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Chapter 1
Chapter 1
What is 'Language'?
A distinction is often made between competence and performance in the study of language.
According to Chomsky (1965).
Competence consists of the mental representation of linguistic rules which constitute the speaker-
hearer's internalized grammar.
Performance consists of the comprehension and production of language. Language acquisition
studies, both first and second, are interested in how competence is developed.
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The key difference between second language and foreign language is that while both second language
and foreign language are languages other than the mother tongue of the speaker, second language
refers to a language that is used for public communication of that country whereas foreign language
refers to a language that is not widely used by the people of that country.
What is ‘acquisition’?
Acquisition refers to the incidental process where learners ‘pick up’ a language without making
any conscious effort to master it; acquisition takes place through communicating in the L2 in a
second language context whereas learning involves intentional effort to study and learn a language
learning takes place through instruction in foreign language contexts.
The key difference between language acquisition and language learning is that language acquisition
is subconscious learning, whereas language learning is conscious learning. Language learning is
using a formal education method where direct instructions and rules are provided by an educator.
This process is conscious. Language acquisition is a non-conscious procedure that takes place at
any period of a person’s life. The term language acquisition is usually related to unconscious
learning of one’s native language with the help of a close family or the surroundings.
Distinguish implicit knowledge (acquired) and explicit knowledge (learned) because these involve
different capabilities for the use of a second language.
implicit L2 knowledge Implicit knowledge of a language is knowledge that is intuitive and tacit.
It cannot be directly reported. The knowledge that most speakers have of their L1 is implicit. The
study of linguistic competence is the study of a speaker-hearer’s implicit knowledge of a language.
explicit learning Explicit learning is a conscious process that is also likely to be intentional. It can
be investigated by giving learners an explicit rule and asking them to apply it to data or by inviting
them to try to discover an explicit rule from data provided.
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The order of acquisition
To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers choose a number of grammatical structures to
study. Researchers have shown that there is a definite accuracy order and that this remains more
or less the same irrespective of the learners’ mother tongues, their age, and whether or not they
have received formal language instruction. Other researchers have shown that the order does vary
somewhat according to the learners’ first language.
Researchers also recognized that first language transfer did not just manifest itself in learner errors
but exerted its influence in other ways. Researchers have continued to show a strong interest in
language transfer right up to today. The focus of this research has broadened, however. It is not
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focused so exclusively on pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar but also addresses how the first
language influences the expression of politeness, discourse conventions, and even gesture. There
is now wide acceptance that the L1 plays a significant role in L2 acquisition, but that to understand
this role it is necessary to examine how language transfer functions as a cognitive process
alongside other cognitive processes.
The input hypothesis: Krashen emphasizes the status of comprehensible input in the process of
input, pointing out that comprehensible input is an essential factor of SLA, and all other factors
are considered to encourage or lead to language acquisition only if they assist to comprehensible
input. Krashen's claim to Input Hypothesis makes it the focus of attention in SLA. On the one
hand, the concept of comprehensible input has been recognized and supported by many second
language learners, and its theoretical approach has also been used in classroom teaching.
The interaction hypothesis: Michael Long proposes Interaction Hypothesis. In his opinion, it is
not enough to fully understand and recognize the nature of language input only based on language
input, and it is necessary to pay close attention to the interaction between native speakers and
learners. The interactive process provides input and feedback for learners. In the interaction
between the two parties, there are two adjustments for language input. One is adjusting the
language form, which makes the language input closer to the learners' level. The other is adjusting
the structure and function of discourse, which improves the comprehension of input with the
assistance of asking questions, repeating speeches, explaining meanings, and so on.
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Finally, Swain mentions three important functions of the Output Hypothesis:
1) Through language output, learners can find gaps between the target language and learned
language in which their language develops further;
2) Learners can check their assumptions about language expressions or form by output;
3) Output can reflect on language problems and encourage learners to discuss them.
Noticing Hypothesis:
The strong version of the hypothesis claims that learners will only learn what they consciously
attend to in the input. The weak version allows for the representation and storage of unattended
stimuli in memory but claims that ‘people learn about the things they attend to and do not learn
much about the things they do not attend to’ (Schmidt 2001). Schmidt’s claims about the
importance of conscious noticing are controversial. Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis has informed
an increasing number of studies investigating whether (1) learners do notice linguistic forms in
the input, and under whatconditions, and (2) whether this results in learning.
