Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a
second language
A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. The field of second-language acquisition is regarded by some but not everybody as a sub-discipline of
applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication rese ...
but also receives research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
and
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
.
A central theme in SLA research is that of ''
interlanguage
An interlanguage is an idiolect that has been developed by a learner of a second language (L2) which preserves some features of their first language (L1), and can also overgeneralize some L2 writing and speaking rules. These two characteristics ...
:'' the idea that the language that learners use is not simply the result of differences between the languages that they already know and the language that they are learning, but a complete language system in its own right, with its own systematic rules. This interlanguage gradually develops as learners are exposed to the targeted language. The order in which learners acquire features of their new language stays remarkably constant, even for learners with different native languages and regardless of whether they have had language instruction. However, languages that learners already know can have a significant influence on the process of learning a new one. This influence is known as ''
language transfer
Language transfer is the application of linguistic features from one language to another by a bilingual or multilingual speaker. Language transfer may occur across both languages in the acquisition of a simultaneous bilingual, from a mature sp ...
''.
The primary factor driving SLA appears to be the language input that learners receive. Learners become more advanced the longer they are immersed in the language they are learning and the more time they spend voluntarily reading. The
input hypothesis
The input hypothesis, also known as the monitor model, is a group of five hypotheses of second-language acquisition developed by the linguist Stephen Krashen in the 1970s and 1980s. Krashen originally formulated the input hypothesis as just on ...
developed by linguist
Stephen Krashen
Stephen D. Krashen (born May 14, 1941) is an American linguist, educational researcher and activist, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. He moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the Sc ...
theorizes that comprehensible input alone is necessary for second language acquisition. Krashen makes a distinction between language acquisition and language learning (the acquisition–learning distinction), claiming that acquisition is a subconscious process, whereas learning is a conscious one. According to this hypothesis, the acquisition process in L2 (Language 2) is the same as L1 (Language 1) acquisition. Learning, on the other hand, refers to conscious learning and analysis of the language being learned. Krashen argues that consciously learned language rules play a limited role in language use, serving as a monitor that could check second language output for form — assuming the learner has time, sufficient knowledge, and inclination (the monitor hypothesis). Subsequent work, by other researchers, on the
interaction hypothesis The interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication. Its main focus is on the role of input, interaction, and outpu ...
and the
comprehensible output hypothesis In the field of second language acquisition, there are many theories about the most effective way for language learners to acquire new language forms. One theory of language acquisition is the comprehensible output hypothesis.
Developed by Merril ...
, has suggested that opportunities for output and interaction may also be necessary for learners to reach more advanced levels.
Research on how exactly learners acquire a new language spans several different areas. Focus is directed toward providing proof of whether basic linguistic skills are innate (nature), acquired (nurture), or a combination of the two attributes. Cognitive approaches to SLA research deal with the processes in the brain that underpin language acquisition, for example how paying attention to language affects the ability to learn it, or how language acquisition is related to short-term and long-term memory. Sociocultural approaches reject the notion that SLA is a purely psychological phenomenon and attempt to explain it in a social context. Some key social factors that influence SLA are the level of immersion, connection to the L2 community, and gender. Linguistic approaches consider language separately from other kinds of knowledge and attempt to use findings from the wider study of linguistics to explain SLA. There is also a considerable body of research about how SLA can be affected by individual factors such as age and learning strategies. A commonly discussed topic regarding age in SLA is the
critical period hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis or sensitive period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time window of brain development to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more di ...
, which suggests that individuals lose the ability to fully learn a language after a particular age in childhood. Another topic of interest in SLA is the differences between adult and child learners. Learning strategies are commonly categorized as learning or communicative strategies and are developed to improve their respective acquisition skills. Affective factors are emotional factors that influence an individual's ability to learn a new language. Common affective factors that influence acquisition are anxiety, personality, social attitudes, and motivation. In the domain of personality, introversion and extroversion in particular can affect learning.
Individuals may also lose a language through a process called
second-language attrition. This is often caused by a lack of use or exposure to a language over time. The severity of attrition depends on a variety of factors including level of
proficiency, age, social factors, and motivation at the time of acquisition. Finally, classroom research deals with the effect that language instruction has on acquisition.
Definitions
''Second language'' refers to any language learned in addition to a person's
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
; 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 not refer to practices in
language teaching
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: ...
, although teaching can affect acquisition. The term ''acquisition'' was originally used to emphasize the non-conscious nature of the learning process,
[ made a sharp distinction between ''learning'' and ''acquisition'', using ''learning'' to refer to the conscious aspects of the language learning process and ''acquisition'' to refer to the subconscious aspects. This strict separation of learning and acquisition is widely regarded as an oversimplification by researchers today, but his hypotheses were very influential and the name has stuck.] but in recent years ''learning'' and ''acquisition'' have become largely synonymous.
SLA can incorporate
heritage language learning
Heritage language learning, or heritage language acquisition, is the act of learning a heritage language from an ethnolinguistic group that traditionally speaks the language, or from those whose family historically spoke the language. According ...
, but it does not usually incorporate
bilingualism
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
. Most SLA researchers see bilingualism as being the result of learning a language, not the process itself, and see the term as referring to native-like fluency. Writers in fields such as education and psychology, however, often use bilingualism loosely to refer to all forms of
multilingualism
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
. SLA is also not to be contrasted with the acquisition of a
foreign language
A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at schoo ...
; rather, the learning of second languages and the learning of foreign languages involve the same fundamental processes in different situations.
Research background
The academic discipline of second-language acquisition is a sub-discipline of
applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication rese ...
. It is broad-based and relatively new. As well as the various branches of
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, second-language acquisition is also closely related to psychology and education. 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 interdisciplinary field; because of this, it is difficult to identify a precise starting date. However, two papers in particular are seen as instrumental to the development of the modern study of SLA: Pit Corder's 1967 essay ''The Significance of Learners' Errors'' and Larry Selinker's 1972 article ''Interlanguage''. The field saw a great deal of development in the following decades. Since the 1980s, SLA has been studied from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and theoretical perspectives. In the early 2000s, some research suggested an equivalence between the acquisition of human languages and that of computer languages (e.g. Java) by children in the 5 to 11 year age window, though this has not been widely accepted amongst educators. Significant approaches in the field today are systemic functional linguistics, sociocultural theory, cognitive linguistics,
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
's
universal grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
,
skill acquisition theory and
connectionism
Connectionism refers to both an approach in the field of cognitive science that hopes to explain mental phenomena using artificial neural networks (ANN) and to a wide range of techniques and algorithms using ANNs in the context of artificial in ...
