Florence+Myles

Florence Myles

French second language acquisition research: setting the scene. Cambridge University Press

Introduction Research into second language acquisition has come up with two main findings:
 * 1) Second language acquisition is highly systematic
 * 2) SLA is highly variable ( different levels of proficiency reached by learners);.

This reflect the highly complex and multi-faceted nature of L2 acquisition, and reflects to different aspects of the acquisition. Systematicity refers to what has been called the **route** of development ( nature and sequence of the stages all learners go through). This route is independent of both the learner's mother tongue and the context of learning. Variability refers to either the **rate** of the learning process ( the speed) or the **outcome** of the learning process ( how proficient learners become) .Speed of learning and range of outcomes are highly variable from learner to learner. The route of development is not completely free of variation.

2. SLA FINDINGD 2.1 Systematicity.

A defining moment for the field was in the 1970s, when it became evident that L2 learners follow a rigid develpoment route, similar in many ways to the route followed by children learning their L1. Brown and his collegues, (1973) found that children acquired fourteen grammatical morphemes in English in the same order. This work has been the starting point of studies investigating the acquisition of the same morphemes in the context of second language acquisition. It was found that L2 learners acquire these morphemes in similar orders, irrespective of their L1. Moreover, not only do children, and L2 learners, acquire grammatical morphemes in a fixed order, but they also follow fairly rigid stages during the acquisition of a range of syntactic structures. In the case of French, Myles et al (1999) showed that English learners of French go through the following early stages in their acquisition of interrogatives: By the end of the study, learners still did not use the inversion to mark questions in French, resorting exclusively to intonation to do so?
 * 1) A" verb-less" stage: je grand maison?
 * 2) An "infinitive verb" stage:la mère regarder la maison?
 * 3) A "finite verb" stage, where verbs are marked morphologically: la mère regarde euh lire euh la petite frère et soeur euh pêchent?

The developmental route learners follow can be represented as a series of interlocking linguistic systems ( or interlanguage) sometimes bearing little ressemble to either the L1 of the learner, or the L2 being learnt. These interlanguages are linguistic systems in their own right, with their own set of rules. Hernandez-Chavez (1972) showed that although the plural is realised in almost exactly the same way in Spanish and in English, Spanish children learning English still went through a phase of omittin plural marking.It has been assumed prior to this that second language learner's production were a mixture of both L1 and L2, with the L1 helping or hindering the process.This was clearly shown not to be the case, the L1 of learners does play some role at the level of pronunciation.

The finding that learners follow develpmental routes which are independent of both L1 and L2 had important implications for the field as a whole. It led to the demise of Constrastice Analysis, which aimed to compare pairs of languages in order to predict difficulty ( what was different would be difficult and would therefore need to be taught explicitely, and what was similar would be easy to learn).

2.2 Variability

2.2.1 Variability in route. Despite the relative rigidity of the L2 learning route, it would be misleading to suggest that there is no inter or intra-leaner variability in SLA. L2 productions are not as stable as native production. The findings document led to a re-evaluation of the role of the L1 in SLA, which went from being the main culprit for all errors to being a source of hypotheses among others, the transfer of L1 properties does play a role in L2 learning. This role is not exclusively one of either speeding up the learning process in the case they are closely related languages or similar linguistic structures. Some errors can be traced to specific first languages and are indicative of specific L1 communities ( pronunciation but not exclusively, an English learner of French saying : je suis 11 ans).

The main role of L1: facilitor or inhibitor of the learning process. Learners from different L1s will tend to follow the same developmental patterns, but move along the continuum more or less quickly depending on their L1. For example, Italien learners of French will acquire the idiosyncratic placement of object pronouns in French more quickly than the English learners, because it is similar in both languages, but they still will go through the same stages,transferring their L1 structure would lead to the acquisition of the correct system. But both learners will go through the following stages: But whereas English learners will take some time to acquire this structure in French L2, Italien learners will be quicker, leading to variability across sets of learners: some learners who seem to be developmentally at a similar stage will be more or less advanced on given structures. Plus, there is ample evidence in the literature not only of transfer not taking place when it would help, but also of transfer taking place one way and not the other. English learners of French go through a stage producing : //la souris mange le// rather than //la souris le mange// ( which could be attribuate to transfer). French learners of English never produce //the mouse it eats// in their interlanguage, which one would expect if transfer was taking place. There are also areas in which the L1 gives rise o structures not found in the language of the other L2 learners ( Odlin, 1989). The impact of the L1 on interlanguage development needs to be better understood, even if it is potential influence on SLA remains limited, since only a small subsection of structures from the L1 are likely candidates for transfer.
 * 1) Pronoun place after the verb: le chat mange la
 * 2) Omitting the pronoun: le chat mange la
 * 3) Correct placement: le chat la mange.

