Understanding Second Language Acquisition (2nd ed) Read online

  Understanding Second Language Acquisition

  Published in this series

  BACHMAN: Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing

  BACHMAN and PALMER: Language Assessment in Practice

  BACHMAN and PALMER: Language Testing in Practice

  BATSTONE: Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Teaching

  BRUMFIT: Individual Freedom and Language Teaching

  BRUMFIT and CARTER (eds.): Literature and Language Teaching

  CANAGARAJAH: Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in Language Teaching

  COOK: Language Play, Language Learning

  COOK: Translation in Language Teaching

  COOK and SEIDLHOFER (eds.): Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics

  DÖRNYEI: Research Methods in Applied Linguistics

  DÖRNYEI: The Psychology of Second Language Acquisition

  ELLIS: Understanding Second Language Acquisition (second edition)

  ELLIS: SLA Research and Language Teaching

  ELLIS: Task-based Language Learning and Teaching

  ELLIS: The Study of Second Language Acquisition (second edition)

  ELLIS and BARKHUIZEN: Analysing Learner Language

  FOTOS and NASSAJI (eds.): Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education

  HOLLIDAY: The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language

  HOWATT WITH WIDDOWSON: A History of English Language Teaching (second edition)

  HYLAND: Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of Knowledge

  JENKINS: The Phonology of English as an International Language

  JENKINS: English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity

  KERN: Literacy and Language Teaching

  KRAMSCH: Context and Culture in Language Teaching

  KRAMSCH: The Multilingual Subject

  LANTOLF (ed.): Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning

  LANTOLF and THORNE: Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development

  MACKEY: Input, Interaction, and Corrective Feedback

  MACKEY (ed.): Conversational Interaction and Second Language Acquisition

  MURPHY: Second Language Learning in the Early School Years: Trends and Contexts

  NATTINGER and DECARRICO: Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching

  PHILLIPSON: Linguistic Imperialism

  SEIDLHOFER (ed.): Controversies in Applied Linguistics

  SEIDLHOFER: Understanding English as a Lingua Franca

  SELIGER and SHOHAMY: Second Language Research Methods

  SKEHAN: A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning

  STERN: Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching

  TARONE, BIGELOW and HANSEN: Literacy and Second Language Oracy

  WIDDOWSON: Aspects of Language Teaching

  WIDDOWSON: Defining Issues in English Language Teaching

  WIDDOWSON: Practical Stylistics

  WIDDOWSON: Teaching Language as Communication

  WRAY: Formulaic Language

  Understanding Second Language Acquisition

  Second Edition

  ROD ELLIS

  1

  1

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom

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  © Oxford University Press 2015

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  eBook Edition

  ISBN: 978 0 19 442201 7 eBook (epub)

  ISBN: 978 0 19 442202 4 eBook (mobi)

  First published in 2015

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The authors and publisher are grateful to those who have given permission to reproduce the following extracts and adaptations of copyright material: p.98 Figure from “On the Variability of Interlanguage Systems” by Elaine Tarone, Applied Linguistics, Vol. 4 (2), 1983. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. p.107 Figure adapted from “A Dynamic Look at L2 Phonological Learning: Seeking Processing Explanations for Implicational Phenomena” by Pavel Trofimovich, Elizabeth Gatbonton and Norman Segalowitz, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Indiana University Linguistics Club. Reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press. p.122 Table from The Study of Second Language Acquisition by Rod Ellis (Oxford University Press, 2008), adapted from The Sounds of English and Spanish by Robert P Stockwell and J Donald Bowen (University of Chicago Press, 1965). Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press and University of Chicago Press. p.125 Extract from “Markedness and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis” by Fred R. Eckman, Language Learning, Vol. 27 (2), 1977. © 1977 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan. Reproduced by permission of John Wiley and Sons. p.187 Table from Input Processing and Grammar Instruction by Bill VanPatten (Ablex Publishing Company, 1996). Reproduced by permission. p.242 Table from Investigations in Instructed Second Language Acquisition by Alex Housen and Michel Pierrard, (De Gruyter, 2004). Reproduced by permission of De Gruyter.

  Although every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders before publication, this has not been possible in some cases. We apologize for any apparent infringement of copyright and if notified, the publisher will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.