.
There has been much debate about exactly how language is learned and many issues are still unresolved. There are many theories of second-language acquisition, but none are accepted as a complete explanation by all SLA researchers. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of SLA, this is not expected to happen in the foreseeable future. Although attempts have been made to provide a more unified account that tries to bridge first language acquisition and second language learning research.
Stages
Krashen stages
Stephen Krashen divides the process of second-language acquisition into five stages: preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency. The first stage, preproduction, is also known as the
silent period
The silent period (also called pre-production period) is a phase reported to have been observed in second-language acquisition where the learner does not yet produce but is actively processing the L2 (second language). This silent period has been c ...
. Learners at this stage have a receptive vocabulary of up to 500 words, but they do not yet speak their second language. Not all learners go through a silent period. Some learners start speaking straight away, although their output may consist of imitation rather than creative language use. Others may be required to speak from the start as part of a language course. For learners that do go through a silent period, it may last around three to six months.
The second of Krashen's stages of acquisition is early production, during which learners can speak in short phrases of one or two words. They can also memorize chunks of language, although they may make mistakes when using them. Learners typically have both an active and receptive vocabulary of around 1000 words. This stage normally lasts for around six months.
The third stage is speech emergence. Learners' vocabularies increase to around 3000 words during this stage, and they can communicate using simple questions and phrases. They may often make grammatical errors.
The fourth stage is intermediate fluency. At this stage, learners have a vocabulary of around 6000 words and can use more complicated sentence structures. They are also able to share their thoughts and opinions. Learners may make frequent errors with more complicated sentence structures.
The final stage is advanced fluency, which is typically reached somewhere between five and ten years of learning the language. Learners at this stage can function at a level close to native speakers.
Krashen has also developed several hypotheses discussing the nature of second language learners' thought processes and the development of self-awareness during second language acquisition. The most prominent of these hypotheses are Monitor Theory and the Affective Filter hypothesis.
Kleine and Perdue stages
From the early 1980s, a large research project into SLA was carried over at the
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute situated on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen located ...
, headed by
Wolfgang Klein
Wolfgang Klein (28 January 1941 – 15 September 2017) was a German athlete. He competed in the men's long jump at the 1964 Summer Olympics. He later became a lawyer and served as the president of the football club Hamburger SV
Hamburg ...
and coordinated by
Clive Perdue
Clive is a name. People and fictional characters with the name include:
People Given name
* Clive Allen (born 1961), English football player
* Clive Anderson (born 1952), British television, radio presenter, comedy writer and former barrister
* ...
, which studied ''Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants'' coming into Europe. The results, published in the early 1990s, proposed that second language acquisition proceeds along three stages: ''pre-basic'' variety (or ''nominal utterance organisation''), basic variety (or ''infinite utterance organisation''), and post-basic variety (or ''finite utterance organisation'').
The pre-basic stage is usually very short, with a small lexicon of nouns and no verbs. The basic stage sees the introduction of verbs in their basic form not marked for finiteness (like
participles
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
). In the third stage functional
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
starts to appear, with the flection of nouns and verbs
[Klein, Wolfgang and Clive Perdue (1992) ''Utterance Structure: Developing Grammars Again''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.]
Language difficulty and learning time
The time taken to reach a high level of proficiency can vary depending on the language learned. In the case of native English speakers, some estimates were provided by the ''Foreign Service Institute'' (FSI) of the
U.S. Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
— which compiled approximate learning expectations for several languages for their professional staff (native English speakers who generally already know other languages). ''Category I Languages'' include e.g. Italian and Swedish (24 weeks or 600 class hours) and French (30 weeks or 750 class hours). ''Category II Languages'' include German, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, Malay, and Swahili (approx. 36 weeks or 900 class hours). ''Category III Languages'' include a lot of languages like Finnish, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and many others (approx. 44 weeks, 1100 class hours).
Of the 63 languages analyzed, the five most difficult languages to reach proficiency in speaking and reading, requiring 88 weeks (2200 class hours, ''Category IV Languages''), are
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
,
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, and
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
. The Foreign Service Institute and the
National Virtual Translation Center The National Virtual Translation Center (NVTC) is a United States government organization established in February 2003 which provides "timely, accurate, and cost-effective translations for the U.S. Intelligence Community and other federal agencies. ...
both note that Japanese is typically more difficult to learn than other languages in this group.
There are other rankings of language difficulty as the one by ''The British Foreign Office Diplomatic Service Language Centre'' which lists the difficult languages in Class I
(Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin); the easier languages are in Class V (e.g. Afrikaans, Bislama, Catalan, French, Spanish, Swedish).
The bottleneck hypothesis
''The bottleneck hypothesis'' strives to identify components of grammar that are easier or more difficult to acquire than others. It argues that functional morphology is the bottleneck of language acquisition, meaning that it is more difficult than other linguistic domains such as syntax, semantics, and phonology because it combines syntactic, semantic, and phonological features that affect the meaning of a sentence. For example, knowledge of the formation of the past tense in English requires both phonological patterns such as allomorphs at the end of the verb and irregular verb forms. Article acquisition is also difficult for L1 speakers of languages without articles, such as Korean and Russian. One study compared learner judgments of a syntactic feature,
V2, and a morphological property,
subject-verb agreement, using an
acceptability judgment task An acceptability judgment task, also called acceptability rating task, is a common method in empirical linguistics to gather information about the internal grammar of speakers of a language.
Acceptability and grammaticality
The goal of acceptabilit ...
. Researchers found that while Norwegian speakers who are intermediate and advanced learners of English could successfully assess the grammaticality of V2, they had significantly more difficulty with subject-verb agreement, which is predicted by the bottleneck hypothesis.
Cognitive and scientific reasons for the importance of this theory aside, the bottleneck hypothesis can also be of practical benefit as educators can maximize their time and focus on difficult problems in SLA classroom settings rather than placing attention on concepts that can be grasped with relative ease.
The cumulative effects hypothesis
This hypothesis claims that second-language acquisition may impose extra difficulties on children with
specific language impairment
Specific language impairment (SLI) (the term developmental language disorder is preferred by some) is diagnosed when a child's language does not develop normally and the difficulties cannot be accounted for by generally slow development, physical ...
