Seconda Language Learning Theoretical Foundations

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recommended for aid donors and projectmanagers. Holliday says that a certain amount of'impression management' and 'repression ofconflict-provoking findings' is important whileworking in expatriate settings: 'The meansanalysis might have to be a covert procedurebecause of the inevitability of cultural differencebetween the curriculum developer and localpersonnel' (p. 217). By this time I (as aperiphery professional) begin to feel as if I amlistening to a conversation in which I am not aparticipant; a conversation between centre-basedproject managers and scholars on how to trade inthe periphery in a gentlemanly but profitable way.If the book is primarily written for aid donors,project managers, and expatriate teachers,Holliday does achieve the purpose of educatingthem on the problems surrounding methodstransfer. But I wish he had had the theoreticalsophistication, historical awareness, andmethodological rigour to empower peripherylanguage teachers through this book as well.ReferencesAsad, T. (ed.) 1973. Anthropology and theColonial Encounter. New York: HumanitiesPress.Canagarajah, A. S. 1993. 'Critical ethnography ofa Sri Lankan classroom: ambiguities in opposi-tion to" reproduction through ESOL'. TESOL

Quarterly 27/4: 601-26.Frank, A. G. 1969. Latin America: Under develop-ment or Revolution. New York: MonthlyReview Press.Geertz, C. 1983. Local Knowledge: Further Essaysin Interpretive Anthropology. New York: BasicBooks.Peirce, B. N. 1989. 'Towards a pedagogy ofpossibility in teaching of English internation-ally'. TESOL Quarterly 23/3: 401-20.Pennycook, A. 1989. 'The concept of "method",interested knowledge, and the politics oflanguage teaching'. TESOL Quarterly 23/4,589-618.Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Wallerstein, I. 1991. Geopolitics and Geoculture.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Willis, P. 1978. Profane Cultures. London: Rout-ledge.A. Suresh Can agarajah , City U niversity of NewYork; University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.The reviewerA. Suresh Canagarajah was a senior lecturer inEnglish at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka,from 1984 to 1994. He pioneered a postgraduate

teacher training course there, and co-ordinated itfrom 1992. He joined the English Department ofthe City University of New York (BaruchCollege) in September 1994. He has publishedarticles in TESOL Quarterly, Language in Society,World E nglishes, and Multilingua, focusing on theethnography of ELT, codeswitching, and bilingu-alism. His PhD in applied linguistics from theUniversity of Texas, Austin, was granted in 1990for a sociolinguistic analysis of challenges inacademic writing for African-American students.

Second Language Learning:Theoretical FoundationsMichael Sharwood SmithLongman 1994 235 pp 12.99ISBN 0 582 218861The Study of Secon d LanguageAcquisitionRod EllisOxford University Press 1994 824 pp 19.00ISBN 0 19 437189 1Although these books share the same year ofpublication, cover some of the same ground, andare written for a similar readership, they are verydifferent in style and intent. Sharwood Smith, forinstance, explains syntactic development and thenotion of interlanguage from a cognitive andlargely linguistic viewpoint; Ellis presents acomprehensive overview of academic studies insecond language acquisition from a variety ofdisciplinary sourcestaxonomic, linguistic,psycho-linguistic, sociolinguistic, and herme-neutic. This review considers each book in turn,then compares them in terms of their approach,coverage, and style.Second Language Learning is structured in aroughly chronological fashion, with three mainsections: 'Towards theory' opens with a usefulgeneral introduction, followed by four chapterswhich describe the beginnings of second languageacquisition work, interlanguage, the creativeconstruction approach, and a discussion ofresearch methods used; 'Revisions andAlternatives' is divided into two chapters whichdescribe and critique developments in the 1970'sand early 1980's in variability theory, the Monitormodel, interlanguage theory, learnability theory,and other alternatives.'The Coming of Age' consists of four mainchapters, which present the most up-to-datework since the late 1980s on applications oflinguistics to the study of second languageacquisition: markedness theory, UniversalGrammar, and parameter setting; there is a final

