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SLA Research (sla + research)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Investigating grammatical difficulty in second language learning: Implications for second language acquisition research and language testing

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, Issue 1 2008
Rod EllisArticle first published online: 20 FEB 200
Both second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and language testers collect data in order to make statements about what learners have learned. Many researchers and testers consider the ideal data for this purpose to be naturally occurring language use. This paper examines whether data elicited by instruments designed to provide separate measures of implicit and explicit second language knowledge afford a valid basis for determining what learners have learned. It reports on a study that tested predictions derived from Pienemann's Processability Theory regarding the learning difficulty of four grammatical structures. The results showed that the predictions were borne out in the data from the tests of implicit knowledge but not in the data from the tests of explicit knowledge. The study suggests that experimentally elicited data can be used to examine interlanguage development (i.e. how learners' implicit knowledge develops) and to make statements about learners' grammatical proficiency. It also indicates that what constitutes learning difficulty needs to be considered separately for implicit and explicit knowledge. The implications for SLA research and language testing are considered.1 [source]

Age of Onset and Nativelikeness in a Second Language: Listener Perception Versus Linguistic Scrutiny

LANGUAGE LEARNING, Issue 2 2009
Niclas Abrahamsson
The incidence of nativelikeness in adult second language acquisition is a controversial issue in SLA research. Although some researchers claim that any learner, regardless of age of acquisition, can attain nativelike levels of second language (L2) proficiency, others hold that attainment of nativelike proficiency is, in principle, impossible. The discussion has traditionally been framed within the paradigm of a critical period for language acquisition and guided by the question of whether SLA is constrained by the maturation of the brain. The work presented in this article can be positioned among those studies that have focused exclusively on the apparent counterexamples to the critical period. We report on a large-scale study of Spanish/Swedish bilinguals (n,=,195) with differing ages of onset of acquisition (<1,47 years), all of whom identify themselves as potentially nativelike in their L2. Listening sessions with native-speaker judges showed that only a small minority of those bilinguals who had started their L2 acquisition after age 12, but a majority of those with an age of onset below this age, were actually perceived as native speakers of Swedish. However, when a subset (n,=,41) of those participants who did pass for native speakers was scrutinized in linguistic detail with a battery of 10 highly complex, cognitively demanding tasks and detailed measurements of linguistic performance, representation, and processing, none of the late learners performed within the native-speaker range; in fact, the results revealed also that only a few of the early learners exhibited actual nativelike competence and behavior on all measures of L2 proficiency that were employed. Our primary interpretation of the results is that nativelike ultimate attainment of a second language is, in principle, never attained by adult learners and, furthermore, is much less common among child learners than has previously been assumed. [source]

Reconceptualizing Language, Language Learning, and the Adolescent Immigrant Language Learner in the Age of Postmodern Globalization

LINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 9 2010
Peter I. De Costa
The massive shift in migration patterns brought about by globalization has heavily impacted the language learning experience of adolescent immigrant learners. Given these changes wrought by globalization, this paper argues for a reconceptualization of language, language learning, and the adolescent immigrant language learner. In line with poststructural concerns that have framed recent SLA research on immigrant learners, particular emphasis is given to how a Bourdieusian framework offers constructs to better understand globalized linguistic flows. Such a framework, which views language as a form of capital, allows for a better understanding the consequences of globalization and the commodification of languages. Relatedly, to recognize the linguistic resources available to immigrant learners in the twenty-first century, the paper calls for a reconstitution of language along ideological, semiotic, and performative lines as well as a reframing of language learning through an ideology and identity lens. As a result of this linguistic reconceptualization, globalized adolescent immigrant language learners should be viewed as social actors who possess and are in the process of developing symbolic competence (cf. Kramsch and Whiteside 2007, 2008; Kramsch 2009). [source]

