ASSIGNMENT

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

SAIDNA ZULFIQAR BIN TAHIR10B01033

GRADUATE PROGRAM

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR

2011

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

TAKE HOME TEST

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the differences between Language Learning and Language Acquisition. Give

Examples for clarification.

2. What are interlingual and intralingual errors? Give examples of both.

3. Individual differences of learners is essential for a teacher to know. Why?

4. Linguistically, error types are attributer to four sources. Explain each of them!

5. Explain what a bilingual person is!

6. Give clear distinction between Foreign Language Acquisition (FLA) and Second

Language Acquisition (SLA)!

7. One factor that can make learners successful in learning language is motivation:

Integrative and Instrumental. Briefly discuss these two types of motivation!

8. Explain the following terms:

a. First Language Acquisition

b. Second Language Acquisition

c. Third Language Acquisition

d. Heritage Language Acquisition

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ANSWERS:

1. According to linguists (i.e. scientists who engage in the scientific study of human

language) there is an important distinction between language acquisition and language

learning. 

As we may well have noticed, children acquire their mother tongue through interaction

with their parents and the environment that surrounds them. Their need to communicate

paves the way for language acquisition to take place. As experts suggest, there is an

innate capacity in every human being to acquire language.

By the time a child is five years old, s/he can express ideas clearly and almost perfectly

from the point of view of language and grammar. Although parents never sit with

children to explain to them the workings of the language, their utterances show a superb

command of intricate rules and patterns that would drive an adult crazy if s/he tried to

memorize them and use them accurately. This suggests that it is through exposure to the

language and meaningful communication that a first language is acquired, without the

need of systematic studies of any kind. When it comes to second language learning in

children, you will notice that this happens almost identically to their first language

acquisition. And even teachers focus more on the communicative aspect of the language

rather than on just rules and patterns for the children to repeat and memorize. In order to

acquire language, the learner needs a source of natural communication. 

The emphasis is on the text of the communication and not on the form. Young students

who are in the process of acquiring a second language get plenty of "on the job" practice.

They readily acquire the language to communicate with classmates. 

In short, we see this tendency in which second language teachers are quite aware of the

importance of communication in young learners and their inability to memorize rules

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consciously (although they will definitely acquire them through a hands-on approach just

as they did with their mother tongue). 

Unfortunately, when it comes to adult students, a quick look at the current methodologies

and language courses available clearly shows that communication is set aside, neglected

or even disregarded. In almost all cases, courses revolve around grammar, patterns,

repetitions, drillings and rote memorization without even a human interlocutor to interact

with. 

The very same courses that promise you language independence and the ability to

communicate upon completion of the courses do NOT offer you a single chance to

engage in meaningful conversations. How many times have you bought or read about

"the ultimate language course on CD" in which the learner simply has to sit in front of a

computer to listen to and repeat words and phrases time and again. That is not

communication. That is the way you train a parrot! The animal will definitely learn and

repeat a few phrases and amuse you and your friends, but it will never ever be able to

communicate effectively.

 How could you be expected to communicate if you are never given the chance to speak

with a real person? Language without real communication is as useless as Saint

Valentine's day without lovers or Children's day without kids.

In some other scenarios, in which there is a teacher, the work done in class is mostly

grammatically oriented: tenses, rules, multiple choice exercises and so on and so forth. Is

this similar to the way in which a child "acquires a language?" Definitely not. No wonder

why so many people fail in acquiring a second language naturally. Simply because

whatever they are doing is highly unnatural and devoid of meaning to them. This is the

field of language learning.

Language learning as seen today is not communicative. It is the result of direct

instruction in the rules of language. And it certainly is not an age-appropriate activity for

your young learners - as it is not for adults either. In language learning, students have

conscious knowledge of the new language and can talk about that knowledge.

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They can fill in the blanks on a grammar page. Research has shown, however, that

knowing grammar rules does not necessarily result in good speaking or writing. A student

who has memorized the rules of the language may be able to succeed on a standardized

test of English language but may not be able to speak or write correctly. 