(SLI), whose language delay extends into their school years due to deficits in verbal memory and processing mechanisms in comparison to children with typical development (TD). Existing research on individuals with SLI and bilingualism has been limited and thus there is a need for data showing how to support bilingual development in children with SLI. “Cumulative” refers to the combination of the effects of both internal deficits in language learning and external complications in input and experience caused by bilingualism, which could in turn overwhelm the learner with SLI. The theory predicts that bilingual children with SLI will be disadvantaged, falling behind both their monolingual peers with SLI and bilingual peers with TD.
Paradis' longitudinal study examined the acquisition of tense morphology over time in children with SLI who are learning English as a second language. The study found that the acquisition profile for children with SLI is similar to those reported for monolinguals with SLI and TD, showing inconsistencies with CEH. This has provided evidence that SLA will not negatively harm children with SLI and could be beneficial.
Comparisons with first-language acquisition
Adults who learn a second language differ from children
learning their first language in at least three ways: children are still developing their brains whereas adults have mature minds, and adults have at least a first language that orients their thinking and speaking. Although some adult second-language learners reach very high levels of proficiency, pronunciation tends to be non-native. This lack of native pronunciation in adult learners is explained by the
critical period hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis or sensitive period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time window of brain development to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more di ...
. When a learner's speech plateaus, it is known as fossilization.
Some errors that second-language learners make in their speech originate in their first language. For example,
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
speakers learning
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
may say "Is raining" rather than "It is raining", leaving out the
subject of the sentence. This kind of influence of the first language on the second is known as ''negative''
language transfer
Language transfer is the application of linguistic features from one language to another by a bilingual or multilingual speaker. Language transfer may occur across both languages in the acquisition of a simultaneous bilingual, from a mature sp ...
.
French speakers learning English, however, do not usually make the same mistake of leaving out "it" in "It is raining." This is because
pronominal
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
and impersonal sentence subjects
can be omitted (or as in this case, are not used in the first place) in Spanish but not in French. The French speaker knowing to use a pronominal sentence subject when speaking English is an example of ''positive'' language transfer. Not all errors occur in the same ways; even two individuals with the same native language learning the same second language still have the potential to utilize different parts of their native language. Likewise, these same two individuals may develop near-native fluency in different forms of grammar. Another error that can occur is called
language convergence
Language convergence is a type of linguistic change in which languages come to resemble one another structurally as a result of prolonged language contact and mutual interference, regardless of whether those languages belong to the same language ...
. This can occur for children acquiring a second language. The grammar structures or common grammatical patterns of one language may influence another. In a study, Singaporean elementary school students who were learning both English and Mandarin showed signs of language convergence. In this study, these students showed a preference for using grammatical patterns common in Mandarin when speaking English. Language convergence occurs because the children are not only acquiring the grammar of the new language but still developing the grammar of their native language, so the two grammars converge.
Also, when people learn a second language, the way they speak their first language changes in subtle ways. These changes can be with any aspect of language, from pronunciation and syntax to the gestures the learner makes and the language features they tend to notice. For example, French speakers who spoke English as a second language pronounced the /t/ sound in French differently from monolingual French speakers. This kind of change in pronunciation has been found even at the onset of second-language acquisition; for example, English speakers pronounced the English /p t k/ sounds, as well as English vowels, differently after they began to learn Korean. These effects of the second language on the first led
Vivian Cook to propose the idea of
multi-competence
Multi-competence is a concept in second language acquisition formulated by Vivian Cook that refers to the knowledge of more than one language in one person's mind.. From the multicompetence perspective, the different languages a person speaks are ...
, which sees the different languages a person speaks not as separate systems, but as related systems in their mind.
Learner language
''Learner 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 representation of a language in the mind of the learner, and how those representations change over time. It is not yet possible 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.
Interlanguage
Originally, attempts to describe learner language were based on
comparing different languages and on
analyzing learners' errors. However, these approaches were unable 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.
Additionally,
Yip found that
ergative verbs in English are regularly mis-passivized by L2 learners of English whose first language is Mandarin.
For instance, even advanced learners may form utterances such as "what was happened?" despite the fact that this construction has no obvious source in either L1 or L2. This could be because L2 speakers interpret ergatives as
transitive, as these are the only types of verbs that allow
passivization
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
in English.
To explain this kind of systematic error, 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 language in its own right, with its own systematic rules. It is possible to view most aspects of language from an interlanguage perspective, including
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
,
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
,
lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...
, and
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
.
Three different processes influence the creation of interlanguages:
* ''
Language transfer
Language transfer is the application of linguistic features from one language to another by a bilingual or multilingual speaker. Language transfer may occur across both languages in the acquisition of a simultaneous bilingual, from a mature sp ...
''. Learners fall back on their mother tongue to help create their language system. Transfer can be positive, i.e. promote learning, or negative, i.e. lead to mistakes. In the latter case, linguists also use the term interference error.
* ''Overgeneralization''. Learners use rules from the second language in roughly the same way that children overgeneralize in their first language. For example, a learner may say "I home", overgeneralizing the English rule of adding ''-ed'' to create past tense verb forms. English children also produce forms like ', ', and '. German children equally overextend regular past tense forms to irregular forms.
* ''Simplification''. Learners use a highly simplified form of language, similar to speech by children or in
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
s. This may be related to
linguistic universal
A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, ''All languages have nouns and verbs'', or ''If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels.'' Research i ...
s.
The concept of interlanguage has become very widespread in SLA research and is often a basic assumption made by researchers.
Sequences in the acquisition of English inflectional morphology
In the 1970s, several studies investigated the order in which learners acquired different grammatical structures.
[These studies were based on work by on child first-language acquisition. The first such studies on child second-language acquisition were carried out by . investigated the order of acquisition among adult second-language learners. See for a review of these studies.] These studies showed that there was little change in this order among learners with different first languages. Furthermore, it showed that the order was the same for adults and children and that it did not even change if the learner had language lessons. This supported the idea 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 the same. Although there were remarkable similarities in the order in which all learners learned second-language grammar, there were still some differences between individuals and 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, in which specific grammatical features in a language are acquired before or after certain others but the overall order of acquisition is less rigid. For example, if neither feature B nor feature D can be acquired until feature A has been acquired (feature B and D depend on A) and feature C depends on B, but D does not depend on B (or, therefore, on C), then acquisition orders (A, B, C, D) and (A, D, B, C) are possible, as they are both valid
topological ordering
In computer science, a topological sort or topological ordering of a directed graph is a linear ordering of its vertices such that for every directed edge ''uv'' from vertex ''u'' to vertex ''v'', ''u'' comes before ''v'' in the ordering. For in ...
s.
