Mind Matters in SLA

Clare Wright, Thorsten Piske, Martha Young-Scholten, Clare Wright, Thorsten Piske, Martha Young-Scholten

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781788921633
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Psicolinguistica

This book examines key issues in theories of what language is and what happens in the mind during second language acquisition (SLA), inspiring readers to think in new and exciting ways about language learning and teaching. Chapters, written by both established and rising star scholars, provide cutting-edge insights and new empirical findings on major topics of formal and cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics and second language development, and offer a coherent, wide-ranging, reader-friendly examination of learner-internal factors in SLA. The first section of the book focuses on issues that are pertinent to our understanding of language acquisition, particularly in relation to syntax. The second section comprises empirical chapters on syntax, the lexicon, phonetics/phonology and language production in English and other languages. These chapters refer to theories and frameworks from within SLA to enable the reader to grasp the key questions and issues that are currently relevant. The final section focuses on research relating to how second language (L2) learners make transitions from one stage of development to the next; it covers state-of-the-art psycholinguistic research concerning how L2 acquisition occurs in real time, and includes discussion of models of L2 development both in and out of the classroom.

1Introduction

Clare Wright, Martha Young-Scholten and Thorsten Piske

The editors of this volume, Mind Matters in SLA, offer this as a companion volume to Input Matters in SLA (2009, Multilingual Matters); we examine key issues in theories of what language is and what happens in the mind during second language (L2) learning, in order to address the question: ‘Why don’t learners learn what teachers teach?’ (Allwright, 1984: 3). As all teachers will know, this classic question remains an ongoing puzzle across any paradigm of L2 development. It remains a mystery why some language rules – such as the 3rd person singular -s in English – are easy for the teacher to present but difficult for learners to master, even after hours of discussion and drilling. It also puzzles learners and teachers alike why different tasks and types of language use cause difficulties and others do not. For example, complex grammar or vocabulary can be quickly memorized, accurately judged in a comprehension task and used when retelling a story. But when a learner tries to produce similar grammar and vocabulary in unplanned speech such as during an interaction task, this can result in hesitation or lack of fluency. Why should that be? Do learners have two types of language memory store to draw on? Some theories of language hold that we do indeed have two types of systems – implicit versus explicit (N. Ellis, 1994; Ellis et al., 2009; Han & Finneran, 2014; Krashen, 1985a; Schwartz, 1993). What then is the best way of teaching or helping students learn? Teachers, schools and even government education policies may have to choose whether to prioritize direct explicit instruction with plenty of form-based error correction, or communicative, implicit exposure, leaving the learner to ‘pick the language up’ (see, for example, Bleyhl, 2009). Or can teaching more usefully combine a mix of form-focused instruction with a more communicative approach – and if so, how might this be most effective (Ranta & Lyster, 2017)?1

To address these issues, it is crucial to know what the deeper nature of language is like, and what learners do while they are in the process of acquiring it. That is, we need to understand the properties of the systems which not only children but also L2 learners of all ages unconsciously create during language acquisition. What would also be most helpful to know is how learners make transitions from one system or stage to the next, and how teachers can support classroom learners in making these transitions (see, for example, Pienemann’s Teachability Hypothesis in Pienemann, 1984, 1989). Understanding these transitions was laid down as a challenge for second language acquisition (SLA) researchers over two decades ago by Gregg (1996) – i.e. to arrive at a theory to bring together what learners’ language systems are like (the properties of these systems) and how learners develop those systems over time (transitions). Equipped with knowledge about properties and transitions, teachers will find it easier to identify the sources of learner errors and to determine what learners have already learned and what they have not learned yet, and what they can do in order to help their learners learn. However, SLA researchers may not yet typically provide a successful common manual or guidance to help teachers understand these issues (Piske & Young-Scholten, 2009; Whong, 2011). Some theories of SLA tend to focus more on how language systems are represented in the mind, separately from other cognitive functions. Other theories focus on how language processing and development over time depend on a range of cognitive functions which are not specific to language, including memory.

This volume covers both areas of theoretical approaches. But, as this volume will illustrate, our work to understand why learners do not always learn what teachers teach is not yet done. When researchers focus on different aspects of language, gaps can be left in our understanding of what externally and internally drives learners to change their linguistic system during acquisition, that is, in how learners make transitions. This is not wonderful news for teachers, but it is the current state of the wider fields of child and second language acquisition. It is therefore no surprise that this gap between research and teaching, coupled with a diversity of different theoretical approaches, results in a lot of ongoing debate. Implicit in the debate are the issues of how to consider what actually is being learned, what is stored in memory and what is retrieved by the learner in the moment of comprehending or producing language.

