Dynamic Variability Patterns of L2 Lexical Processing

Rika Plat & Wander Lowie & Kees de Boot The Colour of Noise: Dynamic Variability Patterns of L2 Lexical Processing Series A: General & Theoretical Papers ISSN 1435-6473 Essen: LAUD 2012 Paper No.A775 Universität Duisburg-Essen Rika Plat & Wander Lowie & Kees de Boot University of Groningen, Germany The Colour of Noise: Dynamic Variability Patterns of L2 Lexical Processing Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD 2012 Linguistic Agency Series A University of Duisburg-Essen General and Theoretical FB Geisteswissenschaften Paper No.775 Universitätsstr. 12 D- 45117 Essen Order LAUD-papers online: http://www.linse.uni-due.de/linse/laud/index.html Or contact: [email protected] ii Rika Plat, Wander Lowie & Kees de Bot The Colour of Noise: Dynamic Variability Patterns of L2 Lexical Processing Abstract Lexical knowledge is not stable and unchanging within an individual; instead, it is constantly influenced by experiences and context dependent language use. Therefore, lexical knowledge should be looked at as inseparable from the time and context in which it is used, and is highly variable. Consequently, the variability in language production will have to be regarded as a source of information rather than as meaningless noise. In this paper, we report on a study in which one single participant took part in a word naming experiment in his mother tongue (L1) and his second language (L2) for a period of two years. The lexical processing data resulting from this experiment are explored using linear and non-linear statistical methods to make sense of the variability in L1 and L2 language production on a variety of time scales. The Dynamics of Lexical Knowledge L2 acquisition is a variable and dynamic process, during which the linguistic knowledge system is constantly changing and reorganizing, resulting in newly added knowledge to the system, but also loss of information. However, the amount of variability in the L2 acquisition process is still often underestimated and disregarded. The bulk of research on L2 acquisition seems to assume that language acquisition is linear and that in the course of time only new knowledge is gained; however, as has now repeatedly been demonstrated, language acquisition is by its nature constantly open to outside influence and thus constantly affected by it, in a nonlinear way (see, for instance, Lowie & Verspoor, 2011). Studies of language acquisition that look at means over a large group of learners offer a lot of useful information, but a closer look at individual variation shows that a great deal of valuable information concerning actual, real time development is also filtered out and overlooked in group studies. L2 acquisition is a very individual process, since it depends on a multitude of dynamically interacting factors leading to constant variability. This variability arises from both a constantly changing language environment and from self-organisation within the system. The dynamic interactions are not confined to the internal system; the external influence and thus the context in which a language is learned and used, can in itself also be seen as a dynamic system that is constantly changing. In this view, context can never be reduced to a mere backdrop against which language is learned; it is in constant interaction with the language learner and vice versa, and can impossibly be separated from the learner. 1 The context in which language develops includes many components that will have different effects on different learners. There is for instance the cultural context that includes the role of student and teacher in a particular cultural environment. There is the social context, including the relationship with the teacher and other learners, and the educational context, including what materials are used. Every individual also has a different starting point due to a unique history, experiences, intelligence etc. All of these contextual factors, and many more not mentioned here, determine the developmental path of language acquisition. This interaction between language user and context works both ways; a language user will adapt to the contextual conditions, and the environment will adapt in response to the language user’s actions (Larsen-Freeman, 2008). Since context and language-user thus co-evolve, it would be untenable to separate them and try to explain language learning as if it took place independent from context. Apart from the context that causes variation among individual language learner’s developmental paths, every learner also has internal variability inherent to the developmental process. In a self-organising system, variability is necessary for the system to develop. An increased amount of variability is in fact often a precursor to a jump in development to a higher level of performance. This was also found in the L2 writing performance of an advanced student of English whose writing over the course of three years was analysed on sentence complexity and vocabulary use. Looking at measurements for average word length showed a relatively stable period that was followed by a period showing many fluctuations in performance (Verspoor, Lowie & van Dijk, 2008). After this period of variability, performance stabilizes again on a higher level of performance. The high amount of variability therefore seems a consequence of a necessary re-organisation of the system in order to enable a big step in development. That active second language learning means constant change may not sound very surprising, since a language learner is by definition adding new words and acquiring new grammatical patterns all the time. However, the idea that even one’s L1 is in constant flux is often implicitly denied in the way language research is being conducted. When measuring L2 performance, L2 speakers are almost always compared to a control group of L1 speakers, the assumption being that the performance of L1 speakers provides a static baseline. Even though the L1 is usually quite entrenched in a speaker’s mind, it is still developing over time. A bulk of attrition research proves that the L1 is not immune to loss when it is not being used over an extensive period of time. The area most susceptible to loss in the L1 is lexical access; grammatical knowledge seems to be quite stable; since even when L1 attrition is quite severe, people long retain a grammatical knowledge surpassing all but the most advanced L2 speakers (Schmid 2010). However, it is possible to lose the L1 completely, as shown by Palier et al. (2003), who tested Korean children that had been adopted in France. Some of his subjects had used their native language for as much as 8 years; however, when presented with Korean words and sentences when the subjects were 2 in their 20s, they could not distinguish these any better than a group of French control subjects could. Also without a drastic change in circumstances such as migration or adoption, the L1 shows a great deal of variability between individuals. Sparks & Ganschow (1993) found that poor performance in learning an L2 could be led back to native language problems. Otherwise successful students who were not successful in learning a second language often had limited linguistic coding skills in their L1. Based on this finding, they formulated their Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH), which states that difficulties with the rule system of the first language correspond directly to related problems in learning a second language. Looking at language development closely reveals a lot of variation between ultimate level of attainment of the L1 and the L2. Storage of Lexical Knowledge The amount of variability in language use between and within individual learners has implications for how lexical knowledge may be organised in the brain, which in turn should influence the ways linguists devise their experiments in order to get a glimpse of what this organisation might be like. This may seem like a self-evident statement; however, really accepting that language is a complex system should entail completely rethinking some of the experimental methods that have become widely accepted in linguistic research. Even though more and more linguists assume language to be organised as a structured network in the brain that is continuously developing, many of these linguists still use ‘old-school’ experimental methods that seem to suppose the lexicon a mere list of words not unlike a dictionary, and representations to be fixed and stable, even across groups of people. An example of the first presumption can still be found in a lot of attrition studies, where the level of attrition is usually determined by administering translation tasks; the number of words a subject does not remember is taken to correspond directly to the percentage of vocabulary the subject has supposedly lost (Meara, 2002). Also, the often used paradigm of lexical priming implicitly denies the variability of lexical representations, in assuming the use of a prime has a similar and fixed effect on reaction times across many individuals. One way of theorising about how language is organised in the brain that is consistent with language as a complex dynamic system is connectionism. Connectionism seeks to explain cognitive processes by using computer simulations of neural networks. Recent work in this area in trying to incorporate a more dynamic view of the lexicon in attrition research has been conducted by Paul Meara (2004). Meara moves away from the strong focus on the individual word or lexical entry, and uses a Boolean network to find out what the implications for attrition research are when thinking of the lexicon as a structured network. Assuming, as Meara does, that words are connected, and that the activation of one lexical item influences the activation level of other lexical items it is connected with, attrition is by no means a simple and linear process in which words get removed from the lexicon one by one.

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