Second Language Acquisition

Before second language acquisition (SLA) was an independent field, it was associated
with applied linguistics (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014), and since then traditional SLA research has
gone through a period of change, from a Behavioral perspective which was later followed by
Cognitive-Computational approach (Johnson, 2004). As of late, the cognitive approach has been
the more dominate approach, nonetheless, there are alternative approaches, for example, a
Dialogical which is making an impact but is considered less scientific by the SLA community
(Johnson, 2004). Johnson suggests that a dialogical approach to research based on:

“Vygotsky’s SCT, combined with Bakhtin’s dialogism, as an epistemology for human

sciences offers the field of second language acquisition a unique opportunity to “heal” the
schism that currently separates the learner’s social environment from his or her mental
function (Johnson, 2004: page 170).

The dialogical approach allows the learning process to be examined from a holistic perspective,
by focusing on learners’ development, and how they use new language to regulate
communication, which “places mediation, either by other or self, at the core of development and
use” (Atkinson, 2011: p. 24). Vygotsky’s theory makes it clear that higher mental processes are
mediated by language, signs, and symbols (Ibid, 2011).

While the cognitive bias in SLA theory and research has control of the theoretical
paradigm, the research was predominately focused on information-processing paradigms that
were based on linguistic meaning-making, and neglected social aspects (Johnson, 2004). Within
this paradigm language competencies take place within the learner’s mind which are governed
by universal principles and rules (Ibid, 2004). An individual’s goal is to learn these rules creating
a distinction between linguistic competence and linguistic performance, but many now view this
division as inaccurate, and has little to do with actual ways in which language is acquired, and
due to the impact of “social infrastructure theorists” cognitive linguistics is taking on an
embodied perspective (Tomasello, ). In this context, a person’s mind is viewed as a single part of
a more complex system. In this system, the individual is not only affected by the environment,
but it too has effect on the environment reciprocally, and this has huge implications for SLA. No
longer is it acceptable to research individuals without relating or connecting the individual to
another entity, whether it is to curriculum, the classroom, a teacher, or other students. This is not
to suggest that research on the individual is invalid, but incomplete. Johnson tells us that “[t]he
power of this new framework lies in its capacity to unite divergent views of SLA that often
present a source of frustration for students whose goal is to become teachers of English as a
second language (ESL) (Johnson, 2004, p. 1). She goes on to say:

“The abstractness and conflicting explanations of many important topics in SLA

contribute to a sense of separation between those who “do” theorizing and those who “do”
practicing. In addition, the largely quantitative nature of SLA research studies reinforces this
sense of separateness between theoreticians and practitioners by sending a false signal that unless
one’s research study includes some sort of experiment and inferential statistics, one’s
contribution to understanding second language acquisition processes is insignificant and
marginal, almost anecdotal” (Ibid, 2004, p. 1).
 Johnson, and others propose a major shift in SLA research (Johnson, 2004; Atkinson,
2011; Lantolf & Poehner, 2014). This can be accomplished with two changes; (1) Democratizing
research (Johnson, 2004), and (2) a shift towards “social infrastructure theorists” (Tomasello).
This is already taking place; teacher practitioner research is well on its ways of establishing
itself, and second and third generation cognitive science is taking second language acquisition
research to different heights, and there is hope that classroom research will be a part of this trend,
especially research conducted by “insiders” who have a better understanding of the context being
explored. Insider research, or teacher practitioner research opens up other perspectives and
opportunities that can only benefit the entire research program, but there are still many who
claim that teacher practitioner research lacks validity.