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brief chapter on the implications and applicationsof the understanding gained. It is clear thatSharwood Smith's motivation in writing the bookwas to set out the emergent sophistication oftheory in explaining how people learn a secondlanguage. Chapters 6 and 7 are central to thesediscussions. They consider the shortcomings in,and counter-arguments to, interlanguage andcreative construction theory; some modernlinguistic theory is brought to bear in variousareas of application. These chapters form a kind ofpivot between the earlier part of the bookwhichis tied fairly closely to the work of Corder, Dulay,and Burt, Krashen, and Selinkerand Chapter 8,the longest in the book. This is about the waymodern work has used Universal Grammar as itsinspiration, relating it to learnability theory, thealternative ways in which a second languagelearner might have access to this biologically-stored information (the 'fossilized view', the'recreative view', and the 'resetting view'), andvarious problems that arise when invoking thispowerful but somewhat fluid body of theory toexplore and explain second language acquisition.The same chapter also tackles, with admirableclarity, the difficult issues of under-specificationand negative evidence.Sharwood Smith is not totally committed to anyone narrow theoretical position, and some of hismost interesting com ments concern the distinctionbetween the acquisition of knowledge and thecontrol of knowledge. These topics occurfrequently throughout the text, but receiveparticular attention in the last, shorter chapter.This considers implications and applications, andsummarizes, in relatively non-technical language,the arguments on knowledge, control,teachability, and modularity advanced in the restof the book. It is unfortunate that SharwoodSmith's only mention of a language teachingtechnique appears to resurrect the old argumentfor drillingthat it promotes greater control ofalready acquired knowledgerather than applythe powerful theoretical resources displayed to theanalysis of teacher feedback modes, classroomprocedural language, the deb ate concerning lessonstructure, present-day language testing practice, orany of the other current worries of thoseconcerned with the design of language pro-grammes. This reflects a seemingly deliberate,but regrettable, remoteness from today's languageclassroom.One of the best features of the author's style is hisimaginative use of illuminating analogiesbetween grammar and traffic rules (p.151), forexample, and between the language learner andthe bridge builder (p.149). Students who have

worked through the book have reported findingthese refreshingly clear. The readership for thebook is imagined to be teachers (whether oflanguages or applied linguistics is not clear),students, and full time researchers. The bookbegins with a useful summary of the issues to beexamined. There are ample study questions foreach chapter, and a full glossary of terms whichwill be helpful for students on MA orpostgraduate diploma courses. Chapter 4, onanalysing interlanguage, might be most useful tosomebody planning to carry out PhD research inthe area.The Study of Second Language Acqui-sitionnearly four times the length of theSharwood Smith book (but not four times theprice!)has remarkable breadth and depth ofcoverage. It is, however, far from being anannotated bibliography of all that's best insecond language acquisition. The author'sintention is to contribute a framework forconceptualizing the SLA field, and to use thatframework to present each pertinent area ofresearch in a comparable manner. Ellis'sintroduction spells out carefully who he iswriting forstudents of SLA research,researchers who need surveys of subfieldsoutside their specialism, and language teachers.With regard to the last, 'and probably principal'set of readers (p. 4), the author argues that theusefulness of his survey of SLA is to help themevaluate their own practice in two ways: indirectly,by helping them make their assumptions aboutlearning explicit, and directly, by providinginformation which they can use in pedagogicdecisions. The reader is given help in threefurther waysby the extensive signposting andframe-drawing comments, a thirty-nine pageglossary of technical terms, and notes andrecommendations for further reading at the endof each chapter. However, the reader is left aloneto work out how to maximize the use of the bookin the two ways Ellis suggests. As one mightexpect, though, in a book of this magnitude, theauthor discusses fairly several contrastingpositions in the debate concerning the relevanceof research to teaching and vice versaeven if thereader has to wait for this until the last three pagesof text (pp. 686-9).Ellis's organizational framework is an integral partof what he intends the book to contribute to thefield, and is presented at som e length. Each Part,usually comprising two or three long chapters, isintroduced by a description of the approach takenand its relation to the overall framework.Part On e, which consists of on e chap ter only, givesthe author's overview of SLA research, andReviews 83


