University of Babylon

College of Education for Human Sciences

Department of English
Higher Studies / Second Course

Second Language Acquisition & Psycholinguistics

Presented by
Safa Naji Abd

Supervised by
Prof .Dr. Qasim Obayes Al-Azzawi,PhD
(2019-2020)

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1.1 What is Second Language Acquisition?
Second language acquisition research focuses on the developing knowledge and
use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other
language.
The difference between theoretical and practical importance of study the field of
second language. The theoretical importance is related to our understanding of
how language is represented in the mind and whether there is a difference
between the way language is acquired and processed and the way other kinds of
information are acquired and processed. The practical importance arises from the
assumption that an understanding of how languages are learned will lead to more
effective teaching practices.
In a broader context, a knowledge of second language acquisition may help
educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programs for both foreign
language courses and the learning of the majority language by minority language
children and adults.
1.1.1 The second language Theories
There are four perspectives that have influenced research in second language
acquisition.
1.1.2 Linguistics prescriptive suggests that language acquisition is based on the
presence of a specialized module of the human mind containing innate knowledge
of principles common to all language.
Chomsky states in his theory (Universal Grammar) that children must have an
innate language faculty .This faculty is referred to as module of the brain
,preprogrammed to process language .Universal Grammar contains general
principles underlying all languages .
Universal grammar offers an explanation for the first language acquisition but
there is a question of whether this theory can also explain second language learning
since there is a critical period for language acquisition ,that is ,suggested that while
UG permits a young child to acquire language during a particular development
period. This period is referred to as the ‘critical period’ for language acquisition,
UG is no longer available to older learners. Even some theorists who accept UG as

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the basis for first language acquisition argue that UG is no longer available after
puberty and that older second language learners must make use of more general
learning processes. Because these are not specific to language, second language
acquisition by older learners are more difficult than for younger learners and it is
never complete.
Other researchers have suggested that language acquisition continues to be
based on UG but that, once a first language has been learned, UG is no longer
neutral and open to the acquisition of any language. That is, although L2 grammars
are still consistent with universal principles of all human languages, learners tend
to perceive the L2 in a way that is shaped by the way their L1 realizes these
principles.
Researchers who study second language acquisition from a UG perspective seek
to discover a language user’s underlying linguistic ‘competence’ (what a
language user knows) instead of focusing on his or her linguistic ‘performance’
(what a language user actually says or writes or understands). Therefore,
researchers have usually used indirect means of investigating that competence.

1.1.2.3 Monitor theory

The fundamental hypothesis of Monitor Theory is that there is a difference
between ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’. Acquisition is hypothesized to occur in
a manner similar to L1 acquisition, that is, with the learner’s focus on
communicating messages and meanings; learning is described as a conscious
process, one in which the learner’s attention is directed to the rules and forms of
the language.
The ‘monitor hypothesis’ suggests that, although spontaneous speech
originates in the ‘acquired system’, what has been learned may be used as a
monitor to edit speech if the second language learner has the time and the
inclination to focus on the accuracy of the message. The ‘comprehensible input
hypothesis’ reflects his view that second language learning, like first language
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learning, occurs as a result of exposure to meaningful and varied linguistic input.
Linguistic input will be effective in changing the learner’s developing competence
if it is comprehensible (with the help of contextual information) and also offers
exposure to language which is slightly more complex than that the learner has
already acquired.
The affective filter hypothesis’ suggests, however, that a condition for
successful acquisition is that the learner be motivated to learn the second language
and thus receptive to the comprehensible input. Monitor Theory has been criticized
for the vagueness of the hypotheses and for the fact that some of them are difficult
to investigate in empirical studies , Nonetheless, it has had a significant impact on
the field of L2 teaching. Many teachers and students intuitively accept the
distinction between ‘learning’ and ‘acquisition’, recalling experiences of
being unable to spontaneously use their second language even though they had
studied it in a classroom. This may be especially true in classrooms where the
emphasis is on meta-linguistic knowledge (the ability to talk about the language)
rather than on practice in using it communicatively
1.2-Psychological prescriptive states that language is processed by general
cognitive mechanism that are responsible for a wide range of human learning and
information processing and requires no specialized module.
1.2.1 Behaviorism as a psychological theory is based on the view that all learning
including language learning – occurs through a process of imitation, practice,
reinforcement and habit formation. According to behaviorism, the environment is
crucial not only because it is the source of the linguistic stimuli that learners need
in order to form associations between the words they hear and the objects and
events they represent, but also because it provides feedback on learner’s
performance. Behaviorists claimed that when learners correctly produce language
that approximates what they are exposed to in the input, and these efforts receive
positive reinforcement, habits are formed.
Behaviorism came under attack when Chomsky (1968) questioned the notion that
children learn their first language by repeating what they hear in the surrounding
environment. He argued that children produce novel and creative utterances –
ones that they would never have heard in their environment.

