SLA and Translanguaging

Here we’ll talk about Second Language Acquisition (SLA), multilingualism, and translanguaging.

For those of you that have already studied these concepts, this will mostly be review, and for those who haven’t yet, consider this a tiny preview!

If you’d like to dig deeper into SLA, check out this chapter by Lourdes Ortega.

 

 

History of SLA

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a subfield of linguistics that focuses on how people learn languages after infancy.

Languages learned during infancy are often called ‘first’ languages (L1). People can have multiple first languages if they grew up in a multilingual environment.

Languages learned later during childhood or during adulthood are often called ‘second’ languages (L2). People can also have multiple second languages!

 

SLA focuses on both formal classroom learning and informal/naturalistic learning.

SLA as a subfield also draws from psychology and education.

 

Certain industries and organizations have been especially interested in language learning over time and have therefore had a significant influence in the development of SLA as a field.

 

For example, religious missionaries have long been focused on language learning and translation as tools for evangelism.

Religious organizations have invested in and conducted a huge amount of SLA research in order to improve and speed up missionary training.

Much of what we know about minority and endangered languages continues to come from data collected by missionaries. (see SIL International)

 

Similarly, the military has funded a substantial amount of SLA research, as linguistic skill is integral to intelligence collection and conquest.

 

And SLA has always been linked to immigrant assimilation campaigns, like the Settlement House movement in the early 20th century.

 

We should keep these origins and influences in mind as we study SLA research.

SLA, like all academic fields, is not apolitical or ahistorical!

How do you think the involvement of these fields/industries might affect what we know about SLA?

 

 

History of SLA – Contrastive Analysis

Early research in SLA focused on contrastive analysis – comparing linguistic features (sounds, word structure, syntax, etc.) of languages to pinpoint potential difficulties for learners.

For example, as Spanish has a more robust grammatical gender system than English, we could expect gender to be especially difficult for Spanish learners whose first language is English.

 

Over time, however, it became clear that SLA wasn’t that simple. Grammatical gender, for example, appears to be difficult for everyone to master in a new language, regardless of their first language.

Contrastive analysis can give us some clues, but it isn’t the whole story.

 

 

History of SLA – Interlanguage

Eventually, SLA research began to shift focus to interlanguage (aka ‘learner language’), the language produced by a person as they’re learning a second language.

Researchers analyze interlanguage to look for common patterns of language development.

Hypotheses about order of acquisition of different features have emerged from this work.

 

 

SLA today

There are a number of different approaches to studying SLA today.

These approaches differ in how they view:

• The nature of linguistic knowledge
• The nature of language learning
• The challenges learners face

We’ll talk briefly about some of the most prominent approaches.

 

Some work looks beyond just SLA, and seeks to understand the general learning process.

This work is often psychological in nature and draws parallels between language learning and other kinds of learning.

 

Other approaches focus on modelling learner mental grammar systems.

Often, this work compares the linguistic behavior of L2 users with native speakers, trying to understand what descriptive grammatical rules each group seems to be following.

Like with work on interlanguage, this research assumes that even L2 usage is systematic, and that identifying common patterns can help us understand stages of language development.

 

Other work seeks to account for variation among L2 users, looking to learner internal factors to explain differences in acquisition.

Some of the commonly studied factors include age, crosslinguistic influence, environment + cognition, and the effect of instruction.

 

 

Age

Younger L2 learners seem more “successful” in that they’re more likely to pass as native speakers.

There are a few potential explanations of this difference.

 

One possibility is a critical period effect.

Some types of neurological or physiological development are only possible during a time window called a critical period.

 

This is seen with geese, which are known to ‘imprint’ early on in their development. Whatever/whomever they imprint on becomes their model; ideally, this should be their mother (so they learn how to be a goose) but early researchers showed this could be manipulated.

This imprinting only happens early on in development and cannot be reversed.

 

One researcher isolated newly hatched geese from other birds, resulting in them imprinting onto his boots.

Some argue that language acquisition works similarly; they hypothesize that the brain changes at some point in childhood or early adolescence, and that any language learning that happens after that is a fundamentally different process.

 

The limited language development of “feral” children who were deprived early human language input, or deaf children who did not have access to sign language until adolescence are often cited to support this theory, but such cases are hard to interpret given the interaction of variables.

As a result, the critical period remains a hypothesis without definitive supporting evidence.

 

Another factor is L1 interference or transfer. The older a learner is, the more knowledge and experience they have with their first language.

It’s possible that this increased knowledge is harder to ‘override’ or is more likely to interfere with new linguistic knowledge.

 

Younger and older learners also have significantly different experiences and needs.

Children rely on others for food, permission, and protection, and therefore have greater motivation to use an L2.

They also tend to have less social inhibition and might be more willing to make ‘mistakes’ or try out new linguistic features.

 

Children are also more likely to want to fit in and copy their peers, while adults might have more instrumental goals when it comes to language learning (e.g. focusing on communicating in particular settings).

 

Similarly, younger and older learners tend to differ in amount of L2 input or exposure.