Another source of apparent variability in the productions of the L2 learners, especially in early stages, is their reliance on unanalysed chunks. Before learners have generated the grammar necessary for producing target L2 structures, they tend to rely on a databank of set phrases and routines they have learned, and which they have not analysed yet into their constituents. For example: //comment t'appelles-tu?// These structures are more complex than the language produced by learners, this will give rise to apparently variable language. With time, these chunks become analysed and feed into the construction of the grammar of learners ( Myles et al., 1998;1999.)

2.2.2 Variability in rate and outcome. The rate of acquisition and the outcome of the acquisition process are highly variable, unlike L1 acquisition which children seem to progress at roughly similar rates all becoming native speakers of the language they are exposed. It is dufficult to predict in SLA what makes some people learn faster and better than other. Some factors have been isoleted as playing some part in this. For example, age is one such factor (Singleton and Lengel, 1995). Commonly view held that children are better L2 learners is a gross oversimplification, if not a complete myth, differences have been found between children and adults in term of outcome. Although teenagers and adults have been found to be better and faster L2 learners than young children in the initial stage of the process, children carry on progressing until they become indistinguishable from native speakers, whereas adults do not. Whether this is due to the process of acquisition having changed fundamentally in aduthood, or for other reasons( the process remains the same but stops short of native competence), is an issue hotly debated today. In order to explain variability in rate and outcome, SLA researchers have focused primarily on the role of external factors in the acquisition process. On line of research inquiry has addressed questions about the nature of the input and the role of interaction in the learning process. Other lines of inquiry have investigated the role of learner variables, such as intelligence, aptitude, phonological memory, motivation, attitude, as well as the social and sociolinguistic variables which impact on them. These variables have been found to play an important role in determining how successful learners are. For example, recent motivation research has witnessed something of a boom since the 1990s, with research questions becoming more sophisticated and addressing more diectly language teaching issues. Motivation is now seen as situation-dependent as well as a relatively stable learner trait. Some works have been done investigating issues such as the role of tasks in motivating learners, the role of the teacher in motivating learners, or the role of learning strategies in enhancing motivation ( Dorneyei, 2001;2002). However, the reason why even well-motivated adults, with abundant exposure to the L2, still fall short of native competence ( referred to as fossilisation), remain poorly understood. In particular, why some structures seem very difficult to acquire in the L2, even when there is plenty of input,is unclear. In immersion programmes in Canana, in which English-speanking children are taught the normal curriculum through French and therefore exposed to a large amounts of input within communicative focus, end results have been mixed. Although these children become very proficient and fluent in French, their accuracy in some areas( gender, adverb placement..) remains far from the native-like, suggesting that some aspects of the language resist spontaneous acquisition (Harley, 1992)

To conclude: important to stress that the similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition have been an important source of thearising in SLA.If the processes are similar, the explanations which are put forward to explain L1 acquisition could well apply to the L2 acquisition as well. If they are different, researchers need to explain those differences.

Similarities: Differences:
 * learners go through well-defined stages when acquiring the L1/L2
 * these stages are similar across learners
 * L2 learners are highly variable in speed of acquisition and ultimate attainment
 * there is transfer of some L1 properties
 * L2 learners do not usually become native-like, especially in some areas of grammar or language use( pronuncaition)

3 THEORETICAL PARADIGMS.

Theoretical approaches are classified into two groups:
 * 1) approaches which aims to explain the nature of the L2 linguistic system (in terms of what is similar across L1 and L2 and what is different. These are referred to as **property theories**)
 * 2) approaches which focus on the develpment of the learner system and what has an impact upon it ( **transition theories**)

Researchers have focused on learner-internal mechanisms (linguistic or cognitive), or on learner-external factors (e.g. the role of the input, social factors..) It is important to be clear about which aspect of the language specific approaches are investigating: is it the development of morphology, syntax, phonology or of sociolinguistic competence or fluency? Until now, the focus has been on morphosyntactic development, although this is starting to change.

The second part of the article turns to a brief presentation of the main theoretical paradigms used in the field.