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 One of the ideas associated with behaviorism was the notion that the first
language habits that learners had already established would interfere with the
formation of new habits in the second language. The contrastive analysis
hypothesis (CAH) was proposed to account for the role of the L1 in L2 learning. CAH
predicted that where similarities existed between first and second structures, there
would be no difficulty for second language learning. Where there were differences,
however, the second learner would experience problems. When put to the test.
That L2 learners from different backgrounds made some of the same errors and
that some of these errors would not have been predicted by a contrastive analysis
between learners’ of L1 and L2.
These findings, together with the rejection of behaviorists learning theories which
CAH had been associated with, led a number of second language acquisition
researchers in the 1970s and 1980s to argue that there was, in fact, very little first
language influence in second language acquisition. Later research has tended to
re-establish the importance of L1 influence, but it has also shown that the influence
is complex and that it changes as the learner’s competence in the second
language develops.
1.2.2 Cognitive
cognitive psychologists see no reason to assume that language acquisition
requires specific brain structures used uniquely for language acquisition. Rather,
they hypothesize that second language acquisition, like other learning, requires the
learner’s attention and effort –whether or not the learner is fully aware of what
is being attended to. Some information processing theories suggest that language,
like other skilled activity, is first acquired through intentional learning of what is
called ‘declarative knowledge’ and that, through practice, the declarative
knowledge can become ‘proceduralized’ and, with further practice, it can
become ‘automatic’.
In addition to practice, it is also hypothesized that a process referred to as
restructuring’ may result in learners appearing to have made quite sudden
changes in their interlanguage systems rather than gradually increasing the speed
with which they use constructions that were already present. Restructuring is a
cognitive process in which previously acquired information that has been somehow

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stored in separate categories is integrated and this integration expands the learner
’s competence.
Sometimes the restructuring can lead learners to make errors that had not
previously been present. For example, when a learner comes to understand that
English question forms require inversion, there might be a period in which
embedded questions (Do you know what the children are doing?) would be
produced with inversion as well (*Do you know what are the children doing?).
Some researchers working within information processing models of second
language acquisition have argued that nothing is learned without ‘noticing’.
1.2.3-Connectionism, the brain creates networks which connect words or phrases
to other words or phrases (as well as to events and objects) which occur at the
same time. It is suggested that these links (or connections) are strengthened when
learners are repeatedly exposed to linguistic stimuli in specific contexts. For
example, when second language learners produce I go and she goes, the latter does
not reflect an underlying knowledge of a rule for the placement of ‘s’ with the
third person singular. Rather, the connection between she and goes is thought to
be established through high-frequency exposure to these co-occurring structures
in the linguistic input. The pronoun (she) activates goes and the pronoun ( I )triggers
go because the learner has heard these forms in combination many times.
1.2.4- Processability theory, Within second language acquisition, Processability
Theory represents away to relate underlying cognitive processes to stages in the L2
learners’s development. It was originally developed as a result of studies of the
acquisition of German word order and, later, on the basis of research with L2
learners of English. L2 learners were observed to acquire certain syntactic and
morphological features of the L2 in predictable stages. These features were
referred to as developmental’.
Other features, referred to as ‘variational’, appeared to be learned by some
but not all learners and, in any case, did not appear to be learned in a fixed
sequence. With respect to the developmental features, it was suggested that each
stage represented a further degree of complexity in processing strings of words and
grammatical markers . For example, it seemed that learners would begin by picking
out the most typical word order pattern of a language and using it in all contexts.
Later, they would notice words at the beginning or end of sentences or phrases and
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would begin to be able to move these. Only later could they manipulate elements
which were less salient because they were embedded in the middle of a string of
words. Because each stage reflected an increase in complexity, a learner had to
grasp one stage before moving to the next, and it was not possible to ‘skip a stage
’.
One of the pedagogical implications drawn from the research related to
Processability Theory is the ‘Teachability Hypothesis’:learners can only be
thought what they are psycholinguistically ready to learn.
1.3- Interactionist perspective,
Theorists who work within a second language acquisition framework assume that
a great deal of language learning takes place through social interaction, at least in
part because interlocutors adjust their speech to make it more accessible to
learners. Some of the L2 research in this framework is based on L1 research into
children’s interaction with their caregivers and peer. When native speakers
engage in conversation with L2 learners, they may also adjust their language in
ways intended to make it more comprehensible to the learner. Furthermore, when
L2 learners interact with each other or with native speakers they use a variety of
interaction techniques and adjustments in their efforts to negotiate meaning.
These adjustments include modifications and simplifications in all aspects of
language, including phonology, vocabulary, syntax and discourse.
1.4- Sociocultural perspective, Theorists working within a sociocultural perspective
of L2 learning operate from the assumption that there is an intimate relationship
between culture and mind, and that all learning is first social then individual. It is
argued that through dialogic communication, learners jointly construct knowledge
and this knowledge is later internalized by the individual. Like cognitive
psychologists, sociocultural theorists assume that the same general learning
mechanisms apply to language learning as with other forms of knowledge.
However, sociocultural theorists emphasize the integration of the social, cultural
and biological elements.
1.5.1 Language learners
The language produced by L2 learners do not conform to the target language, the
‘errors’ that learners made are not random, but reflected a systematic, if

