< FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (EASS) >

< SEMESTER / YEAR: SEPTEMBER 2021>

      < COURSE CODE: HBET1403>

<COURSE TITLE: SOCIOLINGUISTICS IN LANGUAGE

TEACHING>

MATRICULATION NO : <950820105844001>
IDENTITY CARD NO. :           <950820-10-5844>
TELEPHONE NO.          :            <010-2292095>
E-MAIL                          :      <kaniska0620@oum.edu.my>
LEARNING CENTRE :    < BANGI LEARNING CENTRE

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PART A

2. Linguists believe that we do not learn language, we acquire them.

  (a) What is the main difference between Competence and Performance?

Competence is the unconsciously idealised knowledge of a language that native
speakers possess. The actual usage of that language by native speakers is referred to
as performance. "What 'performance' signifies is a child's or speaker's capacity to
create communication pursuant to his or her rules," says the English conversion.
Competence and performance: what's the difference? Chomsky distinguishes
between competence, which is an idealistic dimension, and performance, which is the
literal creation of exclamations. Chomsky regarded arguments of delineating the
study of performance in favour of underlying competence as unfounded and
misplaced. Competence is a term that was first used in synthetic grammar concept to
characterise the unconscious and intrinsic awareness of language norms. The visible
use of language is referred to as performance. Linguistic competence relates to our
understanding of English vocabulary and syntax, but linguistic performance
corresponds to how we use that understanding to real discourse production and
comprehension. Langue is a social construction as well as a set of speaking rules,
competence is a characteristic or feature of each hypothetical speaker's mind and
linguistic potential is the entire language corpus or repertoire from which speakers
select matters for the exact speech scenario. This contrast between visible
performance and inherent competence motivates researchers to develop new errands
and techniques for evaluating competence. This difference, on the other hand, can be
rather difficult.

The structure of linguistic knowledge influenced by native speakers of a language is

referred to as linguistic competence. It's not to be confused with linguistic
performance, which refers to how a language scheme is employed in communication.
Speech mistakes and other "grammatically extraneous situations" have no effect on
this. Linguistic competence relates to a speaker's implicit grammatical knowledge
that empowers them to use and comprehend a language. Commonly defined as I-
language or grammatical competence. In comparison, consider verbal performance.
According to Chomsky, competency is a speaker's capacity to understand and
generate grammatically factual declarations in their own language, whilst

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 performance is the embodiment of that competence in a given communication
setting. In linguistics, communicative competence pertains to a language individual's
grammatical understanding of syntax, morphology, phonology, and other aspects of
the language, as well as social awareness of how and when to use utterances
correctly.

(b) Describe what Naturalistic Second Language Acquisition and Instructed Second
Language Acquisition are and how they are different from one another. 
"How do we learn languages?" is a fascinating as well as a difficult subject to answer.
The pursuit for a solution to that issue has captivated people for ages, yet all that has
come forth thus far are opposing hypotheses. Noam Chomsky proposed in 1965 that
there is a Universal Grammar underneath the patterns of all languages, and that new-
borns are formed with intuitive awareness of it. Language acquisition studies has been
enhanced as a result of this concept. However, it wasn't until the 1970s that scholars
began to look at second language learning alongside first language acquisition. Studies,
hypotheses, and novel academic disciplines have proliferated at an incredible rate since
then. Differentiating between naturalistic and taught language acquisition will be
important. People learn a foreign language in a naturalistic way when they are not
expressly taught it, but instead by attempting to communicate in it. The majority of
studies on naturalistic language acquisition focus on youngsters who have not yet started
school. Instructed language acquisition takes occur in contexts where the pupil is
explicitly taught the foreign language's grammar and vocabulary, such as a classroom.

Whereas the L1 acquisition is a universal process (for example, all children learn a
language) and always provides full competence (in other words, all children are able to
speak effectively in that language without a foreign accent or other anxiety), L2
acquisition is more often than not a voluntary task, and most L2 students do not achieve
full competence. The causes for this may be found in the vastly varied circumstances in
which people learn languages. An L2 can be learned at school or 'naturalistically,' that is,
without the language being expressly taught. While new-born’s must learn their
language, students may be uninterested in learning a foreign language and may refuse it.

