The acquisition of discourse rules, like the acquisition of grammatical rules, is systematic, reflecting both distinct types of errors and developmental sequences. The Role of Input and Interaction in L2 Acquisition The bulk of the research on learner discourse has been concerned with whether and how input and interaction affect L2 acquisition. Interactionist theories of L2 acquisition acknowledge the importance of both input and internal language processing.
Input modifications have been investigated through the study of foreigner talk, the language that native speakers use when addressing non-native speakers. Two types of foreigner talk can be identified-ungrammatical and grammatical. Ungrammatical foreigner talk is socially marked.
It often implies a lack of respect on the part of the native speaker and can be resented by learners. Grammatical foreigner talk is the norm. Various types of modification of baseline talk can be identified. Grammatical foreigner talk is delivered at a slower pace. The input is simplified Grammatical foreigner talk is sometimes regularized Foreigner talk sometimes consists of elaborated language use We seem to know intuitively how to modify the way we talk tp learners to make it easier for them to understand.
Learners sometimes still fail to understand, but they can pretend they have understood. Research shows that learners sometimes do this. Learners can signal that they have not understood. This result interactional modifications as the participants in the discourse engage in the negotiation of meaning. Krashen suggest that the right level of input is attained automatically when interlocutors succeed in making themselves understood in communication.
According to Krashen, then, L2 acquisition depends on comprehensible input. Another perspective is provided by Evelyn Hatch. Hatch emphasizes the collaborative endeavours of the learners and their interlocutors in constructing discourse and suggest that syntactic structures can grow out of the process of building discourse.
One way in which this can occur is through scaffolding. He claims that the only way learners can learn from their output is by treating it as auto-input. Merrill Swain has argued that comprehensible output also plays a part in L2 acquisition. She suggests a number of specific ways in which learners can learn from their own output.
Output can serves a consciousness-raising function by helping learners to notice gaps in their interlanguage. That is, 1. Trying to speak or write in the L2 they realize that they lack the grammatical knowledge of some feature that is important for what they want to say. Output helps learners to test hypotheses. Learners sometimes talk about their own output, identifying problems with it and discussing ways in which they can be put right.
How do input that comes in foreigner talk contribute to L2 acquisition? What is the meaning of auto-input? Here, the focus is on a small number of major issues — L1 transfer, the role of consciousness, processing operations, and communication strategies. This influence is apparent in a number of ways. This influence is referred to as negative transfer.
Language transfer that facilitates the acquisition of target language forms is called positive transfer. This is clearly evident in the way learners acquire speech acts like request, apologies, and refusals. It follows that interlanguage development cannot constitute a restructuring cintinuum.
The Role of Consciousness in L2 Acquisition According to some psychologists, learners can achieve long-term storage of complex material through implicit learning. They can always reflect on this implicit knowledge, thus making it explicit. It is also clear that L2 learners may have knowledge about the L2 but unable to use this knowledge in performance without conscious attention.
Explicit knowledge may aid learners in developing implicit knowledge in a number of ways. First, explicit knowledge may only convert into implicit knowledge when learners are at the right stage of development. Second, explicit knowledge may facilitate the process by which learners attend to features in the input. Third, explicit knowledge may help learners to move from intake to acquisition by helping them to notice the gap between what they have observed in the input and the current state of their interlanguage as manifested in their own ouput.
Processing Operations Another way of identifying the processes responsible for intelanguage development is to deduce the operations that learners perform from a close inspection of their output. Operating Principles The study of the L1 acquisition of many different languages has led to the identification of a number of general strategies which children to use to extract and segment linguistic information from the language they hear.
Dan Slobin has referred to these startegies as operating principles. Operating principles provide a simple and attractive way of accounting for the properties of interlanguage. Processing Constraints A project known as ZISA Zweitspracherwerb Italienischer und Spanischer Arbeiter investigated the order in which migrant workers with Romance language backgrounds acquired a number of German word-order rules.
The project found clear evidence of developmental route, bearing out the research on acquisitional patterns. What distinguishes this work on acquisitional sequences is that it led to and was informed by a strong theory, known as the multidimensional model. Multidimensional model is a powerful theory of L2 acquisition in that it proposes mechanisms to account for why learners follow a definite acquisitional route. Communication Strategies Learners frequently experience problems in saying what they want to say because of their inadequate knowledge.
In order to overcome these problems they resort to various kinds of communication strategies. They are called upon when learners experience some kind of problem with an initial plan which prevents them from executing it.
Two Types of Computational Model In particular, two radically different types of apparatus have been proposed. This is the dominant version of the computational model in SLA and is evident in much of the preceding discussion.
