Developing First and Second Language Ability: Acquisition and Learning

Developing First and Second Language Ability:  Acquisition and Learning

Christopher Stern

Acquiring one’s mother tongue differs distinctly from learning a ‘foreign’ or ‘second’ language in multiple aspects.  In this paper I will discuss some possible explanations for these differences.  First, I will look at the activation of Universal Grammar as the creation of certain linguistic pathways, which in the process obscures others, as evidenced in L1 interference.  Next, I will examine psychological and age-related factors.  Finally, I will provide differing definitions of ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning,’ arguing that both processes are necessary in gaining proficiency in L2.

Becoming a speaker of one’s mother-tongue is the first activation of UG.  Is it possible, that as with gene activity, linguistic experiences can ‘turn on’ or ‘turn off’ ‘switches’ thus making subsequent learning more difficult?  Robert Sapolsky, in examining the ‘nature vs. nurture debate’ in biology, observes that “noncoding DNA does something interesting indeed.  It’s the instruction manual for how and when to activate those [coding] genes. . . . And what regulates this genetic activity?  Often the environment.”  (Sapolsky, p. 20)  Similarly, perhaps it is our L1 environment, which activates aspects of UG, turning on certain linguistic pathways, and in doing so, turning off others.

L1 interference may be seen as a manifestation of this.  It almost always appears where the L2 structure is a more complex solution than the equivalent L1 structure.  Some examples include:  (Thai L1 to English) verb conjugation and tenses, and singular and plural differentiation, which cause problems for Thai learners; and (English L1 to Thai) the numeration system, using a simple counting method (English), or classifiers (Thai), which causes difficulty to learners of Thai whose first language is English.  This would seem to indicate that our UG exists as an only partially formed system which is then specifically informed by the acquisition of L1.  Subsequently, any arena within a certain L2 in which matters are comparatively complicated will typically produce L1 interference, unless the L1 is equally complicated in a similar way.

In relation to the four “logical possibilities” concerning innate mechanisms of UG as proposed by Mitchell and Myles, I would come closest to agreeing with the first, “that they continue to operate during second language learning, and make key aspects of second language learning possible,” but would disagree with the final clause here “in the same way that they make first language learning possible.”  (Mitchell, R. and Myles, F.)  I contend that these mechanisms, having already been activated by acquisition of an L1, are to varying degrees, depending on various factors, compromised.  They continue to make second language learning possible, but not in the same way.   More specifically, during adult acquisition of an L2, our capacity to notice has been compromised by our expectations of how a language and its grammar function, which have been acquired in the process of our L1 acquisition.  Because L1 is acquired prior to any other linguistic stimuli, acquisition proceeds without the filter or any specific linguistic expectations or paradigms.  But, because a specific linguistic paradigm (as differentiated from UG) already exists in the mind of the L2 learner, the L2 has to be learned as well as acquired.  Unlike the L1, except for the rare individual who can approach her observation without any expectations, it cannot simply be acquired.

In regards to a phonetic system, this position appears to be consolidated by Bavin’s observations.  He notes that early childhood acquisition of L1 begins with “The ability to discriminate other sounds, specific to the language of their environment” and “develops as they gain more experience with that language.  Conversely, the ability to discriminate the earlier sounds weakens if these sounds are not part of the language being acquired.”  (Bavin, E. L., 3)

Additionally, there are differences in the fundamental nature of L1 and L2 acquisition related to psychological development. Mother-tongue acquisition is our first experience of attaining a means towards self-expression, identity formation, socialization, and the ability to nominalize, and thus, to some degree, create, our reality.  After this has been achieved once, at huge caloric expense, the motivation to achieve it again is far less likely to be as strong as in the first instance.  To provide a parallel example from an academic standpoint, if you have worked hard to earn a post-graduate degree in a particular field, you will then utilize that degree to further your career, rather than pursuing an additional degree in an unrelated field.  It is the rare individual who accumulates degrees only for the sake of doing so.  In regards to the factor of motivation, it is interesting to note that in Nikolov’s study, the most successful L2 speakers “have a very strong intrinsic motivation to become bona fide residents of the target language society” and “try to feel at home in the culture as well as in the language.”(Nikolov, 5)

Even more crucial is the fact that the L1 and L2 learner develop their abilities at different ages,  and consequently during differing stages of brain development, activity and function.  Steven Pinker, writing about the most crucial years for L1 acquisition in The Language Instinct, states:

