Second Language Acquisition

• Second language acquisition research

focuses on the developing knowledge and
use of a language by children and adults
who already know at least one other
language. This field of research has both
theoretical and practical importance.
• The theoretical importance is related to our
understanding of how language is represented
in the mind and whether there is a difference
between the way language is acquired and
processed and the way other kinds of
information are acquired and processed.
• The practical importance arises from the
assumption that an understanding of how
languages are learned will lead to more
effective teaching practices.
Contexts for Language Learning
• A child or adult learning a second language is
different from a child acquiring a first
language in terms of both
1) learner characteristics
and
2) learning conditions
• Think about how the learner characteristics and
learning conditions might differ in the following
situations:
1. A young child learning a first language.
2. A child learning a second language in day care.
3. An adolescent studying a second language in
their own country.
4. An adult immigrant with limited or disrupted
education working in a second language
environment and having no opportunities to go
to language classes.
Learner Characteristics L1 L2
Child Child Adolescen Adult
(informal) t (formal) (informal)

1. Knowledge of another language ? + +

-
- + +
2. Cognitive maturity
-

? + +
3. Metalinguistic awareness
-

- + +
4. World Knowledge
-

- + +
5. Anxiety about speaking
-
Learning Conditions L1 L2

Child Child Adolesc Adult

(inform ent (inform
al) (formal) al)

+ + - -
6. Freedom to be silent

7. Ample time & contact + + - ?

- - + -
8. Corrective feedback: (grammar
and pronunciation)
+ + + +
9. Corrective feedback: (meaning,
word choice, politeness)
+ + + +
10. Modified input
• Consequently, SLA (Second Language
Acquisition) theories need to account for
language acquisition by learners with a
variety of characteristics and learning in a
variety of contexts.
Behaviorism
• Four characteristics of behaviorism:
1) imitation,
2) practice,
3) reinforcement, and
4) habit formation
Behaviorism / CAH
• A person learning an L2 starts off with the
habits formed in the L1 and these habits
would interfere with the new ones needed for
the L2.
• Behaviorism was often linked to the
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH):
According to CAH, errors were assumed to be
the result of transfer from the learners’ L1.
• It predicts that where there are similarities
between the L1 and the target language, the
learner will acquire target-language structures
with ease; where there are differences, the
learner will have difficulty.
L1 influence /language transfer
• Language transfer is the effect of one language
on the learning of another. There are two types of
language transfer:
1. Negative transfer or interference: the use of a
native language pattern or rule which leads to an
error.
2. Positive transfer: transfer which makes learning
easier and may occur when both the native
language and target language have the same
form.
• Criticisms about the CAH:
Though a learner’s L1 influences the acquisition of
an L2, researchers have found that L2 learners do
not make all the errors predicted by the CAH.
1. Many of their errors are not predictable on the
basis of their L1 (e.g. ‘putted’; ‘cooker’ meaning
a person who cooks; ‘badder than’)
2. Some errors are similar across learners from a
variety of L1 backgrounds (e.g. he/she; “th”
sound; the use of the past tense; the relative
clauses)
• By the 1970s, many researchers were
convinced that behaviorism and the CAH were
inadequate explanations for SLA.
• In spite of the rejection of contrastive analysis
by some second language acquisition
researchers, most teachers and researchers
have remained convinced that learners draw on
their knowledge of other languages as they try
to learn a new one.
• The finding that many aspects of learners'
language could not be explained by the CAH
led a number of researchers to take a different
approach to analysing learners' errors.
• This approach, which developed during the
1970s, is known as 'error analysis' and
involved detailed descriptions of the errors
second language learners made.
• Error analysis differed from contrastive
analysis in that it did not try to predict errors.
Rather, it sought to discover and describe
different types of errors in an effort to
understand how learners process second
language data.
• As a result of error analysis, there is a
difference between an error and a mistake:
1. An error is the result of incomplete
knowledge. The learner cannot correct it if
he/she is asked to.
2. A mistake is the result of lack of attention,
fatigue, carelessness or some other aspects of
performance. The learner can correct it if
asked to.
• Error analysis is carried out in order to:
1. Identify the strategies which learners use in
language learning.
2. Try to identify the causes of learners’ errors.
3. Obtain information on common difficulties in
language learning as an aid to teaching.
• Error analysis is based on the hypothesis that
like child language, learner language is a
system of its own, it is rule-governed and
predictable.
• Interlanguage is a term used by Selinker
(1972) to refer to learner language.
• It is the type of language produced by second
and foreign language learners who are in the
process of learning a language.
• The language produced by the learner differs
from both the mother tongue and the target
language because it is based on borrowing
patterns from the mother tongue (language
transfer) and extending patterns from the
target language (overgeneralization), hence
the term “interlanguage”.
Innatism
• Universal Grammar (UG) in relation to second
language development

• Competence vs. Performance

• Krashen’s “monitor model”