3.1 The nature of the L2 linguistic system The approach which has contributed the most to our understanding of the L2 linguistic system has been Universal Grammar (UG). The UG approaches applies the Chomskyan paradigm to the study of L2 development. The linguistic theory claims that human inherit a mental language facultty which highly constrains the shape that human languages can take and therefore severely limits the kind of hypotheses that children can entertain regarding the structure of the language they are exposed to. UG contains universal principles which specify the invariant features of human languages ( all human languages are hierarchically structured in a similar ways) and parameters which specify the limited amount of variation which is allowed from language to language. This is why children acquire their first language easily and speedily, in spite of its complexity and abstractness, at an age when they are not cognitively equipped to deal with abstract concepts. If the L2 develpomental route is similar in many respects to the L1 route, then it must be because the innate UG contrains L2 development. The L2 situation is complicated by the fact that learners have already set parameters in the context of their L1. Question: can learners reset parameters to the L2 setting when it differs from their L1, or not? This approache has given rise to a wealth of studies ( Cook and Newson, 1996; Flynn et al., 1998...) Some researchers claim that L2 learners can reset parameters and others not. Researchers generally agree that L2 learners do not produce" wild-grammar" ( grammars which violate UG). L2 acquisition seems to be UG-constrained, but access to parametric options may be unlike L1 acquisition.

The UG approach has been very influential, and has helped in the understanding of the L2 linguistic system, by providing a sophisticated analytical tool, as well as specific hypotheses about the nature of interlanguages. Hawkins presents a UG analysis of Frenc L2 development.

3.2 The development of processing. Processing approaches investigate how second languages learners process linguistic information, and how their ability to process the L2 develops over time. They might or might not believe that language is a separate innate module. Cognitive theorists fall into two main groups:
 * 1) The theorists who believe that language knowledge might be "special" in some way, but whi are concerned to develop transition/processing theories to complement UG ( Towell and Hawkins)
 * 2) Theorists such as MacWhinney (1999), Ellis (2003), Tomasello (2003) who do not think that the separation between property and transition theories is legitimate., as they believe you can explain both the nature of language knowledge and the development of processing through general cognitive principles.They refute the need to posit an innate, language specific, acquisition device. Learning is seen as the analysis of patterns in language input, and language develpoment is seen as resulting from the billions of associations which are made during language use. Constructivist believe that the complexity of language emerges from associative learning processrs being exposed to a massive and complex environment.

Cognitive and information processing models claim that language learning is no different from other types of learning, and is the result of the human brain building up networks of associations on the basis of input. Recently, connectionist models have further assumed that all learning takes place through the building of patterns which become strengthened through practice ( Ellis, N. 2003). The view of language encapsulated within connectionism is fundamentally different from languistic models, where language is seen as a system of rules rather than as patterned behaviour Pienemann's Processability Theory (1998. 2003) aims to clarify how learners acquire the computational mechanism which operate on the linguistic knowledge they construct. Pienemann believes that language acquisition itself is the gradual acquisition of these computantional mechanisms. It is limitations in the processing skills at the disposal of learners in the early stages of learning which prevent them from attending to some aspects of the L2.The processing challenge facing learners within this framework, is that they must learn to exchange grammatical information across elements of a sentence. Initially,learners are only able to exchange grammatical information locally, and gradually extend the domain they can operate in, from the level of the word to exchange across phrases and sentences. In both, UG and cognitive models, the focus is on explaining learner-internal mechanisms, and how they interact with the input in order to give rise to learning. Linguistic models focus on the nature of the linguistic system,. Cognitive models are primarily concerned with the computational mechanisms involved in language development. The emphasis placed on the role played by the input also varies, with the UG approach assuming that, as long as input is present, learning will take place, and the other models placing a larger burden on how the input is decoded by learners, paying particular attention to concepts such as noticing or attention.

3.3 Functional/pragmatic approaches. Rather than making the formal linguistic system their own starting point, researchers are concerned with the ways in which L2 learners set about making meaning and achieving their personal communicative goals. They argue that interlanguage forms produced by second language learners cannot be sensibly interpreted unless we pay attention also to the speech acts which learners are seeking to perform, and to the ways they exploit the immediate social,physical and discourse context to help them make meaning. These meaning-making efforts on the part of the learner are a driving force ongoing second language development, which interact with the development of formal grammatical systems.

European Science Fondation ( 6 years study of the acquisition of five different languages by adult immigrants in Europe) Klein and Perdue argue that through a functional analysis, 3 developmental levels in the basic organisation of learners' utterances could be identified:
 * 1) Nominal utterance organistion: unconnected nouns, adverbs and particles.
 * 2) Infinite utterance organisation: verbs take on their structuring role in sentences, but they remain untensed at this stage;
 * 3) Finite utterance organisation: a distinction between finite and non-finite verbs is now made; not all learners in their study reached this stage.

