Social Aspects of Interlanguage Second Language Acquisition

SLA 1

112/04/19 SLA 2

Approaches

Social Styles

112/04/19 4

Style continuum

112/04/19 SLA 7

Example Japanese pronouncing /z/ in ‘zoo’ and

‘church’. Reading lists of isolated words = more

accurate Free speech = least accurate

112/04/19 SLA 8

Advantages Explain the variability of learner

language

112/04/19 SLA 9

Problems Learners are not always most accurate

in the careful style If you emphasize

The role of social factors remains unclear Social groups are involved among native

speakers. The concept ‘social group’ is not

necessarily applicable to L2 classrooms.

112/04/19 SLA 10

Accommodation theory How a learner’s social group influences

the course of L2 acquisition When people interact with each other,

they either try to make their speech similar to

that of their addressee in order to emphasize social cohesiveness (convergence) or

to make it different in order to emphasize their social distinctiveness (divergence)

Convergence L2 learners are motivated to speak like an

L2 native speaker. Positive learning takes place.

Divergence Learners want to maintain their own

social group. Less learning takes place.

Accommodation theory in L2 acquisition

John Shumann (1978)

Acculturation Model

112/04/19 SLA 13

Acculturation model Acculturation: the process of becoming

adapted to a new culture (Brown, 1980) An L2 learner’s individual experience of

contact with the culture of the target language

Better experience of acculturation = better L2 acquisition

10-month study of untutored acquisition of English by 6 native speakers of Spanish.

Interested in development sequences in negative formation, question formation, and so on.

Alberto did not progress. • Intelligence – IQ test indicated no problem• Age – but other adult learners were progressing• Pidginization – restriction to communication

Shumann’s study

What is the difference between a Pidgin language and a Creole language?

Creoles are spoken as a first language by children of Pidgin speakers.

Some evidence that BVE is a creole language (from Gullah), English and W. African languages.

What is a Pidgin language? A language developed by speakers of distinct languages who

come in contact with one another and share no common language.

Pidgins are usually based on a dominant language (English, French, Dutch, Russian), but contain relatively more / less lexical / syntactic items from other languages.

Venues: trade, plantation

Examples: Sabir (Mediterranean); Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea);

Hawaiian Pidgin English

Schumann noticed that Alberto’s speech was characterized by pidgin-like features, and he asked, Why? His hypothesis (the pidginization hypothesis):

“the speech of the SL learner will be restricted to the communication function if the learner is socially and / or psychologically distant from the speakers of the target language” (Schumann. [1976]. Second language acquisition: The pidginization hypothesis. Language Learning, 26, 391-408).

Schumann’s hypothesis:

112/04/19 SLA 18

What’s behind the Acculturation model The extent to which learners

acculturate depends on: Social distance: the extent to which

learners become members of the target-language group and achieve contact with them.

Psychological distance: the extent to which learners are comfortable with the learning task and constitutes a personal rather than a group dimension.

112/04/19 SLA 19

Acculturation theory (4) Problems

difficulty of measuring acculturation presuppose that social factors have a

direct effect on L2 acquisition. Social factors are not static.