For example, Serbo-Croat speakers learning English may say "What does Pat doing now?", although this is not a valid sentence in either language.To explain these kind of systematic errors, the idea of the interlanguage was developed. An interlanguage is an emerging language system in the mind of a second language learner. A learner's interlanguage is not a deficient version of the language being learned filled with random errors, nor is it a language purely based on errors introduced from the learner's first language. Rather, it is a languagein its own right, with its own systematic rules. It is possible to view most aspects of language from an interlanguage perspective,including , , , and .There are three different processes that influence the creation of interlanguages:. Learners fall back on their mother tongue to help create theirlanguage system. This is now recognized not as a mistake, but as a process that all learners go through.Overgeneralization. Learners use rules from the second language ina way that native speakers would not. For example, a learner maysay "I goed home", overgeneralizing the English rule of adding -ed to create past tense verb forms.Simplification. Learners use a highly simplified form of language, similar to speech by children or in . This may be related to .The concept of interlanguage has become very widespread in SLA research, and is often a basic assumption made by researchers.Sequences of acquisitionIn the 1970s there were several studies that investigated the order in which learners acquired different grammatical structures. These studies showed that there was little change in this order among learners withdifferent first languages. Furthermore, it showed that the order was the same for adults as well as children, and that it did not even change if the learner had language lessons. This proved that there were factors other than language transfer involved in learning second languages, and was a strong confirmation of the concept of interlanguage.However, the studies did not find that the orders were exactly the same. Although there were remarkable similarities in the order in which all learners learned second language grammar, there were still some differences among individuals and among learners with different first languages. It is also difficult to tell when exactly a grammatical structure has been learned, as learners may use structures correctly in some situations but not in others. Thus it is more accurate to speak of sequences of acquisition, where particular grammatical features in a language have a fixed sequence of development, but the overall order of acquisition is less rigid.Process of acquisitionThere has been much debate about exactly how language is learned, and many issues are still unresolved. There have been many theories of second language acquisition that have been proposed, but none has been accepted as an overarching theory by all SLA researchers. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of second language acquisition, this is not expected to happen in the foreseeable future. However, there are various principles of second language acquisition that are agreed on by most researchers.Input, output, and interactionThe primary factor affecting language acquisition appears to be the input that the learner receives. took a very strong position on the importance of input, asserting that is all that is necessary for second language acquisition. Krashen pointed to studies showing that the length of time a person stays in a foreign country is closely linked with his level of language acquisition. Further evidence for input comes from studies on reading: large amounts of free voluntary reading have a significant positive effect on learners' vocabulary, grammar, and writing. Input is also the mechanism by which people learn languages according to the model.The type of input may also be important. One tenet of Krashen's theoryis that input should not be grammatically sequenced. He claims that such sequencing, as found in language classrooms where lessons involve practicing a "structure of the day", is not necessary, and may even be harmful.While input is of vital importance, Krashen's assertion that only input matters in second language acquisition has been contradicted by more recent research. For example, students enrolled in programs in still produced non-native-like grammar when they spoke, even though they had years of meaning-focused lessons and their listening skills were statistically native-level. Output appears to play an important role, and among other things, can help provide learners with feedback, make them concentrate on the form of what they are saying, and help them to automatize their language knowledge. These processes have been codified in the theory of .Researchers have also pointed to interaction in the second language as being important for acquisition. According to Long's the conditions for acquisition are especially good when interacting in the second language; specifically, conditions are good when a breakdown in communication occurs and learners must negotiate for meaning. The modifications to speech arising from interactions like this help make input more comprehensible, provide feedback to the learner, and push learners to modify their speech.Form and meaningThe meaning of things being communicated is more important for second language acquisition than their form. There is a general agreement among researchers that learners must be engaged in decoding and encoding messages in the second language for the conditions to be right for second language learning. Learners must also be engaged in creating pragmatic meaning in order to develop fluency.Some sort of does appear to be necessary for second language acquisition, however. Some advanced language structures may not be fully acquired without the opportunity for repeated practice. Schmidt's states that conscious attention to specific language forms is necessary for a learner's interlanguage to develop. This attention does not have to be in the form of conscious grammar rules, however; the attention is on how each specific form affects the meaning of what is being said.Conscious and subconscious knowledgeDeveloping subconscious knowledge of the second language is more important than developing conscious knowledge. While conscious language knowledge is important for many aspects of second language acquisition, developing subconscious knowledge is vital for fluency. The knowledgethat people use when they are speaking a language is mostly subconscious. It appears that learners can use conscious knowledge in speech if they have time and they are focused on form, but if these conditions are not met then they will fall back on subconscious knowledge. However, if learners have time to plan their speech, grammatical accuracy can improve.It is not certain exactly how subconscious language knowledge is developed in the mind. According to , subconscious language knowledge is gained by practicing language until it becomes automatic. However, according to emergentist theories subconscious knowledge develops naturally from input and communication. The nature of the between conscious and subconscious language knowledge in the brain is also not clear; that is, it is not clear how conscious knowledge can develop into subconscious knowledge. It appears that conscious knowledge and subconscious knowledge are not completely separate, and practice at various aspects of language can lead to language knowledge becoming subconscious. However, studies have found that the two types of knowledge are stored differently in the brain, and this has led to the idea that conscious knowledge merely primes language acquisition processes rather than being directly involved. Both of these issues are still under debate.Language processingThe way learners process sentences in their second language is also important for language acquisition. According to MacWhinney's , learners can only concentrate on so many things at a time, and so they mustfilter out some aspects of language when they listen to a second language. Learning a language is seen as finding the right weighting for each of the different factors that learners can process.Similarly, according to , the sequence of acquisition can be explained by learners getting better at processing sentences in the second language. As learners increase their mental capacity to process sentences, mental resources are freed up. Learners can use these newly freed-up resources to concentrate on more advanced features of the input they receive. One such feature is the movement of words. For example, in English, questions are formed by moving the or the question word to the start of the sentence (John is nice becomes Is John nice?) This kind of movement is too brain-intensive for beginners to process; learners must automatize their processing of static language structures before they can process movementIndividual variationThere is considerable variation in the rate at which people learn second languages, and in the language level that they ultimately reach. Some learners learn quickly and reach a near-native level of competence, but others learn slowly and at relatively early stages of acquisition, despite living in the country where the language is spoken for several years. The reason for this disparity was first addressed with the study of in the 1950s, and later with the in the 1970s. More recentlyresearch has focused on a number of different factors that affect individuals' language learning, in particular strategy use, social and societal influences, personality, motivation, and anxiety. The relationship between age and the ability to learn languages has also been a subject of long-standing debate.The issue of age was first addressed with the . The strict version ofthis hypothesis states that there is a cut-off age at about 12, after which learners lose the ability to fully learn a language. This strict version has since been rejected for second language acquisition, asadult learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, adult learnersof a second language rarely achieve the native-like fluency thatchildren display, despite often progressing faster in the initial stages. This has led to speculation that age is indirectly related to other, more central factors that affect language learning.There has been considerable attention paid to the strategies which learners use when learning a second language. Strategies have been found to be of critical importance, so much so that strategic competence has been suggested as a major component of . Strategies are commonly divided into and , although there are other ways of categorizing them. Learning strategies are techniques used to improve learning, such as or using a . Communicative strategies are strategies a learner uses to convey meaning even when she doesn't have access to the correct form, such as usinglike thing, or using non-verbal means such as .Affective factorsThe learner's attitude to the learning process has also been identified as being critically important to second language acquisition. Anxiety in language-learning situations has been almost unanimously shown to be detrimental to successful learning. A related factor, personality, has also received attention, with studies showing that are better language learners than .Social attitudes such as gender roles and community views toward language learning have also proven critical. Language learning can be severely hampered by cultural attitudes, with a frequently cited example being the difficulty of children in learning English. Also, the of the individual learner is of vital importance to the success of language learning. Studies have consistently shown that intrinsic motivation, or a genuine interest in the language itself, is more effective over the long-term than extrinsic motivation, as in learning a language for a reward such as high grades or praise.In the classroomWhile the majority of SLA research has been devoted to language learning in a natural setting, there have also been efforts made to investigate second language acquisition in the classroom. This kind of research has a significant overlap with , but it is always , based on and , and it is mainly concerned with the effect that instruction has on the learner, rather than what the teacher does.The research has been wide-ranging. There have been attempts made to systematically measure the effectiveness of language teaching practices for every level of language, from phonetics to pragmatics, and foralmost every current teaching methodology. This research has indicated that many traditional language-teaching techniques are extremely inefficient. It is generally agreed that pedagogy restricted to teaching grammar rules and vocabulary lists does not give students the ability to use the L2 with accuracy and fluency. Rather, to become proficient in the second language, the learner must be given opportunities to use it for communicative purposes.Another area of research has been on the effects of corrective feedback in assisting has been shown to vary depending on the technique used to make the correction, and the overall focus of the classroom, whether on formal accuracy or on communication of meaningful content. There is also considerable interest in supplementing published research with approaches that engage language teachers in action research on learner language in their own classrooms. As teachers become aware of the features of learner language produced by their students, they can refine their pedagogical intervention to maximize interlanguage development。
the second language acqusition第二语言习得复习资料
1.Definition of Second language acquisition:It refers to a systematic study of how one person acquires a second language subsequent to his native language.Acquisition习得: 无意识地学会Learning学习：通过系统学习语法规律等学会2.Interlanguage 中介语Selinker (1972) coined the term “interlanguage” to refer to the systematic knowledge of an L2 which is independent of both these learners’ L1 and the target language. The term has come to be used with different but related meanings: (1) to refer to the series of interlocking systems which characterize acquisition. (2) to refer to the system that is observed at a single stage of development. (“interlanguage”), and (3) to refer to particular L1/L2 combination (for example,L1 French/ L2 English v. L1 Japanese/L2 English). Other terms that refer to the same basic idea are “approximative system” and “transitional competence”.定义：中介语：中介语理论假设第二语言学习者有一个自行创造的独特的语言系统，介乎学习者的母语和目的语之间，并随学习的进展逐渐向目的语靠拢。
Second Language Acquisition
Conclusion
It is already clear that decontextualized pronunciation instroduction is not enough and that a combination of instruction, exposure, experience, and motivation is required if learners are to change their way of speaking.