Learnability and teachability
Learnability has emerged as a theory explaining developmental sequences that crucially depend on learning principles, which are viewed as fundamental mechanisms of language acquisition within learnability theory. Some examples of learning principles include the uniqueness principle and the subset principle. The uniqueness principle refers to learners' preference for a one-to-one mapping between form and meaning, while the subset principle posits that learners are conservative in that they begin with the narrowest hypothesis space that is compatible with available data. Both of these principles have been used to explain children's ability to evaluate grammaticality despite the lack of explicit negative evidence. They have also been used to explain errors in SLA, as the creation of supersets could signal over-generalization, causing acceptance or production of ungrammatical sentences.
Pienemann's teachability hypothesis is based on the idea that there is a hierarchy of stages of acquisition and instruction in SLA should be compatible with learners' current acquisitional status. Recognizing learners' developmental stages is important as it enables teachers to predict and classify learning errors. This hypothesis predicts that L2 acquisition can only be promoted when learners are ready to acquire given items in a natural context. One goal of learnability theory is to figure out which linguistic phenomena are susceptible to fossilization, wherein some L2 learners continue to make errors despite the presence of relevant input.
Variability
Although second-language acquisition proceeds in discrete sequences, it does not progress from one step of a sequence to the next in an orderly fashion. There can be considerable variability in features of learners' interlanguage while progressing from one stage to the next. For example, in one study by
Rod Ellis
Rod Ellis is a Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize-winning British linguist. He is currently a research professor in the School of Education, at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is also a professor at Anaheim University, where he serves as th ...
, a learner used both "No look my card" and "Don't look my card" while playing a game of bingo. A small fraction of variation in interlanguage is ''free variation'', when the learner uses two forms interchangeably. However, most variation is ''systemic variation'', a variation that depends on the
context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
of utterances the learner makes. Forms can vary depending on the linguistic context, such as whether the subject of a sentence is a pronoun or a noun; they can vary depending on social contexts, such as using formal expressions with superiors and informal expressions with friends; and also, they can vary depending on the psycholinguistic context, or in other words, on whether learners have the chance to plan what they are going to say. The causes of variability are a matter of great debate among SLA researchers.
Language transfer
One important difference between first-language acquisition and second-language acquisition is that the process of second-language acquisition is influenced by languages that the learner already knows. This influence is known as ''language transfer''.
[The term ''language transfer'' is not without controversy, however. Sharwood Smith and Kellerman preferred the term '']crosslinguistic influence
Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) refers to the different ways in which one language can affect another within an individual speaker. It typically involves two languages that can affect one another in a bilingual speaker. An example of ...
'' to ''language transfer''. They argued that ''cross-linguistic influence'' was neutral regarding different theories of language acquisition, whereas ''language transfer'' was not. , cited in . Language transfer is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interaction between learners’ prior linguistic knowledge, the target-language input they encounter, and their cognitive processes. Language transfer is not always from the learner’s native language; it can also be from a second language or a third. Neither is it limited to any particular domain of language; language transfer can occur in grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, discourse, and reading.
Language transfer often occurs when learners sense a similarity between a feature of a language they already know and a feature of the interlanguage they have developed. If this happens, the acquisition of more complicated language forms may be delayed in favor of simpler language forms that resemble those of the language the learner is familiar with. Learners may also decline to use some language forms at all if they are perceived as being too distant from their first language.
Language transfer has been the subject of several studies, and many aspects of it remain unexplained. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain language transfer, but there is no single widely accepted explanation of why it occurs.
Some linguists prefer to use cross-linguistic influence to describe this phenomenon. Studies on bilingual children find bidirectional cross-linguistic influence; for example, Nicoladis (2012) reported that bilingual children aged three to four produce French-like periphrastic constructions e.g. "the hat of the dog" and ungrammatical English-like reversed possessive structures e.g. "" (dog hat) significantly more than their monolingual peers. Though periphrastic constructions are expected as they are grammatical in both English and French, reversed possessives in French are ungrammatical and thus unexpected.
In a study exploring cross-linguistic influence in word order by comparing Dutch-English bilingual and English monolingual children, Unsworth found that bilingual children were more likely to accept incorrect V2 word orders in English than monolinguals with both auxiliary and main verbs. Dominance was a predictor of this phenomenon; Dutch-dominant children showed less sensitivity to word order than English-dominant ones, though this effect was small and there was individual variation.
Language dominance
The term language dominance can be defined in terms of differences in frequency of use and differences in proficiency in bilinguals.
How basic or advanced a speaker's L2 level will be is determined by a complex range of environmental, individual and other factors. Language dominance may change over time through the process of language attrition, in which some L2 skills begin to match or even overtake those of L1. Research suggests a correlation between amount of language exposure and cross-linguistic influence; language dominance is considered to have an impact on the direction of transfer.
One study found that transfer is asymmetrical and predicted by dominance, as Cantonese dominant children showed clear syntactic transfer in many areas of grammar from Cantonese to English but not vice versa.
MLU, mean length of utterance, is a common measurement of linguistic productivity and language dominance in children.
Input and interaction
The primary factor affecting language acquisition appears to be the input that the learner receives.
Stephen Krashen
Stephen D. Krashen (born May 14, 1941) is an American linguist, educational researcher and activist, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. He moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the Sc ...
took a very strong position on the importance of input, asserting that
comprehensible input
The input hypothesis, also known as the monitor model, is a group of five hypotheses of second-language acquisition developed by the linguist Stephen Krashen in the 1970s and 1980s. Krashen originally formulated the input hypothesis as just on ...
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 their 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
universal grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
model.
The type of input may also be important. One tenet of Krashen's theory is 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 French-
language immersion
Language immersion, or simply immersion, is a technique used in bilingual language education in which two languages are used for instruction in a variety of topics, including math, science, or social studies. The languages used for instruction ...
programs in Canada 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
comprehensible output In the field of second language acquisition, there are many theories about the most effective way for language learners to acquire new language forms. One theory of language acquisition is the comprehensible output hypothesis.
Developed by Merrill ...
.