  Additional online resources are available at www.oup.com/elt/teacher/understandingsla

  To my children – Lwindi, Emma, Anne, and James – for their forbearance

  Contents

  Introduction

  1 Second language acquisition research: an overview

  Introduction

  Defining ‘second language acquisition’

  A brief history of SLA

  Summary

  2 Age and second language acquisition

  Introduction

  Age and ultimate attainment

  Age and rate of acquisition

  Age and the route of L2 acquisition

  Educational policy

  Summing up

  Concluding comment

  3 Psychological factors and second language acquisition

  Introduction

  Key psychological factors

  Language aptitude

  Motivation

  Language anxiety

  Learning strategies

  Effects of strategy instruction

  Age and psychological factors

  Conclusion

  4 The development of a second language

  Introduction


  Order of acquisition, sequence of acquisition, and usage-based accounts of L2 development

  Case studies of L2 learners

  Learner varieties

  Order of acquisition

  Sequence of acquisition

  Development of other linguistic systems

  L2 pragmatic development

  Summing up

  Conclusion

  5 Variability in learner language

  Introduction

  Variationist sociolinguistics

  The Dynamic Paradigm

  Dynamic Systems Theory

  Conclusion

  6 The role of the first language

  Introduction

  Defining ‘language transfer’

  Investigating language transfer

  Linguistic factors

  Psycholinguistic factors

  Contextual factors

  Developmental factors

  Individual factors

  Language transfer as a multifactorial phenomenon

  Conceptual transfer

  Transfer in communication and learning

  Conclusion

  7 Input and interaction: the cognitive-interactionist perspective

  Introduction

  Key interactionist constructs

  Focus on form and incidental learning

  Early research on input and interaction

  The Input and Noticing Hypotheses

  Pre-modified input and noticing

  Interactionally-modified input and noticing

  Pre-modified input and acquisition

  Interactionally-modified input and acquisition

  Modified output and acquisition

  Corrective feedback and L2 acquisition

  Interaction, working memory, and acquisition

  Measuring the effects of input and interaction on acquisition

  Conclusion

  8 Cognitive aspects of second language acquisition

  Introduction

  Paradigms in cognitive SLA

  The representation of L2 knowledge

  Attention

  Cognitive theories of L2 acquisition

  Systems are adaptable

  Unstable systems

  Researching cognitive processes in SLA

  Conclusion

  9 Social aspects of second language acquisition

  Introduction

  Social factors and L2 achievement

  SLA—a cognitive or a social enterprise?

  Sociocultural SLA

  The sociocognitive approach

  The conversation-analytic approach

  The social identity approach

  Language socialization and L2 learning

  Conclusion

  10 The role of explicit instruction

  Introduction

  Types of intervention

  Types of explicit instruction

  Presentation-Practice-Production instruction

  Integrated explicit instruction

  Concept-based instruction

  Comprehension-based instruction

  Pattern practice

  Consciousness-raising instruction

  Feedback

  The interface positions revisited

  Conclusion

  11 The role of implicit instruction

  Introduction

  Theoretical issues in implicit instruction

  Types of implicit instruction

  Investigating task-based teaching

  Input-based tasks

  Output-based tasks

  Some general comments on research involving tasks

  Explicit vs. implicit instruction

  Conclusion

  12 Understanding and applying second language acquisition

  Introduction

  The boundaries of SLA

  What do we know about L2 acquisition?

  Applying SLA

  Conclusion

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Index

  Introduction

  The first edition of this book was published in 1985—thirty years ago—when second language acquisition as a disciplinary field (SLA) was still in its infancy. At that time, it was a relatively easy task to survey the quite limited research and provide an overview of the key areas of SLA. Since then research has proliferated, the boundaries of SLA have expanded, theories have been revised and new theories developed, old methodologies have been challenged and new ones proposed. This makes the task of providing a succinct but comprehensive account of the field much more challenging. I have approached it with trepidation.

