Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Acculturation in relation to the acquisition of a

second language

Mei Jiang, Raymond J. Green, Tracy B. Henley & William G. Masten

To cite this article: Mei Jiang, Raymond J. Green, Tracy B. Henley & William G. Masten (2009)
Acculturation in relation to the acquisition of a second language, Journal of Multilingual and
Multicultural Development, 30:6, 481-492, DOI: 10.1080/01434630903147898

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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Vol. 30, No. 6, November 2009, 481
492

Acculturation in relation to the acquisition of a second language

Mei Jiang*, Raymond J. Green, Tracy B. Henley, and William G. Masten

Department of Psychology and Special Education, Texas A&M University-Commerce, P.O. Box
3011, Commerce, TX 75429, USA
(Received 17 October 2008; final version received 19 June 2009)

Learners who begin to acquire a second language (L2) in a naturalistic

environment after puberty are thought to be constrained by biological age factors
and to have greater difficulty obtaining native-like L2. However, the extant
literature suggests that L2 acquisition may be positively affected by post-
maturational factors, such as acculturation. This exploratory study examined
the relationship between acculturation and L2 acquisition on Chinese
English late
learners. Chinese students who arrived in the USA after puberty were examined to
see whether the acculturation process towards US society was associated with
higher speaking proficiency levels and more native-like pronunciation of English
language. The results suggest that acculturation relates to speaking proficiency but
not pronunciation.
Keywords: acculturation; second language acquisition; immigrants

During the 2007
2008 academic year, 110,128 Chinese students (including 29,001
students from Taiwan) were enrolled in US colleges and universities, constituting
17.6% of the international students studying in the USA (Institute of International
Education 2008). Due to the importance of language for learning and communica-
tion, second language (L2) acquisition is a significant issue for students arriving in
the USA after puberty. Based on the fact that these students’ age of arrival (AOA) in
the USA usually has long passed the critical period of language acquisition (e.g.
Lenneberg 1967), it is debatable whether they can acquire English at a near native-
like level. A further question then is, if anything approaching native-like English is
achievable for such Chinese students, what variables relate to such an attainment.
Studies supporting the critical period hypothesis (CPH; Lenneberg 1967) propose
that learners who begin to acquire a L2 in a naturalistic environment after puberty,
compared with early learners, are usually constrained by age-related maturational
factors (e.g. Birdsong 2005; Johnson and Newport 1989; Krashen 1985; Long 1990;
Pinker 1994; Scovel 1988). After the developmental window closes, the L2 can only
be acquired ‘through a conscious and labored effort’ (Lenneberg 1967, 176)
presumptively due to lateralisation effects and the loss in neuroplasticity. Despite
the strong position of CPH claiming that becoming a native speaker is virtually
impossible for late learners, some studies demonstrate that elements of native-like L2
are attainable (e.g. Birdsong and Molis 2001; Bongaerts 1999; Ioup et al. 1994).

*Corresponding author. Email: meijiang75@yahoo.com

ISSN 0143-4632 print/ISSN 1747-7557 online

# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01434630903147898
http://www.informaworld.com
482 M. Jiang et al.