Innatism:
Universal Grammar
• UG and SLA
1. Linguists working within the innatist theory have
argued that UG offers the best perspective to
understand SLA. UG can explain why L2 learners
eventually know more about the language than they
could reasonably have learned (i.e. UG can explain L2
learners’ creativity and generalization ability).
2. Other linguists argue that UG is not a good
explanation for SLA, especially by learners who have
passed the critical period (i.e. CPH does not work in
SLA).
Innatism:
Competence vs. Performance
• Competence:
It refers to the knowledge which underlies our ability to
use language.
• Performance:
It refers to the way a person actually uses language in
listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Performance is subject to variations due to inattention,
anxiety, or fatigue whereas competence (at least for the
mature native speaker) is more stable.
• SLA researchers from the UG perspective
(innatism) are more interested in the language
competence (i.e., knowledge of complex syntax)
of advanced learners rather than in the simple
language of early stage learners.
• Their investigations often involve comparing the
judgments of grammaticality made by L2 and L1
learners, rather than observations of actual
language performance (i.e., use of language).
Innatism:
Krashen’s “monitor model” (1982)
• The acquisition-learning hypothesis
• The monitor hypothesis
• The natural order hypothesis
• The input hypothesis
• The affective filter hypothesis
1. The acquisition-learning
hypothesis
• Acquisition: we acquire L2 knowledge as we are
exposed to samples of the L2 which we understand
with no conscious attention to language form. It
is a subconscious and intuitive process.
• Learning: we learn the L2 via a conscious
process of study and attention to form and rules.
• Krashen argues that “acquisition” is a more
important process of constructing the system
of a language than “learning” because fluency
in L2 performance is due to what we have
acquired, not what we have learned.
2. The monitor hypothesis
• The acquired system acts to initiate the speaker’s
utterances and is responsible for spontaneous
language use, whereas the learned system acts as
a “monitor”, making minor changes and polishing
what the acquired system has produced.
• Such monitoring takes place only when the
speaker/writer has plenty of time, is concerned
about producing correct language, and has
learned the relevant rules.
3. The natural order hypothesis

• L2 learners acquire the features of the TL in

predictable sequences.
• The language features that are easiest to state
(and thus to ‘learn’) are not necessarily the first
to be acquired.
e.g. the rule for adding an –s to third person
singular verbs in the present tense
4. The input hypothesis

• Acquisition occurs when one is exposed to

language that is comprehensible and that
contains “i +1”.
• If the input contains forms and structures just
beyond the learner’s current level of competence in
the language (“i +1”), then both comprehension
and acquisition will occur.
5. The affective filter hypothesis

• “Affect” refers to feelings, motives, needs,

attitudes, and emotional states.
• The “affective filter” is an imaginary/metaphorical
barrier that prevents learners from acquiring
language from the available input.
• Depending on the learner’s state of mind, the filter
limits what is noticed and what is acquired. A
learner who is tense, anxious, or bored may “filter
out” input, making it unavailable for acquisition.
Summary

• Krashen’s “monitor model” (i.e., acquisition vs.

learning, monitor, natural order, comprehensible input,
and affective filter) has been very influential in
supporting communicative language teaching (CLT),
which focuses on using language for meaningful
interaction and for accomplishing tasks, rather than on
learning rules.
• Krashen’s hypotheses are intuitively appealing, but
those hypotheses are hard to be tested by empirical
evidence.
Connectionism
• Connectionists attribute greater importance to the role
of the environment than to any specific innate
knowledge.
• They argue that what is innate is simply the ability to
learn, not any specifically linguistic principles.
• They emphasize the frequency with which learners
encounter specific linguistic features in the input and
the frequency with which features occur together.
• Connectionists suggest that learners gradually build up
their knowledge of language through exposure to the
thousand of instances of the linguistic features they
hear or see.
• Eventually, learners develop stronger mental
‘connections’ between the elements they have learned;
thus, the presence of one situational or linguistic
element will activate the other(s) in the learner’s mind.
• Evidence comes from the observation that much of the
language we use in ordinary conversation is
predictable or formulaic. Language is often learned
in chunks larger than single words.
• It is suggested that these links (or connections) are
strengthened when learners are repeatedly exposed to
linguistic stimuli in specific contexts. For example, when L2
learners produce I go and she goes, the latter does not reflect
an underlying knowledge of a rule for the placement of ‘s’
with the third person singular.
• Rather, the connection between she and goes is thought to be
established through high-frequency exposure to these co-
occurring structures in the linguistic input. The pronoun she
activates goes and the pronoun I triggers go because the
learner has heard these forms in combination many many
times.
Interactionist perspectives
• A great deal of language learning takes place through social
interaction, at least in part because interlocutors adjust their
speech to make it more accessible to learners.
• Some of the L2 research in this framework is based on L1
research into children’s interaction with their caregivers and
peers.
• When native speakers engage in conversation with L2 learners,
they may also adjust their language in ways intended to make
it more comprehensible to the learner. Furthermore, when L2
learners interact with each other or with native speakers they
use a variety of interaction techniques and adjustments in their
efforts to negotiate meaning.
• SLA takes place through conversational interaction.
• Long (1983) argued that modified interaction is the
necessary mechanism for making language
comprehensible.
• What learners need is not necessarily simplification of
the linguistic forms but rather an opportunity to
interact with other speakers, working together to
reach mutual comprehension.
• Research shows that native speakers consistently
modify their speech in sustained conversation with
non-native speakers.
1. Interactional modification makes input comprehensible;

2. Comprehensible input promotes acquisition;

Therefore,

3. Interactional modification promotes acquisition

• Examples of conversational modifications:
elaboration, slower speech rate, gesture, additional
contextual cues, comprehension checks, clarification
requests, and self-repetition or paraphrase.

• Research has demonstrated that conversational adjustments

can aid comprehension in the L2.