Second Language

We star from the common-sense distinction between ‘mother tongue’ or ‘native

language’ and ‘second languege’ or ‘foreign languege’. At a more technical level we
also find for the terms ‘primary languege and ‘L1’ and for the second two ‘secondary
languege’ and ‘L2’. We can tabulate the two sets of terms as follows:

L1 L2
first languege second language
native language non-native language
mother tongue foreign langueage
primary language secondary language
stronger langguage weaker language

These two sets of terms-like such words as ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘I/we’ and ‘you’, or ‘at
home’ and ‘abroad’-are always relative to a person or a group persons. They indicate a
subjective relationship between a language and an individual or a group. We can never
assign any particular language, for example, French, English, Arabic, or Japanese, in
any absolute way to one or the other set of terms.
There is a third set of terms which describes language objectively, I.e., without
reference to the relationship of individuals to that language.
This set refers to the geographical distribution, social function, political status, origin,
type or importance of the language, and so on; for example,
language of wider communication
standard language
regional languge
national language
official language
modern language
classical language

Some terms fall into more than one category. For example, ‘foreign language’ can be
subjectively ‘a language which is not my L1’, or objectively ‘a language which has
not legal status withim the national boundaries’. There is simply a semantic confusion
instance in which a certain French Canadian. (Fundamental Concepts of Language
Teaching:hal. 9,10)

Soal :
1. Translate teks di atas ke dalam bahasa Indonesia!
2. Buatlah rumusan masalah dari teks di atas (hasil translate)!
3. Buatlah artikel yang berjudul “Bahasa Kedua” jumlah paragraf 4 sampai
dengan 7 paragraf!