FRAMEWORKS FOR STUDY OF SLA (SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUICITION)

 1950s and before

- Structuralism : Charles Fries, who was a leading figure in applying structural linguistics to
L2 teaching, makes this priority very clear: “In learning a new language, the chief problem
is not at first that of learning vocabulary items. It is, first, the mastery of the sound system.
It is, second, the mastery of the features of arrangement that constitute the structure of the
language” (Fries 1945:3).
Another assumption of this theory is that there will be transfer in learning: in the
case of SLA, this means the transfer of elements acquired (or habituated) in L1 to the
target L2. The transfer is called positive (or facilitating) when the same structure is
appropriate in both languages, as in the transfer of a Spanish plural morpheme -s on nouns
to English (e.g. lenguajes to languages). The transfer is called negative (or interference)
when the L1 structure is used inappropriately in the L2, as in the additional transfer of
Spanish plural -s to a modifier in number agreement with the noun: e.g. lenguajes
modernas to Moderns Languages (a translation which was printed at the top of a letter that
I received from South America), or greens beans (for ‘green beans,’ which I saw posted as
a vegetable option in a US cafeteria near the Mexican border).

- Behaviorism : Paul Pierre Broca (1861, 1865) observed that an area in the left frontal lobe
(Broca’s area) appeared to be responsible for the ability to speak and noted that an injury
to the left side of the brain was much more likely to result in language loss than was an
injury to the right side.
Most individuals lose or recover multiple languages equally (Paradis 1987), but
some recover one before the other, and some never recover use of one (either L1 or L2).
These findings suggest that two or more languages may be represented in somewhat
different locations in the brain and/or have different networks of activation.

- Sociocultural theory : The concept of communicative competence became a basic tenet

in the then-emerging field of sociolinguistics, and was soon adopted as well by many
specialists in the field of SLA and language teaching. The term language community
refers to a group of people who share knowledge of a common language to at least some
extent. Multilingual individuals are often members of more than one language community
generally to different degrees, and the one or ones they orient themselves to at any given
 moment is reflected not only in which segment of their linguistic knowledge they select,
but which interaction skills they use, and which features of their cultural knowledge they
activate.

 1960s

- Transformational Generative Grammar : Transformational-Generative (TG) Grammar

(1957, 1965). Chomsky claimed that languages have only a relatively small number of
essential rules which account for their basic sentence structures, plus a limited set of
transformational rules which allow these basic sentences to be modified (by deletions,
additions, substitutions, and changes in word order). “Knowing” a language was seen as a
matter of knowing these rules rather than memorizing surface structures. Since speakers of
a language can understand and produce millions of sentences they have never heard
before, they cannot merely be imitating what they have heard others say, but must be
applying these underlying rules to create novel constructions.

- Neurolibguistics information processing : Approaches based on IP are concerned with the

mental processes involved in language learning and use. These include perception and the
input of new information; the formation, organization, and regulation of internal (mental)
representations; and retrieval and output strategies.

- Ethonography of communication vriation theory : One of the most important contributions

of sociolinguistics (beginning with Labov 1965) has been the demonstration that much of
what earlier linguists had considered unsystematic irregularity in language production can
be seen to follow regular and predictable patterns, when treated as variable features. A
substantial amount of research on the effect of microsocial contexts has been based on the
framework of Accommodation Theory. Speakers (usually unconsciously) change their
pronunciation and even the grammatical complexity of sentences they use to sound more
like whomever they are talking to. This accounts in part for why native speakers tend to
simplify their language when they are talking to an L2 learner who is not fluent (which we
will discuss below), and why L2 learners may acquire somewhat different varieties of the
target language when they have different friends.
  1970s

- Functionalism : Functional models of analysis date back to the early twentieth century,
and have their roots in the Prague School of linguistics that originated in Eastern Europe.
They differ from structuralist and early generative models by emphasizing the information
content of utterances, and in considering language primarily as a system of communication
rather than as a set of rules. The term function has several meanings in linguistics,
including both structural function (such as the role which elements of language structure
play as a subject or object, or as an actor or goal) and pragmatic function (what the use of
language can accomplish, such as convey information, control others’ behavior, or express
emotion).’

