Katowice 2012

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego Readings Languagein Second Acquisition

Readings in Acquisition ) VAT Price 22 zł (+ Price zł 22 (+ ISSN 0208-6336 ISBN 978-83-226-2101-1 Katowice 2012

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego Readings Languagein Second Acquisition

Readings in Second Language Acquisition Readings in Second Language Acquisition NR 2987 Readings in Second Language Acquisition

Edited by Danuta Gabryś-Barker

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego Katowice 2012 Editor of the Series: Językoznawstwo Neofilologiczne Maria Wysocka

Referee Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel

After this edition runs out, the book will be available online: Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa www.sbc.org.pl 

List of contents

Introduction (Danuta Gabryś-Barker) 7

CHAPTER 1 Language acquisition and language learning 9 Joanna Bielska

CHAPTER 2 Lexical development in language acquisition and learning 37 M. Krzysztof Szymczak

CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development 69 Adam Wojtaszek

CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology by Polish learners – segments and prosody 93 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

CHAPTER 5 Pragmatic issues in foreign language learning 121 Agnieszka Solska

CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence in language learning 143 Dagmara Gałajda

CHAPTER 7 , code-switching and attrition 161 Anna D. Biedrzyńska

5 List of contents

CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning 175 Danuta Gabryś-Barker

CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning 201 Janusz Arabski 

Introduction

The present volume offers an overview of selected topics which relate directly to second (foreign) language acquisition and learning. Our main focus is on the context in which English is acquired by means of formal instruction. Although the authors of the individual chapters are all specialists in the area of second language research working in Polish higher education, each chapter offers an overview of research carried out in a wider context. These studies report on well-known research and the seminal work done in the field, as well as more up-to-date projects, in some cases carried out by the authors themselves. All the authors are research workers and lecturers at the University of Silesia, Institute of English. Many of them are well-established scholars in second language acquisition research. The volume therefore consists of nine chapters, each of which discusses both theoretical and empirical findings in a given area of study. It starts with a chapter comparing the processes involved in second language acquisition and foreign language learning, which then investigates the most influential theory on the topic and lays the foundation for further consideration of specific areas of language acquisition discussed in individual chapters (Chapter 1). The chapters that follow discuss not only the development of different language subsystems as they occur at different learning stages – lexical, syntactic and phonological development in a second language (Chapter 2, 3 and 4) – but they also look at pragmatic issues and language communication (Chapter 5 and 6). One chapter specifically relates to the role of the mother tongue in language learning and production, by reviewing the issues of code-switching, language transfer and attrition (Chapter 7). The last two chapters look at important factors in language learning which result from individual learner differences, namely individual affectivity and gender (Chapter 8 and 9). The present volume is by no means exhaustive and essentially purports only to offer a set of selected readings, as a supplementary resource in support of the main course-books. To be otherwise

7 Introduction would entail the discussion at length of many issues, such as for example age factor. Instead, in this volume, age appears as a variable discussed in respect of every dimension of language learning presented in individual chapters. In this book the terms “second language” and “acquisition” constitute umbrella terms for the two contexts: the natural acquiring of a second language and formal instruction (learning) of a foreign language. However, it will become clear when reading the chapters that the overwhelming concern of the authors is directed towards formal instruction and foreign language learning, as it is central to the intended purpose of this volume. It is hoped that the presentation of theoretical issues and discussion of research in SLA will be of assistance to teachers and students engaged with second language acquisition courses and other related disciplines, such as theory of teaching and learning as well as methodology of teaching English as a foreign language.

Danuta Gabryś-Barker The Editor CHAPTER 1

Language acquisition and language learning

Joanna Bielska

1.1 introduction

What does it mean to know a second language? Do second language learners possess two types of language knowledge represented in two different types of memory? Do they gain competence in a second language through two types of learning mechanisms differentiated by the presence or lack of awareness on the part of the learner? If so, are the two types of learning independent or do they interact? Is any of them primary? Can they be facilitated by instruction? These and similar questions have puzzled SLA researchers for over thirty years resulting in heated debates on the role of consciousness in second language acquisition (see e.g. Bialystok 1994, 2004; Ellis 2005a; Krashen 1981, 1982, 1994; Paradis 1994, 2004; Robinson 1995, 1997b, 2005; Schmidt 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001). Understanding the difference and the relationship between explicit and implicit second language learning mechanisms is obviously important for SLA theorists, interested in looking into the human mind and explaining the cognitive processes involved in the highly complex task of acquiring a second language. It is also crucial for practitioners in the field of second/foreign language teaching, whose task is to design instruction in the way optimally facilitating the process of building second language learners’ linguistic competence. The purpose of this chapter is to present and discuss different claims concerning the dichotomy between implicit and explicit second language learning. The chapter starts with a short introduction to Stephen Krashen’s acquisition- learning distinction, since much of the research on the role of consciousness in SLA has been conducted as a reaction to Krashen’s ideas on the relationship or, actually, lack of relationship between unconscious acquisition and conscious

9 Joanna Bielska learning of a second language. In the next section some terminological problems are addressed and explicit and implicit language knowledge, processing, and instruction are briefly defined. The relationship between explicit and implicit knowledge is then presented from different theoretical perspectives, followed by a brief review of empirical research findings related to the implicit/explicit knowledge interface and a discussion of some methodological limitations involved in researching the dichotomy. The chapter concludes with some implications for second language instruction and suggestions for further research.

1.2 Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning distinction

The first attempt to propose a general theory of second language acquisition was Stephen Krashen’s Monitor Theory, developed in the 1970s and early 1980s (Krashen 1981, 1982, 1985). The theory consists of five interrelated hypotheses, namely the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, the Monitor Hypothesis, the Natural Order Hypothesis, the , and the AffectiveF ilter Hypothesis. Taken together, they address a variety of issues crucial for understanding the process of gaining competence in a second language, e.g. the nature of language knowledge and language acquisition processes, the role of metalinguistic knowledge in language use, the existence of and access to the innate language acquisition faculty, the age factor in SLA, the effect of affect onS LA, practical implications for foreign language instruction, etc. While a detailed discussion of the theory is beyond the scope of this chapter (see Krashen 1981, 1982, 1985, 1992, 1994; Krashen and Terrell 1983 for description of the theory; McLaughlin 1987, Gregg 1984, Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991 for reviews), Krashen’s views on the distinction between acquisition and learning, the relationship between the two constructs, and implications concerning the role of instruction in SLA will be briefly presented below, as they triggered a major ongoing debate in SLA. The distinction between acquisition and learning is the central hypothesis in Krashen’s Monitor Theory. Krashen maintains that there are two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a second language: acquisition, “a subconscious process identical in all important ways to the process children utilize in acquiring their first language” (1985: 1), and learning, a process of developing “conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them” (1982: 10). While the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental processes is hardly disputable, Krashen’s claims regarding the lack of interaction between the two separately stored types of knowledge they result in – the acquired knowledge and the learned knowledge – have excited a lively controversy among SLA theorists.

10 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning

According to Krashen, “learning does not ‘turn into’ acquisition” (1982: 83). His theory can therefore be referred to as a non-interface model (see section 1.4.1). In other words, explicit knowledge about language rules and patterns, built through conscious, intentional, and effortful processes in situations where learners focus their attention on the formal properties of language can never be converted into the type of knowledge learners draw on in spontaneous communication, i.e. acquired knowledge. Acquired knowledge can only be developed naturally, effortlessly and outside of awareness through exposure tocomprehensible input and normal interaction in L2 situations where learners focus on meaning rather than form. While learned knowledge can serve “as a Monitor, or editor” (Krashen 1982: 15) during language production, Krashen claims that this is its only function, and no amount of practice can turn a learned rule into an acquired one. Apart from being a strong theoretical claim, the non-interface position has important practical implications. As noted by VanPatten and Williams, “the utility of learned knowledge within Monitor Theory is negligible.I t follows that it is not worth spending precious instructional time on developing learned knowledge, as is typically the case in L2 classrooms” (2007: 27). Another controversial issue related to Krashen’s view of language acquisition is his claim that “adults can access the same natural ‘language acquisition device’ that children use” (Krashen 1982: 10), which leads to fundamental similarities between child first language acquisition and adult second language acquisition. Krashen’s Monitor Theory is an example of so-called language-specific nativism, a theoretical perspective in the field based on the assumption that language acquisition, at least in the case of the first language, is impossible in the absence of an innate biologically endowed language faculty (see e.g. Chomsky 1975; White 2003, 2005; see also O’Grady 2005 for a discussion of different types of nativism). In Krashen’s view, any language (first or second) is acquired through the interaction between linguistic information embedded in meaningful messages (comprehensible input) and the innate language acquisition device (LAD). This position is clearly unacceptable to a wide spectrum of SLA theorists who subscribe to constructivist views of language acquisition, which hold that the process is essentially governed by general laws of human learning, both associative and cognitive, rather than by any language- specific mechanisms working on input and innate linguistic knowledge (see e.g. Carroll 2001, DeKeyser 2001, N.C. Ellis 2005b, Larsen-Freeman and N.C. Ellis 2006, MacWhinney 2001, Pienemann 1998, VanPatten 2004). Krashen’s claims would not be unanimously accepted in the nativist camp, either. SLA theorists investigating second language acquisition from the generative perspective tend to disagree on the availability of Universal Grammar (a component of LAD consisting of a of grammatical categories and principles determining core properties of human language) to L2 learners and

11 Joanna Bielska its role in the process of forming representation. Hypotheses concerning the accessibility of UG in SLA vary from no access, partial (indirect access), to full (direct) access (see e.g. Bley-Vroman 1990, Cook 1993, 1994, Gregg 1996, Schachter 1988, Schwartz and Sprouse 1996). For example, Bley-Vroman’s (1989, 1990) Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH), originally formulated in the context of the theory of Universal Grammar, stated that while children acquiring their first language rely onUG and language-specific processes, adult L2 learners use their knowledge of L1 and general problem solving processes to make up for the changes in the language faculty that occur with age (see Bley-Vroman 2009 for a recent reformulation of FDH). A major weakness of the Monitor Theory is that the constructs it is based on are inadequately defined and the cognitive processes involved in language acquisition and learning are not actually explained in sufficient detail. The supporting empirical evidence provided by Krashen has also been viewed as insufficient and the theory has been seriously criticised on a variety of grounds including the view that it fails to meet the criteria for good theory (Gregg 1984, McLaughlin 1987). It is important to note, however, that Krashen’s propositions stirred the imagination of SLA researchers, set new directions for SLA research and opened a debate on a number of important issues which still constitute the focus of theorizing within SLA (some of them will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter). As noted by VanPatten and Williams, “an understanding of this theory is crucial to understanding the field ofS LA theory and research as a whole” (2007: 25).

1.3 implicit and explicit second language learning – defining the dichotomy

Defining the implicit-explicit dichotomy is by no means an easy task.O ne source of difficulty is the degree of overlap between this and other terminological distinctions, e.g. incidental vs intentional learning. Incidental learning has been defined as “unintended learning” (Schmidt 1995: 7) or learning by not focusing attention on what is being learnt (Paradis 1994, Schmidt 1994, Krashen 1989, Hulstijn 2005), for example learning grammar while focusing on communication or acquiring vocabulary while focusing on comprehending a text. Intentional learning, on the other hand, involves explicit intention on the part of the learner, i.e. deliberate focusing of attention and other cognitive resources on the learning goal. In contrast, as noted by Hulstijn (2005), the most important criterion for distinguishing implicit from explicit learning is the absence or presence of “awareness at the point of learning” (Schmidt 1994: 20). Implicit learning is said to be unconscious or subconscious (as noted by Schmidt, “no

12 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning one seems to make a distinction between the two” (1995: 3)), i.e. occur without awareness, explicit learning, on the other hand, is characterized by the presence of awareness during learning. Thus, implicit learning is always incidental, but it entails much more than unintended learning. Similarly, intentional learning will always be explicit, as awareness is implicated in all deliberate actions, but explicit learning does not have to be intentional (see Hulstijn 2005 for more discussion of the distinctions between incidental and implicit and between intentional and explicit learning). Although by now it has generally been accepted that it is the presence or lack of consciousness (understood as awareness at the point of learning) which is the characteristic feature distinguishing explicit learning from implicit learning (e.g. DeKeyser 2005, Hulstijn 2005), not all terminological problems have been resolved due to the difficulty of defining awareness and its different levels (see section 1.4.3 for further discussion of this issue). Another difficulty is related to the differences in the meaning of the terms “explicit” and “implicit” when used with reference to the dichotomy in types of knowledge, learning processes, or types of instruction. The discussions of the differences between explicit and implicit knowledge revolve around the issues of content, storage, and access, each of them raising considerable controversy. Ellis (2005b: 214) offers the following descriptions of implicit and explicit knowledge:

Implicit knowledge is procedural, is held unconsciously and can only be verbalized if it is made explicit. It is accessed rapidly and easily and thus is available for use in rapid, fluent communication.I n view of most researchers, competence in an L2 is primarily a matter of implicit knowledge.

Explicit knowledge is declarative […], is held consciously, is learnable and verbalizable and is typically accessed through controlled processing when learners experience some kind of linguistic difficulty in the use of the L2. A distinction needs to be drawn between explicit knowledge as analysed knowledge and as metalingual explanation. The former entails a conscious awareness of how a structural feature works while the latter consists of knowledge of grammatical metalanguage and the ability to understand explanations of rules.

The distinction between explicit and implicit learning, as described above, refers to the two different modes of language processing involved in the development of linguistic competence and the complex, if any, interaction between them (see section 1.4 for further discussion). Finally, the distinction between explicit and implicit instruction refers to describing differences between various types of pedagogical procedures. As

13 Joanna Bielska defined by DeKeyser, “an instructional treatment is explicit if rule explanation forms part of the instruction (deduction) or if learners are asked to attend to particular forms and try to find the rules themselves (induction)” (2005: 321). In contrast, instruction is defined as implicit when it makes no overt reference to rules and no directions to attend to particular forms are given (Norris and Ortega 2000, Doughty 2005). As noted by Doughty (2005), during either explicit or implicit instruction, learners’ attention may be drawn to language forms in isolation (“focus on forms”), during the processing of meaning (“”), or not at all (“focus on meaning”). Rule presentation, manipulated input, and feedback, three major components of pedagogical interventions, can be placed along an explicit/implicit continuum such that “the more metalinguistic the learning condition, the more explicit it is; the more ‘naturalistic’ the learning condition, the more implicit it is considered to be” (Sanz and Morgan-Short 2005: 234). Evaluating the relative effects of different types of explicit and implicit instruction has been the focus of much debate in SLA (see e.g. Norris and Ortega 2000, Ellis 2001, Doughty 2005 for further discussion).

1.4 the relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge – the

Although there is no agreement between SLA theorists as to the exact nature of linguistic knowledge, different accounts of L2 learning, whether innatist (e.g. Gregg 1989, White 2003, 2005) or constructivist (e.g. DeKeyser 2001, N.C. Ellis 2005b; MacWhinney 1999, 2001, Pienemann 1998, VanPatten 2004), acknowledge that second language acquisition entails the development of implicit knowledge. Distinguishing whether L2 learners’ knowledge is represented implicitly or explicitly is therefore essential for SLA researchers irrespective of their theoretical views regarding the nature of linguistic knowledge and language learning (Ellis 2005a). It is also important to understand whether second language acquisition is driven by implicit or explicit language processing as well as whether and how implicit and explicit modes of learning interact to produce one’s linguistic competence. This is where various accounts of second language acquisition differ considerably, and the divergent views of what happens “at the interface” (cf. N.C. Ellis 2005a) result in differing suggestions regarding second language instruction. Ellis (2005a, 2005b) has identified three major positions on the implicit/explicit interface issue: the non-interface position, the strong interface position, and the weak interface position. These are briefly discussed in the following sections.

14 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning

1.4.1 The non-interface position

The non-interface position has already been mentioned with reference to Krashen’s learning-acquisition distinction (see section 1.2). According to Krashen (1985), implicit processing (with focus on meaning, not on form) of implicit input (meaningful language) results in the development of domain- specific implicit knowledge (i.e. true linguistic competence, cf. Sanz and Morgan-Short 2005). In contrast, explicit processing (with attention to form) of explicit evidence (e.g. grammar explanations) leads to the development of explicit knowledge which, although useful in monitoring one’s performance, never “turns into acquisition” (Krashen 1982: 83). In the same vein, acquired knowledge never becomes explicit, i.e. conscious and available for verbal report. Krashen has therefore postulated that implicit and explicit knowledge are two separate knowledge systems. Some support for the dissociation of the two types of knowledge postulated by Krashen has come from research on bilingualism conducted from the neurolinguistic perspective. According to Paradis (1994, 2004), implicit and explicit knowledge are two entirely different systems, which involve different neurofunctional mechanisms subserved by different cerebral structures (cf. Ullman 2005). Implicit linguistic knowledge, represented in procedural memory, is acquired incidentally (i.e. by focusing attention on something other than what is being acquired), stored implicitly (i.e. it is not available to conscious awareness), and used automatically (i.e. without conscious control). In contrast, explicit knowledge, represented in declarative memory, is learned consciously by focusing attention on what is to be learnt, can later be recalled into conscious awareness, and relies mostly on controlled processing. These two knowledge systems are qualitatively different and function independently. In normal circumstances, language users tend to rely on the implicit system, which is much faster, more robust, and less variable. The explicit system may be used to compensate for gaps in implicit competence and thus contribute to performance, but it remains a separate system, subserved by different neurofunctional mechanisms. In contrast to the interface position described below, at the core of the non-interface position is the claim that declarative knowledge is not proceduralized through practice. As Paradis puts it, “explicit knowledge cannot be ‘converted’ or ‘transformed’ into implicit competence” (2004: 45). Paradis claims that “acquisition is not a process of automatizing rules of which the learner is aware, but of automatizing computational procedures (of which the learner is not aware) that underlie the automatic comprehension and production of sentences that, by inference, at a higher level of abstraction, can be described by linguists as corresponding to (pedagogical or theoretical) linguistic rules”

15 Joanna Bielska

(Paradis 2004: 41). Therefore, metalinguistic knowledge does not gradually become implicit linguistic competence, but linguistic competence develops through practice alongside explicit knowledge, and both systems remain independently available to the language user. With time, reliance on implicit knowledge replaces the use of explicit knowledge. To quote Paradis again, “it is true that skilled use of a second language often begins as controlled processes that gradually appear to become automatic. In reality, controlled processing is gradually replaced by the use of automatic processing, which is not just the speeding-up of the controlled process, but the use of a different system which, through practice, develops in parallel” (Paradis 2004: 35). Moreover, the process of internalization of the computational procedures represented in procedural memory is entirely unconscious. Although learners may be aware of the surface form of utterances, they remain totally unaware of their underlying structure. Therefore, implicit competence never becomes explicit knowledge. Accepting the non-interface view of implicit-explicit dichotomy entails a largely non-interventionist position with regard to the role of instruction in SLA. Viewed from this perspective, the role of L2 instruction is mostly limited to the provision of an environment conducive to SLA (cf. Doughty 2005). To this end, L2 instruction should provide learners with sufficient amounts of input so that domain-specific or more general learning processes (depending on the researcher’s theoretical stance) can start to operate. As Krashen states, “the only contribution that classroom instruction can make is to provide comprehensible input that might not otherwise be available outside the classroom” (1985: 33–34). Nevertheless, formal instruction may also have an indirect positive effect on L2 acquisition (Long 1983, Paradis 2004). As noted by Krashen (1985), the learned knowledge serves as a monitor for checking the accuracy of the output generated by the learner’s implicit competence. This process as well as direct L2 instruction draw the learner’s attention to the forms that need to be practised, potentially resulting in further exposure to and practice of the correct forms. As noted by Paradis (2004), such increased practice of the appropriate form should hasten the acquisition of the underlying computational procedures that constitute linguistic competence.

1.4.2 The strong interface position

The strong interface position has most forcefully been promoted by DeKeyser (1997, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2006). As he notes,

Even though implicitly acquired knowledge tends to remain implicit, and explicitly acquired knowledge tends to remain explicit, explicitly learned knowledge can become implicit in the sense that learners can lose awareness of

16 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning

its structure over time, and learners can become aware of the structure of implicit knowledge when attempting to access it, for example by applying it to a new context or for conveying it verbally to somebody else. (DeKeyser 2005: 315)

Drawing on Anderson’s Adaptive Control Theory (ACT) model of cognitive skill acquisition (see e.g. Anderson 1990, 1995), DeKeyser argues that some, though not all, second language acquisition occurs in the three stages of development characteristic for complex skill acquisition in general: declarative, procedural, and automatic. In the first stage of skill acquisition, the learner develops declarative knowledge about the skill, so-called “knowledge that”, which most often occurs as a result of explicit instruction accompanied by demonstration of skilled behaviour by an “expert”. In the next stage, the declarative knowledge is proceduralized, i.e. turned into “knowledge how”. The last stage involves the gradual process of automatization or fine tuning of procedural knowledge: as a result of practice, the time required to execute the task (reaction time), the percentage of errors ( rate) and the amount of attention required gradually decrease leading to fluency and spontaneity in the relevant behaviour (cf. DeKeyser 2007). At this stage, learners may lose the declarative knowledge drawn on in the initial stages of skill acquisition, although this is not necessarily the case (see DeKeyser 1998 for further discussion). The transition from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge, followed by its gradual automatization is not linear, but follows the power law of learning, a mathematical function repeatedly observed in the acquisition of many different skills (see e.g. Newell and Rosenbloom 1981, quoted in DeKeyser 2007), indicating that the shift from declarative to procedural knowledge is achieved rather quickly, in notable contrast to a much slower process of automatization of procedural knowledge. As noted by DeKeyser (2007), the power law of learning is a robust empirical phenomenon and a central concept in the study of skill acquisition; its shape is believed to “contain the key to some fundamental learning mechanisms” (DeKeyser 2007: 99) and has been interpreted as indicative of “a qualitative change over time, as a result of practice, in the basic cognitive mechanisms used to execute the same task” (DeKeyser 2007: 99; see DeKeyser 2001 for a thorough discussion of the power law of learning). The application of skill acquisition theory toS LA results in emphasizing the importance of explicit knowledge in the initial stages of learning and the need to engage learners in systematic practice so that this knowledge is proceduralized. As in line with the theory, one can only practise something one has some available declarative knowledge of (Sharwood-Smith 1994, cf. deKeyser 1998: 53) and the process of proceduralization requires engaging in the target behaviour of conveying meaning in the foreign language while keeping the relevant declarative knowledge in working memory, one fundamental principle

17 Joanna Bielska of L2 instruction should be choosing and sequencing tasks in such a way that they provide opportunities for “systematic, yet truly meaningful and context- embedded practice of forms that have previously been in focus” (DeKeyser 2001: 146). Declarative knowledge should, therefore, be developed first, followed by structured (though not repetitive) exercises aiming at improving its accessibility during communicative tasks, and then proceduralized (and eventually automatized) through meaningful practice provided by extended exposure to relevant forms in the input and more open-ended communicative activities (cf. DeKeyser 1998: 58–60). Care should also be taken to foster the retention of declarative knowledge due to a directional asymmetry which characterizes skill acquisition and increases with learning (DeKeyser 2001, see also Segalowitz 2005). Procedural knowledge has been shown to be highly specific, and consequently resistant to transfer to other, even similar, tasks, whereas declarative knowledge is generalizable to new situations. As DeKeyser argues:

The implication for training is that two kinds of knowledge need to be fostered, both highly specific procedural knowledge, highly automatized for efficient use in the situations that the learner is most likely to confront in the immediate future, and also solid abstract declarative knowledge that can be called upon to be integrated into much broader, more abstract procedural rules, which are indispensable when confronting new contexts of use. (DeKeyser 2007: 100)

It is important to note that skill acquisition theory has not been proposed as an explanation of all processes involved in second language acquisition. As noted by DeKeyser (2007), the theory is most easily applicable in the case of high- aptitude adult learners engaged in the learning of simple structures at fairly early stages of learning in instructional contexts. Consequently, while it offers specific implications for formal L2 instruction, it should not be seen, in DeKeyser’s (1998, 2007) view, as totally incompatible with other theoretical positions in the field, most notably those representing the weak interface position discussed next.

1.4.3 The weak interface position

The weak interface position exists in different versions (Ellis 2005a). What they have in common, however, is the claim that second language acquisition, even in instructed settings, is mainly a process of building implicit knowledge of L2. Explicit knowledge may have an indirect effect on the development of linguistic competence by facilitating key acquisitional processes, mainly by drawing learners’ attention to aspects of target language input which might otherwise go unnoticed or take too long to notice. Thus the potential role of explicit knowledge

18 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning consists in altering the learner’s implicit processing strategies with the effect of making them more attuned to the target language input, which should result in increased efficiency of SLA (see e.g. Doughty 2005, VanPatten 1996, 2004). As implicit learning is a gradual process which is said to be “labouriously slow” (N.C. Ellis 1993: 309), explicit learning may provide a short cut resulting in an increased rate of second language acquisition. Much of the research directly or indirectly addressing the explicit-implicit interface issue has been motivated by Schmidt’s (Schmidt 1990, 1993, 1995, 2001), which addressed the issue of the role of consciousness in language learning in the way relevant to many different theories of second language acquisition. In his original formulation of the hypothesis, Schmidt (1990, 1995) claimed that language learning without attention is impossible and that awareness at the level of noticing (also called focal awareness), defined as “the conscious registration of some event” (Schmidt 1995: 29) is necessary for selecting input as intake for L2 learning. As noted by Ellis (2005b), in later formulations Schmidt slightly modified his position to allow for the possibility of non-conscious learning of linguistic form, arguing in favour of the weaker claim that “more attention results in more learning” and that “people learn about the things they attend to and do not learn much about the things they do not attend to” (Schmidt 2001: 30). He stressed that what must be noticed are “elements of the surface structure of utterances in the input, instances of language, rather than any abstract rules or principles of which such instances must be exemplars” (Schmidt 2001: 5). Schmidt’s ideas on the role of noticing in SLA have been a topic of great debate in the SLA field (see e.g. Tomlin and Villa 1994, Carroll 1999, Gass 1997, Robinson 2005). The claim that noticing contributes to language learning has been used as an argument in favour of different types of pedagogical intervention in instructedS LA designed to induce noticing of relevant features in L2 input, e.g. focus on form (Long and Robinson 1998; Doughty 1998, 2005), processing instruction (VanPatten 1996, 2004), and (Sharwood-Smith 1994, 2007, Wong 2005). Schmidt (1990, 1995, 2001) has also made a distinction between awareness at the level of noticing, and awareness at the level of understanding. While in more recent formulations (Schmidt 2001) noticing is understood in a restricted sense and entails awareness at a very low level of abstraction, understanding is viewed as awareness at higher levels of abstraction. Thus, noticing refers to allocating attention to surface features and item learning, whereas becoming aware of structural regularities of a language by making comparisons across instances and different forms of metalingustic reflection are a matter of understanding. As Schmidt notes, “a higher level of awareness (understanding) is involved in contrasts between explicit learning (learning on the basis of conscious knowledge, insights, and hypotheses) and implicit learning (learning

19 Joanna Bielska based on unconscious processes of generalization and abstraction)” (1995: 1). Explicit learning involves not only awareness at the level of noticing, but also awareness at the level of understanding, whereas implicit learning does not involve understanding. Is there, however, any relationship between explicit and implicit knowledge? Can “learned” knowledge become “acquired”, to use Krashen’s terms? Actually, according to Schmidt,

Another, possibly more productive, way to pose the question is in terms of learning processes (rather than types of knowledge), to ask whether bottom-up, data driven processing, and top-down, conceptually driven processing guided by goals and expectations (including beliefs and expectations concerning the target language grammar), interact; to which the answer is probably yes, they do. (Schmidt 2001: 5)

To date, little is known about the exact nature of this interaction in second language acquisition, as little is known concerning SLA processes in instructed settings (see e.g. Doughty 2005). SLA researchers differ both in their theoretical viewpoints and suggestions for second language instruction. For example, Doughty (2005), in contrast to DeKeyser (2005), argues that although implicit and explicit language learning have been shown to occur simultaneously, the default processing mode in second language acquisition, as in first language acquisition, is implicit. As she adds, however, “this need not and certainly does not rule out the occasional switch to explicit processing” (Doughty 2005: 292), which, in fact, appears to be necessary to override the effects of input processing strategies developed in the process of L1 acquisition. This is best done in focus on form interventions, which draw learners’ attention to relevant L2 forms when problems arise incidentally during meaning oriented tasks (see Doughty and Williams 1998, Pawlak 2006 for more information on form-focused instruction). The goal of second language instruction, therefore, should be to organize learners’ L2 processing space such that learners’ attention is drawn to relevant elements of language in the input and their perceptual processes are engaged in implicit learning. There is little value in promoting as “explicit, declarative information is only helpful in improving performance in cases where complex tasks involve few and obvious variables” (Doughty 2005: 298). Moreover, there is evidence that “declarative knowledge is a by- product of practice during implicit learning” (Doughty 2005: 295), as increases in verbalization ability usually follow rather than precede improvements in performance. Doughty concludes that providing explicit knowledge in advance of task does not facilitate language learning, which contrasts with DeKeyser’s position outlined in section 1.4.2.

20 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning

Another approach to second language pedagogy focusing on influencing learners’ processing of L2 input is processing instruction – PI (see e.g. Farley 2005, VanPatten and Cadierno 1993, VanPatten 1996, 2004), a comprehension based approach to grammar intervention designed to alter the processing strategies of the learners and thus affect the kind of intake they derive from the input, which in turn should lead to a change in the developing system (cf. Van Patten and Cadierno 1993, VanPatten and Uludag 2011). In processing instruction, learners receive explicit information about a grammatical structure as well as processing problems which might lead to comprehension mistakes when they encounter it in L2 input. This explicit metalinguistic instruction is followed by structured input activities, “which contain input manipulated in particular ways to push learners away from less-than-optimal processing strategies” (VanPatten and Uludag 2011: 45). Processing instruction is therefore similar to more traditional approaches to grammar instruction in providing learners with explicit knowledge ahead of task. The aim of IP is not, however, turning learners’ explicit knowledge into implicit knowledge by proceduralizing it, but redirecting learners’ attention in ways that would help learners to overcome the mismatch between their default L1 processing strategy and L2 input, thus facilitating second language acquisition. Some researchers (e.g. Doughty 2005) question the necessity of including the metalinguistic component in processing instruction, suggesting that it is the structured processing component that makes PI effective.

1.5 effectiveness of implicit and explicit learning – some research findings

Relatively few studies in the SLA field have focused on direct controlled comparisons of differential effectiveness of explicit and implicit learning. All such experimental studies reviewed in DeKeyser (2005), whether conducted in a laboratory context (e.g. DeKeyser 1995, Doughty 1991, N.C Ellis 1993, Robinson 1996, 1997a) or in a real classroom setting (e.g. Scott 1990, VanPatten and Oikkenon 1996) showed a clear advantage for explicit learning, as groups that received the most explicit treatments tended to outperform those that received implicit or at least less explicit training on posttreatment experimental tasks. These findings, however, have to be viewed as tentative, since the studies have been limited in number and targeted very specific structures, for example Welsh initial consonant mutation (N.C Ellis 1993), relative clauses (Doughty 1991), or subject-verb inversion after adverbials (Robinson 1996). Actually, as noted by DeKeyser (2005), there is a need for more studies that would address the issue of differential effectiveness of implicit and explicit learning as a function of the nature of the targeted structure.

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It remains unclear, for example, whether abstract knowledge can be gained through implicit learning mechanisms. In spite of extensive research, cognitive psychologists have found it difficult to convincingly demonstrate that implicit learning can lead to internalization of abstract patterns (see e.g. Gomez 1997, Perruchet 1994, Vokey and Brooks 1992; see e.g. Berry 1997 for an alternative view). As noted by DeKeyser (2005), SLA researchers have not been able to show any significant unconscious learning of abstract patterns either.A lthough this may be the effect of imperfect research methodology, for now it seems that implicit learning is best for learning concrete, if complex, elements. Having reviewed the limited number of studies that tried to compare the effectiveness of implicit and explicit learning as a function of the nature of the grammar element to be learned, that is its difficulty related to complexity, level of abstractness, as well as rule scope, rule reliability, and salience (see e.g. Bardovi-Harlig 1987; DeKeyser 1995, 2000; Robinson 1996, 1997a; Williams 1999, quoted in DeKeyser 2005), DeKeyser concluded that “the harder it is to learn something through simple association, because it is too abstract, too distant, too rare, too unreliable, or too hard to notice, the more important explicit learning processes become” (2005: 334). He also stressed that the effectiveness of explicit instruction will vary depending on the subjective difficulty of the rule, described as “the ratio of the rule’s inherent complexity to the student’s ability to handle such a rule” (2005: 331), which is where individual differences in language aptitude may play a role. The role of individual differences in implicit and explicit adult second language learning was examined by Robinson (1997b), who designed an experimental study to, among other things, test the claims of Krashen (1981, 1985) and Reber (1993) that individual differences in cognitive abilities, operationalized for example in language aptitude tests, will only be related to the effects of learning which is under conscious control, not to the effectiveness of implicit learning which occurs in the absence of awareness. He found some support for Krashen’s claims as the correlations between aptitude measures and accuracy scores on a grammaticality judgement task were low and statistically non-significant for the subjects’ learning under incidental, meaning-focused condition, and much higher and statistically significant for an Instructed, form-focused condition. The findings relating to the comparison between conditions based on Reber’s (1993) research were more mixed, as the scores of the subjects in the implicit, instructed-to-remember condition correlated positively with the grammatical sensitivity component of language aptitude (but, interestingly, not the memory component), and the aptitude/accuracy correlations in the explicit rule-search condition depended on the difficulty of the rule (the grammatical sensitivity component correlated with accuracy on easy rule sentences, the memory component with performance on hard rule sentences). The latter finding, actually,

22 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning fits Reber’s predictions. The former one, i.e. the positive correlations between grammatical sensitivity and the accuracy scores in the implicit condition is interpreted by Robinson as indicative of the subjects’ spontaneous switch to conscious rule search, despite the task instructions, triggered by individual differences in aptitude. Actually, Robinson claims that conscious processing was, although to differing degrees, induced by task demands during training in all the conditions under study, and the questionnaire data gathered provide no support for the claim that learning in the incidental and implicit conditions was the result of unconscious processes only. He concludes, therefore, that adult L2 learning under differing conditions is fundamentally similar (and different from child L1 acquisition due to adults’ cognitive maturity) because it results mainly from conscious processing strategies adopted in response to task demands. The findings of his study, therefore, support Krashen’s and Reber’s claims concerning the role of individual differences in explicit learning, they do not provide evidence, however, in support of the claims that implicit learning is superior. In fact, Robinson claims that the results of his study suggest that the dual-system accounts of L2 learning (Krashen 1982, 1985; Paradis 1994; Zobl 1995) may be flawed as learning under incidental vs instructed conditions does not “reflect the processing operations of distinct unconsciously- and consciously-accessed systems” (1997b: 81).

1.6 Methodological concerns

1.6.1 Implicit and explicit knowledge – the problem of measurement

Many of the controversies discussed in the previous sections cannot be easily resolved due to methodological problems. In order to address the issue of implicit/explicit knowledge interface, SLA researchers need research methodology that would enable them not only to obtain valid and reliable evidence of learners’ linguistic knowledge but also to distinguish whether this knowledge is represented implicitly, explicitly or, possibly, in both ways (Ellis 2005a, DeKeyser 2005). In the same vein, testing the hypothesis of explicit knowledge being gradually converted to implicit knowledge through practice would only be possible if the relative amount of each at a particular time could be reliably measured. As noted by DeKeyser, “the crux of the issue is finding measures of implicit and explicit learning that are both pure and sensitive, so that they show exactly how much is learned through either process, nothing more and nothing less” (2005: 319). To date, however, no perfect measures of

23 Joanna Bielska this sort have been designed, although there has been some progress in this area, especially with regard to implicit learning (see e.g. Williams 2004, 2005; Hama and Leow 2010; Leung and Williams 2011). In most studies designed to examine the implicit-explicit dichotomy, researchers try to elicit subjects’ knowledge by manipulating conditions in such a way that they are more or less conducive to the retrieval of either implicit or explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is usually operationalized as ability to verbalize specific grammatical rules, whereas implicit knowledge is said to be accessed during oral or written production tasks (see e.g. Hu 2002, Macrory and Stone 2000). However, as noted by Douglas (2001), construct validity of the measures used is rarely considered and empirically tested. In order to address the above issue, Ellis (2005a) designed a test battery composed of five different tasks differing in likelihood of involving subjects’ awareness (response based on feel vs rule), time available (pressured vs unpressured), focus of attention (meaning vs form), and the use of metalinguistic knowledge (required or not). The assumption was that “each test would provide a relatively separate measure of either implicit or explicit knowledge according to how it mapped out on these criteria” (Ellis 2005a: 157). Ellis hypothesized, for example, that an oral narrative test would constitute a good measure of implicit knowledge because participants would have no reason to access their metalinguistic knowledge, they would perform under time pressure, focus primarily on meaning, and rely primarily on feel. In contrast, an untimed grammaticality judgment test would measure explicit knowledge as it involved a high degree of awareness, required the use of metalingustic knowledge and focused subjects’ attention on form, with the time pressure eliminated. Factor analyses of the scores on the five tests included in the battery demonstrated that the tests, based on Ellis’s operational definitions of explicit and implicit knowledge, produced two different factors interpreted as corresponding to the two constructs under investigation. The study thus provided empirical evidence in support of the construct validity of the measures used. However, as Ellis admits, the tests designed constitute “relatively separate measures of implicit and explicit knowledge” (2005a: 153) and providing pure measures of the two types of knowledge is virtually impossible, as tests can only predispose learners to access one or the other type of knowledge. Moreover, even if valid and reliable measures of implicit and explicit knowledge were available, it would still remain unclear to what extent the learning itself may have been implicit or explicit (cf. DeKeyser 2005).

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1.6.2 Implicit and explicit learning – experimental designs

Both laboratory and classroom-based studies of the differential effect of implicit and explicit learning used experimental designs with varying treatment conditions. As has been already mentioned, most of these studies provided empirical evidence in favour of the hypothesis that explicit instruction and higher degree of awareness result in better performance on post-treatment measures, thus pointing to the advantage for explicit treatments. It should be noted, however, that in some of these studies, explicit treatments were operationalized as simply more explicit than implicit treatments, thus differentiating between implicit and implicit plus explicit instruction. For example, in DeKeyser’s (1995) study of the effect of two types of instruction on two kinds of rules in an artificial grammar, the implicit-inductive treatment was defined as mere exposure to numerous sentence/picture pairs, and explicit-deductive treatment as similar exposure accompanied by explicit explanation of relevant rules. In such a design implicit learning cannot be ruled out in either treatment, and participants in the explicit condition may possess both implicit and explicit knowledge of the target structure, which, as noted by Leung and Williams (2011), would fully explain why on experimental tasks they tend to outperform participants with implicit knowledge only. Another methodological problem raised by Leung and Williams (2011) is the discrepancy between training and testing tasks used in SLA research in implicit vs explicit learning, which makes the findings biased against implicit learning, as implicit knowledge has been shown to be relatively inflexible and context dependent. The short duration of most the relevant studies may also contribute to the advantage for explicit learning, as the treatments may have been too short for implicit learning to bring learning effects. Moreover, as stressed by DeKeyser (2005), both in the laboratory and classroom-based studies, the type of tests used as a measure of the dependent variable, despite the time pressure introduced in some of them, allowed for some degree of monitoring of explicit knowledge. Actually, commenting on type-of-instruction research findings,D oughty states that “the case for explicit instruction has been overstated” (2005: 274) and interprets the apparent advantage for explicit instruction as “an artifact of cumulative bias” (2005: 274). The above arguments demonstrate the difficulty involved in designing pure measures of explicit and implicit second language learning. It may actually prove impossible to disentangle the two empirically, especially with the use of behavioural data (cf. Doughty 2005). Therefore, DeKeyser (2005) recommends that SLA researchers follow the advice of cognitive psychologists and “focus on the differential effects of implicit and explicit orientations on learning, rather than on attempts to demonstrate that learning is implicit in some absolute sense” (Stadler and Roediger 1998: 107, quoted in DeKeyser 2005: 339).

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1.7 from theory to practice – implications for second language instruction

Although SLA research and theory have made considerable advances in recent years, it is still a matter of considerable controversy how to design second language instruction so that it makes second language acquisition both effective and efficient. There is no agreement, among other things, as to the relative role of implicit and explicit learning in developing second language competence as well as the role of implicit and explicit knowledge in language use. There is, as a result, no agreement as to the optimal shape of classroom-based second language instruction. Nevertheless, Ellis (2005b) ventured to draw together findings from different second language research studies and formulated the following set of general principles for language pedagogy, calling them “provisional specifications” and admitting that not allS LA researchers or language teachers would necessarily agree with them: Principle 1: instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence. Principle 2: instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning. Principle 3: instruction needs to ensure that learners also focus on form. Principle 4: instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing implicit knowledge of the L2 while not neglecting explicit knowledge. Principle 5: instruction needs to take into account the learner’s “built-in syllabus”. Principle 6: successful instructed language learning requires extensive L2 input. Principle 7: successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output. Principle 8: The opportunity to interact in the L2 is central to developing L2 proficiency. Principle 9: instruction needs to take account of individual differences in learners. Principle 10: in assessing learners’ L2 proficiency it is important to examine free as well as controlled production. Although the dichotomy between implicit and explicit language knowledge is directly addressed only in Principle 4, all of them are partially based on research examining the nature of second language representation and the processes involved in arriving at this representation and could then be discussed in the context of implicit/explicit knowledge interface.

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As has already been stated, most SLA researchers and theorists would agree that second language competence is primarily represented as implicit knowledge and it is this implicit knowledge that people predominantly draw on in spontaneous, fluent communication in L2. Ellis (2005b) therefore concludes that the ultimate goal of any instructional programme should be developing learners’ implicit knowledge of the L2. However, as he rightly notes, there are conflicting theories regarding how this can be achieved, depending on the theorist’s stance on the interface issue. For example, according to skill-acquisition theory described above (see e.g., DeKeyser 2001, 2007), learners arrive at implicit knowledge through the process of proceduralization of explicit knowledge. What they need to get past the declarative threshold into proceduralization is the combination of abstract rules and concrete examples as well as practice tasks that allow for the use of declarative knowledge (DeKeyser 2007). Skill acquisition theory thus lends support to the PPP (presentation, practice, production) model of second language instruction. Emergentist theories, on the other hand (see e.g. N.C. Ellis 2005a, 2005b; MacWhinney 1999), emphasise that implicit knowledge of language develops predominantly through implicit learning mechanisms extracting regularities from input. However, explicit knowledge of form-meaning associations can facilitate initial registration of pattern recognizers and thus impact upon subsequent implicit language learning. Internalizing and then analysing formulaic expressions may serve as a basis for the development of implicit rule-based competence (N.C. Ellis 1996, cf. Ellis 2005b). Irrespective of the differences in these (and other) theoretical positions, there seems to be a consensus in the SLA field that in order to develop implicit language knowledge learners need extensive exposure to L2 input and ample opportunity to engage in communication, production and interaction, which should be taken into account in planning instruction. It is also important to include free production tasks in assessment in order to avoid limiting it to testing explicit language knowledge usually drawn on in controlled production tasks. Finally, while instruction, both implicit and explicit, may facilitate second language acquisition processes and increase learning outcomes, the effects that it brings are constrained by the phenomenon of developmental readiness – the rate of SLA may be speeded up by instruction, its route, however, cannot be altered, i.e. learners must be psycholinguistically ready for receiving instruction on a given structure (see e.g. Ellis 1989, Pienemann 1989; see Ellis 2005b for further discussion).

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1.8 conclusion

As has been shown, the role of awareness in second language acquisition is not without debate. Conducting research in this area is fraught with methodological difficulties, since, as yet, “we do not have a window into the mind” (Sanz and Morgan-Short 2005: 234). Such a window might one day become available thanks to advanced technology used in cognitive neuroscience. As for now, however, neuroimaging studies of bilinguals have produced “inconsistent results and conflicting interpretations” (Paradis 2004: 184).I f empirical research on the explicit-implicit dichotomy is to progress, essential improvements in research methodology based on behavioural data are necessary. As regards the research agenda, many important questions remain to be answered. According to DeKeyser (2005), the issues that need to be addressed include, for example, the interaction between implicit/explicit learning processes and structural characteristics of the learning target (e.g. abstractness, complexity, difficulty, etc.) as well as the three-way interaction of implicit/explicit learning conditions, psycholinguistic features of the learning targets and learners’ aptitudes. If progress is to be made in this area, psycholinguistically relevant measures of SLA processing need to be developed (cf. Doughty 2005). Furthermore, it is important that research findings on implicit and explicit learning not only contribute to second language acquisition theory and cognitive psychology, but also bear some relevance to second language instruction. To this end, while not neglecting narrow controlled experiments conducted in laboratory settings, researchers should conduct more realistic, though less rigorous, experiments in classroom settings to ensure their ecological validity. Simultaneous pursuit of these two lines of research should lead to a better understanding of what actually happens at the implicit/explicit interface.

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Sharwood-Smith, M. 1994. Second Language Learning: Theoretical Foundations. New York: Longman. Sharwood-Smith, M. 2007. “Revisiting the role of consciousness with MOGUL”. In Z. Han (ed.), Understanding Second Language Processes. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 1–15. Stadler, M.A., and H.L.I. Roediger 1998. “The question of awareness in research on implicit learning”. In M.A. Stadler and P.A. Frensch (eds.), Handbook of Implicit Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 105–132. Tomlin, R., and V. Villa 1994. “Attention in cognitive science and SLA”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16, pp. 185–204. Ullman, M.T. 2005. “A cognitive neuroscience perspective on second language acquisition: The declarative/procedural model”. In K. Sanz (ed.), Adult Second Language Acquisition: Methods, Theory, and Practice. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 141–178. VanPatten, B. 1996. Input Processing and Grammar Instruction in Second Language Acquisition: Theory and Research. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. VanPatten, B. 2004. “Input processing in second language acquisition”. In B. VanPatten (ed.), Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 5–32. VanPatten, B., and J. Williams (eds.) 2007. Theories in Second Language Acquisition: an Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. VanPatten, B., and O. Uludag 2011. “Transfer of training and processing instruction: From input to output”. System 39: 44–53. VanPatten, B., and S. Oikkenon 1996. “Explanation versus structured input in processing instruction”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, pp. 459–510. VanPatten, B., and T. Cadierno 1993. “Explicit instruction and input processing”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 225–243. Vokey, J.R., and L.R. Brooks 1992. “Salience of item knowledge in learning artificial grammars”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 18: 328–344. White, L. 2003. Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, L. 2005. “On the nature of interlanguage representation”. In C.J. Doughty and M.H. Long (eds.), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 19–42. Williams, J.N. 1999. “Memory, attention, and inductive learning”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21: 1–48. Williams, J.N. 2004. “Implicit learning of form-meaning connections”. In B. VanPatten, J. Williams, S. Rott and M. Overstreet (eds.), Form Meaning Connections in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 203–218.

