Second Language Acquisition

Every individual on Earth has a Mother Tongue. It is the national language of his/her own country, e.g. Bengali for Bangladeshi nationals. Anyone’s first language can be the Mother Tongue but not necessary that the Mother Tongue has to be the first language always. Let’s say a baby girl of a Bangladeshi parents born and brought up in England or USA, her first language would be English as she was exposed to English speaking environment from the very beginning, hence she acquired English as her first language but her Mother Tongue still remains Bengali. On the other hand, second language is any language that is learnt after the first language and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is the process by which people learn a language after a first language is already being established. Acquisition is the naturalistic way of developing the language within oneself whereas learning is the instructed way where the learner needs an instructor or facilitator. But in SLA we will be using both the words “acquisition” and “learning” interchangeably, referring to the language development of the learner. The journey of SLA began in 1960s. There are many theories, researches, findings as well as arguments related to SLA but it would be more reliable and accurate if we can link SLA with our real life experience.

Three development stages in SLA

SLA contains three development stages. First one is the scope of the field of enquiry which measures the linguistic properties of the language i.e. the phonetics, syntax, semantics, etc. It also measures the aspects of how the context of a sentence contributes to the meaning and the sociolinguistic perspective of the language i.e. the cultural norms, expectations, context, etc.

Second stage is the attention to linguistic theory. From my experience, I have noticed that human, esp. children have an amazing capability to learn language and several theories exist to explain language development. Noam Chomsky stated that children have the innate biological ability, i.e. language acquisition device to learn language. Similarly, Lev Vygotsky focused on social learning and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which mean what a learner can do with and without help.

The third stage is based on Theory-led-research which previously was the other way round. That was the shift from top-down approach to bottom-up approach. As a result, more researches were carried out lately and authentic results were found mostly.

Every individual is different from each other, hence they have different characteristics. Similarly, different individuals, here the learners, have different ways of acquiring or learning language. It can rather be said it’s their unique way. Furthermore, there has been a debate in the term “native vs. non-native”. It had been said that the learner should not be forced to follow the way native speakers speak. Every individual has their own style. As long as the pronunciation is clear and the message is comprehensible, it can be said that accent is the least important factor. There are people who have a vast knowledge of vocabulary, perfect grammar but their accent is not even near to the native English speaker. As long as their messages are clear and intelligible, there should be any challenges. Even the children could convey message who don’t have minimum knowledge of grammar by saying only the key words.           

Over the years, the advancement of technology got improved and new instruments were invented to collect data such as concordance tools to measure how many times a particular word has been used in a given context. In addition, Neuroimaging techniques (fMRI) investigate the parts of the brain involved in L2 learning and processing.

Later, there has been a paradigm shift from behaviorist approach to constructivist approach; i. e. behaviorism is centered on the transmission of knowledge from the instructor to the learner (top-down or instructor centered approach) whereas constructivism is focused on the construction knowledge by the learners (bottom-up or learner based approach). Constructivism is basically the combination of assimilation (absorption of new ideas to an existing cognitive structure) and accommodation (act of adapting). Besides, connectionist approach explains how brains creates network which connects words or phrases to other words or phrases (as well as objects and events) which occur at the same time. Links are strengthened through repeated (high frequency) exposure to linguistic stimuli in specific contexts. It opposes the "Universal Grammar" view of SLA that what is innate is simply the ability to learn, not any specific linguistic principles.

Communicative Competences

Furthermore, there are different viewpoints of competence. Communicative competence is the umbrella term which comprises of Linguistic competence, Sociolinguistic competence, Discourse competence and Strategic competence. People usually use a combination of these competences while they communicate. For example, a group of friends went to watch a cricket match. Almost everyone was enjoying the match as most of them like cricket but two of them were not aware of how cricket is being played. As a result, they are not aware of the terms like wide ball, lbw, yorker, bouncer, etc. All of them were discussing about a dismissal and one of them couldn’t understand what others were talking about and suddenly shouted, “Which color suits me the best”? Others were all astonished by her irrelevant attitude. In that particular context, she lacked all four competences that were mentioned above because what she said what completely irrelevant to the situation.         

Individual Differences in SLA

One of the important fields of SLA is Individual Differences. As mentioned earlier, every learner is different from each other. As a result, their learning rate and styles also differ. There are four individual differences which affect the learners, Physiological, Cognitive, Affective and Social but for now, two of them are discussed. They are as follows:-

Physiological differences which include age, physical development, etc. It has been said that age plays a major role in language learning and young learners are better than adult learners which is the idea of Critical Period Hypothesis. It says that after a certain period of time, i.e. puberty, language learning does not take place due to the lateralization of the brain whereas the brain used to work as a whole for acquiring language before puberty. But some researchers do not agree to this statement. There are such cases where labors from Bangladesh, learning a new language and going to Middle Eastern countries and working over there for survival. If Critical Period Hypothesis really exists then how these people are communicating and surviving in foreign countries being an adult? With age, needs change which make the adult learners more conscious about the language learning. They have experienced different situation and they have more opportunities to use the language for different purposes, e.g. personal, social, professional or academic interaction. But it gets tougher for the adult learners to attain native-like accent/pronunciation or the choice of words or few grammatical features compared to the young learners who acquired the language from their early ages.  Children are like empty vessels, whatever they are exposed to, they acquire successfully. But it does not mean that particular child will perform the same in the long run. Another factor of physiological differences is the development of the speech organs. For example, a 3 years old child who can understand and communicate non-verbally but can't say many words are said to have a speech delay. Similarly, one who can say a few words but can't put them into understandable phrases has a language delay. These all are caused due to poor physiological development.   

Cognitive differences refer to the level of intelligence in an individual. Intelligence means the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills and it is measured by IQ (Intelligence Quotient) test. Intelligences are of 7 types. For better understanding, a task has been designed which incorporates all the 7 intelligences. The task is given below.

In a school, kindergarten children are given a writing task. English alphabet is jumbled up and they are asked to rewrite by numbering them from 1 to 26. They are also asked to draw and color 1 object with each letter.

In the above task, children need to use all 7 intelligences to successfully complete the task. Below are given how the intelligence can be used:-

1. Linguistic intelligence- understanding the question, meaning of the key words; recognition of the alphabet.
2. Logical/mathematical intelligence- numbering the alphabet properly from 1 to 26.
3. Spatial intelligence- visualizing how the objects look which they are going to draw with each letter; size of the object to be drawn; size of the letter to be written; spacing between two letters or objects, etc.
4. Musical intelligence- they can sing the ABC rhymes to recall the sequence of the alphabet. They are even encouraged to make up rhymes by themselves.
5. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence- body movement while writing, drawing, coloring. They can also say the rhymes with action.
6. Interpersonal intelligence- after finishing their work, they show it to the teacher and get feedback/marks.
7. Intrapersonal intelligence- recalling ABC song; recalling the ways of writing letters; recalling objects with each letter, etc.

With the above 4 categories of differences, Economical difference can be added too because it plays a major role too. All the differences can vary by the economic status. For example, let’s say if a child is suffering from physiological problem and the family is economically stable enough, then the child can get proper therapy or treatment which is quite impossible if the financial status is not stable. This is just one example. There can be many more other factors which can be affected by the economy. So it can be strongly believed that “Economical” difference should be included as an individual category with other 4 differences.

Conclusion

All in all, it can be said that language learning cannot occur solely. There are many factors which influence SLA. People can learn a language at any age but for adults, some strategies must be followed to learn a language successfully whereas it gets easier for the children to acquire language from childhood.