3.4 The role of the input/output. The interactionist approach has paid particular attention to the nature of the interactions L2 learners typically engage in. It has focused on investigating, for example, the role of negotiation for meaning in the context of Native speaker and none-native speaker conversations, in order to see how interactions are modified by both to ensure that the input the latter receive is comprehensible. Swain ( 1995) argues that comprehensible is not sufficient for grammatical development to fully takes place; learners also have to produce language in order to acquire grammatical rules. The role of feedback given to the learners whan they make mistakes has also been the object of attention. Lyster and Ranta (1997) found that the most common feedback given to learners when they produce incorrect forms are recasts,i.e. a repetion of the learner's utterance minus the error; however, they also find that recats were the kind of negative feedback learners were most likely to ignore. Researches about what kind of instruction is most helpful.For example, the role of constructs such as attention, noticing and focuson form have been used in order to better understand the role of instruction. Norris and Ortega (2000;2001) conclude that explicit form -focused instruction is effective in promoting learning. The object of most of these studies is to test what kind of instruction is most effective, explicit input or implicit input. This research is crucial fir gaining a better understanding of the relationship between teaching and learning. Recently, theorical models of the way in which the input is processed by second language learners have been proposed. VanPatten (1996;2002) has developed Input Precessing Theory, which offers a set of principles underlying the way in which learners process the linguistic input. They are said to prefer semantic processing over morphological processing. For example: l'année dernière, j'allais au cinéma tous les mardis, there is no need to process the -ais inflection as reference to the past is already indicated by l'année dernière. Carroll (2000) offers a much more complete and ambitious model of how learners process the input, known as Autonomous Induction Theory.

3.5 Sociocultural and sociolinguistic approaches Researchers adopting a socio-cultural framework, following Vygotsky, who believed that all learning was essentially social, have explored the way in which L2s are learned through a process of co-construction between "experts" and "novices". Language learning is seen through the appropriation of a tool through thr shift from inter-mental to intra-mental processes. Learners first need the help of experts in order to 'scaffold' them into the next developmental stages before they can appropriate the newly acquired knowledge. Interaction plays a central role, not as a source of input, but as a sharper of development. Sociocultural theory has given rise to many studies which have investigated a range of learner activity including private speech, interaction during problem solving, form focused tasks, scaffolding... The Vygotskian approach has been warmly received by educators, who view it as an exciting alternative for the renewal of classroom practise. Its contributions to our understanding of L2 learning remains local and individual and it lacks a clear view of the nature of the language system and of its role in learning. Sociolinguistic'work has focused in two areas. The first concerned with the quantitative study of variability in second language use. How learners acquired (or not ) the varied sociolinguistics registers typical of native varieties. Additionally, sociolinguists have given account of internal learner variability ( linguistic context, linguistic markedness). External factors and their impact on learner variability have also been studied ( gender-based variation). Sociolinguistic factors have been shown to play an important role, especially as learners become more advanced. The L2 ethographers engaged in this work, like the sociocultural theorists, believe that language learning is socially constructed through interaction. But whereas sociocultural theorists pay great attention to the linguistic detail of expert/novive intraction, L2 ethnographers adopt a more "macro" approach to studying the learning context and learners' social engagement with it, and how these factors can speed up the learning process. They have been concerned with analying learners' changing identities as they engage with the L2 learning process, seeing constructs such as self-esteem, motivation... as changeable during the course of L2 interaction. Sociolinguistic approaches have been influential in helping us understand learner variabiliy and its many dimension.

4 Conclusion

Even if one accepts the view that language development is highly constrained, for example by the UG, it is not the whole picture. We also need to understand many aspects of the SLA process other than the acquisition of syntax and morphology. Moreover, if developmental sequences show how leraners construct the L2 linguistic system, they do not tell us anything about how learners develop their ability to access in real time the system they have constructed. We still need to understand how learners acquire the computational mechanism necessary to use them. The fact that thes two endeavours are independent is clearly evident when we think of learners who are good system builders, they are accurate in their productions, but not necessarily good at accessing this system in real time, they are very non-fluent. The reverse is also true, with some learners developing high levels of fluency quickly, but remaining very innacurate in theit productions. Similarly, if we are to find what can facilitate the learning process, we need to gain a mich better uderstanding of the kinds of interactions and social setting which promote learners development. Swain ( 1995) in her " pushed output hypothesis" argues that it is when learner's own production fail to meet their communicatives goals that they are forced to revise their linguistic system.