34 chapter 1 language acquisition and language learning

Williams, J.N. 2005. “Learning without awareness”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 27: 269–304. Wong, W. 2005. Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the Classroom. New York: McGraw-Hill. Zobl, H. 1995. “Converging evidence for the acquisition/learning distinction”. Applied Linguistics 16: 35–57.

Joanna Bielska

Przyswajanie a uczenie się języka obcego

Streszczenie

Celem rozdziału jest przedstawienie różnych poglądów na temat roli świadomości i uwagi w procesie rozwijania kompetencji językowej. Punkt wyjścia rozważań sta- nowi Teoria Monitora Stephena Krashena i wywodzące się z niej klasyczne rozróż- nienie pomiędzy procesem przyswajania języka (language acquisition) i uczeniem się go (language learning) oraz kontrowersje wokół związków pomiędzy tymi procesami i rodzajami wiedzy językowej, do których prowadzą. W rozdziale zdefiniowano pojęcia implicytności i eksplicytności w odniesieniu do rodzajów wiedzy językowej, procesów przyswajania języka oraz strategii dydaktycznych. Szczegółowo omówiono również różne stanowiska teoretyczne, dotyczące wzajemnych zależności pomiędzy implicytną i eksplicytną wiedzą językową, uwzględniając przyjęty w literaturze przedmiotu podział na stanowiska wykluczające bezpośredni związek między nimi (the non-interface posi- tion), wskazujące na ich silne bezpośrednie powiązania (the strong interface position) oraz te podkreślające słabszą, pośrednią rolę wiedzy eksplicytnej w rozwijaniu wiedzy implicytnej, stanowiącej podstawę kompetencji językowej (the weak interface position). W dalszej części rozdziału przedstawiono krótki przegląd badań eksperymentalnych dotyczących skuteczności poszczególnych strategii dydaktycznych, różniących się między sobą stopniem eksplicytności. Rozdział zawiera również dyskusję na temat metodologii tego typu badań ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem trudności związanych z pomiarem oraz operacjonalizacją zmiennych, jak również wnioski dotyczące poten- cjalnych zastosowań wyników badań w dydaktyce języków obcych.

35 Joanna Bielska

Joanna Bielska

Erwerbung und Lernen von einer Fremdsprache

Zusammenfassung

Das Ziel des Kapitels ist, verschiedene Ansichten über die Rolle des Bewusstseins und der Aufmerksamkeit im Prozess der Sprachkompetenzentwicklung darzustellen. Zum Ausgangspunkt der Betrachtungen werden die Theorie des Monitors von Ste- phen Krashen und die daraus abgeleitete klassische Unterscheidung zwischen dem Spracherwerb und dem Sprachlernen, und die Meinungsverschiedenheiten über die Zusammenhänge zwischen den Prozessen und den infolge der Prozesse erworbenen Sprachkenntnissen. In dem Kapitel werden die Begriffe: implizites und explizites Wis- sen in Bezug auf die einzelnen Arten der Sprachkenntnisse, die Spracherwerbsprozesse und die didaktischen Strategien erklärt. Die Verfasserin bespricht detailliert verschie- dene Theorien über die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen dem impliziten und expliziten sprachlichen Wissen: einige schließen den unmittelbaren Zusammenhang zwischen ihnen aus (the non-interface position), andere deuten auf starke mittelbare Zusammen- hänge zwischen ihnen hin (the strong interface position), noch andere betonen eine schwächere, mittelbare Rolle des expliziten Wissens bei der Weiterentwicklung des impliziten Wissens, das die Grundlage der Sprachkompetenz ist (the weak interface position). Im weiteren Teil des Kapitels befindet sich ein kurzer Überblick von Expe- rimenten an der Effektivität von den einzelnen mehr oder weniger expliziten didak- tischen Strategien. Hier befinden sich auch: eine Diskussion über die Methodologie von solchen Forschungen mit Rücksichtnahme auf die mit der Messbarmachung von Variablen verbundenen Schwierigkeiten, und die die potentielle Anwendung der For- schungsergebnisse bei der Fremdsprachendidaktik betreffenden Schlussfolgerungen. CHAPTER 2

Lexical Development in Language Acquisition and Learning

M. Krzysztof Szymczak

2.1 introduction

This chapter reviews a number of key issues related to the acquisition of L2 vocabulary. It presents three distinct senses of lexicon and different meanings of word, which might be thought of as a token, a word type, or a lexeme. It emphasizes the importance of lexical units consisting of more than one word and touches on issues related to the size of lexicon. Several aspects of what it means to know a word are discussed: spoken and written form, word parts, connecting form and meaning, concepts and referents, associations, grammatical functions, collocations, and constraints on use. The difference between productive and receptive word knowledge is recognized, and important aspects of testing word knowledge are pointed out. The notion ofmental lexicon is elaborated on and related to such models of lexical processing as the logogen model, the cohort model, the lexical search model, and Levelt’s blueprint for the speaker, followed by an approach to mental processing called connectionism and spreading/ interactive activation models. Given that one major question about the nature of the bilingual lexicon concerns the degree of integration and separation of L1 and L2 lexicons, we shall explore some essential aspects of lexical development in both L1 and L2, the latter against the backdrop of the prior discusssion of what it means to know a word.

37 M. Krzysztof Szymczak

2.2 three meanings of lexicon

One often thinks of language, the way we hear it spoken or read its written form, as consisting of basic building blocks called words, which are combined into utterances by means of grammar rules in order to convey some kind of meaning and perform a communicative function. It is possible to communicate quite a lot knowing only vocabulary, but it is not possible to communicate using grammar alone. After all, going abroad, we are much less likely to take a grammar book of an unfamiliar language than a dictionary or a phrase book, which are primarily sources of words or phrases. Moving away from Chomsky’s (1957) view of the supremacy of syntax (grammar), expressed in Syntactic Structures, researchers have come a long way towards emphasizing the importance of lexis (vocabulary). A key principle underlying Lewis’ Lexical Approach is that “[l]anguage consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalized grammar” (Lewis 1993: vi). Central to any discussion on lexical development is the notion of lexicon. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2006) defines it as follows:

1 the lexicon technical all the words and phrases used in a language or that a particular person knows 2 [countable] an alphabetical list of words with their meanings, especially on a particular subject or in a particular language: a lexicon of geographical terms. For our purposes, let us emphasize three distinct uses of the term, corresponding to three key notions: a language, a language user, and a book. Thus, a lexicon will denote the vocabulary of a given language, the vocabulary known by a specific person, or a book listing words in alphabetical order, a dictionary. To refer specifically to a language user’s knowledge of vocabulary, the term mental lexicon is used. We take it for granted that dictionaries are arranged alphabetically. However, some organize vocabulary according to meaning, e.g. Roget’s Thesaurus in its classic form (not just an alphabetical dictionary of synonyms) or Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English (McArthur 1981). Vocabulary in these books is divided into major categories, which are further subdivided into more and more specific sections. If we want to find orange in the Longman Lexicon, we first need to decide what meaning we want – “fruit” or “colour”. If we want the first, then using the top-down method we have to start withLife and living things, then find Plants generally, go to Kinds of fruit and Citrus fruit, to finally find orange side by side with tangerine, lemon, and grapefruit. Following a semantic track in this kind of search is time-consuming, and not always very successful.

38 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development…

To facilitate the search, the Longman Lexicon has an alphabetical index, where the word orange is tagged with a symbol (A150), which serves as a form of address, at which to find the word in the first part of the book.T o accomplish our two-stage search procedure, we need to use the orthographic form of a word in order to find the word in its semantic context.O n balance, finding a word in a dictionary is easy if we know its spelling, but it is more difficult if we start with meaning. Would it be possible to look up a word if we knew only its pronunciation? Not unless we knew its sound-spelling relationship. As yet, there are no marketed dictionaries listing words according to their phonological form.

2.3 What is a word? Tokens, types, and lexemes (or lemmas?)

One possible way of defining a word is to describe it as the smallest semantic unit (a unit carrying meaning) “that can move around in an utterance” (Clark 1993: 2). However, the exact meaning of “the term word will depend very much on the level of abstraction at which a given speaker/writer is operating” (Singleton 1999: 10). Singleton illustrates the point with the example Going, going, gone (a phrase used while accepting the final bid at an auction, or when describing a home run in baseball). How many words does the phrase consist of? The number differs, depending on whether we think of words in terms of tokens, types, or lexemes. The phrase contains three words understood as tokens or running words (going, going, gone), two words understood as word types (going, gone), or just one word, one lexeme (the verb go). A lexeme is an “abstract unit based on a collection of forms thus seen as constituting in some sense a single lexical entity” (Singleton 1999: 10). A lexeme comprises different word forms, which are usually the same part of speech; thus, go, went, gone, goes, going are forms of the same lexeme. A lexicon is made up of lexemes. (Confusing as this might be at this point, some researchers, e.g. Nation (2001), use lemma for what we have just defined as a lexeme. The term lemma is used differently in lexicography and psycholinguistics.) By convention, one form of a lexeme is used as a headword in a dictionary to represent the whole lexeme, and that form is called the citation form. Go is the citation form of the lexeme discussed above. In Polish, a noun lexeme is represented by a singular nominative form (e.g. stół), a verb lexeme is by an infinitive form (e.g. pisać), and an adjective lexeme is cited by means of a singular nominative masculine form (e.g. sosnowy). Citation forms are printed alphabetically in a dictionary as headwords, which helps us locate a particular entry. Apart from the level of abstraction, what we mean by a word will also depend on “the linguistic ‘level(s)’ being discussed, and the extent to which semantic content is being treated as criterial” (Singleton 1999: 10). Applying orthographic

39 M. Krzysztof Szymczak criteria, whereby a word is defined as a series of letters preceded and followed by a blank space (or a punctuation mark), we will describe the word bushes as a sequence of six letters: b, u, s, h, e, and s. In phonological terms, the word consists of five phonemes: /b/, //, /∫/, // and /z/. Morphosyntactically, it consists of the noun stem bush and the plural suffix -es, and at a semantic level, it is similar to shrubs and refers to plants which grow up from the ground and have a lot of thin branches. The definition of word at the beginning of this section is a semantico-grammatical one. With regard to the semantic content of words, we distinguish between content words (or lexical words) and function words (or grammatical words). Content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) carry essential meaning, regardless of context (walk, orange, quickly), while function words (e.g. articles, prepositions, and pronouns) express grammatical relationships (a, at, them). Morphology studies internal word structure and word formation, using the notion of a morpheme. Morphemes include stems and affixes, which are added to stems. An affix is called a prefix when it is added to the beginning of a stem, or a suffix when it comes at the end. The word unspeakable consists of three morphemes: the stem speak, the prefixun- , and the suffix -able. We distinguish between inflected and derived forms of words. Inflection produces a different form of the same word, which is still the same part of speech, e.g. snob → snobs, while derivation changes the meaning (and often the part of speech) and produces a new word, e.g. snob → snobbery/snobbish. Inflections inE nglish comprise plural and possessive for nouns; third person singular present tense, past tense, past participle, and -ing for verbs; and comparative and superlative for adjectives. In Polish, an inflecting language, there is an enormous number of inflected word forms traditionally associated with declension (nouns, adjectives, and pronouns) and conjugation (verbs). Inflected forms have predictable meaning; however, derivation may produce dramatic changes in meaning (e.g. the verb tell means “communicate”, but the derived noun teller means “bank worker”). Derivation is an extremely productive process of word-formation and a major part of dictionary entries contains derived forms of words. Since there is no universal definition of word, lexicographers have to make certain decisions, and those decisions are not always alike, which influences the way dictionary entries are constructed and how words or lexical units are counted. Should acronyms, product names (Mercedes, Clorox), people’s names, and geographical names be counted as words and included in a dictionary? What about vocalizations like uh huh (“yes”), uh uh (“no”), or uh oh (“gosh”)? The word walker can mean different things: (1) someone who walks for exercise, (2) a metal frame helping sick or old people to walk (American use, corresponding to the British Zimmer frame), (3) a frame helping a baby to move around before it can walk, also called a baby walker. Should walker be

40 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… treated as one word, two words (“person” or “frame”), or three? Relying only on the spoken form, would we decide that nonetheless should be treated as one word and none the worse as three? In terms of meaning and syntactic function, they both constitute units.

2.4 Multi-word items

There is strong evidence against viewing lexis exclusively in terms of single word units, resulting from the fact that native speakers acquire and use multi- word chunks, which function as single, unanalysed items or word-like units. Stored and retrieved from memory as whole items, they considerably increase fluency (Pawley and Syder 1983: 192), unlike those sentence parts which have to be constructed from several elements from scratch. The phrase on the other hand functions as if it were one word, much like however. In fact, sequences like upside down, by the way, the day before yesterday have even been termed polywords (Lewis 1997). (From a pedagogical point of view, they might be treated similarly to long words which also demand precise memorization of several constituent parts.) There is no established set or classification of multi-word items, and one random way of presenting them offered by Moon (1997: 44–47) includes compounds (carpark, spin-dry, royal blue), phrasal verbs (write down, hang out), idioms (kick the bucket – in a narrow sense, idioms have unitary meanings which cannot be predicted from individual word meanings), fixed phrases (good morning, in fact, similes and proverbs: dry as a bone, it never rains but it pours), and “prefabricated routines” also known as prefabs (the thing/point is…, I’m a great believer in…). Lewis (1997: 9–11) observes that apart from fully fixed expressions by( the way; not too bad, thanks), people commonly use semi-fixed expressions – frames with slots that can be filled in a limited number of ways. These vary from short to long, and from almost fixed to very free. Examples include: minimal variation (It’s/That’s not my fault.), a simple slot (Could you pass…, please?), a sentence head that can be completed in many ways: What was really interesting/surprising/ annoying was…). Furthermore, Lewis (1997: 30) distinguishes between strong collocations, which are linked so tightly that they behave like single words, and weak collocations (nice day, good chance), where each of two common words may co-occur with many other words. There is no clear-cut distinction between what should and what should not be classified as a multi-word item, as opposed to other strings of words. Moon (1997: 44) presents three criteria characterizing multi-word items: institutionalization, fixedness, and non-compositionality. They describe the degree to which a given

41 M. Krzysztof Szymczak word sequence (a) is conventionalized (institutionalized) and recurs in the language, (b) is a frozen sequence, and (c) has a holistic meaning which cannot be interpreted from individual words. However due to variability of forms of some multi-word items, the notion of fixedness need not always apply. This is illustrated with the examples collected from corpus analysis: wash your dirty linen/laundry in public (mainly British English), air your dirty laundry/linen in public (mainly American English), do your dirty washing in public (British English), wash/air your dirty linen/laundry, wash/air your linen/laundry in public (Moon 1997: 53).

2.5 the size of the lexicon

Interpreting and comparing estimates of lexicon size should be treated with caution for several reasons. First, we do not always know what is counted as a word. Secondly, there are major problems with assessing one’s word knowledge. Thirdly, one word in the count need not be equal to another word in terms of its learning burden, understood as “the amount of effort required to learn it” (Nation 2001: 23). When talking about a word, one might mean a type, a lexeme, or a word family. A lexeme contains a headword and possible inflected forms, while a word family consists of a headword, inflected forms and closely related derived forms. Changing a word count from word types to lexemes or from lexemes to word families can reduce the total number of items dramatically. As Table 1 shows, the entry for number includes an extra dozen derived forms, a considerable number of words to learn. The table also demonstrates that word families may exhibit great differences in size and in the concomitant learning burden.

Table 1 Word families for number and drama containing derived forms, with inflections omitted (adapted from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2006) on CD-ROM) noun adjective verb adverb □ number □ innumerable □ number □ numerically □ numeral □ numerical □ outnumber □ numeracy □ numerous □ numerator □ numerate ≠ innumerate □ innumeracy □ numberless noun adjective verb adverb □ drama □ dramatic □ dramatize □ dramatically □ dramatist

42 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development…

Results of word counts might depend, for example, on such decisions as whether or not words like flat and flatten or police and policeman belong to the same word families (Nation and Waring 1997: 8, 14). One thing that word family counts do not reflect is that – because learners keep extending their knowledge of affixes and learning more derived forms (members of the same word family) – during L2 acquisition word families tend to grow in volume, not just in number. Various questions have been raised with reference to the size of lexicon: the language lexicon (e.g. How many words are there in the English language?), a native speaker’s lexicon (e.g. How many words does a native speaker of English know?), an FL learner’s lexicon (e.g. How many words does an FL learner need? How many words has one learned?), or a language dictionary (e.g. Which dictionary has more words?). The most accessible way of estimating the number of all words in a given language is by consulting the most comprehensive dictionary, with the hope that it records all existing words of that language at a given point in time. The largest non-historical dictionary of English, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, is said to contain 114,000 word families, excluding proper names (Nation 2001: 6–9). Language is changing constantly as new words are created, some words become obsolete or take on new meanings, some word use is restricted to certain regional or social groups, and it would be unwise to expect any dictionary to contain complete word knowledge of a given language. Nation (2001: 363) characterizes two basic methods of assessing people’s vocabulary size: dictionary-based and corpus-based. (Corpora are large bodies of written texts or transcriptions of spoken texts which can be read and analysed by computers.) In the first, a dictionary presumably containing all the words known by the subjects is chosen, and a representative sample of words from it is selected and used to test L2 learners or native speakers. If 1% of the dictionary content was tested, the test result is multiplied by 100 to obtain a subject’s vocabulary size. In the second method, a corpus of language (written, spoken, or both) is collected and words in it are counted. (This method has been used, for example, to estimate vocabulary used by Shakespeare or in US school texts.) The words are arranged as a frequency list and divided into groups – the thousand most frequent words, the second thousand most frequent words etc. Samples of these frequency groups may be used for testing language learners. Corpus-based frequency lists may be corpus-biased, e.g. some colloquial or taboo words may be infrequent in or missing from a corpus based only on written vocabulary from TIME magazine, as opposed to a corpus based on colloquial spoken language, which, in turn, may exhibit lack of some technical vocabulary. As for the size of educated native speakers’ lexicons, Aitchison (1987: 7) believes the number of words they know “is unlikely to be less than 50,000

43 M. Krzysztof Szymczak and may be as high as 250,000.” Nation (2001: 9) estimates that native speakers know about 20,000 word families, having added to their vocabulary an average of 1,000 word families a year in their early lives. 3,000–5,000 word families are necessary as a basis for comprehension (Nation and Waring 1997: 10). Language learners’ lexicon obviously grows throughout their L2 development. Reaching native speakers’ level seems like a daunting task; however, it turns out that not all words are equally important. Knowing the most frequent words, we are able to understand large portions of texts. There have been different frequency lists compiled for English words, and among them Michael West’s A General Service List of English Words from 1953 (based on written language) is a classic, still used. It consists of 2,000 word families, with a majority of content words (only 165 families are function words) (Nation 2001: 15). It is interesting that the first 1,000 most frequent words include as much as 84% of running words in conversation and 73% of academic text; however, the second 1,000 represent only 6% of conversation and 5% of academic text (Nation 2001: 17). Consequently, the 2,000 most frequent English words cover 90% of running words in conversation and 78% of academic texts. The coverage of academic texts will increase to 87%, if we extend the 2,000 word list by the Academic Word List, which comprises 570 word families not included in the most frequent 2,000 words, but appearing in a wide range of academic texts (science, commerce, law, and humanities) (Nation 2001: 17). To reach 95% coverage of academic texts (meaning that one in twenty words remains unknown), knowledge of 4,000 word families is necessary (Nation 2001: 147). Referring to a study on reading comprehension of fiction text,N ation (2001: 147–150) suggests that 95% coverage is the absolute minimum, at which level most subjects did not gain adequate comprehension, however; while with 98% almost all learners achieved adequate comprehension. Therefore, coverage of less than 95% is recommended for intensive reading, 95–98% (one unknown word per 2–5 lines) for extensive reading for incidental vocabulary learning, and 99–100% coverage for intensive reading for fluency development and quick reading for pleasure. A group of advanced students studying abroad in an L2 environment has been reported to exhibit an average vocabulary growth of as many as 2,500 words per year, similar to larger estimates of L1 growth in adolescence (Nation and Waring 1997: 8). It is important to realize that growth of vocabulary knowledge can be greatly assisted by the use of an appropriate dictionary. Unfortunately, some learners get so used to their intermediate-level dictionaries that they find it virtually impossible to give them up for an advanced learner’s dictionary once they have become more advanced. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that some medium-sized monolingual dictionaries seem more appealing, having been

44 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… adapted to accommodate learners’ L1 translations. Oxford Wordpower (2009) comprises 39% (72,000 items) of what Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2009, 7th edition) contains (183,500 words, phrases and meanings). The difference is even more visible in Longman słownik współczesny (2009), which contains 29% (66,500 items) of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009 edition – 230,000 words, phrases and meanings). The largest English- Polish dictionary, Wielki słownik angielsko-polski PWN-Oxford (2002), covers over 500,000 English lexical items. As rule of thumb, working with advanced texts requires at least advanced learner’s dictionaries. A major problem with word counts is that they tend to ignore multiple meanings of words. LDCE gives 9 meanings of a single noun entry for bank. Someone knowing just one meaning of bank, “a place where money is kept,” is thought to know the word bank. Another person who knows all 9 meanings of the word bank is also described as knowing the word bank. Following Wielki słownik angielsko-polski PWN-Oxford, which has three entries for bank, we might tend to conclude that a person familiar with 3 meanings – “financial organization” (bank1), “land alongside a river or lake” (bank2), and “a row“ (bank3) – in fact knows 3 words, all of which have the same spelling but completely different meanings. Looking at other different senses of the noun bank1 (3 senses), bank2 (8 senses), and bank3 (2 senses) – 13 different senses altogether – one might wonder how many “bank words” there really are. Full knowledge of a polysemous word (one that has two or more different meanings) like bank requires much more than knowledge of a word with a single meaning, e.g. giraffe. The problem of word counts becomes even more complex when we note that the multiplicity of meanings concerns especially those words which are more frequent. LDCE lists 48 different senses of the verb to go (excluding phrasal verbs) and only 2 of the noun ship (both words belong to the first 1,000 most frequent words). How many senses of go do we need to know so that we can say we know the verb go – one? twelve? twenty- four? all forty-eight?

2.6 What does it mean to know a word?

Various studies have attempted to address the problem of what it means to know a word, with different degrees of overlap (e.g. Aitchison 1987, Nation 2001, Richards 1976, Singleton 1999). Rather than compare them, we are going to present one comprehensive approach, formulated with direct pedagogical implications in mind. Nation (2001: 26) considers that “[a]t the most general level, knowing a word involves form, meaning and use.” He discusses each of these three components in more detail with regard to aspects presented in

45 M. Krzysztof Szymczak

Table 2. He also stresses that each of those aspects has two sides, relating to receptive and productive knowledge.

Table 2 aspects of word knowledge (adapted from Nation 2001: 27)

Word knowledge form meaning use • spoken form • connecting form and meaning • grammatical functions • written form • concepts and referents • collocations • word parts • associations • constraints on use

2.6.1 Spoken form

We know the spoken form of a word receptively if we can recognize the word when we hear it, and we know it productively if we can pronounce it to express its meaning. Pronounceability of a word is largely determined by the degree of similarity between L1 and L2 sound systems and the ways sounds in both languages combine. Because of problems with the English sound system, some learners might say that they fink (“think”) or like to sink (or sin) (“sing”) in the shower. A recurring mistake made by some students planning on writing their M.A. theses involves mispronouncing /‘θi:sIs/ in such a way that what they are actually saying is, for example, I want to devote my faeces to modern American poets. Some pronunciation problems are related to orthography; for example, in Polish each vowel letter has a corresponding vowel sound, while in English there are various ways of pronouncing the same vowel letter (cf. got, done, so, frown, bought, anorak, to).

2.6.2 Written form

The irregularity and unpredictability of the English spelling system account for a large number of problems with spelling words. One might know the pronunciation of a word but not be able to write it correctly and vice versa. Interestingly, the development of electronic communication seems to have yielded more tolerance for messages that are incorrect linguistically but efficient from a communicative and pragmatic perspective, but at the same time the importance of exact spelling has come to the fore – accessing a desired address or using a password demands that we use every single digit with utmost precision. Also, in business, the change of one letter (cf. Panasonic/Panasonix) might have fundamental consequences worth millions of dollars.

46 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development…

2.6.3 Word parts

Knowledge of word parts includes, for example, perceiving differences between regularities underlying the meaning of -ship in words like friendship and battleship. Understanding the meaning of some roots or prefixes (e.g. hypo- and hyper-) enables us to deduce the meaning of words we have not seen before (e.g. hyposensitive and hypersensitive). However, deceptively transparent words (Laufer 1997: 146) often cause problems, because we do not realize that they are unfamiliar to us. Sometimes learners assume incorrectly that the nouns undercoat and understudy refer to a garment and a student, rather than a layer of paint and an actor.

2.6.4 Connecting form and meaning

One may be familiar with the form of a word – written or spoken (e.g. ignominiously or /∫әæIgәz) – but not know the meaning it corresponds to. One may also know the word form, e.g. thyroid, and know the concept behind it, i.e. be roughly familiar with human anatomy, but still not be able to connect the form thyroid with its proper meaning. Connecting form and the proper meaning is an essential part of knowing a word. The stronger the link between form and meaning, the easier it is to understand the meaning of a word and retrieve the correct form for the meaning we want to express, and every time we retrieve from memory the form or the meaning of a word, the connection becomes stronger.

2.6.5 Concepts and referents

As already mentioned, many words, especially high-frequency words, have multiple meanings, which is not reflected in word counts but definitely increases the learning burden of a word, much like homonymy does. Homonyms are words which have the same form but differ in meaning, and they ought to be counted as separate words. Identity of form may refer to both spelling and pronunciation, as in ear (a body part or part of a plant such as corn), or just one medium – then we talk about two types of homonyms: homographs, which have the same spelling but different meaning (e.g. the noun tear/the verb tear) and homophones, which are pronounced in the same way but differ in meaning (e.g. nose/knows). There are two general approaches describing how our mind processes words with multiple meanings. According to one, each sense of a word is stored separately and every time we process a word, we choose the proper meaning in sense selection. The other stipulates that a word has one core meaning,

47 M. Krzysztof Szymczak underlying all specific meanings, and we search for the correct meaning through reference specification (Nation 2001: 50).

2.6.6 Associations

An essential part of lexical development involves building relationships between words such as, for example, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, entailment or troponymy. Synonyms are words with the same meaning; however, total synonymy, where words are used correctly with identical meanings in all contexts and with the same connotations, is rare. Words are more commonly synonymous in some but not all contexts, or have different connotations.F or example, range/ selection/choice are synonyms in the phrase a nice range/selection/choice of flowers, but not in the phrase his range/selection/choice of knowledge, where one of the possible synonyms of range might be breadth (Crystal 2008: 470). Antonyms have opposite meanings, e.g. big/small. Antonymy can be meaning- based (good/bad, interesting/boring) or form-based (interesting/uninteresting). Nouns can be arranged in hierarchies consisting of several levels, e.g. animal – mammal – dog – puppy, and the relationship between members of such a hierarchy is called hyponymy (the prefixhypo- means “under” – hypothermia is a medical condition where body temperature is much below normal). In the case of a pair like mammal/dog, dog is a hyponym of mammal and mammal is the hypernym. Still another type of relationship is called troponymy. It concerns verbs and is related to the way in which an activity is performed; for example, march is a troponym of walk. A relationship more general than troponomy is that of entailment. March entails walk and snore entails sleep (but it is not a troponym of sleep).

2.6.7 Grammatical functions

Sometimes learners might be familiar with the semantic content of words, but use the wrong part of speech; for example, Polish students often use relax as a noun and have problems with an adjective and adverb live (a live rhino; they played live). The choice of words, especially verbs, has an effect on the structure of a sentence. Differences in grammatical patterns in L1 and L2 account for the following mistakes: *He suggested me this (the English counterpart of proponować + komuś + coś should be suggest + something + to someone) or *Jadłem dużo owoc (the adverb dużo requires the genitive case and owoc needs to be used in the plural (dużo owoców)). The choice of the the verb influence determines that we say He influenced your decision (without a preposition), but if we choose the noun influence, it has to be followed by a preposition:

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He had influence over your decision.C hoosing an adjective that can be used only predicatively, like afraid, means it cannot be used before a noun (I saw people who were afraid. *I saw afraid people.)

2.6.8 Collocations

The ways in which words co-occur and form collocations are often language- specific and cause considerable learning difficulty. Polish learners who know that the English equivalent of tarty ser is grated cheese have no way of predicting that the counterpart of bułka tarta (“grated roll”) is breadcrumbs. Similarly, knowing that blustery means “windy” – as in blustery day (“wietrzny dzień”) – is not enough to predict the collocation blustery wind (“porywisty wiatr”). There is a certain degree of expectancy between elements of a collocation which is recognized by native speakers, but because there is an indefinite number such word combinations, getting close to a native speaker’s intuition in respect of collocation knowledge is one of the most difficult goals to achieve in L2 acquisition. Learners are not always aware that a given word might change its meaning, depending on the context in which it appears and the word(s) it collocates with. Compare the meaning of the word odd in the following: the odd thing is (“the strange thing is”), odd socks (socks that do not match), the odd drink (an occasional drink). An amusing failure to distinguish context-sensitive meaning is illustrated by an English-Polish online translation of an article found on the Internet, where canine extraction (“canine tooth extraction”) was translated as “pulling out a dog.”

2.6.9 Constraints on use

English speakers have to discover how to use “you” when learning Polish, where the pronoun ty/wy (with the concomitant verb forms) indicates a degree of speaker-listener familiarity and Pan/Pani a degree of social or psychological distance, and they have to find how this relationship is defined in different social groups, between colleagues of different ranks, between people of the same age, when talking to much younger people, etc. Polish speakers need to be aware, for example, that the word pussy might sound neutral in British English when talking about a cat to a child, but otherwise be offensive when talking to a woman.

2.6.10 Productive and receptive word knowledge

The more words learners know, the greater the difference between active and passive vocabulary sizes. The difference is described as more visible with

49 M. Krzysztof Szymczak low-frequency words, high-frequency vocabulary tending to be known both receptively and productively (Nation 2001: 370–371). Laufer’s (1998) study on vocabulary growth shows that the difference between active and passive vocabulary size is bigger for ESL learners than for EFL learners, which seems due to input differences.

2.6.11 Testing word knowledge

Until recently, vocabulary testing has concentrated on assessing the number of words learners know. In its crudest form, a vocabulary size test is a checklist (Meara 1996) – subjects are given a list of words and they need to check those they “know”. However, to provide a more adequate account of one’s vocabulary, we should include (a) vocabulary size or breadth, i.e. the number of words known (“how many”), (b) depth of knowledge, i.e. the amount of knowledge of each word (“how well”), (c) automaticity, i.e. how quickly this knowledge can be used, and (d) organization of the lexicon (Schmitt 1997: 104, 326). An attempt to measure vocabulary depth and to give credit for learners’ partial knowledge of words might be illustrated by Wesche and Paribakht’s (1996) Vocabulary Knowledge Scale, in which learners respond to the following statements during an interview: 1. i haven’t seen this word before. 2. i have seen this word before, but I don’t know what it means. 3. i have seen this word before and I think it means… 4. i know this word. It means… 5. i can use this word in a sentence. No vocabulary depth test measuring all aspects of word knowledge discussed above has been developed to date, and attempts to include a large variety of aspects have resulted in the tests becoming so time-consuming as to become impractical. A technique to assess the organization of the mental lexicon is an association chains task, where the subject is given a stimulus word and a target word and is asked to complete the chain of associations. For example, sea – – – butterfly has been completed in many different ways, including sea – horse – horsefly – butterfly and sea – fish – fly – butterfly (Meara 1996).

2.7 Mental lexicon

A native speaker needs about 200 ms (1/5 of a second) to recognize a word in his or her language, and about half a second to reject a non-word (i.e. to state that a given sequence of sounds or letters does not constitute a word in

50 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… a given language) (Aitchison 1987: 7). This speed is astounding. If one tried to run through a lexicon containing 50,000 running words at the rate of 50 words per second, that would take more than 16 minutes. The actual speed of lexical decisions, as well as the fact that words are recognized even before the whole word is heard, indicate that our mental lexicon has some kind of organization system. Our mental lexicon is the mental representation of our knowledge of vocabulary, stored in our long-term memory. We use this lexicon in comprehension by looking up words in our memory and in production by retrieving the words we need. Two important questions arise here: How is the mental lexicon organized? (How do we store words in it?) and how do we retrieve words from it? Suffice it to say at this point that there is evidence indicating that words are stored and retrieved on the basis of their phonological and semantic properties. The mental lexicon is not just the sum of its parts, but also connections between them. Meara (1996) emphasizes the need to analyse the lexicon in terms of its size and its organization/structure, understood as the degree of connectivity between lexical items. Analyses of the mental lexicon often use terms such asprocessing , storage/ retention, and access/retrieval. Processing refers to “cognitive operations which take place during language production and comprehension. Any level of language can be considered in processing terms (‘lexical processing’, ‘phonological processing’, etc.)” (Crystal 2008: 388). Lexical storage refers to “the way words are retained and made available for use by the brain during language production and comprehension. It forms part of a theory of language processing” (Crystal 2008: 278). Lexical access is “the sequence of processing stages which have to be postulated to explain how speakers retrieve words from their mental lexicon” (Crystal 2008: 276). We gain insight into the functioning of the mental lexicon by using different kinds of evidence, e.g. slips of the tongue, tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomena, and aphasia studies (involving people with brain damage), as well as word-association, reaction time, and priming experiments. Neurolinguistic methods include measuring electric activity of brain cells by means of EEG (electroencephalography) and detecting areas with increased blood flow (supposed to indicate increased information processing) by means of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) or PET (positron emission tomography). Unfortunately, “literature on bilingual neuroimaging is fraught with inconsistent results and conflicting interpretations” (Paradis (2004: 184). We know from the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, where we are almost but not quite able to recall the word we are searching for, that the words that come to our mind are likely to have the same stress pattern and the same initial and final sound or letter as the target word.

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Reaction time experiments measure the amount of time it takes to complete a task, for example, to state whether a word that a subject sees or hears is a word or a non-word. This kind of experiment often includespriming , which involves the influence of a previous stimulus, called a prime, on another stimulus, called a target. Let us assume that a subject sees the word driver, states that it is a word, then sees nurse, and again recognizes it as a word. It turns out that if the first word (the prime) is not driver but doctor, it takes less time to recognize nurse (the target) as a word than it does when nurse is preceded by driver. In this semantic priming experiment, the prime facilitates the processing of the target if both the prime and the target are semantically related.

2.8 Models of lexical processing

A model of the mental lexicon is not a replica of it, but a theoretical simplified construct involving a large amount of guesswork. Such a model aims to reflect the principles and workings of a mental lexicon, but even if the model accounts for observable outcomes, it does not necessarily mean that it adequately describes the underlying processes (Aitchison 1987: 28–29). Singleton (1999: 84) makes a distinction between direct (one-stage) and indirect (two-stage) models of the mental lexicon. In indirect models we access a word in two stages, involving a search procedure and a retrieval procedure (similar to the way we obtain a book from a library). Direct models have a one-stage access (similar to word processing software, where every item stored has a name and in order to access the one we need, we only need to type in as many letters as are necessary to distinguish this item from all other items). Direct models include the logogen model and the cohort model, while examples of indirect models include the lexical search model and the connectionism model.

2.8.1 The logogen model

An early version of the logogen model (Morton 1970, cited in Singleton 1999: 86) contains three components: the logogen system (a logogen is a neural unit, part of the nervous system; there is one logogen for each lexical item in one’s mental lexicon), the cognitive system (containing semantic information), and the response buffer (responsible for word production, both spoken and written). The logogen system collects acoustic and visual evidence from language input, as well as semantic evidence from the cognitive system. All this information excites many logogens, but the model stipulates that only one logogen “fires” when activation reaches a critical threshold, and the proper word is selected.

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(In order for this to happen, there are actually two thresholds – one controls access to the cognitive system and one controls access to the response buffer.) Each logogen has a particular activation level, which depends on how often it has been activated. One of the problems with this model involved specifying activation levels for individual logogens and identifying critical thresholds. The solution to this problem is offered by the cohort model, presented below.

2.8.2 The cohort model

The cohort model (Marslen-Wilson and Tyler 1980) assumes that when we hear a word, the acoustic information activates word detectors. They are activated the moment we perceive the beginning of a word. For example, when someone starts saying the word parliament and we hear /pA-/, all word detectors for words beginning with /pA-/ are activated. This whole set of words which we access (activate) in our mental lexicon before the single target word is selected is called the word-initial cohort, and in our example, it would include, for instance, park, parka, parlance, parley, parliament, parlor, parlous, parsley, partial etc. When the next sound is uttered and we hear /pAl-/, those words which do not match the acoustic input remove themselves from the the word-initial cohort, which is then narrowed down to: parlance, parley, parliament, parlor, parlous, etc. Next we hear /pAl-/, which limits the range of words to parlance, parliament, parlor, and parlous. As soon as /m/ is heard, the word parliament is selected, because there is no other English word that begins with /pAlm-/ (the word parliamentary is not likely due to a different stress pattern). /pAlm-/ is the uniqueness point for parliament. Each word has its uniqueness or recognition point, the exact point when the word is recognized. The model recognizes the role of context in lexical processing and stipulates that after a word-initial cohort has been selected, contextual factors come into play. In a word-monitoring study, subjects presented with auditory material were supposed to press a button as soon as they heard a word they had been given before. The listening material included (1) normal, coherent sentences, (2) sentences correct syntactically, but anomalous semantically, and (3) random strings of words. As the support provided by context decreases, the subjects’ mean reaction times increase (273 ms, 331 ms and 358 ms, respectively). The cohort model allows one to specify points of recognition of non-words (a non-word is a sequence of phonemes or letters which is not an existing word in a given language, e.g. pychology, trrukosf or ptak are non-words in English). For English, the initial sound sequence /pt/ will mark the uniqueness point for non-words starting with /p/, because no English word begins with the sound sequence /pt/. Experimental evidence supporting the theory underlying the model shows “that the time taken to recognize non-words will be shorter where

53 M. Krzysztof Szymczak recognition points come early in words and longer where recognition points come late” (Singleton 1999: 93). Although the cohort model deals with speech recognition and analyses input on the phonological level, it has important implications for the retrieval of lexical items with regard to orthography, outside the realm of the mental lexicon. A number of electronic dictionaries specify the beginning of word-initial cohorts (e.g. CD dictionaries published by Longman, CUP, OUP, or Collins). The function of identifying a uniqueness point and automatically providing the rest of a word which is being selected has been adopted by Microsoft Word (autocomplete option), Google, and some cell phone text-messaging programs.

2.8.3 The Lexical Search Model

The Lexical Search Model (Forster 1976) is an indirect model. Singleton (1999: 99ff) discusses the model beginning with an analogy to the two stages we go through when finding a book in a library. First, depending on the kind of information we have about the book we want (author, title, or just subject), we select an appropriate book catalogue and search it to find the appropriate shelf mark. Then, knowing the exact location of the book, we go to a specific shelf and get the volume. The two-stage processing in the lexical search model involves peripheral access files, which are connected by means of pointers to the unitary master file. In receptive language processing, we are thought to go to a phonological access file (for the words we hear) or an orthographic access file (for the words we read), while if we produce language on the basis of meaning intentions, we go to a syntactic/semantic access file. Each access file lists words according to phonological, orthographic, and syntactico-semantic criteria, respectively, together with pointers, which (just like shelf marks) point to the exact location of a complete entry in the master file. The model does not assume any connectivity between different access files, but it allows for some cross-referencing in the master file between closely related words.E xperimental results, however, do not seem fully to support Forster’s theory.

2.8.4 Levelt’s blueprint for the speaker

A well-known language processing model is Levelt’s Blueprint for the Speaker (1989). Although it is not exclusively a model of lexical processing, the lexicon plays a central part in it. Levelt distinguishes between declarative knowledge (“knowing that”), which can be examined reflectively, through introspection, and procedural knowledge (“knowing how”), which cannot be accessed through conscious thought. The lexicon component in Levelt’s model contains declarative knowledge and consists of lemmas (semantico-grammatical

54 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… knowledge) and forms/lexemes (morphophonological knowledge). Each lemma contains the word’s meaning, conceptual argument structure, syntactic category (part of speech), grammatical profile, and possibly information about constraints such as style and appropriatness, which match particular contexts. The lemma is linked by means of a pointer with the morphophonological form of the word. The procedural components of Levelt’s model work as follows. After the Conceptualizer has generated a message, the Formulator gives the pre-verbal message a syntactic and phonological shape, yielding internal speech, which the Articulator transforms into overt speech. The remaining components of the model are responsible for self-monitoring (analysing produced speech and adjusting further production). Levelt (1989: 181) considers speech production procedures lexically-driven. The pre-verbal message triggers lexical items into action, and these, in turn, trigger grammatical, morphological, and phonological encoding in the Formulator. In other words, the grammar and phonology of generated utterances are determined by characteristics of lexical items. In his analysis of the lexicon, Levelt (1989: 183) distinguishes between relations “within entries” and “between entries”. He treats inflected forms as part of the same entry, and derived forms as separate entries. Furthermore, he divides relationships between entries into intrinsic relations, based on meaning, grammar, morphology, and phonology, and associative relations, based on frequent collocations (e.g. green and grass or thunder and lightning). As for intrinsic relations, words are related semantically when they belong to the same lexical set (parts of a car or names of the months) or constitute synonyms or antonyms. Grammatically related words are the same part of speech of perform the same grammatical function. Members of the same word family are related morphologically, through derivation. Phonological relations might involve words beginning with the same sound.

2.8.5 Connectionism

When brain cells are active, they send signals to other neurons. Excitatory signals cause arousal, while inhibitory signals cause suppression. Thus, in a network of interconnected units, some units are reinforced as a result of arousal, and the connections with others are lost as a result of inhibition (Aitchison 1992: 31). The approach which explains mental processing by analogy with brain activity and neural networks is called connectionism (or parallel distributed processing). Its most striking feature is that it represents knowledge not in terms of entities which are stored in our mind, retrieved, and combined according to patterns or rules (which are also stored), but in terms of connection strength (Singleton

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2000: 179). Connectionism uses the concept of spreading activation and is related to two other types of models.

2.8.6 Spreading/interactive activation models

In spreading activation models, the mental lexicon consists of interconnected nodes, where the arousal of some nodes spreads and excites more and more other nodes to which they are connected. Interactive activation models posit that the activation flows not just in one direction between activated nodes, but forwards and backwards. Connectionism, unlike the other two models, postulates inhibitory signals, not just excitatory ones.

Transportation Heat Apple Pear

Bus Fire Cherry Street Truck

Firetruck Car Red Sunrise

Ambulance Sunset Orange Clouds Green Rose

Yellow Flower

Violet

Figure 1 a spreading Activation Model (Randall 2007: 115, cited in Kersten 2010: 19)

2.8 Bilingual lexicon – integration or separation?

Unfortunately, we do not know the exact structure of the L1 mental lexicon, and the situation becomes even more complicated if we include the lexicon of L2. The basic question asked here is whether the bilingual lexicon is a unified whole, or whether it contains separate language lexicons. There are studies supporting both integration and separation. For example, interference errors are incorrect forms originating in L1 (Może być! → *Can be!). On the other hand, bilingual studies on aphasia and language loss show that language disorders and language recovery may affect one language, but not the other (Singleton 2003). It might be assumed that different types and degrees of interconnectivity between the L1 and L2 lexicons “will make some parts of our mental lexicon more integrated and others separate” (Gabryś-Barker 2005: 50). Kroll (1993, cited in Kersten 2010: 28) suggests a model stipulating that bilinguals in both L1 and L2 rely on the same conceptual store, and that

56 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… the strength of lexical and conceptual links changes with proficiency level and age of acquisition (Figure 2). Initially, the concept behind a new L2 word is arrived at via a corresponding L1 word. With time, direct links between L2 words and their underlying concepts are established.

lexical links L1 L2

conceptual links

concepts

Figure 2 concepts and L2 acquisition (Kroll 1993: 54, cited in Kersten 2010: 28)

Some of the drawbacks of studies on word knowledge and lexical storage and access include using single words in isolation, in situations different from authentic communication, and disregarding the context of language use, which can strongly influence the meaning of a word, its connotations, appropriatness of use, or interpretability (Read 1997: 319).

2.10 Lexical development in L1 acquisition

Children acquiring their first language face a formidable task: they have to isolate word units from the continuous speech stream they hear, they have to create potential meanings, and they need to map the meanings onto the forms (Clark 1993: 43). We communicate meanings via concepts which are mental representations of referents (objects, persons, places, attributes, actions etc. in the “real world”) (Singleton 2000: 65).

CONCEPT

LEXICAL FORM REFERENT

Figure 3 associations between the concept, the lexical form, and the referent (Singleton 1999: 30)

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Early child language development includes four important stages, summarized in Table 3 (based on Singleton 1999: 61). Cooing and babbling are pre-speech stages, followed by so-called true speech – production of one-word meaningful utterances.

