SLA Glossary

A

Attrition: linguistic development in the individual that progressively diverges from its original native (or in the case of an L2 user its relatively native-like) state, typically in circumstances where the language user is no longer regularly using and regularly exposed to that language. Language attrition is a process that is often thought of in terms of 'forgetting' and 'loss'.

B

Bilingualism:

- 'The practice of alternately using two languages' (Weinreich, 1953, p.1).
- 'Native-like control of two languages' (Bloomfield, 1933, 55).
- 'The point where a speaker can first produce complete meaningful utterances in the other language' (Haugen, 1953, p.7).
- 'From whatever angle we look at it, bilingualism is a relative concept' (Hoffman, 1991, p.31).
- 'Bilingualism is not a phenomenon of language; it is a characteristic of its use' (Mackey, 1970).
- 'Paradoxical as it may seem, Second Language Acquisition researchers seem to have neglected the fact that the goal of SLA is bilingualism' (Sridhar and Sridhar, 1986).
- 'All too often imposing Bloomfield's criteria on bilinguals has led to their stigmatisation as being somehow deficient in their language capacities.' (Appel & Muysken, 1987, p.3).
- Bilingualism is the regular use of two (or more) languages, and bilinguals are those people who need and use (two or more) languages in their everyday lives' (Grosjean, 1992, p.51).

C

Characteristics of native speakers: (i) subconscious knowledge of rules, (ii) intuitive grasp of meanings, (iii) ability to communicate within social settings, (iv) range of language skills, (v) creativity of language use. (Stern, 1983).

Competence: Chomskyan term (more recently referred to as I-language) indicating an individual speaker's grammatical knowledge, i.e. the abstract system that underlies a speaker's actual language performance. The competence system is created through an interaction between the particular language a young child is exposed to and inborn (innate) principles of grammar construction. Competence is simply the grammatical system and makes no reference to the actual way in which knowedge stored or processed or used in different types of situation. In the same way the diagram: London <===> Edinburgh indicates a transport system whereby London is linked to New York. The diagram says nothing about the actual distance, whether the road is straight or winding, up or down or how long it takes to drive between the two cities. Competence represents only part of 'language' knowledge and, is not usually employed to refer to pragmatic knowledge or sociolcultural knowledge or vocabulary. Compare this with performance and E-language.

Crosslinguistic influence [CLI]: the influence of two or more language systems known to the learner in his/her knowledge and performance. This includes language transfer and avoidance strategies whereby language transfer is avoided. It also includes influence of an L2 on the L1 in language attrition.

E

E-language: Chomskyan term, 'external language' as manifested in actual instances of (written or spoken) language performance.

I

Interference: 'those instances of deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language'.

I-language: Chomskyan term, 'internal language' in the sense of competence, the abstract grammatical system indirectly, not transparently reflected in E-language (which is often quite elliptical and chaotic).

Input: the language utterances the learner is actually exposed to.

Interface Hypothesis: a hypothesis about the way in which 2 types of knowledge (knowledge gained subconsciously and knowledge gained consciously) assumed to have a different status in the mind of the learner may or may not interact to facilitate learning. Proposed interfaces vary in strength from no interface at all (strongest version, associated with Stephen Krashen) whereby consciously gained knowledge has absolutely no impact on intuitive L2 knowledge to weaker versions which claim some some indirect benefit from conscious knowledge on the growth of subconscious knowledge of L2.; see metalinguistic.

Interlanguage [IL]: Fr. interlangue; Ger. Zwischensprache. The systematic aspects of non-native speakers L2 performance; pertaining to non-native language systems. Selinker (IRAL,1972) proposed a number of 'central processes' including language transfer (reflected in rules based on the L1), overgeneralisation (rules based on the L2 but extended beyond the scope as used by native speakers of that L2) and fossilisation (the cessation of learning despite repeated exposure and practice). The last-mentioned process means that most L2 users remain 'interlanguage' speakers, trapped is some stage somewhere 'between' (hence 'inter') the L1 and native-like L2, suggesting to Selinker and others that the psychological basis for L2 development is quite different from that underlying L1 acquisition.

F

Fossilisation: L2 development in some area(s) cease despite ongoing exposure to, and interaction in L2.

L

Language attrition: changes in an L1 or L2 regarded as signifying a loss of knowledge or performance ability ( "forgetting").

L1: the learner's native language/mother tongue.

L2: the target language, the learner's second or other language.

M

Metalinguistic: 'about' language. Metalinguistic knowledge is (often quite technical knowledge) about language; you could have extensive metalinguistic knowledge of Chinese little of which would be reflected in your spontaneous performance in the language. Older children as well as adults are said to have some degree of metalinguistic awareness in that they know what language is, they can identify syllables, words, sounds and even play with the languages through punning and rhymes; see interface.

N

Native speaker: 'a monolingual person who still speaks the language they learnt in childhood' (Cook 1999).

‘The first language a human being learns to speak is his native language; he is a native speaker of this language’ (Bloomfield, 1933, p.43).

'A native speaker of a language is someone who speaks that language as their first language rather than having learnt it as a foreign language' COBUILD English Dictionary, 1995.

P

Parameter-resetting: adjustments, in response to L2 data, to grammatical (UG) parameters originally set on exposure to the L1 indicating that the L1 acquisitional mechanisms are still operating in the development of L2; see UG.

Performance: Chomskyan term to indicate actual instances of (written or spoken) language.

Psycholinguistic typology: the way in which the learner (rather than the linguist) perceives the relationships between given languages, for example L1 and L2 on the basis of which judgements are made about whether to incorporate elements of one language into the another.

S

SLA: second language acquisition (where second stands for non-native).

SLI: specific language impairment.

T

Transfer: (short for language transfer) items and structures carried over into the target language from another language known to the learner as manifested in L2 performance and/or in L2 knowledge.

U

UG: (short for Universal Grammar) Chomsky's term for the common blueprint guiding and constraining the acquisition of grammars of all natural languages past and present which is available to any normal human child acquiring its mother-tongue. It is, therefore, a major object of study in theoretical linguistics. It is not a grammar in itself nor is a collection of commonalities from existing languages. UG is essentially the explanation for why child language (grammatical) development proceeds as it does, why the child does not try out the many logical possibilities for making sense of the language data (input) to which it is exposed. UG is best thought of not as a grammar but a set of limitations on how to build a natural grammar, limitations without which the child could never accomplish the feat in such a short space of time with very little help. Other types of language development, e.g. lexical development as well as facts about language use in context and language processing generally fall outside the domain of UG and are acknowledged to require other explanations. Some L2 researchers are attracted by the variety and precision of the tools provided by this linguistic framework as well as for its potential to explain important facts about SLA.For them, a major question is whether the limitations of UG are to be observed in developing L2 grammars as well, or whether the learner has limited or no access to these aids to efficient and successful development. In some versions of the theory, UG has parameters which have to be set. A child exposed to English or Japanese does not have to learn all the intricacies of word order from scratch.On noticing crucial but simple samples of the language, the child can establish early on that the word order parameters are set a particular way. This advance information then saves it from learning much of the grammar piecemeal. Not all aspects of UG are relevant to the learning of a particular grammar since each language "selects" only a number of the possibilities available within UG. Changes and improvements in the way theoretical linguists view UG have many implications for acquisition research.