Researchers have also pointed to interaction in the second language as being important for acquisition. According to Long's
interaction hypothesis The interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication. Its main focus is on the role of input, interaction, and outpu ...
the conditions for acquisition are especially good when interacting in the second language; specifically, conditions are good when a communication breakdown 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.
Factors and approaches to SLA
Cognitive factors
Much modern research in second-language acquisition has taken a cognitive approach. Cognitive research is concerned with the mental processes involved in language acquisition, and how they can explain the nature of learners' language knowledge. This area of research is based in the more general area of
cognitive science and uses many concepts and models used in more general cognitive theories of learning. As such, cognitive theories view second-language acquisition as a special case of more general learning mechanisms in the brain. This puts them in direct contrast with linguistic theories, which posit that language acquisition uses a unique process different from other types of learning.
The dominant model in cognitive approaches to second-language acquisition, and indeed in all second-language acquisition research, is the computational model. The computational model involves three stages. In the first stage, learners retain certain features of the language input in short-term memory. (This retained input is known as ''intake''.) Then, learners convert some of this intake into second-language knowledge, which is stored in long-term memory. Finally, learners use this second-language knowledge to produce spoken output. Cognitive theories attempt to codify both the nature of the mental representations of intake and language knowledge and the mental processes that underlie these stages.
In the early days of second-language acquisition research on
interlanguage
An interlanguage is an idiolect that has been developed by a learner of a second language (L2) which preserves some features of their first language (L1), and can also overgeneralize some L2 writing and speaking rules. These two characteristics ...
was seen as the basic representation of second-language knowledge; however, more recent research has taken several different approaches in characterizing the mental representation of language knowledge. Some theories hypothesize that learner language is inherently variable, and there is the functionalist perspective that sees the acquisition of language as intimately tied to the function it provides. Some researchers make the distinction between ''implicit'' and ''explicit'' language knowledge, and some between ''declarative'' and ''procedural'' language knowledge. There have also been approaches that argue for a ''dual-mode system'' in which some language knowledge is stored as rules and other language knowledge as items.
The mental processes that underlie second-language acquisition can be broken down into micro-processes and macro-processes. Micro-processes include attention; working memory; integration and restructuring. Restructuring is the process by which learners change their interlanguage systems; and ''monitoring'' is the conscious attending of learners to their own language output. Macro-processes include the distinction between intentional learning and incidental learning; and also the distinction between explicit and implicit learning. Some of the notable cognitive theories of second-language acquisition include the nativization model, th
multidimensional modeland
processability theory, emergentist models, the
competition model
The Competition Model is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing, developed by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney (1982). The claim in MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984) is that "the forms of natural languag ...
, and
skill-acquisition theories.
Other cognitive approaches have looked at learners' speech production, particularly learners'
speech planning and
communication strategies. Speech planning can affect learners' spoken output, and research in this area has focused on how planning affects three aspects of speech: complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Of these three, planning effects on fluency have had the most research attention. Communication strategies are conscious strategies that learners employ to get around any instances of communication breakdown they may experience. Their effect on second-language acquisition is unclear, with some researchers claiming they help it, and others claiming the opposite.
An important idea in recent cognitive approaches is the way that learning itself changes over development. For example, connectionist models that explain L1 language phenomena in different languages (e.g., Japanese, English ) can also be used to develop L2 models by first training on the L1 (e.g., Korean) and then training on the L2 (e.g. English). By using different learning rates for syntax and lexical learning that change over development, the model can explain sensitive period effects and differences in the effect of language exposure on different types of learners.
Sociocultural factors
From the early days of the discipline, researchers have also acknowledged that social aspects play an important role. There have been many different approaches to the sociolinguistic study of second-language acquisition, and indeed, according to Rod Ellis, this plurality has meant that "sociolinguistic SLA is replete with a bewildering set of terms referring to the social aspects of L2 acquisition". Common to each of these approaches, however, is a rejection of language as a purely psychological phenomenon; instead, sociolinguistic research views the social context in which language is learned as essential for a proper understanding of the acquisition process.
Ellis identifies three types of social structures that affect the acquisition of second languages: sociolinguistic setting, specific social factors, and situational factors. Sociolinguistic setting refers to the role of the second language in society, such as whether it is spoken by a majority or a minority of the population, whether its use is widespread or restricted to a few functional roles, or whether the society is predominantly bilingual or monolingual. Ellis also includes the distinction of whether the second language is learned in a natural or an educational setting. Specific social factors that can affect second-language acquisition include age, gender, social class, and ethnic identity, with ethnic identity being the one that has received most research attention. Situational factors are those that vary between each social interaction. For example, a learner may use more polite language when talking to someone of higher social status, but more informal language when talking with friends.
Immersion programs provide a sociolinguistic setting that facilitates second-language acquisition. Immersion programs are educational programs where children are instructed in an L2 language. Although the language of instruction is the L2 language, the curriculum parallels that of non-immersion programs and clear support exists in the L1 language, as the teachers are all bilingual. The goal of these programs is to develop a high level of proficiency in both the L1 and L2 languages. Students in immersion programs have been shown to have greater levels of proficiency in their second language than students who receive second language education only as a subject in school. This is especially true in terms of their receptive skills. Also, students who join immersion programs earlier generally have greater second-language proficiency than their peers who join later. However, students who join later have been shown to gain native-like proficiency. Although immersion students' receptive skills are especially strong, their productive skills may suffer if they spend the majority of their time listening to instruction only. Grammatical skills and the ability to have precise vocabulary are particular areas of struggle. It is argued that immersion is necessary, but not sufficient for the development of native-like proficiency in a second language. Opportunities to engage in sustained conversation, and assignments that encourage syntactical, as well as semantic development help develop the productive skills necessary for bilingual proficiency.
A learner's sense of connection to their in-group, as well as to the community of the target language emphasizes the influence of the sociolinguistic setting, as well as social factors within the second-language acquisition process.
Social Identity Theory
Social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevance, relevant social group.
As originally formulated by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, John Turner in the 1970s ...
argues that an important factor for second language acquisition is the learner's perceived identity to the community of the language being learned, as well as how the community of the target language perceives the learner. Whether or not a learner feels a sense of connection to the community or culture of the target language helps determine their social distance from the target culture. A smaller social distance is likely to encourage learners to acquire the second language, as their investment in the learning process is greater. Conversely, a greater social distance discourages attempts to acquire the target language. However, negative views not only come from the learner, but the community of the target language might feel greater social distance from the learner, limiting the learner's ability to learn the language. Whether or not bilingualism is valued by the culture or community of the learner is an important indicator of the motivation to learn a language.
