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Vivian James Cook (13 June 1940 – 10 December 2021) was a British linguist who was Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at
Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...
. He was renowned for his work on
second-language acquisition 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. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific dis ...
and second-language teaching, and for writing successful textbooks and popular books about
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 ...
. He worked on a number of topics such as
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 ...
, EFL (
English as a foreign language English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EF ...
), first-language acquisition, second-language teaching, linguistics, and the English writing system. He published more than 20 books and 100 papers. He was founder and first President of the
European Second Language Association The European Second Language Association (EuroSLA) is a learned society for researchers with an interest in second language and second language acquisition. History EuroSLA was established in Colchester, the United Kingdom, in 1989 and the first ...
(EuroSLA), and co-founder of the
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
journal ''
Writing Systems Research ''Writing Systems Research'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal, founded in 2009, relating to the analysis, use and acquisition of writing systems. The editors in chief are Bene Bassetti (University of Warwick) and Jyotsna Vaid (Texas A & M Unive ...
''. He died in December 2021, at the age of 81.


Career

Cook started his career as a lecturer in EFL and Director of
Language Service Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phras ...
in London, and during this time he published many innovative EFL textbooks (''Active Intonation'', 1968; ''Realistic English'', with B. Abbs and M. Underwood, 1968–70; ''English Topics'', 1975, ''Using Intonation'', 1979, ''English for Life'', 1980–1983). In 1978 he became a lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the
University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...
, and in 2004 he got his professorship at Newcastle University. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cook introduced various research methods in second language acquisition research (elicited imitation,
short-term memory Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recit ...
measures, response times and micro
artificial language Artificial languages are languages of a typically very limited size which emerge either in computer simulations between artificial agents, robot interactions or controlled psychological experiments with humans. They are different from both constr ...
s). He favoured an experimental approach to second language research and conducted various experiments. He wrote a very successful textbook about
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 theories
''Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An Introduction''
, and related
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 ...
to second language acquisition and teaching. He also published papers on second-language teaching and developed
Computer-Assisted Language Learning Computer-assisted language learning (CALL), British, or Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI)/Computer-Aided Language Instruction (CALI), American, is briefly defined in a seminal work by Levy (1997: p. 1) as "the search for and study of applicat ...
programs for learning English as a foreign language, including
adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...
s and
syntactic parsing Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lat ...
programs. In the early 1990s he proposed the
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 ...
approach to second-language acquisition. Multi-competence is "the knowledge of two languages in one mind", and it holds that those who know more than one language have different minds from those with only one language, because knowing two languages changes the way people use their first language, and even the way they think. These multicompetent individuals should be called "L2 users" (pronounced "L two users") rather than "second language learners", because the word "second" has negative connotations, and the word "learner" should only be applied to those who are learning a language (just like a
native speaker Native Speaker may refer to: * ''Native Speaker'' (novel), a 1995 novel by Chang-Rae Lee * ''Native Speaker'' (album), a 2011 album by Canadian band Braids * Native speaker Native Speaker may refer to: * ''Native Speaker'' (novel), a 1995 nov ...
is not called a "first language learner"). All human beings have the potential for becoming multi-competent, so
monolingual Monoglottism (Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...
s are not indicative of what the human mind can achieve. This has implications for language learners and teachers, for instance the purpose of
L2 learning L, or l, is the twelfth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''el'' (pronounced ), plural ''els''. History Lamedh ...
is to become a multicompetent user of more than one language, not to become a copycat of a native speaker of another language; the native speaker is not the best L2 teacher; L2 learners are allowed to use their first language in the classroom. Also, teachers and learners must bear in mind that L2 learning changes how people think. In a paper dated 1997 Cook first argued that knowledge of more than one language can change how people think. He then provided evidence in the first ever workshop devoted to the topic (workshop on "Bilingual Cognition", 2002, within the
European Second Language Association The European Second Language Association (EuroSLA) is a learned society for researchers with an interest in second language and second language acquisition. History EuroSLA was established in Colchester, the United Kingdom, in 1989 and the first ...
conference) and showcased research from a variety of disciplines and languages in his latest edited volume. Cook also researched
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
s, especially the English one. He published a successful textbook about English
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
, co-edited a volume on how people read and write a second language,''Second Language Writing Systems'' (with
Benedetta Bassetti Benedetta is a feminine given name of Italian origin, the feminine equivalent of the masculine name Benedetto, a cognate of Benedict. Persons having the name include: * Benedetta Barzini (contemporary), Italian actress and model *Benedetta Bianchi ...
), Multilingual Matters, 2005.
and was editor of the journal
Writing Systems Research
' (with
Jyotsna Vaid Jyotsna Vaid is a Professor of Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience and Women's and Gender Studies at Texas A&M University. Vaid's research examines the impact of multiple language experience by considering properties of specific languages and ...
and Benedetta Bassetti). In 2004, he published a successful popular book called '': Or, Why Can't Anybody Spell?'', which explains to the layperson how English orthography works in an entertaining but authoritative way. Cook gave talks in Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Canada and the U.S..