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argues for the three-way division that is the key tothe book's structure: description of learnerlanguage, learner-external factors, and learner-internal factors. Part Two has four chap ters on thedescription of learner language; Part Three hastwo chapters on external factorssocial factor,and input and interaction; Part Four has threechapters on internal factorsthis is where centraltopics such as transfer, cognitive accounts, andlinguistic universal are discussed, and where thebook is most directly comparable to SharwoodSmith's; Part Five has two chapters on individualdifferences and learner strategies; and Part Six hastwo chapters on classroom interaction researchand formal instruction. The book is completed bya seventh Part consisting, like the first, of only onechapter, and by way of conclusion discusses data,theory, and applications.The book represents Ellis's second attempt at acom prehen sive account of this field, the first beingthe very successful Understanding SecondLanguage Acquisition (1985). The author's wishto perceive, or establish, coherence in theinternational research effort motivated theframework and the selection of content in both.However, neither title specifies its limitations,which raises the question of which criteria allowedsome work to be counted as 'study' and some not.Since studyis not the same as teaching, readersshould not expect to find discussions of syllabusdesign, testing, or teacher education programmes,nor reports of action research by teachers either;nor is study the same as policy, so programmedesigners should not seek evaluations of teachingmaterials, methods, programmes or studies ofprofessional topics. However, in the areas inwhich a reader may have specialist knowledge, itis evident that even 690 pages of text cannotencompass everything. For example, in discussingthe description of learner language, Part Twocarries excellent discussions of error analysis,developmental patterns, variability, andinterlanguage pragmatics, but nothing of thework on written language and written interaction(feedback) which has caused such a stir in theguise of 'process writing' (see, for example,several of the papers in Kroll 1990). It would bedifficult to upho ld the view that this research is notpart of the study of second language acquisition.For another example, Ellis treats learner andlearning strategies in two different sections:communication strategies and compensatorystrategies in Chapter 9, and learning strategies inChapter 12. The treatments in each case arecareful, critical, and objective, but there seems tobe no room for the important work on readingstrategiesat least as interesting as the work onvocabulary acquisition strategies, which is

describednor for the challenging work on test-taking strategies which threatens some of ourcherished beliefs abo ut test validity (see An derso net al. 1991). The point here is not that Ellis hasfailed to include some of this reader's favouritereferences, but that his choice of work forinclusion is more arbitrarily selective than we areled to expect from the title.One of Ellis's aims is to provide surveys of lessfamiliar areas for people working in the field. It isinstructive to look at how, in Chapter 9, he treats adifficult area of theorizing, 'Cognitive accounts ofsecond language acquisition'. Like many of thechapters, this on e open s with a general theoreticalframework, in which the author cross-relates hismain themes. He explains that cognitive accountsare primarily about knowledge as a basis for userather than the representation of linguisticknowledge per se, introducing the notion ofmastery. This leads to a discussion ofinterlanguage, Krashen's Monitor, explicit andimplicit knowledge, and the definition ofconsciousness, variability theories, andfunctionalist accounts (i.e. language behaviourtheories) such as Bates and MacWhinney'scompetition model, operating principles, skilllearning models, and strategic approaches,finishing with parallel distribu ted p rocessing.Each of these major areas of development isexplained and illustrated economically andclearly. All this in sixty-six pages illustrated withtables and summary blocks with further readingsuggestions. This general format is maintained inall the chapters; it is Ellis's major method forremaining 'objective', by which he means fair toall the positions adopted in the literature, not onlythose to which he is himself most attracted. It isalso the means through which the book remainsself-sufficient, that is, by not assum ing p riorknowledge of the various theories and researchtraditions surveyed.It would be wrong to give the impression that themajor content chapters are only concerned withcognitive theory or linguistics. The whole of PartSix is concerned with the classroom, at least as faras SLA research has touched this topic. Chapter13 in this section looks at classroom interactionand second language acquisition, and presents anexcellent and m any-sided summ ary of much of theimportant research in this area (except, asmentioned above, that stemming more from aneducational tradition). This chapter illustratesEllis's 'fairness' again in not taking sides on thethorny question of the relevance of quantitativeversus qualitative research, attempting torepresent the field as it stands, and usingmethods from both traditions. It also illustrates a

