Log In Sign UpTop of Form

Bottom of FormKey Issues in Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

Uploaded byVivian Cook

top 0.5% 27,143 Info DownloadDOC1SOME ISSUES FOR SLA RESEARCHVivian Cook, Newcastle UniversityThere have always been those with a broad interest in how people acquireasecond language (L2) whether Aristotle or Roger Bacon(Thomas, 1998). With theadvent of academic psychology and linguistics, there came a certain amount ofcuriosity about second languageacquisition (SLA) (Thorndike, 1928; Cheydleur,1932); some linguists kept diaries of bilingual language acquisition(Leopold,1939); others were interested in multilingualism and bilingualism, particularly inthe USA (Weinreich, 1953; Fishman, 1966).Methods for teaching secondlanguages such as Lado(1965) were bolstered with ideas from contemporarylanguage learning theories usually derived from general psychologicaltheoriessuch as Skinner (1957)rather than those specifically about either second language learning or language acquisition in general. In the 1960sthese interests from psychology, linguistics and language teachingcame together to found a specific disciplineof SLA research. For some fifty years thishas set itselfup as an independent discipline with its own theories and issues. This has not ,however, stopped people in other disciplines from researching second language acquisition with little or no reference to the discipline of SLA research itself, whether neurolinguists (Fabbro, 1999), psychologists (Beauvillain & Grainger,1987), or others.The banner which the new SLAresearch discipline raised had on it the wordinterlanguage, a term coinedby Selinker (1972); 'what gaveSLA its excitement was the concept of interlanguage' (Davies, Criper & Howatt, 1984, p.xii). Since the early 1960s, first language(L1) acquisition researchers such as McNeill(1966) had insisted that the child should betreated as having adifferentgrammar from the adult rather than having adefectiveadult grammar. A two-year-olds sentence such asBaby highchairshould not be interpreted as a crude2version of the adultsentenceThe baby is in the highchairbut as a childs sentence in its own right. The analysts task was not to measure the mistakes in the childs sentence against the rulesof adult grammar, e.g. themissingarticles, preposition and copula inBaby highchair,but to see how the rules of the childs grammar worked as a combinationof pivot and open words(Braine,1963).This independent grammar assumption(Cook, 1993) was seized on by applied linguists working with language teaching,whether as transitional competence(Corder, 1971) or'approximative system' (Nemser, 1971). The accepted term ,however, became interlanguage, leading to journals such asInterlanguageStudies Bulletin Utrecht, laterSecond Language Research.Interlanguage becamethe almost theory-neutral term for the system of implicit L2knowledge that thelearner develops and systematically amends over time (Ellis, 1994,354).firstlanguageinterlanguage(learner'ssecondlanguageindependentlanguage)other influencesFig 1.InterlanguageSecond language learners are then developing an interlanguage of their own thatdraws not only on the first language they already know and onthe secondlanguage they are learning but also on other elements such as the languageprovided by their teachers and their ownlanguage learning strategies. L2learners interlanguage thus has unique qualities of its own rather than being adeficient version of the target language; it is no more defective than a two-year-oldsgrammaris defective but has a logic of its own.A fine example of interlanguage was the discovery of a basic stage of grammarcommon to adult L2 learners (Klein & Perdue, 1997). Regardless of which first

