Language Acquisition (SLA) Overview 12

Language Acquisition (2)

• The lecture will focus on second language acquisition (SLA)
• First language acquisition (FLA) is the process of acquiring a native language during the first 6 or 7 years of life.
• Second language acquisition (SLA) is the acquisition of any language after the first language.
• Two major approaches to language acquisition are observational and logical approaches.
• Language acquisition is a dynamic process, but it follows predictable pathways.
• Acquisition involves phonology, lexis, and grammar.

Today's Lecture

• The lecture will cover: Introduction, Foundations of SLA, SLA frameworks, Interlanguage, Functional approaches

SLA - A More Detailed Definition

• Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies individuals and groups learning a language after acquiring their first language.
• Additional languages are referred to as second (L2), third (L3), etc. or target language (TL).
• Target language acquisition can vary.
• Target language can be acquired informally (naturalistic context) or formally (institutionalized settings).
• SLA is highly interdisciplinary, drawing mainly on linguistics, psychology, and pedagogy.

Different Meanings of L2

• Second language (SL) is an official or societally dominant language used in education, workplaces, and media, often by immigrants or former colony members.
• Foreign Language (FL) is not used in the learner's immediate social context, relevant for travel or business, and may be taught in a classroom.
• Language for specific purposes (LSP) focuses on a very limited context (e.g., hotel management, aviation, agriculture).

Self-Study Activity

• Students should consider their language acquisition and learning career.

Foundations of SLA: First vs. Second Language Development

• Children are born with an innate capacity to acquire language
• Innate capacity to learn a second language is a debated topic.
• Some argue that inherent capacity remains throughout life, while others suggest its loss after childhood.
• Prior knowledge of L1 is a major component of L2 learning.
• Language development, including cognitive development and interactional functions.

Foundations of SLA: Intermediate State–Processes

• L1 and L2 learning exhibit systematic and predictable phenomena.
• Child grammar is correlated with cognitive abilities.
• Cross-linguistic influence (transfer) from L1 to L2 can be positive (correct) or negative.
• L1 structures or rules that also work in L2 do not need to be learned.

Foundations of SLA: Intermediate State – Necessary Conditions

• Language input is necessary for both L1 and L2 learning.
• Face-to-face social interaction facilitates SLA.
• Some individuals acquire high proficiency in L2 from radio, television, or written text.

Foundations of SLA: Intermediate State–Facilitating Conditions

• L1 development may be facilitated or inhibited by social and individual factors.
• Feedback, including corrections of errors, influences L2 learning.
• Aptitude, memory capacity, motivation, desire to learn, and instruction in L2 settings positively impact development.

Foundations of SLA: Final State

• L1 culminates in native linguistic competence encompassing phonological, grammatical, and lexical/interactional skills.
• L2 may reach near-native competence, although native linguistic competence is impossible to reach.
• In most L2 learning, progress may cease at some point in the learning career.
• L2 includes possible L1 interference and might develop different structures from what a native speaker would produce.

SLA Frameworks Overview

• Linguistic, Psychological, and Social frameworks are used to describe SLA.

SLA Frameworks: Linguistic

• Internal focus on underlying competence of language.
• External focus on performance, communication, and language as a system.
• Functional typology, similarities between languages for L2 learning, function-to-form mapping, and grammaticalization.

SLA Frameworks: Psychological

• Learning processes, immediate social context, travel or business, and curricular contexts with no direct applications.
• Learner differences focusing on success, emotional involvement, motivation, anxiety, biological differences, age and sex.

SLA Frameworks: Social

• Microsocial (immediate social context, variation in learner language, sociolinguistics, accommodation theory, comprehensible input, foreigner talk).
• Macrosocial (ethnography of communication, social psychology, status of L1 and L2, circumstances of learning, the difference between informal/formal and naturalistic/instructed learning).

Interlanguage

• Interlanguage (IL) refers to the intermediate states or interim grammars of learner language, moving towards L2.
• IL systems are systematic and dynamic during language acquisition.
• IL systems can be variable.
• Reduced forms and function are typical system characteristics of IL.

Interlanguage: Typical Processes

• Language transfer (positive and negative) is a factor in SLA.
• SLA processes differ from FLA.
• Learners approach materials and tasks related to L2 learning and learning communication strategies.
• Overgeneralization and fossilization are noted in SLA.

Functional Approaches

• Functional typology focuses on classifying languages and their features into categories to compare similarities and differences.
• Markedness is used to account for developmental stages, where a feature is unmarked if it's frequent.
• Markedness differential hypothesis predicts L2 will be easy to learn with less complexity.

Functional Approaches: Usage-Based

• The usage-based approach prioritizes the linguistic input and cognitive mechanisms used for learning.
• The assumption is that language is formulaic and based on constructions.
• Structures and morphemes are analyzed for usage-based approaches.