CHAPT ER

1 Introducing
Second Language
Acquisition

CHAPTER PREVIEW
When you were still a very young child, you began acquiring
KEY TERMS
at least one language – what linguists call your L1 – proba-
Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) bly without thinking much about it, and with very little
conscious effort or awareness. Since that time, you may
Second
language (L2) have acquired an additional language – your L2 – possibly
also in the natural course of having the language used
Informal L2
learning around you, but more likely with the same conscious effort
needed to acquire other domains of knowledge in the
Formal L2
learning process of becoming an “educated” individual. This book is
about the phenomenon of adding languages. In this
Linguistic
competence introductory chapter, I will define a few of the key terms
that we will use and present the three basic questions
Linguistic
performance that we will explore throughout the book.

First language/
native language/
mother tongue
(L1)
Simultaneous
multilingualism
Sequential
multilingualism
2 INTRODUCING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

What is SLA?
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers both to the study of individuals
and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first
one as young children, and to the process of learning that language. The
additional language is called a second language (L2), even though it may
actually be the third, fourth, or tenth to be acquired. It is also commonly
called a target language (TL), which refers to any language that is the aim
or goal of learning. The scope of SLA includes informal L2 learning that
takes place in naturalistic contexts, formal L2 learning that takes place in
classrooms, and L2 learning that involves a mixture of these settings and
circumstances. For example, “informal learning” happens when a child
from Japan is brought to the USA and “picks up” English in the course of
playing and attending school with native English-speaking children with-
out any specialized language instruction, or when an adult Guatemalan
immigrant in Canada learns English as a result of interacting with native
English speakers or with co-workers who speak English as a second lan-
guage. “Formal learning” occurs when a high school student in England
takes a class in French, when an undergraduate student in Russia takes a
course in Arabic, or when an attorney in Colombia takes a night class in
English. A combination of formal and informal learning takes place when
a student from the USA takes Chinese language classes in Taipei or Beijing
while also using Chinese outside of class for social interaction and daily
living experiences, or when an adult immigrant from Ethiopia in Israel
learns Hebrew both from attending special classes and from interacting
with co-workers and other residents in Hebrew.
In trying to understand the process of second language acquisition, we
are seeking to answer three basic questions:

(1) What exactly does the L2 learner come to know?

(2) How does the learner acquire this knowledge?
(3) Why are some learners more successful than others?

There are no simple answers to these questions – in fact, there are prob-
ably no answers that all second language researchers would agree on
completely. In part this is because SLA is highly complex in nature, and in
part because scholars studying SLA come from academic disciplines
which differ greatly in theory and research methods. The multidisci-
plinary approach to studying SLA phenomena which has developed
within the last half-century has yielded important insights, but many
tantalizing mysteries remain. New findings are appearing every day, mak-
ing this an exciting period to be studying the subject. The continuing
search for answers is not only shedding light on SLA in its own right, but
is illuminating related fields. Furthermore, exploring answers to these
questions is of potentially great practical value to anyone who learns or
teaches additional languages.
SLA has emerged as a field of study primarily from within linguis-
tics and psychology (and their subfields of applied linguistics,
 Introducing Second Language Acquisition 3

psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and social psychology), as a result of

efforts to answer the what, how, and why questions posed above. There are
corresponding differences in what is emphasized by researchers who
come from each of these fields:

• Linguists emphasize the characteristics of the differences and similar-

ities in the languages that are being learned, and the linguistic com-
petence (underlying knowledge) and linguistic performance (actual
production) of learners at various stages of acquisition.
• Psychologists and psycholinguists emphasize the mental or cognitive
processes involved in acquisition, and the representation of
language(s) in the brain.
• Sociolinguists emphasize variability in learner linguistic perfor-
mance, and extend the scope of study to communicative competence
(underlying knowledge that additionally accounts for language use,
or pragmatic competence).
• Social psychologists emphasize group-related phenomena, such as
identity and social motivation, and the interactional and larger social
contexts of learning.
Applied linguists who specialize in SLA may take any one or more of
these perspectives, but they are also often concerned with the implica-
tions of theory and research for teaching second languages. Each
discipline and subdiscipline uses different methods for gathering and
analyzing data in research on SLA, employs different theoretical frame-
works, and reaches its interpretation of research findings and conclusions
in different ways.
It is no surprise, then, that the understandings coming from these dif-
ferent disciplinary perspectives sometimes seem to conflict in ways that
resemble the well-known Asian fable of the three blind men describing an
elephant: one, feeling the tail, says it is like a rope; another, feeling the
side, says it is flat and rubbery; the third, feeling the trunk, describes it as
being like a long rubber hose. While each perception is correct individu-
ally, they fail to provide an accurate picture of the total animal because
there is no holistic or integrated perspective. Ultimately, a satisfactory
account of SLA must integrate these multiple perspectives; this book is a
step in that direction. As in the fable of the elephant, three different per-
spectives are presented here: linguistic, psychological, and social. I make
no presumption that any one perspective among these is “right” or more
privileged, but believe that all are needed to provide a fuller understand-
ing of the complex phenomena of SLA.