- Humanistic model : Humans are inherently social creatures, and it is difficult to assess
individual cognitive factors in language learning apart from the influence of the learner’s
total social context, to which we turn next. Approaches to the study of learner differences
derive largely from humanistic traditions that take affective factors into account, but some
consider factors associated with age and sex, and some consider possible individual
differences in aptitude for language learning. This third focus primarily addresses the
question of why some second language learners are more successful than others.

- Acculturation theory accomodation theory : John Schumann (1978) identifies other group
factors that affect SLA outcomes negatively in his Acculturation Model. For example,
factors that are likely to create social distance between learner and target groups, limit
acculturation, and thus inhibit L2 learning are: dominance of one group over the other, a
high degree of segregation between groups, and desire of the learner group to preserve its
own lifestyle. A substantial amount of research on the effect of microsocial contexts has
been based on the framework of Accommodation Theory.
Speakers (usually unconsciously) change their pronunciation and even the
grammatical complexity of sentences they use to sound more like whomever they are
talking to. This accounts in part for why native speakers tend to simplify their language
when they are talking to an L2 learner who is not fluent (which we will discuss below),
and why L2 learners may acquire somewhat different varieties of the target language when
they have different friends.
  1980s

- Principles and parameters model : Since around 1980, the construct called Universal
Grammar has been conceptualized as a set of principles which are properties of all
languages in the world. Some of these principles contain parameters, or points where
there is a limited choice of settings depending on which specific language is involved.
Because knowledge of principles and parameters is postulated to be innate, children are
assumed to be able to interpret and unconsciously analyze the input they receive and
construct the appropriate L1 grammar. This analysis and construction is considered to be
strictly constrained and channeled by UG, which explains why L1 acquisition for children
is relatively rapid and always successful; children never violate core principles nor do they
select parametric values outside of the channel imposed by UG, even though there might
be other logical possibilities.

- Connectionism : Some version of this idea has been present in psychology at least since
the 1940s and 1950s (see McClelland, Rumelhart, and Hinton 1986 for an overview of
historical developments), but Connectionism has received widespread attention as a
model for first and second language acquisition only since the 1980s. According to this
viewpoint, processing takes place in a network of nodes (or “units”) in the brain that are
connected by pathways. As learners are exposed to repeated patterns of units in input, they
extract regularities in the patterns; probabilistic associations are formed and strengthened.
These associations between nodes are called connection strengths or patterns of
activation.

- Social psychology : Social Psychology These broader societal approaches in research and
theory allow exploration of issues such as how identity, status, and values influence L2
outcomes, and why. speakers as members of a language community and to exclude
outsiders from membership; influences on SLA at this level often involve the relationship
between native and target language groups, as well as the openness and permeability of
community boundaries.
  1990s

- Minimalist program : Until the late 1970s, followers of this approach assumed that the
language acquisition task involves children’s induction of a system of rules for particular
languages from the input they receive, guided by UG. How this could happen remained
quite mysterious. (Linguistic input goes into a “black box” in the mind, something
happens, and the grammatical system of a particular language comes out.) A major change
in thinking about the acquisition process occurred with Chomsky’s (1981)
reconceptualization of UG in a Principles and Parameters framework (often called the
Government and Binding [GB] model), and with his subsequent introduction of the
Minimalist Program (1995).

- Processability : Learning is learning. We take a general look at the information processing

framework and then discuss three approaches based on it, the Multidimensional Model,
Processability, and the Competition Model, respectively. The Connectionism framework
also claims that “learning is learning,” but considers learning processes as a matter of
increasing strength of associations rather than as the abstraction of rules or principles. Our
mental capacity requirements for controlled processing are obvious when we are
beginning to learn a second language, as we need to concentrate our attention to
comprehend or produce basic vocabulary and syntactic structures.