"New" Mainstream SLA Theory: Expanded and Enriched

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 5 2007
MERRILL SWAIN
How have the ideas raised by Firth and Wagner (1997) influenced the construction of second language acquisition (SLA) theories? In this article, we take the position that prior to and since 1997, there was and has been a notable increase in SLA research and theory that prioritizes sociocultural and contextual factors in addition to acknowledging individual agency and multifaceted identities. This article focuses on 4 major influences on a growing body of SLA research: sociocultural theory of mind, situated learning, poststructural theories, and dialogism. We highlight aspects of these perspectives that have been used in SLA theory, and provide examples of research that illustrate the richness and complexity of constructs such as languaging, legitimate peripheral participation, subjectivity, and heteroglossia. These perspectives and constructs address Firth and Wagner's call for a reconceptualization of SLA by offering alternative understandings of language and language learning. [source]

Sociolinguistic Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Research,1997,2007

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 5 2007
ELAINE TARONE
This article discusses sociolinguistically oriented research on second language acquisition (SLA) in the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997). Over the last 10 years, substantial progress has been made in developing a model of the sociolinguistic processes that inform second language acquisition. This model is supported by empirical evidence on the relationship between social context and second language use and acquisition, which shows that learners' second language (L2) input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated, that social and linguistic context affect linguistic use, choice, and development, and that learners intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social contexts. A strength of sociolinguistically oriented SLA research is its strong focus on linguistic outcomes, tracking the impact of contextual factors in producing those outcomes. Preston (2000, 2002) and Fasold and Preston (2006) provided a central sociolinguistic framework to integrate research on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes in producing interlanguage, which is a variable linguistic system. [source]

"New" Mainstream SLA Theory: Expanded and Enriched

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2007
MERRILL SWAIN
How have the ideas raised by Firth and Wagner (1997) influenced the construction of second language acquisition (SLA) theories? In this article, we take the position that prior to and since 1997, there was and has been a notable increase in SLA research and theory that prioritizes sociocultural and contextual factors in addition to acknowledging individual agency and multifaceted identities. This article focuses on 4 major influences on a growing body of SLA research: sociocultural theory of mind, situated learning, poststructural theories, and dialogism. We highlight aspects of these perspectives that have been used in SLA theory, and provide examples of research that illustrate the richness and complexity of constructs such as languaging, legitimate peripheral participation, subjectivity, and heteroglossia. These perspectives and constructs address Firth and Wagner's call for a reconceptualization of SLA by offering alternative understandings of language and language learning. [source]

Sociolinguistic Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Research,1997,2007

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2007
ELAINE TARONE
This article discusses sociolinguistically oriented research on second language acquisition (SLA) in the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997). Over the last 10 years, substantial progress has been made in developing a model of the sociolinguistic processes that inform second language acquisition. This model is supported by empirical evidence on the relationship between social context and second language use and acquisition, which shows that learners' second language (L2) input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated, that social and linguistic context affect linguistic use, choice, and development, and that learners intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social contexts. A strength of sociolinguistically oriented SLA research is its strong focus on linguistic outcomes, tracking the impact of contextual factors in producing those outcomes. Preston (2000, 2002) and Fasold and Preston (2006) provided a central sociolinguistic framework to integrate research on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes in producing interlanguage, which is a variable linguistic system. [source]

Toward a sociocognitive approach to second Llanguage acquisition

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 4 2002
Dwight Atkinson
This article develops the notion of a sociocognitive perspective on second language acquisition (SLA), proposed as an alternative to the cognitivism pervading the field. By sociocognitive, I mean a view of language and language acquisition as simultaneously occurring and interactively constructed both "in the head" and "in the world." First, I develop a view of language and its acquisition as social phenomena,as existing and taking place for the performance of action in the (socially-mediated) world. Second, I describe the cognitive nature of language and its acquisition, focusing especially on recent developments in connectionism. Third, I introduce sociocognitive views of language and posit a social interpretation of connectionism as bridging the gap between cognition and social action. Fourth, I discuss sociocognitive perspectives on first language acquisition. Fifth, I describe the cognitivist biases of much SLA research, then suggest how sociocognitive approaches can help overcome them. I end by considering implications of the perspective I develop in this paper. [source]