The alternative type of appartus involves the idea of a parallel distributed processing. Parallel distributed processing is controversial as it constitutes an affront to one of the central precepts of linguistics, namely that language is rule-governed. What influence that is caused by psycholinguistic aspects? Do learners of L2 acquisition have to make communication strategy?
Learners whose L1 includes relative clauses find them easier to learn than learners whose L1 does not and, consequently, they are less likely to avoid learning them. The accessibility hierarchy serves as an example of how SLA and linguistics can assist each other. On the one hand, linguistic facts can be used to explain and even predict acquisition. On the other, the results of empirical studies of L2 acquisition can be used to refine our understanding of linguistic facts.
Chomsky argues that language is governed by a set of highly abstract principles that provide parameters which are given particular settings in different languages. A general principle of language is that it permits coreference by means of some form of reflexive.
The more proficient learners were no better at this than the less proficient ones, suggesting that the learners operated in accordance with their L1 setting of parameter and that no resetting for English was taking place. Learnability Chomsky has claimed that children learning their L1 must rely on innate knowledge of language because otherwise the task facing them is an impossible one. His argument is that the input to which children are exposed is insufficient to enable them to discover the rules of the language they are trying to learn.
This insufficiency is referred to as the poverty of the stimulus. The Critical Period Hypothesis The critical theory hypothesis states that there is a period during which language acquisition is easy and complete and beyond which it is difficult and typically incomplete.
There is some evidence that not all learners are subject to criticall period. Some are able to achieve native — speaker ability from an adult start. The relative lack of success of most L2 learners in comparison to L1 learners suggest that there may be radical differences in the way first and second languages are acquired.
These differences may be of many kinds. It is likely, for instance, that differences in the social conditions in which L1 and L2 learners learn have some kind of impact. Access to UG 1. Complete access It is argued that learners begin with the parameter settings of their L1 but subsequently learn to switch to the L2 parameter settings. No access The argument here is that UG is not available to adult L2 learners.
They rely on general learning strategies. Partial access Another theoretical possibility is that learners have access to parts of UG but not others. L2 acquisition is partly regulated by UG and partly by general learning strategies. Dual access According to this position, adult L2 learners make us of both UG and general learning strategies. This position assumes that adult learners can only be fully successful providing they rely on UG. The existence of such contradictory positions shows that the role of UG in L2 acquisition is still uncertain.
Markedness This uncertainty regarding the contribution of linguistic theory to the study of L2 acquisition is also evident in another area of linguistic enquiry — the study of markedness. A number of hypotheses relating to markedness have been examined in SLA. One is that learners acquire less marked structures before more marked ones. We need to be sure that it is markedness and not some other factor that determines the order of acquisition. Learners may acquire the subject function first not because it is the least marked but because it is the most frequent in the input.
Cognitive Versus Linguistic Explanations The typological study of languages affords interesting predections about what learners will acquire first and what they will transfer from their L1. UG also serves as source of finelytuned hypotheses about what structures will cause learning difficulty and, in addition, raises important questions about whether L2 and L1 acquisition are the same or different.
What is the difference between UG and general learning strategies? What do usually adult L2 learners use, UG or learning strategies?
In this topic, we will examine a number of psychological dimensions of difference. Language Aptitude It has been suggested that people differ in the extent which they possess natural ability for learning an L2. This ability known as language aptitudes, is believed to be in part related to general intelligence but also to be in part distinct. John Caroll led to the identification of a number of components of language aptitude.
Phonemic coding ability 2. Grammatical sensitivity 3. Inductive language learning ability 4. Rote learning ability Phonemic coding ability would seem relevant to the processing of input, grammatical sensitivity and inductive language learning ability to the central processing stages involving interlanguage construction, and memory to the storage and access of language.
Motivation Motivation involves the attitude and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn an L2. Instrumental Motivation An instrumental motivation seems to be the major force determining success in L2 learning. Some learners may choose learning L2 in order to manipulate and overcome people of the target language. This is known as Machiavellian motivation.
Resultative Motivation An assumption of research, motivation is the cause of L2 achievement and motivation is the result of learning. That is, people who experience success in learning may become more or in some context, less motivated to learn. Learning Strategies Learning strategies are the particular approaches or techniques that learners employ to try to learn an L2. Learners employ learning strategies when they are faced with some problems.
Different kinds of learning strategies have been identified. Cognitive strategies are those that are involved in the analysis, synthesis, or transformation of learning materials. Metacognitive strategies are those involved in planning, monitoring and evaluating learning. The study of learning strategies is of potential value to language teachers. If those strategies that crucial for learning can be identified, it may prove possible to train students to use them.