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tendency in this book and in Ellis (1985) tosummarize the products of many research papersin tables like his 'Classroom-based studies oflearner participation' (ibid.: 593), or 'Studiesinvestigating the effects of task variables on L2interaction' (ibid.: 597). This apparently usefulway of compressing information and presentingessentials is ultimately confusing, since the tablessimply present 'facts' baldly, and the enquiringreader has no means of assessing their status orvalidity. The same problem occurs in blocks ofsummarized generalizations, for instance 'Socialcontexts and potential L2 learning outcomes'(ibid.: 229). To some extent this problem isbound to occur where the reader has no accessto the original data and thus no way of assessingits quality. General summaries may besymptomatic of what the field of SLA aims for,but tho se concerned with implications for teachingwill look in vain for the specific interpretationswhich they need for action or change.Both of these books set out to write about secondlanguage acquisition and learning research andthe ideas that have been proposed to account forthe discoveries. They are not in directcompetition: Sharwood Smith has a limited brief,which is to present, explore, and critiquetheoretical conceptions and the motivations forthem, m ainly in the learning of gramm ar; Ellis hasa comprehensive intention, which is to locate allthe major trends in current research work withinan overall framework. There are dangers in bothapproaches. Sharwood Smith makes no attempt todiscuss work apparently outside the rather narrowlimitations of his brief, or to look for challenges oreven confirmatory triangulation in other researchtraditions. Ellis manages to present individualareas and the whole field remarkably coherentlywith an astonishing breadth of scholarship (thebibliography, in a smaller typeface than the maintext, runs to sixty-one pages), but somewhatmisses an opportunity that only this kind ofbook can provide, for comparing and contrastingwork and theories from very disparate sources andtraditions. However, perhaps that is the taskdare one say itof yet another book.ReferencesAnderson, NJ., L. Bachman, K. Perkins, and A.Cohen. 1991. 'An exploratory study into theconstruct validity of a reading comprehensiontest: triangulation of data sources'. LanguageTesting 8/1: 41-66 .Ellis, R. 1985 Understanding Second LanguageAcquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Kroll, B. (ed.). 1990. Second Language Writing:Research Insights for the Classroom. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Steven McDonough, Lecturer in AppliedLinguistics, Department of Language andLinguistics, University of EssexThe reviewerSteven McDonough teaches Applied Linguisticsat Essex. He has directed the MA in AppliedLinguistics and, recently, the MA in ELT, andcourses for teaching certificates and sponsoredgroups in the EFL Unit. He has published twobooks, Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching(Allen and Unwin 1981) and Strategy and Skill inLearning a Foreign Language (Arnold 1995) anda number of articles. He is mainly interested inhow people learn languages, the design ofteaching programmes and testing instruments,and in the possibilities of teachers researchingtheir own situations, the subject of a forthcomingco-authored book.

The ELT Manager's HandbookGraham Impey and Nic UnderhillHeinem ann 1994 184 pp 11.00ISBN 0 435 24090 0The introduction to this book planted the fear inmy mind that it was attempting to be all things toall people. The target readership appeared to berather too wide, ranging from those alreadyinvolved in management, to those who simplywant to know and understand more withoutnecessarily becoming directly involved, to thenew or aspiring managers in the middle of thisbroad church. As I read the book it became clearto me that while it may, in its presentation of onevariety of best practice, make existing managersfeel somewhat uncomfortable, it would provide acomforting 'how to' guide for those new tomanagement.The authors make it clear from the outset thatthey do not intend to use management jargonindeed, they aim passing swipes at the academicdiscipline of management, and prefer to rely upon'practical on the ground experience' (p. vii).Having made their disclaimer, however, itbecomes obvious that the book is in fact solidlyfounded upon traditional management principles,though these are rarely referred to. This isperhaps a pity for readers who might like tosupport this very practical guide with furtheracademic reading. The chapters of the bookaddress each of the traditional functions oroperations of management from an ELTperspective.After an introduction which lays out the principlesupon which the authors have based their advice,Reviews 85

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Seconda Language Learning Theoretical Foundations