Questions for reflection
What aspects of learners' interlanguage are
most likely to affect their ability to use language effectively outside the classroom?
Second Language Acquisition
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Vocabulary Pragmatics
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phonology
Vocabulary
Introduction
In 1980, Paul Meara characterized vocabulary learning
as a 'neglected aspect of language learning'. Researchers in
learn them after a single exposure. Such as 'nation' and 'dictionary', are cognates.(words that come from the same
二语习得Second Language Acquisition资料
86xx p15
Second Language Acquisition
Noticing is of considerable theoretical importance because it accounts for which features in the input are attended to and so become intake. For noticed input to become intake, learners have to carry out a comparison of what they have observed in the input and what they themselves are typically producing on the basis of their current interlanguage system. This is a conscious process, referred to as ‘noticing the gap’.
is a difference between the way language is acquired and
nds of information are
acquired and processed.
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Second Language Acquisition
(任务性方法)
(cognitive science, functional view of language, comprehensible input, output, motivation…)
75+1
Second Language Acquisition
Gass 's framework for investigating L2 acquisition
——Second Language Acquisition全书
ContentsPrefaceSECTION ISurveyI Introduction: describing and explainingL2 acquisitionWhat is 'second language acquisition'?What are the goals of SLA?Two case studiesMethodological issuesIssues in the description of learner language Issues in the explanation of L2 acquisition2 The nature of learner languageErrors and error analysisDevelopmental patternsVariability in learner languageSummary3 InterianguageBehaviourist learning theoryA mentalist theory of language learnihgWhat is 'interlanguage'?A computational model of L2 acquisition4 Social aspects of interianguageInterlanguage as a stylistic continuumThe acculturation model of L2 acquisitionSocial identity and investment in L2 learningi Discourse aspects of interlanguageAcquiring discourse rules 43The role of input and interaction in L2 acquisition 44 The role of output in L2 acquisition 49Summary 5~Psycholinguistic aspects of interlanguageL1 transfer 5 tThe role of consciousness in L2 acquisition 54 Processing operations 57Communication strategies 60Two types of computational model 6 ir Unguistic aspects of interlanguageTypological universals: relative clauses 63 Universal Grammar 65Learnability - '66The critical period hypothesis 67Access to UG 69Markedness 7oCognitiye versus linguisnc explanations 7Individual differences in L2 acquisitionLanguage aptitude 73Motivation 75Learning strategies 769 Instruction and L2 acquisitionForm-focused instrucuon 79Learner-instruction matching 86Strategy training 8 ?Summary 870 Conclusion: multiple perspectives in SLA 89SECTION 2.Readings 9SECTION 3References x z 3SECTION _4 . 'Glossary [37PrefacePurposeWhat justification might there be for a series of introductions to language study? After all, linguistics is already well served with introductory texts: expositions and explanations which are com- prehensive and authoritative and excellent in their way.Generally speaking, however, their way is the essentially acade- mic one of providing a detailed initiation into the discipline of lin- guistics, and they tend to be lengthy and technical: appropriately so, given their purpose. But they can be quite daunting' to the novice. There is als0 a need for a more general and gradual intro- duction to language: transitional texts which will ease people intoan understanding of complex ideas This series of introductions is designed to serve this need.Their purpose, therefore, is not to supplant but to support themore academically Oriented introductions to linguistics: toprepare the conceptual ground. They are based On the belief thatit is an advantage to have a broad map of the terrain sketched out before one considers its more specific features on a smaller scale, a general context in reference to which the detail makes sense. It is sometimes the case that students are introduced to detail withoutit being made clear what it is a detail of. Clearly, a general under- standing of ideas is not sufficient: there needs to be closerscrutiny~ But equally, close scrutiny can be myopic and meaning- less Unless it is related to the larger view. Indeed, it can be said that the prec0ndition of more particular enquiry is an awareness ofwhat, in general, the particulars are aboutl This series is designed to provide this large-scale View of different areas of languagestudy. As such it can serve as a preliminary to (and precondition for) the more specific and specialized enquiry which students of linguistics are required to undertake.But the series is not only intended to be helpful to such stu- dents. There are many people who take an interest in language without being academically engaged in linguistics per se. Such people may recognize the importance of understanding language for their own lines of enquiry, or for their own practical purposes,or quite simply for making them aware of something whichfigures so centrally in their everyday lives. If linguistics has reveal- ing and relevant things to say about language, then this should presumably not be a privileged revelation, but one accessible to people other than linguists. These books have been so designed as to accommodate these broader interests too: they are meant to be introductions to language more generally as well as to linguisticsas a discipline.DesignThe books in the series are all cut to the same basic pattern. There are four parts: Survey, Readings, References, and Glossary. SurveyThis is a summary overview of the main features of the area of language study concerned: its scope and principles of enquiry, its basic concerns and key concepts. These are expressed and explained in ways which are intended to make them as accessible as possible to people who have no prior knowledge or expertise in the subject. The Survey is written to be readable and is uncluttered by the customary scholarly references. In this sense, it is simple. But it is not simplistic. Lack of specialist expertise does not imply an inability to understand or evaluate ideas. Ignorance meanslack of knowledge, not lack of intelligence. The Survey, therefore,is meant to be challenging. It draws a map of the subject area in such a way as to stimulate thought, and to invite a critical parti- cipation in the exploration of ideas. This kind of conceptual cartography has its dangers of course: the selection of what is significant, and the manner of its representation will not be to the liking of everybody, particularly not, perhaps, to some of those inside the discipline. But these surveys are written in the beliefthat there must be an alternative to a technical account on the one hand and an idiot's guide on the other if linguistics is to be made relevant to people in the wider world.ReadingsSome people will be content to read, and perhaps re-read, the summary Survey. Others will want to pursue the subject and sowill use the Survey as the preliminary for more detailed study. The Readings provide the necessary transition. For here the reader is presented with texts extracted from the specialist literature. The purpose of these readings is quite different from the Survey. It isto get readers to focus on the specifics of what is said and how it is said in these source texts. Questions are provided to further this purpose: they are designed to direct attention to points in each text, how they compare across texts, and how they deal with the issues discussed in the survey. The idea is to give readers an initial familiarity with the more specialist idiom of the linguistics liter- ature, where the issues might not be so readily accessible, and to encourage them into close critical reading.ReferencesOne way of moving into more detailed study is through the Readings. Another is through the annotated References in thethird section of each book. Here there is a selection of works (books and articles) for further reading. Accompanying com-ments indicate how these deal in more detail with the issues dis- cussed in the different chapters of the survey.GlossaryCertain terms in the Survey appear in bold. These are terms usedin a special or technical sense in the discipline. Their meanings are made clear in the discussion, but they are also explained in the Glossary at the end of each book. The Glossary is cross- referenced to the Survey, and therefore serves at the same time as an index. This enables readers to locate the term and what it signifies in the more general discussion, thereby, in effect, usingthe Survey as a summary work of reference.UseThe series has been designed so as to be flexible in use. Each title is separate and self-contained, with only the basic format in common. The four sections of the format, as described here, canbe drawn upon and combined in different ways, as required bythe needs, or interests, of different readers. Some may be content with ~he Survey and the Glossary and may not want to follow upthe suggested references. Some may not wish to venture into the Readings. Again, the Survey might be considered as appropriate preliminary reading for a course in applied linguistics or teacher education, and the Readings more appropriate for seminar dis- cussion during the course. In short, the notion of an introductionwill mean different things to different people, but in all cases theconcern is to provide access to specialist knowledge and stimu!ate an awareness of its significance. This series as a whole has been designed to provide this access and promote this awareness in respect to different areas of language study.H.G.WIDDOWSONSECTION ISurvey1Introduction: describing andexplaining L2 acquisitionWhat is 'second language acquisition'?The systematic study of how people acquire a second language (often referred to as an L2) is a fairly recent phenomenon, belong- ing to the second half of the twentieth century. Its emergence atthis time is perhaps no accident. This has been a time of the'global village' and the 'World Wide Web', when communication between people has expanded way beyond their local speech communities. As never before, people have had to learn a second language, not just as a pleasing pastime, but often