Synapses continue to develop, peaking in number between nine months and two years (depending on the brain region), at which point the child has fifty percent more synapses than the adult!  Metabolic activity in the brain reaches adult levels by nine to ten months, and soon exceeds it, peaking around the age of four.  The brain is sculpted not only by adding material but also by chipping it away.  Synapses wither from the age of two through the rest of childhood and into adolescence, when the brain’s metabolic rate falls back to adult levels.  Language development, then, could be on a maturational level, like teeth.  (Pinker, p. 314)

And in reviewing a study examining the validity of the Critical Period Hypothesis, David Singletons states:  “Among the late bilinguals two distinct but adjacent centres of [brain] activation were revealed for L1 and L2, whereas in the early bilinguals a single area of activation for both languages emerged.”  (Singleton, 13)  This would appear to point to physical evidence towards the CPH.

Nonetheless, as a result of studies of speakers of Hungarian with native-like proficiency, Nikolov states “I think it has been shown that the strong version of CHP cannot be maintained.”  (Nikolov, M.)  Singleton concurs, stating that age is only one of many factors determining the proficiency level ultimately attained in any language.  He elaborates on four factors in L2 learning: motivation, cross-linguistic factors, education and general cognitive ability.  He goes on to cite another study which, rather than validating the ‘strong version of CPH,’ indicates a steady decline of (English) L2 proficiency corresponding directly to immigrants’ age of arrival in New York State.  This diminished view of CHP would seem to correspond to recent findings of continued brain plasticity throughout the adult years.

I would maintain the there are crucial distinctions between language acquisition and language learning.  Language acquisition is the largely unconscious process of developing ability to use language through unexamined interaction with our environment.  It is the way in which, for the most part, we become adept users of our mother-tongue.  For some people, or in some cases, it can be the primary means of becoming adept at a second language. It is intrinsically an intuitive, synthesizing process.   Acquisition can be further refined, or further informed, though learning.  Language learning, on the other hand, is the application of conscious effort in developing understanding of and, ideally, the ability to use a language system.  This is the manner in which native speakers may refine their knowledge and use of the ‘mother-tongue.’  It is usually the primary means by which individuals sometimes become adept at (but frequently only learn about) a second language.   It is intrinsically an analytical, compartmentalizing process.   Learning can, but does not necessarily lead to, acquisition.

Based on these definitions, I contend that in almost every case L1 development occurs through the process of acquisition, usually followed by a period of learning within a formal education system.  A clear example differentiating acquisition from learning pointing towards the need for the latter in L2 development is given in Churchill’s case study.  He makes the observation that “the inaccuracy in the written form and the internal inconsistency in some of the productive form/meaning relations [regarding a particular lexis item]remained unresolved until I had the time and space to work with these semantic forms, my computer, and a dictionary.” (Churchill, 14)    Having first encountered the word in a communicative context, Churchill has followed the somewhat less usual route of acquisition followed by learning.  L2 development, especially learning a foreign language, ordinarily follows the course of learning first, followed by acquisition through use for actual communicative purposes.

This clarification between acquisition and learning can also be of help the teacher of ESOL.  It points towards the need to provide students with both structured learning opportunities as well as chances to creatively produce and explore language, resulting in acquisition.  This is exemplified in teaching methodology in the distinctions between focus on form and focus on function, grammar as product and as process, and in the present-practice-produce model of lesson planning.  What is important to recognize, and which is all too frequently forgotten in today’s emphasis on communicative teaching, is that both learning and acquisition are required:  developing ability in an L2 cannot take place with one but not the other.

Sources:

¨ Bavin, E. L. (1995).  Language Acquisition in Cross linguistic Perspective.  Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 373-396.

¨Churchill, Eton.  A Case Study of a JSL Learner and a Word: A Dynamic Systems Account of the Path from Ecology to Form-relations.  To appear in: Applied Linguistics.

 ¨ Mitchell, R. and Myles, F.  (1998). Second Language Learning Theories.  London:  Arnold.

¨ Nikolov, M.  (2000). ‘The Critical Period Hypothesis Reconsidered:  Successful adult learners of Hungarian and English’ IRAL 38 (2), 109 – 24.

¨Pinker, Steven.  (1994). The Language Instinct – The New Science of Language and Mind.  London:  Penguin Books.

¨ Pinker, Steven.  (2007). The Stuff of Thought – Language as a Window into Human Nature.  London:  Penguin Books.

¨ Sapolsky, Robert M. (2005).  Monkeyluv - And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals.  New York:  Scribner.

¨Singleton, David in Mayo, Maria G. and Lecumberri, Maria G. (Eds.).  (2003). Age and the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language.  Clevedon:  Multilingual Matters.