2. The type of language produced by second and foreign language learners is often

described as ‘interlanguage.’ Brown (1994: 215) states that interlanguage refers to the

“separateness of a second language learner’s system, a system that has a structurally

intermediate status between the native and target languages.” Within this intermediate

language, learner errors may be caused by many different processes including: (a)

borrowing patterns from the mother tongue, and (b) extending patterns from the

targetlanguage, or over-generalizing a learner rule. Connor (1996: 13) states that

analyses of “interlanguage” systems of learners’ actual performance suggest that the

influence of transfer on acquisition of the target language is quite complex.

Another division that is widely agreed on is that interlingual errors and intralingual errors

believed by linguists. An error that results from language transfer, which is caused by the

learner’s native language, is called interlingual errors. Intralingual errors refer to those

produced in using the target language in own terms. They result from faulty or partial

learning of the target language, rather than from language transfer.

Example of interlanguage error is Inappropriate Word Choice. The speaker said;’The

light is death’, According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, “dead” is

used to the human/animal. The best word for here is “off”. When target language learners

who choose the word “ death” here is intervened by mother language “Mati” whose

equivalent in English is the verb “dead”.

The examples of intralanguage errors are misspelling. It plays an important role in errors

no matter for freshmen or junior student. Some misspelling errors are surely due to bad

memorization, or generalization. e.g. sociality – society park – part, dujing – during,

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complant – complaint, pround – proud, experement – experiment. And incorrect use of

verb.

3. Effective teachers display skills at creating curricula designed to build on students'

present knowledge and understanding and move them to more sophisticated and in-depth

abilities, knowledge, concepts, and performances. They calibrate their responses to the

interests and ability level of students, designing activities to the latter's "proximal zone"

based on Vygotsky's concept, for learning and development. In addition, these educators

employ a range of instructional strategies and resources to match the variety of student

skills and to provide each student several ways of exploring important ideas, skills, and

concepts. They understand how to work as facilitators, coaches, models, evaluators,

managers, and advocates. Moreover, teachers know how to utilize various forms of play,

different strategies for grouping learners, and different types of media and materials.

Teachers observe and assess students in the context of ongoing classroom life. They are

skilled in collecting and interpreting a variety of types of evidence to evaluate where each

student is in a sequence or continuum of learning and development. They know how to

move from assessment to decisions about curriculum, social support, and teaching

strategies, to increase the prospects for successful learning.

Teachers understand and respect the diverse cultures, values, languages, and family

backgrounds of their students, use community people and settings as resources for

learning, and involve parents and families as active partners in the students' total

development.

4. L2 learners commit errors largely because of the paucity of their knowledge of the TL. In

order to fill the gap between inadequate proficiency and requirement of a task, language

learners draw on adaptive and redeeming strategies, such as simplification, reduction,

overgeneralization, transfer, formulaic language, omissions, substitutions, and

restructuring in their IL forms, which sometimes cause different types of errors. The

errors will be focused on the analysis of interlingual and intralingual errors by using

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description and explanation on those items, which are frequently committed by the

college students in our study, e.g. lexical verb, article, misspelling, pronoun, idiom, and

word choice.

5. A bilingual person is someone who speaks two languages. A person who speaks more

than two languages is called 'multilingual' (although the term 'bilingualism' can be used

for both situations). Multilingualism isn't unusual; in fact, it's the norm for most of the

world's societies. It's possible for a person to know and use three, four, or even more

languages fluently.

People may become bilingual either by acquiring two languages at the same time in

childhood or by learning a second language sometime after acquiring their first language.

Many bilingual people grow up speaking two languages. Often in America such people

are the children of immigrants; these children grow up speaking their parents' native

language in their childhood home while speaking English at school. Many bilinguals,

however, are not immigrants; it is not uncommon for people born in the U.S. to speak

English at school or work and another language at home. Children can also become

bilingual if their parents speak more than one language to them, or if some other

significant person in their life (such as a grandparent or caretaker) speaks to them

consistently in another language. Sometimes a child wit[ grow up in a household in

which each parent speaks a different language; in that case, the child may learn to speak

to each parent in that parent's language. In short, a young child who is regularly exposed

to two languages from an early age will most likely become a fluent native speaker of

both languages. The exposure must involve interaction; a child growing up in an English-

speaking household who is exposed to Spanish only through Spanish-language television

won't become a Spanish-English bilingual, but a child who is regularly spoken to in both

English and Spanish will.