as a means of obtaining an education or securing employment. At such a time, there is an obvious need to discover more about how second lan- guages are learned.At first sight, the meaning of the term 'second language acquisi- tion' seems transparent but, in fact, it requires careful explana- tion. For one thing, in this context 'second' can refer to any language that is learned subsequent to the mother tongue. Thus, it can refer to the learning of a third or fourth language. Also, 'sec- ond' is not intended to contrast with 'foreign'. Whether you are learning a language naturally as a result of living in a country where it is spoken, or learning it in a classroom through instruc- tion, it is customary to speak generically of 'second' language acquisition.'L2 acquisition', then, can be defined as the way in which peo-ple learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or out- side of a classroom, and 'Second Language Acquisition' (SLA) as the study of thisWhat are the goals of SLA?Imagine that you are an SLA researcher, interested in finding out how learners acquire an L2. How would you set about doing it? One way might be simply to ask learners who have been success- ful in learning a second language how they did it. This approach has been used and .has provided some valuable insights. It is, how-ever, somewhat limited in that learners are probably not aware ofor cannot remember the actual learning processes they engaged in. A better approach might be to find out what learners actually do, as opposed to what they think they do. when they try to learnan L2. One way of doing this is by collecting samples of learner language---the language that learners produce when they are called on to use an L2 in speech or writing--and analyse them carefully. These samples provide evidence of what the learners know about the language they are trying to learn (the target lan- guage). If samples are collected at different points in time it may also be possible to find out how learners' knowledge gradually develops. What we might seek to do, then, ~s to describe how learner language changes over time.But what exactly should you look for in samples of learner lan- guage? You may decide to focus on how learners' overall abilityto communicate develops, how they become more fluent in their use of an L2. In general, however. SLA has not focused on these communicative aspects of language development but on the for- mal features of language that linguists have traditionally concen- trated on. One example might be the pronunciation of an L2; how learners' accents change over time. Another might be the words learners use; how learners build up their vocabulary. Most often, however, the focus has been the grammar of the L2. Researchers select a specific grammatical structure, such as plurals or relative clauses, and explore how learners' ability to produce this struc-ture develops over time.One of the goals of SLA, then, is the description of L2 acquisi- tion. Another is explanation; identifying the external and internal factors that account for why learners acquire an L2 in the waythey do.One of the external factors is the social milieu in which learning takes place. Social conditions influence the opportunities that learners have to hear and speak the language and the attitudes that they develop towards it. For example, it is one thing to learna language when you respect and are respected by native speakers of that language. It is entirely different when you experience hos- tility from native speakers or when you wish to distance yourself from them.Another external factor is the input that learners receive, that is,the samples of language to which a learner is exposed. Language learning cannot occur without some input. A question of consid- erable interest is what type of input facilitates learning. For exam- ple, do learners benefit more from input that has been simplifiedfor them or from the authentic language of native-speaker com-munication ?L2 acquisition can be explained in part by these external fac-tors but we also need to consider internal factors. Learners pos- sess cognitive mechanisms which enable them to extract information about the L2 from the input--to notice, for example, that plurality in English is conveyed by adding an -s to a noun or that the relative pronouns 'who' and 'which' substitute respec- tively for human and non-human nouns.L2 learners bring an enormous amount of knowledge to thetask of learning an L2. For a start, they have already learned a lan- guage (their mother tongue) and we can expect them to draw on this when they learn an L2. They also possess general knowledge about the world which they can draw on to help them understand L2 input. Finally, learners possess communication strategies that can help them make effective use of their L2 knowledge. For example, even if they have not learned the word 'art gallery' they may be able to communicate the idea of it by inventing their own term (for example, 'picture place').It is also possible that learners are equipped with knowledge of how language in general works and that this helps them to learn a particular language. Let us consider a grammatical example. Learners of L2 English faced with the sentenceJoan wanted Mary to help herself.may be able to rule out automatically the possibility that the reflexive pronoun 'herself' refers to 'Joan' rather than 'Mary' because they 'know' how such reflexive pronouns work in language in general. According to this view, there are inbuilt con- straints on what is grammatically possible in language in general and knowing these makes the task of learning a particular L2 much easier.A final set of internal factors explain why learners vary in therate they learn an L2 and how successful they ultimately are. For example, it has been suggested that people vary in their language aptitude {i.e. their natural disposition for learning an L2), some finding it easier than others.The goals of SLA, then, are to describe how L2 acquisition pro- ceeds and to explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others. To illustrate more specifically how SLA researchers have set about trying to achieve these goals we will now examine two case studies of L2 learners.Two case studiesA case study is a detailed study of a learner's acquisition of an L2. It is typically longitudinal, involving the collection of samples ofthe learner's speech or writing over a period of time, sometimesyears. The two case studies which we will now examine were both longitudinal. One is of an adult learner learning English in sur- roundings where it serves as a means of daily communication and the other of two children learning English in a classroom.A case study of an adult learnerWes was a thirty-three year-old artist, a native speaker of Japanese. He had had little formal instruction in English, havingleft school at fifteen. While he remained in Japan his contacts with native speakers were few and far between. It was only when he began to visit Hawaii, in connection with his work, that he had regular opportunities to use English. Wes, then, is an example of a 'naturalistic' learner--someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it.Richard Schmidt, a researcher at the University of Hawaii,studied Wes's language development over a three-year period from the time he first started visiting Hawaii until he eventuallytook up residence there. Schmidt asked Wes to make recordingsin English when he went on trips back to Tokyo. He then made written transcriptions of these monologues, which lasted between one and three hours. In addition, Schmidt made recordings and transcriptions of informal conversations between Wes andfriends in Honolulu.Among other things, Schmidt was interested in how Wes's knowledge of English grammar developed over the three years.To this end he focused on a small number of grammatical fea- tures, such as the use of auxiliary be, plural -s (for example,'spoons'), third person -s {for example, 'comes'), and regular past tense {for example, 'jumped'). He looked to see how accurately Wes used these features in his speech at a time near the beginning of his study and at a time near the end.What might constitute evidence that Wes was acquiring the grammar of English? Strong evidence would be if Schmidt could show that Wes had learned to use the grammatical features with the same level of accuracy as native speakers of English. In fact, Wes could already use some of the features with native-like ac- curacy at the beginning of his study. However, Schmidt sus- pected that Wes had not really acquired these. For example, although Wes did succeed in using progressive -lng when it was required, as in:All day I'm sitting table.he also supplied it in sentences when it was not required:So yesterday I didn't painting.Furthermore, there were very few verbs which Wes used inboth the simple form (for example, 'paint') and the progressiveform (for example, 'painting'). He generally used each verb with just one of these forms. Clearly, Wes did not have the same knowledge of progressive -lng as a native speaker.In fact, Wes had little or no knowledge at the beginning of the study of most of the grammatical structures Schmidt investigated. Moreover, he was still far short of native-speaker accuracy three years later. For example, he continued to omit -s from plural nouns, rarely put -s on the third person singular of verbs, and never used the regular past tense.It would be wrong, however, to think of Wes as a completefailure as a language learner. Although he did not learn much grammar, he did develop in other ways. For example, a general feature of Wes's use of English was his use of formulas fixed expressions such as 'Hi! How's it?', 'So, what's new?', 'Whaddya want?', and 'I dunno why'. Schmidt noted that Wes was adept at identifying these fixed phrases and that he practised them con- sciously. They helped him develop fluency in using English. In fact, Wes achieved considerable success as a communicator. He became quite a skilled conversationalist, very effective at negoti- ating complex business deals in English and even able to give talks about his paintings in English. He was also highly skilled at repairing communication breakdowns.A case study of two child learnersWhereas Schmidt studied an adult learner in naturalistic sur- roundings, I investigated two child learners in a classroom con- text. Both Were almost complete beginners in English at the beginning of the