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L1 students' grammatical acquisition does not progress at a consistent rate or pace.
Naturalistic language learning, according to Felix, underpins orderly developmental
sequences at various levels. Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl (1998) distinguish three phases in a
sequence: memorised, unanalysed chunks, partial evaluation, and comprehensive
analysis. There are five distinct processes involved in these phases: (1) figure-
background segregation, (2) input segmentation into groups, (3) feature extraction, (4)
rule and category identification, and (5) structure of function-dependent hierarchies The
methods involve two primary methodologies: (1) top-down (that is the breaking up of
remembered chains (larger chunks)) and (2) bottom-up, thus successive edifice of single
elements to prolonged combinations. As they all do, the five processes must function
together to allow the student to reach at a working rule system. The children must be able
to identify what defines a semantically rich sentence. Then they must look for
grammatical traits that express the unique semantic quality. Furthermore, they must
correlate several of those characteristics in order to arrive at a testable hypothesis. The
fifth mechanism mentioned by Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl regulates which traits are
implemented in which sequence (for example, the plural – s is added before the genitive
case marker – s).

The study of second language acquisition encompasses a significantly larger area than
that of first language learning. While learning a first language occurs independently of
desire, learning a second language is often a choice endeavour. Furthermore, L1
acquisition occurs mostly in early childhood (with a few exceptions), whereas L2
acquisition occurs at any age. Moreover, second language learning can occur in a
naturalistic or directed manner, or a combination of the two. Because of these
distinctions, the study of second language acquisition encompasses a substantially larger
area than that of first language learning. The most noticeable distinction between L1 and
L2 acquisition is the outcome: although all L1 learners acquire complete competency, the
majority of L2 learners will not accomplish high levels of competence. Finding at least
some explanations for this phenomenon will be the focus of this chapter. I shall limit my
inquiry to the following areas since it would be well beyond the scope of this paper to
look into all of the aspects that play a role in second language learning. The impacts of
teaching on second language learning, the beginner implications on second language
acquisition, and the consequences of input on second language acquisition are the issues
addressed. However, in order to investigate the impact of various factors on L2
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acquisition, it will be required to first figure out how it works. To do so, I'll start by
quickly detailing how I learned L2 German negation in a realistic situation.
3. Linguists have tried to explain language acquisition in numerous ways. We have
only covered a few in this course.

  (a) How are Behaviourist theories fundamentally different from Mentalist

theories?
The difference between behaviourism and mentalism is that behaviourism is
based on observation and empirical evidence, whereas mentalism is based on
pure belief. According to behaviourism, behaviour is merely a conditioned
reaction to particular triggers, or stimuli, that unfolds regardless of emotions.
Mentalism, on the other hand, is a doctrine based on the perceived power of mind
processes that may be learnt by experience or an apprenticeship with a skilled
mentalist. For the psychological explanation of conduct, behaviourism and
mentalism are usually thought to be mutually incompatible and conjunctively
comprehensive choices. The way behaviourism and mentalism characterise the
underlying basis of behaviour differs. However, I contend that they are not
mutually incompatible since they overlap key underlying assumptions, including
the conception of an inner-outer divide and the concept of control. I go on to say
that mentalism and behaviourism aren't conjunctively complete either, because
eliminating these shared underlying assumptions leads in a separate framework
for explaining behaviour. This third option, which is outlined briefly, is a form of
non-individualism. The study of behaviours in humans and animals in response
to negative or positive stimulus is the basis of behaviourism. Ivan Pavlov's study
is one of the most well-known in the field of behaviourism. He noticed that a dog
will salivate after listening a bell ring over time because it was connected with
food being placed in front of it. In the presence of meat, dogs instinctively
salivate, which is an unconditioned reaction to the stimulus of food. Bell ringing
in conjunction with feeding is a conditioned stimulus that induces a dog to
salivate when the bell is rung, even if there is no food present. In behavioural
learning concept, this experiment exhibits what is known as classic conditioning.
Behavior modification is a branch of behaviourism that investigates human and
animal actions that are influenced by environmental stimuli that have either
negative or positive outcomes. Behaviour modification, also known as response-

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stimulus conditioning, allows the study member to link specific behaviours to
good or negative consequences and adapt from them. Edward Thorndike
discovered one example when he saw that cats in a puzzle box correlated getting
out of the maze with a food incentive. The cats' behaviour was altered by this
positive reinforcement, and they were conditioned to instantly open the trap door
for the prize. Mind Control Mentalism is a kind of magic that claims that
magicians with highly developed perceptual and mental skills produce events in
the physical and psychic domains. Mind reading and hypnosis are two examples
of mentalism techniques. The illusion of a highly developed intuition is intended
to persuade people that the magician has a spiritual connection or has
supernatural abilities.