Today’s SLA research is in need of more than reason and rationale, what is needed is
action and experience which are vital components in educational research (Maattanen, 2015:
Dewey,). Conducting teacher practitioner research based on action and experience is not a simple
straight forward endeavor, but there are guidelines that can be followed to assist the non-
academic instructor, still instructors should seek valid and reliable results based on a
philosophical foundation, with groundings in historical and current educational research
movements (Carr & Kemmis, 2002). But experience and action are not the only sources of
information, and by merging parts of Ethnography, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Action
Research, and Grounded Theory I hope to see the dynamic interplay that can be discovered
taking place in a classroom setting. Teacher practitioner research while infrequent, is no longer
regarded as uncommon but as a necessity for both professional development and classroom
improvement. Regardless of local particulars, teachers as researchers face some of the same
issues throughout the world; recognizing the gap between theory and practice, and coming to
terms with a philosophical position. Moreover, in this regard, teachers conducting their own
research face similar problems as other applied disciplines; determining a philosophical
grounding, deciding how to overcome the theory, practice gap, finding a proper role, and finding
the time each day.

Marton & Booth claim that there are two main approaches to learning paradoxes; the
rationalist tradition, and the empiricist tradition, both being inadequate leave us with the
Vygotsky tradition, or what they refer to as a situated action, or social constructivism, and what
environmental factors surround the individual learner (Ibid, 2009). The questions then becomes
“how do the surrounding social or cultural, forces mold or make certain ways of acting and
certain ways of thinking possible for the individual?”, or in other words, “what goes on between
individuals, and between individuals and situations” (Ibid, location 374). In such a context one
must examine the context, and what artifacts or resources are being used (Ibid, 2009). The two
then turn to Vygotskian psychology, and how it differs from Behaviorism and Cognitivism,
clarifying that Vygotskian psychology explains “‘the inner’ in terms of ‘the outer’”, and
cognitivism “puts emphasis on explaining ‘the outer’ in terms of ‘the inner’” (Ibid, location 85).
They finalize their argument by saying that individual constructivism emphasizes the learner’s
active role, while social constructivism emphasizes the role of culture, language and others in
bringing about knowledge (Ibid, 2009).

The Vygotsky approach which is based on Engels and Marx, advances a certain
dependence in which the individual and the environment are not separated, which has major
implications for methodology (Johnson, 2004). Marx and Engels, by using a transformational
method, turned Hegel’s dialectical on its head by reversing the roles of Hegel’s subject and
predicate, suggesting that “the dialectic of Geist [mind] is a myth” (Bernstein, 1971). According
to Marx, Feurbach, a contemporary of Marx, showed that philosophy was just another form of
religion by demonstrating a new view of Hegel’s Phenomenology- a reading that allows for a
better understanding of Marx’s praxis to be of action and alienation (Ibid, 1971). Vygotsky, in
turn was adamant about applying Marx’s praxis to thought, language, learning and development
(Johnson, 2004). Poener & Lantolf further explain that:

It is in this work that Vygotsky lays the groundwork for his theory, because it is here that
he emphatically commits to the project of building a Marxist psychology. A central
concept of the new theory, according to Vygotsky, is praxis—the dialectical unity of
theory and practice (2010).

Lev Vygotsky saw the major issue with research as being the atomistic and reductional
modes of analysis that separate functions while relationships stay outside the investigation
(Vygotsky, 2012). Although Vygotsky was referencing the particulars of Thought and Language,
his assessment can be related to any number of interfunctional relationships within human
consciousness (Ibid, 2012). In Mind and Society, Vygotsky describes his analysis as having
“three fundamental issues:

(1) What is the relation between human beings and their environment, both physical and
social? (2) What new forms of activity were responsible for establishing labor as the
fundamental means of relating humans to nature and what are the psychological
consequences of these forms of activity? (3) What is the nature of the relationship
between the use of tools and the development of speech?” (1978, page 19).

Vygotsky explains that these methods of analysis are “responsible for all the failures that
beset former investigators”, similar to analyzing complex psychological wholes into elements
such as water; “It may be compared to the chemical analysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen,
either of which possesses the properties of the whole [.]” (Vygotsky, 2012, page 84). What
happens when elements are analyzed as separates becomes speculation in which the original
properties become the vanished properties of the whole. “In essence,” Vygotsky writes, “this
type of analysis, which leads us to products in which the properties of the whole are lost, may not
be called analysis in the proper sense of this word” (Ibid, page 85). In Psychology or education
which both aim at studying complex holistic systems must replace the method of analyzing
elements with the method of analyzing units that are able to retain the properties of the whole
(Ibid, 2012).