  This new edition has turned out, in fact, to be an entirely new book with an old title. Some of the areas that figured in the earlier edition are also addressed in this book reflecting their continuing importance: the significance of learners’ starting age (Chapter 2); individual learner factors such as language aptitude and motivation (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3); the order and sequence of second language development (Chapter 4); variability in learner language (Chapter 5); the role of the learner’s first language (Chapter 6) and input and interaction (Chapter 7). But each of these areas has been the subject of intensive research in the last thirty years, leading to new theoretical insights. Some of the conclusions I reached in the first edition are now much less certain. For example, whether there are universal orders and sequences in the acquisition of grammatical features of a second language—for a long time an accepted ‘fact’—has become a matter of dispute. The chapters that deal with these issues have been almost completely rewritten to reflect the new perspectives and findings of research completed since 1985.

  Some areas I addressed in the first edition have since fallen out of favour. I have not included a separate chapter on learning strategies for example. Although work has continued in this area, there is growing recognition of the problematic nature of this construct and of the methodological weaknesses in much of the research that has investigated it. I also decided to omit dealing with linguistic universals and Universal Grammar. This is a more controversial decision and will be a disappointment to those who view SLA as a testing ground for theories of grammar. My decision was based partly on what I considered to be of relevance to the primary readers of this book—language teachers or students training to become teachers—and partly on my own conviction that purely linguistic theories, especially those that assume a separate language faculty, cannot provide an adequate account of how second languages are learned. SLA, of course, does have a role to play in linguistics, but that would need a very different kind of book to this one.

  Two entirely new chapters (Chapter 8 and Chapter 9) address respectively the cognitive and social aspects of second language acquisition, two of the more recent major developments in SLA. They outline the key theoretical constructs and discuss different theoretical positions, replacing the chapter in the 1985 edition called ‘Theories of Second Language Acquisition’. Increasingly, researchers have turned to research in cognitive psychology to explain the mechanisms responsible for processing input and output and the role these play in learners’ developing second-language systems. More recently, however, some researchers have challenged the view that acquisition is just a cognitive phenomenon and argued that it is just as much, if not more so, social in nature. Social theories view second language learning as inextricably connected with learners’ social identities and the social communities they belong to. They also see acquisition as taking place not in the learner’s mind but within the social interactions in which they participate.

  In the first edition, I included a single chapter on form-focused instruction. In this book, there are two separate chapters addressing instruction and second language acquisition. Chapter 10 examines different types of explicit instruction (i.e. instruction directed at intentional learning of specific linguistic features). Chapter 11 considers implicit instruction (i.e. instruction catering to the incidental acquisition of specific linguistic forms). In both cases, I consider these two types of instruction and
the research that has investigated them in relation to theoretical positions introduced in earlier chapters.

  Much of the earlier research focused on the acquisition of grammar. This led to the criticism that SLA was overly narrow in scope as it paid scant attention to phonology and vocabulary and ignored almost completely the acquisition of macro-aspects of language such as pragmatic features and interactional routines. I have tried to address this imbalance in the new book by including reference to research on all the micro-aspects of language and also on some of the macro-aspects. However, the book continues to reflect the continuing importance of grammar in SLA.

  The intended readers of this book are the same as those of the first edition: undergraduate students taking an initial course in SLA who want more than a bare-bones account of the field; graduate students enrolled in applied linguistics or language teaching programmes; and teachers who want to improve their understanding of how second languages are learned both in naturalistic and instructed contexts.

  An understanding of how learners learn a second language seems to me an essential requirement for language teachers. In order for teaching to be effective, it needs to accord with how learners learn. All teachers have a theory of language learning, but this is often implicit, based on their own experience of learning a language in a classroom. Hopefully, this book will help them to evaluate their beliefs about language learning, enable them to make their theory of learning explicit, and encourage them to think about how they can best ensure that their practice of teaching takes account of how learners learn. An understanding of second language acquisition serves as a basis for making pedagogic decisions in a principled manner.

  I have endeavoured to make the material in the book accessible to readers with no prior knowledge of SLA. In Chapter 1, I provide a brief history of SLA—from its origins in the 1960s up to today—so that readers can obtain a general picture of what SLA entails and how it has developed over time. SLA has spawned a large number of technical terms for labelling different concepts. In this respect, it is like any other academic discipline but this proliferation of metalanguage makes entry into the field somewhat forbidding. To help readers, I have provided definitions of key technical concepts when these are first introduced and also provided a glossary where readers can check their understanding when they come across them later.