Interestingly, the sociocultural milieu is considered an important positive

influence on individual difference variables involved in L2 learning (Gardner,
Masgoret, and Tremblay 1999; Masgoret and Gardner 1999). As such, results
suggest that age constraints on L2 learning could be lessened by post-pubertal
variables, such as L1 (Bialystok and Miller 1999), continued education (Hakuta,
Bialystok, and Wiley 2003), the amount of L2 used (Flege 1999; Flege, Frieda, and
Nozawa 1997), length of residence in the host country (Bialystok 1997) and gender
(Flege, Munro, and MacKay 1995).
The current study was designed to investigate the relationship between L2
learning and one of these post-maturational social
psychological factors, accultura-
tion. Acculturation has been considered as the culture change initiated by the
conjunction of two or more autonomous cultural systems: ‘the selective adaptation
of value systems, the processes of integration and differentiation, the generation of
developmental sequences and the operation of role determinants and personality
factors’ (Social Science Research Council 1954, 974). More recent research defines it
as the contact between cultures and the dynamic psychosocial changes among the
people involved (Berry 1980, 1995) and a process that is subject to the interaction
between the attitudes and characteristics of immigrants and the responses to the
receiving society, moderated by the particular circumstances of the immigrant group
(Phinney 2003; Phinney et al. 2001). Particularly, Berry considers two issues as
central in the acculturation conceptualisation: whether the maintenance of original
cultural identity and characteristics is valued, and whether the relationship with the
host society is valued. Such a conceptualisation recognises the fact that individuals
have choices in how far they are willing to advance the acculturation process towards
both their original and host societies (Padilla 2003). Involvement in one society does
not necessitate a decrease in involvement with another. Based on such a
conceptualisation, acculturation could be indexed with people’s ‘progress’ towards
both the original and the host societies, respectively.
On the relationship between acculturation and L2 acquisition, one perspective,
focusing on acculturation recognises L2 simply as a component of the acculturation
process. That is, acculturation alone does not lead the individual to a shift away from
their original language towards the language of the target culture (Berry 1980, 1995).
For example, an ethnic group could maintain their L1 by taking deliberate steps to
protect, purify and institutionalise their L1. On the other hand, the complementary
perspective, focusing on L2 acquisition proposes that L2 acquisition is actually the
process that is most subject to acculturative influences (Schumann 1986, 1990;
Stauble 1980). Specifically, social factors and affective factors tied to language could
be major variables influencing L2 acquisition. On this view, the more positively
identified with and the more psychologically integrated into the target language
group, the more likely the learner is able to succeed in L2 acquisition. Learners
should acquire the target language to the degree they acculturate to the target
language group, therefore the essence of successful L2 acquisition is to identify with,
and get involved in, the target culture socially and affectively.
Some studies have investigated how L2 learners’ degree of acculturation affects
L2 acquisition on different populations. Lybeck (2002) tested Schumann’s accultura-
tion theory via the operable social exchange networks model with English native
speakers who acquired Norwegian as their L2 and found that those who developed
positive network connections with native Norwegian speakers evidenced more native-
like Norwegian pronunciation than those who had greater difficulty establishing such
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 483

relationships. Hansen (1995) measured German-born American immigrants’ accul-

turation on the variables identified in Schumann’s acculturation model and found
that acculturation correlated with native-like phonation of successful older-arrival-
age speakers that was assessed in both careful reading and spontaneous speech tasks.
Masgoret and Gardners’ (1999) study with Spanish-speaking participants who
acquired English as L2 in Canada showed that participants’ assimilation, assessed by
linguistic assimilation, culture assimilation and Berry’s (1980) measure of assimila-
tion, had an effect on self-rated L2 proficiency. An association between ethnic
identification and L2 proficiency was positively identified for a group of native
Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong who learned English as a L2 in Canada (Young
and Gardner 1990). Similarly, a ‘significant relationship’ was found between
acculturation assessed by the Children’s Hispanic Background Scale and English
language proficiency as assessed by the Language Assessment Battery on a group of
Hispanic
English bilinguals (Gambino 2001).
Past research has also indicated that the optimal acculturation strategy varies
greatly by context with regard to the L2 acquisition practices and learning
circumstance (Vedder and Virta 2005). Particularly, the native (L1) language of the
L2 learner has been found to be an important factor affecting L2 learning (e.g.
Bialystok and Miller 1999). With similar background, Spanish
English bilinguals
demonstrated a higher level of L2 attainment and a weaker effect of AOA than
Chinese
English bilinguals. The majority of past research on L2 learning has been
done on populations that speak Indo-European language as their native languages
(i.e. Spanish, German). As English is also within the Indo-European language family,
acquiring a L2 within the same language family may be quite different from learning
a language of a different family (e.g. Bialystok and Miller 1999). The current study
examined those who spoke Chinese, a different language family (i.e. the Sino
Tibetan
language family), as their native language.
Moreover, in the real world, the Chinese
English bilingual has been a rapidly
increasing segment of the US population for years. As noted previously, almost 18%
of international students in the USA come from China (or Taiwan). According to the
statistics published by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than 10% of
all foreign professionals working in ‘specialty’ occupations (e.g. high-tech sector) are
from China or Taiwan. That means that each year more than 10,000 new immigrants
who speak Chinese as their native language begin living in this English-speaking
country and speaking English as their official language. Given such a large number, it
is important to examine how Chinese
English bilinguals may benefit from their
acculturation process. Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that no research on the
relationship between acculturation and L2 acquisition appears to have been done on
Chinese
American bilinguals. By investigating those who speak Chinese as their
native language and acquire English in a naturalistic environment in an American
university after puberty, a significant but neglected bilingual population was explored
in the current study.
Following the literature (e.g. Masgoret and Gardner 1999; Schumann 1990), it is
hypothesised that a positive correlation between degree of acculturation to American
society and English language attainment should be observed on post-adolescent
Chinese international students who began to acquire English in naturalistic
environment in the USA after puberty. Additionally, literature would suggest that
this effect could be mediated by gender (e.g. Bacon and Finnemann 1992; Flege,
Munro, and MacKay 1995; Mori and Gobel 2006).
484 M. Jiang et al.

