Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Second Language Learning Theories

Spring 2007

Week 1 - Definitions Handout - Review

Here is a brief review of what we discussed in class yesterday.

SLA

There are few ways of looking at this term SLA, and the first discrepancy or possible discrepancy to be resolved is the status of the letter S. As I mentioned I actually prefer the term Subsequent Language Acquisition in that it underlies inherent similarities between what are currently called second, or third, or foreign language acquisition. The fact remains, however, that second language acquisition is the most commonly accepted version of this acronym and we will just stick with that. Having taken care of that we know that I need to look at the duel nature of SLA itself.

The term SLA describes not only the processes a second language learner needs to go through in order to acquire a second language, but also the field of academic study which revolves around such processes and elements which affect these processes.

Language Learning

Language learning, in a general sense, entails all elements related to how languages are learned, regardless of the age of the learner, their current linguistic systems, or the acquisition of pattern of the language being learned. It is certainly a more general term than SLA and also comes was somewhat different tradition. Before there was SLA there was of course language learning in the theories of language learning to not necessarily follow the same rather stringent patterns found in SLA.

Competence

In this instance will be describing competence using the traditional Chomskyan description. The simplest way to think about competence is to liken it to knowledge. Of course we have competence related to every single skill which we possess but our concern here is of course language so the competence we are talking about is what is often called linguistic competence or grammatical competence. Chomsky`s original idea of linguistic competence is often referred to by current SLA researchers as grammatical competence. The simple reason for this is that Chomsky is solely concerned with syntax, how sentences are put together. Competence is a kind of cognitive holding tank which stores all the bits of knowledge about language that one most possess in order to be a language user.

Now this is somewhat difficult because competence is only the potential for use. Our competence does not directly determine what actually emerges in the form of language because of our next item, performance. Already, we can see that it’s very hard to deal with competence without performance, yet this is exactly what Chomsky and many, in fact most SLA researchers do. The current model of linguistics, and SLA which at some points follows very closely, subscribes to a very strong distinction between competence and performance. They do not affect each other and they do not relate to each other. In short, they are two totally different animals.

Performance

Performance basically are the mechanisms or systems that one needs in order to bring competence to the surface. We setting class that competence relates to long-term memory and performance relates to short-term or working memory, but this is not a necessarily widely known or accepted explanation of the two, although it does make perfect sense both from a neurological and linguistic point of view. In the theory cognitive is more or less stagnant - once you have reached a certain state that state does not change very much, certainly not on a day-to-day hour by hour period. Performance, on the other hand, is constantly changing. Performance is, to a great extent, a physical construct in this such as prey to all sorts of potential disturbances. We might all be aware of studies which show that intoxication up to a certain level enhances performance and beyond that level is detrimental to performance. Performance changes based on mental and physical states also revealing different aspects of the underlying competence.

On a personal note, I do not believe in this competence performance distinction as I have outlined it here, but it still is widely accepted as a given so we had to deal with it in this way.

Language

Language is a conglomeration of interconnected systems which use a finite set of symbols to structure and deliver thought messages. This is my definition and is a controversial one. I have many reasons for describing language in this way based on my own readings and beliefs. You should have your own definition of language based on your own readings and beliefs. I don`t necessarily want you to follow mine. When the important aspect of this class is that I want you to be able to go out and start reacting in a somewhat informed way to all the different things we see out there both of the classroom, theory and practice books, as well as in research reports. We need to start with our own clear definitions of some of these key terms.

Interlanguage

The idea of language has gained a lot of recognition over its almost 20 years of existence. I am focusing on this term because it, to a large extent, represents many elements of the standard SLA tradition. The key word here being tradition. When we first approach the field of SLA many of the theories, Interlanguage included, seem like some radical idea which may have appeared out of nowhere, but this is rarely the case. Interlanguage is maybe the last development in a long string of theories in the field of error analysis. When we begin to look at our analysis we see that it started in the 1950s with Lado and the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH) which is basically stated that errors in second language acquisition can be linked back to the first language. This is an extremely behaviorist idea. The next development in what is called error analysis proper basically said that errors do not all come from the first language. Some errors come from interference while others simply a rise as a result of the learning process or an incomplete knowledge of the systems of the target language. And of course this went through many different stages of development until finely Ellis came up with the idea of Interlanguage.

The basic idea behind interlanguage is that every non-native language speaker can be put onto a continuum which as they move along it brings them ever closer to the elusive native speaker norm in the target language. This is quite atypical theory for SLA not only in its development but also in the way it is framed. As we mentioned in class one of the frustrating things about theories like Interlanguage is that it puts that his speakers of the target language of the top and everyone else somewhere below at a tremendous disadvantage. Luckily for us to recent research in SLA has shown that there is no clear way to define this native speaker norm. Now we have the wonder but works are going to do with interlanguage. Has it lost its validity?

Modularity

The simple idea underlying modularity is that everything in the brain is organized according to modules. A module is a self-contained unit. As I mentioned in class we are, to a certain degree, modules ourselves. This is an extremely prevalent idea and is so widespread that it is almost unquestioned and never actually taught, at least to teachers. Yet as teachers we all employ the ideal of modularity every time we go and teach. When we think about language we break language into all these specific modules: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and maybe lexis. As teachers who teach in the same way. We teach grammar without thinking about pronunciation. We teach vocabulary without thinking about grammar. This is a modular model. In modularity the different modules may very well need each other but they do not affect each other because they are different animals, just like competence and performance.

The idea of modularity is obviously had a huge effect on the field of linguistics and related fields as well as teaching methodologies. Without modularity there is no idea of a separate, stagnant competence. Modularity justifies teaching in little pieces which students must learn as the pieces come down the proverbial conveyor belt. In effect because of modularity we don`t teach linguistic systems or languages even, we teach bits and pieces about language in the hope that our students will pick them up and throw them into their well of competence. Take a critical look and see whether you think this is actually working very well for you as a teacher and a learner.