Transcript Welcome to your second module

Lecture 13
Second Language
According to UNESCO, second language
is a language acquired/ learned by a
person in addition to his mother tongue.
Second Language Acquisition
SLA
Terminology
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L1 – first language
L2 – second language
SL – second language
FL – foreign language
NL – native language (=L1)
TL – target language (=L2)
IL – interlanguage
SL vs FL
The broad sense of SL
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Any language learned after the learning
of L1.
It can be one’s first, second, third,
fourth or … non-native language.
Its acquisition can occur in a classroom
situation, as well as in more “natural”
exposure situations.
The narrow sense of SL
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A non-native language learned in the
environment where that language is
spoken.
E.g.
Chinese speakers learning English in
America
Foreign language
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A non-native language learned in the
environment of one’s native language.
E.g.
Chinese speakers learning English in
China.
Broadly speaking, SL includes FL
Narrowly speaking, SL differs from FL
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This difference is mostly ignored in our course.
First language acquisition
unconscious
successful
Second language learning
painstaking
unsuccessful
Bley-Vroman’s Fundamental
Difference Hypothesis
Adult foreign language learning
Conscious memorization of grammar rules
General adult skill acquisition
Problem solving
Child language development
Internally driven growth
Child L1 acquisition
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A process better described as “growth”
than “learning”.
Universally successful
The knowledge acquired is largely of an
unconscious sort.
Bley-Vroman on SLA
Lack of success
General failure
Variation in success, course, and strategy
Variation in goals
Fossilization
Indeterminate intuitions
Importance of instruction
Native evidence
Role of affective factors
The learner’s perspective
Why are some individuals more
successful in learning an L2 than
other individuals?
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Age
Aptitude
Motivation
Attitude
Socio-psychological factors
Age
Some facts
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Individuals generally do not achieve a
native-like accent in a second
language unless they are exposed to it
at an early age.
Older individuals cannot reasonably
hope to ever achieve a native accent
in a second language.
Second language learners cannot
achieve complete mastery of syntax.
Aptitude
Carroll: “Standard ‘four component’
view of language aptitude”
1.
2.
3.
4.
Phonemic coding ability
Grammatical sensitivity
Inductive language learning ability
Memory and learning
A person who is excellent in one or more of
these abilities would seem to be at an advantage in
learning a second language
Skehen suggested that these be combined into
one ability: language analytic ability
Motivation
Gardner:
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Integrative motivation: coming from a desire
to integrate with the TL community; it is
hypothesized to be a better predictor of
second language success than instrumental
motivation.
Instrumental motivation: coming from the
rewards that might come from learning (e.g.
learning English in order to be able to study
mathematics at an English-speaking
university). It is more utilitarian.
Anxiety
Motivation and anxiety
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If a learner is not at all anxious, she or
he is unlikely to be motivated to make
any effort.
High motivation with little subjective
hope of achievement increase anxiety.
Anxiety is linked to personality.
The learning perspective
SLA is the study of how learners create
a new language system with only limited
exposure to a second language.
No worry for the error
*Do you know where is Mrs. Irving?
A mark of a
stage of the
development of
the learner’s L2.
Corder (1967)
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Errors are evidence of the state of a learner’s
knowledge of the L2.
They are evidence of an underlying rulegoverned system.
They are not the product of imperfect
learning.
They are not a reflection of faulty imitation.
Corder: Error vs. mistake
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Mistakes are akin to slips of the tongue. That is,
they are generally one-time-only events. The
speaker who makes a mistake is able to recognize
it as a mistake and correct it if necessary.
An error, on the other hand, is systematic. That is,
it is likely to occur repeatedly and is not
recognized by the learner as an error. The learner
in this case has incorporated a particular
erroneous form (from the perspective of the TL)
into his or her system.
Types of Language Errors
i. Pre-systematic Errors. Random errors
made by the learner when he is unable
to express himself. These errors are
marked by (a) the learner cannot
explain why ; (b) he cannot self-correct
them.
ii. Systematic Errors. Errors made by the
learner systematically showing that he
is formulating some incomplete rules.
These errors are marked by (a) the
learner can explain why; (b) he cannot
self-correct them.
iii. Post-systematic Errors. Errors
made by the learner when he
has not formed the habit of
correctly using L2. These errors
are marked by (a) the learner
can explain why; (b) he can
self-correct them.
Errors: interlingual vs.
intralingual
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Interlingual errors = negative L1 transfer
e.g. serve for people
(NL: Chinese)
Intralingual errors = indicators of the IL
stages
e.g. He comed yesterday. (NL: all)
Interference error
Developmental error
Identify the source of errors
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L1
Development
Convergence from both
Accuracy ≠ acquisition
In the first month of a
Japanese-speaking child
learning English in an
English speaking country,
she formed questions like:
Do you know?
How do you do it?
Do you have coffee?
Do you want this one?
During her second month
of residence, the
following questions were
uttered by the same child:
What do you doing, this boy?
What do you do it, this, froggie?
What do you doing?
What do you drinking, her?
A Progress
Obviously, the English this small girl acquired in
the first month of learning was very limited. Though
the questions she made were free of errors, she
could only use the second person in them. In the
second month she attempted to use third-person in
her questions, but she did not know the way to
change person. So she changed in her own way –
with the third person reference as a tag of the
second person question. This self-created error type
marks a progress in L2 question acquisition.
