Second+Language+Acquisition+and+the+Physiological+Changes+in+the+Brain

Processes of Second Language Acquisition

**Background Information: **

 * ====It is easier for a child to reach native-like fluency in learning a second language than it is for an adult to do so. ====
 * ====Second language learners rarely reach the level of native fluency (for reasons discussed further down). ====
 * ====__Fossilization__ occurs when the second language learner plateaus in his or her level of fluency (occurs with most second language learners). ====

**The Learner Language Concept: **

 * ====__Learner language__ is the written or spoken language produced by a learner. It is the main type of qualitative information used in second language acquisition research. ====
 * ====A vast amount of research on second language acquisition concerns inferences about the learner's mental representations of a language and the evolution of those images over time. ====
 * ====There are two types of second-language learning: item learning, which involves the rote memorization of chunks of language, and system learning, which involves the internalization of systematic rules of second language structure. ====

**Interlanguage: **

 * ====Original attempts to describe learner language was through language comparison and analysis of learners' errors, but these weren't able to predict all the errors that second language learners made. ====
 * ====__Interlanguage__ is the emerging language system in the mind of a second language learner. ====
 * ====It is not a primitive form of the second language or a language based on errors from language transfer, but a language in its own right, with its own systematic rules. ====
 * ====There are three different influences on the creation of interlanguages: ====
 * 1) ====__Language transfer__ is the influence of the first language on the process of learning a second language. Objectively, it is a source of basic errors produced in the acquisition of a second language, but is not recognized as a mistake but a level of learning that all learnings go through in shaping their interlanguage. ====
 * 2) ====__Overgeneralization__ is when learning occurs using rules from the second language in a way that native speakers do not ====
 * 3) ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__Simplification__ occurs when learners use a very simple form of the second language. ====

**<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Order of Acquisition: **

 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Studies conducted in the 1970s demonstrated that the order in which learners internalized different grammatical structures deviated little among learners, regardless of their first language or the second language (there was still some differences between individuals and among learners with different first languages). ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The order of grammar acquisition did not change depending on whether the learner was a child or an adult or if the learner had had language lessons. ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This information reinforces the concept of interlanguage. ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is more precise to describe second language acquisition by sequences of acquisition, which refers to the characteristic that specific grammatical features in a language have a set order of development, but the overall order of acquisition is less rigid. ====

**<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Variability: **

 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Although second language acquisition develops in set sequences, it may vary depending on the features of the learner's interlanguage. ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__Free variation__ is when the learner uses two forms interchangeably. ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__Systematic variation__ dependence on the context of verbalization the learner makes. ====
 * ====<span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Forms vary depending on linguistic, social, and psycholinguistic context. ====


 * <span class="mw-headline" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Internal Factors: **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Internal factors affecting second-language acquisition are those which stem from the learner's own mind. Attempts to account for the internal mechanisms of second-language acquisition can be divided into three general strands: cognitive, sociocultural, and linguistic. These explanations are not all compatible, and often differ significantly.

**External Factors:**
 * Research has suggested that the amount of “comprehensible input” given to a subject has a direct correlation with language acquisition**.**However, research conducted by Michael Long concerning the effects on input has shown that input involving interaction rather than input resulting from structured lessons produce better results in terms of language learning
 * This type of connection can by the phenomena of individuals in foreign nations becoming increasingly fluent in a second language, presumably because of their exposure to increasing levels of comprehensible input.


 * Researcher Rod Ellis developed a theory concerning the effects that society has upon second language acquisition by defining three factors that come into play:Research has also shown that language acquisition is also enhanced when socially, the concerned language is “close” to the society in which the language learner is and has grown up in.
 * __Socialinguistic setting__: the role of the language of question in society
 * Is it a majority or a minority language
 * Is it functional within society
 * Is the society in question monolingual or usually bilingual
 * __Specific Social Factors__:
 * Age, gender, income level, ethnicity
 * __Situational Factors__:
 * Such as if different language facets are used in certain settings such as a formal or informal variation of a dialect

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Cognitive Approach:**
> ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The mental processes that underlie second-language acquisition can be broken down into micro-processes, which include attention, working memory, integration, and restructuring and monitoring. Macro-processes, on the other hand, include the distinction between intentional learning and incidental learning and also the distinction between explicit and implicit learning. ==== >
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Cognitive research is concerned with the mental processes that are involved in language acquisition and how they can explain the nature of learners' language knowledge. This area of research uses many concepts and models used in more general cognitive theories of learning that view second-language acquisition as a special case of more general learning mechanisms in the brain. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Within the cognitive approach, the dominant model to second-language acquisition is the computational model. ====
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The computational model involves three stages:


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Within the first stage learners retain certain features of the language input in short-term memory known as intake.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Within the second stage learners convert some of this intake into second-language knowledge, which is stored in long-term memory.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Finally, in the third stage, learners use this second-language knowledge to produce spoken output.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Cognitive theories attempt to arrange both the nature of the mental representations of intake and language knowledge and the mental processes which underlie these stages.
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">When second-language acquisition had first been researched //interlanguage// was seen as the basic representation of second-language knowledge. However, more recently research has taken a number of different approaches in characterizing the mental representation of language knowledge. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Some researchers make the distinction between two different types of language knowledge: //implicit// and //explicit// language knowledge, and d//eclarative// and //procedural// language knowledge. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">There have also been approaches that argue for a //dual-mode system// in which some language knowledge is stored as rules, and other language knowledge as items. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Some of the notable cognitive theories of second-language acquisition include the nativization model, the multidimensional model and processability theory, emergentist models , the competition model , and skill-acquisition theories. ====
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Other cognitive approaches have looked at learners' speech production, particularly learners' speech planning and communication strategies. Speech planning can have an effect on learners' spoken output, and research in this area has focused on how planning affects three aspects of speech: complexity, accuracy, and fluency.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Of these three, planning effects on fluency has had the most research attention. Communication strategies are conscious strategies that learners employ to get around any instances of communication breakdown they may experience.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Linguistic Approaches:**

 * ====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Linguistic approaches to explaining second-language acquisition spring from the wider study of linguistics. They differ from cognitive approaches and sociocultural approaches in that they consider language knowledge to be unique and distinct from any other type of knowledge. The linguistic research tradition in second-language acquisition has developed in relative isolation from the cognitive and sociocultural research traditions. ====
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Two main strands of research can be identified in the linguistic tradition: approaches informed by universal grammar and typological approaches.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> Topological universals are principles that hold for all the world's languages. They are found empirically, by surveying different languages and deducing which aspects of them could be universal; these aspects are then checked against other languages to verify the findings. The interlanguages of second-language learners have been shown to obey typological universals, and some researchers have suggested that typological universals may constrain interlanguage development.

**Individual Variation**
 * Much research has been conducted concerning the apparent disparity between certain language learners who seem to pick up languages very quickly and those who seem to be quite lethargic in their acquisitiveness.
 * Age: younger learners tend to gain fuller fluency in later stages of language development while older learners tend to progress faster in the initial stages of language learning
 * Strategies: those who utilize mnemonic devices or other communicative strategies are more apt at learning languages
 * Anxiety: those who experience anxiety in learning situations do not learn languages effectively
 * Personality: It has also been noted that extroverts tend to be better language learners than introverts

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Second language acquisition. Retrieved from @http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/second.htm
 * Citations**

Cook, V. (2011, April 04). //Second language acquisition topics//. Retrieved from []

Haynes, J. (n.d.). Stages of second language acquisition. Retrieved from @http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php Mason, T. (n.d.). //Learning language//. Retrieved from []ion.htm