MODUL PERKULIAHAN

Second Language Acquisition

Modul 1:
What is second language
acquisition?

Memahami pengertian second language acquisition

Fakultas Program Studi Tatap Muka Kode MK Disusun Oleh

Bahasa Program 07510002 Tim Dosen
Studi Bahasa Inggris
S1 01
Abstract Kompetensi
Bab ini mengeksplorasi pengertian Mahasiswa mampu memahami
second language acquisition secara pengertian second language
umum acquisition
 1
What is second language acquisition?

What is second language acquisition (SLA)? Is it different from second language learning?
Absolutely not. SLA is simply a term given to the methodical study of second language
learning or, for that matter, third language learning. SLA scholars are ‘applied linguists’.
Unlike scholars of general linguistics their prime objective is not to describe a language.
Rather, they look for relationships between a language and the people who are speaking it
or attempting to speak it. They wonder what might be the complex influences that
contribute to the huge range of second language learning outcomes. They ask themselves
why some learners learn faster than others and why some learners achieve ultimately higher
levels than others. They investigate why some learners have a burning desire to learn a
language while others do it simply because they are forced to. SLA researchers want to
know whether there is something about the second language that causes this variation or
whether it is something inherent in the learner ’s first language. Like other ‘social
scientists’ SLA researchers also investigate the ‘old chestnut’ about the balance between
nature and nurture. Is second language learning ability something we are born with or is
it the case that aspects of the society we are in enable some people to learn better than
others? All these questions, then, are of interest to SLA scholars.
Nor is a distinction nowadays being made (as Stephen Krashen once attempted to make)
between acquisition, which was supposedly subconscious, and learning which was
supposedly conscious. It is now generally accepted that totally subconscious
acquisition/learning could really only take place when you are asleep, in a coma or through
some kind of subliminal device such as is sometimes (illegally) attempted in advertising.
Thus the study of SLA is not different from the study of second language learning. There
is no suggestion that what scholars are interested in is drawing a clear line between some
kind of idealized mental process, sanitized by the laboratory setting, and the complex,
oĞen chaotic linguistic environment where those other humans present might influence
one’s thoughts, one’s emotions and one’s ability to learn. Well, at least not many scholars
would admit to wanting to draw that clear line! Perhaps some, in their heart of hearts,
would love to operate like natural scientists and isolate their subjects in cages, bring them
out from time to time onto the laboratory bench, feed them a particular language diet and
then see the progress their subjects made. But they know that they would be ridiculed, not
to say imprisoned. So instead SLA researchers, like other social scientists, try to control
for as many factors as possible when studying humans’ relationship with language, while
accepting that they have to take account of a human being’s relationship with other human
beings around them, and the situation in which they are in.
Whatever, the operational parameters of SLA researchers, stated or other- wise, all would
agree that the SLA phenomenon exists – people do learn a second language. They also
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2 Tim Dosen
Biro Akademik dan Pembelajaran
http://www.widyatama.ac.id
 agree that it is worth the effort of trying to explain how the phenomenon occurs and what
predicts that it will occur in a particular way. In other words, researchers are convinced that
it is worth studying the fact that people are able to learn a language in addition to the one
they are con- fronted with from the moment of birth and that some learn this second
language (L2) to a level at which it is, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from a
native speaker of that language; others do not reach those loĞy heights. The latter, of
course, may well have a perfectly valid reason for not wishing to do so.
Origins of the Study of SLA
When did the study of SLA begin? That’s a tricky question. Some would point out that it
has been informally studied for centuries. Others might argue that its birth was not noticed
until the beginning of the twentieth century when links between language learning and the
description of a language were first being made. However, with far greater conviction, we
can pinpoint the late 1960s as a time when authors first began to draw on many fields of
learning including the fields of linguistics, language teaching, sociology and psychology,
and in doing so started a process of systematic reflection on language learning, based on
collecting research evidence and theory building. Then in the 1980s the production of SLA
research underwent a veritable explosion, in part linked to the expan- sion of English
language teaching world-wide (both as a second and as a for- eign language) and in part as
a result of a perceived need to establish an equilibrium between those who saw second
language learning as merely a continuation of first language learning and those who saw it
as a completely differ ent enterprise. In fact this debate about whether learning to speak an
L2 is as natural as learning to speak the first language, or whether it involves radically
different mental capacities and processes, has remained at the heart of SLA research to the
present day and is extensively discussed by Vivian Cook in this volume.
Interestingly, it is around the late 1980s and 1990s that a growing riĞ can be observed
between researchers working in first language acquisition and development, and those
working in SLA. The reason for this was probably that first language researchers detected
two problems that needed solving. First, the overwhelming majority of children learn the
oral form of their first language without difficulty, and therefore the researchers presumed
the remaining few must be undergoing some kind of language deficit or difficulty which
needed to be treated – that is, these children were considered to have specific learning
impairments and these required examination by speech experts. Secondly while the
overwhelming majority of children learn the oral form of their L1 without difficulty, a
considerable minority either have delayed literacy (the development of reading and writing)
with their L1 or indeed have persistent difficulties well into adolescence and beyond
(dyslexia). Neither of these two themes appears to be of immediate concern to most SLA
researchers who seem more concerned with difficulties experienced in the L2 by learners
who have had no signs of difficulty in the L1.

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3 Tim Dosen
Biro Akademik dan Pembelajaran
http://www.widyatama.ac.id