The teaching perspective
Input: what learners hear and
read
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Krashen’s Input Hypothesis: L2 is acquired by
receiving comprehensible input
Comprehensible input: the bit of language that
contains structures a little bit beyond their current
level of competence
‘i+1’ notion: current stage of knowledge as i and the
next stage as ‘i+1’
A number of researchers see comprehensible input as
a major causative factor in L2 acquisition, and the
main task for L2 teachers is to ensure that their
students receive comprehensible input.
Output: learners’ speaking and
writing
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Krashen holds that speaking is the result of
acquisition, not its cause; learner production
does not contribute directly to acquisition.
Swain argues that input alone is insufficient
for acquisition.
Her evidence: Canadian children learning
French in immersion schools progressed very
slowly without emphasizing output
Swain on comprehensible
output
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Comprehensible output refers to the need
for a learner to be “pushed toward the
delivery of a message that is not only
conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely,
coherently, and appropriately.”
Output “would seem to have a potentially
significant role in the development of syntax
and morphology.”
The research perspective
Interlanguage
 S1
S2
creation; hypothesis testing
Definition: Interlanguage is the language
produced by a nonnative speaker of a
language (i.e., a learner’s output)
The basic assumption in SLA
research
Learners create a language system,
known as an interlanguage (IL).
The learners themselves impose
structure on the available linguistic data
and formulate an internalized system.
The Interlanguage Structural
Conformity hypothesis
All universals that are true
for primary languages are also
true for interlanguages.
The range of the domain of
language universals is all
human languages, including
learner languages.
Peirce: social identity and
investment
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L2 acquisition involves a “struggle” and
“investment”. Learners are not computers
who process input data but combatants who
battle to assert themselves and investors who
expect a good return on their efforts.
Successful learners are those who reflect
critically on how they engage with native
speakers and who are prepared to challenge
the accepted social order by constructing and
asserting social identities of their own choice.
Erroneous output and L2
identity
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Many ungrammatical sentences are
meaningful to the native ears. E.g.
* That woman beautiful is my mother.
* I’ll happy if I can get your paper.
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Such sentences serve as evidence of the
speaker’s L2 identity.
Interlanguage pragmatics
 The area of pragmatics is perhaps one of the most
difficult areas for learners because they are
generally unaware of this aspect of language and
may be equally unaware of the negative
perceptions that native speakers may have of
them as a result of their pragmatic errors.
 E.g. NS: I’m really upset about the book because I
needed it to prepare for last week’s class.
NNS: I have nothing to say.
Conversation between an NNS & an NS
 I have a favor to ask you.
 Sure, what can I do for you?
 You need to write a recommendation for me.
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Interlanguage pragmatics, in dealing
with how people use language within a
social context, must take into
consideration not only how language is
used (i.e., how grammatical forms are
used to express semantic concepts), but
also what it is being used for and who it
is being used with.
Example
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Context: Graduate students addressing
a faculty advisor.
Advisor: OK, let’s talk about next
semester.
NS: I was thinking of taking syntax.
NNS: I will take syntax.
Is UG still awake?
no-access position
L2 is learned in the same way as any other aspect of knowledge.
direct-access position
L2 learners learn in exactly the same way as L1 learners.
indirect-access position
L2 learners have access to UG through what they know of the L1.
partial-access position
Some but not all principles of UG can be accessed directly, i.e.
not via the L1 grammar, during L2 acquisition.
Yuan (1995)
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Though both the subject and the object
of a sentence can be omitted in Chinese
(termed null subject and null object),
L1-Chinese learners will scarcely omit
the subject of an English sentence. It
seems as if their Chinese knowledge of
null subject had been totally forgotten.
Evidence
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In Chinese we can say:
我曾经见过约翰的女朋友，长得非常漂亮。
But Chinese speaking learners of English of
different levels never accept:
* I once met John’s girlfriend. Was very
beautiful.
Yuan speculated that it was the
acquisition of inflection in English that
triggered the learners’ unlearning of the L1Chinese null subject in their IL: Since an
inflectional morpheme needed to be checked
with the subject, a null subject should not be
allowed in an English sentence. Yuan’s
discovery indicated that parameter setting
could also be triggered in L2 acquisition.
As for null object, Yuan found that
Chinese learners were unable to detect
its ungrammaticality in English, owing
to lack of triggering evidence.
Evidence
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Even an advanced learner may fail to see
the null-object error in the sentence below.
* John said those students were in the library, but
I told him I didn’t find there.
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Comparing with its word-for-word translation
below, we can see null object is an error of
L1 transfer.
约翰说那些学生在图书馆里，但是我告诉他
我在那儿没见着。
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Yuan’s findings imply that UG, though
inaccessible in L1 acquisition after the
critical age, still plays a certain part in
L2 acquisition.
SLA’s orientations
As a discipline, second language
acquisition has two orientations. One is to
explore the rules and methods of L2 learning
and teaching; the other is to study how
learners create a new language system （i.e.
IL）with only limited exposure to a second
language. With more and more people
learning another language nowadays, SLA
becomes one of the most active fields in
linguistics.