Gender, as a social factor, also influences SLA. Females have been found to have higher motivation and more positive attitudes than males for second-language acquisition. However, females are also more likely to present higher levels of anxiety, which may inhibit their ability to efficiently learn a new language.
There have been several models developed to explain social effects on language acquisition. Schumann's
Acculturation Model proposes that learners' rate of development and ultimate level of language achievement is a function of the "social distance" and the "psychological distance" between learners and the second-language community. In Schumann's model, the social factors are most important, but the degree to which learners are comfortable with learning the second language also plays a role. Another sociolinguistic model is Gardner's
socio-educational model The desire to learn is often related to the concept of ‘motivation’. Motivation is the most used concept for explaining the failure or success of a language learner. Second language (L2) refers to a language an individual learns that is not his/ ...
, which was designed to explain classroom language acquisition. Gardner's model focuses on the emotional aspects of SLA, arguing that positive motivation contributes to an individual's willingness to learn L2; furthermore, the goal of an individual to learn an L2 is based on the idea that the individual has a desire to be part of a culture, in other words, part of a (the targeted language) mono-linguistic community. Factors, such as
''integrativeness'' and ''attitudes towards the learning situation'' drive motivation. The outcome of positive motivation is not only linguistic but non-linguistic, such that the learner has met the desired goal. Although there are many critics of Gardner's model, nonetheless many of these critics have been influenced by the merits that his model holds. The
inter-group model proposes "ethnolinguistic vitality" as a key construct for second-language acquisition.
Language socialization
In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cultur ...
is an approach with the premise that "linguistic and cultural knowledge are ''constructed'' through each other", and saw increased attention after the year 2000. Finally, Norton's theory of
social identity
Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in
In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which ...
is an attempt to codify the relationship between power, identity, and language acquisition.
A unique approach to SLA is Sociocultural theory. It was originally developed by
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; be, Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on ps ...
and his followers. Central to Vygotsky's theory is the concept of a
zone of proximal development
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a concept in educational psychology. It represents the distance between what a learner is capable of doing unsupported, and what they can only do supported. It is the range where they are capable only with ...
(ZPD). The ZPD notion states that social interaction with more advanced target language users allows one to learn a language at a higher level than if they were to learn a language independently. Sociocultural theory has a fundamentally different set of assumptions to approaches to second-language acquisition based on the computational model. Furthermore, although it is closely affiliated with other social approaches, it is a theory of mind and not of general social explanation of language acquisition. According to Ellis, "It is important to recognize... that this paradigm, despite the label 'sociocultural' does not seek to explain how learners acquire the cultural values of the L2 but rather how knowledge of an L2 is internalized through experiences of a sociocultural nature."
Linguistic factors
Linguistic approaches to explaining second-language acquisition spring from the wider study of linguistics. They differ from cognitive approaches and sociocultural approaches in that they consider linguistic knowledge to be unique and distinct from any other type of knowledge. The linguistic research tradition in second-language acquisition has developed in relative isolation from the cognitive and sociocultural research traditions, and as of 2010 the influence from the wider field of linguistics was still strong. Two main strands of research can be identified in the linguistic tradition:
generative approaches informed by
universal grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
, and typological approaches.
Typological universals are principles that hold for all the world's languages. They are found empirically, by surveying different languages and deducing which aspects of them could be universal; these aspects are then checked against other languages to verify the findings. The
interlanguage
An interlanguage is an idiolect that has been developed by a learner of a second language (L2) which preserves some features of their first language (L1), and can also overgeneralize some L2 writing and speaking rules. These two characteristics ...
s of second-language learners have been shown to obey typological universals, and some researchers have suggested that typological universals may constrain interlanguage development.
The theory of universal grammar was proposed by
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
in the 1950s and has enjoyed considerable popularity in the field of linguistics. It focuses on describing the
linguistic competence
In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one knows when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practi ...
of an individual. He believed that children not only acquire language by learning descriptive rules of grammar; he claimed that children ''creatively'' play and form words as they learn language, creating meaning of these words, as opposed to the mechanism of memorizing language. It consists of a set of ''principles'', which are universal and constant, and a set of ''parameters'', which can be set differently for different languages. The "universals" in universal grammar differ from typological universals in that they are a mental construct derived by researchers, whereas typological universals are readily verifiable by data from world languages. It is widely accepted among researchers in the universal grammar framework that all first-language learners have access to universal grammar; this is not the case for second-language learners, however, and much research in the context of second-language acquisition has focused on what level of access learners may have. there is an ongoing debate among generative linguists surrounding whether L2 users have full or partial access to universal grammar. This can be seen through acceptability judgment tests. For example, one study found that during a comprehension task, while English L1 speakers learning Spanish may accept the imperfect aspect in appropriate conditions, even at higher levels of proficiency, they do not reject the use of the
Preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
tense in continuous and habitual contexts.
Universal grammar theory can account for some of the observations of SLA research. For example, L2 users often display knowledge about their L2 that they have not been exposed to. L2 users are often aware of ambiguous or ungrammatical L2 units that they have not learned from any external source, nor their pre-existing L1 knowledge. This unsourced knowledge suggests the existence of a universal grammar. Another piece of evidence that generative linguists tend to use is the
poverty of the stimulus
Poverty of the stimulus (POS) is the controversial argument from linguistics that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language. This is considered evidence contrary to ...
, which states that children acquiring language lack sufficient data to fully acquire all facets of grammar in their language, causing a mismatch between input and output.
The fact that children are only exposed to positive evidence yet have intuition about which word strings are ungrammatical may also be indicative of universal grammar. However, L2 learners have access to negative evidence as they are explicitly taught about ungrammaticality through corrections or grammar teaching.
Individual variation
There 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 get stuck 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
language learning aptitude
Language learning aptitude refers to the "prediction of how well, relative to other individuals, an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given conditions". Foreign language aptitude itself has been defined as ...
in the 1950s, and later with the ''
good language learner studies The good language learner (GLL) studies are a group of academic studies in the area of second language acquisition that deal with the strategies that good language learners exhibit. The rationale for the studies was that there is more benefit from ...
'' in the 1970s. More recently research has focused on several 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.
Age
The issue of age was first addressed with the
critical period hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis or sensitive period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time window of brain development to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more di ...