study. J was a ten-year-old Portuguese boy, liter- ate in his native language. He was an adventurous and confident learner, willing to struggle to communicate in English, even when he had very limited resources. R was an eleven-year-old boy from Pakistan, speaking (but unable to write) Punjabi as his native lan- guage. Initially, he lacked confidence, using his native language extensively and relying on his elder sister to help him communi- cate in English. Gradually, however, he became more confident and independent.Both learners were learning English in a language unit in London. The unit catered exclusively for L2 learners who had recently arrived in Britain. The goal was to prepare students for transfer to local secondary schools. J spent almost four school terms in the unit (about twelve months}. R spent two wholeschool years in the unit and, in fact, was still there when the study ended. The instruction the two learners received was very mixed. It involved both formal language instruction (i.e. attempts toteach the learners specific language items and rules} and moreinformal instruction (i.e. attempts to get the students to use English communicatively}. Initially, at least, the twotearners had little exposure to the target language outside the classroom.The focus of my Study was requests. I wanted to find out howthe two learners acquired the ability to perform requests for services and goods over the period of study. Requests can be performed in a variety of ways in English, for example:Give me your pencil.Can I have your pencil?Would you mind giving me your pencil?They can be relatively simple, as in the above examples, or they can be quite complex, as when the speaker offers a reason for making the request:My pencil's broken. Would you mind giwng me yours?Because English was the medium of commumcation m these learners' classrooms there were numerous opportunities fo~ them to hear and to perform requests. I collected samples of the two learners' requests by visiting their classrooms regularly and writ- ing down any requests they produced.When 1 analysed J's and R's requests. I found clear evidence of development taking place. Moreover. the two learners appearedto develop in much the same way. Initially, their requests were verbless. For example, when ] needed a cut out of a big circle in a mathematics lesson he said:Big circle.while, in a different lesson, R just pointed at a piece of card to let the teacher know that he wanted him to put a staple in it, saying: Sir.A little later, both learners began to use imperative verbs in their requests:Give me.Give me a paper.Some time after this, they learned to use 'Can I have ?':Can I have one yellow book, please?The next stage of their development of requests was marked by a general extension of the linguistic devices they used. For example, R made use of 'want' statements:Miss, I want. (R wanted the teacher to give him the stapler./J used 'got':You gora rubber?Occasionally, both learners used hints instead of direct requests. For example, when J wanted the teacher to give him a differentcoloured piece of paper he said:This paper is not very good to colour blue.Finally, the learners began to use 'can' with a range of different verbs (i.e. not just with 'have'):Can you pass me my pencil?A number of points emerge from this. One is that both learners were capable of successfully performing simple requests even when they knew very little English. Another is both learners man- ifested development in their ability to perform requests over the period of study. In particular, they acquired alternative ways of performing them. A third point is that many of their requests seemed formulaic in nature. That is, they used fixed expressions like 'Can I have a __?' or 'Have you got a __?' A fourth pointis that both learners progressed in much the same way despite the fact that they had different native languages.By the end of the stndy, therefore, the two learners' ability touse requests had grown considerably. However, it was equally clear that this ability was limited in a number of respects. Their requests tended to be very direct (i.e. they mostly took the form of commands with an imperative verb) throughout, whereas native speakers would tend to use more indirect requests (for example, they make requests by asking questions or giving hints). The learners' requests were generally very simple. They rarely modi- fied a request and, if they did so, relied more or less exclusively or; the one modifier 'please'. Also, whereas native speakers ofEnglish vary the way they perform a request with different addressees to ensure politeness, the two learners used the same range of request strategies irrespective of whether they were talk- ing to the teacher or other students. In short, despite ample opportunity to master requests, the two learners were still farshort of native-like competence at the end of the study.What do these case studies show us? First, they raise a numberof important methodological issues relating to how L2 acquisition should be studied. Second, they raise issues relating to the descrip- tion of learner language. Third, they point to some of the problems researchers experience in trying to explain L2 acquisition. Methodological issuesOne issue has to do with what it is that needs to be described. Schmidt was concerned broadly with how Wes developed the ability to communicate in an L2, examining his grammatical development, his ability to use English in situationally appropri-ate ways, and how he learned to hold successful conversations.My goal was narrower; I was concerned with how J and R acquired the ability to perform a single language function(requests). In this respect, my study is more typical of SLA. Language is such a complex phenomenon that researchers have generally preferred to focus on some specific aspect rather than on the whole of it.Another issue concerns what it means to say that a learner has'acquired' a feature of the target language. Schmidt, like many other researchers, defines 'acquisition' in terms of whether the learner manifests patterns of language use that are more or less the same as native speakers'of the target language. It might be argued, however, that this conflates what learners know withwhat they can do. For example, Wes might be said to know howto make plurals even though he does not always add an -s to a plural noun.There is another problem in determining whether learners have'acquired' a particular feature. Both Schmidt and I point out thatthe learners made considerable use of fixed expressions or formu- las. Learners may manifest target-like use of a feature in a formula without having acquired the ability to use the feature produc- tively. For example, both J and R acquired the pattern 'Can I have a __?' early on, but it took them some time to use 'can' in other kinds of sentences. Is it possible to say they had acquired 'can' if they could only use it in one fixed expression? Most researchers would say 'no'.A third problem in trying to r~easure whether 'acquisition' has taken place concerns learners' overuse of linguistic forms. Schmidt showed that Wes knew when to use the present progres- sive correctly but he also showed that Wes used this form in con- texts that did not require it. In other words, Wes used the form of the present progressive with the wrong function. SLA researchers recognize the need to investigate how the relationship betweenf orm and function in learners' output compares with that ofnative speakers.Issues in the description of learner languageBoth of these studies set out how to describe how learners' use of an L2 changes over time and what this shows about the nature of their knowledge of the L2.One finding is that learners make errors of different kinds. Wes failed to use some grammatical features at all and used others incorrectly. These are errors of omission and overuse. J and R also made grammatical errors in their requests. In addition, they made sociolinguistic errors. That is, they failed to use requests in a socially appropriate manner.Another finding is that L2 learners acquire a large number of formulaic chunks, which they use to perform communicative。
Second Language Acquisition
Second Language Acquisition二语习得定义1960年代开始，有人研究人们获得语言能力的机制，尤其是获得外语能力的机制，综合了语言学、神经语言学、语言教育学、社会学多种学科，慢慢发展出一门新的学科，叫“二语习得”，Second Language Acquisition。
自20 世纪70 年代以来,人们对二语习得从各个不同的方面进行了研究,所运用的研究方法也各具特色。
有的研究侧重于描写,有的研究偏重于假设,有的研究则采用实验。
20多年来,第二语言的多侧面、多方法的研究格局导致了该领域中的理论层出不穷。
目前较为流行的有:(一) 乔姆斯基的普遍语法与二语习得乔姆斯基和其支持者们认为,遗传基因赋予人类普遍的语言专门知识,他把这种先天知识称之为“普遍语法”。
他们的主要论点是,假如没有这种天赋,无论是第一语言还是第二语言的习得将是不可能的事情,原因是在语言习得过程中,语言数据的输入(input )是不充分的,不足以促使习得的产生。
乔姆斯基认为,语言是说话人心理活动的结果,婴儿天生就有一种学习语言的能力,对他们的语言错误不须纠正,随着年龄的增长他们会在生活实践中自我纠正。
有的人在运用语言时,总是用语法来进行核对,以保证不出错误,这就是所谓通过学习来进行监控的[ 1 ] (P19)。
随着语言水平的不断提高,这种监控的使用会逐渐越来越少。
从本质上说, 语言不是靠“学习”获得的, 只要语言输入中有足够的正面证据,任何一个正常人都能习得语言。
(二) 克拉申的监控理论在20 世纪末影响最大的二语习得理论当数克拉申的监控理论(Monitor Theory) 。
他把监控论归结为5 项基本假说:语言习得与学习假说、自然顺序假说、监控假说、语言输入假说和情感过滤假说。
克氏认为第二语言习得涉及两个不同的过程:习得过程和学得过程。
所谓“习得”是指学习者通过与外界的交际实践,无意识地吸收到该种语言,并在无意识的情况下,流利、正确地使用该语言。
英语语言学名词解释补充