Method
Participants
Forty-nine Chinese international students, 23 (46.9%) males and 26 (53.1%) females,
participated in this study. All participants were enrolled in graduate programmes at a
large Texas University at the time of the study. There were 24 (49.0%) business majors
(i.e. MBA, marketing and economics), 15 (30.6%) engineering majors (i.e. computer
science and industrial engineering) and 10 (20.4%) social science and education
majors (i.e. sociology, education and psychology). All participants’ AOA in the USA
were greater than 18 and their lengths of residence in USA were not more than five
years (M 2.00, SD 1.28). By the time of the study, their average length of formal
English education in the USA (including English as a second language [ESL] in the
USA) was 1.86 years (SD 1.15). Ten (20.4%) participants self-reported that they
received ESL training in the USA before getting admitted into the university. All
participants were foreign-born non-native English speakers, with no self-reported
learning or hearing disabilities. The participants’ Computer-Based TOEFL (CBT)
scores ranged between 173 and 260 (M 211.96, SD 22.07), with listening,
structure, reading and writing subtests included in the TOEFL test. None of the
participants majored in English in China or received intensive spoken English
training for more than six months in China. All of them were single at the time of the
study.
The demographic data indicated that students from Mainland China and Taiwan
had similar English education backgrounds. They all received in-class English
instruction from native Chinese-speaking teachers in middle schools and colleges. No
significant difference, t(47) 0.21, p0.84, was found for English in-class
instruction time in middle school between participants from Mainland China
(M5.80, SD2.10) and those from Taiwan (M 5.64, SD 2.15). Likewise, there
was no significant difference, t(47) 0.78, p 0.44, for English in-class instruction
time in college between participants from Mainland China (M 3.00, SD1.25) and
those from Taiwan (M 2.62, SD1.43).

Materials
Personal Data Questionnaire
The Personal Data Questionnaire collected participants’ demographic information
on gender, current major, length of residence in the USA, length of education in the
USA, TOEFL score, marital status, and also the information concerning their birth
place (i.e. Mainland or Taiwan), AOA in the USA and major area of study in China.

Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS)

The Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS; Stephenson 2000) was
used to measure participants’ acculturation progress towards the ethnic society and
the dominant society, respectively. Seventeen Ethnic Society Immersion (ESI)
subscale items assessed people’s acculturation towards the ethnic society (e.g. ‘I eat
traditional foods from my native culture’) and 15 dominant society immersion (DSI)
items assess acculturation towards the target society (e.g. ‘I am informed about
current affairs in the United States’), covering a broad range of attitudes and
behaviours related to language, social interaction, food and the media. The SMAS
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 485

was measured on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (false) to 4 (true) to generate one
DSI score and an ESI scores, respectively. As the first acculturation scale developed
for use across ethnic groups, SMAS showed impressive reliability across major ethnic
groups (African American, Asian American, European Americans and Hispanic
Americans) and countries of origins. Alpha reliability coefficients were 0.86 for the
entire scale, 0.97 for ESI and 0.90 for DSI. Strong validity was also demonstrated in
the scale’s ability to identify the relationship between generation status and the
performance on the subscales. In the current study, participants received both
English and back-translated Chinese versions of the SMAS to insure accurate
comprehension of the scale.

