Adult Second Language Acquisition in Negative Environments

7/24/2019 Adult Second Language Acquisition in Negative Environments

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Language Acquisition 1

Adult Second Language Acquisition

In Negative Environments

Robert A. Cote

November 9, 2004

PSYC 408

Dr. LouAnn Gerken


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Adult Second Language Acquisition

in Negative Environments

Gass and Selinker defined second language acquisition as learning a nonnative language in

an environment in which there is considerable access to speakers of the target language (2001, p. 5).

One of the most widely accepted theories of language acquisition is Krashens Monitor Model,

which contains several components or hypotheses, one being the Affective Filter. This theory,

according to Krashen (1985), focuses on the learners emotional state, which can act as a filter either

permitting or preventing input that is necessary for language acquisition (p. 7). This affective filter

includes factors such as ones motivation, attitude, self-confidence and anxiety (Gass and Selinker,

2001, p. 201). If the filter is up, explained Garcia and Hasson, input is minimized and acquisition

is blocked; if the filter is down, input enters freely, and acquisition is facilitated (1991, C-4). A

major aspect of this filter is that it is unique to adults. Gass and Selinker wrote:

According to Krashen, the Affective Filter is responsible for individual variation in second

language acquisition and differentiates child language acquisition from second language

acquisition because the Affective Filter is not something children have/use. (2001, p. 202)

This statement implies that adults, unlike children, have the ability to consciously acquire languages.

Though most research in support of this theory is intended for application to classroom

situations, low filter environments in unstructured natural settings would also aid in language

acquisition. Garcia and Hasson stated, a comfortable, nurturing environment is of the utmost

importance for promoting communication. A stress-free, low anxiety atmosphere will facilitate the

language acquisition process (1991, p. C-4). This distinction between classroom settings and the

real world is vital, as Pinker (1994) claimed that most learning takes place outside the classroom


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lessons, by generalizing from examples (p. 432). Krashen (2003) expanded this concept when he

declared ...adults, given enough comprehensible input and a reasonably low anxiety environment,

typically achieve very high levels of competency in second languages (p. 3). This indicates that

ones interactions with people who speak the target language as their first language plays a crucial

for the language learner. It is also believed that the more positive the relationship between the native

speakers and the learner, the more the target language will be learned. Richard-Amato (1997)

observed that attitudes towards self, the target language, and the people who speak it...all seem to

have an influence on acquisition (p. 58). The way the learner views those around them who speak

the target language will either promote or retard acquiring the language. In the words of Krashen

(2003), we acquire language...when we understand what people say to us and when we understand

what we need (p. 3). This sounds logical, but what if ones native tongue is far-removed from the

target language? Furthermore, what if the learning environment is so stressful that it is not conducive

to language acquisition? Is it still possible to acquire a second language merely by being enveloped

by it? This paper will present cases of successful adult second language acquisition under conditions

of extreme duress, a subject which has rarely, if ever, been explored.

It is widely believed that learning of any kind takes place best in pleasant surroundings by

persons with a positive attitude. These external and internal variables are part of what is known as

the affective domain. Richard-Amato (1997) wrote, The affective domain includes several variables

that can either enhance second-language acquisition or hinder it, depending on whether they are

positive or negative, the degree to which they are present, and the combinations in which we find

them (p. 58). This would lead one to believe that stress, anxiety and violence would make learning

a new language very difficult, if not impossible. Surprisingly, this is not always the case. There are


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adults who have acquired new languages under negative, even hostile, conditions. Unfortunately,

persons who have acquired languages while being prisoners of war, living under foreign occupation,

or being incarcerated in a foreign country rarely discuss their experiences from a linguistic angle. As

there has not been any formal study of such individuals, the author researched, contacted and

interviewed persons who experienced firsthand the difficulties of learning a new language under

highly negative conditions. It is imperative to note that these individuals evaluated their own levels

of target language competence, and they reported their experiences years after they acquired the

languages. Such self-reporting is controversial and labeled by Gass and Selinker as

questionablehighly unlikely to be an accurate reflection of effortand often colored by what

respondents assume is desired by the investigator (2001, p. 253). In an ideal situation,

independent observers who are fluent in both the subjects native language as well as the target

language would be required to conduct a longitudinal study to observe and record the target

language acquisition as it occurs. This would greatly increase the reliability of such a study.

