Second Language Acquisition: The Basics

Gregory D. Keating

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138500891
• eBook ISBN: 9781317394587
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Starting from the premise that language instruction should be informed by how humans learn language, this module on second language acquisition (SLA) aims to provide teachers at any level with a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the key findings about how second languages are learned in adulthood. This module explores a variety of topics including the mechanisms in the mind responsible for language acquisition, the roles that input and output play in acquisition, and how language develops in the learner's mind over time. Furthermore, the module explores the many factors believed to impact the outcome of SLA, such as the role of the native language, individual differences in aptitude and motivation, and age of acquisition.

Please visit the series companion website for more information: http://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781315679594/

Second Language Acquisition

The Basics

Gregory D. Keating

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

Overview

In this module you will explore the following topics:

• the internal mechanisms responsible for language acquisition
• input and its relationship to internal mechanisms
• language development over time
• factors that affect the outcomes of SLA
• how the above information can be used to inform contemporary language teaching

As I began to write this module, I recalled an early experience in my second language teaching career that I wish I could erase from memory. I was a beginning Spanish instructor with little teacher training and no background in second language acquisition (SLA). Like many novice teachers, I wanted to build rapport with my students by making class fun. One day, I decided to play a game that I learned from another student teacher called verb relays. To play the game, the instructor calls out a verb in its unconjugated form (e.g., the Spanish verb hablar ‘to speak’). The students, who are seated in rows facing the blackboard, must conjugate the verb in all of its person-number forms as quickly as possible in relay form. The first student in each row runs to the blackboard, picks up the chalk, and writes the first-person singular verb form (hablo ‘I speak’). That person returns to their seat and passes the chalk to the second person in the row, who then runs to the blackboard and writes the second-person singular form (hablas ‘you speak’), and so on. The row that legibly writes all six person-number forms the fastest wins the relay. We played several rounds. The students liked it. Some even broke a sweat! It was a good teaching day, or so I thought at the time.

In reality, verb relays did more for my students’ cardiovascular health than they did for their acquisition of Spanish verbs. My instructional efforts at the time were not informed by research on how languages are learned and, consequently, most of those efforts were not conducive to acquisition. With even a basic knowledge of SLA, I would have been better equipped to evaluate what I was doing in the classroom and why I was doing it. This module explores some of the basic facts that every language teacher ought to know about how second languages (L2s) are learned. Emphasis is placed on the term learned because research in the field of SLA focuses on acquisition, not teaching. However, the findings of SLA research have implications for instruction. The focus of this module rests on adult-aged learners, where “adult” refers to an individual who begins L2 acquisition after the first language (L1) is acquired and stabilized; that is, after age 10 or so. Specifically, we’ll address the following questions: What components and processes are involved in adult SLA? How does an L2 develop in the learner’s mind/brain over time? What factors affect L2 learning in adulthood? Finally, we’ll examine how research in SLA can inform contemporary language teaching. Let’s begin with the key “ingredients” involved in acquisition.

SLA: The Ingredients

As can be gleaned from any readings on linguistics and the nature of language, language is defined as an implicit and abstract mental representation that humans use to interpret and express meaning. The mental representations that end up in people’s minds are of a different nature than the rules of thumb commonly found in textbooks and prescriptive grammars. Language scientists who study acquisition are interested in how humans acquire implicit and abstract mental representations. SLA is a field of inquiry that studies how humans acquire a mental representation of another language after the first has already been acquired. Before we proceed, it is helpful to clarify some potential confusion about what counts as a “second” language. The term second language is often used to refer to any language that is learned after the L1, even if it’s not second chronologically. For example, an English speaker in the United States might take two years of French in high school followed by two years of Spanish in college. Chronologically, French is a second language and Spanish is a third language, but both can be considered “second” languages because they were both learned after L1 acquisition was completed.

In addition, some people distinguish between foreign language learning and second language learning. Foreign language learning entails learning a non-native language in an environment in which it is not the majority language spoken in the community, such as learning Arabic in Japan. In the case of second language learning, the non-native language being learned is the majority language spoken in the community, as is the case when learning Arabic in Morocco. This distinction is one of context and the basic findings of SLA research do not differ according to the context of learning. That is, the basic findings of L2 research apply equally to foreign language and L2 contexts. Consequently, in SLA research and in this module, the term second language refers to the learning of a non-native language in any context.