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R. Ellis (1994) suggested ways in which the explicit knowledge resulting from explicit learning
can assist the processes involved in implicit learning. He suggested that if learners have explicit
knowledge of a grammatical rule, they are more likely to pay attention (i.e. ‘notice’) exemplars of
this rule in the input they are exposed to and— through noticing—fine-tune their developing,
implicit knowledge-system. Explicit knowledge of rules could also prime ‘noticing-the-gap’.
Furthermore, learners could use their explicit knowledge to construct sentences in the L2, which
then served as ‘auto-input’ that fed into the mechanisms responsible for implicit learning. The
distinction between implicit and explicit learning is important for understanding the role played
by form-focused instruction in L2 acquisition.
Dual-mode system
The second language knowledge of the learner can be either explicit and rule-based or implicit and
exemplar-based, meaning that it is made up of pre-formed stored chunks. In other words, learners
may possess a dual-mode system. For dual-mode system memory is organized for convenience of
use and to take account of the fact that learners’ capacity for processing information is limited.
When they need to communicate rapidly and fluently, learners will draw substantially on the
exemplar-based system which is capacious and easily accessed. However, when they need to
communicate complex ideas concisely and accurately, they will resort to the rule-based system.
Skehan argued that L2 learners need to build both systems and proposed that this could be achieved
by manipulating the conditions under which they were required to use the L2.
L2 acquisition as skill-learning
The notion of skill learning theory has its roots in cognitive psychology. Although it offers a
completely different connection between them, it depends on a difference that is comparable to the
implicit/explicit divide. Declarative knowledge, or the representation of facts, is distinguished
from procedural knowledge, or the representation of activities in specific contexts, by Anderson's
(1993) ACT theory. According to the hypothesis, practise may turn declarative information into
procedural knowledge (DeKeyser 1998).
The steps in this approach, when applied to language acquisition, are to:
(1) developing an explicit representation of a linguistic feature;
(2) practising the use of the feature using the explicit representation n as an aid toperformance;
(3) proceduralizing the feature and automatizing its use.
So, from conscious, controlled processing to automatic, unconscious usage, there is a continuum.
Second language proficiency can be either explicit or implicit.
DeKeyser (2007) defined 'practice' broadly as 'specific activities in the second language'. The
development of procedural knowledge is more likely to occur when the cognitive operations
involved in the practice activity match those in a natural communicative context. Some languages
are much further along the declarative-procedural-automatic path than others.
Transfer appropriate processing: The principle of transfer-appropriate processing states that ‘the
learning environment that best promotes rapid, accurate retrieval of what has been learned is that
in which the psychological demands placed on the learner resemble those that will be encountered
later in natural settings. DeKeyser noted that practice leads to qualitative changes in the learner's
knowledge system over time but only 'in the basic cognitive mechanisms used to execute the same
task' . In other words, learning would be restricted to situations and conditions of use that mirrored
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the operating conditions which figured in DeKeyser's theory. in other words, learning would be
restricted to the situations and conditions of use that mirrored the operating conditions which
figured in the practice provided. Two key points follow from this.
First, for a feature to become automatic for use in natural communication learners need to
experience practicing it under communicative conditions; controlled, mechanical practice will not
suffice.
Second, acquisition is domain-specific and thus proceeds separately for comprehension and
production; learning to process a feature receptively will not enable the learner to use it in
production and vice versa.
Skill-learning theory assumes a more or less direct interface between declarative and procedural
knowledge. This is in contrast to theories based on the distinction between implicit and explicit
knowledge. Implicit/explicit theories see the two types of knowledge as disassociated and only
indirectly related. Explicit knowledge does not transform into implicit knowledge, but can
facilitate processes involved in implicit learning.
Social-interactionist SLA:
Social-interactionist SLA: Firth and Wagner (1997), they argued cognitive accounts of L2
acquisition were 'individualistic and mechanistic' and that to achieve a better balance it was
necessary to consider the contextual dimensions of language use.
