Second Language Acquisition

Three Major Scientific Research Traditions

 Behaviorist
 Cognitive and Computational
 Dialogical

Behaviourism
 1940-1960
 Habit formation
 Stimuli – response

Cognitive-Computational
 Human mind
 Deductive method
 Put simply, if it could be shown that the linguistic/conversational adjustments promote
comprehension of input, and also that comprehensible input promotes acquisition, then it
could safely be deduced that the adjustments promote acquisition. If A signifies adjustments,
B comprehension, and C acquisition, then the argument would simply be.
 Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar
 In the cognitive tradition, in contrast to the behavioristic, the subject’s own interpretations
of the elicited behavior and understanding of the investigated mental phenomena are taken
into consideration.
 This is evident in the use of the so-called grammaticality judgment tasks frequently
employed by the proponents of Chomsky’s linguistic theory, for example. Subjects are asked
to use their own intuition regarding the grammaticality or ungrammaticality of the sentences
selected by the researcher. Such tasks are also used by SLA researchers working within
Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar to determine nonnative speakers’ access to the
language acquisition device (LAD) and to investigate natives’ and nonnatives’ intuitions
about the grammaticality of target language sentences.
 Information processing— focuses on the mechanism responsible for the processing of
information or knowledge. In this version, the metaphors of input, output, short-term
memory, long-term memory, storage of information, intake, container
 If human mental processes are rule-governed, the rules somehow need to be implemented.
In order to run these rules, one needs a mechanism, a machine similar to a computer. Thus,
the rule-governed mental processes require a hardware system—the human brain—and a
software program—the human mind—where these rules are assimilated, processed, and
stored. An example of the application of the computational (information-processing)
The Dialogical Tradition
 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jurgen Habermas, Jerome Bruner, Pierre Bourdieu, Ragnar
Rommetveit, Rom Harre, Grant Gillett, Leo van Lier, and above all Lev Vygotsky and Mikhail
Bakhtin
 the proper balance between external and internal human realities (that is, between the body
and the mind). This approach takes into consideration the dynamic role of social contexts,
individuality, intentionality, and the sociocultural, historical, and institutional backgrounds of
the individual involved in cognitive growth.
 As Vygotsky points out in his theory of mind, the property of human mental functioning can
be discovered by the investigation of the individual’s environment and by the observation of
mental and linguistic activities to which the individual has been exposed throughout his or
her life.
 This framework, unlike the cognitive tradition, assumes the existence of multiple realties that
are interpreted differently by di√erent individuals.
 These multiple realities exist because human beings are exposed in the course of their lives
to different sociocultural and institutional settings, where they acquire di√erent voices (or
speech genres, to use Bakhtin’s term).
 Within this tradition, qualitative research methods are given higher status than statistically
driven quantitative methods. Longitudinal case studies, diaries, journals, and personal
narratives are considered to provide important insights into the individual’s cognitive
development.
 This tradition stresses the importance of social, cultural, political, historical,and institutional
contexts for the development of human cognition; it highlights the importance for human
cognitive development of social interaction in a variety of sociocultural and institutional
settings.

Behaviorism and Second Language Learning

 Contrastive Analysis
 Language learning (whether first or second) was considered to adhere to the same principles.
 It was believed then that learning is advanced by making a stimulus response connection, by
creating new habits by means of reinforcement and practice of the established links between
stimuli and responses
 First language learning was viewed as the imitation of utterances to which the child had been
exposed in his or her environment.
 Children were believed to acquire their native language by repeating and imitating their
caretakers’ utterances
 Note that Bloomfield was considered the most prominent representative of American
structuralism. Thus, the two theories provided theoretical foundations for CA:
 a general theory of learning—behaviorism—and
 a theory of language—structural linguistics
 Structural linguistics assumed that oral language (speech) was more important than written
language.
 Oral data were to be transcribed and analyzed according to a well-established system for
determining structurally related elements that encode meaning.
 These elements, or structural units, which represent a given linguistic level, were connected;
one literally built on the other. Thus, the phonetic level of a language led to the phonological
level, which, in turn, led to the morphological level, which led to the syntactic level.
 These interrelated linguistic levels were viewed as systems within systems.

 Note that according to this model of the structural organization of natural languages, it was
possible to conduct a thorough investigation of the structural characteristics of each
linguistic level independent of other levels.
 This surface structure does not have anything to do with deep-level structure, the mental
representation of linguistic structures proposed by Chomsky (1959, 1965) in his linguistic
theory of universal grammar, which eventually undermined both behaviorism and structural
linguistics.
 Because structural linguistics began the process of describing and analyzing a language at the
lower levels (the phonetic level and the phonological level) and then moved to the higher-
level systems, second language teaching followed the same method. That is, second
 language teaching began at the phonetic level. Once the building blocks of this level were
mastered, then the student advanced to the next structural level.
 In accordance with the fundamental principle of the behavioristic paradigm, second language
learning was also viewed as the process of habit formation.
 The difficulty in learning a new habit was associated with interference from the old habit—
the learner’s first language.
 Thus, the learner has a tendency to transfer his or her old habits to a new task—the task of
learning a second language. Lado writes:
 ‘‘Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms and
meanings, of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture—both
productively when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture, and
receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and the culture as
practiced by natives’’ (1957, 2).
 Although in a majority of cases the transfer of old habits will interfere with learning a second
language, CA acknowledges that in some instances language transfer may be facilitative.
 When both languages, first and second, possess the same structures, language transfer will
be positive, and the process of learning a second language will be facilitated and accelerated.
 On the other hand, the transfer of old habits will be negative when both languages do not
possess the same grammatical structures. In such cases, the transfer of old habits will
interfere with learning a second language.
 Since the goal of CA was to assist teachers in developing the most effective pedagogical
materials, CA recommended that teaching materials be based on a careful examination of
both languages.
 Fries (1945, 9) writes: ‘‘The most effcient materials are those that are based upon a scientific
description of the language to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of
the native language of the learner.’’
 The key points in the statement are ‘‘observed difficulties’’ and ‘‘linguistic interferences.’’
Wardhaugh believes that the occurrence of observed difficulties in the learner’s performance
should initiate a contrastive investigation of the learner’s two language systems. That is, if
the learner’s observed difficulties pertain to the phonology of the second language, the
phonological systems of both languages ought to be compared and contrasted
 In CA, errors were viewed as interference, or negative transfer of the learner’s first language
habits to the target language habits. Since language learning was viewed as a set of
automatic habit formations, the learner’s errors provided evidence for the learner’s bad
habit formations.
 Since mental processes were totally disregarded in the behavioristic tradition, the occurrence
of errors was to be examined and explained within the context of the learner’s environment.
 That is, the failure of the learner to acquire new habits was perceived either as the learner’s
inability to imitate the language patterns presented to him or her by the teacher (the
environment) or as the teacher’s inability to provide appropriate assistance to the learner in
the form of a right comparison between two language systems.