Vygotsky then goes on to explain what is called, semantic analysis, or the study of
development or functions which is able to maintain the whole of the interrelated parts.
Concerning speech, for example, Vygotsky explains that the primary function is communication
or social intercourse, but in past studies on language were done by isolating communication from
its function (Ibid, 2012). Here we begin to see the importance of social interactions in
maintaining the proper context between function, learning and development. Some see the
influence of Williams James’ pragmatism on Vygotsky, especially in the chapter on
“Interactions between Learning and Development” (Vygotsky, 1978).

According to Johnson there are three fundamentals to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

which can be summarized in three tenets: (1) the developmental analysis of mental process; (2)
the social origin of human mental processes; and (3) the role of sign systems in the development
of human higher mental functions (Johnson, 2004). Vygotsky was trying to develop a scientific
method that reflected the dialectical approach of Marx and Engels that stressed the importance of
change, and the relationship between theory and practice (Johnson, 2004).

As Johnson sees it, Vygotsky’s first tenant deals with a scientific method that allows
psychological functions to be maintained by investigation, understanding, and interpretation,
with our own interpretation and understanding of the problem itself, or what she eventually
refers to as Dialogical (Johnson, 2004). Vygotsky was against both introspective and the
objective methods when investigating mental development (Ibid, 2004). As conflict arises
between opposite forces from their environment new conditions are developed due to the
dialectic between nature changing humans, and humans changing nature, and because of this we
must focus on the process, and not the product (Johnson, 2004). This is a similar approach by
Martin Heidegger’s dealings with Cartesian dualism, and Hans-George Gadamer’s hermeneutics
in which dichotomies are interwoven (Bernstein, 1983).

Vygotsky’s second tenet asserts that higher mental functions are due to social activity, by
first appearing on the social plane, and then the psychological plane (Ibid, 2004). Such
development takes place first between people, or the inter-psychological, and then within the
learner; intra-psychological, and can be seen with attention, memory, forming concepts, and
volition (Idid, 2004). According to Vygotsky, it was generally believed that psychological
functions operated inseparably, while there was a connection, the unity of consciousness was not
the subject of study, and the relationships between two given functions never changed (Ibid,
2012). This has been the case with attention, memory with perception, and thought with memory,
explains Vygotsky, which are prime variables within this study. What concerns this study is the
approach to research which Vygotsky believes should be based on interrelations as opposed to
separate functions, or in the case of this study, between interlanguage attention, development,
communication and learning, such processes should not be viewed as separate and mechanical.

Vygotky’s third tenet deals with the role of semiotics, especially language, in higher
mental functions (Ibid, 2004). While language has a communicative function, it serves by
organizing different mental activities in which speech mediates between the interpersonal and the
intrapersonal. At one time children are supported entirely by adults, but as they become older
they begin self-development through egocentric speech that eventually acts as a problem-solver
as they talk through problems (Johnson, 2004). This egocentric speech is similar to regular
speech patterns but lacks the grammatical features. We then see development that is based on
interrelationships that is worked out internally, as a transition from the interpersonal to the
intrapersonal, and when completed, egocentric speech becomes inner speech (Vygotsky, 1986).
These distinctions are important, for “Vygotsky discourages us from equating these two
processes because if they were to be equated, his socio-cultural theory would have resembled the
behavioristic theory of stimuli and responses (Johnson, 2004: page 113).

There are a number of research approaches to learning and development, but it is the
contention of this research that learning cannot be isolated from development, and that the
concept of learning requires a teacher to find their particular theoretical and philosophical
foundation. This leads us first to Cognitive science having replaced Behaviorism in the 1950,
along with psychology are the predominate approaches to education, teaching and learning. In
Marton and Booth’s, Learning and Awareness, they suggest that humans are essentially equal,
yet they learn differently, begging numerous questions, such as, what does it take to learn? What
does it take to learn to do something? And how do we gain knowledge about the world? (Marton
& Booth, 2009).