✓ They were especially critical of the way in which SLA researchers characterized the subject
of their enquiry as a 'learner' or a 'non-native speaker', ignoring the host of other social
identities which might influence the use and acquisition of an L2.
✓ They argued, too, that mainstream SLA had largely focused on classroom settings and on
interactions between learners and native speakers whereas many learning contexts were
multilingual in nature in which learners were more likely to interact with other learners
than with native speakers.
✓ They pointed out the importance of people's local agendas and the social and institutional
factors that were instantiated in the interactions they participated in. Thus, in Firth and
Wagner's social interactionist SLA, learners were not just subject to social factors, as in
Schumann's Acculturation Theory, but could also influence the social world they inhabited.
The importance of social identity in shaping learners' opportunities for learning is most fully
argued in Norton's (2000) Social Identity Theory. To obtain the 'right to speak' learners need to be
able to see themselves as legitimate speakers of the L2, not defective communicators. They have
to be prepared to challenge the subservient social identity that native speakers thrust upon them.
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Sociocultural SLA
Sociocultural SLA draws on the work of the Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1986), who
argued that learning arises when an expert (a teacher) interacts with a novice (a learner) to enable
the novice to learn a new concept. When this happens, the expert and the novice jointly construct
a zone of proximal development (ZPD).
Zone Of Proximal Development (ZPD) : This refers to ‘the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’
(Vygotsky 1978: 86). It is a term used in sociocultural SLA. Learning occurs when a zone of
proximal development is constructed for the learner through mediation of one kind of another.
✓ Lantolf (2000); Swain (2006). The key finding of this theory Learning commences
externally within interaction. mediation; (This is a term used in sociocultural SLA.
Mediation in second language learning includes (1) mediation by others in social
interaction, (2) mediation by self through private speech, and (3) mediation by artifacts (for
example, tasks and technology)) internalisation; (A term used in sociocultural theory to
refer to the process by which a person moves from other-regulation to self-regulation.
✓ Ohta (2001) referred to this as ‘the movement of language from environment to brain’)
collaborative dialogue; ‘languaging’; (This refers to the use of language to mediate
cognitively complex acts of thinking. It is ‘the process of making meaning and shaping
knowledge and experience through language’ (Swain 2006). According to sociocultural
theory, languaging is indicative of learning in progress.)
Emergentism
SLA is an all-embracing theory, incorporating both cognitive and social dimensions of learning.
According to N. Ellis (1998), there is no need to posit a language acquisition device to explain
how language acquisition (first or second) takes place. Like Skill-Learning Theory, emergentism
assumes that learning a language is like learning any other skill. Emergentism informs a number
of theories of L2 acquisition. One of these is
Complexity Theory:
Complexity theory seeks to explain complex, dynamic, open, adaptive, self-organizing, non-linear
systems … It sees complex behavior as arising from interactions among many components – a
bottom-up process based on the contributions of each, which are subject to change over time.
Larsen-Freeman's Complexity Theory claims that a language system is 'dynamic' and 'open' in the
sense that it is constantly changing. It rejects the notion of a 'final state' in any language system
(including the native speaker's) and, in accordance with connectionist views of language, claims
that small changes are forever ongoing.
aims to account for how the interacting parts of a complex system give rise to the system’s
collective behavior and how such a system simultaneously interacts with its environment (Larsen-
Freeman & Cameron, 2008).
▪ The emergent behavior is often non-linear, in other words, disproportionate to its causal
factors.
▪ The agents or elements in a complex system change and adapt in response to feedback.
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▪ They interact in structured ways, with interaction sometimes leading to self-organisation
and the emergence of new behavior.
▪ They operate in a dynamic world that is rarely in equilibrium and sometime in chaos.
Complex systems:
Complexity theory
▪ In brief, complexity theory “deals with the study of complex, dynamic, non-linear, self-
organizing, open, emergent, sometimes chaotic, and adaptive systems” (Larsen-Freeman,
1997).
▪ According to Larsen-Freeman, complex systems can be found throughout applied
linguistics:
▪ In the language used by a discourse community
▪ The interactions of learners and their teacher in a classroom
▪ Functioning of the human mind.
▪ By reconceputalizing these phenomena in terms of complexity, there is a possibility for
new understandings and actions.
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