Table 3 Milestones of early child-language development (based on Singleton 1999: 61)

Child’s age when this stage Stage Child’s output begins Cooing 1–4 months vowel-quality vocalizations Babbling 4–8 months combinations of both vowel-like and consonant-like sounds One-word utterance stage end of the first year meaningful single-word utterances Two-word utterance stage 18–24 months producing words within the same tone group

After a child has produced its first words, lexical development takes place in three phases. In Phase 1, lexical development is very slow, and it might even take half a year for a child to produce the first dozen words. During Phase 2, a vocabulary explosion – or “vocabulary spurt” (Clark 1993) – phase, the child acquires a large number of words very quickly. This usually happens after a child has already acquired about 30 or more words. Phase 3 is characterized by consolidation, revision, and reorganization of lexical knowledge. It starts in pre-school years and continues into adulthood (Singleton 2000: 167). Research on concept formation proves the existence of concepts in a child’s mind at the pre-speech stage. An experiment was carried out based on a finding that infants exposed to two stimuli – one they have already seen and one they have not – will look longer at the new stimulus. Infants aged 3–4 months were familiarized with distorted versions of a simple geometrical shape (square, triangle, or diamond). Afterwards, they were shown undistorted shapes – a version of the shape already seen and a new one. The infants looked longer at the novel shapes, which indicates that they have created prototypical concepts of the shapes correctly, even though they had been exposed to distorted versions of those shapes (Singleton 1999: 55). We know that concepts exist in a child’s mind, but we do not know where they come from. Chomskyans and nativists maintain that they are innate and that a child’s lexical, or linguistic for that matter, development is possible due to certain innate properties and special mechanisms enabling any human being to acquire a language. Some researchers do not entirely support this view and point to other, external facilitating factors. For example, adults tune a child’s

58 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… input (they modify the language directed to children) by making their utterances shorter, speaking more slowly, and repeating key words, which helps a child to extract words from an adult’s speech. Child-directed speech thus modified is referred to as motherese or caregiver’s speech. An inherent feature of motherese is ostensive definition: saying a word and simultaneously pointing to an object being named. Doing this, an adult isolates a word for the child and facilitates mapping its meaning onto the form. Early word meanings among children aged one or two are characterized by under-extension and over-extension. For example, a child might under-extend the word dog, using it for most prototypical dogs, excluding a Pekingese or a Chihuahua (Clark 1993: 34), or over-extend dog to goats, sheep, calves or cows. Lexical expansion during the vocabulary spurt (Phase 2) indicates a child’s discovery that everything around has a name (naming insight) and vocabulary growth is aided by fast mapping – great ease in acquiring new words even after very little exposure. Clark (1993: 28, 31) observes that even though children might know not more than 50 or 100 words, they use words from different domains or semantic fields, such as people, food, animals, vehicles, body parts, or clothes. Initially, however, each domain might be represented by just one or two words, e.g. mama, milk, dog, car, nose, shoe, respectively. As the children’s vocabulary expands, so does the size of each domain; thus, duck, mouse, and cat might be added to the animal domain, followed by horse, fish, goose, etc. Furthermore, new domains are created. In Phase 3, important reorganization of lexical items takes place. Language users approach word relationships in a more general and abstract way and develop hierarchical levels in word meanings. Thus, a child who has learned that tulips and roses are flowers and oaks and elms are trees, will cluster both semantic domains into one, using a superordinate term, plants. Similarly, after baby, daddy, etc. have been classified as people, and dog, cat, tiger as animals, a still more general superordinate term might be used further up the hierarchy: plants, people, and animals are members of a broader domain which might be labeled things that are alive (Singleton 2000). In this way, extralinguistic reality starts to be classified through superordinatness and hyponymy. Another important aspect of the growth of mental lexicon is the syntagmatic- paradigmatic shift, taking place between the age of five and ten.F ree association tests show that younger children respond with syntagmatic associations (where a response is a different part of speech than a stimulus, e.g. red – apples, table – eat), which are largely replaced by paradigmatic associations (where a stimulus and a response are the same part of speech, e.g. red – green, table – chair), predominating in older children and adults.

59 M. Krzysztof Szymczak

2.11 some aspects of L2 lexical acquisition

Unless both L1 and L2 are acquired simultaneously (for example, when each parent speaks a different language with a child), L2 acquisition usually takes place when we are at a different level in terms of cognitive, linguistic, or psychosocial development, and we have already developed a phonological and a conceptual system with semantic hierarchies, possibly with a certain degree of literacy. We do not go through cooing and babbling stages in L2, but we have our L1 lexical knowledge as a reference point or backdrop, whether we want this or or not. Isolation of a spoken word form might be problematic even for advanced Polish learners of English, partly due to different vowel and word stress systems and vowel reduction in English. Some learners report that they find it easier to establish and remember the phonological form of a new word if they see its written form first. Consequently, there are times when retrieval of the phonological form is not primary but follows retrieval of the written form of a word. Word form recognition is important inasmuch as learners might confuse meanings of different words that are similar in form or take an unknown word for a known one. Phonological short-term memory (measured by the length of a sequence of unknown words or non-words that a subject can repeat in the correct order) is a reliable predictor of one’s ability to acquire vocabulary later on, in both L1 and L2 (Ellis 1997, Singleton 1999). Arabski (1996b: 78) notes a shift in emphasis in acquisition studies of L2 word phonological structure, from comparisons of L1 and L2 forms to studying retention of L2 items. A major factor distinguishing naturalistic L2 acquisition from L2 learning in formal settings is the amount and kind of input, and for many learners this might be limited to classroom activities. Acquisition of lexis is enhanced by encountering new words in natural situations and is assumed to involve guessing word meaning from context. Extensive reading is strongly encouraged to ensure incidental vocabulary acquisition. At the early stages, however, we face what is called the beginner’s paradox (Kersten 2010: 75) – learners are simply unable to learn from context, because they do not know enough of the words that constitute the context. Research has shown that in order to learn efficiently from context, using unsimplified texts, a vocabulary of about 3,000 words is required, and that number secures coverage of at least 95 per cent of a text (Nation and Waring 1997: 11). Nation and Waring (1997: 11) recommend that learners be taught the 3,000 most frequent words as soon as possible (even in a non- contextual manner, using word-cards), and then be given help in developing strategies to understand and acquire low-frequency words. An important way

60 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… of acquiring large numbers of new words at that later stage is through extensive listening and reading. It is important for teachers to be aware of both the amount and kind of input their learners receive, as well to recognize their areas of difficulty.S chmitt (1977: 231) discusses a study in which four groups of teachers of English were asked to predict lexical difficulty of words.O n the whole, non-native speakers of English (teachers whose L1 was the same as their students’) did better than English native-speakers. Furthermore, students’ knowledge of the target words was best predicted by non-native, inexperienced teachers, who found it easier to see the text through the learners’ eyes.

The English-speaking trainee teachers demonstrated an astonishing lack of awareness of word difficulty and, ironically, the experienced group of native speakers with postgraduate qualifications argued eloquently from the literature in support of their inaccurate predictions. (Schmitt 1997: 232)

Motherese, facilitating L1 acquisition, has its counterparts in both naturalistic L2 acquisition and more formal settings. Foreigner talk is the kind of language native speakers use while talking to foreigners, employing shorter sentences, speaking more slowly, and limiting their vocabulary. Similar features are demonstrated in teacher talk, where words have more general meanings and are less idiomatic. Nation (2001: 63–65) describes three processes that lead to a word being remembered: noticing, retrieval, and creative (generative) use. Important aspects of noticing, or giving attention to a word, are interest, motivation and decontextualization, which here means regarding a word as part of a language system rather than as part of a message. Vocabulary is learned better if it involves negotiation of meaning (learners might be involved in negotiation themselves or they might also watch others negotiate). Retrieval does not occur when learners are presented with the form and meaning at the same time, but when only form is presented and they need to retrieve its meaning while listening or reading (receptive retrieval), or when they speak or write and want to communicate a certain meaning and need to retrieve its spoken or written form (productive retrieval). Every time a word is retrieved, the link between its form and meaning is strengthened, which facilitates future retrieval, provided the next retrieval takes place soon enough so that the word has not faded from one’s memory. In generative processing, learners – while listening or reading – come across a word used in a different way than previously (receptive generation), or they use a word in a new way in a new context (productive generation). Are morphological relationships reflected in the mental lexicon? Studies show that the speed of recognition of words is affected by inflectional and

61 M. Krzysztof Szymczak derivational relationships, which suggests that “inflected and derived form are stored under the same entry or are linked to each other in the mental lexicon” (Nation 2001: 269). Failure to connect word form and meaning properly might result, for example, in underdifferentiation errors, when two different L2 words have the same translation equivalent in L1 (e.g. borrow and lend have one translation equivalent in Polish – pożyczyć). Accounting for lexical development in L2, Arabski (1979: 34) uses the notion of the primary counterpart, defined as the L2 “equivalent which in the process of foreign language learning is acquired to render the common meaning of a given L1 lexical item.” Primacy is ascribed by statistics. The Polish verb mieć is often translated into English as have, and as a result learners tend to acquire have as the primary counterpart of mieć, which results in mistakes such as *I have 19 years. With time learners find that mieć has another English counterpart, be, and start producing correct forms, like I am 19. With some words the list of their counterparts may be rather long, which makes learning a given word more complex and time consuming. False friends, words in two languages which are similar in form but which express different meanings, are often sources of errors (cf. Rusiecki 2002). By way of illustration, a student fervently described to an examination board a research project he was planning to carry out, based on his own autopsy (Polish autopsja means “personal observation or experience”). While early stages of L2 acquisition are marked by substantial reliance on L1 and interference errors, in later stages learners have found that similarity between L1 and L2 may be deceptive and as a result unknown L2 multi-word items (e.g. idioms or phrasal verbs) which are seen as too similar to L1 forms are treated with suspicion and might be avoided (Hulstijn and Marchena 1989, Kellermann 1977, Kellermann 1978) or even rejected as incorrect despite being perfectly acceptable L2 forms, only to be accepted again at a still higher proficiency level (Kellerman 1985). Verspoor and Lowie (2003) found that the acquisition of polysemous words was greatly facilitated if learners were provided with a core sense underlying different meanings of a polysemous word. Those who were given the core meaning were better not only at guessing an abstract sense of a polysemous word, but also at remembering the word – their long-term retention scores were significantly higher. Defining a core meaning successfully might not be always possible, and due to the deceptive nature of polysemous words, learners are often unaware that they do not know the meaning of a word being used. For example, someone who comes to an airport and is asked to check their baggage, and is then asked again why they have not done so yet, may be utterly confused, convinced that checking

62 CHAPTER 2 Lexical Development… baggage means “examining” it, and unaware that under the circumstances it means “leaving” it at a designated place. Word associations studies indicate that early learners of L2 tend to produce syntagmatic and clang associations (Meara 1978, 1982) (the latter concerns words related in phonological terms only), while more proficient groups are apt to use paradigmatic associations (Söderman 1993), which is reminiscent of the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift in L1 acquisition that has been described above. Word familiarity is a significant factor in word association, as Söderman’s study suggests that less frequent words were more likely to elicit syntagmatic reactions. Among grammatical categories, nouns are said to be the easiest to learn; they are followed by verbs and adjectives, adverbs being the most difficult. The effect of part of speech is supposed to be greater in lower levels of proficiency. There is some disagreement as to whether concrete nouns are always easier than abstract ones (Laufer 1997: 148–149). Lexical density as defined byU re (1971) reflects the proportion of content to function words. It is measured by dividing the number of content word tokens by the number of all running words and multiplying by 100%. Written texts tend to have a higher lexical density than spoken ones. In his study of written compositions of L2 learners, Arabski (1979; 1996a: 141) found that lexical density increased with proficiency levels from 47% (beginners) to 69% (intermediate) to 77% (advanced). (Some researchers (e.g. Crystal 2008: 276) define lexical density as synonymous with type/token ratio, arrived at by dividing the number of word types (different words) by the number of word tokens (all running words) in a text and multiplying the result by 100. The higher the ratio, the richer the vocabulary, and the more difficult the text is likely to be.) Reaction time studies show that some frequent collocations are treated as lexical units and processed faster than if they were recreated from individual words (Nation 2001: 335). This indicates that words are stored individually and also as parts of larger chunks retrieved without being analysed into individual units. A large proportion of utterances consists of familiar word sequences, which are not entirely new creations. Native-like fluency incorporates collocational knowledge. Staying in a target-language-speaking country increases a learner’s fluency due to a greater number of stored memorized sequences, as revealed by measuring the length of syllable sequences uttered without a pause (Nation 2001: 323).

2.12 final remarks

Despite the large amount of research that has been carried out, acquisition of vocabulary is far from being fully understood and we are lacking an overall

63 M. Krzysztof Szymczak theory of lexical acquisition (Meara 1997). Due to the lack of an exact definition of a lexical unit and lack of satisfactory instruments, we cannot estimate a person’s depth of word knowledge in a precise and practical way. Lexical knowledge is multidimensional and so complex that research and testing methods applied so far have barely scratched the surface of the subject. Many on-line studies of the mental lexicon have concentrated on decontextualized words, and theories of bilingual lexical processing have not been accompanied by longitudinal studies illustrating in a systematic way how lexis is acquired. More needs to be done in terms of research instrument development to reflect the cumulative nature of vocabulary acquisition, a process which is different at different stages of development.

References

Aitchison, J. 1987. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Aitchison, J. 1992. Introducing Language and Mind. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Aitchison, J. 1994. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Arabski, J. 1996a. Przyswajanie języka obcego a pamięć werbalna. Katowice: „ Ś l ą s k”. Arabski, J. 1996b. “Stages in the acquisition of foreign lexis”. In J. Arabski (ed.), Foreign Language Acquisition Studies. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, pp. 77–83. Arabski, J. 1997. Errors as Indications of the Development of Interlanguage. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski. Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Clark, E.V. 1993. The Lexicon in Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell. Ellis, N. 1997. “Vocabulary acquisition: word structure, collocation, word- class, and meaning”. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forster, K. 1976. “Accessing the mental lexicon”. In R. Wales and E. Walker (eds.), New Approaches to Language Mechanisms. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 257–287.

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Gabryś-Barker, D. 2005. Aspects of Multilingual Storage, Processing and Retrieval. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Hulstijn, J., and M. Marchena 1989. “Avoidance: grammatical or semantic causes?” Studies in second language acquisition 11: 241–245. Kellerman, E. 1977. “Towards a characterisation of the strategy of transfer in second language learning”. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2: 58–145. Kellerman, E. 1978. “Giving learners a break: native language intuitions as a source of predictions about transferability”. Working Papers on Bilingualism 15: 59–92, 309–315. Kellerman, E. 1985. “If at first you do succeed …”. In S.M. Gass and C.G. Madden (eds.), Input in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House, pp. 345–353. Kersten, S. 2010. The Mental Lexicon and Vocabulary Learning: Implications for the Foreign Language Classroom. Tübingen: Narr Verlag. Kroll, J.F. 1993. “Accessing conceptual representations for words in a second language”. In R. Schreuder and B. Weltens (eds.), The Bilingual Lexicon. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 53–81. Laufer, B. 1997. “What’s in a word that makes it hard or easy: some intralexical factors that affect the learning of words”.I n N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press, pp. 140–155. Laufer, B. 1998. “The development of passive and active vocabulary: same or different?” Applied Linguistics 19: 255–271. Levelt, W. 1989. Speaking: from intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lewis, M. 1993. The Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching Publications. Lewis, M. 1997. Implementing the Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching Publications. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (with CD-ROM). 2006. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. 2009. Pearson Longman. Longman słownik współczesny. 2009. Harlow, Essex: Pearson. Marslen-Wilson, W., and L. Tyler 1980. “The temporal structure of spoken language understanding”. Cognition 8: 1–71. McArthur, T. 1981. Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English. Harlow: Longman. Meara, P. 1978. “Learners word associations in French”. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 3 (2): 192–211. Meara, P. 1982. “Word associations in a foreign language: A report of the Birbeck Vocabulary Project”. Nottingham Linguistic Circular 11 (2): 29–38.

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Meara, P. 1996. “The dimensions of lexical competence”. In G. Brown, K. Malmkjaer and J. Williams (eds.), Performance and Competence in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33–53. Meara, P. 1997. “Towards a new approach to modelling vocabulary acquisi- tion”. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 109– 121. Moon, R. 1997. “Vocabulary connections: multi-word items in English”. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 40–63. Nation, I.S.P. 2001. Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nation, P., and Waring, R. 1997. “Vocabulary size, text coverage and word lists”. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 6–19. Oxford Wordpower. 2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paradis, M. 2004. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pawley, A., and F. H. Syder 1983. “Two puzzles for linguistic theory: nativelike selection and nativelike fluency”.I n J.C. Richards and W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. London: Longman, pp. 191–226. Randall, M 2007. Memory, Psychology and Second Language Learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Read, J. 1997. “Vocabulary and testing”. In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 303–320. Richards, J.C. 1976. “The role of vocabulary teaching”.TESOL Quarterly 10 (1): 77–89. Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. 1962. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books. Rusiecki, J. 2002. “Friends true and false: or a contrastive approach to the lexicon”. In J. Arabski (ed.), Time for Words: Studies in Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 71–81. Schmitt, N., and M. McCarthy (eds.) 1997. Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Singleton, D. 1999. Exploring Second Language Mental Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press.

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Singleton, D. 2000. Language and the Lexicon: An Introduction. London: Arnold. Singleton, D. 2003. “Perspectives on the multilingual lexicon: a critical synthesis”. In J. Cenoz, B. Hufesein and U. Jessner (eds.), The Multilingual Mental Lexicon. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 167–176 Söderman, T. 1993. “Word associations of foreign language learners and native speakers. The phenomenon of a shift in response type and its relevance for lexical development”. In H. Ringbom (ed.), Near-native Proficiency in English. Abo: Abo Akademi, pp. 91–182. Ure, J. 1971. “Lexical density and register differentiation”. In G. Perren and J.L.M. Trim (eds.), Applications of Linguistics. London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–452. Verspoor, M., and W. Lowie 2003. “Making sense of polysemous words”. Language Learning 53: 547–586. Wesche, M., and T.S. Paribakht 1996. “Assessing second language vocabulary knowledge: depth versus breadth”. Canadian Modern Language Review 53: 13–40. Wielki słownik angielsko-polski PWN-Oxford. 2002. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

M. Krzysztof Szymczak

ROZWÓJ LEKSYKALNY W PRZYSWAJANIU I UCZENIU SIĘ SŁOWNICTWA

Streszczenie

Rozdział poświęcony jest zagadnieniom związanym z przyswajaniem słownictwa obcojęzycznego. Omawia różne znaczenia takich pojęć, jak słownik (ang. lexicon), słownik wewnętrzny (ang. mental lexicon) i słowo (ang. word). Analizuje odpowiedź na pytanie „Co to znaczy znać dane słowo?” w odniesieniu do takich aspektów wie- dzy leksykalnej, jak wymowa, pisownia, świadomość budowy wyrazu, łączenie formy słowa z jego znaczeniem, skojarzenia i związki między wyrazami, funkcje gramatycz- ne, kolokacje, ograniczenia co do użycia słowa. Zagadnienie słownika wewnętrznego przedstawione jest w kontekście wybranych modeli przetwarzania słownictwa. Pod- niesiono również kwestię integracji i rozdziału wewnętrznych słowników dwujęzycz- nych. Omówiono etapy przyswajania słownictwa języka pierwszego oraz zagadnienia dotyczące przyswajania słownictwa języka drugiego w nawiązaniu do wspomnianych wcześniej aspektów wiedzy leksykalnej.

67 M. Krzysztof Szymczak

M. Krzysztof Szymczak

Lexikalische Entwicklung bei Erwerbung und Lernen des fremdsprachigen Wortschatzes

Zusammenfassung

Das Kapitel ist den mit dem Erwerb des fremden Wortschatzes verbundenen Fra- gen gewidmet. Der Verfasser bespricht verschiedene Bedeutung von solchen Begrif- fen, wie: Wörterbuch (eng.: lexicon), mentales Wörterbuch (eng.: mental lexicon) und Wort (eng.: word). Er versucht die Frage zu beantworten: „Was heißt, dass man ein Wort kennt?“ in Bezug auf solche Aspekte des lexikalen Wissens, wie: Aussprache, Schreibweise, Wortstrukturbewusstsein, Verbindung der Form des Wortes mit dessen Bedeutung, Assoziationen und Wortverbindungen, grammatische Funktionen, Kollo- kationen, Wortgebrauchsbeschränkungen. Das mentale Wörterbuch wird anhand aus- gewählter Modelle der Wortschatzverarbeitung geschildert. Der Verfasser befasst sich auch mit dem Problem der Integration und Trennung von zweisprachigen mentalen Wörterbüchern. Er bespricht die einzelnen Stufen des Erwerbs von dem Wortschatz der ersten Sprache und die den Erwerb des Wortschatzes von der zweiten Sprache betreffenden Fragen. CHAPTER 3

Morphosyntactic development

Adam Wojtaszek

3.1 introduction

The major purpose of the chapter is to introduce the reader to the most important issues subsumed under the heading of morphosyntactic component acquisition in SLA, presented in a roughly chronological order based on the development of research trends and findings within each of the major topics selected for inclusion. Before the relevant issues are presented and discussed, however, two justifications are in place related to the selection of scope and focus for the chapter, followed by a more detailed announcement of its overall organisation. The more obvious and self-explanatory justification concerns the decision to blend morphology with syntax in the subsequent accounts of language acquisition processes. In the studies and theoretical descriptions of language acquisition or learning we inevitably deal with at least two distinct linguistic systems, which more often than not are quite divergent with regard to the inclusion of particular linguistic phenomena within the domain of morphology or syntax. It can be easily illustrated by the juxtaposition of the forms of semantic role encoding available for the grammatical systems of English and Polish. In order to mark the thematic role of “the instrument”, in Polish the instrumental case suffix is used as an equivalent of the prepositional construction employed in English:

Pokroił chleb nożem. cut – 3rd pers. sing. masc. bread – accus. sing. knife – instr. sing. He cut bread with a knife.

69 Adam Wojtaszek

Thus, what fits in the area of morphology and case paradigms in Polish, is rendered in English by means of phrasal constructions and word-order phenomena, clearly belonging to syntactic analysis. Since the discussion of language acquisition phenomena very often necessitates comparative accounts of the learner’s L1 and the acquired L2 system, it is impossible to restrict the portrayal only to one of the above-mentioned levels of linguistic description. Additionally, we could point to the fact that even within one language there are many phenomena which display either morphological or syntactic character (in the sense that two distinct forms of encoding are available), or which lie at the borderline between the two. It is sufficient to mention the encoding of possessive relationship in English (Saxon Genitive vs of possessive phrase) or the negation of adverbs and adjectives in Polish, respectively. In this situation the merger of morphology and syntax into one super-domain of morphosyntax seems well justified and even necessary. Many publications up to date have successfully applied this type of focus selection (Alhawary 2009, Gabryś-Barker 2008, Geçkin 2010; Parodi, Schwartz and Clahsen 2004; Pérez-Leroux and Muñoz Liceras 2002, Vainikka and Young-Scholten 2010). The other justification is a little more problematic and arbitrary in its character. In many recent publications the cognitive account of language seems to prevail in favour of more traditional generative-transformational or structuralist models. Within the cognitive linguistic approach the division of language into neatly separated levels of description, such as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics is often criticized as unnatural and having little to do with the way language functions in our mind as a part of overall cognitive faculty. In favour of models employing abstract constructs of Universal Grammar, usage-based theories of language have emerged recently (Barlow and Kemmer 2000; Bybee 1985, 2006; Langacker 1987, 2000) in which a much bigger role is attributed to the properties of lexical items and their expansions experienced by the learners in natural situations of language use. Many of the recent models employ “constructions” as the basic units of grammatical analysis (Croft 2001; Fillmore and Kay 1995; Fillmore, Kay and O’Connor 1988; Goldberg 1995, 2003; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987), which has two major advantages: “on the one hand with constructions we can see the continuum from lexicon to grammar […], and on the other hand constructions allow us to represent the interactions of specific lexical units with specific grammatical configurations (as seen in the relations between jog and memory or between give and the ditransitive construction)” (Bybee 2008: 217). However, even within the more recent cognitive accounts of language and language acquisition there are still many references being made to the morphosyntactic component, due to its high descriptive salience. Moreover, many aspects of the “constructions” proposed by cognitive linguists are related to phenomena conveniently fitting within the domain of morphosyntax, identified

70 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development within the more traditional models of language. Finally, it has to be pointed out that the followers of the usage-based, cognitive theories often employ the more traditional terminology themselves, explicitly talking about morphological, morphosyntactic or syntactic units and processes (Ellis 2008, MacWhinney 2008). In light of the above, in spite of a little obsolete colouring of the term, morphosyntax seems to be a sufficiently salient and convenient choice as the identifying label of the focus for the present chapter. As far as the contents of the chapter are concerned, a selection of the most important morphosyntactic problems in the acquisition of a second language will be presented. The discussion will be neither exhaustive nor unnecessarily detailed, because the range of issues potentially fitting the topic is too large, and the overall purpose of the whole book necessitates an introductory and abridged approach. At first phenomena associated more with the morphological component will be discussed, and later the perspective is going to be shifted towards issues of a more clearly syntactic nature. The starting point of the presentation will be the morpheme order studies, due to their invaluable contribution to the development of SLA theory and practice. Then the acquisition of tense and aspect system and its formal markers will be presented, as an example of an area very frequently discussed, but often going beyond the domains of morphology and syntax. An issue with a clearly syntactic colouring is the emergence of relative clauses in a second language, and a related phenomenon of (usually erroneous) resumptive pronouns, which will be the focus of section 3.4. In the last thematic section, some aspects of the acquisition of interrogative and negative constructions will be presented, with a special emphasis on the underlying mechanisms which govern their sequence of emergence and the production of correct forms in L2. In many sections frequent references will be made to the underlying universal features of language which seem to govern and direct the patterns of acquisition. The postulate of availability ofU niversal Grammar in the process of L2 acquisition was an important and powerful theoretical issue in the background of most of the studies discussed below. Although the more contemporary, cognitive- based models do not believe in the existence of Language Acquisition Device and postulate instead some emergenist processes involving general cognitive mechanisms, there are still many scientists who believe in the existence of universal properties of language available in some form during the process of L2 acquisition (Bybee 2008: 233). Some cognitivists and computational linguists admit the existence of such properties and features, although they postulate their origin not in genetically pre-determined structures of the mind, or in simple structural dependencies, but in the outcomes of complicated mental processes in which human beings engage as a part of their everyday experience with the surrounding world (Kirby 1997). No matter what their origin, however, such

71 Adam Wojtaszek universal properties still remain a powerful explanatory tool in accounting for the data reported in the studies.

3.2 Morpheme order studies

There were two major forces inspiring the classic morpheme acquisition studies of the 1970s. On the one hand, the mentalist approach to language and its acquisition initiated by Noam Chomsky (1957, 1959) as a critical response to the behaviourist accounts represented by Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1957), and on the other hand the influential and detailed account of child L1 acquisition proposed by Roger Brown (1973). The former provided the necessary theoretical background, while the latter’s contribution is seen mainly in the selection of important aspects of the research methodology and the study design. Within the behaviourist model of language acquisition, the development of the L2 was strongly influenced by the learner’s L1 and errors were interpreted as a transfer of L1 habits into the acquired system. An alternative view, named “Creative Construction”, proposed that language acquisition is “the process in which children gradually reconstruct rules for speech they hear, guided by universal innate mechanisms which cause them to formulate certain types of hypotheses about the language system being acquired, until the mismatch between what they are exposed to and what they produce is resolved” (Dulay and Burt 1974a: 37). The authors claimed that young L2 learners develop the new system in a way resembling the acquisition of the mother tongue (L1=L2 Hypothesis), without any major hindrance from their L1 in form of negative transfer. Dulay and Burt (1975) maintain that only about 5% of errors in their data may by attributable to negative L1 influence. If the acquisition of L2 is the same as the path of L1 development, then the same patterns should be found in speakers from different linguistic backgrounds who are learning the same second language. In order to confirm this assumption, a number of scholars conducted studies of the of selected morphemes in L2 English (Bailey, Madden and Krashen 1974; Dulay and Burt 1973, 1974a, 1974b, 1975; Hakuta 1976; Krashen, Butler, Birnbaum and Robertson 1978; Larsen-Freeman 1975; Makino 1979). A collective summary and evaluation of these studies may be found in Kwon (2005). The initial studies by Dulay and Burt (1973, 1974a, 1974b) were based on the work of Brown (1973), who investigated 14 different morphemes of English (which he called “functors”) in a longitudinal study of their acquisition by 3 children learning their mother tongue. Brown decided to plot the route of acquisition according to those functors because there were many contexts in which their use was obligatory, so their correct suppliance could be used

72 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development as a certain benchmark and a quantifiable measure of acquisition. It turned out that the emergence of correct use of particular morphemes displayed a consistent ordered sequence in all subjects, starting with progressive -ing suffix and terminating with contractible auxiliaries. Dulay and Burt selected some of Brown’s original 14 functors (eight at first, ten in subsequent studies) and followed similar methods of calculation as the one used by Brown, applying the so-called Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM) instrument as their elicitation technique, working at first with Spanish children and then with children from two different linguistic backgrounds (Spanish and Chinese) acquiring English as their L2. They found sequences of acquisition very similar to the order identified by Brown, without any major divergence between the Spanish and the Chinese subjects. The acquisition order identified by Dulay and Burt (1973) for L1 Spanish children was the following:

1 plural –s 2 progressive –ing 3 copula be 4 auxiliary be 5 articles the/a 6 irregular past tense 7 third person –s 8 possessive ’s.

The acquisition orders for Spanish and Chinese children (Dulay and Burt 1974a) followed a very similar pattern, which seemed to suggest that in a major part the new language is being constructed in the minds of the learners by means of cognitive mechanisms independent on the L1 influence. Some more studies followed later, most of which corroborated the findings reported in the pioneering work. Obviously, the subsequent investigations were more and more refined methodologically and the subtleties of the phenomena under study could be more effectively exposed. For example, the focus was extended from children to include also adult learners (Bailey, Madden and Krashen 1974; Larsen-Freeman 1975), cross-sectional investigations were complemented with a longitudinal point of reference (Hakuta 1976, Rosansky 1976) and naturalistic acquisition was juxtaposed with language learning in settings involving formal instruction (Perkins and Larsen-Freeman 1975, Pica 1983). As data accumulated, the rigid order reported in the first study by Dulay and Burt (1973) was being replaced with more and more refined and less arbitrary sequences, leading to the models involving grouping of functors (Dulay, Burt and Krashen 1982). Generally speaking, the 1980s saw a gradual shift from the focus on the discovery of natural sequences to the investigation of their major determinants. The list of likely

73 Adam Wojtaszek candidates included such factors as perceptual salience, morphophonological regularity, syntactic or semantic complexity, frequency of occurrence, native language transfer and levels of morpheme activation (Kwon 2005). It was becoming evident that the network of relationships is very complicated and that similar results of particular investigations could have been shaped by quite distinct configurations of factors.C onsequently, this led to a number of critical evaluations of the earlier investigations at the beginning of the next decade, which resulted in the multiple determinants approach represented by Gass and Selinker (2008 [1994]) or Goldschneider and DeKeyser (2001). In spite of their immense influence on the development of SLA research, the morpheme order studies have also faced serious criticism from many scholars, related to many aspects of both the investigated phenomena and the methodological choices made by the authors. One of the objections was related to the elicitation procedures and instruments used in the studies; especially the Bilingual Syntax Measure was criticized as exerting a pervasive influence on the collected data. Porter (1977), for example, demonstrated that the instrument can yield data similar to the L2 acquisition orders found in earlier studies also in monolingual children acquiring their L1, which indicates that the measure used biases the results to a significant degree.A dditionally, the scoring methods were incapable of satisfactorily eliminating the effects of oversuppliance of investigated functors in non-obligatory contexts. What is more, even a correct use in an obligatory context does not necessarily represent complete acquisition; in other words, the accuracy order cannot be equated with acquisition order (Wagner- Gough and Hatch 1975). Apart from that, usually the methods of data collection were insufficient to cover the whole spectrum of L2 use by a particular learner, so as a result the picture obtained could only be fragmentary. This might be also attributed to the fact that the majority of studies used a cross-sectional design. In addition to the above-mentioned methodological objections there were also doubts related to the selection of the study focus. On the one hand, it could be claimed that the investigated functors represent such a marginal portion of the entire language system, that any global conclusions related to the acquisition of the whole language are quite unfounded. On the other hand, we could say that the selected items either are ambiguous and for that reason should not be treated as representing a particular structure or that they have been selected from too wide a range of linguistic phenomena. Besides, a vast majority of investigations concentrate on L2 English, and very little has been done so far to counterbalance this overwhelming tendency. Finally, not much attention has been given to the potential role of individual variability, as in many cases the idiosyncrasies have been levelled and obscured by the collective filter. On the whole, we should evaluate the contribution of morpheme order studies as extremely important. Not only have they inspired a number of theoretical

74 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development models of language acquisition (e.g. Krashen’s (1985) Natural Order Hypothesis), but also helped to discover some universal patterns in the process. Their initial thrust as an objection to the behaviourist account of language learning resulted in a revised understanding of language transfer (Odlin 1989) and the discovery of a number of intriguing determinants, whose combination into clusters of interdependent factors allows for detection of significantly consistent patterns, jointly explaining over 70 per cent of the variance in the acquisition order (Goldschneider and DeKeyser 2001). Finally, their role in the development and refinement of methodological procedures cannot be overestimated.

3.3 studies of tense and aspect acquisition

The early work on the acquisition of morphological functors concentrated predominantly on form. Such an approach was convenient methodologically, because an assumption was made (later criticized) that a particular formal exponent was a carrier of a particular grammatical function. It was sufficient, then, to identify the correct uses of that formal marker in order to deduce that the underlying grammatical function has been successfully acquired. In this way conclusions pertaining to the acquisition of L2 grammatical system were formulated. Attempts to apply similar paradigms to those morphological markers which were associated with the tense or aspect systems in a language were quickly identified as doomed to failure, for at least two reasons. First of all, mechanisms of tense or aspect marking often go beyond the level of single lexical items and readily enter the domain of phrasal constructions, occasionally also involving the use of adverbs in various sentence positions. In such a situation it is very difficult to isolate a simple one-to-one relationship between a particular functor and a grammatical category. Secondly, it was quickly observed that there exists an interesting relationship between the semantic properties of particular verbs and the way in which tense and aspect are acquired by both first and second language learners. This called for a change of perspective in the overall theoretical approach to such investigations. Unlike typological approaches, which revolve around conveniently isolated domains of morphology, syntax and also phonology, functional approaches to language universals allow to extend the focus on the use of language, incorporating into the explanation, apart from the language levels mentioned above, also issues pertaining to semantics, pragmatics and the lexicon. Thus, often the issues subsumed under the heading of functional approach to language go beyond the domain of morphosyntax, in spite of being inseparably connected with it at the same time. Within functional approaches the forms are always related to the functions which they perform in everyday communication.

75 Adam Wojtaszek

Much of the work focusing on the acquisition of tense and aspect was significantly influenced by the Aspect Hypothesis, claiming that “first and second language learners will initially be influenced by the inherent semantic aspect of verbs or predicates in the acquisition of tense and aspect markers associated with or affixed to these verbs” (Andersen and Shirai 1994: 133). For the purpose of convenient classification verbs are usually classified as belonging to four basic categories (Bardovi-Harlig 1999: 358): • states: they persist over time without change (e.g. seem, know, need, want and be, as in be tall, big, green) • activities: they have inherent duration in that they involve a span of time (sleep, snow), and they have no specific endpoint (e.g.I studied all week), and, thus, are atelic (rain, play, walk, talk) • achievements: they capture the beginning or the end of an action (e.g. the race began, the game ended) and can be thought of as reduced to a point (arrive, leave, notice, recognize, fall asleep) • accomplishments: they are durative like activities and have an endpoint like achievements (build a house, paint a painting). In a study of L2 Spanish acquired by two native speakers of English, Andersen (1991) has observed that the past tense was first used with the verbs of achievements, then with accomplishments, later with activities and finally with states. A reverse order was noted for the imperfect: the starting point were the verbs of state, then activities, followed by accomplishments and finally by achievements. Similar regularities were subsequently reported by a number of other researchers (Bardovi-Harlig 1992a, 1992b; Bardovi-Harlig and Bergström 1996; Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds 1995; Kumpf 1984, Shiroi and Kurono 1998). The following generalizations can be formulated on the basis of findings representing a number of different target languages:

–– Past/perfect morphology emerges with punctual verbs and verbs indicating achievements and accomplishments. The morphology then gradually extends to verbs expressing activities and states. –– Imperfective morphology emerges with durative and/or stative verbs (i.e. activities and states), then gradually spreads to achievement/accomplishment and punctual verbs. –– Progressive morphology is strongly associated with durative and dynamic verbs (i.e. activities). (Gass and Selinker 2008 [1994]: 208)

These regularities have been shown to demonstrate a certain sensitivity to L1 influence and some other factors.F or example, Housen (1995) noticed that the development of perfective morphology did not follow the pattern as strongly as predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis. Additionally, he observed that the learners’

76 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development

L1 (French and Dutch) exerted a peculiar influence on the acquisition order in that the subjects were guided by the tense-aspect distinctions present in their native language to look for similar distinctions in the L2 input. Because Dutch is genetically closer to English than French, the Dutch learners were shown to possess an advantage over the French subjects, whose performance was less target-like, especially in the case of past/nonpast distinction. Interestingly, in situations where no cues could be offered by L1, the learners seem to have resorted to universal conceptual prototypes. For example, they interpreted the progressive aspect as a marker of inherent durativity, although neither French nor Dutch obligatorily encode progressive aspect. Additional factors, modulating the predictions of Aspect Hypothesis, were identified by Rohde (1996), who observed that the influence of lexical factors inherent in the verbs is smaller, proportionally to the learners’ age and the length of L2 exposure. Similarly to Housen’s findings, a modulating effect of L1 was acknowledged. The modified and extended concept of language transfer as the explanatory factor was employed by Rocca (2007) in her detailed and extensive bi-directional study of tense and aspect acquisition by learners of L2 English and Italian. The book applies the functionalist approach and is also based on the prototype theory, in claiming that the aspects of grammar stem from prototypical properties of lexical items, tied to the expression of particular meanings. The combination of the formal, grammatical viewpoint with the lexical perspective allowed the author to distinguish some prototypical links, combining the perfective and imperfective forms with the lexical aspectual classes. Rocca notices that simple past/passato prossimo is tied to telic predicates, progressive to activities and imperfetto to statives (2007: 51). Having reviewed a number of L1 and L2 studies, she observes that, in general, the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis are borne out, with an exception of stative progressives, which are reported in L2 data, but are virtually absent from L1 early production. In order to account for this peculiarity she proposes that their occurrence in L2 is an effect of language transfer, which operates in form of a filter, a certain “predisposition that constrains the range of options available to the learner” (Rocca 2007: 97). In the study, two types of analysis were applied: within across-category perspective the spread of verb forms over four lexical categories (states, activities, achievements and accomplishments) was analysed, whereas in connection with the within-category approach the development of patterns within each of the lexical types was traced back. Rocca discovered that the L2 English learners were more significantly influenced by the lexical properties of the verbs, whereas the L2 Italian learners displayed more individual and task variation. It also turned out that “the L2 English children overextended the progressive to states whereas the L2 Italian children underextended the imperfect with states” (2007: 209).

77 Adam Wojtaszek

Those findings, in her opinion, can be explained by the transfer effects, which take the form of lowered sensitivity of learners to the phenomena which are not grammatically encoded in their L1. Although the Aspect Hypothesis has shaped most of research related to the acquisition of tense and aspect grammar, there were also some suggestions of alternative accounts. Bardovi-Harlig, for example, calls upon the discourse- related determinants of learners’ morphological development, claiming that the emerging functors serve the purpose of distinguishing foreground from background in narratives (1994: 43). Another option is offered by the concept- related approach, claiming that first there is a need in a learner to express a given concept, and on the basis of this the morphological forms related to it are developed, by mapping the expression of a given concept on available L2 forms. A great deal of research within this analytical framework has been conducted by Bardovi-Harlig, who has considered the acquisition of tense in numerous venues (e.g. 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2007), as well as in work by the European Science Foundation (Dietrich, Klein and Noyau 1995). It follows from the above discussion that the mechanisms of tense and aspect encoding are inseparably connected with facets of language going well beyond the narrowly defined morphosyntax. Their inclusion in the present chapter is justified on the one hand by the origin of the studies in within the paradigm of morpheme order investigation, and on the other hand by the fact that the formal markers of tense and aspect are clearly morphological and syntactic in nature. Larger overviews of the issues presented in this section may be found in Bardovi-Harlig (2000) and in Salaberry and Shirai (2002).

3.4 accessibility Hierarchy and the acquisition of relative clauses

In 1977 Keenan and Comrie, working within the paradigm of typological universals, proposed the existence of Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy, relevant for the formation of relative clauses in natural languages (Keenan and Comrie 1977). The hierarchy was connected with the existence of a particular type of relative clauses in a given language. TheN oun Phrase which undergoes relativisation (changes into a relative pronoun) may originate in various sentential positions: it may be the subject, one of the objects (direct, indirect, oblique), genitive or object of comparison. TheA ccessibility Hierarchy is arranged in the following order:

Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique Object > Genitive > Object of Comparison

78 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development

The hierarchy was presented as an implicational universal, operating in such a manner that if a relative clause from one of the lower positions was present in a given language, it guaranteed the presence of all higher-positioned types of relative clause in that language, but not the ones which were located below. For example, if grammatically well-formed sentences were found in a given language, with relative pronouns originating in an indirect object position, then it could be concluded that subject and direct object relatives will also be present in that language. The category of “oblique object” refers to object noun phrases in cases other than nominative or vocative in highly synthetic languages, whereas in predominantly analytic languages the category almost always covers objects of prepositions. This is a consequence of the typological difference between synthetic and analytic languages, whereby the former show preference for rich inflectional paradigms encoding the functions on the lexical level, while the latter tend to do the same by means of word order or phrase structure mechanisms, typically employing prepositions. In the context of language acquisition, the importance of Accessibility Hierarchy (AH) lies in its role as a feature of Universal Grammar, potentially assisting the process of interlanguage formation. It was predicted that in situations when the L2 structures involving a given (lower-positioned) relative clauses are presented to the learners, they will automatically “know” that the relatives higher in the scale can also be formed in that language. Higher-positioned relative clauses are expected to be easier to comprehend and to produce. Conversely, the lower a given relative clause type is placed in the scale, the more difficult or problematic it will be for the language learner, and there will be a tendency to insert resumptive pronouns in the place of origin of the relative pronoun, whose strength will be inversely proportional to the position of a given relative clause type in the AH. This means that the learners will be more likely to produce the structure in example (1) than the structure in example (2): (1) This is exactly the gift that I have been waiting for *it. (2) This is the man whom I saw *him yesterday. The use of the resumptive pronouns is grammatically incorrect in English, but because objects of prepositions are lower in the AH than direct objects, we would expect to find a higher frequency of errors represented by example (1) than errors similar to example (2) in a learner language sample, on condition that the distribution of both types of relative clauses is similar in the corpus. The postulation of the AH gave rise to an impressive number of empirical studies, because a hypothesis formed in such a way represented a perfect and irresistible invitation for attempts of validation (or refutation). At first, most of the investigations corroborated the universal validity of the AH. For example, Gass (1979) studied a group of L2 English learners with various L1 backgrounds (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Thai)

79 Adam Wojtaszek in three different language tasks involving both production and comprehension and found substantial support for the predictions of the AH, with the exception of the genitive relatives, which proved to be easier than direct and indirect object relatives. This, however, might be accounted for by the fact that inE nglish genitive relatives the noun connected to the relativized pronoun (the head of the phrase) is moved together with the pronoun instead of occupying its original position. Since the connection between the head noun and its possessive modifier is preserved, the maintained proximity must radically contribute to the reduction of the processing effort. Hyltenstram (1984), in turn, focused his attention on the resumptive pronouns in L2 Swedish produced by native speakers of Farsi, Finnish, Greek and Spanish. In Swedish all types of relative clauses are present, and no resumptive pronouns can be used in any of the positions. It turned out that the ratio of pronominal reflexes was increasing in the lower hierarchical positions, thus confirming the predictions of the AH. It should be added, however, that sometimes different results reported by different researchers (in terms of what counts as an error or what can be taken as an example of transfer) may be the effect of different initial assumptions.F or example, in the study of pronominal reflexes in L2 English Schachter (1974) noted the existence of optional pronominal reflexes in L1 Persian and Arabic, while Gass (1979), commented above, assumes that no such reflexes are possible in those languages, which in fact turns out to be a dialectal difference (Gass and Selinker 2008 [1994]: 80). The subsequent years saw some disputes about the status of the AH as a typological universal, its implicational generalization and its origins. Hamilton (1994) tested the prediction that the focused instruction concentrated on one of the levels of the AH will automatically generalize to those levels which are located in higher positions, without any focused instruction. His data gathered from 33 adult ESL learners shows some support for the AH, but it is inconclusive in that the implicational generalizability is not maximal for all levels of the hierarchy. Fox (1987) re-examined the hierarchy in the context of Western Austronesian languages (e.g. Tagalog), suggesting the necessity to expand it by adding the category of Absolutive in the left-most position in theA H, higher than the subject, which was later followed up by Comrie (2003), who also proposed a different scale and different typological features for some East Asian languages. Kirby (1997), on the other hand, applied computational linguistic tools and computer modelling to demonstrate that the AH is best accounted for as a universal feature not stemming from solely structural or only functional factors, but it emerges as an outcome of interactions between competing functional pressures and structural or morphological complexity which is involved. The first decade of the 21st century saw a considerable revitalization of practical investigations focusing on languages typologically distant from English,

80 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development especially those spoken in the Far East. For example, O’Grady, Lee and Choo (2003) demonstrated preference for subject over direct object relatives in L2 Korean. Their aim was to check whether the decisive factor is the linear distance or the structural position, because in Korean, which is a left-branching language, subject gaps in relative clauses are more distant from the head noun than the direct object gaps. Thus, if the distance mattered, direct object relative clauses should be easier to handle for the learners. It turned out, however, that the subject relatives were understood better by the learners participating in the study than the object relatives, which was interpreted by the authors as confirming the structural status of the AH. This, however, was criticized by Jeon and Kim (2007), who pointed out that in Korean there are two types of relative clauses: head-external and head-internal. If only the head-external type is taken into consideration, the preference for subject relatives is indeed reported, but no such preference is found for head-internal relative clauses. In two other studies, Japanese as a second language was investigated (Ozeki and Shirai 2007, Kanno 2007). In the former, the factor of animacy was used as an explanation for learners’ preferences and errors, who were consistently shown to associate subject position with animate-head items and direct object or oblique object with inanimate referents. Thus, not the structurally-driven hierarchical position offered the best explanation, but the semantic properties of the nominal heads. The latter investigation focused on the role of semantic cues in learners’ understanding of relative clauses. It turned out that in absence of semantic cues, which would help to identify the referent, the learners were resorting to the mechanisms operating in their native languages. The more recent investigations point to the necessity of inclusion of additional perspectives and factors in the analysis. It seems that, generally speaking, the AH is adhered to but in accounting for particular data, which sometimes may seem to run contrary to the predictions of the hierarchy, additional factors related to semantic properties of the lexical items or language-specific constraints have to be taken into consideration (Eckman 2007). There are, however, also opinions suggesting that, given the sheer weight of counterarguments and reservations which have accumulated over the years, studies based on the AH should be abandoned, in favour of some more promising questions connected with the L2 speakers’ knowledge of relative clauses (Hawkins 2007).