Chapter 11 : Second Language Acquisition1. second language acquisition:It refers to the systematic study of how one person acquires a second language subsequent to his native language.2. target language: The language to be acquired by the second language learner.3. second language:A second language is a language which is not a native language in a country but which is widely used as a medium of communication and which is usually used alongside another language or languages.4. foreign language:A foreign language is a language which is taught asa school subject but which is not used as a medium of instruction in schools nor as a language of communication within a country.5. interlanguage: A type of language produced by second and foreign language learners, who are in the process of learning a language, and this type of language usually contains wrong expressions.6. fossilization: In second or foreign language learning, there is a process which sometimes occurs in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks or writes a language.7. contrastive analysis: a method of analyzing languages for instructional purposes whereby a native language and target language are compared with a view to establishing points of difference likely to cause difficulties for learners.8. contrastive analysis hypothesis: A hypothesis in second language acquisition. It predicts that where there are similarities between the first and second languages, the learner will acquire second language structure with ease, where there are differences, the learner will have difficulty.9. positive transfer:It refers to the transfer that occur when both the native language and the target language have the same form, thus making learning easier. (06F)10. negative transfer:the mistaken transfer of features of one’s native language into a second language.11. error analysis: the study and analysis of errors made by second and foreign language learners in order to identify causes of errors or common difficulties in language learning.12. interlingual error:errors, which mainly result from cross-linguistic interference at different levels such as phonological, lexical, grammatical etc.13. intralingual error:Errors, which mainly result from faulty or partial learning of the target language, independent of the native language. The typical examples are overgeneralization and cross-association.14. overgeneralization:The use of previously available strategies in new situations, in which they are unacceptable.15. cross-association: some words are similar in meaning as well as spelling and pronunciation. This internal interference is called cross-association.16. error: the production of incorrect forms in speech or writing by a non-native speaker of a second language, due to his incomplete knowledge of the rules of that target language.17. mistake:mistakes, defined as either intentionally or unintentionally deviant forms and self-corrigible, suggest failure in performance.18. input: language which a learner hears or receives and from which he or she can learn.19. intake: the input which is actually helpful for the learner.20. Input Hypothesis:A hypothesis proposed by Krashen , which states that in second language learning, it’s necessary for the learner to understand input language which contains linguistic items that are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence. Eventually the ability to produce language is said to emerge naturally without being taught directly.21. acquisition: Acquisition is a process similar to the way children acquire their first language. It is a subconscious process without minute learning of grammatical rules. Learners are hardly aware of their learning but they are using language to communicate. It is also called implicit learning, informal learning or natural learning.22. learning: learning is a conscious learning of second languageknowledge by learning the rules and talking about the rules.23. comprehensible input:Input language which contains linguistic itemsthat are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence.(06F)24. language aptitude: the natural ability to learn a language, notincluding intelligence, motivation, interest, etc.25. motivation:motivation is defined as the learner’s attitudes andaffective state or learning drive.26. instrumental motivation: the motivation that people learn a foreignlanguage for instrumental goals such as passing exams, or furthering acareer etc. (06C)27. integrative motivation:the drive that people learn a foreign languagebecause of the wish to identify with the target culture. (06C/ 05)28. resultative motivation: the drive that learners learn a secondlanguage for external purposes. (06F)29. intrinsic motivation: the drive that learners learn the secondlanguage for enjoyment or pleasure from learning.30. learning strategies:learning strategies are learners’ consciousgoal-oriented and problem-solving based efforts to achieve learningefficiency.31. cognitive strategies: strategies involved in analyzing, synthesis,and internalizing what has been learned. (07C/ 06F)32. metacognitive strategies:the techniques in planning, monitoring andev aluating one’s learning.33. affect/ social strategies: the strategies dealing with the wayslearners interact or communicate with other speakers, native ornon-native.Chapter 12 : Language And Brain1. neurolinguistics: It is the study of relationship between brain andlanguage. It includes research into how the structure of the braininfluences language learning, how and in which parts of the brain language is stored, and how damage to the brain affects the ability to use language.2. psycholinguistics: the study of language processing. It is concerned with the processes of language acqisition, comprehension and production.3. brain lateralization: The localization of cognitive and perceptive functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain.4. dichotic listening:A technique in which stimuli either linguistic or non-linguistic are presented through headphones to the left and right ear to determine the lateralization of cognitive function.5. right ear advantage: The phenomenon that the right ear shows an advantage for the perception of linguistic signals id known as the right ear advantage.6. split brain studies: The experiments that investigate the effects of surgically severing the corpus callosum on cognition are called as split brain studies.7. aphasia: It refers to a number of acquired language disorders due to the cerebral lesions caused by a tumor, an accident and so on.8. non-fluent aphasia:Damage to parts of the brain in front of the central sulcus is called non-fluent aphasia.9. fluent aphasia: Damage to parts of the left cortex behind the central sulcus results in a type of aphasia called fluent aphasia.10. Acquired dyslexia: Damage in and around the angular gyrus of the parietal lobe often causes the impairment of reading and writing ability, which is referred to as acquired dyslexia.11. phonological dyslexia:it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems to have lost the ability to use spelling-to-sound rules.12. surface dyslexia: it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems unable to recognize words as whole but must process all words through a set of spelling-to-sound rules.13. spoonerism:a slip of tongue in which the position of sounds, syllables, or words is reversed, for example, Let’s have chish and fips instend of Let’s have fish and chips.14. priming: the process that before the participants make a decision whether the string of letters is a word or not, they are presented with an activated word.15. frequency effect: Subjects take less time to make judgement on frequently used words than to judge less commonly used words . This phenomenon is called frequency effect.16. lexical decision: an experiment that let participants judge whethera string of letter is a word or not at a certain time.17. the priming experiment:An experiment that let subjects judge whethera string of letters is a word or not after showed with a stimulus word, called prime.18. priming effect:Since the mental representation is activated through the prime, when the target is presented, response time is shorter that it otherwise would have been. This is called the priming effect. (06F)19. bottom-up processing: an approach that makes use principally of information which is already present in the data.20. top-down processing:an approach that makes use of previous knowledge and experience of the readers in analyzing and processing information which is received.21. garden path sentences: a sentence in which the comprehender assumesa particular meaning of a word or phrase but discovers later that the assumption was incorrect, forcing the comprehender to backtrack and reinterpret the sentence.22. slip of the tongue:mistakes in speech which provide psycholinguistic evidence for the way we formulate words and phrases.。
Second language acquisition
12Second language acquisitionLourdes OrtegaIntroductionThe fi eld of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a branch of applied linguistics that has a history extending over half a century. It investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages during late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, once the fi rst language, in the case of monolinguals, or the fi rst languages, in the case of bilinguals and multilinguals, have been acquired. SLA researchers strive to shed light on four overarching questions:1 How do humans learn additional languages after they have learned their first?2 In what ways is the learning of an additional language different from the learning of languages for which exposure is available from birth, and in what ways might it be similar?3 What factors contribute to the variability observed in rates and outcomes of additional language learning?4 What does it take to attain advanced language and literacy competencies in a language that is learned later in life?SLA shares its interest in explaining human language development with two other fi elds, both of which study fi rst language acquisition from the womb to right before children enter school. These are Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA), which examines language development among infants and children when they grow up surrounded by two or more languages from birth (De Houwer 2009), and First Language Acquisition (FLA), also known as Child Language Acquisition, which investigates how infants and children learn their fi rst language when they grow up surrounded by one language only (Clark 2003).The di ff erences in focus between these two fi elds and SLA are important. First, in the fi elds of bilingual and monolingual fi rst language acquisition, infants and toddlers are investigated at the critical point in life when they are discovering human language, as instantiated in the speci fi c language(s) that their carers happen to speak to them. By contrast, all participants in SLA studies will already be relatively mature users of at least one language, often more. Theirexisting language competencies will in fl uence their learning of the language that is being added to their repertoire. Second, at the point of fi rst language acquisition, infants and toddlers must 171develop socially and conceptually in tandem with developing linguistically. On the other hand, adults, adolescents, and even children as young as four or fi ve, can be expected to bring to the task already relatively sophisticated and increasingly fi ne-tuned social and conceptual structures. Finally, BFLA and FLA researchers typically assume naturalistic conditions of language learning, because infants and toddlers learn language by being surrounded by meaningful language use and in the absence of instruction. SLA researchers, on the otherhand, investigate language learning in any possible context, ranging from naturalistic acquisition within