3and second languages are involved, L2 learners share a simple grammar withthree grammatical rules, namely that a sentence mayconsist of:- a Noun Phrase (NP) followed by a Verb, optionally followed by anotherNoun Phrase,girl take bread- a Noun Phrase followed by a copulaand another Noun Phrase or anadjective,its bread- a Verb followed by a Noun Phrase,pinching itsL2 learners create an interlanguage with its own distinctive characteristics,resembling neither the target nor the first language.Without the concept ofinterlanguage, most SLA research would cease to exist; itprovides a unique subject matter for the discipline that isnotthe main focus ofother disciplines; theaim of SLA researchis to discover why ... adults attain the state they do (Klein & Perdue, 1992, 334). In line with the independent grammar assumption, the learner is not adefective native speaker but something unique,sui generis; the implicit aim of research is to discover what the L2 learners language is like and how itis developing, not to see how L2 learners fall short ofmonolingual native speakers.Yet in practice thisprinciple has not been thoroughly assimilated bySLA researchers, as seen ina typical quotation:Relative to native speaker's linguistic competence, learners' interlanguage is deficient by definition (Kasper& Kellerman, 1997, 5).Learners are still treated as wannabe nativespeakers.The question of whether age affects success in L2 learning for example is interpreted as whether older L2 learners speak less like nativespeakers than younger L2 learners. SLA research methods have implicitly treated L2learners as defective by using monolingual native speakers asthe yardstick for comparison. Grammaticality judgments that ask for L2users to decide whether a sentence is4grammatical are usually set againstthose of monolingual nativespeakers(Hawkins & Chen, 1997);the obligatory occurrences technique thatlooks for occasions when certain words or structures must beused (Pienemann, 1998)usually define them in terms ofwhen monolingual native speakers use them ;and many others (Cook, 1997).The starting point forSLA research is that L2 learners are not, and can never be, monolingual native speakers by definition. Without this assumption, SLA research becomes an ancillary study of whyL2 users fail tobecome native speakers and at best provides a footnote to first language acquisition by detailing the L2 problems and pitfalls. If L2 users are unique specimens, SLA research can take on a true independence, looking at their distinctive qualities in their own right independent of monolinguals. SLA research deals with one way in which humans learn language, part of a greater discipline of language acquisition that encompasses L1 and L2 acquisition. Indeed monolingual L1acquisition can be seen as an aberration that it only occurs when children are deprived of exposure to a second language (Cook, 2009).1.Are people who know two languages special?Since 1990 themulti-competence perspective has tried toenumerate the diverse ways in which L2users differ from monolingual native speakers (Cook, 1993;Cook, 2010).L2 users have different ways of thinkingThe relationship between language and cognition has become a vital new area ofresearch. During the 1930s Whorf put forward thelinguistic relativity principle /1956). This was mostly interpreted as a claim that language

5actually determines thinking, named the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis. While actively researched in the 1950s (Ervin-Tripp, 2011), thisbecame largely discredited. Inthe 1990s the language and cognitionlink was revitalised by Lucy (1992) aboutdiffering ways of categorising the world, Levinson (1996)about differingconcepts of direction and Roberson et al (1999) about varying colour perception,using a new set of ideas and methods. It became apparent that certain ways ofthinking go with particular languages, even if language does not necessarilycause or determine the way ofthinking.So what happens to the thinking of people whoknow more than one language?Here are some of the possibilities:L2 users use language in different waysIf your standard or norm is how a monolingual native speaker communicateswith other monolingual native speakers then you are bound to find non-nativespeakers less effective in their second language. Onthe one hand thisassumption ignores the L2 uses that the person does not have in their L1;students studying through the medium of a second language may be able dothings they cannot do in the first language write essays and reports forexample. On the other hand it ignores the things that only L2users can do. Themain examples of distinctive L2 use are codeswitching in which the speakeralternates between two languages, translation in whichthe speaker turnsutterances in one language into a second, and theability to communicate withother L2 users. These are some of the unique things that L2 users can do; whilethey ultimately lead to specialistprofessions such as simultaneous interpreting,they are also probably present in the everyday lives of most bilinguals, forexample young bilingual children actingas interpreters when their parents see adoctor. The skills of codeswitching havebeen well-documented, for example

6through the 4M model(Myers-Scotton, 2006) which sees codeswitching broadlyas relying on a matrix language for the structure of the sentence and anembedded language for the content words.L2 users havean increased awareness of language itselfTime and again research has shown that insome senseL2 users aremore awareof the nature of language itself than monolinguals. Young children who learnanother language are more conscious of the arbitrariness of language, forexample that small words liketrainmay refer to long things while long words likecaterpillarmay refer to short things (Bialystok, 2001). Oneintriguing aspectconcerns theory of mind the ability to see the others point of view: bilingualchildren acquire this ability slightly earlier than monolingual children (Goetz,2003); children who were bilingual in asign language and a spoken language arebetter at theory of mind than monolingual children (Meristo et al., 2007).L2 users havea slightly different knowledge of their firstlanguageEveryday experience shows that your L1 exerts a stronginfluence on your L2.Only recently have people come to see that the L2 also affects your knowledgeand use of your L1 (Cook, 2003). A simple example reported by many L2 usersconcerns the subject of the sentence. In pro-drop languages such as Italian,sentences need not have asubjectSono di Milano; in non-pro-drop languageslike English, they doI am from Milan. Many overseas students with pro-drop L1scoming to Englandhave reported problems in speaking their first languagewhenthey go home, such as their parents telling them they sound English becausethey use too many subjects. Research withJapanese users of English shows thatthe first language of more advanced L2 users is affected by English in that theyfind the presence of subjects more natural (Cook, Kasai & Sasaki, 2005). This

Job Board About Press Blog Stories Terms Privacy Copyright We're Hiring! Help CenterAcademia 2015