How does learning strategies influence language aptitude? Is learning strategies always used by learners to increase their language ability? Diposkan oleh angkita boni di Form-focused Instruction Language pedagogy has emphasized form-focused instruction. This, suggests that there are two key questions. Does Form-focused Instruction Work? If we find no differences in the order and sequence of L2 acquisition this would suggest that form-focused instruction has no effect.
On the other hand, the existence of differences would suggest that form-focused instruction does have an impact. If the structure is formally simple and manifests a straightforward form-function relationship instruction may lead to improved accuracy. If the structure is formally simple and salient but is functionally fairly complex instruction may help learners to learn the form but not its use so learners end up making a lot of errors.
The distinction between item learning and system learning is important here. Instruction may be effective in teaching items but not in teaching systems, particularly when these are complex. Teachability hypothesis predicts theinstruction can only promote language acquisition if the interlanguage is close to the point when the structure to be taught is acquired in the natural setting.
What Kind of Form-focused Instruction works best? Form-focused instruction that emphasizes input processing may be very effective. It also supports theories of L2 acquisition that emphasize the role of conscious noticing in input, input-based instruction may work because it induces noticing in learners.
The implication for language pedagogy is that positive input in the form of input flooding may help learners to start using some difficult forms but may not be sufficient to destabilize interlanguage and prevent fossilization.
Leaner-instruction Matching A distinct possibility is that the same instructional option is not equally effective for all L2 learners. Individual differences to do with such factors as learning style and language aptitude are likely to influence which options work best. It is obviously important to take individual differences into account when investigating the effects of instruction.
Strategy Training An alternative approach is to intervene more indirectly by identifying strategies that are likely to promote acquisition and providing training in them. Training students to use strategies that involve different ways of making associations involving target words has generally proved successful.
The idea of strategy training is attractive because it provides a way of helping learners to become autonomous. Is it true that input-based instruction more effective than production-based instruction? How can strategy training be an alternative to direct instruction? To put it another way, there is no single metaphore that can encompass all the metaphors that SLA has drawn on to explain how learners acquire an L2.
There are those who argue that SLA needs to engage in the careful elimination of theories to demonstrate its maturity as a discipline. To learn more, view our Privacy Policy. Log In Sign Up. Download Free PDF. The Study of Second Language Acquisition, second ed.
Lawrence Jun Zhang. Download PDF. A short summary of this paper. Building a vocabulary through academic reading. The Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading. When I received an invitation to review the second edition of The Study of Second Language Acquisition, I wondered how I could review a tome of over pages within words. However, on reading the book, I realized that its clear organization made it possible for me to highlight the outstanding features of this updated classic.
The book is made of eight clearly divided parts with 17 chapters in all. This is the chapter that not only sets the tone but also lays out the blueprint for what the ensuing chapters follow. The focus of Part Two is on learner language, so Chapters 2—5 cover areas ranging from learner errors and error analysis, to developmental patterns in SLA, learner language variability, and pragmatic features.
Chapter 6 examines the relationship of input and interaction to SLA, where the methods employed e. Language transfer and related studies are reviewed in Chapter 8. Cognitive accounts of SLA are pre- sented in their full versions in Chapter 9, where Ellis provides solid descriptions of the computational model of SLA, the representation of L2 knowledge, and the cognitive theories of SLA.
Research and theoretical per- spectives on L2 production within cognitive perspectives, speech planning and communication strategies are the main focuses of Chapter Key concepts in sociocultural theory such as mediated learning, mediation through so- cial interaction, private speech and new developments in SLA research, including corrective feedback, collab- orative dialoguing, and metatalk, which are essential to activity theory, are all new perspectives to the conventional SLA researcher and are covered in this chapter.
Part Five has only one chapter and readers will enjoy some light-hearted reading in the less technical nature of the content as well as its closer relationships to classroom practice.
Although new to SLA, the anatomy of the human brain has been a well-established area of research in neu- ropsychology. Researchers and practitioners with a strong orientation towards improving SLA in classroom settings will be pleased with Chapter 15 Part Seven.
Elsewhere, Ellis calls this a theory of instructed SLA. In fact, these issues are crucial to the whole enterprise of SLA research and Ellis rightly shares his concerns with the choice of data in some SLA research e. It is well recognized that tensions exist regarding the criteria against which a SLA theory can be counted as a valid one, and, in fact, the discussion has not abated even after the well-known Lantolf- vs.
Gregg,
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