a non-instructional community (e.g. a neighbourhood, a church group, the workplace,or during regular schooling that happens to occur in a new language), to formal instruction of various kinds (e.g. tutorials or self-access; second, foreign, or heritage language classrooms; or classroom-engineered immersion settings), and often a combination of the two. This being so, instruction is an important area of study in SLA (see Larsen-Freeman, this volume).SLA theories in historical perspectiveScholars have written about how people learn second languages and how to best teach foreign languages since ancient times. When in the late 1960s SLA emerged as a formal research community, it did so shaped by these long-standing interests in language learning and teaching. Additional in fl uences came from more speci fi c developments in the fi eld of FLA, which atthe time had been transformed by a process of theoretical renewal in reaction against the prevailing behaviourist view of language acquisition and had begun to yield exciting empiricalfi ndings about how children who grow up monolingual learn their mother tongue (e.g. Brown 1973).The awakenings of SLA: interlanguageThe years 1967 and 1972 mark the publication of two seminal papers by Pit Corder andLarry Selinker that are often associated with the awakenings of the fi eld because of the importance of the arguments they put forth. At an empirical level, they called to questionthe dominant practice of contrastive analysis, which looked for acquisition answers in the exhaustive comparison of the linguistic inventories of the language pairs involved in the learning task, the fi rst language and the target language. Instead, Corder (1967) and Selinker (1972) argued researchers must turn for evidence to the actual language produced by learnersas they try to communicate in the target second language (L2). This meant examining the‘errors’ learners produce not as something to be pre-empted or remedied but as objects ofstudy that hold great value for understanding L2 acquisition. At the theoretical level, the behaviourist view of language acquisition as mere habit formation was rejected and replacedby a novel conceptualization of acquisition as creative construction. For the fi rst time, learners were viewed as active and rational agents who engaged in the discovery of underlying L2 rules. They formed hypotheses about the language, tested them, and employed a number of cognitive and social strategies to regulate their learning. These developments made interlanguage investigations during the 1970s and 1980s increasingly more focused on cognitiveand psycholinguistic aspects of acquisition. Nevertheless, a few SLA researchers also working within the interlanguage tradition turned their attention to exploring the potential of quantitative sociolinguistic theories of variation for the study of L2 development (e.g. Tarone 1988).Once the foundations of interlanguage as a novel and distinct object of inquiry were laidout, there was a justi fi cation for the need for a fi eld that would investigate additional language Lourdes Ortega172development in its own right. After these beginnings, several broad phases can be distinguished in the history of SLA. The narrative depiction of orderly historical trends that followsbelow is only a convenient shorthand that undoubtedly obscures more complicated developments.From fi rst theories to the cognitive and linguistic emphases of the 1990sBy the early 1980s, the fi rst attempt at a formal theory of L2 acquisition was mustered in the United States by Stephen Krashen (1985). Known as the Monitor Model, this theory became (and has remained) popular with language teachers. In a nutshell, Krashen proposed that:(a) the core ingredient of additional language learning is meaningful, comprehensible input;(b) the processes of additional language acquisition are implicit and subconscious and any explicit and conscious processes that may be summoned in the classroom can only help careful monitored performance but will have little e ff ects on true language knowledge or on spontaneous performance; and (c) the main obstacles to additional language learning for adults stemfrom a ff ective inhibitions. Despite its popularity, already in the mid-1980s the Monitor Model was evaluated as being too metaphorical to lend itself to proper empirical investigation. The strongest critiques were levelled by SLA scholars who were well versed in skills acquisition theory from the fi eld of psychology (e.g. McLaughlin 1987), and also by scholars who had begun applying Universal Grammar theory from the fi eld of linguistics to the disciplinarySLA project (e.g. Gregg 1984). In both cases, the criticisms also served to carve intellectual spaces for these newer kinds of SLA theories.Thus, as the 1980s came to a close, the SLA research community had already developed several theoretically distinct proposals for explaining L2 acquisition. One view (Krashen 1985) was that L2 acquisition occurs within dimensions de fi ned largely by input and a ff ect and operating mostly at the unconscious level. Another position (McLaughlin 1987) held that learning an additional language is a complex, cognitive process similar to any other human learning (cooking, playing chess, riding a bike, thinking mathematically, knowing history); as such, it involves great amounts of experience aided by attention and memory and it must include the development of su ffi cient declarative knowledge about the language and su ffi cient deliberate practice to eventually support fully automatic use of language. A third view (White1989) was that the mental grammar of second language learners must be explained by the relative contributions of two forces that guide tacit language knowledge formation and thatare independent from other cognitive operations, and even relatively independent from surroundingambient experience, namely abstract knowledge of Universal Grammar (which thehuman species is endowed with at birth) and more speci fi c knowledge of a given fi rst language (which is imprinted in the mind of language users during the critical years of learning a fi rst language or languages).Particularly during the 1990s, these varied SLA research e ff orts were strengthened to thepoint of cohering into what looked like one of two dominant approaches. A cognitiveinteractionist prism (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991) was strongly in fl uenced by Swiss psychologistJean Piaget and easily accommodated within it the interlanguage research traditionas well as the skills acquisition theory. It called for the examination of L2 acquisition as thesum contributions of learner-internal factors, such as attention and memory, and learnerexternal factors, such as the interactions o ff ered to learners in the target language and thequality of any formal instruction they might seek. By contrast, a formal linguistic SLA prism (Hawkins 2001; White 1989) was strongly in fl uenced by US linguist Noam Chomsky andfl ourished out of the strides made by this linguistic theory during the late 1980s. This research Second language acquisition173programme sought to tease out the degree to which Universal Grammar knowledge, knowledge stemming from the fi rst language, or a combination of the two, guided the constructionof mental L2 grammars. These two traditions have enjoyed continuity at both empirical and theoretical levels up to the present day, thus leading to considerable accumulation of disciplinary knowledge in the areas to which they have been applied.The fate of other foundational SLA work, by comparison, appeared less promising. SLA researchers’ interest in Krashen’s Monitor Model had quickly waned. Likewise, the quantitative sociolinguistic forays into SLA heralded by a few interlanguage researchers (e.g. Tarone1988) had seemingly remained of interest to only a minority in the fi eld. It would take a few more years for the fi eld to return to their important argument that language learning is fundamentally social.Theoretical expansions: socioculturalism and emergentismAlready in the mid-1990s, however, two new theoretical forces joined the fi eld and begannew SLA traditions that soon would grow enormously in vitality. One is the study ofL2 acquisition through the sociocultural theory of mind developed by Russian psychologistLev Vygotsky, a contemporary of Piaget, and led in SLA by James Lantolf (Lantolf1994). The other is the application of the usage-based, emergentist family of theories developed in cognitive science and initiated in SLA by Nick Ellis (1996) and Diane Larsen-Freeman (1997). The coexistence of the two better established approaches with the two youngbut bold newcomers created epistemological tension and led to the gradual articulation ofdi ff erences.On the one hand, the two psychologically oriented approaches, cognitive-interactionist and sociocultural, consider the learner’s mind and the surrounding environment as essential dimensions of inquiry, but they di ff er radically in their position as to how the two should be investigated. For the cognitive-interactionist approach (well synthesized by Larsen-Freemanand Long 1991), mind and environment are analytically separable, and the in fl uences stemming from one or the other should be isolated as learner-internal and learner-external factors,so that then their interactions can be investigated. This position is also known as interactionismin the fi rst language development literature (see Bohannon and Bonvillian 2009). Mechanisms that explain how the linguistic data available in the surrounding external environment are used for internally driven learning invoke cognitive constructs such as noticing, when new features of language become available, even if most fl eetingly, for conscious recognition. Environmental constructs of importance include negotiation for meaning, wheninterlocutors edit and reformulate their own and each other’s language as they strive to make themselves understood, and negative feedback, when interlocutors wittingly or unwittinglyo ff er potential evidence that a language choice may not be sanctioned by the speech community. By contrast, for the Vygotskian sociocultural approach (fi rst synthesized at book lengthby Lantolf and Thorne 2006), mind is irrevocably social, and therefore it can only be investigated holistically in the unfolding process of social action and interaction. The construction ofnew knowledge (including knowledge of an additional language) arises