What is a second language?

I have broadly defined the scope of SLA as concerned with any phenomena
involved in learning an L2. Sometimes it is necessary for us to make fur-
ther distinctions according to the function the L2 will serve in our lives,
since this may significantly affect what we learn. These differences may
determine the specific areas of vocabulary knowledge we need, the level
4 INTRODUCING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

of grammatical complexity we have to attain, and whether speaking or

reading skills are more important. The following are distinctions com-
monly made in the literature:

• A second language is typically an official or societally dominant lan-

guage needed for education, employment, and other basic purposes.
It is often acquired by minority group members or immigrants who
speak another language natively. In this more restricted sense, the
term is contrasted with other terms in this list.
• foreign language is one not widely used in the learners’ immediate
A
social context which might be used for future travel or other cross-
cultural communication situations, or studied as a curricular require-
ment or elective in school, but with no immediate or necessary
practical application.
• A library language is one which functions primarily as a tool for fur-
ther learning through reading, especially when books or journals in a
desired field of study are not commonly published in the learners’
native tongue.
• An auxiliary language is one which learners need to know for some
official functions in their immediate political setting, or will need for
purposes of wider communication, although their first language
serves most other needs in their lives.
Other restricted or highly specialized functions for “second” languages
are designated language for specific purposes (such as French for Hotel
Management, English for Aviation Technology, Spanish for Agriculture, and a host
of others), and the learning of these typically focuses only on a narrow set
of occupation-specific uses and functions. One such prominent area is
English for Academic Purposes (EAP).

What is a first language?

There is also sometimes a need to distinguish among the concepts first
language, native language, primary language, and mother tongue,
although these are usually treated as a roughly synonymous set of terms
(generalized as L1 to oppose the set generalized as L2). The distinctions are
not always clear-cut. For purposes of SLA concerns, the important features
that all shades of L1s share are that they are assumed to be languages
which are acquired during early childhood – normally beginning before
the age of about three years – and that they are learned as part of growing
up among people who speak them. Acquisition of more than one lan-
guage during early childhood is called simultaneous multilingualism, to
be distinguished from sequential multilingualism, or learning additional
languages after L1 has already been established. (“Multilingualism” as
used here includes bilingualism.) Simultaneous multilingualism results
in more than one “native” language for an individual, though it is
undoubtedly much less common than sequential multilingualism. It
appears that there are significant differences between the processes
and/or results of language acquisition by young children and by older
 Introducing Second Language Acquisition 5

learners, although this is an issue which is still open to debate, and is one
of those which we will explore in chapters to follow.

Diversity in learning and learners

As already noted, the circumstances under which SLA takes place some-
times need to be taken into account, although they are perhaps too often
taken for granted and ignored. What is learned in acquiring a second
language, as well as how it is learned, is often influenced by whether the
situation involves informal exposure to speakers of other languages,
immersion in a setting where one needs a new language to meet basic
needs, or formal instruction in school, and these learning conditions are
often profoundly influenced by powerful social, cultural, and economic
factors affecting the status of both languages and learners.
The intriguing question of why some L2 learners are more successful
than others requires us to unpack the broad label “learners” for some
dimensions of discussion. Linguists may distinguish categories of learners
defined by the identity and relationship of their L1 and L2; psycholin-
guists may make distinctions based on individual aptitude for L2 learn-
ing, personality factors, types and strength of motivation, and different
learning strategies; sociolinguists may distinguish among learners with
regard to social, economic, and political differences and learner experi-
ences in negotiated interaction; and social psychologists may categorize
learners according to aspects of their group identity and attitudes toward
target language speakers or toward L2 learning itself. All of these factors
and more will be addressed in turn in the following chapters.

Chapter summary

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) involves a wide range of language

learning settings and learner characteristics and circumstances. This
book will consider a broad scope of these, examining them from three
different disciplinary perspectives: linguistic, psychological, and social.
Different approaches to the study of SLA have developed from each of
these perspectives in attempts to answer the three basic questions:
What exactly does the L2 learner come to know? How does the learner
acquire this knowledge? Why are some learners more (or less)
successful than others?