.
[The critical period hypothesis was formulated for first-language acquisition by and popularized by .] The strict version of this hypothesis states that there is a cut-off age at about 12, after which learners lose the ability to fully learn a language. However, the exact age marking the end of the critical period is debated, and ranges from age 6 to 13, with many arguing that it is around the onset of puberty. This strict version has since been rejected for second-language acquisition, as some adult and adolescent learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency faster than young children. However, in general, adolescent and adult learners of a second language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that children who acquire both languages from birth 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.
Children who acquire two languages from birth are called simultaneous bilinguals. In these cases, both languages are spoken to the children by their parents or caregivers and they grow up knowing the two languages. These children generally reach linguistic milestones at the same time as their monolingual peers. Children who do not learn two languages from infancy, but learn one language from birth, and another at some point during childhood, are referred to as sequential bilinguals. People often assume that a sequential bilingual's first language is their most proficient language, but this is not always the case. Over time and experience, a child's second language may become his or her strongest. This is especially likely to happen if a child's first language is a minority language spoken at home, and the child's second language is the majority language learned at school or in the community before the age of five. Proficiency for both simultaneous and sequential bilinguals is dependent upon the child's opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations in a variety of contexts.
Often simultaneous bilinguals are more proficient in their languages than sequential bilinguals. One argument for this is that simultaneous bilinguals develop more distinct representations of their languages, especially with regards to
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and
semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
levels of processing.
This would cause learners to have more differentiation between the languages, leading them to be able to recognize the subtle differences between the languages that less proficient learners would struggle to recognize. Learning a language earlier in life would help develop these distinct representations of language, as the learner's first language would be less established. Conversely, learning a language later in life would lead to more similar semantic representations.
Although child learners more often acquire native-like proficiency, older child and adult learners often progress faster in the initial stages of learning. Older child and adult learners are quicker at acquiring the initial grammar knowledge than child learners, however, with enough time and exposure to the language, children surpass their older peers. Once surpassed, older learners often display clear language deficiencies compared to child learners. This has been attributed to having a solid grasp of the first language or mother tongue they were first immersed into. Having this cognitive ability already developed can aid the process of learning a second language since there is a better understanding of how language works. For this same reason interaction with family and further development of the first language is encouraged along with positive reinforcement. The exact language deficiencies that occur past a certain age are not unanimously agreed upon. Some believe that only pronunciation is affected, while others believe other abilities are affected as well. However, some differences that are generally agreed upon include older learners having a noticeable accent, a smaller vocabulary, and making several linguistic errors.
One explanation for this difference in proficiency between older learners and younger learners involves
Universal Grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
. Universal Grammar is a debated theory that suggests that people have an innate knowledge of universal linguistic principles that is present from birth. These principles guide children as they learn a language, but its parameters vary from language to language. The theory assumes that, while Universal Grammar remains into adulthood, the ability to reset the parameters set for each language is lost, making it more difficult to learn a new language proficiently. Since older learners would already have an established native language, the language acquisition process is very different for them, than for young learners. The rules and principles that guide the use of the learners' native language play a role in the way the second language is developed.
Some nonbiological explanations for second-language acquisition age differences include variations in social and psychological factors, such as motivation; the learner's linguistic environment; and the level of exposure. Even with less advantageous nonbiological influences, many young children attain a greater level of proficiency in their second language than older learners with more advantageous nonbiological influences.
Strategies
Considerable attention has been paid to the strategies learners use to learn a second language. Strategies are of critical importance, so much so that ''strategic competence'' has been suggested as a major component of
communicative competence The concept of communicative competence, as developed in linguistics, originated in response to perceived inadequacy of the notion of linguistic competence. That is, communicative competence encompasses a language user's grammatical knowledge of syn ...
. Strategies are commonly divided into ''
learning strategies'' and ''
communicative strategies'', although there are other ways of categorizing them. Learning strategies are techniques used to improve learning, such as
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
s or using a
dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...
. Communicative strategies are strategies a learner uses to convey meaning even when he or she doesn't have access to the correct form, such as using
pro-form
In linguistics, a pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context. They are used either to avoid re ...
s like ''thing'', or using non-verbal means such as
gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...
s. If learning strategies and communicative strategies are used properly language acquisition is successful. Some points to keep in mind while learning an additional language are: providing information that is of interest to the student, offering opportunities for the student to share their knowledge, and teaching appropriate techniques for the uses of the learning resources available.
Another strategy may include intentional ways to acquire or improve their second language skills. Adult immigrants and/or second language learners seeking to acquire a second language can engage in different activities to receive and share knowledge as well as improve their learning; some of these include:
*incidental or informal learning (''media resources, family/friend interactions, work interactions'')
*purposeful learning (''self-study, taking language classes'')
*pursuing formal education
Affective factors
The learner's attitude to the learning process has also been identified as being critically important to second-language acquisition.
Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
in language-learning situations has been almost unanimously shown to be detrimental to successful learning. Anxiety interferes with the mental processing of language because the demands of anxiety-related thoughts create competition for mental resources. This results in less available storage and energy for tasks required for language processing. Not only this, but anxiety is also usually accompanied by self-deprecating thoughts and fear of failure, which can be detrimental to an individual's ability to learn a new language. Learning a new language provides a unique situation that may even produce a specific type of anxiety, called language anxiety, that affects the quality of acquisition. Also, anxiety may be detrimental for SLA because it can influence a learner's ability to attend to, concentrate on, and encode language information. It may affect the speed and accuracy of learning. Further, the apprehension created as a result of anxiety inhibits the learner's ability to retrieve and produce the correct information.
A related factor, personality, has also received attention. There has been discussion about the effects of
extravert
The trait theory, traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality psychology, personality theories. The terms ''introversion'' and ''extraversion'' were ...
and
introvert
The traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms ''introversion'' and ''extraversion'' were introduced into psychology by Carl J ...
personalities. Extraverted qualities may help learners seek out opportunities and people to assist with L2 learning, whereas introverts may find it more difficult to seek out such opportunities for interaction. However, it has also been suggested that, while extraverts might experience greater fluency, introverts are likely to make fewer linguistic errors. Further, while extraversion might be beneficial through its encouragement of learning autonomously, it may also present challenges as learners may find reflective and time-management skills to be difficult. However, one study has found that there were no significant differences between extroverts and introverts in the way they achieve success in a second language.