While children are more likely to spend all day receiving L2 input (at school and/or with friends), adults might only have exposure in a class a few hours a week, or when they periodically interact with mainstream institutions (e.g. hospitals, banks, etc.)

 

Older learners do seem to have an advantage in instructed language settings, however.

This might be due to longer attention spans, or more developed study skills.

 

How does age interact with Second Language Acquisition, in your experience?

 

 

Crosslinguistic Influence

Interference or transfer from the other language(s) a person knows can also influence acquisition.

Transfer can be positive or negative. Sometimes, a learner applies a rule from their L1 when using their L2, and it works! But other times, the rules differ, and applying them can cause errors or confusion.

 

Similarities between languages can also lead to difficulties, especially if languages are similar but not quite the same.

For example, sounds that are only slightly different can be very hard to distinguish, and a learner might incorrectly assume that a sound in the L2 is the same one in their L1. This is common with the ‘t’ in Spanish versus the ‘t’ in English, for example.

 

Transfer can change as proficiency changes. As an L2 user improves, their L1 might influence their L2 in different ways.

 

With this in mind, is it important for ENL/ESL teachers to know about other languages?

 

 

Environment and Cognition

Aspects of a learners’ personality and their relationship to the language matter too.

A learner’s affect or attitude toward a language, or toward the learning environment, is correlated with their acquisition.

 

Learners also differ in cognitive skills like memory, attention, and overall linguistic awareness, which are all involved in language learning.

 

Learners’ individual motivations for learning a particular language differ, as well as their identities and their degree of agency. These factors influence ease and rate of acquisition as well.

 

How do you see these environmental and cognitive properties at work in your classroom?

How do you deal with these differences? Which do you try to change? And which do you work around?

 

 

Instruction and SLA

There is no silver bullet when it comes to second language instruction. Not all approaches work for all students, and there’s disagreement about how you even evaluate successful acquisition.

We DO know that grammatical instruction alone is inadequate, and pure input-based instruction is inadequate.

 

So, what kind of instruction does work? Most scholars and practitioners argue for some blend of formal/grammatical instruction and input-based instruction, including:

• Focus-on-form/focus-on-forms
• Task-based
• Content-based
• Genre-based

In your experience, as both a learner and a teacher, what kind of instruction works best?

 

 

SLA today – a social turn?

Many have long been calling for a “social turn” in SLA research, moving away from the decontextualized, native-speaker focused approaches that have dominated.

While mainstream SLA has been slow to change, some newer research does include more diverse populations and more varied conceptions of language and learning.

 

Work on language learning in adjacent fields, including education and anthropology has been much more responsive to these calls!

We’ll talk about some of this work as we discuss multilingualism.

(If you’re interested in more of my thoughts on the limitations of SLA research, you can check out this article here.)

 

 

What is Multilingualism?

Multilingualism refers to the ability to use (speak or sign) multiple languages.

 

As with virtually all language phenomena, we can think of multilingualism at both the community and the individual level.

At the community level, sometimes it is just dismissed as a “special” situation amidst a majority monolingual population (some frame the United States this way).

 

In communities where multilingualism is widespread, there are two common models.

Diglossia describes a situation where two (or more) languages/dialects are widely spoken, but are stratified. One has mainstream prestige and institutional support, while the other is more restricted to private use.

 

In plurilingualism, multiple languages are spoken, but they are not stratified. Languages are mixed or shifted into fluidly depending on the context and the audience, and competence across languages is not necessarily equal.

Plurilingualism is like translanguaging (which we discuss below) on the community level.

 

Where would NYC fit? Or the community you grew up in? Or your school community? Do either of these models adequately describe the situation?

 

On an individual level, traditional research in linguistics has often regarded bilingualism as simply “double monolingualism”, and multilingualism as “multiple monolingualism”.

This work compares multilinguals to monolinguals and conceptualizes languages as distinct mental grammatical systems.

 

This work also pushes the concept of linguistic codeswitching – using multiple distinct languages within the same conversation.

(This is slightly different from the educational concept of codeswitching, which is more focused on adjusting linguistic practices for different contexts.)

 

More recently, the concept of translanguaging has gained prominence.

Translanguaging takes multilingualism as the norm and conceives of linguistic knowledge as one integrated repertoire. Users strategically select features or words from this repertoire based on their context, audience, or communicative goals. Sometimes, this looks like speaking distinct “languages” and other times, this might look like “language mixing”.

 

A quick breakdown of some of the differences between translanguaging and codeswitching:

These two frameworks describe similar practices, but from different perspectives

 

Our reading for this week will dig deeper into translanguaging.

You can also check out this video, which reviews the reading and breaks down some of the central concepts:

https://youtu.be/ybAS3lT6FLc

 

As a teacher and an academic, I find translanguaging better describes the real-life behavior of multilingual people, which often doesn’t fit the norm of named languages, or even the norms of “codeswitching”. For example:

https://youtu.be/EJyLMbaMGmg

Or:

 

What are your thoughts on translanguaging? How does it help explain bi/multilingual practice? How can it be applied in education?

 

 

Up next

Next week – our last week of course content! – we’ll talk about raciolinguistics and linguistic justice!