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incomplete, knowledge of the L2 .The term ‘interlanguage’ is coined to
characterize this developing linguistic system of the L2 learner.Several error
analysis studies in the 1970s classified L2 learners’ errors and found that many
could not be attributed to L1 influence .For example, both L1 and L2 learners of
English make similar overgeneralization errors such as two mouses and she goed.
1.5.2 Developmental sequences
In the late 1960s, and especially in the 1970s, a number of researchers studied
second language acquisition in ways that were based on previous work in L1
acquisition. One part of that study focused on how the children acquired
grammatical morphemes such as possessive ’s and past tense -ed. acquired these
forms in a similar order. Other L1 studies showed that children acquire syntactic
patterns, such as interrogative and negative sentences of the L1, in a series of
stages that are common to all children learning the same L1.
L2 learners were also observed to acquire other grammatical features of the
language in a predictable order. These acquisition sequences have been observed
in the language of L2 learners learning a variety of target languages. Word order
features in predictable stages. As can be seen, at each stage, some of the questions
learners produce may be grammatical within a particular context. Indeed, at Stage
1, chunk-learned whole questions may appear quite advanced. But this does not
mean that the learner has mastered all aspects of question formation. As they
progress to higher stages, they are able to manipulate more linguistic elements.
Thus a Stage 3 question such as ‘What the dog are playing’ may be more
advanced than an apparently correct question such as in ‘What’s your name?’
1.5.3 L1 influence
Theorists has observed that some aspects of language are more susceptible to L1
influence than other .For example, pronunciation and word order are more likely
to show L1 influence than grammatical morphemes. Learners seem intuitively to
know that it is possible to add a grammatical inflection such as –ing to a verb in
another language ,although some very young second language learners are heard
to produce such hybrid forms.
One important aspect of L1 influence is the way in which it appears to interact
with developmental sequences. Although developmental sequences are common

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among learners from different L1 backgrounds, learners may be slowed down when
they reach a developmental level at which a particular interlanguage pattern is
similar to a pattern in their L1. For example, although all learners seem to pass
through a stage of pre-verbal negation (I no like that).
Another way in which the L1 interacts with developmental sequences is in the
constraints which L1 influence may place on the use of L2 patterns within a
particular stage. For example, French-speaking learners of English L2 who had
reached an advanced stage in the use of subject–verb inversion in questions,
nevertheless failed to use (and rejected as ungrammatical) questions when the
subject was a noun. That is, they used and accepted questions such as ‘Can he play
baseball?’ but rejected sentences such as ‘Can John play baseball?’ This is
consistent with French in that full noun subjects cannot be inverted with the verb
to form questions while pronoun subjects can.
1.5.4 Instruction and second language acquisition
Teachers and researchers have raised questions about the role of instruction in
second language acquisition. Krashen (1982) concluded that exposure to ‘
comprehensible input’ would be sufficient to allow learners to progress through
developmental stages because the language that learners needed to make further
progress would always be available if there was enough natural language exposure.
Some research provides evidence that input and instruction targeted to the next
stage beyond the learner’s current developmental level can be effective . Some
other research has shown, however, that teaching features which are typical of
more advanced stages may hasten learners’ progress through the lower stages.
Note that all the research is consistent with the view that instruction does not
permit learners to skip stages. That is, even though learners may perform well on
tests of meta-linguistic knowledge or on exercises that reflect the instruction they
have received, they tend to revert to their current developmental level when they
use language more spontaneously.
Instruction may appear to alter the developmental path of L2 acquisition. This
has been observed when learners are exposed to classroom input that is restricted
to discrete point presentation of one grammatical form after another. In these
classrooms, learners do sometimes develop unusual learner language

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characteristics and hypotheses about the L2, based on the fact that the input they
have received is itself a distortion of the target language .
One way to provide learners with more natural input is through communicative
and content-based language teaching. In such classes, the emphasis is on meaning,
and learners are exposed to language which is not presented according to a
sequence of grammatical forms but rather according to a theme or a lesson in a
school subject such as history or science. Such instructional environments allow
learners to develop more effective comprehension and communication skills than
are typical in more traditional language teaching approaches.