It is also possible to learn a second language sometime after early childhood, but the

older you get, the harder it is to learn to speak a new language as well as a native speaker.

Many linguists believe there is a 'critical period' (lasting roughly from birth until puberty)

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during which a child can easily acquire any language that he or she is regularly exposed

to. Under this view, the structure of the brain changes at puberty, and after that it

becomes harder to learn a new language. This means that it is much easier to learn a

second language during childhood than as an adult.

In some countries, nearly everybody is bilingual or multilingual. In parts of India, for

example, a small child usually knows several languages. In many European countries,

children are encouraged to learn a second language - typically English. In fact, the U.S. is

quite unusual among the countries of the world in that many of its citizens speak only

English, and they are rarely encouraged to become fluent in any other language.

6. A Second language is when you are living in a for example: English speaking country

and your native tongue is not English, but you need that language on an everyday base to

survive.

A Foreign language is when you are living in your own country but for example you are

learning English because you need it for travel, work or just for fun the “usually”

differences are:

a. No translation is made into the speaker’s native language. 

b. translation is made into a speaker’s language and the speaker’s language is used

throughout the class for intermediate → lower levels.

Recent literature has revealed some discrepancies about the use of the terms L2 learners

and Fl learners. For instance, Cook (1992) suggests that, FL learners are people who are

in the process of learning a language in the classroom or by themselves and L2 are people

who use a language learned later in life for real purposes. Pavlenko (2005: 7-8) however,

describes FL learners as those who learn a foreign language in their home countries. In

other words an English learning Spanish in England is a foreign language or FL learner.

In contrast those who go to study a foreign language abroad. For 

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7. There are two kinds of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation originates

from within the individual and results in enjoyment of the process of increasing one’s

competency in regard to particular academic tasks. Extrinsic motivation is motivation

induced by rewards or punishment dependent upon success or failure in the task (Deci &

Ryan 2000; Walker, Greene, & Mansell, 2006). Contrasted with intrinsically motivated

students, who work for the feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment, extrinsically

motivated students will perform mainly for the attainment of a desired external reward or

to avoid external punishment.

Are extrinsic and intrinsic motives necessarily incompatible? In the past, researchers

found that extrinsic motivation sometimes has a destructive impact on intrinsic

motivation by perceived constraints on autonomy (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973).

Hennessey and Amabile (1998) also found that a promised reward for non-specific

performance lessened intrinsic motivation by reducing perceived self-determination or

increasing attention to the reward. However, the external reward contingency (requiring a

high level of performance or novel performance) may increase perceived competence and

selfdetermination, thus increasing intrinsic motivation. Researchers (Covington, 2000a,

2000b; Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003) found that if external rewards function as feedback

for how they can improve and learn more, external rewards may improve intrinsic

motivation.

Noels et al. (2001) found that external regulation strongly correlated with instrumental

orientation, identified regulation and intrinsic motivation correlated with travel,

friendship and knowledge orientation in second language learning. He also suggested

(2003) that integrativeness is an intergroup substrate and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation is

an interpersonal motivational substrate. Tae-II Pae (2008) found that instrumental

orientation and external regulation are basically the same, whereas integrative orientation

and intrinsic motivation are different. I think there is some difference between integrative

and intrinsic motivation. The former concerns not only intrinsic motivation (e.g. the

favorable attitude toward the language), but extrinsic motivation as well.

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8. Explanation of the following terms:

a. First Language Acquisition

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to

perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity

involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an

extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as

in sign. Language acquisition usually refers to first language acquisition, which

studies infants' acquisition of their native language, rather than second language

acquisition, which deals with acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional

languages.

The capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans

from other organisms. While many forms of animal communication exist, they have a

limited range of nonsyntactically structured vocabulary tokens that lack cross cultural

variation between groups.

A major concern in understanding language acquisition is how these capacities is

picked up by infants from what appears to be very little input. A range of theories of

language acquisition has been created in order to explain this apparent problem

including innatism in which a child is born prepared in some manner with these

capacities, as opposed to the other theories in which language is simply learned.

First language acquisition theories are expected to answer such questions as:

1) WHAT do children learn when they acquire their first language?