Input Matters in SLA, our earlier volume, presented views from a range of international researchers on how they think input functions in the SLA of the sound system and of grammar. Mind Matters in SLA broadens these ideas out within an unusually deep historical context for modern theories and debates over language acquisition, representation and transitions. We highlight just how long some of these questions have taxed scholars – we specifically include a chapter on language evolution, and other chapters make reference to the centuries of thinking about language, dating back to antiquity. The book thus combines wide-ranging chapters, by both established scholars and rising star researchers, to create a well-rounded resource which we hope will inspire the reader to think in new and exciting ways about second language teaching and learning.

In presenting research on what happens in the mind of the language learner in an accessible way, the book will be useful not only to teachers but also to students planning to teach language, who are on upper-level undergraduate and MA-level courses, doing degrees in TESOL/TEFL, modern foreign languages/heritage language teaching, applied linguistics or first and second language acquisition, anywhere in the world. It is also of interest to general readers without a specialist linguistic background who are keen to know, in a globalized world, the cognitive basis on which multilingual speakers come to be proficient (or not!) in using all their languages. We intend this volume to fill the gap between journals which require the reader to have considerable specialist knowledge, and textbooks with broad overviews of current theories and findings which are typically not written by the researchers themselves. Such textbooks thus often do not provide all the details readers need to really understand cutting-edge research, nor how to think about ways to apply it to their teaching. The gap is currently particularly wide when it comes to research based on formal linguistics. For this reason, our volume starts with a primer on syntax which, if the reader is unfamiliar with the relevant notions, can be used as a basis for understanding the next three chapters on language acquisition (including two competing theoretical frameworks) and on language evolution.

The first part of the book focuses on issues that are pertinent to our current understanding of language in general, and to first and second language acquisition specifically. There is much that is under ongoing debate. We therefore include discussions of why human language (in particular syntax) is special from a generative – Chomskyan – perspective versus why it is argued by others instead to be part of general cognition. The chapters include cross-linguistic examples which introduce the reader to comparisons of how languages differ and are similar syntactically and, as noted above, we include a chapter on a topic which is rare in books on SLA: language evolution. We do so to give the reader the chance to explore various lines of current, cutting-edge thinking about what makes the human faculty for language special. The second part includes work on issues currently debated in SLA, on morphosyntax, the lexicon, production and phonology/phonetics. The third part, focusing on research relating to explaining how L2 learners make transitions from one stage of development to the next, covers state-of-the-art psycholinguistic research relating to how L2 acquisition occurs in real time and includes discussion of models of L2 learning both in and out of the classroom.

Given the book’s overarching focus on grammar and the mind, two baseline chapters for readers to start with are Caink’s introduction to syntax in Part 1 and Marinis and Cunnings’ chapter on psycholinguistic research techniques in Part 3. Readers unfamiliar with syntax or cognitive approaches to SLA are taken in stages through key issues, terminology and challenges, so by the end of these two chapters they will feel confident in tackling the more specialized research in the subsequent chapters in the book. The rest of the chapters can be read in any order, as key ideas raised in each chapter are, where relevant, cross-referenced throughout the volume. Each chapter’s discussion of theories, frameworks, hypotheses and empirical data represents the specific questions and methodologies relevant to their field. Some of these may be more familiar to readers than others. The chapters take a range of perspectives and are written at increasing levels of advanced ideas and expression, to guide the less experienced reader into the complex debates and issues being presented. Within each of our three parts, some chapters, or later parts of chapters, are thus more challenging while others are deliberately set to be easy to follow, particularly by readers using English as a second language. A glossary is also provided to clarify key terms used throughout the volume which may be unfamiliar.

Part 1: Language and Mind

The first part provides the foundation for understanding syntax and relates to ideas that reappear in many chapters throughout the book. Andrew Caink’s introduction to syntax outlines why syntax is special and illustrates this with lively examples for the non-specialist. He explores in an engaging and approachable way why language acquisition research in general, and SLA research in particular, is crucially dependent on one’s understanding of syntactic structures and linguistic features from a generative, Chomskyan perspective which assumes an innate language faculty. For those with no background in syntax, this chapter is specifically aimed to provide a route to understanding the accounts of the acquisition of syntax elsewhere in this volume.

However, the generative perspective is not the only important framework for understanding syntax. The theory has been criticized for neglecting to cover cognitive constraints on how the mind processes language. William O’Grady, long a proponent of emergentism, argues against the generative approach and claims that language, its processing and its acquisition are inextricably linked. O’Grady draws on his previous and new work to outline emergentist perspectives on why syntax exhibits the particular properties that it does, and on how those properties are acquired by both children and second language learners.

The next chapter, by Kook-Hee Gil, Heather Marsden and George Tsoulas, then places Caink’s syntax chapter within the wider context of the human language faculty, and the idea of ‘Poverty of the Stimulus’ (POS). POS is a cornerstone of generative linguistics and is based on the notion of an innate faculty of language (Universal Grammar), discussed in Caink’s chapter, and argued in Gil et al.’s chapter as the bridge between the natural but impoverished input children and second language learners receive, and their eventual syntactic competence. This chapter exposes the reader to a more sophisticated level of argumentation, looking into the development of the POS argument itself, and its main empirical motivations to support its relevance for both first and second language acquisition.