The Behaviourist theory acts according to the Habit Formation process, which
means that the student is confronted with stimuli to which he makes a certain
reaction, and every time the student is presented with this stimulus, he reacts with
the same response until it becomes a behaviour. The Behaviourist theory
prompted the development of the Mentalist theory. It refuted the idea that
learning is caused by the environment by demonstrating that it is caused by the
mind. According to Chomsky, humans are born with a biological apparatus
called the Language Acquisition Devise, which grows like any other organ.
Mentalism, as applied to education, suggests that the student should make use of
his cognitive faculties to gain. This improves critical thinking and aligns with the
social constructivism, which states that a student creates knowledge over time via
cognitive methods. Both ideas are frequently utilised currently.

(b) What FIVE social factors influence second language acquisition?

Sociolinguistic setting, unique social circumstances, and situational factors
are three types of social factors that might influence second language
acquisition. The function of the second language in society is referred to as
sociolinguistic context. Age, gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnic
identification are among social variables that might influence second
language learning. Contextual elements are those that differ from one social
contact to the next.

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Language:
Students' second language acquisition is influenced by a number of factors
relating to their first and second languages. The linguistic distance between
the two languages, students' native language fluency and expertise of the
second language, the pronunciation of the native language spoken by the
students (whether benchmark or nonstandard), the relative status of the
students' native language in the society, and societal attitudes toward the
students' native language are all factors to consider.
Native language proficiency:
The student's native language proficiency – which includes not only verbal
language proficiency, but also met a linguistic advancement, coaching in
structured and academic components of language use, and knowledge of
discursive patterns and genre and style variations – has an impact on second
language acquisition. The simpler it is for a pupil to acquire a second
language, the more linguistically complex his or her native language
knowledge and talents are. This explains why foreign exchange students do
well in American high school classes: they already have advanced language
skills in their home tongue.
Knowledge of the second language:
Prior knowledge of the second language is, of course, an important influence
in students' present learning. High school students learning English as a
second language in a classroom may have a range of skills, from
interpersonal fluency gained via exposure with the English-speaking
community to formal knowledge gained through English as a foreign
language study in their home countries. In order to prepare teaching, it is
necessary to examine the degree and kind of prior knowledge. A student with
casual conversational English abilities, for example, may have insufficient
comprehension of English grammatical systems and require specialist
English grammar education.
Dialect and register:
In school, students may be required to acquire a dialect and a proper
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language that vary from those they meet in their daily life. This entails
learning speech patterns that are different from those they are used to and
esteem as representatives of a certain social group or speech community.
Language attitudes:
Language attitudes among the student, peer group, school, community, and
society at large may have a huge positive or negative impact on the second
language acquisition process. These attitudes must be examined and
understood by both instructors and students. They must realise that acquiring
a second language does not imply abandoning one's own tongue or dialect.
Instead, it entails the acquisition of a new language or dialect.

PART B
1. When a new nation acquires its independence from foreign
influences, one of the early steps that it takes is language planning.

Critically discuss why a new nation should begin with the process of
language planning?

Fact-finding, policy determination, implementation, and assessment are

the four steps of language planning. They suggest that language planning
is divided into four stages: "policy conception, standardization,
refinement, and execution." Numerous linguists prefer the terms language
planning or language planning and policy to language policy or language
planning and policy because they consider 'planning' to include policy.
There is no single item on "language policy" in Sociolinguistics: A
Reader and Teaching methodologies; the phrase "language planning" is
used in the chapter that deals with language planning and policy. The
most frequently acknowledged "umbrella phrase for a wide variety of
actions aimed at changing language and its usage" is language planning.
It is critical to define planning since it is a concept that spans beyond
disciplines and plays a significant role in areas such as architecture,
economics, human resources management, sociology, tourism, and urban
planning. Because language planning is fundamentally sociological, it
cannot be considered in isolation from its sociological perspective, and