2.What is psycholinguistics?
Psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive processes that support the
acquisition, comprehension and production of language. Traditionally,
psycholinguists investigated these processes in healthy monolingual or native
speakers whose performance was taken to reflect the universal principles engaged
by all language users. Although findings from neuropsychological studies of
patients with brain damage were viewed historically as providing important
converging evidence for evaluating universal principles, the primary focus was on
how language was acquired and processed.
Two major factors have shaped the changes that have occurred in the field.
1- The first factor is that variation in language experience is now seen as the
rule rather than the exception. More people in the world are bilingual or
multilingual than monolingual. Far from representing a complication to

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 language learning and language processing, multilingualism provides a lens
through which the interactions between language, cognition and learning
mechanisms can be observed. Likewise, information about how language
processing changes across the lifespan, in healthy children and adults and
also in the presence of developmental or acquired language disorders, has
become a primary source of evidence for psycholinguistics.
2- The second factor concerns the methods that are used to investigate
language learning and language processing. There has been nothing short of
a revolution in the availability of new tools to examine language processes in
the mind and the brain. Some of these new tools reflect technological
advances in neuroscience that enable sensitive measures of the timing and
location of brain activity that occur during language processing.
2.1 Characterizing variation in language experience

A primary goal of psycholinguistics is to characterize variation in language

experience to better understand how linguistic experiences shape both
linguistic and cognitive processing. In order to adequately understand the
effects of individual variation on language and cognitive processing, first we
must understand the language experiences of the individuals being studied.
However, this is a difficult task, as individuals not only differ from each other,
but experiences with language are fluid over time, and depend on a variety
of internal and external factors.
2.2 Methods to characterize language experience

1-One method that has been widely utilized to measure language experience
has been language history questionnaires. In the typical language history
questionnaire, participants are asked what languages they know or are
learning, the age at which they acquired each of their languages, their
proficiency in their languages, as well as any immersion or codeswitching
experiences. These questions are designed to provide a rich background of
an individual’s language experiences with the goal of examining how
differing experiences relate to performance on another linguistic or cognitive
experimental task.
2-Another method by which to characterize an individual’s language
experience is to administer an online, lab-based task that taps into some
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aspect of linguistic processing ability. Verbal fluency tasks have been widely
utilized to assess lexical access and have been additionally utilized as a proxy
for language proficiency. Two kinds of verbal fluency tasks have been widely
administered: semantic and letter fluency. In a semantic verbal fluency task,
the participant is presented with a category (e.g., animals) and is instructed
to name as many things that belong in that category as they can within the
time limit.
Verbal fluency tasks require participants to produce lexical items constrained
by semantic category or by letter, but picture naming tasks have also been
used as an online measure of lexical access and knowledge.
2.3 Dual language activation
One of the most important discoveries about bilingualism is that bilinguals
’ two languages are active and competing even when bilinguals are only
speaking or listening to one of their languages. Initially, it had been proposed
that only beginning learners of a second language (L2) activated their native
language (L1) while using their second language in order to access meaning
in the L2. However, recent imaging research reveals that bilinguals’ two
languages are largely represented in the same areas of the brain .Recent
research suggests that even highly proficient bilinguals continue to activate
the L1 and that the L2 is also activated during L1 use. This dual language
activation is pervasive and can be observed at lexical, phonological and
syntactic levels.
2.3.1-Lexicon
Dual language activation has been investigated at the lexical level
extensively by using experiments in which bilinguals are performing a task in
a single language with a hidden manipulation that indexes the co-activation
of the lexicon of the language that is not in use. One manipulation that has
been widely used to index language co-activation is using words with cross-
language overlap, such as cognates, or translation equivalent words that
have similar phonological and/or orthographic forms across languages.

References
Schmitt,Norbert and Michael P.H. Rodgers.2020.An introduction to Applied
Linguistics.New York :Routledge
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