Earlier second language acquisition is associated with greater neural pattern dissimilarity between the first and second languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 203 ◽  
pp. 104740
Author(s):  
Jian Ou ◽  
Wenlong Li ◽  
Yang Yang ◽  
Nizhuan Wang ◽  
Min Xu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Second Languages

World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajend Mesthrie
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Second Languages

Although areas of potential overlap between the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and World Englishes (WE) may seem obvious, they developed historically in isolation from each other. SLA had a psycholinguistic emphasis, studying the ways in which individuals progressed towards acquisition of a target language. WE studies initially developed a sociolinguistic focus, describing varieties that arose as second languages in former British colonies. This chapter explores the way in which each field could benefit from the other. The SLA emphasis on routes of development, overgeneralization, universals of SLA, and transfer in the interlanguage has relevance to characterizing sub-varieties of WEs. Conversely, the socio-political dimension of early WE studies and the notion of macro- or group acquisition fills a gap in SLA studies which sometimes failed to acknowledge that the goal of second language learners was to become bilingual in ways that were socially meaningful within their societies.

The Effects of Second-Language Acquisition on Verbal Fluency Among Elderly Israelis

CNS Spectrums ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir M. Poreh ◽  
Avraham Schweiger
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Phonemic Fluency ◽  
Language Areas ◽  
Fluency Task

ABSTRACTThe present study investigated the effect of age of second-language acquisition (Hebrew) on verbal fluency in a random sample of 196 elderly Israelis from four distinct ethnic groups. Using conventional statistics, it was shown that phonemic fluency, particularly switching, is associated with education and the age of Hebrew acquisition, while semantic fluency, particularly clustering, is associated with age. Ethnic differences were not significant after controlling for the age of Hebrew acquisition and education. Additional analyses show that the tendency of subjects to use borrowed, non-Hebrew words on the phonemic fluency task was associated with lower total scores on this task and later age of Hebrew acquisition. In contrast, the tendency to use non-Hebrew words on the semantic fluency task was associated with age and higher total scores. These findings are discussed with regard to recent functional imaging studies of bilingual subjects. Such findings indicate that native and second languages form distinct areas of activation in the dominant anterior language area, an area often associated with phonemic processing and switching, whereas an overlap of activation of various languages has been demonstrated within the posterior language areas, those that are often associated with semantic processing.

scholarly journals A Cross-linguistic Perspective on Questions in German and French Adult Second Language Acquisition

2012 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Solveig Chilla ◽  
Matthias Bonnesen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Feature Values ◽  
Feature Checking ◽  
Adult Second Language Acquisition

Several studies have been conducted to try and understand and explain the morphological and syntactic aspects of adult second language acquisition (SLA). Two prominent hypotheses that have been put forward concerning late L2 speakers' knowledge of inflectional morphology and of related functional categories and their feature values are the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH) and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH). The cross-linguistic comparison of the acquisition of questions in German and French provided in this study offers a new perspective to differences and similarities between first language acquisition (FLA) and adult SLA. Comparing a Germanic and a Romance L2, differing not only in their overall linguistic properties (such as i. e. OV/VO, V2, clitics), but explicitly in the formation and regularities of questions, we present striking similarities in adult SLA, and irrespective of the first and the second languages and of instructed versus non-instructed learning. The investigation of the adult SLA of morphological and structural aspects of questions in French and German strengthens the assumption that the acquisition of morphology and syntax is connected in French and German FLA but is disentangled in adult SLA. Our data reveal variability of question syntax, and with the syntactic position of the verb in particular. Instead of discovering the correct position of the verb at a certain stage of acquisition which can be accounted for by parameter setting in FLA, the adult learners gradually approach the target word order but still exhibit a great deal of variation after several years of exposure to the L2. The findings provided here contradict the predictions of the MSIH (Prévost/White 2000; Ionin/Wexler 2002; among others), for not only morphological features, but syntactic finiteness of finiteness are problematic in adult SLA, and that the Impairment Representation Hypothesis (IRH) (Beck 1998; Eubank 1993/1994; among others) accounts for these differences in first and second language acquisition. IRH and FDH mirror our findings, by predicting the use of (domain-general) strategies instead of agreement or feature checking mechanisms.

Second-Language Acquisition

1989 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 122-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry McLaughlin ◽  
Michael Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

As H. Douglas Brown pointed out in his review (1980), the field of second language acquisition [SLA] has emerged as its own discipline in the 1980s. A somewhat eclectic discipline, research in SLA involves methodologies drawn from linguistics, sociolinguistics, education, and psychology. Theoretical models are equally diverse (McLaughlin 1987), but in general a distinction is possible between representational and processing approaches (Carroll in press). Representational approaches focus on the nature and organization of second-language knowledge and how this information is represented in the mind of the learner. Processing approaches focus on the integration of perceptual and cognitive Processes with the learner's second-languages knowledge. This distinction is used here for purposes of exposition, although it is recognized that some approaches combine both representational and processing features, as any truly adequate model of second-language learning must.

Interaction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Behney ◽  
Susan Gass
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conversational Interaction ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Negotiation For Meaning ◽  
Interactionist Approach

This Element in the Cambridge Elements in Second Language Acquisition series examines the role of interaction in Second Language Acquisition research, with a focus on the cognitive interactionist approach. The Element describes the major branches of the field, considering the importance of conversational interaction in both the cognitive interactionist framework as well as in sociocultural approaches to second language learning. The authors discuss the key concepts of the framework, including input, negotiation for meaning, corrective feedback, and output. The key readings in the field and the emphases of current and future research are explained. Finally, the authors describe the pedagogical implications that the cognitive interactionist approach has had on the teaching of second languages.

Cognitive and Cultural Styles in Second Language Acquisition

1988 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 149-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yamuna Kachru
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Language Use ◽  
First Language ◽  
Personality Factors ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Linguistic Categories

The goals of second language acquisition research, as of first language acquisi-tion research, are to determine exactly what is acquired and precisely how it is acquired. The first concern leads to questions such as the following in the case of second language acquisition [SLA]•How comparable are the first and second languages of the learners?•What effect does the perceived closeness or distance of the two languages have on second language acquisition?•Do learners only acquire linguistic categories and structures of the second language, or do they also acquire a different set of cognitive structures and cultural categories? And finally,•Do they acquire only linguistic rules, or do they also acquire the sociocultural conventions of language use relevant to the second language?The second concern leads to the following question:•What role do cognitive styles, learning strategies, and personality factors—either innate or acquired as a result of socialization in a particular community—play in second language acquisition?

Beyond “Naturalistic”: On the Role of Task Characteristics and the Importance of Multiple Elicitation Methods

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly L. Geeslin
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Task Characteristics ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Learner Language ◽  
Ideal Method

AbstractThe exploration of the role of naturally-occurring data in studies of second language acquisition begins by assessing the ways in which the term “naturalistic” may apply to second languages. Instead of classifying tasks and the data they elicit as natural or unnatural, this paper presents a view of tasks that is multidimensional, rather than oppositional, and highlights some of the features of tasks that appear to pose significant differences in the data they elicit. Following this review, three cases from the study of the second language acquisition of Spanish are presented. Each case demonstrates how data differ across tasks and builds support for the position that there is no single ideal method for eliciting data. Instead, these cases show that multiple means of elicitation are necessary to fully understand the acquisition of a given construct, with each elicitation task providing unique and essential information about learner language.

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