Unfortunately, access to individuals who are experiencing language acquisition in such a manner is

very limited. Nonetheless, it will be shown that there are individuals who acquired languages as

adults in unsuitable learning situations, and their successes were rooted in a number of theories,

including immersion, motivation and acculturation.

Immersion Theory

Kiymazarslan (2003) defined immersion as a learning situation in which a learner is

expected to acquire a language and communicate in that language when he or she is surrounded by

the language...and hears nothing else (p. 6). This seems logical, but the theory was most likely

directed at students living and studying abroad, not adults living under foreign occupation or in


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prison. Nevertheless, being surrounded by speakers of the target language in any situation is

significant, as Baker & MacIntyre noted: The second language context provides constant visual and

auditory stimulation in the target language (2000, p. 312). This would support being able to learn a

language in almost any situation, as was the case of Kay Danes.

Danes was an administrative manager from Australia working in Laos to develop a private

security company when she was arrested for no apparent reason and sent to Phonthong prison in

Ventiane [Laos]. Though Danes spoke some Thai and Lao, she was by no means fluent in either

language. However, being forced to live in an environment where no one spoke English for almost a

year changed that. Without any formal classes, Danes improved her speaking and listening skills

dramatically and even became familiar with a third language, Hmong. This occurred as she spent

hour after hour, day after day, interacting with target language speakers. Danes said, Most of my

closest friends in the prison were either Thai origin or Lao/Hmong. They did not speak English, so

we mostly conversed in Lao language (personal communication, October 10, 2003). Simply hearing

the target languages continuously may not have been the only factor aiding Danes in her language

acquisition. The rapport she developed with her fellow prisoners may have also played an important

role, as Richard-Amato suggested: ...peers can promote a lowered-level of anxiety by providing a

sort of surrogate family to serve as a buffer until independence is reached (1997, p. 63). Danes also

improved her Lao over time because the primary language of the prison guards was Lao and she

had to understand them quickly in order to follow the regulations (personal communication, Oct.

10, 2003). This would seem likely, as Krashen (1981) believed, ...informal environments must be

intensive and involve the learner directly in order to be effective (p. 47). Danes was directly

involved in the conversations of her cellmates and with the prison guards. Though Danes was


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incarcerated for only one year, she claims to have improved her language skills significantly. When

asked about the language abilities of other foreign prisoners, she sadly commented, There were

foreigners in Phonthong that could speak the Lao language fluently because they had been there for

so long (Danes, personal communication, Oct. 10, 2003).

Warren Fellows, another Australian who spent an incredible eleven years in various prisons

in Thailand, reported that his ability to communicate in Thai developed rapidly. He had no one to

talk to, so in his first few months incarcerated, ho forced himself to learn the local language. Fellows

reported, During the many long days sitting in the crowded yard of Maha Chai prison, I did my best

to try to converse with as many Thais as possible, learning a phrase here and there (1998, p. 76). He

described the Thai language as complex, being incredibly descriptive and they explain everything

through imagery and symbolism (Fellows, 1998, p.76) This means the Thais used a great deal of

vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in their everyday speech. Regardless, in less than one year,

Fellows had a reasonable grasp of their language (1998, p. 9) and was able to tell jokes in Thai to

the amusement of the other prisoners. Every language educator as well as language student knows

that being able to tell and understand jokes in a foreign language is a clear indication of oral/aural

fluency. Within three years, Fellows knew enough Thai that he rarely needed the help of a translator

at his court hearings. At one of his hearings, he reported that I understood quite a bit of the Thai

language, so I basically knew what was being said (Fellows, 1998, p. 114). The most amazing

aspect of Fellows language development was that by his fifth year in prison, guards were utilizing

him to serve as a Thai to English translator for newly arrived English-speaking prisoners. One time,

after witnessing the brutal beating of another prisoner, Fellows reported the following incident:

On this same day, the head of security, a man called Sucha, called me over to help


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him.