3.5 the acquisition of questions and negation

The acquisition of L2 interrogative structures and forms of negation represents another area where morphological and syntactic mechanisms are used to encode the underlying meanings. The development of interrogative structures will

81 Adam Wojtaszek be presented against the background of yet another implicational universal, while the emergence of native-like negative forms is going to allude to the developmental stages discussed in section 3.2 of this chapter. In 1963 Greenberg proposed a set of universals pertaining to natural languages (Greenberg 1963). Some of them were connected with the way in which yes/no questions and wh-questions were formed, revealing that (1) if in a given language a(n) (auxiliary) verb changes its position with the subject noun phrase in wh- questions, then the wh­-element will be fronted as well, and (2) if the inversion takes place in yes/no questions, it will also be used in wh-questions. The resulting implicational hierarchy may be then presented as follows:

wh-fronting > inversion in wh-questions > inversion in yes/no questions

This means that if a given language applies inversion in yes/no questions, which is the most marked option on the scale, it will also have inversion in wh- questions and the wh-element will be fronted in interrogative constructions. In terms of typological classifications, there will be quite many languages in which wh-elements are fronted in questions, but no inversion will be used in question formation, or there will be languages in which inversion is found in wh-questions, but not in yes/no questions. Eckman, Moravcsik and Wirth (1989) studied 14 learners of L2 English, who were native speakers of Japanese, Korean and Turkish, in order to check whether the universal feature of natural languages proposed by Greenberg applies also to the L2 acquisition. Having set their cut-off point at 90% of correctly produced structures as a benchmark for successful acquisition, they have found that the learners’ interlanguage was indeed constrained by the implicational universal. Those who have successfully acquired the inversion in yes/no questions, also produced correct structures corresponding to the higher positions in the hierarchy. Actually, one of the 14 subjects turned out to disconfirm the regularity, but this was accounted for by references to processing constraints in this one particular case. In this particular case it seems that the connection between the constructions on different levels of the hierarchy are really related. However, when it comes to implicational universals, there are always two theoretical reservations which have to be kept in mind while making claims based on studies similar to the ones above: a) we have to be able to argue that a proposed universal is really a universal feature of natural languages, and b) the features related to each other on the scale of accessibility/markedness must really be related. When it comes to the acquisition of negative constructions, it has been shown that in the development of their native language children typically go through a number of stages, starting from placing the negative element at the beginning

82 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development of the sentence (which is usually just one- or two-word long), then the negative marker appears in the middle, between the subject and the predicate, and finally the auxiliary verb do appears in connection with the negative particle. At first its inflection is not properly adjusted to encode the subject-verb agreement, but later the agreement features are correctly produced (Déprez and Pierce 1993, Hyams 1986, Schütze 2001). In the acquisition of L2 the first of the above-mentioned stages is not reported, since the studied subjects are usually beyond their two-word period and can operate on longer sentences. That is why the first developmental state in L2 is connected with the production of no (or sometimes also don’t) before verbs and other lexical items as a universal anaphoric negative marker (Cancino, Rosansky and Schumann 1978; Lakshmanan and Maciukaite 1999, Stauble 1984, Wode 1981). Later on, the uninflected negativedon’t is used before the verbs, which is followed by the stage in which negative markers are placed after the auxiliaries and modal verbs. In the last stage, the correct inflection ofdo replaces the erroneous forms produced earlier. The studies mentioned above do not report perfectly consistent results: Wode (1981), for example, identifies the second stage in a slightly different manner, claiming that the negative marker is found after the copula verbbe , and later also with thematic verbs, usually following them. Interestingly, the same patterns of development were found for speakers of languages with different L1 backgrounds, even if the position of the negative marker was different in L1 and L2. Stauble (1984), for example, reported the same developmental pattern for Spanish and Japanese learners of English: although in Japanese the negative marker is placed after the main verb, the learners were nevertheless producing no+V structures in their first stage of acquisition, just like theS panish subjects, who could potentially transfer this from their L1. Perales, Mayo and Liceras (2009), who were studying the acquisition of L3 English by Spanish/Basque bilinguals, propose the operation of a universal cognitive strategy, which tells the learners to resort to a simple superficial word order placement of negation, just in front of the negated element, at early stages of L2 (or L3) acquisition. They also confirm that the learners are initially insensitive to the properties of auxiliary verbs as carriers of tense or agreement features, which surface only much later, when the position of the negative marker has been established.

3.6 conclusions

The discussion in the above sections highlights some of the most important issues raised by the researchers studying the morphosyntactic development of a second language. The overview is by no means exhaustive, as many aspects have been purposefully excluded, given the overall purpose of the chapter and

83 Adam Wojtaszek the limitations imposed on its size. The discussion has shown in many points that the general tendencies in the research start off with the identification of easily isolated formal exponents of meaningful distinctions as a language, or the formulation of falsifiable hypotheses based on observed generalizations, later there is a phase of flourishing investigations, piling up evidence supporting or disconfirming initial assumptions, finding additional factors and expanding the perspective, which often leads to the reinterpretation of initial findings in the light of new approaches. This was the case, for example, with the early morpheme order studies, which were re-analysed against a collection of newly proposed factors (e.g. Goldschneider and DeKeyser 2001). Another important facet of the development of studies on acquisition of morphosyntax, and language acquisition in general, is the changing theoretical climate in which those studies are performed. Bybee (2008), for example, reflects upon the development of research in the recent years, noticing the usage-based trend in which grammar is viewed as the user’s cognitive organization of his experience with language, rather than a system emerging from some innate universal linguistic principles. Tyler (2008), on the other hand, laments upon still frequent application of structuralist view in the teaching of grammar, which does not reflect a huge development in the theoretical background of contemporary studies. As an example, she proposes a new, cognitive view of the modal verbs system, contrasting it with the traditional approach (2008: 473–476), which could make the teaching and learning task much easier. Indeed, there are quite many implications for the teaching of languages stemming from the recent studies of language acquisition processes within the cognitive linguistic paradigm. If, for example, cognitive representation of language emerges on the basis of the learner’s experience with it, the classroom input should be enriched with those constructions and prefabs which are less frequent in natural distribution, since the high-frequency items will reach the learner in sufficient amounts. Additionally, within the usage-based theory of language, learners always have access to the general categorization mechanisms and can use them in the chunking and automatisation processes which are required to achieve fluency in a second language (Bybee 2008: 233). Appropriate chunking of the language material is advocated by MacWhinney, who lists advantages of presenting lexical material in phrasal embedding, pointing to the natural emergence of grammatical rules (mostly of morphosyntactic nature) as a result of analogic processing in the mind of a learner (2008: 358). Ellis, on the other hand, commenting on the limited endstate level of L2 acquisition in usage- based naturalistic learning, presents advantages of form-focused instruction in a classroom, which can compensate for the debilitating influence of L1, which manifests itself in a lowered sensitivity of a learner to certain aspects of L2 input, in a situation when certain cues were experienced as uninformative in

84 CHAPTER 3 Morphosyntactic development the development of L1 (2008: 373). The cognitive view of language is nowadays undoubtedly the leading theoretical model, but the practical applications such as the ones listed above, are only starting to make their way to the coursebooks and teaching materials. To what extent they are correct will probably be known only in the years to come.

References

Alhawary, M.T. 2009. Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Andersen, R.W. 1991. “Developmental sequences: the emergence of aspect marking in second language acquisition”. In T. Huebner and C. Ferguson (eds.), Crosscurrents in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 305–324. Andersen, R.W., and Y. Shirai 1994. “Discourse motivations for some cognitive acquisition principles”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16 (2): 133–156. Bailey, N., C. Madden and S.D. Krashen 1974. “Is there a ‘natural sequence’ in adult second language learning?” Language Learning 24: 235–243. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 1992a. “The relationship of form and meaning: a crosssectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language”. Applied Psycholinguistics 13: 253–278. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 1992b. “The use of adverbials and natural order in the development of temporal expression”. International Review of Applied Linguistics 30: 299–320. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 1994. “Anecdote or evidence? Evaluating support for hypotheses concerning the development of tense and aspect”. In E.E. Tarone, S.M. Gass and A.D. Cohen (eds.), Research Methodology in Second Language Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 41–60. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 1999. “From morpheme studies to temporal semantics: tense-aspect research in SLA”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21 (3): 341–382. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2000. Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition: Form, Meaning and Use. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2004a. “The emergence of grammaticalized future expression in longitudinal production data”. In B. VanPatten, J. Williams, S. Rott and M. Overstreet (eds.), Form-meaning Connections in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 123–146. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2004b. “Monopolizing the future or How the go-future breaks into will’s territory and what it tells us about SLA”. In S.H. Foster-

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Cohen, M. Sharwood Smith, A. Sorace and M. Ota (eds.), EuroSLA Yearbook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 177–201. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2006. “Interlanguage development: main routes and individual paths”. In K. Bardovi-Harlig and Z. Dörnyei (eds.), Themes in SLA Research, AILA Review, 19. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 69–82. Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2007. “One functional approach to second language acquisition: the concept-oriented approach”. In B. VanPatten and J. Williams (eds.), Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 57–75. Bardovi-Harlig, K., and A. Bergström 1996. “The acquisition of tense and aspect in SLA and FLL: a study of learner narratives in English (SL) and French (FL)”. Canadian Modern Language Review 52: 308–330. Bardovi-Harlig, K., and D. W. Reynolds 1995. “The role of lexical aspect in the acquisition of tense and aspect”. TESOL Quarterly 29 (1): 107–131. Barlow, M., and S. Kemmer 2000. Usage Based Models of Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Brown, R. 1973. A First Language: the Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bybee, J.L. 1985. Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bybee, J.L. 2006. “From usage to grammar: the mind’s response to repetition”. Language 82: 711–733. Bybee, J.L. 2008. “Usage-based grammar and second language acquisition”. In P. Robinson and N.C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. New York, NJ: Routledge, pp. 216–236. Cancino, H., E.J. Rosansky and J. Schumann 1978. “The acquisition of English negatives and interrogatives by native Spanish speakers”. In E.M. Hatch (ed.), Second Language Acquisition: A Book of Readings. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers, pp. 207–230. Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Chomsky, N. 1959. “Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour”. Language 35: 26–58. Comrie, B. 2003. “Typology and language acquisition: the case of relative clauses”. In A.G. Ramat (ed.), Typology and Second Language Acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 19–37. Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Déprez, V., and A. Pierce 1993. “Negation and functional projections in early grammar”. Linguistic Inquiry 24 (1): 25–67. Dietrich, R., W. Klein and C. Noyau 1995. The Acquisition of Temporality in a Second Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Dulay, H.C., and M.K. Burt 1973. “Should we teach children syntax?” Language Learning 23: 245–258. Dulay, H.C., and M.K. Burt 1974a. “Natural sequences in child second language acquisition”. Language Learning 24: 37–53. Dulay, H.C., and M.K. Burt 1974b. “You can’t learn without goofing”. In J.C. Richards (ed.), Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. London: Longman, pp. 95–123. Dulay, H.C., and M.K. Burt 1975. “Creative construction in second language learning and teaching”. In M.K. Burt and H.C. Dulay (eds.), On TESOL ’75: New Directions in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education. Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, pp. 21–32. Dulay, H.C., M.K. Burt and S.D. Krashen 1982. Language Two. New York, NJ: Oxford University Press. Eckman, F.R. 2007. “Hypotheses and methods in second language acquisition: testing the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy on relative clauses”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29 (2): 321–327. Eckman, F.R., E.A. Moravcsik and J.R. Wirth 1989. “Implicational universals and interrogative structures in the interlanguage of ESL learners”. Language Learning 39 (2): 173–205. Ellis, N.C. 2008. “Usage-based and form-focused language acquisition. The associative learning of constructions, learned attention and the limited L2 endstate”. In P. Robinson and N.C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. New York, NJ: Routledge, pp. 372–405. Fillmore, C.J., and P. Kay 1995. Construction Grammar. CSLI Lecture Notes. Berkeley, CA: CSLI (tapescript). Fillmore, C.J., P. Kay and M.C. O’Connor 1988. “Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: the case of Let Alone”. Language 64: 501–538. Fox, B. 1987. “The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy reinterpreted: subject primacy or the Absolutive Hypothesis?” Language 63 (4): 856–870. Gabryś-Barker, D. (ed.) 2008). Morphosyntactis Issues in Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gass, S.M. 1979. “Language transfer and universal grammatical relations”. Language Learning 29 (2): 327–344. Gass, S.M., and L. Selinker 2008 [1994]. Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course. New York, NJ: Routledge. Geçkin, V. 2010. Acquisition of Morphosyntax in Child L2 English: Evidence from Turkish Children. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing. Goldberg, A.E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Goldberg, A.E. 2003. “Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language”. Trends in Cognitive Science 7: 219–224. Goldschneider, J.M., and R.M. DeKeyser 2001. “Explaining the ‘natural order of L2 morpheme acquisition’ in English: a meta-analysis of multiple determinants”. Language Learning 51 (1): 1–50. Greenberg, J.H. 1963. “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements”. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 73–113. Hakuta, K. 1976. “Becoming bilingual: a case study of a Japanese child learning English”. Language Learning 26: 321–351. Hamilton, R.L. 1994. “Is implicational generalization unidirectional and maximal?” Language Learning 44 (1): 123–157. Hawkins, R. 2007. “The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy: lame duck or dead duck in theories of SLA?” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29 (2): 345–349. Housen, A. 1995. It’s About Time. The Acquisition of Temporality in English as a Second Language in a Multilingual Educational Context. PhD Thesis: Vrije Universiteit, Brussels. Hyams, N.M. 1986. Language Acquisition and the Theory of Parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel. Hyltenstram, K. 1984. “The use of typological markedness conditions as predictors in second language acquisition: the case of pronominal copies in relative clauses”. In R.W. Andersen (ed.), Second Languages: A Crosslinguistic Perspective. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, pp. 39–58. Jeon, K.S., and H.-Y. Kim 2007. “Development of relativization in Korean as a foreign language: Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy in head-internal and head-external relative clauses”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29 (2): 253–276. Kanno, K. 2007. “Factors affecting the processing of Japanese relative clauses by L2 learners”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29 (2): 197–218. Keenan, E.L., and B. Comrie 1977. “Noun phrase accessibility and Universal Grammar”. Linguistic Inquiry 8 (1): 63–99. Kirby, S. 1997. “Competing motivations and emergence: explaining implicational hierarchies”. Linguistic Typology 1 (1): 5–32. Krashen, S.D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. New York, NJ: Longman. Krashen, S.D., J. Butler, R. Birnbaum and J. Robertson 1978. “Two studies in language acquisition and language learning”. ITL: Review of Applied Linguistics 39–40: 73–92. Kumpf, L. 1984. “Temporal systems and universality in interlanguage: a case study”. In F.R. Eckman, L.H. Bell and D. Nelson (eds.), Universals

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of Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, pp. 132– 143. Kwon, E.-Y. 2005. “The N‘ atural Order’ of morpheme acquisition: a historical survey and discussion of three putative determinants”. Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, pp. 1–21. Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakshmanan, U., and S. Maciukaite 1999. “The syntax and pragmatics of negation in child SLA”. Proceedings of the Pragmatics and Language Learning 9: 213–236. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R.W. 2000. “A dynamic usage-based model”. In M. Barlow and S. Kemmer (eds.), Usage-based Models of Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI, pp. 1–63. Larsen-Freeman, D.E. 1975. “The acquisition of grammatical morphemes by adult ESL students”. TESOL Quarterly 9: 409–430. MacWhinney, B. 2008. “A Unified Model”.I n P. Robinson, and N.C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. New York, NJ: Routledge, pp. 341–371. Makino, T. 1979. “Acquisition order of English morphemes by Japanese secondary school students”. Journal of Hokkaido University of Education 30: pp. 101–148. Odlin, T. 1989. Language Transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Grady, W., M. Lee and M. Choo 2003. “A subject-object asymmetry in the acquisition of relative clauses in Korean as a second language”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25 (3): 433–448. Ozeki, H., and Y. Shirai 2007. “Does the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy predict the difficulty order in the acquisition of Japanese relative clauses?” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29 (2): 169–196. Parodi, T., B.D. Schwartz and H. Clahsen 2004. “On the acquisition of the morphosyntax of German nominals”. Linguistics 42 (3): 669–705. Perales, S., M.D. Mayo and J.M. Liceras 2009. “The acquisition of L3 English negation by bilingual (Spanish/Basque) learners in an institutional setting”. International Journal of Bilingualism 13 (1): 3–33. Pérez-Leroux, A.T., and J. Muñoz Liceras 2002. The Acquisition of Spanish Morphosyntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Perkins, K., and D. Larsen-Freeman 1975. “The effect of formal language instruction on the order of morpheme acquisition”. Language Learning 25 (2): 237–243.

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Pica, T. 1983. “Adult acquisition of English as a second language under different conditions of exposure”. Language Learning 33 (4): 465–497. Porter, J.H. 1977. “A cross-sectional study of morpheme acquisition in first language learners”. Language Learning 27 (1): 47–62. Rocca, S. 2007. Child Second Language Acquisition: A Bi-directional Study of English and Italian Tense-Aspect Morphology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rohde, A. 1996. “The Aspect Hypothesis and emergence of tense distinction in naturalistic L2 acquisition”. Linguistics 34 (5): 1115–1138. Rosansky, E.J. 1976. “Methods and morphemes in second language acquisition research”. Language Learning 26 (2): 409–425. Salaberry, M.R., and Y. Shirai (eds.) 2002. The L2 Acquisition of Tense-Aspect Morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schütze, C.T. 24.09.2001. “The status of He/She don’t and theories of root infinitives”.U npublished manuscript, UCLA. Retrieved from LingBuzz: http:// ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/ (accessed 28.10.2011). Shiroi, Y., and A. Kurono 1998. “The acquisition of tense-aspect marking in Japanese as a second language”. Language Learning 48 (2): 245–279. Skinner, B.F. 1957. Verbal Behavior. New York, NJ: Appleton-Century- Crofts. Stauble, A.M. 1984. “A comparison of Spanish-English and a Japanese- English second language continuum: negation and verb morphology”. In R. Andersen (ed.), Second Languages: A Cross-linguistic Perspective. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, pp. 323–353. Tyler, A. 2008. “Cognitive Linguistics and second language instruction”. In P. Robinson and N.C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge, pp. 456–488. Vainikka, A., and M. Young-Scholten 2010. “All acquisition begins with the projection of a bare verb phrase”. Applied Psycholinguistics 31 (2): 332–339. Wagner-Gough, J., and E. Hatch 1975. “The importance of input data in second language acquisition studies”. Language Learning 25 (2): 297–308. Wode, H. (1981). Learning a Second Language. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

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Adam Wojtaszek

PRZYSWAJANIE KOMPONENTU MORFOSYNTAKTYCZNEGO

Streszczenie

Rozdział stanowi wprowadzenie do najważniejszych zagadnień związanych z akwi- zycją komponentu morfosyntaktycznego w procesie przyswajania języka obcego, przedstawionych w porządku z grubsza odpowiadającym rozwojowi badań w tej dzie- dzinie. Na wstępie omawiane są badania kolejności przyswajania morfemów, następ- nie akwizycja czasu i aspektu gramatycznego, po czym przedstawione jest wykształca- nie się zdań przydawkowych, przede wszystkim w kontekście Hierarchii Dostępności (ang. Accessibility Hierarchy) oraz zaimków rezumptywnych, zaś pod koniec rozdziału odnajdujemy omówienie przyswajania struktur pytających i przeczących. Prezenta- cja nie jest wyczerpująca ani też nadmiernie szczegółowa, co z jednej strony wynika z ogólnych założeń niniejszego tomu, z drugiej natomiast z obszerności poruszanej w tym rozdziale tematyki. Pomocą dla czytelnika pragnącego bardziej szczegółowo zapoznać się z omawianymi zagadnieniami będzie zamieszczona na końcu rozdziału rozszerzona bibliografia.

Adam Wojtaszek

Erwerbung der morphosyntaktischen Komponente

Zusammenfassung

Das Kapitel ist eine Einführung in die wichtigsten mit der Akquisition einer mor- phosyntaktischen Komponente während des Fremdsprachenerwerbs verbundenen Fragen, die von dem Verfasser in groben Zügen in der den Forschungen auf diesem Gebiet entsprechenden Anordnung dargestellt wurden. Besprochen werden der Reihe nach: die Erwerbung von Morphemen, die Akquisition der Zeit und des grammati- schen Aspektes, die Entstehung von Attributsätzen v. a. im Zusammenhang mit der Verständlichkeitshierarchie (Accessibility Hierarchy) und resumptiven Pronomen und Erwerbung von Interrogativstrukturen und verneinenden Strukturen. Das Thema wurde nicht erschöpfend erörtert, was einerseits aus allgemeinen Voraussetzungen des vorliegenden Buches und andererseits aus dem Umfang der in dem Kapitel ange- sprochenen Thematik folgt. Einem Leser, der erörterte Fragen genauer kennen lernen möchte, wird die sich am Ende des Buches befindende Bibliografie empfohlen.  CHAPTER 4

Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology by Polish learners – Segments and prosody

Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

4.1 introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to review and discuss research on English segments and prosody in the light of how they are acquired by Polish learners. It concentrates on pinpointing key differences between English and Polish phonology that will have an impact on the acquisition process. Additionally, some methodological issues in studying second-language speech are discussed in terms of which acoustic parameters can be used to compare native English and English pronounced by Polish learners. The acquisition ofF L phonology is an integral part of the acquisition of a foreign language in general. It shares many similarities with the acquisition of other language strata, such as morphology, syntax, or semantics. However, unlike those other strata, it involves the most physical aspect of language. It results from the fact that articulation is the final-stage manifestation of mental processes involved in utterance planning. Driven by neural stimulation, articulators engage in sequences of movements in order to produce sounds that will further make up meaningful units such as words. Because of its physicality, FL phonology appears to be unarguably the most challenging element of language learning, very often resulting in the so-called foreign or non-native accent. Even very proficient speakers ofF L may have detectable non-native features in their pronunciation. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Joseph Conrad Syndrome. While Conrad’s mastery of English vocabulary and style well exceeded that of typical native speakers, his pronunciation became anecdotal for having a strong Polish accent.

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The difficulties with attaining native-like accent Fin L come as a consequence of different principles governing the phonology of L1 andF L. FL phonetics and phonology research is therefore interested in pinpointing those differences and making predictions about which sounds or groups of sounds will be hard to learn. For example, because Polish lacks dental fricatives // and /ð/, it may be predicted, using a , that Polish learners will find those sounds particularly challenging to learn. The next stage is to verify contrastive predictions in controlled experiments. Using the example of English dental fricatives, if a group of Polish beginner learners records words with // and /ð/ and the analysis of recordings reveals that a number of those dentals sound like /s/, /z/ or /f/ /v/, then it may be concluded that the contrastive predictions were correct and dental fricatives are indeed difficult for Polish learners. This strong connection between contrastive predictions from phonological and phonetic differences between L1 andF L, and empirical validation underlies all the current research in foreign-language speech. The analysis of speech customarily concentrates on two levels. The first level is concerned with segments such as vowels and consonants. Research in this domain is predominantly interested in acoustic parameters that differ in production of vowels and consonants between L1 and FL. Moreover, it investigates how pronunciation of non-native speakers diverges from that of native speakers. Both production and perception experiments can be used because they are equally informative about the nature of FL phonology learning. Prosody refers to higher- order phenomena in the speech signal such as timing, stress, prominence, or intonation. Both the segmental and prosodic levels reveal the differences in pronunciation between native speakers and FL learners, and so they can be successfully used in foreign-language speech research. In the following sections, we discuss the analysis of segments and prosody in SL speech. We particularly concentrate on research dealing with the acquisition of English sound system by Polish learners. First, however, some methodological issues in phonetic research will be introduced.

4.2 Methodological issues in SL speech research

When planning phonetic experiments, a researcher is faced with a choice of a method of analysis of collected material (detailed discussion in Rojczyk 2011a). For example, the researcher may record Polish learners of English producing words with // an /ð/. The next step is to select a method of analysis that will determine if obtained tokens are actual instances of native-like dental fricatives, or rather they have been substituted by Polish consonants /s/, /z/ or /f/, /v/. The easiest and, at the same time, the worst choice is when the researcher

94 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… themselves decides to analyse auditorily the recordings. Such a method is subject to a substantial load of bias that is likely to distort the results. First, an individual perceptual system is not always sensitive to subtle phonetic features that characterize analysed speech sounds. In other words, what one listener may classify as a likely instance of //, the other listener may categorize as an instance of /f/. Second, the researcher may be unconsciously biased by his or her predictions for the results. Knowing the research hypothesis may influence the categorization of tested sounds towards confirming the hypothesis even beyond the conscious control. As the second method, the researcher may choose to present recorded tokens to a group of native speakers or proficientF L speakers. This method eliminates the researcher’s bias, because classifications are provided by judges who will be, most preferably, unacquainted with the object of the study. However, this method is not immune to imperfections either. Human listeners may perceptually assimilate classified segments to their own L1 segments (Thomsonet al. 2009), as it is the case for non-native judges. Other judges may be influenced by particular words in which tested sounds are located (Levi et al. 2007). In longer stretches of recorded speech, classifications from listeners can be distorted by rhythm (White and Mattys 2007), fluency (Derwing et al. 2008), intonation (Trofimovich and Baker 2006) or even speaker’s voice characteristics (Gick et al. 2008, Munro et al. 2010). More importantly, however, classifications by listeners may not capture significant acoustic variability within a sound that does not necessarily lead to a category change. Using our example, // and /ð/ consonants produced by Polish learners may be classified as acceptable tokens of this category even if their detailed acoustic properties differ dramatically from those typical for native speakers. Identifying and describing this within-category variability requires a technique that is able to detect fine-grained phonetic properties of sounds. Fine-grained phonetic features can be analysed by means of acoustic analysis. Because speech is a physical event, its properties are best revealed through physical parameters. These parameters are represented visually in a waveform and spectrogram. The development of computer technology in the last few decades have enabled spectral analysis of speech on PC. A number of speech- analysis software packages are available online free for download. The most commonly used software is Praat (Boersma 2001) available for download at http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/. It is characterized by its power for detailed acoustic analyses and functionality, which is, however, obtained at a cost of simplicity. Nevertheless, a little practice will suffice to carry out some basic analyses and measurements. The “editor window” in Praat provides visualization of the speech signal, with a top window showing a waveform and a bottom window showing a spectrogram (Figure 1).

95 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

Figure 1 Waveform and spectrogram of the word Praat

The waveform displays air pressure variations as recorded over a certain period of time. The spectrogram shows frequency and amplitude of vibrations along the time dimension. The red lines indicate changes in frequencies of sounds. The blue line shows the contour of the fundamental frequency (F0), which is primary parameter of intonation. The yellow line calculates the intensity of the signal.

4.3 Vowels

Vowels are a rich source for studies investigating the acquisition of English sound system by Poles. While Polish makes do with only six vowels, British English uses as many as 12 different single vowel categories. Moreover, no single Polish vowel has spectral properties that could make it a perfect substitute for an English vowel. It is therefore particularly challenging for Polish learners to learn to produce and recognize a whole set of vowels that are different and more numerous from those observed in their native language. Another aspect is duration or length of vowels. While Polish is generally characterized by durational invariability of its vowels (Jassem 1962; but see Rojczyk 2010a), English varies duration of vowels as a cue to the voicing of following consonants (Chen 1970, Denes 1955, Klatt 1973, Raphael 1972) or a correlate of stress (Beckman 1986, Fry 1955, 1958; Lieberman 1960, Slujter and van Heuven 1996b). There is also empirical evidence that duration of vowels may also depend on vowel quality in English (short and long vowels: Catford 1977, Crystal and House 1988, House 1961, Lehiste 1970, Lindau 1978); however vowel quality is a primary cue over

96 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… duration in native perception of vowels (Ainsworth 1972, Hillenbrand et al. 2000, Mermelstein 1978). Some textbooks (e.g. Sobkowiak 1996) prefer the terms lax and tense (Jakobson et al. 1952) rather than short and long. This distinction seems to be controversial (Buder and Stoel-Gammon 2002), because it is based on an articulatory label that refers to different aspects of articulation in different languages (Clark and Yallop 1995, Maddieson and Ladefoged 1985). Both vowel quality and duration can be analysed with great detail using acoustic analysis. Measurements of vowel duration depend to a large extent on neighbouring sounds. The researcher should be wary to avoid constructing experimental words that will have vowels flanked by continuants, such as approximants, liquids or nasals. In such contexts, measuring vowel duration is difficult and prone to error, because there are no clear discontinuities in the speech signal. Most preferably, vowels should be flanked by either stops or fricatives. Since phonologically voiced consonants have voicing into closure or constriction from the preceding vowel, it may blur the boundaries of a vowel. As a consequence, neighbouring voiceless stops or fricatives are the best choice, while preparing items for experiments with vowel duration. Figure 2 shows a waveform and spectrogram of words sat and sad. In this particular context, when flanked by fricative /s/ and plosive /t/ or /d/, vowel onset was measured as the end of high energy noise typical for fricatives and vowel offset was measured as the beginning of closure for the following stop.

Figure 2 Waveform and spectrogram of sat and sad

Vowel quality is determined by measuring frequencies of the first two formants. High Formant 1 (F1) is associated with low, open vowels, and low F1 is

97 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek associated with high, close vowels. High Formant 2 (F2) is associated with front vowels, while low F2 is associated with back vowels (more details in Baart 2010 and Harrington 2010). Although F1 and F2 are not restricted to only height and frontness/backness of vowels, but may also indicate e.g. lip rounding (Ladefoged and Madieson 1996), they have been successfully used to compare vowels on two-dimensional plots in linguistic and sociolinguistic phonetics (Labov 2001, Ladefoged 1971). Figure 3 shows an analysis window for vowels /i:/ and /a:/ in words heat and heart. Formants are generally measured at a vowel midpoint which is assumed

Figure 3 frequencies of F1 and F2 in vowels /i:/ heat (left) and /a:/ heart (right)

98 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… to represent target articulation. Measurements towards any of the flanking consonants will reflect acoustic properties of those consonants encoded in vowel onglide or offglide (Lindblom 1963,S tevens and House 1963). Measured formants can be next plotted on a vowel plane to graphically visualize a vowel space for a given speaker (Figurer 4). The x-axis represents the dimension of F2, the y-axis represents the dimension of F1.

Figure 4 Vowel plane with plotted /i:/ and /a:/ Research investigating the acquisition of English vowel system by Polish learners concentrated on both duration and quality. Studies dealing with vowel duration showed that Polish learners insufficiently modify length to distinguish between short and long vowels (Waniek-Klimczak 2005, Porzuczek 2007), insufficiently modify length as a cue to the voicing of following consonants (Waniek-Klimczak 2005, Rojczyk 2010b, 2010c for perception), give more weight to duration relative to spectral information for vowel categories (Bogacka 2004, Rojczyk 2011b), or do not temporally reduce in unstressed positions (Porzuczek 2008, 2009; Rojczyk and Porzuczek in press). Studies analysing quality of English vowels produced by Poles concentrated on categories such as /i:/and // (Bogacka 2004, Rojczyk 2010d), /e/ (Rojczyk 2010d), /æ/ (Gonet et al. 2010b; Rojczyk 2011b), // (Rojczyk 2011b), or /ә/ (Gonet et al. 2010a, Bogacka et al. 2006), demonstrating that Polish learners have difficulties with forming targetF L vowel

99 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek categories that are not assimilated to a certain degree by their native categories. Not surprisingly, this merger of L1 and FL vowels has been corroborated in perception studies that indicated Polish learners’ difficulties with perceptually identifying tokens of vowel categories in English (Bogacka 2004, Bogacka et al. 2006, Nowacka 2008, Porzuczek 1998, Rojczyk 2011b).

4.4 consonants

Consonants constitute another group of sounds that may be researched from the point of view of their acquisition in FL. Textbooks on English pronunciation for Poles (Arabski 1987, Bałutowa 1974, Jassem 1973, Sobkowiak 1996) point to problematic areas resulting from differences in consonantal systems ofE nglish and Polish. They may generally be grouped as follows:

1 aspiration in English 2 unreleased stops in English 2 dental fricatives in English 3 velar nasals in English 4 approximant /r/ in English 5 velarized /l/ in English.

Unfortunately, most of those differences are largely underesearched both experimentally and instrumentally. It is a consequence of the fact that consonants are complex sounds and thus their spectral analysis must include several parameters. As a result, the above problematic areas reported in textbooks are based primarily on auditory observations by phonetics teachers, and have not been appropriately quantified in experimental research to date. An exception here is aspiration in English and the lack thereof in Polish. A number of instrumental and experimental studies looked into aspiration in productions of word-initial voiceless stops in English by Poles. Simply put, English voiceless stops are characterized by a puff of air between their plosion and the following vowel. Since Polish stops are unaspirated, the learners need to learn aspiration in English not only to substantially improve on how they sound, but also to produce stops that will be perceived as voiceless by native speakers. In order to compare the voicing and voicelessness of stops in Polish and English, most acoustic studies have used the parameter of Voice Onset Time (VOT) (Lisker and Abramson 1964). VOT is a temporal parameter that is measured as the time interval between the release of stop and the onset of voicing of a following vowel. VOT can have negative values, when vocal cords start vibrating before the release of a stop, short positive values, when voicing

100 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… begins soon after the release (0 to 30 ms), or long positive values when voicing begins long after the release (+50 ms or more).I t is when stops have long VOT values that they are said to be aspirated. The comparison of OTV for Polish and English reveals consistent differences. Polish voiced /b, d, g/ have negative VOT values, in that voicing begins before they are released, while voiceless /p, t, k/ are characterized by short positive VOT values (Keating 1980, Kopczyński 1977, Mikoś et al. 1978). On the other hand, English /b, d, g/ have short positive VOT values and /p, t, k/ have long positive values (Keating 1984, Lisker and Abramson 1964). Discarding a traditional phonological voiced-voiceless opposition, we can say that, while Polish /b, d, g/ are voiced and /p, t, k/ are voiceless, English /b, d, g/ are voiceless unaspirated and /p, t, k/ are voiceless aspirated. Different implementations of the voicing contrast in Polish and English stops have observable consequences for Polish learners of English. First, Polish learners will pronounce English /b, d, g/ with negative VOT values. Second, Polish learners will pronounce English /p, t, k/ with short positive VOT values, i.e. without aspiration. The first divergence from the English norm will not impede the comprehensibility, simply because, on the one hand, prevoiced stops will be still perceived as /b, d, g/ and, on the other hand, some native speakers in certain conditions also prevoice /b, d, g/ (Kessinger and Blumstein 1997, Magloire and Green 1999, Miller et al. 1986). The second divergence will, however, result in misperception, because English /p, t, k/ produced with short VOT values, without aspiration, will be perceived as /b, d, g/ by English listeners. That is to say, words liketen or pet produced without aspiration will sound like den or bet to English ears. Those difficulties of Polish learners to distinguish between English unaspirated /b, d, g/ and aspirated /p, t, k/ have been studied experimentally both in production and perception. Waniek-Klimczak (2005) measured VOT in English for early and late Polish-English bilinguals and reported that they produced intermediate values for English /p, t, k/, in that they were higher than for Polish /p, t, k/, but not high enough to match those typical for native speakers. Perception experiments showed that Poles do not distinguish between unaspirated /b, d, g/ and aspirated /p, t, k/ in a native-like fashion. Kopczyński (1977) found that many instances of English /b, d, g/ were perceived as voiceless. Rojczyk (2011c) used a VOT continuum ranging from 0 to +70 ms to investigate how Polish learners categorized stops between unaspirated and aspirated. The results revealed that, unlike native speakers, Polish listeners did not consistently locate a phonemic boundary in this region, indicating that the perceptual boundary was not fully established even for advanced learners. Finally, Rojczyk (2010e) analysed those results from the point of view of pronunciation pedagogy.

101 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

Measuring and quantifying aspiration (long VOT values) is relatively easy. The time between the release burst of a stop and the following vowel can be precisely delimited in both a waveform and spectrogram, even without experience in acoustic analysis. This parameter can, therefore, be used in the analysis of Polish learners’ pronunciation of English at all levels and in any experimental condition. Figure 5 shows spectral analysis of the Polish word ten and English ten. Plosive /t/ in Polish is characterized by a lack of aspiration, indicated by low VOT values (+18 ms). English /t/ is strongly aspirated, as demonstrated by a significant portion of a voiceless period between the release of /t/ and the following vowel (+198 ms).

Figure 5 Measurements of VOT for /t/ Polish ten (+18 ms) and English ten (+198 ms) Another advantage of using VOT as an experimental parameter is its immunity to distortions in the signal. It means that recordings do not need to be performed in a sound-proof boot, but a researcher may freely use a portable recorder or a notebook with a microphone in field or classroom recording. Unless there is severe background noise, the researcher may obtain precise and reliable measurements for his or her project.

4.5 Prosody and its functions

The acquisition of FL speech does not only involve the speech sound system and phonotactic issues but also FL prosody, the suprasegmental organization of utterances. Prosody in particular refers to voice pitch variation, the timing of speech units and distribution of prominent elements. Distribution of

102 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… prominences in an utterance and speech melody are by no means just accessory to the semantic content of lexical units combined in syntactic structures. Prosodic features are widely exploited by language users for pragmatic purposes and very often the intended meaning of an utterance depends on its intonation pattern more than on its semantics. The three features are strictly interrelated and although each will be discussed in a separate section, constant references will be made to the other two. This section presents the main notions of prosody, their significance in FL acquisition and the current research directions.

4.6 Prominence

Prominence distribution is central to all topics connected with prosody, as it forms the framework for rhythm and intonation. The general term comprises at least two main concepts: stress and accent. The two notions are used in different meanings in literature (seeS luijter and Van Heuven 1996a), reflecting the hierarchic nature of prominence. In this paper we will adopt the approach proposed by Halliday (1967), Vanderslice and Ladefoged (1972), also supported by Sluijter and Van Heuven (1996a). According to this view, stress is an intrinsic property of a lexical item, which has one most prominent syllable. Stressed syllables bear a potential for phrasal accent in actual utterances. In many languages, including English, a word always has an intrinsically prominent syllable, which is often phonologically significant, and the realization of word stress in language performance is crucial for successful speech perception. The realization of stress involves several physical properties of sound waves, their production and perception. The speaker may use relatively greater articulatory effort leading to increased intensity of the speech unit – either regarded as total energy expenditure (loudness) or only in higher frequency regions of the spectrum (spectral tilt). Then, fundamental frequency (F0) varia- tion (tonic/melodic stress) can be employed to signal prominent syllables, as well as increased duration of the stressed units. The impression of prominence may also be achieved by qualitative and quantitative reduction of the unstressed units that surround the prominent one. Individual prominence cues are normally combined and, as Fry (1958: 127) points out, “the listener is never concerned exclusively with one of them” but rather “his linguistic judgments are determined by their interaction.” A lot of research has been done to establish the relative salience of individual cues for prominence perception. According to Fry (1955, 1958) duration is more indicative of stress than intensity, but pitch excursions can override their effects. The dominant role of pitch variation has been confirmed by Bolinger

103 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

(1958), Morton and Jassem (1965), Jassem et al. (1968). A later empirical study of stress perception by adult English speakers (Streeter 1978) brought similar results. The influence of vowel quality (F1-F2 structure) on stress perception was found to be smaller than in the case of the other stress correlates (Fry 1965). Generally, the acoustic studies of the 1950s and 1960s led to conclusions roughly summarized by a hierarchy of acoustic and corresponding prominence cues in Table 1 (cf. Jensen 2004).

Table 1 a hierarchy of perceptual and acoustic prominence cues Acoustic cues Perceptual cues (fundamental frequency) F0 pitch duration length intensity loudness formant structure quality Figure 6 shows the word infinitypronounced in isolation. The stressed syllable nucleus (highlighted) bears relatively high pitch (lower line), higher intensity (upper, continuous line) and lower F1.

Figure 6 stress cues in the word infinity pronounced in isolation

References to vowel quality as a prominence cue are also present in more recent studies on hyperspeech by Lindblom (1990) or hyperarticulation by de Jong (1995) and Erickson (2002), who found that the phonetic space of

104 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology… phonemic contrast expands under the influence of stress.A similar conclusion was proposed by Beckman and Edwards (1992), who claimed that an accented position makes the vocal tract more open (sonority expansion). These observations were further supported by Cho (2005), who confirmed the relation between the two processes. Views regarding pitch as the most salient prominence cue have lately been challenged, again in favour of intensity as the main factor. Kochanski et al. (2005) consider it a better predictor of prominence than duration. They further claim that F0 becomes significant only if a speaker uses large pitch movements. Similarly, Rietveld and Gussenhoven (1985), and Terken (1991) pointed out that large (1/2 octave) F0 excursions induce perception of prominence. Recently, speech synthesis and acoustic parameter manipulation have been used in search for better understanding of their interaction. The obtained results differ across studies. Beckman (1986) points out possibly different experimental conditions as one source of discrepancies. She also observes that “[t]he mapping between the physical attributes being manipulated and the psychological attributes supposedly being tested is too complicated for direct comparisons of the results” (1986: 157). Finally, the difficulty may not only lie in establishing the relations between the physical cues but also in subjective psychological reaction of the listener. According to Cooper (1998: 24), “the perception of stress in speech is, like the perception of rhythm generally, a subjective and interpretive activity rather than simply the registering of some objective feature.” The discrepancy between the acoustics of speech and the listener’s perception will be addressed in section 4.8 devoted to timing and rhythm.

4.7 intonation

Pitch variation performs important functions in communication. As mentioned before, it may be used to mark prominence, both on the lexical level (cf. Figure 6) and on the phrase level (cf. Figure 7). However, numerous complex combinations of prominence and pitch variation patterns can be used for other purposes as well. Wells (2006: 11ff) distinguishes several functions of intonation: • attitudinal (expressing attitudes and emotions) • grammatical (signalling grammatical structures and unit boundaries) • focussing (highlighting informationally important units) • discourse (interaction management, e.g. turn taking) • psychological (organising speech into cognitively manageable chunks) • indexical (indicating the speaker’s personal or social identity).

105 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

Figure 7 Pitch accented syllables (fair- and god-) in an utterance

These functions, which are crucial for successful communication, can hardly be performed by other means. Therefore intonation is also an important aspect of EFL learning, especially if, as Wells (2006: 11) suggests, “[i]t may well be the case that English makes more elaborate use of intonation to signal meaning than do most other languages.” The importance of intonation for FL communication and learning has never been questioned, and pedagogical purposes were important when formal descriptions of intonation contours were proposed within the British School tradition. Several main patterns were distinguished, based on pitch changes initiated with the most prominent syllable of the unit called a tone group. This prominent syllable, normally the last pitch-accented one in a tone group, constituted its nucleus. The first pitch-accented syllable was called the head. Any unstressed syllables before the head formed a prehead, while tonally neutral syllables following the nucleus were referred to as the tail. This nuclear tone approach represented by the British School (e.g. Kingdon 1958, O’Connor and Arnold 1973 [1961], Crystal 1969, Gimson 1974 [1962], Brazil et al. 1980, Cruttenden 1997) has been very popular for decades, also in FL pedagogy. A new approach appeared with the rise of Autosegmental-Metrical phonology (Pierrehumbert 1980, Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986, Ladd 1986, 1996). The new description system called Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) (Silverman et al. 1992) indicates high (*H) and low (*L) tones in an intonational phrase as well as boundary tones and the degree of cohesiveness between words.

106 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology…

Figure 8 an intonational phrase (tone group) parsed according to nuclear tone approach

Figures 8 and 9 show an utterance the intonation of which is described in terms of the two approaches already discussed.

Figure 9 an intonational phrase according to ToBI description

107 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek

A simplified practical representation of intonation contour for pronunciation textbooks (e.g. O’Connor 1967) would refer to the two accented syllables, indicating the Low Fall pattern in the following way:

It was her fairy godmother.

The same pattern shown in ToBI convention would be represented by the symbols H* H* L-L%, as in Tier 1 of the full description in Figure 9. The ToBi system is still developing, with specific variants elaborated for the description of different languages.

4.8 timing and rhythm

The duration of speech units may also perform phonological and pragmatic functions. In English, intrinsic segmental length is traditionally considered a distinctive feature of vowels. Vocalic duration is also used to resolve the voiced/voiceless consonant contrast in the coda. Increased duration of segments and larger prosodic domains is often indicative of prominence and domain boundaries. Finally, speech unit duration may be adjusted as a result of natural tendency for rhythm observed in human actions. Since 1945, when Pike proposed a distinction between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, which formed the foundation for Rhythm Class Hypothesis, rhythm studies have become an important direction of research into prosody. Although isochrony of speech units has never been confirmed, rhythmic patterns are still being sought in other aspects of speech, and scholars who argue for complete irrhythmicity of language production (e.g. Cauldwell 2002) are in the minority. The inability to find evidence for timing regularities by means of instrumental studies on the one hand and the subjective perception of speech rhythmicality (cf. Lehiste 1977) on the other, moved rhythm studies and Rhythm Class Hypothesis to a new direction. It was observed (e.g. Dauer 1983) that rhythmic differences between languages are correlated with permitted syllable structure diversity and presence or absence of unstressed vowel reduction. This has led to new rhythm class measures based on the two characteristics of language phonology, such as %V (vocalic content in a measured speech sample) and ΔC (consonantal interval variance) (Ramus et al. 1999) or Pairwise Variability Index (consecutive consonantal and vocalic interval variance) (Grabe and Low 2002).1 These measures classify languages on a two-dimensional continuous scale rather than assign

1 see also VarcoV and VarcoC (Dellwo 2006).

108 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology…

“stress-timed” or “syllable-timed” labels. However, disregarding prominences may be one reason for criticism of measures aimed at rhythm evaluation. Therefore, recently more attention has been given to cross-linguistic variation of stressed and unstressed syllable duration contrast (cf. Wiget et al. 2010).