in the social plane and gradually becomes internalized psychologically by the individual. Mechanisms that explainhow new linguistic knowledge and capable behaviour come about invoke social processes such as mediation of activity by language through private speech (audible speech directed to the self), social speech (speech by more expert others with the aim to help regulate action by novices), and inner speech (inaudible speech directed to the self for self-regulation). Another important construct related to learning is the zone of proximal development. This refers to an Lourdes Ortega174emergent quality of collaborative social action by which knowledge that by itself would be above the current competencies of one or more of the participants becomes momentarily attainable through joint context-sensitive collaboration, thus potentially being available for individual, independent use at a later point.The formal linguistic approach and the emergentist approach to SLA, too, exhibit key differences amidst critically intersecting interests. Both are vested in explaining language developmentas part of cognitive science, but they clash in their incompatible assumptions aboutwhat human language is and about the relative contributions that nature and nurture make toits development. Formal linguistic SLA researchers (Wakabayashi, this volume) adhere to radical nativism, modularity, and rule-based representationism. That is, they believe languageis a biologically given faculty unique to the human species (nativism), operating independently from other cognitive faculties used to learn and process other kinds of knowledge (modularity), and encoded as a system of abstract rules of the sort that have been described in formal linguistic grammars (rule-based representationism). In sharp contrast, emergentist, usage-basedSLA researchers (Ellis, this volume) are empiricist, generalist, and associationist. In other words, they hold that language in each individual emerges out of massive amounts of experience with the linking of form and meaning through language use that is driven by the species’social need to communicate (empiricism), enabled by simple memory and attention processing mechanisms that are the same as employed for all other cognitive functions (generalism), and self-organized out of the human brain’s unique capacity to implicitly and mandatorily tally the statistical properties and contextual contingencies of the linguistic input they experience over a lifetime (associationism).SLA after the social turnThe tensions brie fl y outlined above were only the tip of the iceberg of a wider social turn (Block 2003) which continued to gain momentum in the late 1990s. Not only Vygotskian socioculturalists (e.g. Pavlenko and Lantolf 2000) but also many other scholars from the widerfi eld of applied linguistics criticized the SLA research community for investigating L2 acquisitionin a-social and decontextualized ways (e.g. Firth and Wagner 1997).The crisis fuelled by the social turn has left the fi eld richer in theories and approaches.Among the most important new contributors, we fi nd less cognitively and more socially minded approaches that have undertaken the task to re-specify in social terms all key elementsin the SLA equation. Thus, if Vygotskian SLA already beginning in the mid-1990s o ff ered are-speci fi cation of cognition as fundamentally social (Thorne and Tasker, this volume), since then other SLA theories have contributed formal ways of studying additional languagelearning as social in terms of grammar, oral interaction, learning, and sense of self. Speci fi cally, grammar and language are theorized as social in systemic functional linguistics forSLA (Young, this volume); oral interaction is rede fi ned as social in conversation analysis as well as in other discourse approaches to additional language learning (Hellermann 2008;Young 2009); learning itself is understood as social in language socialization (He, this volume); and sense of self is reconceptualized as irrevocably social in identity theory (Norton, this volume).Key themes in SLA researchMany themes have attracted attention in SLA, of which I have selected fi ve that I consider tobe fundamental areas of SLA inquiry.Second language acquisition175Age: what are the effects of an early or a late start?The question of age is perhaps the most investigated, debated, and misunderstood of all research areas in SLA, most likely because of its extraordinary theoretical and educational importance. No researcher denies that starting age greatly a ff ects the eventual success of additional language learning. Success, naturally, is in the eye of the beholder, and we must not forget to ask: Who is to judge success: the researcher, the teacher, one of many stakeholders in the life of the additional language user, or the user him- or herself? When success is strictly understood in linguistic terms as determined by researchers, then it is an empirically established fact that people who begin learning an additional language by naturalistic immersionvery early in life tend to attain high levels of linguistic competence, often (but not always) similar to others who begin learning the same language at birth. By comparison, people who begin learning an additional language later in life, and particularly any time after the end of adolescence, exhibit much greater variability in their levels of linguistic attainment. In addition, the majority (although not all) of late-starting language users will develop functionalabilities in the new language that are di ff erent from and seemingly less pro fi cient than the functional abilities of others who begin learning the same language at birth.What is hotly debated and remains without a de fi nitive research answer is what precisely explains the observed age e ff ects. Proponents of the critical period hypothesis (e.g. Abrahamsson and Hyltenstam 2009) believe that the explanation is biological, in that they posit a maturational, time-locked schedule after which it is no longer possible to learn a language in exactly the same ways and to exactly the same high degrees of competence as any individual does between birth and age three or four. Sceptics of the critical period hypothesis (e.g.Hakuta 2001), on the other hand, point at alternative, non-biological reasons for the attestedage e ff ects, all of which are related to the many di ff erences in experience (linguistic and nonlinguistic)between infants and adults. For one, it may be that a later start leads to di ff erentialresults because one or more other languages have been learned so well already (Flege 1999). This argument warrants careful consideration, given that late starters and early starters alikeare usually compared to people who grew up by birth with only one language and therefore exhibit monolingual competence. Yet, monolingual competence cannot be expected tobe identical to multilingual competence (Cook 2008). It may also be that the diverging linguistic competencies we observe at increasingly older starting ages are re fl ective of the varied social, educational, and emotional complications as well as the varied demands on time and pursuits that come with adult life, compared to the more uniform and restricted lives thatinfants and toddlers lead before they enter school.The age debate has been further complicated in recent years by research conducted in foreign language contexts, where the availability of input is severely limited (e.g. two or three hours a week of foreign language study, in many school systems). Under such conditions, and when results have been evaluated at the point of high school graduation, beginning a couple of years earlieror later during elementary or middle school made no sizable overall di ff erence (Muñoz 2008). As Muñoz notes, the empirical evidence accumulated from foreign language contexts suggeststhat age is confounded with another variable that must always be evaluated when interpreting critical period and age-related SLA studies: the quantity and quality of the ambient input. Crosslinguistic in fl uences stemming from already known languagesA second important theme in SLA research is how previously known languages, and particularly the mother tongue, in fl uence the process of learning an additional language. BothLourdes Ortega176strategically and unknowingly, learners rely on their fi rst language and on other languages they know in order to accomplish something that is as yet unknown to them in the second language. In their comprehensive appraisal of this domain, Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) identifyseveral noteworthy insights from accumulated research. One is the realization that crosslinguistic phenomena can slow down the pace of learning in cases of language areas wherenegative transfer occurs, but also accelerate learning and facilitate development in many areas where positive transfer occurs (e.g. for language pairs that are typologically or genetically related and whose lexicons contain many helpful cognates, as in Spanish-English creatividad = creativity). Second, similarities in a given language pair can often lead to greater learningdif fi cultiesthan di ff erences do (e.g. in the case of false friends, as when assuming that the words actualmente in Spanish and actually in English mean the same thing). A third well-attestedfi nding is that crosslinguistic in fl uences are not linearly related to pro fi ciency; instead,di ff erentareas of the languages of the individual can result in interactions at some levels of pro fi ciency and not others.The in fl uence that the mother tongue has on the construction of the new grammar is alsoan important area of research for scholars who work with formal linguistic theories (Wakabayashi, this volume). However, their goals are di ff erent from those of most of the research surveyed by Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008). SLA formal linguistic researchers aim to tease out the di ff erences in the initial and end states of grammar knowledge that obtains when one language is learned by birth, on the one hand, and when a second language is added laterin life, on the other. A number of theoretical positions are considered empirically plausible, which are contained within two extremes. At the one extreme, full access to Universal Grammar is proposed and the in fl uence of the L1 is believed to be minimal. This position assumesthat fi rst and second language acquisition are fundamentally