8
because planning, in Faludi's words, is connected with organisations, it is
necessary to draw on social sciences to comprehend the notion. The
definition of planning has varied, from one that encompasses the widest
type of human problem-solving or decision-making to one that is more
narrowly defined as an activity that is begun and supported by a formal
entity. The more limited definition (of what is nonetheless a highly
complicated activity) regards planning as a methodical and explicit action
in which goals are specified, means are chosen, and outcomes are
expected. Planning aims to alter a situation, and because change always
has repercussions, it always has an impact on individuals, either
positively or negatively. This introduces the concept of power dynamics.
Change and power dynamics are so tightly linked that power may be
defined in the same way as change: According to Luke, power is about
"enforcing consequences." As a result, planning supports and protects the
powerful interests. Planners hold a lot of "political-economic power"
because of the many resources at their disposal and their ability to affect
changes in a polity, organisation, or system, whether working for the
powerful or on their own. This characteristic has prompted some scholars,
such as M.J. Minett, to declare that planning is about "manipulating
things, not just knowing them." Despite the present (or manipulative)
character of their work, the roles of planners and ideologues become
indistinguishable: Planning is similar to ideology in that both serve the
interests of the strong. The increasingly political and inclusive character
of the subject is challenging planners' technical and apolitical position.
Planning today involves such a wide range of concerns that one might
include anything from protecting the planet to where swings should go in
a children's playground.

As previously said, planning is a topic that is significant in a variety of

disciplines and areas, however the methods used to plan may change
depending on the situation. Language planning is the process of a group
of people working together to make a purposeful change in a language.
They claim that language planning is "future-oriented" in all

9
circumstances, meaning that the results of policies and strategies must be
established before any action is performed. "An effort to purposely
tamper with a language or one of its variants," according to language
planning. The formulation and execution of a policy meant to prescribe or
influence the language(s) and variations of language that will be used, as
well as the goals for which they will be used, is known as language
planning." On the other hand, the historical-structural approach stresses
the importance of socio-historical elements in the Learning Process,
considers prior ties between the groups that would be influenced by the
Learning Process, and asserts that individuals have strong political
opinions. Tollefson separates the historical-structural method from the
neoclassical approach by claiming that "while the neoclassical approach
stresses individuals' rational judgments, the historical-structural approach
highlights the origins of costs and benefits confronting individuals and
societies." The neoclassical approach, on the other hand, cannot be
overlooked. The neoclassical method can protect academics from putting
too much attention on the macro aspects in Learning Process since it
emphasises on formal features of language and the relevance of an
individual's motivation in learning a language. The historical-structural
approach isn't faultless, and ideologies and group interests may hide
beneath its ostensibly critical posture. Combining both human and
political-societal aspects in dealing with a Learning Process circumstance
in hand is a nice task for a researcher.

Ferguson (1968) proposes a three-category model for language

development in relation to language planning: graphization (selection of
an alphabetic scheme, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization),
standardisation (advancement of the so-called "greatest" diverse selection
that will be the language of a communicative situation), and
modernization (innovation from the so "ideal" variation that will be the
language of a discourse) (expansion of the lexis of a chosen variety so
that it can keep up with the ever-increasing needs of society). There are
four ideologies that can have a big impact on language planning decisions

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in a society: linguistic indoctrination (everyone in the civilization should
gain knowledge the primary language), linguistic pluralism (the
acknowledgement that more than one language deserves equal status),
vernacularisation (the rehabilitation or reassertion of an indigenous
language for domestic or formal specific purpose), and universalism (the
rehabilitation or re-emergence of an indigenous language for domestic or
representative reasons) (implementation of a non-indigenous language as
official language). The term "selection" refers to a language or a range of
languages that will be created for wider communication. Codification
(often referred as corpus planning) is the process of "creating a language's
form, as its linguistic structure, comprising phonology, grammar, and
lexicon." The amount of usage in writing is referred to as elaboration.
Codification and elaboration are two different things. "As the ultimate
objective of a standard language, codification may be characterised as
minimal variety in form, while elaboration may be described as greatest
diversity in function," says Haugen. Since the codification of form is
intrinsically restrictive, Haugen contends that the elaboration of
functionality compensates. Focusing on the importance of norm selection,
Haugen believes that it is critical since it determines the effectiveness of
codification or elaboration. In choosing a language as the standard, he is
cautious not to lose sight of conflict, politics, power, and ideology.

Language planning is based on what are known as "nationalist" ideals.

