Two historical milestones in the research: 1. The Chomskyan revolution: the development of transformational-generative grammar which lets us abandon the behaviorist view of language as a set of habits and to adopt the notion that language is represented by an abstract set of rules that the speaker has internalized from the language he or she hears. 2. 1967 saw Corder’s view on language development: error analysis which helps us study learner’s systematic errors and ignore the random mistakes.
Socialinguistics: Leslie Beebe • Is interlanguage variation systematic or random? And, if systematic, according to what social variables does it vary? • Does the learner’s interlanguage change over time? • What is the role of socialinguistic transfer in L2 development? • What is the nature of L2 communicative competence? • What is the cause of variation in interlanguage?
The left-hemispheric language processing:
– using analytical, abstract mode of thought, like English; – phonetically based scripts
The right-hemispheric language processing:
Genesee’s conclusion: • Learning at least in the initial stages is more efficient and possibly easier for older learners than for younger learners; • Native-like phonology, syntax and comprehension can be achieved by learners post puberty. It has been found that prepubertal learners achieve higher more native-like L2 proficiency than post-pubertal learners, but this doesn’t constitute unequivocal support for the critical hypothesis.
Factors for such an assumption:
1. Age of SLA: at an earlier age, there seems more right-hemispheric involvement, and at a later age, more left-hemispheric involvement; 2. Level of L2 proficiency: the right-hemispheric involvement is more evident among non-proficient bilinguals than among proficient bilinguals (with little empirical support); 3. The manner of SLA: There may be greater righthemispheric involvement in processing languages that are learned informally, or, conversely greater left-hemispheric involvement in processing languages that are learned formally. This
The critical period hypothesis (CPH) • Penfield and Roberts (1959) emphasized the notion of general neurological plasticity before puberty that there is a neurophysically determined critical period during which second language acquisition occurs easy; after this critical period, SLA becomes impossible or at best difficult.
Overview: Issues in SLA
The linguistic development of the learner in the second languages, and it is a core phenomenon involving different interdisciplinary perspectives: psycholinguistics, socialinguistics, neurolinguistics, the classroomcentered research perspectives and the bilingual education perspective.
Psycholinguistics: Herbert Seliger • How does the learner develop their language and what are the processes involved? • What is the role of previous knowledge, particular the first language, in the SL development? • What are affective factors, or psychological characteristics of the learner, which lead to success? And are there good learners and bad learners?
Genesee: there exists a sensitive period when
– certain linguistic skills are acquired more easily at particular times than at others;
– some linguistic skills are learned after the critical period: there are more critical periods. It can’t be used to salvage the CPH, for it hasn’t been defined and tested.
Neuropsychology and SLA: Genesee The studies on investigation of the relationship between the brain and development of two languages. • Whether is the L1 and/or the L2 located in the left and/or right hemisphere of the brain? • What are ways in which languages with different characteristics are presented in the brain? (e.g. languages like English with phonologically based scripts versus languages like Chinese with ideographic representations) • Whether is it true that there exists the critical period for SLA?
hypothesis is generally supported by the literature.
The languages-specific effects in bilinguals, particularly as a result of three linguistic characteristics: • type of scripts: e.g. phonetic or ideographic • direction of scripts: e.g. from the left to right or vice versus • language mode: e.g. appositional or prepositional
– using holistic integrated mode of thought; – with ideographic scripts, like Chinese.
So far tupport for the directionality of scripts.