L2 sentences reading task

A sentence reading task was created to measure one element of participants’ L2
attainment, pronunciation. In this reading task, participants were asked to read five
sentences that were randomly selected from the Corpus of Spoken Professional
American-English (CSPA, n.d.). The CSPA includes transcripts of conversations of
various types occurring between 1994 and 1998 by people centred in academics and
politics. The five sentences used were:

(1) Hello. I’m delighted to be here.

(2) I just want to make sure that that’s a part of our document.
(3) So this is really a different kind of test.
(4) And that’s the beauty of it, all the different perspectives.
(5) Would you tell us a little bit about what you do?

To evaluate the pronunciation performance, pronunciation standards under the

Stanford Foreign Language Oral Skills Evaluation Matrix (FLOSEM) was used as
the rubric. Past studies demonstrated that FLOSEM provides reliable, valid and
convenient measures of L2 under school settings (e.g. Padilla and Sung 1999).
Evaluation levels range from ‘0’ (exhibits difficulty in accurately reproducing the
target language sounds and sound patterns) to ‘6’ (pronunciation and intonation is
clearly native-like).

L2 proficiency interview
In the current study, a second L2 element, oral speaking proficiency, was assessed in
the L2 proficiency interview. Language speaking proficiency has been widely
recognised as an important aspect of L2 learning (Educational Testing Service
[ETS] 1992) such that starting from 2005 the speaking subtest was added to the CBT
test to assess test takers’ topic development and language delivery. Speech has been
used to assess L2 attainments in past studies as well (e.g. Hansen 1995). The L2
proficiency interview in the current study was modelled after the Simulated Oral
Proficiency Interview (SOPI) protocol originally designed by the Centre of Applied
Linguistics (Malone 2000). It consisted of two picture-based, one topic-based and
one situation-based tasks, as shown below:

. [picture-based]: Now, look at these cartoons. Each cartoon tells a funny story.
This is the first cartoon. Can you figure out what they are doing in the first
486 M. Jiang et al.

picture? (Pause) Now, tell me the whole story. (Pause) Interesting! Now, look
at the second cartoon. Tell me what they’re doing in the first picture. (Pause)
What happened after that?
. [picture-based]: Here is the campus map. Suppose I come to visit my good
friend Jenny who’s studying at this school. I’m supposed to meet her in the
Business Administration Building (SPOT B). But I’m lost at SPOT A and I see
you at this time. How would you give me the direction to the Business
Administration Building? (Pause)
. [topic-based]: Next, we are going to hear some of your opinions. As an
international student studying in America, what do you think are the
advantages and disadvantages of studying abroad? More specifically, please
tell me about the good side and the bad side of studying here. (Pause)
. [situation-based]: Suppose you’re absent for a class yesterday because your
roommate was sick and you had to drive him/her to the hospital. The
professor was very angry because you were supposed to show up and give a
presentation yesterday. Now, you’re going to the professor’s office to make the
apology. What are you going to say to him/her? (the end)

To evaluate participants’ speaking proficiency, the guidelines of SOPI, the Modified

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) proficiency
guidelines (Breiner-Sanders et al. 1999) were used as the rubric. The ACTFL
proficiency guidelines provide 10 levels of judgements from one ‘Novice Low’ (unable
to fulfil any communicative tasks) to 10 ‘Superior’ (discuss extensively using longer
discourse; support opinions by abstracting, hypothesising and offering examples; and
discuss a wide range of concrete topics, abstract general interest topic and topics
related to special fields of interest and expertise).

