A presentation on Second Language Acquisition

1. Second Language
Acquisition
Applied Linguistics
Şükrü Kaydak
229135003

2. What is Second Language Acquisition?
• focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least
one other language.
Second Language Acquisition
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3. • 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.
• arises from the assumption that an
understanding of how languages are learned
will lead to more effective teaching practices.
Knowledge of second language acquisition may help
educational policymakers set more realistic goals for programs
for foreign language courses.
Second Language Acquisition
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4. Linguistic Perspectives
Universal Grammar
Second Language Acquisition
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• Chomsky’s view on first language acquisition led to the idea that there exists a universal grammar (UG) of human
languages. He was looking for an explanation of the fact that all children learn language at a time in their cognitive
development when they experience difficulty grasping other kinds of knowledge.
• Even children with impaired intellectual ability were usually successful in acquiring the language they heard
around them.
• It was noted that parents did not provide systematic feedback when children produced speech that did not match
the adult language, however, they would eventually leave behind their childish errors and acquire full competence.

5. Linguistic Perspectives
Universal Grammar
Second Language Acquisition
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• Chomsky’s UG theory is widely accepted as at least a plausible explanation for L1 acquisition, however, there is
controversy on whether it can explain L2 learning.
• One reason is the claim that there is a critical period for language acquisition.
• UG allows a young child to acquire language during the critical period, but UG is no longer available to older
learners.
• Researchers also suggested that once a first language has been learned, UG is no longer neutral and open to the
acquisition of any language.
• Learners tend to perceive the L2 in a way that is shaped by the way their L1 realizes these principles.

6. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory
Second Language Acquisition
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• Shares a number of assumptions of the UG approach, but focuses on second language
acquisition.
• Krashen developed this theory in the 1970s and presented it in terms of five ‘hypotheses’.

7. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory – The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition
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• According to Krashen, in terms of foreign language performance, there are two fundamental
approaches: acquisition and learning. The acquisition seems to be an authentic and natural
process of languages like people acquire their native language as a child through genuine
exposure and natural communication. At the same time, learning refers to the process in
which individuals try to learn a second language through mastery over the syntax and lexis in
a conscious process.
• The natural process of language acquisition is divided into five steps starting from a
silent period during which students listen and receive direct or indirect input along the
same lines as the first years of an infant’s life. In the early production phase, some
signs of production in the form of short phrases and chunks may well be observed.
This gradually leads to a viable ability to communicate through simple questions and
replies in the third step, known as speech emergence. The following two stages,
intermediate and advanced fluency, are probably achieved somewhere after six to ten
years of study when students’ output may be very close to native level.

8. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory – The Natural Order Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition
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• This hypothesis offers a potential order in which children presumably pick up their native
language. According to Krashen, the same predictable order appears to be applied by learners
of English as a second language. This practical order must be considered to avoid frustration
for teachers and students, who must be ready to go to the next step of the learning process.
• An example is a widely observed necessity of getting familiar with past simple before learning
past perfect tense, for instance, or present simple before present perfect.

9. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory – The Monitor Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition
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• The monitor hypothesis suggests a tendency to monitor or self-correct one’s language
production based on the language rules and principles acquired by the learners. This would
seem to happen when some specific conditions are met.
• Learners must be focused, take their time, and know the language rules to monitor their
production. This appears to be more applicable when it comes to writing since it can cause
frequent pauses and an ever-rising tendency to self-correction that inevitably leads to
unnaturalness in speech.

10. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory – The Input Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition
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• This notion, also known as the comprehension hypothesis, indicates that the level of the
language the learners are exposed to is required to be higher than their language levels. To
put it another way, L+1 needs to be considered.
• Providing a higher or lower input level does not seem to be of great use for learners. It may
result in anxiety, lack of motivation, and disappointment. Additionally, no learning takes place
when the information does not require any attempts to be comprehended.