2) HOW do they learn what they learn? For example, how do they determine what

words mean, or how to produce grammatical utterances they have never heard

before?

3) WHY do they learn (a) language?

Do they learn it:

1) Because their parents or adults teach it to them?

2) Because they are genetically programmed to acquire a language?

3) Because it is just there, thus they can't help learning it?

4) In the service of some need to communicate with others and to meet their needs

through language?

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5) Because their mental productivity forces them to emit their production so that

others may know it and because the same productivity forces them to have insight

what others emit?

Gleason and Ratner (1998) argue that theories which attempt to explain first language

acquisition must account for some facts about the phenomenon.

1) Children learn language rapidly. In only a few years, they progress from no

language comprehension or production to almost adult capacity.

2) Across languages, some systematic regularities exist in what children learn both

early and late, as well as some differences that require explanation.

3) There are systematic errors in children's language production. (e.g We holded the

baby rabbit.)

4) There is a predictable sequence of acquisition of linguistic components.

(e.g.1 Concrete nouns are acquired before abstract nouns. e.g 2 Young children

respond more rapidly to relative clauses formed on the subjects than on

objects. Keenan and Comrie, 1977)

5) Every average (even those who are retarded) child learns the language s/he is

exposed to. Children who are not exposed to a language, for some reasons, have

developed a language which abides with UG principles.

b. Second Language Acquisition

In general, SLA refers to the process of learning another language after the native

language has been learned. Sometimes the term refers to the learning of a third or

fourth language. The important aspect is that SLA refers to the learning of a

nonnative language after the learning of the native language. The second language is

commonly referred to as the L2. As with the phrase “second language,” L2 can refer

to any language learned after learning the L1, regardless of whether it is the second,

third, fourth, or fifth language. By this term, we mean both the acquisition of a second

language in a classroom situation, as well as in more “natural” exposure situations.

The word acquisition is used broadly in the sense that we talk about language use

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(sometimes independently from actual acquisition). Some might prefer the term

Second Language Studies (SLS) as it is a term that refers to anything dealing with

using or acquiring a second/foreign language.

Second language acquisition, on the other hand, generally refers to the learning of a

nonnative language in the environment in which that language is spoken (e.g.,

German speakers learning Japanese in Japan or Punjabi speakers learning English in

the United Kingdom). This may or may not take place in a classroom setting. The

important point is that learning in a second language environment takes place with

considerable access to speakers of the language being learned, whereas learning in a

foreign language environment usually does not.

c. Third Language Acquisition

The term Third Language Acquisition often called by multilingualism.

Multilingualism as used in this report is to be understood within the framework of

European Commission documentation: … the ability of societies, institutions, groups

and individuals to engage, on a regular basis, with more than two languages in their

day-to-day lives. (EC 2007:6)

This broad definition embraces the distinction made by the Council of Europe

between ‘multilingualism’ and ‘plurilingualism’, where multilingualism refers more

to social organization, and plurilingualism to an individual repertoire of linguistic

competence. Multilingualism refers here exclusively to the presence of several

languages in a given space, independently of those who use them: for example, the

fact that two languages are present in the same geographical area does not indicate

whether inhabitants know both (Council of Europe: 2007a:17).

Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either

by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers

outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. The generic term for a

multilingual person is polyglot. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon

governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness.

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d. Heritage Language Acquisition

Heritage language speaker is a relatively recent term, having its origins in the

education literature. Heritage language speakers are, broadly speaking, those who

have been exposed to a language of personal connection (Fishman, 2001). Valdés

(2001b) notes that “it is the historical and personal connection to the language that is

salient and not the actual proficiency of individual speakers. Armenian, for example,

would be considered a heritage language for American students of Armenian ancestry

even if the students were English-speaking monolinguals” (p. 38) and she

characterizes a heritage language learner (living in an English speaking environment)

as someone who is “raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken, who

speaks or at least understands the language, and who is to some degree bilingual in

that language and in English” (2001b, p. 38).

Polinsky (in press) defines heritage language as the language “which was first for an

individual with respect to the order of acquisition but has not been completely

acquired because of the switch to another dominant language.

Valdés (2001b) notes that “it is the historical and personal connection to the language

that is salient and not the actual proficiency of individual speakers.

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