Design and procedure

Participants were recruited through the Chinese Student Association at the
university. Each participant was individually interviewed in a private room.
Participants filled out the Consent Form, the Personal Data Questionnaire and the
SMAS. Then each participant completed the sentences reading task, which was
recorded with a digital voice recorder for later scoring. In the final interview task,
each participant listened to a master digital voice clip containing the L2 Proficiency
Interview and responded to the pictures, the topic and the situations accordingly. As
in the sentence reading task, participants’ responses were digitally recorded for later
scoring. The whole study took about 30 minutes per participant.

Data coding
A holistic scoring method (Elliot, Plata, and Zelhart 1990) was used to score both
participants’ pronunciation in the L2 sentences reading task and their oral
proficiency in the L2 proficiency interview. The holistic scoring method, that makes
use of norming rubrics and training manipulations, has demonstrated high
reliabilities (i.e. inter-rater agreements) and validities in the past (Elliot, Plata, and
Zelhart 1990; Taylor 1998). In the current study, the pronunciation category under
FLOSEM and ACTFL proficiency guidelines were used as the rubrics of the
assessments to evaluate participants’ pronunciation and oral proficiency, respectively.
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 487

Following the process suggested by Elliot, Plata, and Zelhart (1990), two key
raters (native English speakers) selected eight training samples out of the data pool
for pronunciation levels 2 to 6. There was at least one sample for each level, although
no training sample was identified for level 1 because no participant exhibited
‘difficulty in accurately reproducing the target language sounds and sound patterns’.
Another four raters (native English speakers) were then trained with those samples
before scoring the experimental data. Each piece of experimental data was assessed
by two raters. According to the holistic scoring guidelines (Elliot, Plata, and Zelhart
1990), an agreement was reached when the data received scores that were identical, or
separated by one point. The same procedure was used to evaluate participants’ oral
proficiency in the L2 proficiency interview. Training samples were selected for level 4
(Intermediate Low) to level 10 (Superior). Levels below 4 were omitted, as all
participants demonstrated the ability to fulfil communicative tasks.
Combining two raters’ scores, participants’ pronunciation performance in the L2
sentences reading task had an average score of 6.65 (SD 1.64) with a possible score
of 12; and oral speaking proficiency in the L2 proficiency interview had an average
score of 11.86 (SD 2.70) with a possible score of 20. There was a positive
relationship between pronunciation scores and speaking proficiency scores, r(49) 
0.613, p B0.001. The reliability of the holistic scoring method, in the form of inter-
rater agreement, was 94% (n 46) for pronunciation scores and 90% agreement (n
44) for speaking proficiency scores, respectively.

Results
On the measure of acculturation, the ESI subtest of the SMAS had an average score
of 61.88 (SD 4.28) with a possible score of 68, and the DSI subtest had an average
of 33.33 (SD 5.66) with a possible score of 60. Their corresponding percentile
scores then ranged from 74 to 100% for ESI but merely from 33 to 75% for the DSI,
suggesting that participants were unanimously more immersed in their original
culture than in the dominant American culture. On the relationship of ESI scores and
DSI scores, participants’ DSI scores had a significantly lower mean than ESI scores,
t(48) 21.96, p B0.001, but no significant relationship between ESI scores and
DSI scores was found, r(49) 0.01, p 0.96. Such results strongly suggested that the
participants in the current study were uniformly immersed in their original culture
(i.e. all above 74%), yet demonstrated much more variability in their acculturation to
the dominant society (33
75%). Given this, only DSI scores were included in further
analyses.
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to see if the DSI scores had an
association with oral proficiency scores and pronunciation scores, respectively. Based
on the literature review, gender, length of residence in the USA, length of education
in the USA and TOEFL scores were planned for the regression analyses as possible
contributors to pronunciation and oral proficiency. Pre-analysis data screening
indicated that the length of education had a slight redundant effect (tolerance
0.051) with other variables so it was deleted from the further analyses.
The first sequential multiple regression analysis was performed to determine
whether oral proficiency would be affected by DSI scores and/or other variables (i.e.
gender, length of residence and TOEFL scores). That is, whether the addition of
information regarding gender, length of residence and TOEFL scores improved
prediction of speech beyond that afforded by differences in DSI scores. Data
488 M. Jiang et al.