4.9 efL prosody acquisition by Polish learners

Systematic differences between L1 and FL prosody may naturally lead to interference in the learners’ performance. There are reports that Polish learners find it difficult to master the following English pronunciation features which either do not occur or are less significant in Polish: • long/short vowel distinction (e.g. Szpyra-Kozłowska 2003, Sobkowiak 1996, Nowacka 2008) • unstressed syllable/vowel reduction (e.g. Sobkowiak 1996, Hewings 2004, Dziubalska-Kołaczyk et al. 2006, Porzuczek 2007, 2010) • accentual lengthening (Avery and Ehrlich 1996, Gonet et al. 2010a) • stress timing2 (Śpiewak and Gołębiowska 2001). The above-mentioned features are important determinants of utterance timing, connected with the notion of rhythm. To complete the list of potential problems with English prosody, we must also mention interference related to differences in intonation contours used in the two languages. Intonation is considered very difficult to teach (e.g.S etter 2008) or even unteachable (Taylor 1993, Jenkins 2000). This is connected with the diversity of patterns used by language communities and individual speakers, the complexity of relations between the contours and pragmatic meanings (cf. Grabe 2002) and the difficulty of conscious control of voice pitch. Roach (2000) suggests that typical melodic patterns are best acquired via immersion in a given language community.

4.10 conclusion

The task of learning correct pronunciation ofF L requires the formation of new phonetic patterns typical for that language. The extent of novel formations depends on how much FL phonetic patterns diverge from those used in L1. In the current paper, we discussed the challenges that Polish learners must face when learning the pronunciation of English, distinguishing between a segmental and prosodic level. Out of several segmental differences betweenE nglish and Polish, the emphasis was put on learning single vowel categories and aspiration. On the

2 understood as a tendency to keep regular interstress intervals.

109 Arkadiusz Rojczyk, Andrzej Porzuczek prosodic level, the discussion concentrated on intonation, timing and rhythm. The acquaintance with those problematic areas is not only helpful in attaining native-like pronunciation of English, but also allows a researcher in FL to select one or some of them in an analysis of the acquisition of English by Poles. To this end, we attempted to provide rudimentary information on speech analysis, with particular emphasis on investigating Polish pronunciation of English. All current approaches to FL speech acquisition and learning assume that learning a new language entails concentrating on previously ignored acoustic patterns (Francis and Nusbaum 2002, Francis et al. 2008, Guion and Pederson 2007). An acoustic cue that is not exploited in L1 may be relevant in FL (Garcia- Sierra et al. 2009, Polka et al. 2001, Sundra et al. 2008). As a consequence, successful teaching/learning of FL pronunciation should be based on a set of patterns that need to be incorporated into foreign-language speech. One of such patterns is aspiration which is non-functional in Polish and functional in English. It has been reported that students who receive systematic phonetic training relying on explicit instructions about the differences between L1 and FL are much more successful than the ones without such training (Matthews 1997, Catford and Pisoni 1970). Despite vast regional and even individual differences in the prosody of English speech, which make it difficult for teachers and textbook authors to establish precise models of English suprasegmental phonetics to be followed by the learner, these aspects traditionally rank high on priority lists of scholars dealing with EFL teaching and learning. Such opinions are expressed, among others, by Kenworthy (1987), Bogle (1996), Celce-Murcia et al. (1996), Szpyra- Kozłowska et al. (2003) and Setter (2008). Finally, it must be borne in mind that segmental and suprasegmental phonetics are not two separate strata of language that can be treated independently. The intrinsic language-specific qualities of segments, their distribution and phonemic contrasts influence the duration of higher level speech units while at the same time the distribution of prominences (including word stress patterns) determines the shape of individual speech sounds. Consequently, it is hardly possible for a learner who has problems with the pronunciation of FL speech sounds to produce native-like prosodic patterns, and it is equally difficult for a learner who does not understand the influence of word stress and phrasal accent (or lack of prominence) on individual vowels and consonants to pronounce the FL segments correctly.

Acknowledgements

This work has been partly supported by a grant from Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (0576/B/H03/2010/38) to both authors.

110 CHAPTER 4 Selected aspects in the acquisition of English phonology…

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WYBRANE ASPEKTY PRZYSWAJANIA SYSTEMU FONOLOGICZNEGO JĘZYKA ANGIELSKIEGO PRZEZ POLSKIEGO UCZNIA

Streszczenie

Rozdział poświęcony jest przyswajaniu systemu fonologicznego języka angielskiego przez polskich uczniów. Omówiono w nim typowe problemy występujące w proce- sie uczenia się wymowy angielskiej, szczególnie te wynikające z interferencji, a więc spowodowane różnicami pomiędzy systemem języka ojczystego a językiem obcym. W wypadku ucznia polskiego, w zakresie fonetyki segmentalnej, są to przede wszystkim fonemiczne kontrasty samogłoskowe, różnice w realizacji kontrastu pomiędzy samo- głoskami dźwięcznymi a bezdźwięcznymi (np. aspiracja i skracanie samogłoski przed spółgłoską bezdźwięczną), wymowa szczelinowych spółgłosek zębowych oraz proce- sy związane z realizacją wariantów pozycyjnych spółgłosek wybuchowych, płynnych i nosowych. W zakresie prozodii skoncentrowano się przede wszystkim na sposobach realizacji akcentu wyrazowego i zdaniowego, funkcjach intonacji w komunikacji wer- balnej oraz relacjach czasowych i rytmie wypowiedzi. Podkreślono również ścisły zwią- zek i wzajemne zależności pomiędzy fonetyką segmentalną i suprasegmentalną, które nader często rozpatrywane są jako zagadnienia odrębne z punktu widzenia dydaktyki wymowy. W odniesieniu do wspomnianych problemów przedstawione zostały meto- dologiczne aspekty współczesnych badań empirycznych z wykorzystaniem akustycznej analizy mowy, aktualny stan rozwoju badań w omawianych dziedzinach, jak również literatura zalecana dla słuchaczy studiów filologicznych zainteresowanych problematy- ką przyswajania wymowy języka angielskiego przez Polaków.

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Ausgewählte Aspekte von der Erwerbung des phonologischen Systems der englischen Sprache von polnischen Schülern

Zusammenfassung

Das Kapitel ist der Erwerbung des phonologischen Systems der englischen Spra- che von polnischen Schülern gewidmet. Die Verfasser besprechen typische, besonders mit der Interferenz verbundene, also aus den Unterschieden zwischen der Heimat- sprache und der Fremdsprache entstehende Probleme mit der englischen Ausspra- che. Bei einem polnischen Schüler sind es im Bereich der segmentalen Phonetik vor allem: phonemische Vokalkontraste, Unterschiede in der Aussprache des Kontrastes zwischen stimmhaften und stimmlosen Vokalen (z.B.: Aspiration und Abkürzung des Vokals vor einem stimmlosen Konsonanten), die Aussprache von dentalen Engelauten und die mit der Aussprache von isolierenden, flüssigen und nasalen Plosivlauten ver- bundenen Prozesse. Im Bereich der Prosodie sind es hauptsächlich: der Wortakzent, die Intonation in der verbalen Kommunikation, die Sprechquantität und der Sprech- rhythmus. Die Verfasser betonen auch eine Wechselbeziehung zwischen der segmen- talen und suprasegmentalen Phonetik, die vom Standpunkt der Sprechdidaktik sehr häufig getrennt betrachtet werden. In Bezug auf oben genannte Probleme werden hier geschildert: methodologische Aspekte der gegenwärtigen empirischen Forschungen bei Ausnutzung der akustischen Sprachanalyse, der heutige Stand der Forschungen auf vorliegenden Gebieten und die den polnischen Hörern des philologischen Studiums, welche für die Aussprache des Englischen Interesse haben, empfohlene Fachliteratur. CHAPTER 5

Pragmatic issues in foreign language learning

Agnieszka Solska

5.1 introduction

It is now recognized that becoming a proficient speaker of whether one’s native or a foreign tongue requires more than mastery of that language pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax and depends crucially on the ability to use the language appropriately. This belief is reflected in the communicative approach in language teaching, which gives primary importance to the achievement of abilities allowing speakers to understand and produce utterances which are well suited to the communicative situations taking place in specific socio-cultural contexts. The emergence of this approach has to some extent paralleled the rise of pragmatics as a separate field of study within linguistics and developing learners’ pragmatic competence has come to be seen as one of the major goals in teaching English as a foreign language. The goal of this chapter is to discuss the relevance of pragmatic issues for foreign language learning, to present some examples of cross-cultural differences in both the comprehension and production of pragmatic aspects of language and to offer a few thoughts on how pragmatic issues should be taught. The structure of the chapter is as follows. In section 5.2, the key terms in interlanguage pragmatics will be defined. Section 5.3 will contain an overview of pragmatic issues which are of major significance in second and foreign language studies, namely: conversational implicatures, speech acts, politeness, conversational analysis and forms of address. Section 5.4 will focus on universal aspects of pragmatics knowledge, and section 5.5 on positive transfer of pragmatic rules from L1. Section 5.6 will deal with the consequences of inadequate pragmatic knowledge in L2 while the role

121 Agnieszka Solska of explicit instruction in developing pragmatic abilities will be considered in section 5.7. Finally, conclusions emerging from the discussion will be presented in section 5.8.

5.2 Pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics

The term pragmatics, which has originated within philosophy of language (Morris 1938), is now extensively used in many disciplines and is understood in many ways reflecting particular scholars’ theoretical interests. The term is generally applied to “the study of language from the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on other participants in an act of communication” (Crystal 2008: 379). As a linguistic discipline, pragmatics is concerned with “the meaning of linguistic utterances for their users and interpreters” (Leech and Thomas 1990: 94), in particular with “meaning in relation to speech situations,” which, as noted by Leech (1983: 13–14), encompass such elements as the addresser(s) and the addressee(s), the context of the utterance, the goal(s) of the utterance, speech acts, and the utterance as the product of the verbal act. In the domain of second and foreign language acquisition and teaching, pragmatics can be defined as “the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context” (Kasper and Rose 2001: 2). As specified by Kasper and Rose (2001: 2), “communicative action includes not only speech acts (such as apologizing, complimenting, and requesting), but also engaging in different types of discourse and participating in speech events of varying length and complexity.” This vision of the discipline is grounded in Leech’s (1983) distinction into three categories of pragmatic studies: (a) general pragmatics, (b) socio- pragmatics and (c) pragmalinguistics. General pragmatics refers to the abstract study of the general conditions of the communicative use of language in terms of conversational principles. Pragmalinguistics is concerned with the particular resources specific languages have for performing communicative acts and conveying interpersonal meanings. Among these resources we find such pragmatic strategies as directness and indirectness, conversational routines as well as diverse linguistic forms which can be used in a given language to intensify or soften communicative acts. For instance, both I’m sorry and Kindly accept my most sincere apologies can be used to make a apology but each conveys a very different attitude of the speaker towards the hearer and reveals a different social relationship between them. Finally, socio-pragmatics, which Leech (1983: 10) described as “the sociological interface of pragmatics,” embraces culture-specific studies and is concerned with how the performance

122 CHAPTER 5 Pragmatic issues in foreign language learning of specific communicative action is interpreted and perceived by members of different speech communities. There can be no doubt that there is a close relationship between pragmatics and language learning. As observed by Bouton (1996a: 1):

pragmatics and language learning are inherently bound together […] pragmatics provides language teachers and learners with a research-based understanding of the language forms and functions that are appropriate to the many contexts in which a language is used – an understaning that is crucial to a proficient speaker’s communicative competence.

Scholarly interest in how learners with different L1 backgrounds deal with diverse aspects of language use has led to the emergence of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) as a new interdisciplinary discipline based on the theories of pragmatics and second language acquisition (Kasper and Blum-Kulka 1993; Kasper and Rose 2001, 2002). It can be described as “the study of the development and use of strategies for linguistic action by nonnative speakers” (Kasper and Schmidt 1996: 150), its research methods include analysing naturally occurring speech, using role-plays, discourse completion tasks (DCT) and ratings of appropriateness (Kasper and Dahl 1991), and its findings are of direct significance for foreign language teaching.

5.3 Key issues in interlanguage pragmatics

Central topics of inquiry in pragmatics include such issues as deixis, presupposition, implicature and speech acts, though many scholars extend this list to include politeness phenomena and conversational analysis. Pragmatic issues which are of greatest importance in second and foreign language studies and teaching encompass speech acts, conversational implicature, conversational structure and conversational management as well as discourse organization and sociolinguistic aspects of language use, especially linguistic politeness and the choice of address forms. In this section we will take a brief look at some of these areas and their relevance for L2 learning.

5.3.1 Conversational implicature: conveying unstated meanings

Conversational implicatures are meanings “which a speaker intends to convey, but which he does not explicitly express” (Cruse 2006: 3). For instance, in exchange (1) Ron’s reply will normally be understood as implying that Ron is not at leisure to go to the beach, even though he does not actually say that.

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Although intended by the speaker, this meaning is not strictly part of “what is said” in the utterance, nor does it follow logically from what is said. Since it is not stated it must be inferred, in other words, deduced by the addressee based on his general knowledge and contextual information.

(1) Kate: Are you coming down to the beach with us? Ron: I’ve got some work to do.

Diverse explanations have been proposed of how conversational implicatures arise. The most widely known is the one proposed by the philosopher Herbert Paul Grice (1975), who argued that while engaging in conversation speakers attempt to be co-operative and tacitly agree to adhere to certain rules. Grice called the overarching principle which ensures the effective and rational communicative interaction the Co-operative Principle (CP), which he formulated in the following way:

Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. (Grice 1975: 26)

Grice subdivided the Co-operative Principle into several maxims of conversation, which can be treated as guidelines for effective communication. In a nutshell, co-operative language users are expected to try to:

(a) say what they believe to be true (Maxim of quality), (b) give the right amount of information (Maxim of quantity), (c) be relevant, i.e. stay on topic (Maxim of relation), (d) be clear (Maxim of manner).

According to Grice, some implicatures arise when a speaker tries to abide by the maxims to the best of his abilities and some implicatures are triggered when he flouts (i.e. deliberately and ostentatiously goes against) one or more of the maxims, in other words, when it is clear that he has good reasons for breaking the maxims. For instance, the assumption that Paul in exchange (2) is following the maxim of relation will enable Liz to deduce that she cannot talk to Betty. Ann’s reply in exchange (3), which exploits the quantity maxim, implies that she does not know what subject Jack is taking. Bill’s rejoinder in (4), which involves an obvious violation of the quality maxim, implies that he does not think Ted will keep his promise.

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(2) Liz: Can I speak to Betty? Paul: She’s out. (3) Josh: What subject is Jack taking? Ann: He’s not taking lingustics. (4) Ted: I’ll pay you back tomorrow, I promise. Bill: Yeah, and pigs might fly.

Although conversational implicature is a universal phenomenon, not all of its manifestations are equally common in different cultures.C onsider such “figures of speech” as understatements, shown in (5), hyperboles (exaggerations), given in (6), and ironies, presented in (7):

(5) it’s a bit of a nuisance. (said of a debilitating and painful chronic illness) (6) i think of you a million times a day. (7) Well done! (said to someone who has committed a blunder)

Such utterances can be regarded as violations of maxims of conversation, with understatement going against the maxim of quantity and both hyperbole and irony violating the maxim of quality. Understatements are more likely to be used in English, especially British English, than say in Arabic, which is sometimes described as the language of hyperbole. As for irony, in some cultures it might be less acceptable than in English. This attitude is reflected in the following comment made by a Japanese learner of English who participated in a cultural awareness project conducted by Murray (2011):

When someone talks to me especially ironically I always feel uncomfortable Probably it comes from my cultural background. In my background consideration for other people’s feeling is priority than individual feeling. Therefore, before we say something we need to think if it makes people confortable or not. I think ironical speaking isn’t harmonised with our culture. (original spelling retained)

5.3.2 Speech acts: utterances as actions

Speech acts are actions that people perform by producing utterances, for instance informing, promising, criticizing, apologizing, warning, thanking or requesting. Most often five categories of speech acts are distinguished, based on the functions which can be assigned to them, namely:

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1. Representatives or assertives, which commit the speaker to the truth of the thought expressed in the utterance. They include asserting, claiming, reporting, boasting, concluding, etc. (e.g. I’m a really good driver). 2. Directives, which attempt to get the addressee to perform some action. They include asking questions, ordering, requesting, inviting, advising, begging, etc. (e.g. Could you close the window?). 3. Commisives, which place on the speaker the obligation to perform the action mentioned in his utterance. They include promising, offering, betting, warning, threatening, etc. (e.g. I’ll meet you after lunch). 4. Expressives, which express how the speaker feels about something. They include thanking, apologizing, complaining, welcoming, congratulating, deploring, etc. (e.g. I am sorry I didn’t call you). 5. Declarations, which change the institutional state of the world in an immediate way. They include dismissing from employment, bidding in the game of bridge, pronouncing someone guilty, declaring war, christening, etc. and often rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (e.g. We find the defendant guilty, said by the jury foreman). With the exception of declarations the speech acts we perform can be either direct or indirect, depending on the syntactic form of the utterance through which they are performed and its communicative form. A speech act is direct if the form of the utterance matches its function in the way shown in Table 1. If there is a mismatch between the two, the speech act is indirect. For example, the interrogative sentence Can you pass the salt? is rarely used to ask a question about the hearer’s ability to pass the salt and typically functions as a request to do so.

Table 1 Form and function correlations in direct speech acts Syntactic form Communicative function Examples of the utterance of the utterance Declarative asserting You stop at the red light. Interrogative asking questions Do you stop at the red light? Imperative requesting/ordering Stop at the red light!

Numerous indirect speech acts have become highly conventionalized. For example, Would you mind if I switch on the light? is often used to request permission rather than ask a question about the hearer’s attitude concerning some possible action, You will do as I say typically functions as an order, not as an assertion stating what the addressee will do, and Who cares? is normally said to express the speaker’s lack of interest in some matter and not to ask a question about the identity of those who care. Note that these and indeed most cases of indirect speech acts can be treated as examples of conversational implicatures.

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Indirect speech acts seem to be much more common than direct speech acts because they tend to be seen as more polite than their direct counterparts. Compare some of the possible ways the English language offers for asking someone to call a taxi, listed in (8), and ranging from the most direct (8a) through the increasingly less direct and more polite (8b), (8c) and (8d) to the most indirect and most polite (8e).

(8) (a) call a taxi, please. (b) Will you call a taxi? (c) Would you call a taxi? (d) Would you mind calling a taxi? (e) i wonder if you’d mind calling a taxi.

Thanks to the large-scale Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), carried out in many countries and many speech communities (e.g. Blum-Kulka et al. 1989, Blum-Kulka and Ohlstein 1984), it was possible to establish that speakers of English are less direct in how they typically phrase their requests than speakers of German, who in turn are not as direct as the speakers of Hebrew and Argentinian Spanish. The study of speech acts is of central importance in interlanguage pragmatics because the way speech acts are realized differs enormously across languages and cultures. The most glaring examples of intercultural differences can be observed in institutionalized speech acts used in public ceremonies and involving standardized formulas. For instance, in many Muslim cultures a husband can divorce his wife by simply saying to her I divorce you three times. Non- institutionalized speech acts too work differently in different languages and cultures. For example, in English-speaking countries, guests leaving a dinner party customarily offer thanks and compliments to their hosts.A similar custom exists in Poland, however a Polish native speaker may also say thanks to whoever he or she was sharing a meal with, regardless of whether they actually prepared or paid for the meal. In Japan however, after a dinner party the guests are more likely to offer their hosts an apology (o-jama itashimashita, i.e. ‘I have intruded on you’). In fact, as observed by Coulmas (1981), in the Japanese society apologies are performed in many situations in which a native speaker of English would perform a different speech act. Another fact which has generated a great deal of research in interlanguage pragmatics is that in different languages and cultures the same speech act can lead to different responses.T ake responses to compliments. In English the most common response to a compliment is acceptance/thanks, unlike in Chinese or Japanese, where a more typical response involves rejection/self-denigration

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(Chen 1993, Schneider 1999). The latter strategy used to be quite common in Polish, too, however, as noted by Arabski (2004), in recent years a growing tendency has been observed among Poles (especially young ones) to accept compliments and offer thanks for them.

5.3.3 Politeness

Linguistic politeness can be described as using language in a way that shows the speaker’s awareness of the other person’s public self-image, or face. This is generally achieved in two ways: on the one hand, speakers try to minimize the negative effects of what they say on the feelings of others, on the other hand, they try to maximize the positive effects of what they say on the feelings of others. The former is known as negative politeness and involves using various “deference strategies”. These are utterances which acknowledge the hearer’s negative face (his right to freedom of action and his need not to be imposed on by others). The latter is known as positive politeness and is realized through diverse “solidarity strategies”. They involve using language in a way that acknowledges the hearer’s positive face (his desire to be accepted and well-thought-of by the others). Numerous speech acts are by their very nature face-threatening in that they pose a threat to: –– the positive face of the hearer (e.g. accusing, disagreeing, criticising, insulting); –– the hearer’s negative face (e.g. advising, suggesting); –– the speaker’s face (e.g. making confessions, expressing thanks, apologizing); –– both the speaker’s and the hearer’s face (requesting, threatening). When forced to perform such acts speakers tend to phrase them in a way that will compensate or at least lower the threat to the hearer’s face. In their seminal book Brown and Levinson (1987) distinguish a set of five strategies of performing face-threatening acts (FTAs), given in Figure 1, whose choice depends on such factors as the social distance between the speaker and the hearer, the relative power the hearer has over the speaker, and the absolute ranking of imposition in a particular culture. The enormous amount of research which has been conducted on politeness has revealed that individual languages and cultures differ with respect to politeness strategies used to realize individual speech acts. Consider, for instance, refusals, which are face-threatening to the hearer and can easily result in causing offense.I n their study comparing speakers of American English with speakers of Egyptian Arabic, Nelson et al. (2002) found that both groups exhibited a similar use of formulas, but speakers of Egyptian Arabic used more direct refusals when talking to their peers than speakers of American English. Another difference

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Speaker’s assessment of the risk of face loss

1. Not do the FTA Do the FTA (say nothing but search in bag) (say something)

2. off record on record (I forgot my dictionary)

3. bald on record face-saving act (Lend me your dictionary)

4. negative politeness 5. positive politeness (Could you lend me your dictionary?) (How about letting me use your dictionary?) Figure 1 strategies for avoiding FTAs (based on Brown and Levinson 1987: 60) was that when talking to someone with unequal status, American English speakers tended to precede their excuses with a mitigating phrase, whereas Egyptian Arabic speakers tended to follow their excuses with a mitigating phrase or (depending on status balance) to produce a refusal followed by providing a reason for it. In another study, Beebe et al. (1990) investigated refusals in Japanese, American English, and the interlanguage of Japanese speakers learning American English. Their aim was to establish the order of semantic formulas used by the respondents in their responses (e.g. the utterances I’m sorry, I have theater tickets that night. Maybe I could come by later for a drink forming the pattern of regret – excuse – alternative). Overall patterns they identified were that native speakers of Japanese were more likely to express a positive opinion and show empathy when speaking to an interlocutor with a higher social status and the excuses they used tended to be vague. In contrast, native speakers of American English were more likely to express positive opinions regardless of whether they were speaking to someone with a higher or a lower social status than themselves. They were also more likely to express a regret at having to refuse and to give more specific excuses. When speaking (American) English, native speakers of Japanese continued to use vague excuses and would typically adopt their native pattern of expressing a positive opinion and show empathy when their interlocutor was of higher status.

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5.3.4 Conversational analysis

Conversational analysis is an area of study which investigates the structure of natural conversations. The basic unit of description in conversational structure is the turn: “an uninterrupted contribution of one speaker to a conversation, followed and preceded by a change of speaker unless it represents the beginning or end of the conversation” (Cruse 2006: 37). Some turns typically come in pairs forming adjacency pairs, such as question and answer (How’s it going? – Fine), greeting and response greeting (Hello – Hello), offer and either acceptance or refusal (Have some coffee – Yes, please/No, thank you), and apology and either acceptance or rejection (I’m sorry – That’s all right/So you should be). Participants typically tend to take turns, with only one participant talking at any time. However, sometimes there can be long silences between turns or turns can overlap with both speakers trying to speak at the same type. A hearer may signal to the speaker that he is listening by nodding, smiling and by producing backchannel signals, such as yeah, mmm, right, which are not meant to interrupt the speaker’s flow, nor to take over the turn. If a speaker starts to say something, then adjusts or corrects what is said, he performs a repair, as in (9):

(9) Pass me the salt – I mean the sugar.

The way conversations are structured is affected by many factors, among them politeness considerations. For example, rather than simply utter a request, speakers often precede it with what could be described as a pre-request, such as the one in turn 1 in exchange (10):

(10) 1 Speaker A: Do you have a minute? (pre-request) 2 Speaker B: Yeah. (go ahead) 3 Speaker A: Take a look at this bill. (request) 4 Speaker B: All right. (acceptance)

If instead of a “go ahead” response the pre-request is met with a “stop” response, as in (11), the speaker may refrain from making a request that would not be complied with and thus can avoid performing a face-threatening act:

(11) 1 Speaker A: Do you have a minute? (pre-request) 2 Speaker B: Sorry. I’m busy. (stop)

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Differences in typical patterns of turn taking can lead to misunderstanding between speakers from different cultures.F or instance, some Native American speakers make longer pauses between turns than Anglo-American speakers. As a result, Anglo-Americans can be perceived by Native Americans as pushy and self-centered while to Anglo-Americans, for whom delays between turns signal that the conversation is not going well, Native Americans may seem unresponsive. On the other hand, Germans, Poles or New York Jews, who tend to interrupt one another or even speak at the same time and who consider interruptions and overlaps as signs of enthusiasm or interest, might be regarded as aggressive or rude.

5.3.5 Forms of address

The way people address each other constitutes another area investigated in interlangage pragmatics. Among the forms of address used in English we can find the forename (e.g.Harry ), the surname (e.g. Potter), a combination of the two (e.g. Harry Potter), kinship terms (e.g. aunt), respectful or formal terms of address (e.g. Sir), ranks in certain professional groups (e.g. lieutenant), titles borrowed from names of occupations (e.g. doctor), combinations of rank/title/name of occupation and the surname (e.g. Nurse Ratchett), titles of respect prefixed to a person’s surname (e.g. Mrs Hopkins) or position (e.g. Mr President). Common mistakes that speakers from other cultures can make when speaking English include being too formal (e.g. addressing one’s workmate as Mr Brown instead of Jack) or transferring the native pattern into English (as in the inappropriate Mrs Kate, transferred from the Polish Pani Kasiu). Generally, speakers of English tend to feel uncomfortable if they do not know or they have forgotten the name of their interlocutor, in which case they may try to establish “the identity” of that person by asking What’s your name again? In this respect they differ from speakers of Japanese and Korean or even Polish, who feel quite comfortable even if they cannot remember the name of their conversational partner. Unlike in English, in which one form, i.e. you, is used to refer to the addressee, in many languages there is one form reserved for the so-called familiar addressee and another “polite” form (or forms) for the so-called unfamiliar one. This distinction is known as the T/V distinction (from the French tu and vous forms). Some examples taken from selected European languages are listed in Table 2:

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Table 2 t/V expressions in some European languages

Language T forms V forms French tu vous German du Sie Spanish tu’ Usted Russian ty vy Polish ty pan/pani Greek esi esis

5.4 universal aspects of pragmatic knowledge

It seems that pragmatic knowledge is to some extent universal, and many of its aspects do not need to be taught. For example, learners do not need to be taught that speech events have specific internal structures. They know that in conversations interlocutors are expected to take turns at talking and they are aware of the practices of back-channelling and the mechanisms of repair. Learners can also distinguish ordinary speech from institutionalized speech and they differentiate acts of speaking and writing. Moreover, they know without the benefit of instruction that in recurrent speech situations (greetings, leave- taking, starting a telephone conversation, etc.) speakers are supposed to employ conversational routines instead of creating totally novel utterances. Another aspect of language use that is universally recognized is conversational implicature. As a result, there is no need to explicitly teach anyone that speakers’ intentions can be conveyed indirectly and that when working out unstated meanings hearers rely on contextual information and whatever general knowledge they have. For example, language learners realize that saying It’s hot in here can in some circumstances merely describe the conditions in a certain place, in others can convey an indirect request for someone to open the window, in still others it can be understood as a complaint implying that someone should know better than to keep the windows closed, and that the utterance can sometimes even count as an indirect refusal to close the window. Learners also distinguish specific speech acts and identify major strategies for realizing them. They recognize politeness conventions and know without explicit instruction that depending on such factors as social and psychological distance between the interlocutors people modify the degree of imposition involved in a particular speech act by choosing different strategies of performing it. For instance, regardless of their native tongue, language users realize that

132 CHAPTER 5 Pragmatic issues in foreign language learning different levels of directness can be involved in performing a directive speech act (e.g. requesting) ranging from direct (as in Lend me your pen), conventionally indirect (Can you lend me you pen?) and indirect (My pen won’t write). Language users are also aware that requests can be toned down or intensified in various ways (I was wondering if you would terribly mind watering my roses) and modified by various supportive moves, for instance justifications (I have to go away on business for a few days) or imposition minimizers (They only need to be watered once every other day).

5.5 Positive transfer from L1

Not all pragmatics norms are universal though and there is ample evidence that when speakers of a foreign language lack knowledge of the pragmatic rules of the target language, they tend to draw on whatever pragmatic norms there are in their native tongue. Strange though it may seem, the more proficient a person is in a foreign language, the more transfer from the native language pragmatics can be observed in his or her linguistic behaviour. The reason is quite simple: more proficient L2 speakers have the linguistic knowledge allowing them to verbalize a wide range of meanings and to execute pragmatic strategies, some of which might be L1 pragmatic strategies. In some cases the transfer can be positive, i.e. it can result in correct understanding and usage of pragmatic forms and strategies. Positive transfer from L1 takes place if there is a close form-function correlation between the learner’s L1 and L2, allowing the learner to use forms in corresponding L2 contexts with effects similar to those they have in L1. For instance, speakers of German do not need to be instructed on how to formulate English requests in which a reference is made to the addressee’s ability to perform a certain action, since the German modal verbs (könntest and würdest) and the English modal verbs (could or would) are formal, functional and distributional equivalents.

5.6 consequences of inadequate pragmatic knowledge

In many cases however incorrect transfer of L1 pragmatic norms can have serious undesirable consequences both for the comprehension and the production of L2. Consider for instance the findings of a study which was conducted by Bouton (1988) on a large sample of advanced learners of English as a second language. The goal was to examine non-native speakers’ comprehension of conversational implicature in L2 connected with different types of indirect responses, such as Anne’s response in the following dialogue:

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(12) Sue: How was your dinner last night? Anne: Well, the food was nicely presented.

In English indirect responses of this kind are quite common and are typically interpreted by native speakers as indirect criticism. It turned out that in 27% of the cases native speakers and non-native speakers understood implied meanings differently. Misunderstanding criticism for praise can sometimes merely bewilder the L2 learner and may even pass unnoticed. However, it can also lead to a breakdown in communication. When it comes to L2 production, negative transfer will not pass unnoticed since unlike grammatical or pronunciation errors, which are recognized as such, pragmatic violations are often not perceived as errors, but as rudeness, insensitivity or dullness of mind. For instance, speakers of languages in which requests are typically expressed more directly than in English (such as German, Polish or Hebrew) run the risk of being regarded as impolite in an English speaking environment since their requests may be interpreted as orders. In some cases a non-native language user may be perceived as bad-mannered or dim simply because he fails to respond with the correct speech act, as in exchange (13), in which some response to the compliment is expected:

(13) Native speaker: Your English is really good. Non-native speaker: (no response)

In literature numerous anecdotal examples can be found illustrating non- native linguistic behaviour being interpreted as offensive. In her 1985 paper Wierzbicka portrays a Polish hostess saying Sit! Sit! to her Australian guests, unaware that the imperative form she has chosen is not an appropriate way of encouraging her friends to feel at home. Western travellers to China report being asked (in English) Where are you going? by their Chinese acquaintances who simply happened to meet them in the street. In Chinese the equivalent question (Ni qu nar?) is merely a cordial greeting, but English speakers are more likely to consider it an intrusion on their privacy than a sign of friendliness. Discussing the grave consequences of such unconscious violations of pragmatic norms Kasper (1990: 193) observes that:

When the non-native speakers violate speech act realization patterns typically used by native speakers of a target language, they often suffer the perennial risk of inadvertently violating conversational (and politeness) norms thereby forfeiting their claims to being treated by their interactants as social equals.

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There is empirical evidence showing that even when non-native speakers are pragmatically appropriate in general, the subtle differences in production and comprehension may make them less successful in achieving their goals. Consider, for instance Bardovi-Harlig’s (1996) investigation of the performance of native and non-native speakers of English during academic advising sessions. She discovered that unlike native speakers, non-native speaking students never volunteered any suggestions during the sessions and waited for the advisor to make them. As a result, they had to reject the advisor’s course suggestions more often than the native-speaking students. Moreover, while both native speakers and non-native speakers tended to offer explanations for rejecting their advisor’s suggestions, only the native speakers would also present alternatives (How about I take x course instead?). It was also found that the content of the rejections formulated by the non-native speaking students was often inappropriate, for instance they would reject the course suggested by their advisor on the grounds that it was “too easy” or “too difficult”.S ometimes they would not even hesitate to describe their advisor’s own course as “uninteresting”. Finally, in contrast to native speakers, who would use mitigating forms (I was thinking…, I don’t know how it would work out, but…) non-native speakers tended to be more assertive in how they formulated their suggestions and often failed to mitigate them appropriately (I will take language testing… or I’ve just decided on taking the language structure). Consequently, the non-native speaking students were less likely to obtain their advisor’s permission to take the courses they were interested in. Problems, even communication breakdowns in interethnic communication, can also result from the non-native speaker’s lack of knowledge of the conversational rules involved in the production of speech acts and transferring the conversational norms of their first language into the second. Consider the following exchange between an American English speaker (speaker A) and an Iranian speaker of American English (speaker B). Notice that in conversational turns 2 and 3, as well as in turns 4 and 5, speaker A starts talking even though speaker B has not finished talking yet. These interruptions are indicated by square brackets:

(14) 1 speaker A: Mary’s invited us to lunch. Do you wanna go? 2 speaker B: Sure [I’m not busy right now. [Why not? 3 speaker A: [Good [I’ll come by in about 30 minutes 4 speaker B: Think we oughta bring [anything? 5 speaker A: [No, but I’ll bring some wine anyway. (Scarcella 1990: 338)

As pointed out by Scarcella (1990: 338), in Iran, where speaker A comes from, interruptions may be associated with friendliness and indicate the

135 Agnieszka Solska conversationalist’s active involvement in the interaction. In American English, however, they are regarded as impolite. As a result, the native speaker (speaker B) inaccurately concluded that the non-native speaker (speaker A) is rude, which was rather unfortunate for his interlocutor. Conversational difficulties of this sort may easily result in breakdowns in interethnic communication. Moreover, as noted by Scarcella (1990), learners who repeatedly experience conversational difficulties tend to cut themselves from speakers of the target community, withdrawing from them not only socially, but psychologically as well. They begin to cling to their own ethnic group, which limits their interaction with members of the target culture and increases the social distance between themselves and the target group. Eventually this may hinder their second language acquisition.

5.7 the role of explicit instruction in developing pragmatic abilities

It is still a matter of debate whether appropriate use of L2 can develop without explicit instruction (Bardovi-Harlig 2001, Alcón Soler 2005, Kasper and Rose 2007). Though researchers agree that pragmatic competence cannot be taught directly, they tend to believe that acquiring pragmatic abilities often requires some sort of pedagogic intervention (Kasper 1997, Rose 2005). On the one hand, the fact remains that even those learners who have achieved a high level of grammatical accuracy, excellent knowledge of target language vocabulary, almost native-like pronunciation and impressive fluency tend to keep making pragmatic errors. On the other hand, there is compelling empirical evidence that teaching L2 pragmatics brings about positive effects (House 1996, Tateyama et al. 1997, Kasper and Rose 1999, Kasper 2001, Takahashi 2001). Consider the findings of the following two studies. Olshtein and Cohen (1990) investigated apologies made by Israeli learners of English who participated in a series of lessons on the strategies native English speakers use to apologize. It was established that before these lessons the strategies adopted by the non- native speakers differed from those of the native English speakers. However after receiving instruction learners started to choose more native-like strategies. Bouton’s (1988) study, described above, in addition to showing that implicatures can be understood differently by native speakers and non-native speakers, also made it evident that exposure alone was not enough to improve the students’ understanding of some types of conversational implicatures and that comprehension of implied meanings can benefit from explicit instruction. In a re-test taken four and a half years later by 30 participants in the original study, the comprehension showed a success rate of over 90%. Findings of

136 CHAPTER 5 Pragmatic issues in foreign language learning this sort provide arguments for incorporating pragmatic instruction in the language teaching curriculum. As to how L2 pragmatics should be taught, researchers (e.g. Ohlstain and Cohen 1991, Bouton 1996b, Kasper 1997, Takahashi 2001) in general advocate awareness-raising and providing practice. The teaching techniques they propose include: –– assessing learners’ level of awareness of the pragmatic issued to be taught; –– exposing learners to samples of authentic L1 and L2 in use and helping them identify linguistic, situational, and social differences in the ways the two languages are used; –– reinforcing the learners’ pragmalinguistic awareness by encouraging them to decide what speech acts are appropriate in specific situational contexts and what strategies for performing them are most native-like; –– reinforcing the learners’ sociopragmatic awareness by making them compare and contrast the way differences in the speakers’ social status affect the realization of specific speech acts in their native and in the target language; –– practicing selected aspects of L2 pragmatics via activities simulating real-life situations; –– arranging authentic opportunities in which learners’ pragmatic knowledge can be put to use; –– developing learners’ meta-pragmatic awareness by discussing and providing feedback on their perceptions and expectations of what counts as appropriate L2 behaviour. Whatever methods are used it is recommended that: –– examples or models should involve authentic language; –– interpretation and/or production by learners should take place after they have been exposed to appropriate TL input; –– though both L1 and L2 can be used during pragmatics instruction sessions, classroom instruction ideally should be in L2 since this provides tangible evidence of L2 in its communicative function.

5.8 conclusions

Based on what has been said in this chapter is it possible to decide how much success in developing pragmatically appropriate TL use we can hope to achieve in a FL teaching context? Traditionally pragmatic issues have not been addressed in language teaching curricula, nor has pragmatics received much attention in language teacher training programs. As a result, language classrooms tend to provide rather poor input environments for fostering FL learners’ pragmatic abilities. The target language is typically treated as

137 Agnieszka Solska an object of study, not as a medium for socialization or a tool for communication. Teachers often lack adequate knowledge of L2 pragmatics and in the classroom they tend to rely on the teacher-fronted initiation – response – follow-up (IRF) pattern, which is unproductive as the format for the developing their students’ pragmatic abilities. Moreover, since in most cases the target language and culture are far from being homogenous, there is often more than one set of pragmatic norms involved. FL students can hardly be expected to become familiar and follow all of them. Finally, it has to be remembered that perfect conformity to pragmatic norms may not always be desired. On the one hand, native speakers of a given language could find totally native-like pragmatic behaviour exhibited by foreigners disquieting and unacceptable. On the other hand, non-native speakers might want to retain their pragmatic distinctiveness as a means of asserting their cultural and national identity. Ultimately, one can hardly disagree with Rueda’s (2006: 178) observation that “the aim of instruction in pragmatics is not to force the learners to adopt native speaker pragmatic choices, but to expose learners to positive evidence, making them aware of a variety of linguistic resources.”

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Blum-Kulka, S., and E. Ohlstein 1984. “Requests and apologies: a cross- cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP)”. Applied Linguistics 5: 196–213. Bouton, L. 1988. “A cross-cultural study of ability to interpret implicatures in English”. World Englishes 7: 183–196. Bouton, L.F. 1994. “Conversational implicature in the second language: Learned slowly when not deliberately taught”. Journal of Pragmatics 22: 157– 167. Bouton, L.F. 1996a. “Pragmatics and Language Learning”. In L.F. Bouton (ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning 7. University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign: Division of English as an International Language, pp. 1–20. Bouton, L.F. 1996b. Pragmatics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P., and S. Levinson 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chen, R. 1993. “Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese Speakers”. Journal of Pragmatics 20: 49–75. Coulmas, F. 1981. “Poison to your soul: thanks and apologies contrastively viewed”. In F. Coulmas (ed.), Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 131–148. Cruse, A. 2006. A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th edn. Cambridge: Blackwell. Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and conversation”. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. London: Academic Press, pp. 113–128. House, J. 1996. “Developing pragmatic fluency inE nglish as a second language: routines and metapragmatic awareness”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18: 225–252. Huang, Y. 2007. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press. Kasper, G. 1990. “Linguistic politeness: current research issues”. Journal of Pragmatics: 193–218. Kasper, G. 1997. “Can pragmatic competence be taught?” Retrieved from: (accessed 15.09.2011). Kasper, G. 2001. “Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics”. In G. Kasper and K.R. Rose (eds.), Pragmatics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33–60. Kasper, G., and S. Blum-Kulka 1993. Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

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Kasper, G., and M. Dahl 1991. “Research methods in interlanguage pragmatics”. SSLA 13: 215–247. Kasper, G., and K.R. Rose 1999. “Pragmatics and SLA”. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 19: 81–104. Kasper, G., and K.R. Rose 2001. Pragmatic in language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kasper, G., and K.R. Rose 2002. Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Kasper, G., and R. Schmidt. (1996). “Developmental issues in interlanguage pragmatics”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18: 149–169. Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Leech, G., and J. Thomas 1990. “Language, Meaning and Context: Pragmatics”. In N. Collinge (ed.), An Encyclopaedia of Language. London: Routledge, pp. 94–113. Morris, C. 1938. Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Murray, J.C. 2011. “Do bears fly? Revisiting conversational implicature in instructional pragmatics”. Teaching English as a Second Language or Foreign Language 15 (2). Retrieved from: (accessed 10.10.2011). Nelson, G. L., J. Carson, M. Al Batal and W. El Bakary 2002. “Cross- Cultural Pragmatics: Strategy Use in Egyptian Arabic and American English Refusals”. Applied Linguistics 23 (2): 163–189. Ohlstein, E., and A.D. Cohen 1990. “The learning of complex speech act behaviour”. TESL Canada Journal 7: 45–65. Ohlstein, E., and A.D. Cohen 1991. “Teaching speech act behaviour to non- native speakers”. In M. Celce-Murcia (ed.), Teaching English as a Second and Foreign Language. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, pp. 167–180. Rose, K.R., and G. Kasper (eds.) 2001. Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, K.R. 2005. “On the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics”. System 33: 385–399. Rueda, Y.T. 2006. “Developing pragmatic competence in a foreign language”. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal 8: 169–182. Scarcella, R.C. 1990. “Communication difficulties in second language production, development, and instruction”. In R.C. Scarcella, E.S. Andersen and S.D. Krashen (eds.), Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, pp. 337–352. Schneider, K.P. 1999. “Compliment responses across cultures”. In M. Wysocka (ed.), On Language Theory and Practice. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, pp. 162–172.

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Takahashi, S. 2001. “Explicit and implicit instruction of L2 complex request forms”. In: P. Robinson, M. Sawyer and S. Ross (eds.), Second Language Acquisition Research in Japan. Tokyo: Japan Association for Language Teaching, pp. 73–100. Tateyama, Y., G. Kasper, L. Mui, H. Tay and O. Thananart 1997. “Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatics routines”. In L. Bouton (ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning 8. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, pp. 163–177. Thomas, J. 1983. “Cross-cultural pragmatic failure”. Applied Linguistics 4 (2): 91–112. Wierzbicka, A. 1985. “Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts: Polish vs. English”. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 145–178.

Agnieszka Solska

ZAGADNIENIA PRAGMATYCZNE W UCZENIU SIĘ JĘZYKA OBCEGO

Streszczenie

Celem rozdziału jest omówienie znaczenia zagadnień pragmatycznych w uczeniu się języka obcego. Autorka przedstawia podstawowe terminy z zakresu tzw. pragma- tyki międzyjęzykowej (ang. interlanguage pragmatics) i opisuje aspekty użycia języka, które w sposób istotny decydują o tym, czy dana osoba posługuje się językiem obcym w sposób poprawny, a więc implikaturę konwersacyjną, akty mowy, uprzejmość języ- kową, analizę konwersacyjną oraz formy adresatywne. Omówione zostają uniwersalne aspekty wiedzy pragmatycznej, zjawisko pozytywnego transferu reguł pragmatycznych z języka ojczystego, a także konsekwencje niedostatecznej kompetencji pragmatycznej w języku obcym. Podniesiona zostaje też kwestia, na ile możliwe jest rozwinięcie prag- matycznej wiedzy i umiejętności podczas lekcji języka obcego.

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Agnieszka Solska

Pragmatische Fragen beim Fremdsprachenlernen

Zusammenfassung

In dem Kapitel hat ich die Verfasserin das Ziel gesetzt, die Bedeutungen von einigen bei dem Fremdsprachenlernen erscheinenden pragmatischen Fragen zu erörtern. Sie nennt die Hauptbegriffe aus dem Bereich der sog. zwischensprachlichen Pragmatik (interlanguage pragmatics) und gibt solche Aspekte des Sprachgebrauchs an, die darü- ber entscheiden, ob eine Person die Fremdsprache richtig gebraucht, also: konversati- onelle Implikatur, Sprechakte, Sprechhöflichkeit, Gesprächsanalyse und Adressierfor- men. Besprochen werden auch universelle Aspekte des pragmatischen Wissens, das Phänomen des positiven Transfers von pragmatischen Regeln aus der Heimatsprache und Folgen einer unzureichenden pragmatischen Kompetenz in der Fremdsprache. Die Verfasserin berührt auch die Frage, inwieweit sich pragmatisches Wissen und pragmatische Fähigkeiten im Fremdsprachenunterricht weiter entwickeln lassen. CHAPTER 6

The concept of communicative competence in language learning

Dagmara Gałajda

6.1 introduction

As promotion and development of learners’ communicative competence are the core of all syllabuses, the study of communicative functions of a language has become very important in the field of applied linguistics. Communicative language teaching has always aimed at enabling the learners to communicate effectively. By moving from a narrow perspective of treating communication as a process of sending/receiving the message, applied linguists are able to investigate the concept of communication in the context of social interaction. Thanks to that, the learners are perceived as social beings who communicate in a particular social and cultural reality and not only in the classroom context. The primary aim of this chapter is to define communicative competence in general as well as its four components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. This theoretical framework provided by Canale and Swain (1980) is accompanied with the considerations over non-verbal communicative behaviour (Burgoon and Hale 1989) and willingness to communicate (McCroskey 2008). The chapter also discusses communication strategies as described by taxonomies of Tarone (1977) and Færch and Kasper (1983) who present the basis for the description of individual communication strategies and the overview of the reduction and achievement strategies used by the learners.

