Towards an Ecology of Second Language Acquisition

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Pallotti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Context Of Learning

Recent work in second language acquisition research has seen a renewed interest in 'external factors' affecting the acquisition process. However, few studies have adressed the question of how the interactional features of the social context in which naturalistic learning takes place, can influence second language development. The research presented in this paper is an attempt to fill this gap, in applying a 'language socialization' (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986) perspective on non-instructed second language acquisition. The subject of the study is a Moroccan five-year- old girl, who was videotaped in an ethnographic study of her acquisition of Italian as a second language. This approach allowed to collect data both on the girl's linguistic development and on the socio-interactional environment in which it took place. It was thus possible to investigate the systematic relationships between interlanguage and its context of acquisition. This preliminary investigation focuses on three different language levels. The first is the lexicon: the very first words learned by the girl can be shown to have a particular relevance for the nursery school's communicative economy. The second area of investigation is morphology. Here, too, one can see how some of the first grammatical morphemes acquired, diminutives and superlatives, played a role in facilitating the learner's socialization. Finally, an examination of how syntactic structures were initially produced, shows that sentence construction was influenced by the interactional needs of the speaker in a particular communicative context. It is argued that all these aspects of second language acquisition can -at least partially - be explained by reference to the socio-cultural context of learning. Given the importance recently attributed to interaction as one of the most powerful determinants of naturalistic second language acquisition, it is suggested that the study of the sociolinguistic environment - or the 'ecology' of second language acquisition - is a profitable direction for future research.

THE ASPECT HYPOTHESIS AND THE ACQUISITION OF L2 PAST MORPHOLOGY IN THE LAST 20 YEARS

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1137-1167
Author(s):  
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig ◽  
Llorenç Comajoan-Colomé
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
The Third

AbstractTwenty years ago, a state-of-the-art review in SSLA marked the coming of age of the study of temporality in second language acquisition. This was followed by three monographs on tense and aspect the next year. This article presents a state-of-the-scholarship review of the last 20 years of research addressing the aspect hypothesis (AH) (Andersen, 1991, 2002; Andersen & Shirai, 1994, 1996), the most tested hypothesis in L2 temporality research. The first section of the article gives an overview of the AH and examines its central tenets, and then explores the results of empirical studies that test the hypothesis. The second section considers studies that have investigated four crucial variables in the acquisition of temporality and the testing of the AH. The third section discusses theoretically motivated areas of future research within the framework of the hypothesis.

scholarly journals Effect of Age in Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Review from the Perspective of Critical Period Hypothesis and Ultimate Attainment

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Mosiur Rahman ◽  
Ambigapathy Pandian ◽  
Abdul Karim ◽  
Faheem Hasan Shahed
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Critical Period Hypothesis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ultimate Attainment ◽  
Effect Of Age

This article addresses the effect of age in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), posing the relative question that whether the Critical Period hypothesis (CPH) exists in Second Language (SL), and if existing, how it is associated duly with SLA. The justification of comparing the achievement of L1 and L2 learners on the basis of Ultimate Attainment (UA) in the establishment of Critical Period Hypothesis, is also discussed. In the methodology, secondary data analysis was used to answer of research questions. To achieve a reliable result from the wide range of secondary data primarily from journal articles, a systemic search has been adopted. In conclusion, compare and contrast was made with earlier studies to show the findings of the study and to scope future research. 

The Effects of Written Corrective Feedback on Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition of English Collocations

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Wang ◽  
Lin Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Choice Test ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Written Corrective Feedback ◽  
Facilitative Role

AbstractThe role of written corrective feedback (CF) in the process of acquiring a second language (L2) has been an issue of considerable controversies over past decades. This study thus endeavors to extend current work on written CF by investigating and comparing the effect on collocation learning of one traditional type of feedback—direct corrective feedback (DCF)—with an innovative type of error correction, feedback provided within context—situated feedback (SF). The effects of the two types of written feedback were measured by examining the accurate use of target collocations in a translation test and a multiple choice test completed by 73 intermediate EFL students in China. Three groups were formed: a DCF group, an SF group, and a control group. The study found that both treatment groups outperformed the control group in the posttests and delayed posttests and that there were significant advantages of the SF group in comparison to the DCF group in both posttests. The results suggested that the provision of written CF was helpful for collocation learning and that situational context could promote the facilitative role of written CF in language acquisition. These findings are discussed from the perspectives of both second language acquisition (SLA) theory and language pedagogy and implications for future research efforts are put forward.

A Systematic Review of Video Games for Second Language Acquisition

2022 ◽  
pp. 1345-1371
Author(s):  
Juan Li
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Second Language Education ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Systematic Understanding

This study overviews contemporary studies on the use of video games for second language acquisition within the past ten years spanning the development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and its connections to SLA, definitions of video games, empirical studies on the facilitative roles played by video games for second language (L2) learning and utilizing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) for language learning. The purpose of this chapter is to help the readers obtain a systematic understanding of the development and application of video games in second language education. Findings of this study suggests that players are able to acquire L2 knowledge while playing video games. It also suggests that future research should focus more on the actual integration of video games into language instruction.

Trends in Second-Language-Acquisition Research

1977 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenji Hakuta ◽  
Herlinda Cancino
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
First Language ◽  
Future Research ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Error Performance ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Recent concern with bilingual education has led to an increased interest in understanding the process of second-language acquisition. In this article Kenji Hakuta and Herlinda Cancino present a critical, historical overview of research on second–language acquisition. In this account the authors outline four analytical approaches—contrastive, error, performance, and discourse analysis—trace the shifts among these approaches, and demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of each. They also show how the different approaches reflect changing conceptions of language and the nature of learners. The authors give special emphasis to the influence of first-language-acquisition research on studies of second-language acquisition,and they speculate on future research trends.

scholarly journals A Data-Driven Critical Review of Second Language Acquisition in the Past 30 Years

Publications ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Meng-Lin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Knowledge Domain ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Literature Reviews

This study aims to provide a comprehensive and data-driven review of the knowledge domain of second language acquisition (SLA) and pedagogy in the past 30 years. Using knowledge domain visualization techniques, the study first provides a review of SLA at the disciplinary level. It then identifies the major research areas and current research frontiers in the SLA research landscape based on high-quality data retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) databases. The study provides useful references for future research and pedagogy in the field in which literature reviews employing scientometric methodology and driven by data, such as the present one, are rare, and thus, are much in need of supplement views produced by traditional literature reviews.

Beyond form-focused instruction: Reflections on past, present and future research

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Spada
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Optimal Time ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
L2 Learning

In 1997 I published a paper in Language Teaching entitled ‘Form-focused instruction and second language acquisition: A review of classroom and laboratory research’. The paper reviewed the results of studies investigating the effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning. It was organized around seven questions, including: whether FFI is beneficial to L2 learning; whether particular types of FFI are more beneficial; whether there is an optimal time to provide FFI; and whether different language features benefit more from FFI. In this paper I revisit these questions and reflect on how research on FFI and L2 learning has evolved over the past twelve years.

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