A foreign prisoner had just been visited by a representative from his embassy, and

Sucha wanted me to translate a message to this prisoner. (1998. p. 125)

This statement reveals that the native Thai speakers felt Fellows had reached the point of

communicative fluency, accomplished without ever having seen a Thai language textbook or sitting

in a classroom.

Instrumental Motivation

Gardner wrote that persons who acquire languages through instrumental motivation are

seeking a goal that doesnt seem to involve any identification or feeling of closeness with the

other language group, but instead focus on a more practical purpose [that] learning the language

would serve for the individual (2001, p. 10). Such motivation would be exaggerated in situations

where ones survival is the ultimate goal. Deci and Ryan believed intrinsic motivation is related to

basic human needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Intrinsic motivation activities are

those that the learner engages in for their own sake because of their value, interest and challenge (as

cited in Walqui, 2000, p. 4). In prison, the target language was the key to survival. It was important

for Danes to learn Lao not only for her own welfare, but for those with whom she lived. Danes

wrote:

If you wanted to survive, or to be understood, you had to submerge yourself fully

into the culture and language or you would never understand fully what was

expected of you, how to follow the regulations...how to negotiate with the guards in

order to attempt to build a rapport so that they would not look on you so

dishonorably, how to shout out to the police at night when another prisoner was


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dying. (personal communication, Oct. 10, 2003)

Learning another language in prison ensured the ultimate goal, extending human life. Fellows

concurred with this notion of the importance of learning the target language to be accepted in order

to make it through each day. He wrote, To win the trust and respect of the Thai prisoners, I had to

learn their language as best I could (1998, p. 76). In both cases, the desire to survive provided the

motivation needed to learn a new language. This is further supported by Baker and MacIntyres

belief that motivation is the driving force that initiates learning in the first place and sustains

learning when the situation becomes difficult (2000, p. 317). Danes and Fellows situations clearly

support this assumption.

Living in prison is not the only situation that motivates persons to learn a language. Miriam

W. was 17 when the Russian army liberated her small town in eastern Poland from the Germans in

1944. To make money to survive, her mother would bake cakes and bread and send Miriam into the

streets to sell the food to the Russian soldiers from 6 a.m. until evening. Miriam stated, It only took

me seven months to become very good at speaking Russian. When you deal with soldiers all day

every day selling and arguing, you learn fast (personal communication, October 31, 2003). Miriam

realized that learning to communicate in Russian would have positive effects on her life. Norris-Holt

described Miriams experience perfectly when she wrote, Instrumental motivation underlies the

goal to gain some social or economic reward through L2 achievement, thus referring to a more

functional reason for language learning (2001, p. 1).

Such situations could be considered language learning by force, not simply motivation.

Silverstein reported the following story about an African-American miner who became fluent in

Serbian:


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Publisher William Jovanovich, in his 1998 biography, tells of how as a young boy

he was surprised to see his Tata [Papa] launch into a conversation in Serbian with

an elderly black man in Denver. Jovanovichs Tata explained that the black man

had worked with us Montenegrins in a coal mine...and nobody spoke English. He

learned our language in self-defense. (1999, p. 1)

Perhaps Krashens beliefs that language learning best occurs with low affective filter may

not be applicable when the environment is so hostile that the filter has little if any effect on

language acquisition.