The issue is that a national language is more than just a dominant
language since it serves as "a sign of people's identity." Identity, on the
other hand, is a resistive, even conflictual, feature of social competence.
Conquest and elimination of minority and/or native languages in the
name of national unity is an example of language standardisation.
"Human intervention into natural phenomena of language variation,
dissemination, and degradation" is an intentional "human intervention
into natural processes of language change, dissemination, and erosion."
Even when done with the best of intentions, language planning frequently
ends in the subordination of particular languages and the privilege of the

11
language spoken by strong elites. However, this does not have to result in
the thriving of certain languages and the extinction of others.
Opportunities to develop minority and native languages on community, if
not national, levels exist in each democracy. Communities must take the
initiative in order to achieve this. Nevertheless, the question of how
independent and powerful minority populations are is frivolous.
Hegemony, power struggles, and oppression are frequently hidden within
sociolinguistic settings.

2. Why are adequate interactions inside and outside the classroom

helpful for second language acquisition? 

Critically discuss the question above. 

Academic language competency includes oral proficiency, which may

be cultivated via socialisation and interactions, although these
possibilities are not always equally available. Unlike individuals who
solely get formal classroom language instruction in their native
country, English learners who study abroad in English-speaking
countries can improve their second-language acquisition and oral
fluency by being exposed to everyday socialisation circumstances.
Interactions in service encounters, homestays, communication with
academics, and among student peer groups are examples of ordinary
socialisation environments. In the typical language classroom in the
home nation, classroom instruction plays an important role. Outside
the classroom, studies based on study-abroad research, study that
analyses linguistic improvements in learning contexts abroad have
focused on second language acquisition through communicative tasks
of foreign students with their homestay family and friends and, when
inside the classroom, through mediated interactions of foreign students
with their teachers. In fact, despite the potential for this setting to
foster the development of sophisticated academic language, there is

12
little study on how peer conversational engagement in the 6 classroom
contributes to second language development. As a result, it's still
unclear what sorts of language development (e.g., idiomatic, socio-
cultural, and phonological) foreign students will have while
conversing with classmates, and how this engagement will benefit
second language learning and the student experience. This review
looks at the literature that is important to this line of study, with a
focus on the link between classroom peer interaction and ESL
students' experiences. The goal of the review is to learn how peer
conversational interaction affects language proficiency development
and how ESL students' diverse experiences in higher education
contexts (for instance, educational, social, and academic) are
influenced by their level of English language proficiency as it relates
to conversational interaction.

The concept of communities of practise is used in another theory that

is important to second language acquisition but is focused with the
social dimension of learning and development. Communities of
practise are groups of individuals who share a concern or a love for
whatever they do, and who learn how to do it better by interacting
with one another on a regular basis. As a result, members of this
community participate in activities together, assisting and exchanging
knowledge. Through a number of events, communities improve their
practise (problem-solving, seeking experience from others, reusing
assets). International students, for example, may become legitimate
and competent members of their academic communities through a
discourse socialisation process in which students' methods of
knowing, speaking, and writing grow as a result of continual
engagement in academic activities.

Any communication activity carried out amongst learners with

minimum or no participation from the teacher is how peer interaction
is defined. Peer contact can involve two or more people, and when
they do, they work together to achieve a similar learning goal. The
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term "peer in peer interaction" can be defined as the equivalence of
one or more characteristics (such as age or competence) between the
participants. In this study, peer is defined as a group of academic
students in whom at least one of the members is a student who speaks
English as a second language. The types of activities that need
participants to collaborate differ. Collaborative learning, cooperative
learning, peer tutoring, and peer modelling, for example, are the most
popular in language courses. In this view, we might claim that
conversational peer interactions in non-language academic settings
provide actual linguistic benefit to pupils. Because of the obvious
uneven authority, corrective, and evaluative statuses of tutors and
learners, social interactions arising from regulated classroom activities
that take place in language learning classes may not always force
students to re-structure their language products. Communications in
content classes, on the other hand, may be less controlled and may
require participants to share more information in order to make
definition rather than participating in pre-designed activities that only
invite students to share information and sometimes even have more
correct answers that meet the teacher's expectations. Communicating
with highly skilled classmates and engaging in classroom oral
activities (example, in pairs, small groups, whole-class debates) are
substantial challenges for students whose English is a second
language, impairing their perspectives in higher education external.

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