demonstrated that R was significantly different from zero at the end of each step. As
the only variable in the first step, DSI accounted for 8% of the variance of the speech
scores and was a significant contributor to speech scores, b 0.28, t(47) 1.98,
p 0.05, with a small-to-medium (adjusted R2 0.06) effect size (Cohen 1988). In the
second step of the regression analysis, gender, length of residence in the USA and
TOEFL were entered, accounting for another 18% of the variance. When the two
steps were combined, the four variables significantly accounted for 26% of the
variance, with a medium-to-large effect size (adjusted R2 0.20). In addition to DSI
scores, TOEFL scores were found to be a significant contributor to speech scores,
accounting for 17% of the variance, b 0.42, t(47) 3.14, p 0.003.
A similar sequential multiple regression analysis was performed on pronunciation
scores to determine if the addition of information regarding gender, length of
residence and TOEFL score improved prediction of pronunciation beyond that
afforded by differences in DSI score. Data demonstrated that R was not significantly
different from zero after step one but was after step two. After step one, as the only
variable, DSI score was not a significant predictor of pronunciation scores, b 0.25,
t(47) 1.78, p0.08, accounting for only 6% of the variance in pronunciation scores.
The effect size was small (adjusted R2 0.04). However, when all four variables were
combined, they accounted for 24% of the variance and showed a medium to large
effect size (adjusted R2 0.17). Gender was a significant predictor of pronunciation
scores, accounting for 11% of the variance, b 0.342, t(44) 2.52, p 0.015. There
was a significant effect for gender on pronunciation scores, with females receiving
higher scores than males (Mfemale 7.23, Mmale 6.00, t(47) 2.80, p0.007).

Discussion
The current study considered whether acculturation relates to second language
acquisition among the Chinese international students studying in the USA after
puberty. Based on the fact that the participants in this study arrived in the USA
within the past five years, they were all found to be still deeply immersed in their
original culture, but participants varied on their acculturation process towards
American society. The ubiquitously high ESI scores suggested that immersion was a
gradual and slow process and that five years had relatively little impact on
participants’ bond with Chinese society. Participants were still closely aligned with
their ethnic heritage, eating Chinese food, socialising with Chinese friends and
speaking Chinese whenever English was not required. This may also have been due to
the fact that most of the participants in the university had little interest in staying in
the US long term, thus had little motive to distance themselves from their native
culture.
In contrast, scores varied widely on the DSI portion of SMAS, reflecting that
participants had achieved various degrees of acculturation to American society.
Compared with the ESI pattern, this finding supports Berry’s (1980) argument that
getting closer to the dominant society is not necessarily achieved by separating from
the ethnic society. Since ESI scores showed little variance, they were excluded from
further analyses in the current study. That is, rather than defining acculturation in
terms of psychological immersion within Chinese society, the current study focused
on the participants’ degrees of immersion within American society.
Multiple regression analyses on two elements of L2 attainments, pronunciation
and oral speaking proficiency, demonstrated that the degree of immersion in
 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 489

American society contributed to participants’ speaking proficiency but not pronun-