11. Linguistic Perspectives
Monitor Theory – The Affective Filter Hypothesis
Second Language Acquisition
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• This hypothesis emphasizes the value of self-confidence, motivation, and a positive self-image
in second language acquisition.
• This premise also embodies the devastating impact of anxiety and stress on language learning.
Lack of motivation and assertiveness, in addition to high anxiety levels, form a filter or mental
block that spontaneously afflicts language production and output quality.

12. Psychological Perspectives
Behaviourism
Second Language Acquisition
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• Behaviourism was based on the view that all learning – including language learning – occurs through a
process of imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habit formation.
• Behaviourists 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.
• One of the ideas associated with behaviourism was the notion that the L1 habits that learners had already
established would interfere with the formation of new habits in the L2. The contrastive analysis
hypothesis (CAH) was proposed to account for the role of the L1 in L2 learning.

13. Psychological Perspectives
Behaviourism
Second Language Acquisition
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• CAH predicted that where similarities existed between L1 and L2 structures, there would be no difficulty
for L2 learning. Where there were differences, however, the L2 learner would experience problems.
• When put to test, it failed to predict errors that L2 learners were observed to make, and it predicted some
errors that did not occur.
• These findings, the rejection of behaviourist 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 L1 influence in second language acquisition.

14. Psychological Perspectives
Cognitive Psychology
Second Language Acquisition
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• In contrast to the hypotheses of linguistic theories, 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’.

15. Psychological Perspectives
Cognitive Psychology
Second Language Acquisition
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• Other theorists make a similar contrast between ‘controlled’ and ‘automatic’
processing. The difference is that controlled processing is not necessarily
intentional.
• Controlled processing occurs when a learner is accessing information that is new
or rare or complex. Controlled processing requires mental effort and takes
attention away from other controlled processes. For example, a language learner
who appears relatively proficient in a conversation on a familiar topic may struggle
to understand an academic lecture, because the effort and attention involved in
interpreting the language itself interfere with the effort and attention needed to
interpret the content.
• Automatic processing, on the other hand, occurs quickly and with little or no
attention and effort.

16. Psychological Perspectives
Cognitive Psychology
Second Language Acquisition
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• Once language itself is largely automatic, attention can be focused on the content.
• The information processing model offers a useful explanation as to why learners in
the initial phases of learning seem to put so much effort into understanding and
producing language.
• According to the information processing model, learning occurs when, through
repeated practice, declarative knowledge becomes 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.

17. Psychological Perspectives
Cognitive Psychology
Second Language Acquisition
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• Restructuring is a cognitive process in which previously acquired information that
has been somehow 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?).

18. Psychological Perspectives
Connectionism
Second Language Acquisition
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• The brain creates networks that 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 L2 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 many times.

19. Psychological Perspectives
Processability Theory
Second Language Acquisition
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• “Why is it that L1 and L2 learners go through a series of predictable stages in their acquisition of
grammatical features?” is one of the central questions within psychological accounts of second
language acquisition.
• Slobin (1973) proposed ‘operating principles’ to help explain what L1 learners found easier or
harder to process and learn.
• Within second language acquisition, Processability Theory represents a way to relate underlying
cognitive processes to stages in the L2 learner’s development.

20. Psychological Perspectives
Processability Theory
Second Language Acquisition
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• 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.
• 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’: that
learners can only be taught what they are psycholinguistically ready to learn.

21. Questions
1. When you think back to your own second language learning or acqusition process, which one of the psychological perspectives is more
relatable or more realistic to you?
2. Against which idea was Chomsky's view about the novel and creative utterances of children was opposed?
1. Do second language learners tend to perceive L2 in a way that is shaped by their L1 principles?
2. Why L2 acquisition varies a great deal from learner to learner, even in the same environment?
1. What is the relationship between culture and mind during L2 learning?
2. How could we provide natural input to the learners? To which extent would it be beneficial in terms of dealing with language features?
1. What kind of input is most helpful in second language acquisition?
2. What is the most important factors in learning and L2?
1. In what way learners can eliminate errors from their L2 that are influenced by their L1 which doesn’t interfere with meaning such as word
order?
2. According to Tarone and Swain, why learners whose exposure to L2 are only in classroom will have a lack of information of the language in
content-based classes such as history or science?