similar in nature. At the other extreme, no access to Universal Grammar is posited during L2 acquisition and the L1 isa ff orded a central position in the construction of the L2 grammar. That is, after learning thefi rst language from birth by recourse to Universal Grammar, any subsequent language learning is thought to be accomplished through the more detailed knowledge structures instantiatedby the particular fi rst-language grammar that is known already, and by resorting to processing mechanisms that are fundamentally di ff erent (Bley-Vroman 2009) from those employed by the infant learning a language or languages from birth to the pre-school years.Environment and cognition: what are their contributions to additional language learning?From the beginnings of the fi eld, much SLA research has focused on human interactionsand the discourse strategies in them that bring about potentially useful opportunities for learning. We know a great deal about how linguistically mature interlocutors can facilitate additional language learning by rewording their messages through simpli fi cations and elaborations,by asking for clari fi cations and expansions, and by using language that is appropriate, interesting, and yet slightly above the level of their interlocutors (Long 1996). From socioculturally oriented studies of the environment for SLA, we also know that many additional language learners are actively involved in their own learning processes, both regulating challenges and maximizing learning opportunities as they seek environmental encounters (Brouwer and Wagner 2004; Donato 1994; Kinginger 2004). Finally, we also know that interactionis not a panacea, and that learning opportunities may not be actualized at all when interlocutors are not invested in communicating with each other, when they are antagonisticor, even worse, prejudiced, or (ironically) when they are so emotionally and intellectually Second language acquisition177engaged in communication that their attention glosses over the formal details of what is newto them in the L2.Much SLA research since the mid-1990s has investigated issues related to memory, attention, and awareness and how they constrain what can be learned of the additional language, particularly through interaction and formal instruction. While it is clear that the more deliberate attention L2 users pay to new language, the more they learn (Schmidt 1995), it is alsoclear that much of a new language is learned via implicit attentional processes of extraction of meaning-form correspondences and their associated frequencies and distributions of occurrence (Ellis, this volume). More recently, SLA researchers have turned to the study of theproperties of the linguistic data a ff orded by the environment, often using tools from corpus analysis, and how these properties are processed for learning by the cognitive architecture. Progress in this area will no doubt accelerate in coming years under the impulse of usagebased, emergentist perspectives, since they place the lion’s share of acquisition with the statisticaland form-and-meaning properties of the input as these interact with the learner’s attentional capacities. There is already fi rm empirical support, for example, that language features that are highly frequent in the input are acquired earlier by L2 learners, provided that they are also phonologically salient and semantically prototypical (e.g. argument structure in Ellis and Ferreira-Junior 2009).Three approaches to explaining variability of L2 learning across individualsIt has always been noted that adolescents and adults who learn an additional language presenta daunting landscape of variability in terms of rates, processes, and outcomes by the time they (or the researchers who investigate them) can say they are ‘done’ with L2 learning. This issueof variability across individuals has been investigated from three perspectives.The perspective with the longest tradition is known as individual di ff erences research and draws on social psychological constructs and methods (see Dörnyei 2005). This research is quantitative and correlational, and it assumes multiple causal variables interacting and contributingtogether to explaining variation systematically. We know from SLA research onindividual di ff erences that people di ff er in how much of a gift they have for learning foreign languages and that this natural ability can be measured with precision via language aptitude tests. In general, we can expect aptitude scores and achievements scores (e.g. end-of-course grades, teacher evaluations, and even pro fi ciency scores) to pattern together by about 16 to 36 per cent overlap. Motivation is another source of individual di ff erence that has been investigated particularly energetically by SLA researchers over the years, and several theories haveshed light on di ff erent qualities of motivation that are important in sustaining and nourishing learning e ff orts, including integrative motivation, self-determined motivation, and motivation guided by the positive concept of an L2-speaking self (see Dörnyei 2005).A second perspective that can help explain individual variability is socio-dynamic and draws from complexity theory and dynamic systems theory, which are recent approaches within the emergentist family of SLA theories. As Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) note, in thesocio-dynamic approach all research is made to be centrally and primarily about variability. Indeed, variability is thought to be an inherent property of the system under investigation and increased variability is interpreted as a precursor for some important change in the system as well. This novel perspective calls for the use of new analytical methods that are quantitative, as in the traditional perspective, but also innovatively di ff erent because they are stochastic and non-causal, that is, based on probabilistic estimations that include the possibility of random variations and fl uctuations tracked empirically over time (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron Lourdes Ortega1782008). The new variability-centred framework can be applied to any area of SLA, from。
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Child L2 acquisition is especially like L1 acquisition
• After arriving in a new language environment, younger children will “catch up” within a year or two.
Critical period for L1 acquisition
• Critical period = “window of opportunity”
Standard evidence for critical period in L1
• Young infants are “universal listeners”. Ability declines around age 1. • Delaying L1 acquisition until after childhood leads to low levels of grammatical development (e.g. Genie).
So…..
• Classroom language learning is worth studying (and worth doing!), • But it is just one piece of the larger picture of second language acquisition.
Effects of age on L2 acquisition
• Critical period for L1 acquisition • What would a critical period for L2 acquisition look like? • Do we actually find such a critical period? • Do late learners ever attain nativelikeness?
Second language acquisition: a first look
• Classroom learning not the best example of L2 acquisition • L2 acquisition is much like L1 acquisition • Child L2 acquisition is especially like L1 acquisition • Adult L2 acquisition diverges in certain ways from L1 acquisition
L2 acquisition is much like L1 acquisition
• Have to learn words: dog, run, of …
– Typical error: “Cover(wrap) the turkey with aluminum paper.”
• Have to learn rules: SVO, “add –ed to make verb past tense” …
• Subtle semantic distinctions not present in L1:
– “I saw a cow” vs. “I saw the cow” – “El niño corrí mucho” vs. “el niño corriómucho” a
Blt L2 acquisition work just as you would expect…
• Critical period for L1 acquisition • What would a critical period for L2 acquisition look like? • Do we actually find such a critical period? • Do late learners ever attain nativelikeness?
Second language acquisition: a first look
• Classroom learning not the best example of L2 acquisition • L2 acquisition is much like L1 acquisition • Child L2 acquisition is especially like L1 acquisition • Adult L2 acquisition diverges in certain ways from L1 acquisition
Do we actually find such a critical period?
• The “classic” study says yes. • Johnson & Newport (1989) compared English proficiency of Korean and Chinese immigrants to U.S. • Age of arrival ranged from 3 to 39 • Length of residence in U.S. at least 3 years • Subjects tested on variety of English structures
What would a critical period for L2 acquisition look like?
What would a critical period for L2 acquisition look like?
• “Geometric features”
– Heightened sensitivity at beginning – Clear point where offset (decline) begins – Flat period when critical period is over
Adults readily learn:
• Words (vocabulary)
• Word order and many other aspects of syntax: SVO, VSO, SOV, etc.
Neko-ga nezumi-o toraeru. cat mouse catch
Effects of age on L2 acquisition
Results:
• Clear and strong advantage for early arrivals over late arrivals • Age of arrival before puberty
– Performance linearly related to age
• Age of arrival after puberty
– Performance low but highly variable – Performance unrelated to age
– Typical error: “I taked test yesterday.”
Second language acquisition: a first look
• Classroom learning not the best example of L2 acquisition • L2 acquisition is much like L1 acquisition • Child L2 acquisition is especially like L1 acquisition • Adult L2 acquisition diverges in certain ways from L1 acquisition
Classroom learning not the best example of L2 acquisition
• Majority of humans speak an L2; few of them learned it in classroom setting. • Classroom language instruction is a relatively recent phenomenon. • It usually involves just the beginning stages of acquisition.
Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period
What we will do today
• Introduction to second language acquisition • How age affects second language acquisition
What would a critical period for L2 acquisition look like?
• “Temporal features”
– Heightened sensitivity through early childhood – Sensitivity bottoms out when full neurocognitive maturity is reached – Continued low sensitivity throughout adulthood
A typical language class
3 hours per week 30 weeks per year 2 years of study 180 total hours of exposure
What can you do in 180 hours?
• If you learn 10 words per hour, you will learn 1,800 words in 2 years. • Is this a lot? • No. Average 18-year-old knows 60,000 words. 5-year-old knows 13,000!