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6.2 Linguistic skills and communicative abilities

In order to understand the relation between linguistic skills and communicative abilities, one needs to be aware of the distinction between language usage and use. Language usage is the knowledge of the language system. However, everyday life requires not only the manifestation of the abstract language system but also the ability to achieve a communicative purpose. Thus, producing the examples of language use leads to the realization of the communicative goal. Linguistic skills refer to medium (speaking, hearing, composing and comprehending) and language usage without a real communicative purpose. On the other hand, communicative abilities include linguistic skills and refer to the realization of the language system as use (Widdowson 1978). Owing to various conventions, people are able to produce and interpret linguistic elements in communication. In the process of communication discourse is created and recreated, and thanks to communicative abilities interlocutors understand the communicative purpose of the message. The primary aim of language learning is acquiring communicative competence. Traditionally, it is believed that it can be achieved by devoting full attention to the development of linguistic skills while communicative abilities will be acquired automatically later on. Empirical research suggests that even an acceptable level of linguistic skills does not guarantee the development of communicative abilities and competence (Widdowson 1978). In teaching context, bridging the gap between developing linguistic skills and communicative abilities means incorporating linguistic items into the activities with a communicative purpose. In that way, linguistic skill practice leads to communication.

6.3 communicative competence

Treating language as a means of communication is a tendency in language pedagogy opposed to teaching language as grammar. Thus, it is believed that the core of language learning and teaching should be the development of communicative competence of a language learner. With the aim of establishing theoretical framework of communicative language pedagogy, the nature of communication should be discussed first.O n the basis of Morrow (1977) and Widdowson (1978), communication is a social interaction, unpredictable and creative in form, in which two or more people use authentic language as well as non-verbal symbols in order to achieve successful outcomes. Communication takes place in discourse and sociological contexts in which the speakers use appropriate language and they are able to interpret the message. It is a constantly changing process of production and comprehension, exchange and negotiation of meaning. Canale and Swain (1980)

144 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence… stress that in order to evaluate communicative performance, a distinction should be made between communication competence and actual communication. The authors prefer to use the term “actual communication” rather than “performance” since it brings less confusion in the field of applied linguistics.I t must be stressed that actual communication has two constituents, namely knowledge and skills which stand for the manifestation of the knowledge in a concrete situation. As Hymes (1972) points out, communication competence can also be defined as the mastery of “patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour of the target language.” These patterns are called by Hymes the rules of speaking and they refer to an appropriate speech conduct. As it has been stressed by many authors (for instance, Blom and Gumperz 1972) the major aim of learning a foreign language is to communicate effectively.A lthough the knowledge of lexical and grammar systems is essential, the learners also need to know how and what to say to a given person. It is, in fact, necessary for the learners to use the linguistic resources such as phonology, lexicon, syntax in daily experience and to know the patterns of interaction. Since there are different conventions for the rules of speaking in both L1 andF L/L2, the learners should know about them in order to send, interpret and respond properly to a message. Communicative competence is composed of four elements: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. This framework is based on the work byC anale and Swain (1980) and it is rather a theoretical framework for the model than a model itself. Canale and Swain concentrate on discussing separate factors instead of treating the competence in a holistic approach. Thus, the framework presents only what the components of communicative competence are but not how they react. Grammatical competence is the mastery of the language code. It means that speakers know the rules of the language which include vocabulary, word and sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling and linguistic semantics. It is the knowledge of how to express and understand others in a proper way. Sociolinguistic competence encompasses sociocultural rules of language use which basically means that the speaker is able to produce and understand utterances in different contexts. Each and every interaction has its norms and purpose and the role of the speaker is to convey meaning in a form appropriate for a given context. There is a tendency in language teaching to avoid developing sociolinguistic competence. This wrong policy leads to the situation in which learners are not able to communicate appropriately depending on a context. Discourse competence also refers to language appropriateness with reference to a given situation. In brief, it is speaker’s ability to combine grammatical forms and meanings in order to achieve a unified spoken/written text in a particular genre. Text unity depends on cohesion in form (the utterances should be linked structurally so that the text is easy to comprehend) and coherence in meaning

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(different meanings in text are related with each other). The last but not least element of communicative competence is strategic competence which is needed if a breakdown in communication occurs and/or the speaker suffers from insufficient communicative skills. Strategic skills are also employed when the speaker wants to enhance the effect of communication or some other problems like sociolinguistic or discourse ones happen. It is believed that learners are acquainted with strategic skills as they use them in their first language. However, they need to be taught how to employ communicative strategies in their second language. What is more, instruction is not enough, the learners should be encouraged and given the opportunity to use their strategic competence. Canale (1983) proposes some guiding principles which might help the teachers to develop communicative competence in their students. First of all, the learners need to investigate their communicative competence by taking part in actual communication. It is really essential in the case of classroom instruction which provides limited time and space for real-life interaction. Secondly, the learners need to be aware of their communicative competence in their first language which is the basis for developing competence in second language. Communicative competence in first language is believed to be a significant factor influencing communication in L2. The quality of learner’s L2 communication is also influenced by his/her motivation and attitude towards learning and L2 as well as training provided by the teacher. Canale (1983) emphasizes the need for the integration of competences. One element of communicative competence cannot be treated as a more important one than the other ones – they are complementary. Developing communicative competence should also be devoted to covering learners’ needs and interests together with the need for authentic communication. The norms of communication are culture-specific (Wolfson 1983). The fact that speakers are not aware of sociolinguistic relativity means that both native speakers and language learners cannot avoid misunderstanding. Hymes (1972) calls this phenomenon of miscommunication “communicative interference”. The important point here is that language instruction should be aimed at developing communicative competence together with rules of speaking. Thus, sociolinguistic analysis is needed in order to uncover the patterns of communication and teach them to students.

6.4 non-verbal communicative behaviour

As a significant area of communication research, non-verbal communication has long been regarded as part of a successful interpersonal communication. According to Burgoon and Hale (1989: 62), non-verbal communication can be

146 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence… defined as “those attributes or actions of humans, other than the use of words themselves, which have socially shared meaning […] are consciously sent or consciously received, and have potential for feedback from the receiver.” Non- verbal behaviour becomes communication when it conveys meaning so that both sender and receiver can receive and interpret messages. It is true to say that verbal and non-verbal communication cannot be separated – the way people behave, move, gesticulate or use their face expressions and modulate their voice all have a great influence on the message which is sent and received by the speakers. Non-verbal signals can be characterized as ongoing, (un)intentional and very often ambiguous since they are influenced by the context, culture and personality of a given person (Ablamowicz and Stewart 2004). Ablamowicz and Stewart (2004) quote Ekman (1969) who claims that non- verbal communication has five functions: repeating, substituting, complementing, accenting and contradicting. People very often use a gesture, for instance waving their hand, to repeat/complement or substitute the message of goodbye. By stressing vocally a particular word in a sentence (It wasn’t my fault!) we add emphasis to what is being communicated. Saying one thing and sending a contradictory non- verbal message at the same time is also a way of manipulating the information. It must be said that all of these functions of non-verbal communication operate on the level of body language, physical space, etc. Sensitivity to all kinds of non-verbal messages is the key to accurate comprehension of communication (Ablamowicz and Stewart 2004). It is believed that people differ in their abilities of decoding hidden meanings. Rosenthalet al. (1984) invented a Profile ofN onverbal Sensitivity (PONS) and together with his colleagues conducted it in a number of countries around the world. The results show that females are better at detecting and understanding non-verbal messages. However, men who work in certain professions like teachers, psychologists, workers in the visual arts also proved to be successful in completing the task. The aim of the study was to test the accuracy in decoding affective non-verbal cues. Rosenthal’s research was also supported by other studies like for example the one by Kelly-Dyreson, Burgoon and Bailey (1991), who also found females’ superiority in non-verbal sensitivity. No matter whether a communicator is a woman or a man, he or she needs to remember that being able to send non- verbal messages with clarity is equally important with understanding all non- verbal cues in somebody else’s message.

6.5 Willingness to communicate

Development of communicative abilities and speaking skills constitutes a significant aspect of . However, it has to be acknowledged

147 Dagmara Gałajda that it is not only sole language competence but also people’s willingness to communicate which is an individual personality trait. The construct of willingness to communicate (WTC) is believed to be interrelated with other affective variables. Two crucial factors directly influencing one’s willingness to communicate are perceived communication competence and communication apprehension (McCroskey 2008). According to McCroskey and Richmond (1987:131), the construct of willingness to communicate can be defined as “an individual’s general personality orientation towards talking.” Perceived communication competence refers to self-reported verbal activity and ability (McCroskey 1982) while communication apprehension is described as an “individual level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey 1977: 28). These three affective variables, namely willingness to communicate, perceived communication competence and communication apprehension interact with each other and create an individual profile of interpersonal communication. Studies conducted in the field of communication research prove that low apprehensives who perceive their communication competence as high tend to be very willing to communicate across different contexts. Classroom context gives rise to a number of research questions and hypotheses connected with WTC. Researchers are mainly interested in the level of WTC in both L1 and FL and across different classroom situations. It is believed that high level of WTC in one language does not guarantee equally strong willingness to communicate in another language (MacIntyre et al. 1998). What is more, classroom anxiety and its relation with communication apprehension is also being investigated. Another question is to what extent willingness to communicate is conditioned by self-perceived communication competence and students’ general self-worth. All of these research studies bring much to the field of communication research. However, the major problem lies in the fact that all of the affective variables are difficult to be measured. With the aim of gathering basic data, McCroskey suggests to use the questionnaires: Willingness to Communicate Scale (McCroskey 1992), Self-perceived Communication Competence Scale (McCroskey and McCroskey 1988), and Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (McCroskey 1982). In order to obtain reliable data, other tools like e.g. interviews or observation sheets should be also employed in the study.

6.6 identifying communication strategies

Communication strategies were described for the first time by Selinker (1972, quoted in Corder 1983) in order to explain errors made by the L2 learners. If

148 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence… the learners try to express their meanings with the use of an inadequate target language system, the errors they produce are the by-products of this attempt. Communication strategies depend on interlocutors, topic of the conversation and knowledge of the discourse. Studies on productive communicative strategies are usually focused on the way learners communicate with native speakers. According to Corder (1983: 16), communication strategy can be defined as “a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced with some difficulty.” This difficulty is understood as lack of linguistic knowledge required in the process of communication. Tarone et al. (1983) stress the fact that communicative strategies are not the part of learner’s linguistic knowledge but rather the way in which learners utilize their limited knowledge in different communicative situations with the speakers of target language. The speakers always want to convey the meaningful content. Although lacks in his/her interlanguage do not allow for successful goal achievement. As a result, learners look for other ways of transmitting the message which is not necessarily appropriate in linguistic terms. Tarone et al. (1983: 65) refers to the term of communicative strategy as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared.” Bridging the gap between linguistic knowledge of the L2 learner and target language speaker in a real communication situation can be done by approximation, mime and circumlocution. Tarone et al. (1983: 66) also believes that communication strategy should be viewed in terms of the following criteria: • A speaker wants to convey the meaning to a listener. • The speaker does not possess the linguistic or sociolinguistic structure in order to communicate the meaning. • The speaker either avoids communication or attempts to use other strategies. It seems that all taxonomies mentioned in the latter paragraphs fulfil these criteria and according to Tarone may be called communication strategies.

6.6.1 Taxonomies of communication strategies

As learners use different types of communication strategies, some kind of classification is needed. One of the earliest taxonomies of communication strategies is the one proposed by Tarone (1977). It was based on empirical research in which nine intermediate students were observed. Their task was to describe three pictures (two simple drawings and a complex one) using native language and English. The study revealed basic communication strategies as well as the way in which learners adopt them for communication (Bialystok 1990). The model proposed by Tarone accounts for commonly observable communication strategies used by the learners and it is believed to be the interpretation of

149 Dagmara Gałajda learners’ interlanguage. Table 1 presents the taxonomy reported by Bialystok (1990):

Table 1 typology of Tarone’s communication strategies (adapted from Bialystok 1990: 39)

Category of communication strategy Subcategory of communication strategy

Avoidance • topic avoidance • message abandonment Paraphrase • approximation • word coinage • circumlocution Conscious transfer • literal translation • language switch Appeal for assistance Mime

On the basis of her study, Tarone found five major categories of communication strategies and subcategories for three of them. All five strategies explain decisions learners make in order to solve communication problems they encounter. Avoidance is a deliberate decision not to speak. Learners choose to avoid certain communication context because they do not feel competent enough to talk. Avoidance is difficult to be observed by the researcher.T arone (1977) noticed that her subjects omitted lexically difficult objects inE nglish, whereas they used them while describing the picture in their native language. In communication learners use the subcategories like topic avoidance and/or message abandonment. The former one refers to the situation in which the subjects avoid a given topic since they anticipate difficulties in discussion. Usually the learner changes the topic or decides not to talk at all. The latter, message abandonment, happens when the subject initiates the topic, however, he or she decides to cut the conversation and go to a next one. The reason for that can be the difficulty of the topic and/or lack of rules and forms of target language. The controversy of avoidance strategy lies in small contribution to learner competence (Bialystok 1990). If the learner overuses avoidance strategy and the teacher accepts it, the learner communicates only about linguistically controlled topics and consequently, he or she does not develop his/her competences. Paraphrase, the second type of communication strategy is defined byT arone as “the rewording of the message in an alternate, acceptable target language construction” (1977: 198). This broad category encompasses three types of strategies. Approximation is understood as “the use of a single target language vocabulary item or structure, which the learner knows is not correct, but which

150 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence… shares enough semantic features in common with the desired item to satisfy the learner” (Tarone 1977: 198). This widely used strategy employs any word substitutions which, according to learner, may serve the purpose of representing the correct concept. Word coinage is a new word made up by the learner in order to convey the communicative concept while the last paraphrase strategy, namely circumlocution means putting words in descriptions. It means that the learner defines the word instead of providing the appropriate target language structure. According to Bialystok (1990), paraphrase may be treated as similar to circumlocution, however, paraphrasing means providing the equivalent while circumlocution is more like describing the semantic features of a word. Conscious transfer may be manifested in two ways: either as literal translation or language switch. The former is the inappropriate and incorrect transfer from native language which is observed in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon while the latter is a straightforward insertion from L1. Language switch is a motivated change of a language (Tarone 1983) – native words and expressions are inserted into the interlanguage. It can be done for linguistic (the learner lacks knowledge about the forms and rules of target language) or social reasons (the learner feels that the word in native language would be better than its English equivalent). Whenever the learner does not know the word, he or she may make us of two other strategies: appeal for assistance and/or mime. Looking for help may take different forms – the learner may consult a native speaker of the target language or look a word up in a dictionary. In communication, appeal for assistance may be signaled by intonation or body language, which is the last category of communication strategies. Mime is a non-verbal type of communication which learners use when they forget or do not know target language word. Miming may be an easy and useful strategy, however, it depends on the word/phrase the learner is trying to explain. Clapping, for example, is an easy equivalent of applause, however, not all words are so easy to interpret by the interlocutor. Bialystok (1983) suggests a taxonomy of communication strategies based on already existing typologies (e.g. Tarone 1977). Although her classification focuses more on source of the information from which the strategy derives. The author put forward three possible sources of communication strategies: learner’s native language or any other language different than target language, target language itself, non-linguistic information. Thus, Bialystok (1983) enumerates two types of communication strategies: L1- and L2-based. Apart from language switch, L1- based strategies also include foreignizing and transliteration. The first one means that the learner is foreignizing L1 words and creating non-existent and inadequate L2 vocabulary. On the other hand, transliteration makes use of already existing L2 lexicon and structure – the learner literally translates L1 item. Although it can be said that both foreignizing and transliteration use elements of target language,

151 Dagmara Gałajda they derive from learner’s mother tongue. As Bialystok claims, communication strategies deriving from L2 are as follows: description, word coinage and semantic contiguity. Learner who decides to describe the lexical item focuses on its general properties (size, colour, material, etc.), individual characteristic features (It has big wings) and interactional characteristics (function and/or actions of an object). Semantic contiguity is defined by Bialystok (1983: 106) as “the use of a single lexical item which shares certain semantic features with the target item.” In other words, the learner says chair but what he or she actually means is stool. The truth is that learners do not rely on one strategy only. Usually they try to combine different strategies in order to be as effective communicators as possible. Færch and Kasper (1983) introduce their own classification of communication strategies based on the problems learners may encounter in communication, types of behaviour they display, and types of strategies they try to employ. Figure 1 presents the basis for the description of individual communication strategies, while Table 2 focuses on the overview of the reduction and achievement strategies used by the learners.

Type of problem

Planning phase Execution phase (retrieval problem)

Correctness/fluency Insufficient linguistic resources

Formal reduction strategy Type of behaviour

Achievement Avoidance

Achievement strategies Functional reduction strategies

Planning Retrieval Planning Retrieval

Figure 1 overview of major types of communication strategies (Færch and Kasper 1983: 39)

152 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence…

Table 2 overview of the reduction and achievement strategies used by the learners (Færch and Kasper 1983: 52–53)

Strategies Subtypes Formal reduction strategies • phonological • morphological • syntactic • lexical

Functional reduction strategies • actional reduction • modal reduction • reduction of the propositional content: topic avoidance, message abandonment, meaning replacement

Achievement strategies • compensatory strategies: code switching, inter- and intralingual transfer, IL based strategies (generalization, paraphrase, word coinage, restructuring), cooperative strategies, non-linguistic strategies • retrieval strategies

Learners are believed to communicate by using automatized linguistic rules and items. However, if they encounter a communication problem, they tend to use a reduced linguistic system in order to achieve a communicative goal. Native language users do exactly the same when they are communicating with a learner/ non-native speaker – they try to transmit the meaning despite lack of linguistic skills on the side of their interlocutor. In actual communication it is difficult to say whether the learners use formal reduction strategies first and functional and achievement ones next. The reason why learners use reduction and/or achievement strategies is to avoid making errors and/or increase fluency (Færch and Kasper 1983). Taught by formal instruction, learners very often think that linguistic correctness is a prerequisite for successful communication. Because of that, they become more aware of the language they use in communication and adopt different strategies so as to produce fluent and correct utterances, and consequently to achieve communicative goal. If a learner makes use of formal reduction strategies, it means that he or she communicates by means of a reduced linguistic system. At the phonological level it is quite difficult to dispose of certain phonemes. Thus, the learners may either avoid lexemes that include the phoneme in question or realize the phoneme in a different way (e.g. phoneme /ð/ may be realized as /d/). In the case of morphological level the situation is similar – certain linguistic contexts require the use of morphemes. The learners often substitute syntactic or lexical items and use other morphemes instead. Formal reduction at a syntactic level depends on what learners perceive as obligatory and what is optional in certain contexts. A good example of formal reduction at syntactic level is the use of passive voice.

153 Dagmara Gałajda

The learner can but they do not have to use passive voice – that is the reason why it is difficult to assess whether they use a functional reduction strategy because of lack of linguistic skills or they just choose to use active voice instead of passive voice. Last but not least, lexical level is also prone to reduction strategies. Some lexemes may be difficult to pronounce or they require certain morphological or syntactic restrictions in the linguistic contexts which learners find difficult. Functional reduction strategies aim at reducing communicative goals with the aim of avoiding a communication problem in the planning or execution phase (see Table 2). By avoidance behaviour, learners try to reduce the communicative goal and in this way, avoid the problem. It is said that communicative goals may have three types of elements: actional, modal and propositional. In classroom instruction students learn about speech acts, however, if they are asked to perform specific speech acts they may encounter problems with making their utterance appropriate for speech act modality. As a result, learners reduce actional features and propositional content. Functional reduction strategies are used by the learners if they perceive the communicative topic as problematic from the linguistic point of view. Topic avoidance, message abandonment and meaning replacement are the ways of reducing the propositional content. First two strategies have already been mentioned in the taxonomy proposed by Tarone (1977), while meaning replacement can be defined as referring to the topic “by means of a more general expression” (Færch and Kasper 1983: 44) which leads to “a certain amount of vagueness” in communication (Færch and Kasper 1983: 44). Expanding communicative resources in order to solve communicative problems signals achievement strategies used by the learner. Such strategies can be observed at all types of linguistic levels, however, lexical level is the most popular one. Due to insufficient linguistic resources, learners rely on different strategies in the planning phase. Code-switching means a language switch of various elements of discourse, “from single words up to complete turns” (Færch and Kasper 1983: 46). On the other hand, interlingual transfer is a combination of interlanguage and L1 linguistic features which can be observed at all linguistic levels including pragmatic and discourse ones. If, according to the learner, L2 is formally similar to L1, inter-/intralingual transfer occurs, which basically leads to overgeneralization of an interlanguage rule based on L1 structure. While using interlanguage strategies, learners generalize, paraphrase, coin new words and restructure their IL. Cooperative strategy is when the learner asks for assistance from the interlocutor, while in non-cooperative strategy the learner solves the communicative problem himself. Mime, gesture and sound-imitation are the non-linguistic strategies used either to support other strategies or to ask for help when communicative problem occurs. Apart from compensatory strategies, achievement strategies encompass also retrieval strategies which appear in the phase of executing the plan. According to the authors (Færch and Kasper 1983),

154 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence… retrieval of an IL item can happen by waiting for it to appear, appealing to formal similarity, retrieval via semantic fields, searching via other languages, retrieval from learning situations and sensory procedures.

6.6.2 Developing communicative competence

As claimed by Færch and Kasper (1983), strategic competence should be included in the school curriculum as part of the communicative competence. It means that the learners would be acquainted with typical communicative objectives and needs when using FL/L2. Such problem-orientedness (Færch and Kasper 1983) aims at teaching the learners necessary linguistic means so as to make them prepared for real life communication outside the classroom. It seems highly questionable that the syllabus will cover all situations in which the learner will be using FL. Thus, the alternative way of constructing the syllabus is to predict the potential communicative problems the learners may encounter and think of the ways of dealing with them. From FL learning- teaching perspective, problem-orientedness seems to be very important for teaching communicative strategies to the learners. Strategies are plans relating to the goals which pose certain problems to the learners. Usually insufficient means or lack of knowledge refering to IL system pose problems. One cannot confuse the notion of the goal of the strategy (the problem) and the product of the strategy (solution to the problem). If problems occur during the planning phase it means that the speaker lacks linguistic knowledge or he or she feels that the problem will appear in the execution phase. Problems happening in the execution phase are connected with the retrieval of items or rules from the planning phase. The distinction between problems in planning and execution phase is that the speaker is able to plan how to avoid a problem (planning phase) and try to solve the already existing communicative problem (execution phase) (Færch and Kasper 1983). The role of consciousness raising in terms of developing strategic competence is enormous (Færch and Kasper 1983). The learners should be aware of problems they may encounter in communication as well as the strategies to deal with them. It does not mean that the learners should always be conscious of solving their linguistic problems – they rather should be able to learn, on the basis of a conscious analysis of problem, how to deal with a similar situation in a creative and efficient way. Consciousness as a second defining criterion for strategy training seems to be an important element of FL/L2 education. The authors define communication strategies as “consciously employed plans” (Færch and Kasper 1983: 35), however, they stress that the plans can be classified as those which are always consciously employed, never consciously employed or those which depend on a language. Consequently, the authors suggest classifying

155 Dagmara Gałajda the communication strategies according to potentially conscious plans. On the basis of two criteria mentioned above, Færch and Kasper (1983: 36) define communication strategies as “potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal.” The authors use the term “individual” instead of a “learner”, which makes the definition valid also for L1 users and not only for L2 and FL learners. In the course of L2 learning, an individual establishes his/her own rules and tests them out. It is the feedback that influences the decision whether the hypothesis will be accepted or rejected. Færch and Kasper (1983) claim that the use of communication strategies leads only to the formation of hypotheses since the use of strategies presupposes that there is a problem – learner’s IL lacks the appropriate item and/or rule. If the use of strategies in L2 is supposed to increase language learning, the learner should display achievement behaviour instead of the avoidance one. In this way, it will lead to formulating and testing new hypotheses, which in turn aims at automatization. To extend his/her resources, the learner should focus more on both productive and receptive strategies. Table 3 presents the potential learning effect of communication strategies proposed by Færch and Kasper (1983):

Table 3 Potential learning effect of communication strategies (adapted from Færch and Kasper 1983: 55)

+ potential learning − potential learning hypothesis formation automatization • inter-/intralingual transfer • retrieval • code switching • generalization • non-linguistic strategies • word coinage • reduction strategies • appeals • paraphrase • inferencing • restructuring

Developing communication strategies is necessary in order to make the learners conscious of the existence of communication strategies as well as to enable them to use the strategies in particular contexts (Færch and Kasper 1983). The factors that should be taken into account are also learners’ preferences and teaching goals. The learners cannot become scared of the teacher who is too demanding in terms of communicative skills. That is the reason why the learners can be taught the selected strategies for their insufficient linguistic knowledge or all types of different strategies to develop their creativity and learner’s autonomy. No matter which type of strategy training the teacher will choose, the goal should be to bridge the gap between communication in a formal instruction setting and the one outside the classroom so that the learners know how to communicate in a real life situation.

156 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence…

As suggested by Bialystok (1983), the role of communication strategies should be discussed with reference to the person who uses them, for which concepts and with what effect.I t seems that the best strategies are those rooted in target language, while best strategy users are individuals who possess the formal proficiency in TL. Moreover, they can adapt the strategy to the concept which is supposed to be conveyed. The research study conducted by Bialystok (1983) proves that more experienced learners show more effective use of strategies. The possession of strategic competence leads to the assumption that formal knowledge is not enough in terms of real life communication. What really matters is the ability of using the language despite communication difficulties – it is believed to come with experience. The question Bialystok poses is the role of communication strategies in learning and “their potential to act as learning strategies” (Bialystok 1983: 117). No matter how much importance is ascribed to communication strategies, it is true to say that they should be taught on a par with a formal mastery of the language as these two cannot be separated.

6.7 conclusions

In summary, this chapter focused on the relationship between language and communication. As current FL/L2 methodology emphasizes the role of communication in language learning, careful attention should be devoted to the concepts presented briefly here.T eaching the learners how to communicate requires not only developing their communicative competence, but also raising their awareness about non-verbal skills, their level of (un)willingness to communicate and communication strategies which they can employ in order to communicate more effectively.

References

Ablamowicz, H., and J.M. Stewart 2004. Challenges in Effective Communication. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Bialystok, E. 1983. “Selection and implementation of communication strategies”. In C. Færch and G. Kasper (eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. Harlow: Longman, pp. 4–14. Bialystok, E. 1990. Communication Strategies. A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use. Cambridge: Blackwell. Blom, J.P., and J.J. Gumperz 1972. “Social meaning in linguistic structures: code-switching in Norway”. In J.J. Gumperz and D.H. Hymes (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 407–434.

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Burgoon, J.K. and J.L. Hale 1989. “Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to immediacy behaviors”. Communication Monographs 55: 58–80. Canale, M. 1983. “From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy”. In J.C. Richards and R.W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. Harlow: Longman, pp. 2–27. Canale, M. and M. Swain 1980. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing”. Applied Linguistics 1: 1–47. Corder, S.P. 1983. “Strategies of Communication”. In J.C. Richards and R.W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. Harlow: Longman, pp. 15–19. Ekman, P. 1969. “The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage and coding”. Semiotics: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies 1 (1): 49–98. Færch, C., and G. Kasper (eds.) 1983. Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. Harlow: Longman. Færch, C., and G. Kasper 1983. “Plans and strategies in foreign language communication”. In Iidem (eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. Harlow: Longman, pp. 20–60. Hymes, D.H. 1972. “Models of the interaction of language and social life”. In J.J. Gumperz and D.H. Hymes (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 35–71. Keeley-Dyreson, M., J.K. Burgoon and W. Bailey 1991. “The effects of stress and gender on nonverbal decoding accuracy in kinetic and vocalic channels”. Human Communication Research 17(4): 584–605. MacIntyre, P.D., R. Clément, Z. Dörnyei and K.A. Noels 1998. “Conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation”. Modern Language Journal 82: 545–562. McCroskey, J.C. 1977. “Classroom consequences of communication apprehension”. Communication education 26: 27–33. McCroskey, J.C. 1982. “Communication competence and performance: A research and pedagogical perspective”. Communication Education 31 (1): 1–7. McCroskey, J.C., and V.P. Richmond 1987. “Willingness to communicate”. In J.C. McCroskey and J.A. Daly (eds.), Personality and Interpersonal Communication. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 129–156. McCroskey, J.C., and L.L. McCroskey 1988. “Self-report as an approach to measuring communication competence”. Communication Research Reports 5: 108–113.

158 CHAPTER 6 The concept of communicative competence…

McCroskey, J.C. 1992. “Reliability and validity of the willingness to communicate scale”. Communication Quarterly 40: 16–25. McCroskey, J.C. 2008. “Communication Apprehension: What Have We Learned in the Last Four Decades?” Human Communication 12 (2): 157–171. Richards, J.C., and R.W. Schmidt (eds.) 1983. Language and Communication. Harlow: Longman. Rosenthal, P., D. Archer, M.R. DiMatteo, J. Kiovumaki and P.P Rogers 1984. “Body talk and tone of voice: The language without words”. In J.S. Caputo (ed.), Dimensions of Communication: A Book of Readings. Lexington, MA: Ginn Press. Tarone, E. 1977. “Conscious communication strategies: a progress report”. In H.D. Brown, C. Yorio and R. Crymes (eds.), On TESOL 1977. Washington: TESOL. Tarone, E., A.D. Cohen and G. Dumas 1983. “A closer look at some interlanguage terminology: a framework for communication strategies”. In C. Færch and G. Kasper (eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. Harlow: Longman, pp. 4–14. Widdowson, H.G. 1978. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright, A. 1981. “Visuals”. In K. Johnson and K. Morrow (eds.), Communication in the Classroom. Harlow: Longman, pp. 117–126.

Dagmara Gałajda

POJĘCIE KOMPETENCJI KOMUNIKACYJNEJ W UCZENIU SIĘ JĘZYKA OBCEGO

Streszczenie

Rozdział poświęcony jest pojęciu kompetencji komunikacyjnej (ang. communicative competence) oraz bardziej szczegółowo jej komponentom: kompetencji gramatycznej (ang. grammatical competence), socjolingwistycznej (ang. sociolinguistic competence), dyskursowej (ang. discourse competence) oraz strategicznej (ang. strategic competence). Jako podstawę rozważań teoretycznych wybrano model Canale i Swaina (1980), który podkreśla złożony charakter kompetencji komunikacyjnej. Ponadto rozdział opisu- je znaczenie komunikacji niewerbalnej oraz indywidualnej dla każdego ucznia chęci komunikowania się (ang. willingness to communicate) w procesie przyswajania języka. W części poświęconej strategiom komunikacyjnym zaprezentowano i omówiono tak- sonomię strategii według Tarone (1977), jak również Færch i Kasper (1983).

159 Dagmara Gałajda

Dagmara Gałajda

Kommunikationskompetenz beim Fremdsprachenlernen

Zusammenfassung

Das Kapitel handelt über den Begriff „Kommunikationskompetenz“(eng.: commu- nicative competence) und deren Elemente: grammatische Kompetenz (eng.: gramma- tical competence), soziolinguistische Kompetenz (eng.: sociolinguistic competence), diskursive Kompetenz (eng.: discourse competence) und strategische Kompetenz (eng.: strategic competence). Als Grundlage der theoretischen Erwägungen diente das 1980 von Canale und Swain entwickelte Modell, in dem der komplexe Charakter der Kom- munikationskompetenz hervorgehoben wurde. Die Verfasserin erklärt außerdem die Bedeutung von der nonverbalen Kommunikation und von der für jeden Schüler ganz individuellen Kommunikationslust für den Spracherlernungsprozess. In dem verschie- denen Kommunikationsstrategien gewidmeten Teil wurde die Taxonomie der Strategi- en nach Tarone (1977) und Faerch und Kasper (1983) besprochen. CHAPTER 7

Language transfer, code-switching and attrition

Anna D. Biedrzyńska

7.1 introduction

This chapter discusses cross-linguistic phenomena, such as transfer, code- switching and attrition. They are often viewed as symptoms of susceptibility of language systems to change under other language influences. At the global, macro level, the primary causes of intensified linguistic influences involve the accelerated rate and amount of mutual cultural, social and economic exchanges between multilingual people who perceive themselves as inhabitants of one planet rather than inhabitants within confines of their country of origin. This revolution in perception of one’s identity and redefinition of the world as a common, multilingual home has brought the necessity to develop channels of communication additional to the mother tongue (L1). On the other hand, at the micro level of language use within small communities and by individuals, languages are under constant linguistic external influences, too. Changes in L1 at this level were in the past caused by colonialism and nowadays L1 change may still be a result of assimilation to other, dominant, language communities. As a result, a number of languages spoken by small communities have already died and a number of them are to be extinct. According to the survey carried out in 1999 by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, just 4% of the contemporary world’s population spoke 96% of the languages (Crystal 2006: 336). There had not been such thorough and large-scale statistics before, and so the awareness about how fragile language systems could be had also been rather dim. At present, small changes in language are widely seen as a natural process in a language’s longevity. Latin, French and, relatively recent, English influences

161 Anna D. Biedrzyńska are present in many languages over the globe. Thus, it may be accepted that some level of susceptibility to foreign (L2) influences is natural in the process of language development over the centuries. L2 elements enrich the mother tongue, i.e. provide synonyms to old concepts, name new phenomena and contribute to language redundancy. People transform their languages for various reasons. Some search for new ways of expression, some want to evoke certain effects or feelings, some for sake of trade, and a number of people around the world – to be able to manifest understanding of diversity of opinions and values. There are obviously many symptoms of language change as there are many circumstances in which it can take place. Yet, the appearance of foreign elements in a language system seems to be hardly observable or, in Keller’s (1994) terms, invisible to its users. One thing is certain: handling more than one language is usually problematic for any speaker. This is caused, as Seliger and Vago (1991) explained, by the necessity of many languages to compete for the finite amount of the “storage space” in the brain. During this neural re-organization in the brain to allocate new language data, a degree of cross-linguistic interaction takes place. Further sections of this chapter provide the description of the three outcomes of languages in contact, i.e. transfer, code-switching and attrition, with examples especially relevant for the users of Polish. The description is followed by examples of studies focusing on the three cross-linguistic features. In another section there are methodological implications suggested. The chapter closes with the recommendation of further reading and with questions and tasks, which should prove useful for revision and internalization of the presented material.

7.2 contact-linguistic phenomena

Language transfer, code-switching and attrition are under umbrella term of contact-linguistic or cross-linguistic outcomes as they result from the contact with yet another language system (Ln) which interacts with the already acquired system(s). Every Ln developed exerts impact and causes a certain amount of interaction with the previously internalized language elements. Whenever the language impact contributes to production of correct language patterns, such interaction is seen as positive. Whenever the consequence is formation of faulty language, such influence is regarded as negative. The cross-linguistic phenomena in question share a number of features, however, we will first deal with them separately.

7.2.1 Language transfer

One of the most notorious signs of interaction between language systems is transfer. Generally speaking, language transfer may be explained as an application

162 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition of knowledge of one language to a different language.I t may take place in various areas of language – it may be a transfer of a lexical item or its meaning, a transfer of a structure or a phonetic feature. For instance, Kecskes and Papp (2003) differentiate between linguistic transfer and conceptual transfer. The former covers phonetic, lexical and structural transfer from one language to the other, and the latter concerns pragmatic transfer of knowledge or skills acquired in one language to the other language context. Transfer is bidirectional. In the early stages of L2 development, the direction of transfer is mostly from one’s L1 to L2. In other words, early stages of L2 development are characterized by L1→L2 transfer. It happens so because the bilingual speakers tend to map their knowledge of L1 system on L2 system. However, with acquisition of a degree of L2 proficiency, the direction of transfer is likely to change, i.e. elements of L2 are applied to the L1 system (L2→L1 transfer). In such a situation we speak of a backward or reverse transfer. One of the main characteristics of language transfer is its bipolarity, which stands for two general types of transfer: positive and negative one. The former type occurs whenever the rules of the source language and target language are the same and facilitate building correct target language constructions. The latter one takes place when implementing the rules of one language in production in the other language results in inaccurate patterns. There may be contexts in which L1 will interfere with L2 and at other times we may observe L2 interference in L1 production. However, as already mentioned, transfer from L1 to L2 should usually be expected at the early stages of bilingualism when L2 is not yet well established and L1 is the main source of reference. The backward transfer, i.e. transfer from L2 to L1, normally occurs at more advanced stages of L2 proficiency when knowledge of L2 is widely systematized and starts to encroach on L1 system. A careful observer will spot many examples of both types of transfer in a day-to-day language use. I have chosen a few examples to illustrate language transfer between Polish and English languages. The exemplary sentences a) and b) both present the results of the negative transfer: a) I often listen music. b) Często słucham do radia.

Example a) is a frequent error made by beginner students of English who, not knowing the collocation of listen to sth, resort to their native Polish tongue for a syntactic rule and simply render the Polish sentence (Ja) często słucham muzyki into English. However, it is also interesting to notice here that highly advanced students of English do happen to use a Polish calque of the English collocation listen to sth as shown in example b). Actually, it is not rare for bilingual and

163 Anna D. Biedrzyńska multilingual speakers to transfer whole structures unique for one language and render them literally into the other language currently being in use. Such type of transfer is commonly known as structural transfer or a calque. Perhaps a slightly better, or more interesting, illustration of language transfer for a native Polish speaker could be sentence c), which was written by an English learner of Polish as a foreign language: c) Życzę szczęśliwych wakacji i witam serdecznie do domu kiedy tylko będziesz w Anglii.

As a native speaker of Polish you will probably, pretty intuitively, point to two phrases in the above sentence which do not feel right. Firstly, Życzę szczęśliwych wakacji sounds almost correct, but we probably all agree that Życzę udanych wakacji would be a more accurate collocation here. Secondly, witam serdecznie do domu is definitely ill-formed according to the Polish grammar rules and it is clearly a direct translation of the English phrase welcome to my house. To restore the correct phrase according to the Polish rules, the verb witam should be substituted with zapraszam. Transfer at the level of phonetics may be easily observed in accent and pronunciation in the case of foreign language speakers. Pronouncing the word Ameryka with an aspirated h (A’m(h)eryka) may serve an example of foreign influence on L1 pronunciation (L2→L1 influence) in the Polish context. An example of L1→L2 negative transfer is devoicing the final voiced consonant sounds in words such as bag and food by Polish and German speakers of English. In the area of semantics, a change of meaning often takes place. We refer to adding new aspects of meaning as extension and eliminating some of the meanings of a word as narrowing. For instance, Pavlenko (2003) discovered in her study that Russian users of English as a second language reduce a more permanent sense of the Russian word neschastlivaia (unhappy) to a temporary feeling as it is the case with the English concept of unhappy. For Hutz (2004) a considerable increase of semantic transfer in bilingual production serves as evidence of the speakers conversion to the target language system. In yet another example by a native-English user of Polish, transfer is seen at the level of spelling: d) […] transcripcja utworów muzycznych.

The underlined word contains a substitution of a letter k with c. It should be spelt transkrypcja and it is evident that this error was made under the influence of English spelling of the word transcription (L1→L2 negative transfer). Finally, it needs to be said that transfer is also observed on wider planes, such as discourse and culture. To provide an example here, the modern Poles

164 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition have transferred wishes of “having a nice weekend” into the normal interaction, whereas St. Patrick’s Day is an annual event in many Polish pubs. Perhaps, these and other changes in the Polish lifestyle are an indication of gradual shift from monolingual and monocultural to multilingual and multicultural society.

7.2.2 Code-switching

Perhaps the most evident instance of interaction between languages is code- switching (also referred to as code-mixing and substitution). As the name suggests, code-switching involves implementing two (or more) language codes interchangeably. Interlocutors may mix codes for individual language items, longer phrases and even whole sentences and paragraphs. Therefore we may speak of intersentential, intrasentential and even intraword switchings. The substitution of a linguistic item in one language with an item in another language may again take place at the level of lexis, syntax and semantics. It is impossible to discuss code-switching without looking at functions it performs. Code-switching normally has a specified purpose and speakers usually have good awareness of using two or more languages interchangeably. For instance, thinking of L1 context in which a skill or some knowledge is acquired through the means of L2, it is easy to deduct that code-switching may simply be the result of acquiring that skill or knowledge through the L2 channel and thus being unacquainted with L1 equivalents. This may serve as an explanation why Polish students of English philology are authors of sentences such as:

Mam napisać paper o affective filter w grupie dorosłych na poziomie intermediate.

In the above sentence, the English substitutions of Polish equivalents were probably used for convenience reasons, i.e. it was quicker for the speaker to encode some parts of the message in English than search for Polish equivalents which additionally might be unavailable for the speaker at the time of its production. At this point, however, it is very important to answer the question about who the addressee of the so encoded message was. If the recipient had functioned in the same or similar multilingual context, such a message was perfectly suitable in terms of clarity of meaning and economy of conveying that meaning. However, the same message would be extremely inconvenient and even impolite in the situation in which other participants of interaction had little knowledge of the L2 context in question and could not easily decode its sense. Code-switching is a strategy to cope with elements of a language system which for some reason are inaccessible at the time of production. There are certain situations, especially in L2 settings when L1 becomes inhibited through

165 Anna D. Biedrzyńska its insufficient use and lack of sufficient exposure to Sit. peakers frequently find it impossible to conduct conversation in L1 and they eventually switch back to L2. Switching between codes may also have an educational purpose. In educational contexts it may be a strategy to practice the target language. Finally, one may not rule out the possibility of switching between the codes to achieve a rather cheap effect of showing off one’s knowledge.

7.2.3 Attrition

It was mentioned in section 7.2.2 that the use of a particular language code may be inhibited though the lack of exposure to it or/and its insufficient use. The process in the course of which one’s proficiency in a given language is hampered or even totally blocked is called attrition. Porte (2003: 103) identifies four settings in which attrition may take place:

1. L1 attrition in L2 environment, e.g. among immigrant community and under strong L2 influence. 2. L2 attrition in L1 context, e.g. loss of foreign language because of cessation of its use in L1 surrounding. 3. L2 attrition in L2 context, e.g. memory decline related to age. 4. L1 attrition in L1 context, e.g. dialect death.

Early definitions of non-pathological attrition formulated in the 1980s explained it as a rather broad phenomenon of loss of various portions of language system or even complete loss of language by an individual or a community (e.g. Lambertand Freed 1982). Little specificity of the definition at the early stages of the research on attrition has led to the tendency to use many other terms, such as language shift, language loss and language death interchangeably. Further research into the field of attrition that continued at the beginnings of the 21st century, has brought to light the need for terminological precision and drawing a clearer distinction between the terms in question. For instance, De Bot and Hulsen (2002) perceive language loss as an umbrella term for language shift, i.e. intergenerational language loss when language is passed onto other generations in a progressively reduced form until it is completely lost, and attrition, i.e. language loss by an individual. In the similar vein, Gross (2004: 284) defines attrition as

the restructuring of the L1 linguistic system according to L2 patterns under the psycholinguistic pressures of bilingualism. […] L1 attrition is distinguished from language shift in that attrition is intragenerational, whereas language shift is intergenerational.

166 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition

When attempting to understand the process of attrition it is necessary to consider the reasons for which it takes place. The factors stimulating the progress of attrition have been described in numerous frameworks. For instance, Markedness Differential Hypothesis distinguishes between the marked and unmarked language patterns (Eckman 1977). The former are regarded to be more complex and exceptional, as opposed to the latter which have a wider range of distribution. Seliger and Vago (1991) believe that replacing L1 marked items with L2 unmarked ones is a sign of attrition. In the light of the Dormant Language Hypothesis, attrition is seen as inactivation of a less used or unused language system (a dormant language) in favour of the dominant language (Crystal 1997). The neurolinguistic perspective offers theA ctivation Threshold Hypothesis, according to which the level of language activation depends on the frequency and recency of the use of linguistic information and the strength of signals occurring between neurons (Paradis 2004). Paradis (2004: 28) perceives attrition as a result of long-term lack of stimulation combined with intensive exposure and extensive use of a different language. Some researchers in the field (e.g. Gabryś-Barker 2003, Schmid and Köpke 2009) emphasize the procedural character of attrition, which is seen in defining it as:

A change in the native language system of the bilingual who is acquiring and using a second language (L2). This change may lead to a variety of phenomena within the L1 system, among which are interferences from the L2 on all levels (phonetics, lexicon morphosyntax, pragmatics), a simplification or impoverishment of the L1, or insecurity on the part of speaker manifested by frequent hesitations, self-repair or hedging strategies. (Schmid and Köpke 2009: 210)

One of the most comprehensive discussions of attrition is offered by Herdina and Jessner (2002) with the framework of Dynamic Model of (DMM). In their model, languages used by a person belong to a global system in which they are interconnected, and where elements of one language affect the other. The so understood multilingual system is naturally characterized by language mixing and general language disorder. Interference effects are perceived as symptoms of system’s organization and as outcomes of constant revision of the rules to adapt to the ongoing changes in the environment and to new communicative requirements. In the light of DMM, forgetting language is a reverse process to language development. In the course of it, the multilingual system adapts to the situation of insufficient maintenance of one of the languages in the system. The paucity of adequate maintenance effort, i.e. effort invested in preserving the language, results in the language system’s erosion and inaccessibility for practical purposes. The first symptoms of the so understood

167 Anna D. Biedrzyńska attrition may be easily overlooked or neglected as the process is neither rapid nor spectacular. What is more, it includes all cross-linguistic phenomena, such as code-switching, loan translation, semantic change, avoidance, borrowings, stylistic errors, etc. which may sporadically occur in any language production and may not necessarily be symptomatic of a more systematic process of attrition. According to Herdina and Jessner (2002), the multilingual user usually tends to economize the operation of many languages through simplifying rules and reliance on unmarked language features. Thus, attrition is a natural outcome of multilingual development in the course of which gaining proficiency in one language always results in some neglect of other languages.