Publications

Cook's top cited articles were published in ''
TESOL Quarterly ''TESOL Quarterly'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of TESOL International Association. It covers English language teaching and learning, standard English as a second dialect, including articles ...
'', '' The Canadian Modern Language Review'', ''
Language Learning 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 ...
'', ''
Second Language Research ''Second Language Research'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics, concerned foremost with second language acquisition and second-language performance. Each year, one special issue is published, devoted to some current ...
'', and ''Language, Culture and Curriculum''.


Bibliography


Books

*Cook, V. J.(1986). ''Experimental Approaches to Second Language Learning'', Oxford: Pergamon, 23-37 *Cook, V. J.(1993). ''Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition''. Basingstoke: Macmillan *Cook, V. J. (1997). ''Inside Language''. London: Edward Arnold *Cook, V. J. (ed.) (2003). ''Effects of the Second Language on the First''. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters *Cook, V. J. (2004). '. London: Profile *Cook, V. J. (2004). ''The English Writing System''. London: Edward Arnold *Cook, V. J., & Bassetti, B. (ed.) (2005). ''Second Language Writing Systems''. Multilingual Matters *Cook, V. J., & Newson, M. (2007). ''Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: an Introduction''. 3rd edition.Oxford: Blackwell *Cook, V. J. (2009). ''It’s All in a Word''. London: Profile *Cook, V. J., & Bassetti, B. (2011). ''Language and Bilingual Cognition''. New York: Taylor and Francis *Cook, V. J., & Singleton, D. (2014). ''Key Topics in Second Language Acquisition''. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. *Cook, V. J., & Ryan, D. (eds) (2016). ''The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System''. Routledge *Cook, V. J., & Li Wei (eds) (2016). ''The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multicompetence''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press


Articles

*Cook, V. J. (1991). The poverty-of-the-stimulus argument and multicompetence. ''
Second Language Research ''Second Language Research'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics, concerned foremost with second language acquisition and second-language performance. Each year, one special issue is published, devoted to some current ...
, 7''(2), 103–117. do

*Cook, V. J. (1992), Evidence for Multicompetence. ''
Language Learning 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 ...
, 42''(4), 557–591. do

*Cook, V. (1999). Going beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching. ''
TESOL Quarterly ''TESOL Quarterly'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of TESOL International Association. It covers English language teaching and learning, standard English as a second dialect, including articles ...
, 33''(2), 185–209. doi:10.2307/3587717 *Cook, V. (2001). Using the First Language in the Classroom. '' The Canadian Modern Language Review, 57''(3), 402–423. do


See also

* European Second Language Association, EuroSLA


References


External links

* Keynote YouTube talk on key ideas in SLA for language teachers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smltOqN-sr4 * Vivian Cook's homepage: http://www.viviancook.uk/ * Professor Cook on Newcastle University's website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/staff/profile/vivian.cook * Vivian Cook presents his latest book 'It's all in a Word' on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZu3NJ3tGrc * Vivian Cook's obituary on LinguistList (posted 15th Dec, five days after Prof. Cook's passing): https://old.linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-3972.html#1 * Vivian Cook's memorial site https://viviancook.memorial/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Vivian 1940 births 2021 deaths Applied linguists Linguists from the United Kingdom People from Ealing