Having reviewed what is meant by language, and second language in particular, we are ready to explore how humans acquire the implicit and abstract mental representations that underlie language use. Let’s begin by noting that mental representation includes constraints that allow you to know what is possible and impossible in a language. If English is your native language, then you know that the sentence “Who do you wanna call?” is possible, but that the sentence “Who do you wanna call Bill?” is not. Both sentences are fine, though, with want to instead of wanna. Without training in linguistics, you probably can’t explain why contraction of want to to wanna works in the first sentence but not the second (i.e., your knowledge is abstract), yet you possess an intuition about when the contraction works and when it doesn’t (i.e., your knowledge is implicit). How did you come to know this? In infancy and early childhood, you were exposed to spoken English provided by parents and caregivers. Researchers refer to the language that a learner is exposed to as input. Internal mechanisms in your mind/brain used English input to build a mental grammar of English. In the field of SLA, all scholars agree that input is a necessary ingredient for acquisition, but there is considerable debate over the nature and design of the internal mechanisms that create the mental grammar. We’ll begin with a brief introduction of two competing accounts of the internal mechanisms believed to be responsible for language learning. Then, we’ll address the important role that input plays in acquisition.

Internal Mechanisms

Every human possesses what are called domain-general learning mechanisms. These mechanisms allow us to learn a variety of complex mental tasks such as reading, solving arithmetic problems, playing chess, and so forth. Some researchers claim that language is like any other complex mental phenomenon and that it is learned via the same domain-general learning mechanisms that enable us to learn how to program a computer or solve a difficult Sudoku puzzle. This position is widely held by language scientists in psychology and education. Other researchers contend that language is special and is not learned in the same way as other complex mental phenomena. Their claim is that humans are genetically hardwired to learn language and possess additional cognitive mechanisms specifically designed to deal with language, ones separate from the domain-general variety. This viewpoint receives most of its support from linguists. We can refer to the two types of internal mechanisms as domain-general and language-specific. Because both types are claimed to explain language learning, regardless of whether it’s an L1 or L2, we’ll refer more generally to language learning or language acquisition throughout this section. However, along the way, we’ll point out the important ways in which L2 learning differs from L1 learning. Let’s examine how language learning happens under the domain-general proposal first.

Proponents of domain-general language learning claim that humans are rational problem solvers who construct language by analyzing the input they are exposed to and extracting relevant patterns from it, just like someone who’s never played tennis before can figure out how the game is played and scored by watching lots of tennis matches. Under this account, the human mind is a massive data cruncher whose job is to detect linguistic forms in the input—lexical items, inflections, syntactic configurations, and so forth—and tally their frequency of occurrence. After implicitly tallying enough data, the mechanisms will detect patterns where they exist and form implicit generalizations or rules to account for them. Because the mechanisms are not provided in advance with information about how language works, the rules are said to “emerge” in the mind/brain of the learner. We can illustrate this with the example of want-to contraction mentioned previously, but we should first review the facts about when want-to contraction is possible. Consider the sentences in (1).

• (1a) I want to call Bill.
• (1b) Who do you want to call?
• (1c) Who do you wanna call?

Now consider the sentences in (2).

• (2a) I want Michael to call Bill.
• (2b) Who do you want to call Bill?
• (2c) *Who do you wanna call Bill?

Contraction sounds fine in (1c) but not in (2c). A simple, albeit superficial, way of describing the difference in grammaticality between (1c) and (2c) is to describe it in terms of which syntactic category (subject or object) can move to the front of the sentence if the word is a wh– word (e.g., who, what, when); that is, we can consider that (1b) is actually You want to call who? and that the who moves to the front of the sentence to yield Who do you want to call? (along with some other minor variations). In (1c), who is the direct object of call—it refers to Bill. In (2c), who is the subject of call—it refers to Michael. Want to can only contract to form wanna when the di...

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• Second Language Acquisition The Basics