7.3 studies on transfer, code-switching and attrition

Studies on languages in contact comprise a vast range of various research problems and questions. To provide a few examples, the research by Meisel, Clahsen and Pineman (1981, quoted in Odlin 1989) on Italian and Spanish workers in Germany showed that they transfer the word-order typical for their native tongue to German. In consequence those speakers build SVO (i.e. subject- verb-object) patterns instead of SOV order. Since code-switching, interference and attrition are related problems (in the sense that they are language contact phenomena), they are often discussed together. For instance, Pavlenko (2003) in her study of narratives elicited on the basis of a video retelling task describes overall results of the study in the form of code-switching, loan translation and conceptual transfer. In the study of Hebrew-French contact, Ben Rafael (2004) discusses code-switching both separately and within the context of attrition. In the former context, Hebrew code-switches were both single words and whole sentences. The study showed that the function of single Hebrew elements is either absence of appropriate equivalents in French or replacement of French equivalents. Ben Rafael also found out that some Hebrew terms are used when speaking French because they “better reflect Israeli cultural values” (2004: 170), because they are ready expressions of religious nature, greetings, etc. and they also serve the purpose of reassuring oneself during speaking French. According to Ben Rafael (2004), instances of code-switching occur naturally and spontaneously in contrast to attrition in which case code-switching causes embarrassment and impression of losing one’s memory. Ben Rafael (2004) concludes that code-switching appears in lexical attrition where it is a strategy, next to avoidance and paraphrase, to overcome the inaccessibility of precise terms and key words in the particular language code. Studies on attrition form a large and still growing field of investigation. For instance, Laufer (2003) found out that Russian immigrants in Israel produced

168 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition increasingly less sophisticated texts, which was directly connected with the length of their stay there. Hutz (2004) carried out a longitudinal case-study on the basis of 75 letter written by a German immigrant in the USA. It was found out that semantics was the most susceptible to change, which was especially observed in meaning extensions and loan words.

7.4 Methodological implications

In reviewing studies on cross-linguistic effects as a preparatory strategy to embark on one’s own investigation into the field, it is essential to take into consideration Yağmur’s (2004) advice to plan and employ a number of different tools during the research (e.g. a case-study, retelling tasks, judgment tests, surveys, etc.) as relying on one tool may not be adequate to draw reliable conclusions about the obtained results. Multilingual knowledge increases language awareness through constant dealing with rich and, more often than not – conflicting language data. Since adult language learning is in large majority conscious, intentional and focused on form, it is reasonable to say that adult learners should benefit even more from explicit course in contrastive analysis. Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2006) concludes in her study that although multilingual speakers are importers of foreign items and innovators in one’s native tongue, it is monolinguals who are consumers and adopters of such imports and innovations. From this perspective, it becomes extremely important to raise awareness among future foreign language teachers and translators of the responsibility that they should take on for their mother tongue use. Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2006) suggests to enrich the university syllabi with classes on cross-linguistic phenomena in modern Polish, especially on the media and communications programs. Elements of explicit knowledge on cross-linguistic interaction should perhaps be introduced at every stage of FL development which might help learners themselves to control their language progress through greater vigilance especially in those areas of language use which are most susceptible to cross- linguistic interaction at the particular stage of L2 development.

7.5 conclusions

It has been said in this chapter that the development of second languages (L2) in the contemporary world is something natural, almost ubiquitous. It is now widely known and documented in various studies that L1 influences the early

169 Anna D. Biedrzyńska development of L2. On the other hand, the established additional language system has influence on the previously acquired one. The kind and amount of interaction between languages may be seen as positive or negative depending on whether it is considered to contribute to language growth or its failure. Therefore, the cross-linguistic interaction is usually perceived as a bipolar issue as there are basically two extreme directions of its impact on a language that we can think of: expansion or death. Transfer, code-switching and attrition are all signs of the process of linguistic reordering and establishing a new multilingual system in an altered form. In the course of this process, language awareness is enhanced as it involves dealing with a number of conflicting data. However, such self-evolved awareness may be insufficient for many L2 speakers contributing to the spread of faulty language patterns under influence of other language systems. Therefore, it is necessary to verbalize the differences between languages and point to the linguistically essential features in a given language. This also applies to mother tongues, which are too often taken for granted as complete and fully developed systems. To sum up, decades of research into language contact phenomena in different contexts and on its different aspects have shown that neither the second nor first languages are immune to external linguistic influences, evolution or attrition and loss. This finding helps to understand a language as an asset which has to be attended to and consciously maintained by its users.

7.6 questions and tasks

Q.1 What types of transfer can you name?

Q.2 What is code-switching?

Q.3 When should transfer phenomena be associated with attrition?

Task 1 Investigate Polish-English translations of websites. Can you find examples of transfer there?

Task 2 In groups write down different situations in which you code-switch and explain the purpose of your code-switching.

Task 3 Bring to class a piece of your translation in L1 (from FL) and analyse it in terms of structures, use of vocabulary, punctuation, style, etc. Use a modern L1 dictionary for reference. Try to find any examples of language patterns which

170 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition may be the result of FL influence or/and insufficient L1 maintenance or imperfect learning of L1 rules. Make a list of the identified patterns and write the error category that you think they belong to. You may ask a friend to help you.

7.7 additional reading

Cross-linguistic phenomena are complex and multi-plane notions. If you found topics discussed in this chapter of your particular interest, it may be worthwhile to read about them more extensively. One of the most thorough discussions on transfer may be found in T. Odlin’s (1989) Language Transfer. Cross-linguistic Influence in Language Learning. Transfer is presented there not only in historical context, but it is also discussed at various levels of discourse, semantics, syntax, phonetics and individual differences. The influence of specifically English on Polish language is the main focus in E. Mańczak-Wohlfeld’s (2006) book Angielsko-polskie kontakty językowe. The author attempts to deal with the size and nature of English influence on Polish. The book contains the list of English items imported to modern Polish. To enrich one’s understanding of code-switching with a neuro-linguistic perspective, “Language switching in the bilingual brain: What’s next?” by A.E. Hernandez (2009) offers insight into early bilingual’s brain activity during picture naming tasks. There is also an important collection of articles on attrition by M.S. Schmid et al. (ed.) First Language Attrition. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodological Issues (2004), in which cross-linguistic phenomena and their investigation are in the main focus. Finally, to obtain a more global perspective on cross-linguistic effects in the long run, D. Crystal’s (2000) Language Death and W. S-Y. Wang and J.W. Minett’s (2005) The Invasion of Language: Emergence, Change and Death should be given some attention.

References

Banyś, R., L. Bednarczuk and S. Karolak (eds.) 1999. Studia Lingwistyczne Ofiarowane Profesorowi Kazimierzowi Polańskiemu. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Ben-Rafael, M. 2004. “Language Contact and Attrition: the Spoken French of Israeli Francophones”. In M.S. Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer and L. Weilemar (eds.), First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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on Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 165–188. Cook, V.J. (ed.) 2002. Portraits of the L2 User. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cook, V.J. (ed.) 2003. Effects of the Second Language on the First. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. 2006. How Language Works. London: Penguin Books Ltd. De Bot, K., and M. Hulsen 2002. “Language Attrition: Tests, Self-assessment and Perceptions”. In V. Cook (ed.), Portraits of the L2 User. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 251–274. Eckman, F. 1977. “Markedness and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis”. In: Language Learning 27: 315–330. Gabryś-Barker, D. 2003. “Frozen or de-frosted competence: A comment on L2 attrition at the advanced level”. Linguistica Silesiana 24: 109–126. Gross, S. 2004. “A modest proposal: Explaining language attrition in the context of contact linguistics”. In M.S. Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer and L. Weilemar (ed.), First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 281–297. Herdina, P., and U. Jessner 2002. A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism: Perspectives of Change in Psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hernandez, A.E. 2009. “Language switching in the bilingual brain: What’s next?” Brain and Language 109: 133–140. Hutz, M. 2004. “Is There a Natural Process of Decay?” In M.S. Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer and L. Weilemar (ed.), First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 189–205. Keller, R. 1994. On Language Change: the Invisible Hand in Language. London, New York: Routledge. Kecskes, I., and T. Papp 2003. “How to demonstrate the conceptual effect of L2 on L1? Methods and techniques”. In V. J. Cook (ed.), Effects of the Second Language on the First. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 247–265. Lambert, R.D., and B.F. Freed 1982. The Loss of Language Skills. Rowley: Newbury House. Laufer, B. 2003. “The influence of L2 on L1 collocational knowledge and on L1 lexical diversity in free written expression”. In V.J. Cook (ed.), Effects of the Second Language on the First. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 19– 31.

172 CHAPTER 7 Language transfer, code-switching and attrition

Odlin, T. 1989. Language Transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mańczak-Wohlfeld, E. 2006. Angielsko-polskie kontakty językowe. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, A. 2006. “Wpływ języka angielskiego na polszczyznę mówioną”. In A. Duszak, E. Gajek and U. Okulska (eds.), Korpusy w angielsko-polskim językoznawstwie kontrastywnym. Kraków: Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych UNIVERSITAS, pp. 236–261. Pallier, C., S. Dehaene, J.B. Poline, D. LeBihan, A.M. Argenti, E. Dupoux and J. Mehler 2003. “Brain imaging of language plasticity in adopted adults: Can a second language replace the first?”Cerebral Cortex 13: 155–161. Paradis, M. 2004. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Pavlenko, A. 2003. “I feel clumsy speaking Russian: L2 influence on L1 narratives of Russian L2 users of English”. In V.J. Cook (ed.), Effects of the Second Language on the First. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 32–61. Porte, G. 2003. “English from a distance: Code-mixing and blending in the L1 output of long-term resident overseas EFL teachers”. In V.J. Cook (ed.), Effects of the Second Language on the First. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. pp. 103–119. Schmid, M.S., and B. Köpke 2009. “L1 Attrition and the Mental Lexicon”. In A. Pavlenko (ed.), The Bilingual Mental Lexicon. Interdisciplinary Approaches. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 209–234. Schmid, M.S., B. Köpke, M. Keijzer and L. Weilmar (ed.) 2004. First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Seliger, H.W., and R.M. Va g o 1991. “The study of first language attrition: Overview”. In H.W. Seliger and R.M. Va g o (eds.), First Language Attrition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–16. Wang, W.S-Y., and J.W. Minett 2005. “The invasion of language:E mergence, change and death”. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20 (5): 263–269. Wysocka, M. 1999. “Zużywanie się języka docelowego u nauczycieli języków obcych”. In R. Banyś, L. Bednarczuk and S. Karolak (eds.), Studia lingwistyczne ofiarowane Profesorowi Kazimierzowi Polańskiemu. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, pp. 425–446. Yağmur, K. 2004. “Issues in finding the appropriate methodology in language attrition research”. In M.S. Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer and L. Weilmar (eds.), First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 133–164.

173 Anna D. Biedrzyńska

Anna D. Biedrzyńska

TRANSFER JĘZYKOWY, PRZEŁĄCZANIE KODU JĘZYKOWEGO I ŚCIERANIE JĘZYKA

Streszczenie

W artykule zwrócono uwagę na zjawiska językowe spowodowane interakcją pomię- dzy systemami językowymi. Przedstawiono czynniki wywołujące zmianę w danym systemie językowym i omówiono następstwa interakcji językowej w postaci transferu, przełączania kodu językowego (ang. code-switching) i ścierania języka (ang. langua- ge attrition). W opracowaniu wymienionych zagadnień przywołane zostają przykła- dy zarówno z języka polskiego, jak i angielskiego. Niektóre z nich zaczerpnięto z prac studentów anglistyki i korespondencji wykładowców, dla których język polski jest językiem obcym. Sprawia to, że artykuł skupiony jest na omówieniu dwujęzycznego kontekstu polsko-angielskiego. W końcowej części przedstawione zostały przykłady badań w omawianej dziedzinie oraz implikacje metodyczne. Artykuł kończą pytania stymulujące i zadania, a także lista publikacji, których lektura pomoże w poszerzeniu wiedzy na omawiany temat.

Anna D. Biedrzyńska

Sprachtransfer, Umschaltung der Sprachkode und Sprachabnutzung

Zusammenfassung

In dem Kapitel schenkt die Verfasserin ihre Aufmerksamkeit der von der Interaktion zwischen unterschiedlichen Sprachsystemen hervorgerufenen Spracherscheinungen. Sie nennt Faktoren, welche eine Veränderung in dem bestimmten Sprachsystem ver- ursachen und bespricht folgende Folgen der Sprachinteraktion: Transfer, Umschaltung der Sprachkode (eng.: code-switching) und Sprachabnutzung (eng.: language attrition). Die Verfasserin behilft sich dabei der Beispiele aus der polnischen und englischenS pra- che. Manche Beispiele wurden den Aufsätzen von den Studenten der Anglistik und der Korrespondenz der Hochschullehrer entnommen, für die Polnisch eine Fremdsprache ist, deshalb hat sich die Verfasserin darauf beschränkt, den zweisprachigen polnisch- englischen Kontext zu schildern. Das Kapitel beinhaltet auch eine Diskussion über die auf dem Wissenschaftsgebiet durchgeführten Untersuchungen und methodische Schlüsse. Am Ende findet man anregende Fragen, Aufgaben und das Verzeichnis von Publikationen, deren Lektüre der Erweiterung von Kenntnissen dienen kann. CHAPTER 8

Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning

Danuta Gabryś-Barker

8.1 introduction

The affective dimension of language learning is a very complex and extensive area to be covered in one chapter. Thus, discussion of it here has to be limited to just an indication and sketch of the major factors that constitute learner affectivity, which are well-covered in other sources, and to expanding on less well-known but I belief equally important areas. The chapter starts with the presentation of argument in favour of the holistic nature of learning, seen as a combination of cognition and affectivity, but giving primacy to the latter. This complementary nature of the two dimensions is argued for by numerous psychological and, more recently, neurological research findings. Next, the chapter overviews the major affective factors such as selected personality traits (extroversion and introversion, anxiety, self-esteem and empathy), motivation to learn a fL and attitudes to the target language community (TLC). The concept of appraisal systems is discussed at greater length as I believe it is not often enough referred to as a significant dimension of language learning in the literature. It exemplifies the role of great sensitivity to personal and contextual circumstances as the reason for the complexity of the affective domain (Ben-Ze’ev 2000). Despite the fact that psychological research has been interested in appraisals for a long time, applications of this research have not found their way into the theory and practice of foreign language teaching and learning. Second language acquisition and foreign language learning are complex processes as they comprise cognitive dimensions (thinking and conceptualizing

175 Danuta Gabryś-Barker new constructs), educational experiences (or immersion) and affective functioning. The focus of this chapter is on affectivity, defined by psychology as “consisting of four basic prototypes: emotions, moods, sentiments, and affective traits” (Ben-Ze’ev 2000: 114–115). This text looks at the emotions and affective traits of an individual as constituting the major factor in cognition, self-evaluation and motivation to act (to learn). The interest in affectivity in educational contexts appeared with the development of humanistic psychology of Rogers (1969) among others, who saw education as overtly interested in the cognitive aspect of an individual disregarding the affective dimension. The humanistic psychologists “stressed the need to unite the cognitive and affective domains in order to educate the whole person” (Arnold 1999: 5). It followed from this ideology that other scholars (Moskowitz or Stevick as perhaps the key figures) introduced a humanistic approach in second/foreign language learning and unconventional methods took SL/FL classrooms by storm. Examples of this are Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response and Counselling Language Learning (for a detailed description see Larsen-Freeman 1986). They accepted the importance of individualisation, autonomy and the affective states of the learner as crucial to his/her learning success. It is especially in the context of language learning that affectivity plays a dominant role, as language is a vehicle for the communication and expression of self. Affectivity, emotions and feelings in educational contexts, have been considered major variables in obtaining successful outcomes in teaching and learning processes since the humanistic approach was introduced. Numerous (mostly psychological) studies reporting on the role of motivation and goal- orientation and generally affective personality factors (for example self-confidence and esteem, and attitudes) highlight the fact that the affective domain has to be the centre of interest both of teachers trying to create conditions conducive to learning and of learners themselves, in order to make them recognize their own emotions and feelings and how they influence their success or determines their failure (Gabryś-Barker in press). Language learning processes are context-dependent, that is why they are very different in the two environments: that of a second language in the target language context (acquisition mostly through immersion) and that of a foreign language which is learnt through formal instruction in the classroom. These two processes are not only cognitively different; the differences are visible at the level of affectivity. This chapter focuses on the latter, that is to say, the context of FL instruction as relevant for Polish learners of English.

176 CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning

8.2 defining affectivity

Following Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia’s (1964) understanding of the concept and its range, Brown (2000) defines affectivity at the level ofreceiving , responding, valuing, organization of values and value system itself (Table 1).

Table 1 Understanding affectivity (following Brown 2000: 143–144) Level Description Receiving “Persons must be aware of the environment surrounding them and be conscious of situations, phenomena, people, objects; be willing to receive – to tolerate a stimulus, not avoid it – and give a stimulus their controlled or selective attention.”

Responding “[…] committing themselves in at least some small measure to a phenomenon or a person. Such responding in one dimension may be in acquiescence, but in another, higher dimension the person is willing to respond voluntarily without coercion, and then to receive satisfaction from that response.”

Valuing “[…] placing worth on a thing, behavior, or a person. Valuing takes on characteristics of beliefs or attitudes as values are internalized. Individuals do not merely accept a value to the point of being willing to be identified with it, but commit themselves to the value to pursue it, and want it, finally, to the point of conviction.”

Organization of “Organization of values into a system of beliefs, determining values interrelationships among them, and establishing a hierarchy of values within the system.”

Value system “[…] individuals become characterized by and understand themselves in terms of their value systems. Individuals act consistently in accordance with the values they have internalized and integrate beliefs, ideas, and attitudes into a total philosophy or world view.”

The roles of affectivity and its expression (emotions) are described in the following words:

First, they serve as interpersonal communication mechanisms. They communicate behavioural tendencies and intentions, regulating social behaviour. Second, they are internal goal management mechanisms. They co-ordinate mental and physical activities whose role is to satisfy individual’s goals in an unpredictable environment. Hence, they regulate and monitor goal-directed behaviour. Third, they are behaviour-preparation mechanisms with distinct emotions connected with distinct desired behaviour. (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008: 24)

177 Danuta Gabryś-Barker

It seems from the above that affectivity is omnipresent at every stage of an individual’s performance, where cognition (thinking) interacts with emotions. It colours the action undertaken, its course and effects, and also importantly evaluation of it. The question then arises, what is the relation between the two dimensions, cognition and affectivity?

8.3 cognition vs emotion

Psycholingustic and neurolingustic research demonstrate that there is interaction between the “thinking” brain and the “feeling” brain and that furthermore the information entering the brain is received first by the emotional brain and filtered through it (Schumann 1997). It has been known for quite some time now which parts of the brain are responsible for the processing of emotions. It was in the 1940s when neurologists observed that the removal or disconnection of the part of the lower brain (the prefrontal cortex) results in lack of emotional processing in a patient:

The prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the neocortex, whatG oleman calls the “thinking brain”, interacts with an evolutionary older part of the brain called the limbic system – what Goleman calls the “emotional brain”. A part of limbic system called amygdala is, in Goleman’s words, “the seat of all passions”, and it has been in the identification of the function of this region that scientists have begun to understand the paths that emotions take in forming. (Gabriel 2000: 2)

Affectivity functions as a stimulus for any action and type of approach taken, as well as a monitor and controller of cognitive processing, grounded in an individual learning situation, which is influenced by not only the person with his/her character complexity but also by the context in which it takes place, and by individual on-going evaluation of the learning process and outcome […]” (Efklides and Volet 2005: 378).A t every stage of language processing emotions and feelings are omnipresent. For example, in a classroom context, they are most significant for success and failure in learning at the stage of input, the first exposure to a task, language, instruction received, and in general, a situation itself. The processing at the exposure stage can be described as a three-phase process: pre-perception, perception and the attention-noticing stage. The pre-perception stage, the so-called “alertness stage”, shows “a general predisposition to be involved in the learning task, so-called “pre-actional stage” (Dörney 2002). According to Manolopoulou-Sergi (2004: 432), what can be seen at this stage of input are

178 CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning motivational influences which might inhibit learners from being involved in the task at this pre-actional stage […] such as various goal properties, values associated with the learning process, attitudes, expectancy of success or failure, learner beliefs and strategies, environmental support or hindrance”.

Of course, the picture may be reversed. The task itself may have a facilitative power and create a positive attitude. However positivity works best if it precedes the given learning situation and a learner is willing to get involved in it as “attitudes prepare individuals to evaluate the experience of the language situation/outcome before they actually get involved with the learning experience and therefore, react to it in a fairly stereotyped way” (Monolopoulou-Sergi 2004: 432). At the pre-perception stage the learning goals and performance goals will be formulated by a learner. The learner’s focus on learning goals is shown by various studies as more conducive to learning success than when the emphasis is on performance and achievement. As stated in Gabryś-Barker (2010: 58–59), the focus on each of the goals will result in different approaches to a task:

Learning goals are seen as challenging the ability (even if it is perceived as low) one has and promote risk taking as the tasks/skill to be developed by it is interesting/novel/important (etc.) enough.

Performance goals promote defensive/withdrawal strategies if one’s ability is seen as low and the ultimate goal of the task (as seen/appraised by an individual) is evaluation of his/her ability/result of the performance. The perception stage of the input exposure is a stage of processing determined by focus on the learning goals vs the performance goals. This approach may be described as either open to input or activation of switch-off mechanisms or of limited perception both in bottom-up and top-down processing (Gabryś- Barker in press). Only selected elements of the input will be attended to and consequently, noticed and possibly stored in the long term memory (LTM), and hence, open to further processing, as stated by noticing hypothesis. This selection will not only be determined by the cognitive factors, but also affective ones resulting from the past experience and present appraisal of it. So it can be predicted that the input stage will have a direct impact on the later stages of central processing and the output stage, as it will “enhance or block the learner’s intention to be involved in the task or their strategic approach to the task” (Manolopoulou-Sergi 2004: 436, quoted in Gabryś-Barker in press).

179 Danuta Gabryś-Barker

8.4 the neural basis of emotions and feelings: verbal intelligence vs emotional intelligence

It can also be stated unequivocally that affectivity and emotion have a neural basis, since they are demonstrated by certain physio-anatomical symptoms of bodily behaviour and reactions. For example, when angry or anxious our body tells us (and others) that we are angry (a red face, flushes, trembling hands, loud voice, etc.). Neurolingustics, with its focus on investigation of the structure of the brain and ways of activation in different contexts and for different purposes, provides preliminary evidence of the way affectivity works and shows what the connections of the so-called “emotional brain” (LeDoux 1996) and the cognitive functioning of an individual, the so-called “thinking brain”, are like. The use of neuroimaging techniques has allowed scientists to observe that there are specific areas of the brain responsible for forming and processing emotions – the amygdala (a part of limbic system) and separate ones responsible for cognitive functions – the prefrontal cortex. Various research projects (among them LeDoux 1996) demonstrate that there is interaction between “the two brains” and furthermore that the information entering the brain is received first by the emotional brain and filtered through it. So it may be assumed that success in learning (in this case of a foreign language) is all emotionally-driven (Schumann 1997, Gabryś-Barker 2011). Not only past research but also classroom practice of language teaching have to be seen as overwhelmingly concerned with learners’ cognitive capacities, as measured by intelligence tests and IQ (Gabryś-Barker 2011). However, since 1998 and the coining by Goleman of the term “emotional intelligence” (EI), with its level measured as an affectivity quotient (AQ), the attention of both researchers and practitioners has turned to focusing on the development of emotional literacy (EI) in educational contexts. Emotional intelligence was defined by Goleman (1998) as the “capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships” (quoted in Killick 2006: 9). It has been believed generally since then that:

Emotional difficulties underlie behavioural and motivational problems. Emotional development develops resilience and aids skill acquisition for all, not just those with problems. Developing emotional literacy in children and young people can help learning, confidence and cooperation in the classroom. These skills aid development of interpersonal and leadership skills in the work- place. (Killick 2006: 7)

180 CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning

For Killick (2006; reported in Gabryś-Barker in press), who is a pedagogue and a therapist involved directly with school work, the development of emotional intelligence consists in facilitating learners’ ability to become: • more self-aware in relation to recognizing one’s feelings when they occur and reflecting on them and their consequences; being able to define one’s self-concept; • more able to handle one’s feelings, especially strong ones like for example feelings of fear or anger, instead of repressing them; • more able to motivate oneself towards individually set short- and long-term goals; • more empathetically-oriented, that is, developing social perceptiveness in terms of understanding the feelings of others and on the basis of this forming relationships; • more socially competent in interpersonal skills. Table 2 presents five pathways to developing emotional intelligence:

Table 2 Pathways to Emotional Intelligence (based on Killick 2006: 41–53; quoted in Gabryś-Barker in press) Pathway Defining Comment 1 2 3 Self-awareness “Knowing one’s own emotions • “A positive, integrated sense of self.” at any one time. Recognising • “A vocabulary of feelings.” a feeling when it is being • “Thought catching.” experienced and being aware of • “The feeling thermometer.” the thoughts that have led to the experience of the feeling.”

Affect (or self “[…] the ability to manage one’s • “Self-control.” regulation) emotions and to be able to handle • “Self-soothing – to calm oneself.” of emotion them, especially strong feelings, • “Frustration tolerance.” appropriately.” • “Positive self-talk.” • “Stress management.” Motivation “The ability to motivate oneself to • “Intrinsic and extrinsic.” achieve desired goals.” • “Immediate or long-term rewards.” • “Delayed gratification.” • “Ambivalence” (mixed or conflicting feelings about some behaviour). Empathy (social “The ability to recognise emotions • “Reflective listening – listening to perceptiveness) in others.” feelings.” • “Theory of Mind.” • “The foundations of compassion.” • “The importance of experiencing empathy.”

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cont. tab. 2 1 2 3 Social competence Conversation and negotiation • “Initiation of a conversation, turn- and interpersonal skills take and maintaining conversation, skills terminating it.” • “Negotiating meaning, expressing agreement and disagreement, mediating and solving problems.”

It is generally believed that the level of one’s emotional intelligence is more related to the personality profile of a person rather than his/her verbal intelligence or IQ (Petrides et al. 2004). However it has to be remembered that

although personality and temperament certainly influence one’s emotional make-up, it is important to see emotional intelligence as the practice of thinking about feeling and that it is more changeable than personality. (Killick 2006: 11)

Thus, as personality is inborn, it is a permanent characteristic of everyone. On the other hand, it can be assumed that thinking about one’s affectivity is temporary and may derive directly from a given situation, as well as from the past experience and prior knowledge. It will also be shaped by one’s aptitude at the cognitive level for analysis, evaluation and (importantly) prediction – when one needs to apply past experience to one’s present outlook on a given situation (Gabryś-Barker 2011).

8.5 individual differences in affectivity

8.5.1 Personality

The Five Factor Model of Personality

There is no doubt that personality traits have a direct influence on learning processes which in the case of language learning will be really prominent factors, as the target in acquiring language competence is being able to use language as a tool in expressing oneself. The most commonly researched character traits are extroversion and introversion; the results however of these studies are not very conclusive. Extroversion and introversion affect certain areas of language learning success; for example it is generally believed that an extrovert will more easily and successfully develop his/her speaking skills, whereas an introvert will be more accurate in his/her language production.

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McCrae and Costa (2003) offered the Five Factor Model, arguing that the five personality dimensions that are significant in language achievement are agreeableness, extroversion, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. These are a combination of cognitive and affective personality factors.

Table 3 The Five Factor Model (based on McCrae and Costa 2003) Personality trait Description Agreeableness altruism vs egoism, affective vs cold and indifferent, empathetic, compassionate and cooperative vs cynical and un-cooperative Extroversion energetic, enthusiastic, sociable, jolly and involved vs passive, reserved, withdrawn and quiet Openness flexible, creative, stimulated, likes challenges and innovation vs conventional, practical and conservative Conscientiousness in-control of oneself, organised, efficient, focused on planning and self- disciplined vs disorganised, careless, passive, not always working hard and disorganised

Neuroticism high levels of anxiety, emotional negativity, unstable and insecure vs self- confidence, emotionally-controlled and stable

As may be predicted, McCrae and Costa (2003) assume that a successful language learner will possess the following affective characteristics: • being altruistic, affectively-oriented and thus empathetic and compassionate, open to cooperation with others; • being enthusiastic in one’s undertakings and thus active and energetic, flexible and creative, open to new challenges and problem-solving; • being positive and controlling one’s emotions and anxiety levels, and thus self-confident. Certainly it is not a single feature of one’s personality but a combination of them that will be more conducive to success. However it is generally believed that motivation is the strongest predictor of achievement (Tarone and Swierzbin 2009). The construct of personality is a very complex one, not only in terms of number of traits but also their intensity and interrelatedness. This has been thoroughly described in the literature, so only selected personality factors are discussed in more detail in the following sections, specifically anxiety, self- esteem, empathy and (most significant of all) motivation to learn.

Anxiety

One of the major personality traits understood to be conducive to the way we behave is anxiety, seen as the way in which we respond to a situation we perceive

183 Danuta Gabryś-Barker as potentially threatening. Following Pekrun’s (1992) and Kiekolt’s (1994) line of reasoning, Piechurska-Kuciel (2008: 28) describes the experience of anxiety as depending on

the individual’s appraisal of the situation that may be threatening, and their own capacity of dealing with it. […] feelings of anxiety rest on two components: appraisal of events as threatening or non threatening and appraisal of one’s own self-efficacy in dealing with those events.

Anxiety is a complex three-component construct relating to cognition, physiology and behaviour. The cognitive component is manifest in the ways in which a certain situation is perceived and how this perception influences the processing of it and ultimately one’s performance (expecting positive results vs being threatened). The physiological component is observed in the way somebody reacts to the uncertainty of a situation by tensing muscles, uncontrolled movements of limbs, or even panic – resulting in a rapid heart-beat or profuse sweating. These symptoms are mostly observed in negatively assessed situations. The behavioural aspect of anxiety results in an individual using a strategy of avoidance to escape the threat a situation may pose (a subjective assessment of the situation) (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008). It seems from the above that in most cases anxiety will be a negative feeling, however, in the case of some individuals, it is a driving force and lets an individual respond to challenges by “pulling himself/ herself together.” Anxiety may have different causes and consequences and evolves according to individual traits, situational variables and other factors.

Table 4 types of anxiety (based on Piechurska-Kuciel 2008) Type of anxiety Description General (including Refers to responses to all kinds of situations, when threat is anticipated, manifest anxiety) due to previous experience, mostly negative in its symptoms (affective and bodily), there may be no apparent cause for its arousal

Social Anticipation and fear of negative evaluation, may result from a perceived gap between one’s own vs the group’s expectations, expressed as: experience of uneasiness (discomfort) that may result in social avoidance of people and/or certain situations

Performance Connected with social anxiety and fear of speaking (performing in public) and negative evaluation (also of being under-valued and exposed) at each stage: pre-, during- and after-performance

In her presentation of types of anxiety, Piechurska-Kuciel (2008) presents an overview of its typology, and discusses the positive vs negative effects of anxiety. The former is called facilitative anxiety and the latter debilitative (debilitating)

184 CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning anxiety: “Lower levels of anxiety facilitate performance and learning […], higher levels of anxiety have a hindering effect on learning and performance” (2008: 39). Additionally, the author divides anxiety into general (or conceptual), social and performance anxiety (cf. Table 4). Piechurska-Kuciel subsequently looks in more detail at general anxiety and following other psychologists discusses it as state, trait and situational anxiety:

The state type denotes subjective and conscious feelings of apprehension and tension accompanied by stimulation and activation of the autonomous nervous system (Spielberger 1966) […]. State anxiety can also be viewed as a transitory condition of unpleasant, consciously perceived feelings of tension, apprehension and nervousness that vary in intensity and fluctuate in time as a reaction to circumstances that are perceived as threatening (Novy and Nelson 1995). Trait anxiety […] is a theoretical construct designating a motif or required behavioural disposition, due to which a human being perceives a wide variety of objectively unthreatening situations are threatening, which causes their disproportional overreaction to such situations (Spielberger 1966). Situation-specific anxiety signifies a stable trait that defines a likelihood of becoming anxious in particular situations or a single context, where behaviour is seen as a function of a class of external, yet transient factors acting on individuals. (2008: 42–43)

In the context of FL learning the concept of anxiety is often discussed in relation to language anxiety (FLA), which mostly manifest itself in learners’ approaches to listening and to speaking in a foreign language. It is especially speaking that is influenced by fear of one’s negatively evaluated performance or being misunderstood. Obstacles to speaking a FL are numerous and one of them is (FLA), which itself is a complex construct. It is seen as relating to processes involved in oral production (performance), namely: communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation. (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008: 61). A strongly felt FLA is the manifestation of fear of losing face or being misunderstood by interlocutor(s). It may lead to avoidance of communication and thus limiting one’s opportunities for developing speaking skills in a foreign language. Additionally, FLA may result in a low evaluation of one’s language competence (so-called self-perceived language competence) and contribute significantly to a decline in one’s self-esteem.

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Self-esteem, inhibition and empathy

Another set of interrelated personality features that are conducive to being successful are self-esteem, inhibition and empathy. They exhibit different degrees of stability in an individual. Self-confidence may be fairly stable, but it may also vary according to different situations and it may have a direct influence on the inhibitions that one exhibits. Empathy, on the other hand, is considered to be an innate feature of character expressing itself in being more compassionate and understanding than many other people. Coopersmith (1967) pioneered research on self-esteem and offered one of the first definitions of the construct:

By self-esteem we refer to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval, or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capable, significant, successful and worthy.I n short, self- esteem is a personal judgement of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that the individual holds towards himself. (pp. 4–5)

Of course, it cannot be stated for good and all that self-esteem is primary and decides about one’s success, as it is unclear whether success promotes the growth of self-esteem, or whether it is the other way around. In other words, they are interrelated in a complex way (Brown 1994). Since self-esteem is not a stable trait, it is broken down into global, situational and specific self-esteem:

Table 5 Levels of self-esteem (based on Brown 1994) Levels of self-esteem Description Global –– a fairly stable feature at a mature age –– may be influenced by life experiences Situational / specific –– one’s self-assessment in different life situations (home, work, social life) –– focuses on a specific trait (e.g. intelligence, empathy, interactive skills) Task –– appraisal of oneself for a given task (e.g. language performance, sports competition) –– relates to a specific trait (e.g. speaking in a foreign language)

All three levels, global, situational and task self-esteem, were demonstrated to be conducive to success in personal and professional life, including success in second language learning (Gardener and Lambert 1972). Undeniably, self- esteem correlates positively with one’s self-confidence and risk-taking, which

186 CHAPTER 8 Explaining affectivity in second/foreign language learning are good predictors of willingness to try new things and in the case of language learning readiness to experiment with language. Risk-taking allows a learner to look for opportunities to discover language through individually-searched- for exposure to it and its uninhibited use both in the classroom and beyond. However, a word of caution should be expressed here. Too much risk-taking may result in fossilized or incomprehensible language. Speakers with low-self- esteem will not in general be risk-takers, as too much exposure may threaten losing face. The discussion of self-esteem would not be complete if the notion ofinhibition was not mentioned as a trait resulting from self-esteem. It is observed that over the life cycle, we build a set of defences of our individuality (our ego) which acts upon among others, various inhibitions. Brown (1994: 138) states:

The process of building defences continues into adulthood. Some persons – those with high self-esteem and ego strength – are more able to withstand threats to their existence and thus their defences are lower. Those with weaker self-esteem maintain walls of inhibition to protect what is self-perceived to be a weak or fragile ego, or a lack of self-confidence in a situation or task.

The pioneering (and now classic) work of Guira et al. (1972) focused on the language ego. The language ego relates to an individual’s way of second language acquisition and his/her personal response to this process as involving “some degree of identity conflict as language learners take on a new identity with their newly acquitted competence” (Brown 1994: 138). Another affectively-grounded trait is empathy. Like other emotion-based traits, it is not easy to define.I n general terms, empathy means “reaching beyond the self and understanding and feeling what another person is understanding or feeling” (Brown 1994: 143). As language is a tool of communicating, understanding and responding, empathy has to be seen as a significant factor in second/foreign language development. It means that a second language speaker has to be capable of recognising his/her interlocutor both on the level of thinking (ideas) and feeling (emotions). Thus a person who is more empathetic might find it easier to become a successful L2/FL user. The construct of empathy relates directly to ego boundaries:

[…] empathetic individuals have more fluid language ego boundaries – that is, they may be more willing to imagine being someone from the TL community, and more likely to pronounce the new language like them. Learners with less empathy […] may have solidified their native language (L1) ego boundaries and hold on to their native pronunciation patterns, or accents to differentiate themselves from speakers of the TL. (Tarone and Swierzbin 2009: 4)

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Empathy is a social phenomenon, as it expresses itself in social interaction and communication. It also has to be seen as culture-specific because any communication act is grounded in social and cultural norms. Thus awareness of the degree of openness, compassion and understanding that is (un)acceptable in the TL culture becomes an important aspect of developing one’s communicative competence. The inborn trait of empathy may be in conflict with what is acceptable in another cultural context. For example, in Anglo-Saxon cultures less demonstration of empathy is probably expected than in the southern European tradition.

8.5.2 Motivation to learn

Motivation is what is behind all our actions. It is a complex construct with cognitive, affective and pragmatic dimensions, which is defined as “the driving force/s that elicits, perpetuates and maintains goal-oriented behaviour, the reason that individuals do what they do” (Winstanley 2006: 161). Dörnyei and Otto (1998: 65) define motivation in the following way:

The dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritised, operationalised and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out. So in other words, the key factors in defining motivation are choice of an action and ways leading to it, engagement in the action and maintaining persistent effort. The persistence and effort investment and its durability and intensity will come from one’s interest and relevance of the action to individual needs, and what is expected as outcome.

Motivation is explained in psychology as resulting from physiological, psychological and/or behavioural stimuli.

Table 6 different levels of motivational drives (based on Winstanley 2006) Levels Description/examples Physiological primary drives: satisfying individual drives and needs relating to hunger, thirst or sex Behavioural higher level drives socially situated, e.g. working to earn one’s living and being able to satisfy the primary needs Psychological instinctual drives of affiliation (a sense of belonging) and self-actualization in a given situation

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The last two levels, behavioural and psychological, are affectively marked since they relate to relationships with others and our place within a group and appraisal of the situation in terms of our achievement, success and failure. This hierarchical understanding of motivation coincides with Maslow’s pyramid of needs, in which he views motivation as

a construct in which ultimate attainment of goals was possible only by passing through a hierarchy of needs, three of which were solidly grounded in community, belonging, and social status. Maslow saw motivation as dependent on the satisfaction first of fundamental physical necessities (air, water, food), then of community, security, identity, and self-esteem, the fulfilment of which finally leads toself-actualization. (Brown 2000: 161; after Maslow 1970)

In his overview of motivation as a construct, Brown (2000) distinguishes three approaches to its understanding: behaviouristic, cognitive and constructivist. The first one, behaviouristic, follows the perception that every stimulus brings a response, which is to be reinforced to remain significant. Positive reinforcement is a reward, the anticipation of which constitutes a driving force. This approach sees motivation as deriving from external sources. The second one, cognitive, on the other hand, sees motivation as deriving from within, from internal desires to fulfil human needs of a higher order, e.g. exploration and achievement, which are controlled by individual strength and effort. The third one, the constructivist approach, emphasizes the role of context and the social aspects of motivation deriving from acting within a group and participating in its dynamics (structure, roles played, creating one’s status within the group). Here the internal desire to belong and feel secure, but at the same time to achieve some status in a group, are driving forces, internal in nature but deriving from external interactions (Brown 2000). Motivation is not a permanent feature and it may fluctuate depending on a situation, intensity of desire and willingness to invest effort in pursuit of something. It will involve conscious decisions concerning the action to be undertaken on the level of thinking and reasoning, but it will also have a strong affective side to it, in evaluating one’s prospects of success or fear of failure, among other emotions and feelings that accompany any act of behaviour. Dörnyei (2001: 16) believes that:

When we talk about sustained, long-term activities, such as the mastering of a L2, motivation does not remain constant during the course of months or years. Rather, it is characterised by regular (re-)appraisal and balancing of the various internal and external influences to which the individual is exposed.

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The role of internal and external factors in motivation led researchers to dichotomize the construct as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation means that an individual does not expect any kind of external reward for his/her performance (e.g. in the form of grades), but derives pleasure from action (e.g. learning a language) itself. The reward is here internal, “competence and self-determination” (Deci 1975: 23). Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is driven externally and the tangible reward for achievement is its main driving force (e.g. grades, prize or money depending on the context). In terms of effectiveness, numerous studies, both older and more recent, show that intrinsically-oriented learners may be more successful than those externally driven (Bruner 1966, Maslow 1970, Dörnyei 1998, or Brown 1990). Another perspective for looking at types of motivation presents the dichotomy of integrative vs instrumental motivation (Gardner and Lambert 1972), one of the oldest taxonomies. Integrative motivation occurs when the “L2 learner wishes to integrate with the L2 culture (e.g. for immigration or marriage),” and as such it is also intrinsic, whereas when “someone else wishes the L2 learner to know the L2 for integrative reasons” (e.g. parents) (Brown 1994: 156), it is extrinsic. On the other hand, instrumental motivation is intrinsic when “L2 learner wishes to achieve goals utilizing L2 (e.g. for a career)” and it is extrinsic in the case when “External power wants L2 learner to learn L2 (e.g. a corporation sends a Japanese businessman to U.S. for language training” (Garduer and Lambert 1972: 156). Brown (2000) claims that it is the distinction between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that should be applied in the context of language learning and teaching, as it offers clearly definable and relevant to the contexts variables. This was demonstrated by the survey study of Dörnyei and Csiz’er (1998) who investigated Hungarian teachers’ motivations to teach. On the basis of their results, they proposed a classification of motivating factors, which turned out to contain mostly intrinsic types of variables, such as “developing a relationship with learners, building learners’ self-confidence and autonomy, personalizing the learning process, and increasing learners’ goal-orientation” (Brown 2000: 165). Apart form their intrinsic character, they also point to the affective dimension of the teaching-learning process. Additionally to motivation itself, attitude has been considered a significant variable in the learning context, constituting a significant factor in the development of motivation. It is defined as

consistent thoughts or feelings towards a thing, person, object or issue, and is likely to determine how the individual would react towards it. Attitudes often relate to an individual’s belief systems, values and personal “ideals”, and can underpin the value or disregard that an individual may place on particular objects, issues or people. (Winstanley 2006: 35)

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In a revised model of motivation, Tremblay and Gardner (1995) suggest that language attitudes constitute a starting point for the development of motivation. The process follows the sequence “language attitudes – motivational behaviour – achievement” (Dörnyei 2001: 53). Language attitudes include attitudes towards L2 speakers and integrative orientation, general interest in foreign languages but they also relate to the immediate context of instruction, i.e. the L2 course itself and instrumental orientation towards it. This short presentation of motivation would not be complete without mentioning other context theories important for the classroom, namely Achievement Motivation Theory (Atkinson and Raynor 1974), Attribution Theory (Weiner 1992, Graham 1994) and Self-efficacy Theory (Bandura 1993). These theories follow the “expectancy-value framework” (Dörnyei 2001: 20), which places value on two factors: the individual’s expectancy of success in a given task, the value the individual attaches to success in that task. The greater the perceived likelihood of goal-attainment and the greater the incentive value of the goal, the higher the degree of the individual’s positive motivation. The Achievement Theory claims that achievement is attained if there is an expectation of success and the task offers incentive values. It also points out that individuals with a high need for achievement and a low fear of failure will be more likely to succeed. This has obvious implications for classroom instruction, for example it emphasises the need to develop learners’ self- esteem and to implement language goals that will be perceived as relevant for an individual. The theory has also implications for helping every individual to develop a positive perception of their potential. The Attribution Theory, on the other hand, places value on past learning experience and in this way, it comes close to the appraisal systems and their role (discussed later in this chapter). The main assumptions of this theory state that as a consequence of the past, the perception of the present will be strongly influenced by the following factors: an ability to perform a task, the effort invested in it, task difficulty, but also more subjective factors, like perception of one’s luck and mood. It also takes into account externally determined factors, family background and the assistance (or its lack) of others. Dörnyei (2001: 22) comments on the significance of these factors:

Among these, ability and effort have been identified as the most dominant perceived causes in the western culture. Past failure that is ascribed to stable and uncontrollable factors such as low ability (e.g. “I failed because I am stupid”) hinders future achievement behaviour more than failure that is ascribed to unstable and uncontrollable factors (i.e. ones that the learner can change, such as effort, e.g. I “ didn’t pass the test because I hadn’t prepared enough for it”).

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The importance of this theory lies in understanding that learners’ often affective perceptions of themselves will determine their achievements, successes or failures. Developing their awareness of the role of the above variables may become an important way of facilitating their learning. The third theory, Self-efficacy Theory (Bandura 1993) partly replicates the attributions in Weiner’s understanding. It sees learner self-efficacy as deriving from four factors: “previous performance, vicarious learning (i.e. learning through observing models), verbal encouragement by others, one’s physiological reactions (e.g. anxiety)” (Dörnyei 2001: 22). Bandura (1993: 118) himself comments on the above factors:

People make casual contributions to their own functioning through mechanisms of personal agency. Among the mechanisms of agency, none is more central or pervasive than people’s beliefs about their capabilities to exercise control over their own level of functioning or over events that affect their lives. Efficacy beliefs influence how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave.

In the light of this theory, it seems that developing a strong sense of self- efficacy in the classroom will constitute a fair predictor of success. These self- efficacy beliefs are only beliefs and as such they are affective, so not necessarily grounded in reality. They derive from one’s opinions and not facts. Positive feedback from a teacher or peers will be conducive to facilitating self-efficacy of learners. (For a more extensive discussion of motivation and research on motivation, see Dörnyei 2001).