Other personality factors, such as
conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to ...
,
agreeableness
Agreeableness is a personality trait manifesting itself in individual behavioral characteristics that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, and considerate. In contemporary personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the five ...
, and
openness
Openness is an overarching concept or philosophy that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency (behavior), transparency and decentralized decision-making, collaboration. That is, openness refers to "accessibility of knowledge, technology a ...
influence self-regulation, which helps L2 learners engage, process meaning, and adapt their thoughts, feelings, and actions to benefit the acquisition process. SLA research has shown conscientiousness to be associated with time-management skills, metacognition, analytic learning, and persistence; agreeableness to effort; and openness to elaborative learning, intelligence, and metacognition. Both genetics and the learner's environment impact the personality of the learner, either facilitating or hindering an individual's ability to learn.
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
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
children in learning English.
Also, the
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
of the individual learner is of vital importance to the success of language learning. Motivation is influenced by goal
salience,
valence, and
self-efficacy
In psychology, self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. The concept was originally proposed by the psychologist Albert Bandura.
Self-efficacy affects every area of human endea ...
. In this context, goal salience is the importance of the L2 learner's goal, as well as how often the goal is pursued; valence is the value the L2 learner places on SLA, determined by the desire to learn and attitudes about learning the L2; and self-efficacy is the learner's own belief that he or she is capable of achieving the linguistic goal. 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. However, motivation is dynamic and, as an L2 learner's fluency develops, their extrinsic motivation may evolve to become more intrinsic. Learner motivation can develop through contact with the L2 community and culture, as learners often desire to communicate and identify with individuals in the L2 community. Further, a supportive learning environment facilitates motivation through the increase in self-confidence and autonomy. Learners in a supportive environment are more often willing to take on challenging tasks, thus encouraging L2 development.
Attrition
Attrition is the loss of proficiency in a language caused by a lack of exposure to or use of a language. It is a natural part of the language experience as it exists within a dynamic environment. As the environment changes, the language adapts. One way it does this is by using L1 as a tool to navigate the periods of change associated with acquisition and attrition. A learner's L2 is not suddenly lost with disuse, but its communicative functions are slowly replaced by those of the L1.
Similar to second-language acquisition, second-language attrition occurs in stages. However, according to the regression hypothesis, the stages of attrition occur in reverse order of acquisition. With acquisition, receptive skills develop first, and then productive skills, and with attrition, productive skills are lost first, and then receptive skills.
Age, proficiency level, and social factors play a role in the way attrition occurs. Most often younger children are quicker than adults to lose their L2 when it is left unused. However, if a child has established a high level of proficiency, it may take them several years to lose the language. Proficiency level seems to play the largest role in the extent of attrition. For very proficient individuals, there is a period where very little, if any, attrition is observed. For some, residual learning might even occur, which is the apparent improvement within the L2. Within the first five years of language disuse, the total percentage of language knowledge lost is less for a proficient individual than for someone less proficient. A cognitive psychological explanation for this suggests that a higher level of proficiency involves the use of
schema
The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms.
Schema may refer to:
Science and technology
* SCHEMA ...
s, or mental representations for linguistic structures. Schemas involve deeper mental processes for mental retrieval that are resistant to attrition. As a result, information that is tied to this system is less likely to experience less extreme attrition than information that is not. Finally, social factors may play an indirect role in attrition. In particular, motivation and attitude influence the process. Higher levels of motivation and a positive attitude toward the language and the corresponding community may lessen attrition. This is likely due to the higher level of competence achieved in L2 when the learner is motivated and has a positive attitude.
Classroom second-language acquisition
While considerable 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
language education
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: ...
, and it is mainly concerned with the effect that instruction has on the learner. It also explores what teachers do, the classroom context, and the dynamics of classroom communication. It is both qualitative and quantitative research.
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 for almost every current teaching methodology. This research has indicated that many traditional language-teaching techniques are extremely inefficient. Cited in 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 learners. This has been shown to vary depending on the technique used to correct, and the overall focus of the classroom, whether on formal accuracy or 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.
If one wishes to acquire a language in a classroom setting only, one needs to consider the category of the language one wishes to acquire; the category of the desired language will determine how many hours or weeks to devote to study.
There are three main categories of languages. Category I languages are “cognate languages” like French, Spanish, and Swedish; category II languages are Finnish, Russian, and Vietnamese; category III languages are Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. As such, the languages are categorized by their similarity to English. Respectively, category I languages require 24 weeks or 600 classroom hours to achieve proficiency; category II languages require 44 weeks or 1,100 hours; category III languages require 88 weeks or 2,200 hours .
Moreover, one can achieve proficiency in a foreign language in a classroom setting so long as one acknowledges the time commitment necessary.
See also
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Bilingualism (neurology)
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Dynamic approach to second language development Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in the field of linguistics is a perspective and approach to the study of second, third and additional language acquisition. The general term Complex Dynamic Systems Theory was recommended by Kees de Bot to refer to b ...
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International auxiliary language
An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
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Language learning aptitude
Language learning aptitude refers to the "prediction of how well, relative to other individuals, an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given conditions". Foreign language aptitude itself has been defined as ...
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Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...
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Language complexity
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List of common misconceptions about language learning
Language learning is subject to several misconceptions. It is common for people to rely on their own intuitions about language learning, though they would not do so with other technical subjects such as physics (a phenomenon known as ''folk linguis ...
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List of language acquisition researchers
Below are some notable researchers in language acquisition listed by intellectual orientation and research topic.
Nativists
* Eric Lenneberg
* Steven Pinker
* Stephen Crain
* Thomas Bever
* Susan Gelman
* Susan Carey
* Elizabeth Spelke
* Li ...
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Native-language identification
Native-language identification (NLI) is the task of determining an author's first language, native language (L1) based only on their writings in a second language (L2). NLI works through identifying language-usage patterns that are common to specif ...
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One person, one language
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Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
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Second-language attrition
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Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
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Theories of second-language acquisition The main purpose of theories of second-language acquisition (SLA) is to shed light on how people who already know one language learn a second language. The field of second-language acquisition involves various contributions, such as linguistics, soc ...
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Vocabulary learning
Notes
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''The Basic Variety (or: Couldn’t natural languages be much simpler?)'' In Second Language Research 13, 1997, pp. 301-347.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Second-language acquisition
Applied linguistics
Bilingualism
Language acquisition
Language comparison
Language education