Acculturation

Another influential force driving Danes and Fellows language acquisition was the need to

socialize with other prisoners. Second language learners, wrote Stauble, will succeed to the

degree that they acculturate to the target language group if no formal instruction is attempted (as

cited in Richard-Amato, 1997, p. 63). Danes mentioned that most of her closest friends were Thai,

Lao or Hmong, and Fellows told jokes to his fellow Thai prisoners in their language. This shows that

the two became an integral part of the larger non-English speaking prison population. Both

developed a feeling of community and belonging with members of the target language. This is

probably the most important factor in their language acquisition. Baker and MacIntyre wrote

integrativeness is described as a positive temperament toward the target language group and the

desire to interact with members of that community (2000, p .318). Both prisoners demonstrated this

behavior. Additionally, Baker and MacIntyre determined that mastery of a second language

involves, to some degree, taking on the identity and culture of the target language (2000, p. 318).

Danes felt she reached the point where she was no longer an English- speaking Australian. By the


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end of the year spent inside Ponthong prison, she stated, I had almost forgotten how to speak

English because my mind was undergoing some changes. Basically I think I was losing my national

identity (personal communication, Oct. 10, 2003). This seems difficult to comprehend. How could a

person who had spent more than 30 years of her life speaking one language claim that within 12

months of being incarcerated, she was not only forgetting her native language, but the cultural

identity associated with it as well? According to Gardiner, this is a possibility in extreme cases

where integrativeness involves complete identification with the community and possibly even

withdrawal from ones own group (2001, p. 12). Thorne attributed such behavior to ones belief

that the language of the speakers in the environment is considered far more important than the native

language for socialization reasons. In reality, the second language begins to replace the first. Thorne

reported, The entailments of a sociocultural theory approach foreground sociality to individuality,

language as socially constructed rather than internally intrinsic (2000, p. 219). Simply stated, the

languages of the people in Danes and Fellows surroundings were more important to them than their

native language.

Towards the end of her incarceration, Danes felt so comfortable interacting with the other

prisoners in their native languages that listening to and speaking Thai and Lao became second

nature. She no longer believed that these new languages were not her own. Danes explained that at

times, she did not even realize she was communicating in the target languages. She wrote:

Actually in the prison, it was quite bizarre. I would sit and listen to the women

speaking in Lao and Thai and I could understand the gist of what they were saying

even though I couldnt understand all. It became uncanny...that they would be talking

and I would interject with a comment...like in affirmation...or yeah, and what about


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this? The women would look at me and pause for a moment and then laugh and

say...you turning into Lao people now, Kay. (personal communication, Oct. 10,

2003)

Pinker further supported Danes experiences when he stated, a second reason for language to be

partly learned is that language inherently involves sharing a code with other people. An innate

grammar is useless if you are the only one possessing it (1994, p. 244). Had Danes and Fellows not

learned the target languages, they would have been extremely lonely.

Conclusion

Various cases of adults acquiring second languages under extremely unpleasant conditions

have been presented. In all situations, target languages were learned without ever seeing a textbook,

memorizing a grammar rule or being told how to pronounce the language. Pinker attributed such

language success to innateness. He commented that knowing about the ubiquity of complex

language across individuals and cultures and the single mental design underlying them all, no speech

seems foreign to me, even when I cannot understand a word (1994, 448). This may be true, but he

may never have considered acquiring a language under the conditions endured by Danes and

Fellows. When asked why she thought she was able to learn Thai, Lao and some Hmong, Danes

sadly wrote the following:

You see, when we have everything stripped away from us, then we must look at

ways by which we can survive. Our right to speak and think are sometimes the only

things we have left. We soon learn that the differences in our cultures and languages

are not so important after all, and that we must all work hard to bridge the gap that

these differences create to find a common ground where we can communicate in


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whatever language in order to be understood. This is the essence of our survival.

(Personal communication, Oct. 7, 2003)

Perhaps this is the key to language learning which, unfortunately, no classroom can provide.

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Adult Second Language Acquisition in Negative Environments