8.6 the role of experience and appraisals

The focus of this section is on appraisals as significant variables in language learning contexts, seen from psychological and neurological perspectives. Schumann (1997) in describing the biological basis of motivation in human activity, in language learning among others, discusses two innate systems operating in a human, those of homeostatic (bodily/survival) and socio-static (interacting with others) regulation that motivate all our actions. As well as innate regulation systems, everyone develops an individual system of somatic values:

[…] through experience in the world, individuals accrue idiosyncratic preferences and aversions, which lead them to like certain things and dislike others […]. The value mechanisms influence the cognition (perception, attention, memory, and action) that is devoted to learning. (Schumann 1997: 2)

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The three values (homeostatic, socio-static and somatic) constitute the so- called emotional memory (Schumann 1997: 36), which gives rise to individual (idiosyncratic) appraisal systems. Since what constitutes the somatic value system is gathered throughout an individual’s experience (e.g. in a learning context), appraisal systems are unique to a given individual and even the same stimulus may activate different appraisals.I n the context of language learning, as Schumann rightly emphasizes, they will determine the approach a learner takes, e.g. towards the teacher, peers, methods, materials – in fact, to all the variables of a learning process, and will “guide our learning and foster the long-term cognitive effort (action tendencies) necessary to achieve high levels of mastery and expertise” (Schumann 1997: 36). Other researchers in the area, Smith and Lazarus (1993: 234), define/ characterize appraisals as:

[…] an evaluation of what one’s relationship to the environment implies for personal well-being. Each positive emotion is said to be produced by a particular kind of appraised benefit, and each negative emotion by a particular kind of appraised harm. The emotional response is hypothesized to prepare and mobilize the person to cope with the particular appraised harm or benefit in an adaptive manner, that is, to avoid, minimize, or alleviate an appraised harm, or to seek, maximize, or maintain an appraised benefit. Whether a particular set of circumstances is appraised as harmful or beneficial depends, in part, on the person’s specific configuration of goals, and beliefs.A ppraisal thus serves the important mediational role of linking emotional responses to environmental circumstances on the one hand, and personal goals and beliefs on the other.

So to conclude, appraisals are understood as values held by an individual that activate some kind of response (positive vs negative) depending on the characteristics of appraisals made. Various theories categorize criteria of appraisals differently (e.g. those of Scherer 1984, Frijda 1993 and Clore 1994). Here the taxonomy of appraisals according to Scherer (2001) is presented, as it is one of the major models of stimulus appraisal related directly to the motivational dimension of undertaking an action (for example to perform a language task). Scherer (2001) proposes the following factors in appraisal. Various studies use Scherer’s appraisal checks to measure different emotions (e.g. fear or anger) by means of closed-type questionnaires or computer simulations (Scherer 1993). In psychological studies of appraisal systems the research tools employed are learner appraisal questionnaires, introspective diary studies and learner biographies (see e.g. Schumann 1997). They give verbal evidence of the appraisal variables and their evaluation in creating motivations and approaches to learning, idiosyncratically grounded in one’s own person, and

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Table 7 appraisals according to Scherer (2001)

Appraisal value Focus Novelty a degree of familiarity of the stimulus (task/data/action to be undertaken) Intrinsic pleasantness how pleasant is the stimulus which will determine the approach to it (indulgence vs avoidance) Goal/need significance evaluation of how relevant, significant and immediate the stimulus (task/action) is for an individual Coping potential the check of one’s ability of coping or changing the stimulus to adjust to one’s potential Norm/self compatibility evaluation of the social/cultural appropriacy of the stimulus past and present observable context determined by an individual system of values. Thus they contribute to our understanding of which feelings and emotions contribute positively/negatively to a learning task (or any other behaviour). It is clear from the above presentation of appraisal systems that although emotionally-driven they have a cognitive dimension also in that they consider: • goal relevance for an individual • compatibility with one’s goals • preference to perform certain actions in a specific context (involvement vs avoidance). So emotion is not devoid of cognition. By studying the localization and type of brain activation in the process of appraisal, this relation may be uncovered as the appraisal systems (like any other activity) are stored and recalled by certain neural mechanisms of brain operations in processing the stimulus/data. It is neurolinguistic studies that can offer an explanation of appraisal systems and the relation between affective and cognitive functioning. Their relevance for educational contexts should not therefore be neglected. The stimulus one is exposed to enters the brain first through the areas responsible for emotions and thus it is the affective filter that responds to cognitive in nature stimuli (described in a greatly simplified way). In more detail, Paradis (2004: 24) recapitulates:

A neural mechanism consisting of the amygdala, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex the nucleus accumbens, the dopamime system and the peripheral nervous system assesses the motivational relevance and emotional significance of stimuli such as desirability of L2 (Schumann 1990, 1998). Inputs to the orbital cortex and the amygdala allow these brain structures to evaluate reward value for incoming stimuli.

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Schumann (1997) clearly sees the relation between motivation and appraisal systems constituting a generative mechanism for motivation. However, he also emphasizes the role of one’s contextual adaptation, (partly) irrespective of past experience and degree of open-mindedness as significant variables in one’s goal achievement. Additionally, Schumann (1997) believes that the relative plasticity of the prefrontal areas of the brain contribute to possible adjustments of the appraisals systems. These evaluations and adjustments are based on the appraisal systems and relate to various features such as pleasantness, individual needs and coping potential, among many others. The neural mechanism explains then why variability in L2 achievement is commonly observed in the context of L2 acquisition/learning, as it relates directly to this emotional appraisal of the stimulus in a given learning context. This is the clearest proof for what was more or less intuitively proposed by psychology and consequently by language instruction theories, namely the importance of the affective domain and more precisely, motivation in a language learning environment. So we are bound to accept the view that all human actions are directed by appraisal systems and values either accepted and as a consequence directing one’s actions, or rejected and as a consequence leading to avoidance of certain actions by an individual.

8.7 conclusions

Affectivity is basic to all our behaviour, thus necessary to take into consideration in describing learning processes. Despite individual personality traits discussed earlier in this chapter, it is also important to bear in mind that our learners function in a certain context. Language learning that occurs at school needs to be embedded in a context conducive to positive affective states. As Dufeu (1994: 89–90) puts it, it is important to inculcate an appropriate affective climate in a classroom: “[…] one has to create a climate of acceptance that will stimulate self-confidence, and encourage participants to experiment and to discover the target language, allowing themselves to take risks without feeling embarrassed.” Affectivity in language learning is a very complex dimension of this process. The overview presented here is by no means exhaustive.C ertain areas have not even been touched upon. They are for example: –– on the level of an individual: becoming aware and recognizing one’s emotions, finding ways of dealing with them (coping strategies), appropriate tools used for this purpose (diary, cooperation); learning styles and their affective dimensions (e.g. tolerance of ambiguity); –– on the group level: group dynamics and its role in the affective dimension of learning a language, ways of developing positive group dynamics.

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Also it is the case that there are two agents in the classroom. Learners and teachers cannot pass unnoticed in the discussion of affectivity in learning contexts. The affectivity of a learner has been discussed in this chapter at some length. However, a separate discussion could be presented on teacher affectivity, as teachers also “tend to have emotional reactions during teaching-learning situations” and “the affective dimension is integral to reflective thinking and teaching” (Stanley 1999: 123).

References

Arnold, J. (ed.) 1999. Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atkinson, J.W., and J.O. Raynor (eds.) 1974. Motivation and achievement. Washington, D.C.: Winston and Sons. Bandura, A. 1993. “Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning”. Educational Psychologist 28: 117–148. Ben-Ze’ev, A. 2000. The Subtlety of Emotions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Berkowitz, L. 2000. Causes and Consequences of Feelings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l‘Home. Brown, H.D. 1990. “MandMs for language classrooms? Another look at motivation”. In Alatis, J.E. (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics 1990. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 383–393. Brown, H.D. 1994. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. 2nd edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Brown, H.D. 2000. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 4th edn. New York: Pearsons Longman. Bruner, J. 1966. Toward a Theory of Instruction.N ew York: W.W. Norton. Clore, G.L. 1994. “Why emotions require cognition”. In P. Ekman and R.J. Davidson (eds.), The Nature of Emotion. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 181–191. Coopersmith, S. 1967. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem.S an Francisco: Freeman and Co. Deci, E. 1975. Intrinsic Motivation. New York: Plenum Press. Dörnyei, Z. 2001. Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Longman/ Pearson Education. Dörnyei, Z. 2002. “The motivational basis for language learning tasks”. In P. Robinson (ed.), Individual Differences and Instructed Language Learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 137–158.

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Dörnyei, Z., and K. Csizer 1998. “Ten commandments for motivating language learners: Results of and empirical study”. Language Teaching Research 2: 203–229. Dörnyei, Z., and I. Otto 1998. “Motivation in action: A process model of L2 motivation”. Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4. London: Thames Valley University, pp. 43–69. Dufeu, B. 1994. Teaching Myself. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Efklides, A., and S. Volet (eds.) 2005. “Feelings and emotions in the learning process (Special issue)”. Learning and Instruction 15: 415–431. Fredrickson, B.L. 1998. “What good are positive emotions?” Review of General Psychology 2: 300–319. Frijda, N.H. 1993. “The place of appraisal in emotion”.Cognition and Emotion 7: 357–387. Gabriel, G. 2000. “What is emotional intelligence?” Available at: www.alite. co.uk/readings/brain_and_mind (accessed 21.10. 2006). Gabryś-Barker, D. 2010. “Emotion versus cognition, or what psycho and neurolinguistics tell us about affectivity in second language acquisition”. In J. Arabski and A. Wojtaszek (eds.), Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives on SLA. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 44–63. Gabryś-Barker, D. (in press). “The affective dimension in multilinguals’ language learning”. A paper delivered at ICSFLA, University of Silesia, Szczyrk, May 2011. Gardner, R., and W. Lambert 1972. Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers. Goleman, D. 1998. Working with Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury. Graham, S. 1994. “Classroom motivation from an attributional perspective”. In H.F. O‘Neill Jr. and M. Drillings (eds.), Motivation: Theory and research. Hillsdale, New York. Erlbaum, pp. 31–48. Guiora, A., R. Brannon and C. Dull 1972. “Empathy and second language learning”. Language Learning 22: 111–130. Kiecotl, K.J. 1994. “Stress and the decision to change oneself: A theoretical model”. Social Psychology Quarterly 57: 49–63. Killick, S. 2006. Emotional Literacy at the Heart of the School Ethos. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Krathwohl, D.R., B. Bloom and B. Masia 1964. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Handbook H: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay. Larsen-Freeman, D. 1986. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press. LeDoux, J. 1996. The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Manolopoulou-Sergi, E. 2004. “Motivation within the information processing model of foreign language learning”. System 32: 427–441. Maslow, A. 1970. Motivation and Personality. 2nd edn. New York: Harper and Row. McCrae, R.R., and P.T. Costa Jr. 2003. Personality in Adulthood: A Five-factor Theory Perspective. 2nd edn. New York: Guildford Press. Novy, D.M., and D.V. Nelson 1995. “Psychometric comparability of the English and Spanish-language version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory”. Hispanic Journal of Behavioural Sciences 17: 209–225. Paradis, M. 2004. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Perkun, R. 1992. “Expectancy-value theory of anxiety: Overview and implications”. In D. Forgays and T. Sosnowski (eds.), Anxiety. Recent Development in Cognitive, Psychological and Health Research. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere, pp. 23–39. Pekrun, R., T. Goetz and W. Titz 2002. “Academic emotions in students’ self- regulated learning and achievement: a program of qualitative and quantitative research”. Educational Psychologist 37: 91–105. Petrides, K.V., and N. Frederickson 2004. “Emotional intelligence”. The Psychologist 17: 574–577. Piechurska-Kuciel, E. 2008. Language Anxiety. Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. Rogers, C. 1969. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill. Rolls, E.T. 1999. The Brain and Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scherer, K.R. 1984. “Emotion as multi-component process: A model and some cross-cultural data”. In P. Shaver (ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology: Vol. 5. Emotions, Relationships and Health. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 37–63. Scherer, K.R. 1993. “Studying the emotion-antecedent process: An expert system approach”. Cognition and Emotion 7: 325–355. Scherer, K.R. 2001. “Appraisal considered as a process of multi-level sequential checking”. In K.R. Scherer, A. Schorr and T. Johnstone (eds.), Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 92–120. Schumann, J.H. 1990. “The role of the amygdala as a mediator of affect and cognition in second language acquisition”. In J.E. Alatis (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 169–176. Schumann, J.H. 1997. The Neurobiology of Affect in Language. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Schumann, J.H. 1998. “The neurobiology of affect in language”. Language Learning 48, Supplement 1: 313–319. Smith, C.A., and R.S. Lazarus 1993. “Appraisal components, core relational themes, and emotions”. Cognition and Emotion 7: 233–269. Spielberger, C.D. 1966. “Theory and research of anxiety”. In Idem (ed.), Anxiety and Behavoiur. New York: Academic Press, pp. 3–25. Stanley, C. 1999. “Learning to think, feel and teach reflectively”.I n J. Arnold (ed.), Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, pp. 109–124. Tarone, E., and B. Swierzbin 2009. Exploring Learner Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tremblay, P.F., and R.C. Gardner 1995. “Expanding the motivation construct in language learning”. Modern Language Journal 79: 505–520. Weiner, B. 1992. Human Motivation. Metaphors, Theories and Research. Newbury Park, CA.: Sage. Winstanley, J. 2006. Key Concepts in Psychology, London: Palgrave McMillan.

Danuta Gabryś-Barker

Rola sfery emocjonalnej w uczeniu się języka obcego

Streszczenie

Rozdział ukazuje rolę, jaką odgrywa sfera emocji w uczeniu się języka obcego, a tak- że relacje między emocjami i kognitywną sferą funkcjonowania człowieka, wskazując prymarną rolę afektu. Zależności przedstawione zostały w świetle badań psycholingwi- stycznych i neurolingwistycznych. Omówiono również poszczególne cechy składające się na charakterystykę emocjonalną człowieka oraz cechy osobowości, np. samoświa- domość i samoocenę, poczucie bezpieczeństwa i motywację do działania. Każda z tych cech przedstawiona jest w kontekście uczenia się języka obcego oraz jej wpływu na sukces bądź porażkę. Rozdział ukazuje również przykładowe rozwiązania pedagogicz- ne służące rozwojowi sfery emocjonalnej ucznia, szczególnie w kontekście nauczania języka obcego.

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Danuta Gabryś-Barker

Die Rolle der emotionalen Sphäre beim Fremdsprachenlernen

Zusammenfassung

Das Kapitel schildert die Rolle der emotionalen Sphäre bei dem Fremdsprachen- lernen. Im Lichte psycholinguistischer und neurolinguistischer Untersuchungen zeigt die Verfasserin die Zusammenhänge zwischen Emotionen und der kognitiven Sphäre des menschlichen Lebens, und deutet dabei auf eine primäre Rolle des Affektes hin.S ie bespricht die einzelnen Merkmale des emotionalen Charakterzugs des Menschen, z.B.: Selbstbewusstsein und Selbsteinschätzung, Sicherheitsgefühl und Arbeitsmotivation. Jedes Merkmal ist im Kontext des Fremdsprachenunterrichts und dessen Einflusses auf Erfolg oder Misserfolg betrachtet. In dem Kapitel findet man auch Beispiele für solche pädagogische Maßnahmen, die der Weiterentwicklung von der emotionalen Sphäre des Schülers im Fremdsprachenunterricht behilflich sein können. CHAPTER 9

Gender differences in language acquisition and learning

Janusz Arabski

9.1 introduction

There is a lot of evidence showing that females outperform males in various language skills, in different aspects of language use, in foreign language learning and second language acquisition. In this chapter we would like to present traditional views on the subject and confront them with the new opinions and methods concerning research, as well as studies on gender differences in language acquisition and language learning. The studies on language and gender are conducted from the following three perspectives: 1. How is gender represented in language? 2. What are the differences between the language of males and females and what language is used when we address men and what language is used when addressing women? 3. What are the differences in language aptitude between males and females; who acquires first language and learns foreign language better and faster?

Representation of gender in a given language reflects the traditional attitudes of its speakers passed on from generation to generation. In every language males are represented in a more positive way than females (Karwatowska and Szpyra- Kozłowska 2005: 14). In Polish, e.g. most words for positions or professions have only masculine forms like szofer, górnik or dziekan. In English similarly congressman, and many other names with the morpheme -man do not have feminine counterparts. There is of course a new tendency to coin neuter forms

201 Janusz Arabski in English, e.g. chairperson (instead of chairman), and feminine ones in Polish, e.g. ministra for a lady minister. Certain occupations or features are associated with a given gender. In Polish męski has a positive meaning – męski charakter, męska decyzja – and the adjective denoting female provides negative connotations: babskie gadanie, babska ciekawość; chłopski rozum but babska logika. In English, as in Polish, certain professions or positions are associated with a given gender. Professor and doctor with a man, and singer with a woman. Killer, robber, criminal, and jerk are associated with men. Genius is always masculine. Our concern here is point 2 and 3 above. We are going to present the results of studies concerning the differences between language of males and females and then discuss those differences in the context of acquisition and learning. This presentation includes the findings of our earlier publications (Arabski 1999, 2009, 2012).

9.2 gender vs language use

9.2.1 Defining gender

Gender is understood here as a social construct, something we learn throughout our whole life. People are not strictly masculine or feminine; in fact we are a combination of many characteristics that could be considered as either, or both, masculine and feminine. Gender is not something we are, but something we do. Sex, by contrast, is biologically based and is related to genes, hormones and anatomy.

9.2.2 Differences between female and male language (an overview of studies)

Females are traditionally known to use different language than males. The cognitive differences between males and females and different social roles which they have played result in their verbal abilities and the language they use. Language and gender studies can be traced back to the 1920s when the first piece in linguistics regarding “women’s language” was published by Otto Jespersen. He described women’s vocabulary as less extensive, and attributed more genius and greater variability to men. According to him females’ speech was just a deviant form of the average male speaking patterns. In other words, women’s speech was held to be deficient when compared with the male “norm”. His claims are undoubtedly grounded in the prevailing gender ideologies of his time.

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A new approach and opinions are represented by Robin Lakoff (1973), who also considered women’s speech as weak in comparison with men. She argued that gender inequity in women’s use of language stemmed not from inherent biological or mental deficiency but rather from their marginalization in society.I n other words, females’ language was deficient because their position in society was so. According to Lakoff, females: • Hedge: using phrases like “sort of,” “kind of,” “it seems like,” etc. • Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind…,” “I’d appreciate it if…,” “…if you don’t mind.” • Use tag questions: “You’re going to dinner, aren’t you?” • Speak in italics: using intonational emphasis equal to underlining words – so, very, quite. • Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, etc. • Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation, English prestige grammar and clear enunciation. • Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often. • Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports. • Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. • Use wh- imperatives: (such as, “Why don’t you watch this film?”) • Speak less frequently. • Overuse qualifiers: (for example: I “ think that…”) • Apologize more: (for instance, “I’m sorry, but I think that…”) • Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought – “Should we turn up the heat?”) • Avoid coarse language or expletives. • Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn’t it cold in here?” – really a request to turn the heat on or close a window). • Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I’m so glad you came!”, “He is very nice!”) • Women don’t tell jokes (Jenkins, 1986; Painter, 1980). Coates (1993) describes the ways in which women and men differ in their sense of what is appropriate for them as speakers (communicative competence). She has surveyed many works that have been done in this area and her findings are as follows (Coates: 1993: 106–140): • In mixed sex conversations men interrupt more and use more overlaps, indicating a lack of understanding or interest. Men tend to violate turn-taking rules in conversation and try to dominate it. Silence is used by men to keep up their dominance.

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• Contrary to myth, men have been shown to talk more than women in social settings. The evidence is that women and men tend to discuss different topics. Women choose topics such as children and personal relationships and men prefer to talk about sport, politics and cars. • Women’s speech is often described as “tentative” and this is linked to the claim that they use more hedges – linguistic forms such as I think, I’m sure, sort of and perhaps. • Women use questions and tag-questions more often than men to keep conversation going. • While giving directives women phrase them as proposals for joint action, e.g. well, let’s make that our plan, while men prefer to use aggravated forms, such as imperatives. • Men are reported to use swear words, taboo language, and non-standard grammar more often than women. • Women give and receive more compliments than men. • Women’s speech is more collaborative than competitive in style. Men’s speech shows reverse tendencies. One of the interpretations of the differences between genders in language use is the isolation of women, who traditionally stayed at home and did not have language contacts as intensely as working men did. Chambers (1995) gives a lot of examples of isolation or mobility which are responsible for variants among contiguous social groups in contemporary Western society. Mobility is responsible for language change and isolation for the preservation of traditional forms, e.g. dialects which have survived in complete isolation. Another sociolinguistic explanation of the linguistic differences between men and women in the New York area studied by Labov (1972: 301–304) is “a special sensitivity” represented by women. It is women who assist the language acquisition of their children most directly and who therefore are more sensitive to language use. He also claims that women of the same area speak with “hypercorrection” (Labov 1966). According to Trudgill (1972: 182–183):

Women in our society are more status-conscious than men, generally speaking, and are therefore more aware of the social significance of linguistic variables. There are two possible reasons for this: (i) The social position of women in our society is less secure than that of men, and, usually, subordinate to that of men. It may be, therefore, that is more necessary for women to secure and signal their social status linguistically and in other ways, and they may for this reason be more aware of the importance of this type of signal. (This will be particularly true of women who are not working.)

204 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning (ii) Men in our society can be rated socially by their occupation, their earning power, and perhaps by their other abilities – in other words by what they do. For the most part, however, this is not possible for women. It may be, therefore, that they have instead to be rated on how they appear. Since they are not rated by their occupations or by their occupational success, other signals of status, including speech, are correspondingly more important.

According to (Chambers 1995: 133), the interpretation of hypercorretion and face-saving is that women compensate in this way for shortcomings of a social nature. The empirical evidence shows women to be better performers in the whole spectrum of sociolinguistic situations, i.e. linguistic variants and repertoire. Besides, women also show an advantage over men in fluency, speaking sentence complexity, analogy, and listening comprehension of written and spoken texts (Maccoby and Jacklin 1974: 75–85). This results then in their sociolinguistic superiority. A more sophisticated typology is offered by Deborah Tannen (1990) who presents male and female language characteristics in a series of six contrasts. These are: • status vs support • independence vs intimacy • advice vs understanding • information vs feelings • orders vs proposals • conflict vs compromise.

Status vs support Men see the world as a place where speech is used to build status. Women, in contrast, perceive the world as a network of social connections and try to find consensus rather than triumph. Independence vs intimacy Women seem to think in terms of closeness and support; they are concerned with an attempt to gain and preserve intimacy. By contrast men, who are concerned with status, tend to focus more on independence. Advice vs understanding Women seek sympathy and comfort for their problems, while men will automatically look for a solution to the problem. Information vs feelings Men’s conversation is message orientated, based upon communicating information. For women, conversation is much more important for building relationships and maintaining social links. Men seem to focus on the brevity of

205 Janusz Arabski speech and the aspect of exchanging information, while women value sharing of emotion and commenting on feelings. Orders vs proposals Men prefer to hear and use direct imperatives, like close the door, switch on the light. Women, by contrast, prefer to use indirect and superpolite forms, for instance let’s, would you mind if…? Conflict vs compromise Women are more likely to avoid fights and conflicts by refusing to oppose, even if they do not get what they expected. Men seem to be much more prepared to argue their preferences even at the risk of conflict. The differences can be summarized as follows: Women: • Establish intimacy and community • Talk too much • Speak in private contexts • Build relations • Overlap. • Speak symmetrically Men: • Establish status and power • Get more air time • Speak in public • Negotiate status/avoid failure • Speak one at a time • Speak asymmetrically.

The large body of literature on sex differences in verbal ability conveys the opinion that females are better in this respect than males and that they outperform males in many language functions. This includes language acquisition.

9.2.3 Biological and cognitive gender differences in language abilities

The differences between the genders resulting in language abilities including better acquisition could also be caused by biological and cognitive differences. Females have more bilateral brains than males. This means that they use both hemispheres when undertaking certain cognitive tasks. Many studies suggest that the corpus callosum, the thick bundle of nerves that allows the right half of the brain to communicate with the left, is relatively larger in women than in men. If size really corresponds to function, the better communication between the hemispheres might explain women’s greater ability to read and express emotional clues. In men the functional division between the left and the right

206 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning hemispheres is more clearly defined and the hemispheres are connected by a smaller number of nerves. The flow of information between the emotional side of the brain and the verbal one is possibly more restricted and men thus find it more difficult to express their emotions. Specialists speculate that the greater communication between the two sides of the brain could impair women’s performance on certain visual-spatial tasks. For example, the ability to tell directions on a map without rotating it appears to be weaker in women, whose brains try to control the process by two hemispheres, while men restrict the process to the right hemisphere. As far as verbal fluency is concerned, women’s superiority may be explained by the fact that they have a greater capacity than men to integrate information from the emotional and spatial side of the brain with that from the verbal side. Female speech appears to be enhanced by input from various cerebral regions, especially those that control vision and feelings. This greater access to the brain’s imagery may help explain why girls often begin speaking earlier than boys and develop a larger vocabulary. It has to be mentioned, though, that boys often catch up with their female peers in secondary school and some of them are better at verbal tasks. The spatial, mathematical/quantitative and linguistic categories of intellectual abilities are the three ability factors in which sex differences are most frequently reported. Baker, as noted by Halpern (1992: 62), discusses numerous sex differences in each of the sensory systems. She documents that in hearing, for example, females are better at detecting pure tones (tones of one frequency) during childhood and later. As far as vision is concerned, males under the age of forty have better dynamic visual acuity (ability to detect small movements in the visual field).S he also mentions sex differences in taste, in touch and in perception ranging from binaural beats (an auditory phenomenon) to visual acuity. Halpern (1992: 66) reviews a number of studies done on age trends in verbal abilities. The general findings of the research done among English speaking children are as follows: • Girls produce longer utterances at younger ages. • Girls produce more varied constructions, e.g. passive voice, truncated passive, participles. • Girls make fewer errors in language use overall. • Girls have larger vocabularies at earlier ages than boys. • Girls are better in reading processes. The results of a large-scale longitudinal study done by Martin and Hoover (1987) show that girls scored higher on tests of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, language use, reference materials, and reading comprehension. The established opinion that females outperform males in language functions was critized as early as in 1974 by Maccoby and Jacklin. They found that the

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“classic” studies of child language development which demonstrated sex difference in language development in the first years of life were based on very small samples, where differences would not even reach statistical significance in large samples. They concluded, on the basis of a large number of studies on pre-school children that had been conducted up to the time of their review, that no consistently significant sex differences in linguistic abilities were found in children of that age. Research on children in their early school years through to early adolescence was, according to Maccoby and Jacklin (1974), more easily reviewed, because studies used larger samples and more standardized measures of language ability. The conclusion they reached with regard to that literature was that there was no evidence of sex difference in verbal ability until about age ten or eleven. They concluded:

for large unselected populations the situation seems to be one of very little sex differences in verbal skill from about 3 to 11, with a new phase of differentiation occurring at adolescence. (Maccoby and Jacklin 1974: 85)

This view was then supported by Halpern (1986: 47):

Although verbal sex differences favouring girls in early childhood may be somewhat tenuous, they emerge clearly at adolescence and continue into old age.

9.2.4 Sound production differences between male and female speakers

Language abilities which are natural, untrained and without any educational bias are presented in our study on differences between young, eight-year-old males and females in foreign sounds production (Arabski 2009). The subjects were 40 eight-year-old primary school pupils (20 girls and 20 boys), native speakers of Polish, who were asked to repeat after hearing the following items recorded by an American native speaker.

Table 1 tested items

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 pat rib gate teethe today bat dip Kate tang thane 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 tip mug ridge baths mesh shot veal cloth cause dove tip mug

208 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning

The aim of the study was to find out about the differences between young pre-pubescent males and females in foreign sound production. All the subjects had been exposed to English for about five months before the recordings. They took English as their first grade curriculum subject with the same teachers and the same amount of instruction time – two hours a week. We were expecting the following pronunciation problems in the above 20 items: 1. pat aspiration, /æ/ 2. rib r, final voiced /b/ 3. gate minimal pair with Kate 4. teethe aspiration, final voiced // 5. today // 6. bat /æ/, minimal pair with pat 7. dip minimal pair with tip 8. Kate aspiration 9. tang aspiration, // 10. thane initial /θ/ 11. ridge r, final palatalized /d/ 12. baths final /θs/ 13. mesh final palatalized /∫/ 14. shot initial palatalized /∫/ 15. veal final /l/ 16. cloth final /θ/ 17. cause aspiration 18. dove final voiced /v/ 19. tip tip intonation (rising) 20. mug mug final voiced /g/, intonation (falling) The number of correct repetitions is given inT able 2. Aspiration was measured by Praat 4.6.18 speech-analysis software and the results of the analysis are presented after the following tables (Table 2 and Table 3).

Table 2 number of correct repetitions (productions)

Number of repetitions Tested items Males Females 1 2 3 4 æ – 60 (1) pat 6 7 (2) bat 6 4 (9) tang 4 6 total 16 17

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cont. tab. 2. 1 2 3 4  – 20 (5) to-day 15 16 r – 40 (2) rib 5 3 (11) ridge 4 1 total 9 4  – 20 (9) tang 6 10 Final voiced – 100 (2) rib 11 12 (4) teeth 2 4 (17) cause 4 6 (18) dove 4 4 (20) mug 7 6 total 28 32 Palatalization – 60 (11) ridge 4 3 (13) mesh 7 6 (14) shot 8 11 total 19 21 Initial /θ/ – 20 (10) thane 2 6 Final /θs/ – 20 (12) baths 4 6 Final /l/ – 20 (15) veal 0 2 Rising intonation – 20 (19) tip 19 17 tip Falling intonation – 20 (20) mug 18 12 mug

The results of the study show that the differences between genders in the investigated skill are almost non-existent (2%). It seems that the eight-year-olds have not yet acquired the language roles characteristic of mature males and females. They have not acquired any strategies to deal with the language input they are exposed to. The differences between genders may not exist at that age yet.

9.2.5 Sociolinguistic perspective on gender differences in language use

The next group of objections concerning the opinion that females outperform males in language functions comes from sociolinguists. It concerns the environment of second language acquisition and foreign language learning. According to Ehrlich (2001: 105), who presents a historical overview of research that has investigated the relationship between gender and second language acquisition:

210 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning

Such research… has not acknowledged the complexity of gender as a social construct and thus has simplified and overgeneralized the relationship between gender and language acquisition.

She illustrates her claim by the ethnographic study (Siegel 1994: 648) of four white Western women in Japan, learners of Japanese who improperly used honorifics and sentence-final pragmatic particles associated with Japanese women’s language. The reason was “their resistance to adopting what they perceive as an overly humble, overly silly Japanese feminine identity.” While linguistic simplification is a universal property of learners’ , the particular kind of linguistic simplification displayed by these female learners of Japanese resulted from their distaste for Japanese constructions of femininity as manifested in Japanese women’s speech styles. That is, viewing social factors as an analytic category that alters a “normal” trajectory of second language development misses the fact that learners are always situated by age, race, class, and gender and that these social locations permeate the learning process. The language of males or females from a sociolinguistic perspective has to be considered as a linguistic variable. Another example of gender as a secondary criterion of successful language acquisition is described by Ellis (1994: 204).

Asian men in Britain generally attain higher levels of proficiency in L2E nglish than do Asian women for the simple reason that their jobs bring them into contact with the majority English-speaking group, while women are often ‘enclosed’ in their home.

In the new studies on gender differences in language acquisition and learning the above methodological objections encouraged researchers to look for gender-related characteristics of learners and not only for innate gender characteristics.

9.2.6 Internal and external gender-related characteristics related to language use

Current research suggests that adult women do not have a richer vocabulary nor higher verbal intelligence though they are better at spelling, and have a higher verbal fluency understood as generating words beginning or ending with a specific letter. Most important for the purpose of the present discussion, they consistently do better than men on tests of verbal memory (Kimura 2006). In school conditions girls outperform boys in linguistic abilities. There is a lot of evidence that females are more successful language learners than males.

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This evidence comes from tests results and all kinds of achievement measures. In connection with this the following three areas seem to be problematic for researchers; namely, a) whether males perform better than females during standardized, single performances, b) whether it is females who are better in such cases, or c) whether females score higher on measures of achievement constituting long-term assessment (as, for example, final grades). The source of these discrepancies in opinion lies in the fact that single performances are more prone to fluctuations resulting from test bias (e.g. topic selection), anxiety, and time limitations. All of these factors may differently affect males and females. On the other hand, achievement measures (e.g. final grades) may in fact take into consideration criteria other than a summary of scores during single performances. These other criteria may include, for instance, the “class participation” grade. This may be of advantage to female learners, who are more likely to participate actively during the class. Girls in general are liked more by teachers since it is easier to work with them. They are more disciplined and they accept school with its rules and regulations more willingly than boys. The achievement measures are therefore not fully reliable sources of information which might justify the conclusion that it is natural aptitude that makes females more successful than males in language abilities. These other factors which happen to go with gender are also seen in the results of a study by Piasecka (2010) on gender differences with respect to reading in a foreign language. They include reading preferences, attitudes to reading, use of computers, use of dictionaries, and specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia). These are gender-related features, components of reading aptitude which are responsible for differences between males and females in reading abilities (discussed in section 9.2.7).

9.2.7 Gender-determined strategy use in language learning

Wallentin (2009) after analysing over 140 publications on sex differences in verbal abilities, claims, among other things:

[…] it is important to stress that most language-processes are highly complex, and thus there may be more than one cognitive strategy for solving many language-related tasks […]. Sex differences may exist in the choice of strategy for certain tasks along with other socio-demographic variables, such as age, level of education and previous exposure.

Indeed the difference between males and females in the application and use of learning strategies was convincingly seen in the results of our study, “Gender

212 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning

Differences in Language LearningS trategy Use” (Arabski 1999). We investigated and wanted to show the differences between males and females in terms of their reliance on and use of learning strategies in the process of foreign language learning in a school setting. The subjects were 30 girls and 30 boys from the final grade of secondary school (eighteen years old) in Katowice, Poland. They were students of an intensive English program consisting of 5–6 hours per week for the previous four years. All the students were native speakers of Polish. The subjects were to identify strategies that they used in learning English. We used Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) by Oxford (1990) for this purpose. The students were to answer questions listed in SILL to identify strategies that they had used in learning English. Our data provides evidence that a majority of strategies are used more often by girls than by boys. Only four strategies out of fifty were used more often by boys than by girls (nos. 19, 27, 39, 41), but the difference between the two groups in this respect was not statistically significant. These strategies are: (19) analyzing contrastively (“I look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in English”). (27) Reading without looking up every word (“I read English without looking up every new word”). (39) using relaxation (“I try to relax whenever I feel afraid of using English”). (41) Rewarding yourself (“I give myself a reward or treat when I do well in English”). There are 30 strategies fromO xford (1990) list in which a significant statistical difference appeared and all were used more often by the female group: A. Memory Strategies 1. associating/elaborating 5. using rhyming 6. using pictures 8. Reviewing 9. Remembering location B. Cognitive Strategies 10. Repeating 11. imitating native speakers 12. Practising with sounds 14. starting conversations in English 15. Watching TV/Going to movies 16. Reading for pleasure 18. skimming 20. Recognizing and using formulas and patterns 23. summarizing

213 Janusz Arabski

C. Compensation Strategies 25. using mime or gesture 26. coining new words D. Metacognitive Strategies 30. Looking for various ways to use English 32. Paying attention 33. finding out about language learning 34. Planning for a language task 35. Looking for practice opportunities (speaking) 36. Looking for practice opportunities (reading) 37. setting goals and objectives 38. self-evaluating E. Affective Strategies 42. Listening to your body 43. Writing a language learning diary 44. discussing your feelings with someone else F. Social Strategies 46. asking for correction 48. cooperating with proficient users of the new language 50. developing cultural understanding. The biggest difference between males and females is manifested by the following nine strategies. In their case the mean difference between the two groups ranges from 1.0 to 1.2. The strategy numbers are given in brackets and p value is 0.00. 1. (6) using pictures 1.1 2. (8) Reviewing 1.2 3. (10) Repeating 1.0 4. (12) Practising with sounds 1.0 5. (25) using mime or gestures 1.0 6. (33) finding out about language learning 1.1 7. (44) discussing your feelings with someone else 1.0 8. (46) asking for correction 1.0 9. (50) developing cultural understanding 1.1 According to Wenden (1991: 18), learning strategies are “mental steps or operations that learners use to learn a new language and to regulate their effort to do so.” They are abilities which have been acquired through training and they are responsible for success in the language learning process.

9.2.8 Gender differences in reading

Gender differences in L1 and L2 reading were investigated by Piasecka (2010). The participants of the study were 152 girls and 163 boys, at the age of fifteen,

214 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning secondary school students. In her study the girls show a statistically significant advantage on all the measures related to school success. They read better in both languages, they show a higher level of language aptitude and they obtain higher grades for language subjects than boys. Academically they are more successful than boys, as rendered by the mean general average grade. This does not mean that the boys in the study are not successful. They are – a general average grade of 4.25 implies a better than B level of school achievement. Other gender differences were found with respect to leisure activities, attitude to reading and reading preferences, the use of dictionaries, the use of computers and learning difficulties. The girls prefer spending their free time meeting friends and family, reading, watching TV, using the Internet, developing their own interests and hobbies, going to the movies, practicing sports, walking, and going to the disco. The boys watch television, use the internet, meet people, read and practice sports. They also go to the movies and the disco. The statistically significant gender differences refer to meeting people, reading, watching TV, using the Internet, practicing sports, going for walks and to the disco. The differences in the manner in which teenagers spend their free time show that girls care more about social relations, read more than boys, watch less television, go for walks and to discos more frequently. The boys, on the other hand, watch more television and are more interested in computers and computer technology. They also meet other people and read, but these activities are less preferred than TV and computers. They also practice more sports than the girls. Girls’ reading preferences are completely different from those of boys. Thus, females like reading youth magazines, youth literature, adventure novels, memoirs, and obligatory books from the school reading list. They also read poetry, newspapers, mystery and fantasy novels, plays and documentaries. Boys also like reading youth magazines but the girls’ preferences are stronger. In contrast to girls, boys prefer newspapers, comics, and fantasy and adventure novels. Dyslexic females read better than dyslexic males. Piasecka’s conclusions are: the empirical findings refer only to a fraction of human cognitive abilities, namely to reading literacy where the female advantage is well documented across all age groups. The genders display differential abilities and skills, though recently cognitive gender differences have been reported to be decreasing (Feingold 1996, Kimura 1999).

9.3 concluding remarks

Although genders differ as groups, an individual’s activity, behaviour and performance in a range of sociocultural contexts results from a combination

215 Janusz Arabski of neuronal, genetic, hormonal, environmental and motivational factors and therefore is unique. The study by Piasecka (2010) is evidence that reading ability consists of or is influenced by many factors, such as language aptitude, school grades, attitude to reading and reading preferences, use of dictionaries, use of computers and learning difficulties. It seems that the same applies to other language skills with the combinations of other factors, of course, but sex is only one of the factors deciding the differences between groups representing different genders. I have selected the above findings to show that when studying gender differences in language learning we have to consider other factors than gender and by so doing we become acquainted with them better. Studies on gender differences in language learning make us aware of the complexity of the role of gender in language acquisition and in the language learning process. The factors which may influence this role and only those which were mentioned in this presentation are (putting aside methodological shortcomings like small samples): • age • social locations • language aptitude related features. Age There was no evidence of sex difference in verbal ability until about age ten or eleven. Social locations a. Western women in Japan learning Japanese applied simplification strategies because of their distaste for Japanese constructions of feminity. b. asian men in Britain attain higher proficiency in L2 English because they have more contact with English than their wives. c. school conditions do not guarantee reliable achievement measures. Language aptitude related features The use of learning strategies. In the case of reading: –– reading preferences, –– attitudes to reading, –– use of computers, –– use of dictionaries. For other language skills (e.g. speaking or listening) counterparts can also be found. Studying gender differences we discover factors which decide successful language learning. We discover which components of e.g. reading abilities, and to what degree, decide proficiency levels in this respect. In section 9.2.2 we have presented an overview of studies on differences between male and

216 CHAPTER 9 Gender differences in language acquisition and learning female language. It was the starting point of the discussion which then followed and concerned the differences between males and females in second language acquisition and foreign language learning. Different aspects of the problem were presented together with different methodology, points of view and different study results. The main idea of the chapter is to show how they were evolving in the course of time.

References

Arabski, J. 1999. “Gender differences in language learning strategy use. A pilot study”. In B. Missler and U. Multhaup (eds.), The Construction of Knowledge, Learner Autonomy and Related Issues in Foreign Language learning. Essays in Honour of Dieter Wolff. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, pp. 160–171. Arabski, J. 2009. “Gender differences in production of foreign sounds in 8-year- olds”. A paper presented at 21st International Conference on Foreign Language Learning and Second Language Acquisition at Szczyrk (May 28–30). Arabski, J. 2012. “New perspectives on gender differences in language acquisition and learning. Proceedings of 9th ISAPL Congress in Bari (June 23–25, 2010). Chambers, J.K. 1995. Sociolinguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Coates, J. 1993. “No gap, lots of overlap: turn taking patterns in the talk of women friends”. In D. Graddol, J. Maybin and B. Stierer (eds.), Researching Language and Literacy in Social Context. Cleveland: Multilingual Matters, pp. 177–192. Ehrlich, S. 2001. “Gendering the ‘learner’: Sexual harassment and second language acquisition”. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller and M. Teutsch-Dwyer (eds.), Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 103–129. Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feingold, A. 1996. “Cognitive gender differences: Where are they and why are they there?” Learning and Individual Differences 8: 25–32. Freeman, R., and B. McElhinny 1996. “Language and gender”. In S. McKay and H. Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 218–280. Jenkins, M. 1986. “What’s so funny?: Joking among women”. Proceedings of the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference 1985. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group, Department of Linguistics, University of California, pp. 135–151.

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Jespersen, O. 1922. Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin. London: Allen and Unwin. Karwatowska, M., and J. Szpyra-Kozłowska 2005. Lingwistyka płci. On i ona w języku polskim. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie- Słodowskiej. Kimura, D. 1999. Sex and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Lakoff, R. 1973. “Language and woman’s place”. Language in Society 2, pp. 45–80. Maccoby, E.E., and C.N. Jacklin 1974. The Psychology of Sex Differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Martin, P.J., and H.D. Hoover 1987. “Sex differences in educational achievement: A longitudinal study”. The Journal of Early Adolescence SPRING 7: 65–83. (Special Issue: Sex Differences in Early Adolescents). Oxford, R. 1990. Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. New York: Newbury House. Painter, D. 1980. “Lesbian humor as a normalization device”. In C. Berryman and V. Eman (eds.), Communication, Language and Sex. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, pp. 132–148. Piasecka, L. 2010. “Gender differences in L1 and L2 reading”. In J. Arabski and A. Wojtaszek (eds.), Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives on SLA. Bristol-Buffalo-Toronto: Multilingual Matters, pp. 145–158. Siegel, M. 1994. “Second-language learning, identity and resistance: White women studying Japanese in Japan”. In M. Bucholtz, A.C. Liang, L. Sutton and C. Hines (eds.), Cultural Performances: Proceedings of the Third Berkeley Women and Language Conference (April 8–10). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley Women and Language Group, pp. 642–650. Tannen, D. 1990. You Just Don’t Understand: Men in Conversation. New York: William Morrow. Trudgill, P. 1972. “Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban Bri- tish English of Norwich”. Language in Society 1 (2): 175–195. Wallentin, M. 2009. “Putative sex differences in verbal abilities and language cortex: A critical review”. Brain and Language 108: 175–183. Wenden, A. 1991. Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Cambridge: Prentice Hall.

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Janusz Arabski

Płeć a przyswajanie języka

Streszczenie

W rozdziale zaprezentowano przegląd badań z zakresu różnic w przyswajaniu języka drugiego i obcego przez kobiety i mężczyzn. Wyniki pierwszych badań w tej dziedzinie wskazywały na przewagę kobiet, uzasadniając ją różnicami biologicznymi oraz poznawczymi między przedstawicielami obydwu płci. Kobiety, u których częściej występuje dominacja lewej półkuli mózgu, przejawiają większe zdolności językowe niż mężczyźni, u których częściej występuje dominacja prawopółkulowa. Również w pro- cesie ewolucji kobiety jako matki lepiej wykształciły sprawności językowe. Późniejsze badania, uwzględniające nowe metody i interpretacje, nie potwierdzają takich różnic między przedstawicielami obydwu płci. Rozdział zawiera opis dwóch badań przeprowa- dzonych przez Autora. Pierwsze z nich dotyczyło różnic między dziewczętami a chłop- cami w wieku licealnym w zakresie stosowania strategii uczenia się, drugie natomiast percepcji obcojęzycznych głosek wśród dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym. Przykładem nowej metodologii stosowanej przy interpretacji różnic między kobietami a mężczy- znami w przyswajaniu języka obcego są badania dotyczące nauki czytania w języku obcym przeprowadzone wśród młodzieży szkolnej (w wieku 15 lat). Wykazano w nich, że różnice dotyczą nie samej płci, lecz jej immanentnych cech, np. gustów literackich, stosunku do czytania, korzystania z komputera itp. Cechy te korelują ze skutecznością rozwijania sprawności czytania w języku obcym.

Janusz Arabskski

Das Geschlecht und die Spracherlernung

Zusammenfassung

In dem Kapitel werden Forschungen dargestellt, deren Zweck es war, die Unter- schiede zwischen Frauen und Männern bei Erwerbung der zweiten Sprache und der Fremdsprache zu entdecken. Erste Forschungsergebnisse bewiesen die Überlegenheit von Frauen, was mit biologischen und kognitiven Unterschieden zwischen den Vertre- tern beiderlei Geschlechts begründet wurde. Die Frauen, bei denen viel häufiger eine Dominanz der linken Gehirnhälfte über der rechten Gehirnhälfte als bei den Män- nern auftritt, lassen größere Sprachbegabung erkennen. In Folge der Evolution haben die Frauen ihre Sprachfähigkeiten auch besser entwickelt. Nach späteren Forschun- gen, bei denen neue Methoden und neue Auslegung des Phänomens berücksichtigt wurden, hat man schon keine solchen Unterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern festgestellt. Im vorliegenden Kapitel werden zwei von dem Verfasser durchgeführte Untersuchungen geschildert. Erste von ihnen betraf die Unterschiede zwischen Mäd-

219 Janusz Arabski chen und Jungen im Oberschulalter im Bereich der angewandten Lernstrategien, die andere – die Perzeption von fremdsprachigen Lauten bei Vorschulkindern. Bei Inter- pretation der Unterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern bei der Fremdspracherler- nung wird auch neue Methodologie angewandt; ein Beispiel dafür sind die unter den Schulkindern (von 15 Jahren) durchgeführten Forschungen über die Lesenslernen in einer Fremdsprache. Es wurde nachgewiesen, dass die bestehenden Unterschiede nicht das Geschlecht selbst, sondern dessen immanente Eigenschaften, wie z.B.: Vorliebe für Literatur, Verhältnis zur Lektüre, Computerbenutzung u.dgl. betreffen. Diese Eigen- schaften stehen in Wechselbeziehung zur Effektivität der Entwicklung von Lesensfä- higkeit in einer Fremdsprache.    Executive Editor: Krystian Wojcieszuk

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