Part 1 finishes with an unusual chapter in collections on SLA – Andrew Feeney’s overview of the origins and nature of the unique human language faculty, and how far language evolution can be understood in terms of the mind. Feeney makes the point that much in the field of language evolution studies is ‘either not fully understood or hotly disputed’, thereby emphasizing the topic as both needing further investigation and being a good example for the reader of how critical academic debates in linguistics are currently constructed and presented (as with the previous chapter). Some of the terminology will likely be very unfamiliar to the reader, but Feeney’s explanations, alongside the glossary, will allow the reader to gain new insights from this emerging field of study, and to stimulate wider consideration of what it means to be human acquiring both a first and a second language.

Part 2: Properties of Interlanguage Grammars

Moving to the more empirical second part of the book, the chapters here refer in more detail to the contributing authors’ research as they address the key domains of syntax, the lexicon, phonetics/phonology and language production in English and other languages. The chapters refer to theories and frameworks within SLA to enable the reader to grasp the key questions and issues that are currently relevant, and then concentrate on illustrating these with the results of authors’ recent studies. The reading level is set to draw the reader into the technical aspects of empirical SLA research with increasing understanding as this part of the book progresses: the final two chapters are thus at a more advanced specialist level, but are still designed to give the inexperienced reader an insight into the important questions addressed by the studies.

Walid Kahoul, Anne Vainikka and Martha Young-Scholten consider competing hypotheses on why morphosyntactic difficulties persist for older L2 learners, and consider how the L1s of the learners in their study may affect their progress. In this case they investigate 3rd person singular -s and past tense marking in English by Arabic and Chinese learners. They present unusual multiparadigm research evidence involving not only learners’ production, but also their perception and their online processing as documented through the tracking of learners’ eye movements. The three authors find that apparent similarities in learners’ accuracy using just a single paradigm can mask subtle differences in underlying processing.

Vivienne Rogers, David Playfoot and James Milton share insights into their recent research on the L2 lexicon. They start by observing that previous lack of interest in the lexicon has changed, in that the lexicon has now ‘clearly found a permanent place in … second language acquisition’. The authors note that the connection between lexis – words – and syntax remains underexplored, and aim to address this gap in the chapter, with a novel approach using French acquisition data to test whether lexical knowledge drives acquisition of syntax or vice versa.

Next, Joan C. Mora and Elena Safranova consider phonological and processing issues in SLA, in this case in terms of speech production, perception and fluency as components of oral proficiency. The development of L2 learners’ oral proficiency fundamentally depends both on their pronunciation skills, including knowledge of phonetic forms and correct production, and on utterance fluency, in terms of learners’ general smoothness in oral communication. The authors present details from their recent research to back up their claims, supporting the reader through technicalities of their approach with clear explanations. They underscore the benefit of taking a holistic approach to the development of L2 oral proficiency, where pronunciation skills and spoken fluency are not treated as separate components, but rather as related or complementary aspects of the cognitive processes underlying L2 speech production and perception.

To end this part, in the chapter by Esther de Leeuw, Aurela Tusha, Hui Zhao, Kyle Helke and Alice Greenfield, also in relation to phonetics and phonology, the reader is invited to consider language development in reverse – when an L2 becomes the dominant language, as when a migrant resides in a new country, and whether and how their L1 may fundamentally change, i.e. undergo attrition. Given the growing rise in migrant populations, the question of what happens to both the speaker’s L1 and L2 when they immigrate is increasingly relevant to many. Here, after a broad discussion of key issues, the authors take a fresh approach by focusing not on groups, as is usual, but on individuals who go against the group trend. Highlighting the value of individual case study research in SLA, the authors promote this for building up understanding of how languages are represented in the mind, as they reveal ‘what is actually possible, not just what usually happens’.

Part 3: Transitions in Acquisition

Moving on to the final part, this focuses on cognitive issues in learnability and teachability, discussing frameworks, methods and pedagogical practices to demonstrate the role of memory and processing constraints in an individual’s transition through stages of development of internalized rules in a second language, and how far such rules represent unconsciously acquired, or implicit, knowledge, or more conscious forms of knowledge, often through explicitly taught instruction. In the initial chapter in this part, Theodoros Marinis and Ian Cunnings’ discussion of teaching-friendly psycholinguistic approaches is the second baseline chapter of this volume. They review four research-based techniques focusing on syntax, together with ideas about how these techniques can be implemented by teachers and others to assess learners’ internalized language abilities. We hope this chapter will bring fresh inspiration for teachers who want to know why ...