Conclusion: contribution of interactionist/sociolinguistic/sociocultural approaches to SLA theory building
This theoretical family has given rise to a wealth of very detailed investigations of learner interaction, paying attention to factors such as the wider social processes at play and learners' own social contribution to the learning context.
Conclusion:
This chapter has provided a simple map of the main theoretical families currently dominant in second language theorizing, and of their contribution to an overall multifaceted SLA research agenda. The purpose has not been to draw a comprehensive picture of the multitude of theoretical approaches used in the field, but rather to outline why a single SIA theory is currently beyond our reach, and to illustrate where all the different and sometimes conflicting approaches originate from.
4. FLA & SLA - Vivian Cook 2015
a. SLA Research emerges out of L2 acq. research: SLA research and its relationship with L1 acquisition research (as a support + criticism)
The relationship between L1 and L2 through SLA as an independent discipline is critical because it defines the very nature of L2 acquisition: if L2 did not differ in some way from L1 acquisition, SLA research would be only a sub-field of a general discipline rather than its own. Defining characteristic of L2 acquisition is the presence of a second language in the same mind as the first one. A unique problem for SLA research is how this pre-existing language affects the L2 user’s mind and the L2 user’s community.
First idea of L1 acquisition research: independent grammar: the child language constitutes an independent system of its own rather than being a defective version of the adult system. This idea was took into SLA research by the name of “interlanguage hypotheses”: the existence of a separate linguistic system. The learners language system is a developing system in its own right, not a defective version of the native speaker. Main focus was the detailed analysis of learners speech. Yet, the vast majority of SLA research did not accept this bc learners assumption of being studied in their own right was not acceptable.
The most influential concept that was borrowed from L1 research acquisition research was the developmental sequence: L1 children were believed to progress through distinct stages in language acquisition, just as their cognition developed through stages. So, the sequence of acquisition has been dominating the SLA research: how people learn a second language has been taken to be order in which they acquire language, by this, we can see the learning process involved.
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Chomsky: the acquired knowledge is crucial, not the order in which it was acquired.: an idealized “instantaneous” model of language acquisition that relates language input and competence as wholes without referencing to chronological developments.
Cook and Newson distinguish acquisition (the logical problem of how the mind acquires language independent of intervening stages) and development (the history of intervening stages). Developmental order in L1 is the product of factors other than SLA.
The concept of stage is unclear. Ingram found several of L1 stages: a continuum stage (referring to a point on a continuum), a plateau stage (where change halts for some time), a transition stage (before change takes off again) and acceleration stage (where there is a rapid acquisition before reaching a plateau). Most SLA research has used the continuum stage (one thing just comes after another).
Processability theory is more like a plateau and transition stage theory with broad characteristics for each stage. The importance of stagiation depends on whether you accept that the route is important rather than the process of target. Saying that language acquisition proceeds through stages of development is empty without defining what stage is.
- concept of stages of acquisition (problematic)
Grammaticality judgements as an L2 research technique cannot be justified from L1 acquisition research as they are simply not a primary source of data for L1 acquisition research. They are particularly problematic for comparing L1 and L2 learning because one of the things that is known to change in L2 learners is precisely the ability to treat language metalinguistically on which they must rely.
- SLA researchers techniques
The techniques most obviously used from L1 research are those for studying actual sentences that L2 learners produced, which we can call natural data.
Another natural data technique was called Error Analysis. This looked first at the differences between the learners speech and that of native speakers and then looked for explanations.. However, EA differed from the children corpus analyses in that in looked for “errors”, defined as deviations from native speech. The concept of “error” in L2 speech breaches the interlanguage assumption unless highly qualified; it could properly mean deviations from the learners own interlanguage rules but it would be improper to mean deviations from monolingual native speech any more than the L1 child is measured against an idealized adult.
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Another popular natural data technique was scoring obligatory occurrences of particular syntactic forms. Brown defined “obligatory” in terms of context, However, the Processability Model defines “obligatory” as what a native speaker would say. A proper use of the word obligatory would be defining it in terms on an ideal L2 speaker, not L1 speaker.
Another technique borrowed from L1 was controlled data: getting learners to produce naturalistic speech. For example, the elicited imitation which asks L1 children to repeat sentences in the ways in which they change sentences are believed to reveal properties of the underlying competence. Elicited Info was used for L2 acquisition.
Another technique was introspection data: L2 learners were asked about their emotions, motivations and strategies. Much of this data is unobtainable from L1 children because of their lack of maturity
- differences and similarities with L1 AND SL research. ( idea of independence of SLA)
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