ciation. Specifically, the more likely people are immersed within the American
culture, no matter how much they still hold on to Chinese culture, the higher the level
of speaking proficiency they demonstrated. Such a result echoes the proposal that
getting closer to one society does not necessitate a decrease in involvement with
another (Padilla 2003). This conclusion corresponds nicely with Graham and
Brown’s (1996) study on native Spanish speakers who acquired English as an L2 in
Mexico. Graham and Brown attributed the speakers’ higher English oral proficiency
to their ‘favourable attitudes’ and towards close friendships with native English-
speaking peers within the community. Indeed, past research has claimed that both
immersion into American society and positive acceptance of ethnic identity may be
necessary for successful L2 learning (Lee 2001). It has been argued that immersion
within the native culture could offer a sense of belonging and emotional security, thus
providing people the psychological capacity to deal with acculturation stress during
the L2 learning process.
However, the current study did not find immersion within American society to be
positively related to L2 pronunciation. This result supports Lenneberg’s (1967) strong
position of the CPH and corresponds with the claim that pronunciation is the last
hurdle for later life L2 learners (Scovel 1988). In fact, Scovel thinks the biological
constraints of CPH concerns pronunciation the most. That is, although individuals
immersed in the dominant society may speak fluently, it seems unlikely that they
could do so without a significant accent. Likewise, Newport (2002) proposed that not
all aspects of L2 can be acquired equally for late learners. For example, the
acquisition of vocabulary and semantic processing may be less subject to age factors
than formal properties of language (i.e. phonology, morphology and syntax). In the
current study, participants’ oral proficiency seemed to be influenced by accultura-
tion, whereas pronunciation remained relatively uninfluenced. This conclusion was
consistent with Diaz-Campos’ (2004) finding that a naturalistic L2 environment
would not help on pronunciation, those students who studied abroad, and those who
studied in a regular classroom environment in the USA were found to be no different
on Spanish phonology. Despite some exceptions (e.g. Birdsong and Molis 2001), a
native-like L2 pronunciation does not seem readily attainable for late learners with a
relatively short stay in the USA, including the Chinese
English bilinguals in this
study.
Though gender was not a primary focus on this investigation, it was found to be
related to native-like L2 pronunciation, in favour of females. Although no consensus
has been established on whether there is a gender difference in L2 learning (e.g. Baker
and MacIntyre 2000), it has been widely accepted that females hold advantages over
males on verbal tasks (e.g. Tittle 1986). Past research has also suggested that gender
could influence foreign accents under certain situations (e.g. Piske, MacKay, and
Flege 2001). Flege, Munro, and MacKay (1995) discovered that females had better
English pronunciation than males under the condition that both males and females
started learning English as a L2 before the age of 12. The current result supports such
findings based on the fact that all the participants in the current study began English
schooling (i.e. classroom learning setting) in China between the ages of 6 and 12.
Additionally, past research has considered gender differences in L2 acquisition in
relation to motivation and attitudes (e.g. Bacon and Finnemann 1992; Gardner and
Lambert 1972; Mori and Gobel 2006). Females have been found to hold more
positive attitudes towards learning the L2, treat the L2 as greater value, or simply
490 M. Jiang et al.

show greater interest in the target culture. As such, the result in the current study
supports the idea that gender socialisation is an important variable for L2
acquisition. Moreover, it is noticeable that the TOEFL score was found to predict
the participant’s speaking proficiency scores in this study. Although this version of
TOEFL test for this study did not include a speaking subtest, a significant
relationship between TOEFL scores and speaking proficiency scores was evident.
In summary, the current study investigated the relationship between immersion
within American society and L2-speaking proficiency and pronunciation with the
Chinese
English population, a group that speaks a non-Indo-European language
and has been numerically increasing for years but somehow has been neglected in L2
research. The results demonstrated a strong relationship between acculturation
towards the dominant society and English-speaking proficiency, suggesting that
English oral proficiency could be achieved through immersion within American
society, although accents were more problematic. Since the participants in the current
study were ubiquitously immersed into their original Chinese society, only their
acculturation progress towards the dominant society has been examined related to L2
acquisition, thus implying that L2 learners could reach a high L2 proficiency level
while keeping their original culture. Acquiring a L2 is not necessarily achieved by
distancing from the ethnic society.
As such, in order to enhance L2 oral proficiency, late life L2 learners should
consider getting more immersed within the American culture. For example, in
addition to English language learning per se, learners could benefit from obtaining
more knowledge about American history and customs, socialising with American
people outside of the workplace, and also try more unique elements of the American
lifestyle. Along the same line, immersion activities perhaps should be coordinated
into formal L2 education programmes to facilitate L2-speaking proficiency for
educational purposes. Real life-related activities and cultural events could be
introduced into the L2 classroom to better expose learners to the American culture,
such that the conventional boundary between formal schooling and the real world
could be softened as a way to enhance L2 learning. At the same time, it should be
emphasised that this does not require L2 learners to move away from their original
ethnic culture. All of these implications may be most useful when cultural and
linguistic differences are great
such as is the case with Chinese
English bilinguals
who study and work in America.

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