Jana Kania

November 20, 2014

EDTE 540

EDTE 540: Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Annotated Bibliography
Influential SLA theories and contributions
1. Kramsch, C. (2000) Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics and the Teach
ing of Foreign Languages. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 84 No. 3
What is Second Language Acquisition? This article examines the identity of both SLA
and Applied Linguistics. Both are interdisciplinary studies which consist of many different
elements and are connected to various schools of thought. Kramsch looks deeper into where SLA
and Applied Linguistics reside in the academic world.
Kramsch starts by looking at job listings for positions at Universities in the field of SLA. She
inquires about what exactly the schools were looking for in a professor, to try to get a clearer
perspective of what they view SLA to be. The needs and ideas of the schools varied.
These job advertisements reveal a certain confusion about what an SLA specialist actually is: a
teacher? a teacher trainer? a methodologist? a researcher? a linguist? (Kramsch p.312)
She includes this definition of SLA, from What Is Second Language Acquisition and What Is It
Doing in This Department?" by Bill VanPatten (1999) is:
SLA is concerned with how people learn a language other than their first. SLA focuses on both
the processes and products of this learning and draws on the disciplines of linguistics (including
syntactic theory,pragmatic theory, sociolinguistics discourse analysis),cognitive psychology and
psycholinguistic (including first language acquisition),educational psychology (especially
reading research and the methodologies used to investigate comprehension), and others.
The article continues to explore what the background and history of SLA is; the definitions,
related fields and other disciplines it encompasses. Some related fields she explores are Foreign
Language Education, Foreign Language Methodology and Applied Linguistics. Disciplines it
encompasses are linguistics, anthropology, psychology, sociology, education and literature.
After explaining the many elements that make the field of SLA, through her research she
concludes that SLA is not just a research field, but also how to use linguistic theories to advance
methods used in education and language teaching.
2. Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980) Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to
Second Language Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47.
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Michael Canale and Merrill Swain have examined various theories and ideas regarding
communicative competence in this position paper.
They start by looking at Chomskys theory of Competence and Performance, in which he claims
competence to be knowledge of language and grammar, and performance to be the ability to use
the language. Once this theory is presented, they begin to look at some of the responses and
elaborations on it.
Campbell and Wales as well as Hymes, is then discussed, because their responses to Chomsky
bring forward the theory of Communicative Competence. It seems like this is to point out that
Chomskys theory does not include any sociolinguistic factors such as context and
appropriateness. They feel this is essential in communicating in a second/foreign language. This
is still considered separate from performance. Sociocultural appropriateness is a key
point in this article. Because language is a means of communication, the correct when and why
of utterances is stressed.
Canale and Swain continue to outline Communicative Competence and what factors are
important regarding L2 learning. The main idea is that language is used for communication and
interaction with others, therefore knowing certain elements are essential to being competent.
Within the idea of competence, they include 3 different areas:
Grammatical Competencevocabulary, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling, etc.
Sociolinguistic Competence--Utterances being appropriate depending on context.
Strategical CompetenceVerbal and Non-verbal communication when there is a breakdown in
understanding.
This paper stresses the importance of authentic, communicative communication in language
learning:

It is particularly important to base a communicative approach on the varieties of the

second language that the learner is most likely to be in contact with in a genuine
communicative situation, and on the minimum levels of grammatical competence and
sociolinguistic competence that native speakers expect of second language learners in
such a situation and that the majority of second language learners may be expected to
attain. (p.27)
After the article covers many different theories and responses relating to communicative

competence, they put forth a set of guiding principles and framework for a communicative
approach to L2 instruction. The main message here is that the learning and L2 speech should be
centered around communicative needs and goals of the students, and prepare them for interaction
and communication in real language environments.

3. Canale, M. (1983) From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language

Pedagogy. In J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and
Communication (pp.
2-27). London: Longman.
Canale and Swain published their paper on Communicative Competence in 1980, this
review is a follow-up review of their previous work. He re-examines his previous work in 1980,
and includes updated information based on empirical studies of language students.
One of the reasons Canale and Swain wrote their initial paper was to give some consistency and
framework to the field of communicative competence, as well as take a look at what theoretical
work supported it. In this article he has updated the communicative competence framework from
the 1980 review. The original framework of components of communicative competence
included grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. In this
new version, he also adds discourse competence. Discourse competence is being able to:
to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in
different genres. (Canale 1983)
In addition to adding this element to the framework, Canale includes guiding principles for a
communicative approach. This can be very helpful in the process of actual classroom application
of language teaching and learning. Also included is a sample teaching outline from the Ontario
Ministry of Education.
4. Swain (1985) Comunicative Competence: Some Roles of Comprehensible Input and
Comprehensible Output in its Development. The Ontario Institute for Studies in
Educa
tion
Merril Swain has investigated the language of Canadian immersion students who study in a
bilingual English/French school. The immersion students have been learning and using French
for 7 years. The purpose of this study was to see if the immersion students were have the same
level of communicative competence as the native French speaking students. She was
specifically looking at the input-output relationships to the grammatical competence,
sociolinguistic competence and discourse competence. She was looking at interaction as a factor
of communicative competence, not just the input but the output and negotiation for meaning.
Swain conducted various tests, including a written test for grammar, a story-telling spoken test
and a social usage written test. From these tests she found that the native speakers speaking
proficiency was higher than the immersion students. On the other hand, the written test showed
that the immersion students did better than native speakers. The speaking test which focused on
appropriateness was another one where the native speakers scored higher than the immersion
students.
From these results, Swain concluded that the interaction outside of the classroom was beneficial
to language acquisition, which is why the native speakers did better on many of the tests. The
immersion students had practice in the classroom, but that did not give as much opportunity for
forced output and negotiation for meaning.
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Immersion students, then, haverelative to street learners of the target languagelittle

opportunity to engage in two-way, negotiated meaning exchanges in the classroom. (p.246)
Her theory is that because the immersion students have less opportunity for output, their level of
competence is lower than that of a native speaker. The role of output is an important one, she
claims. Output provides the opportunity for feedback on mistakes, negotiation of meaning
(which is very important to grammatical acquisition) and pushes people to create meaningful
use of the language. Contrary to Krashens theory that input is the key to language acquisition,
Swain argues that output is extremely important too. In the end, she found that even after 7 years
of emmersion school, it is not enough for the immersion students to reach the same level of
language acquisition as their native speaking classmates.
Smith (1978,1982) has argued that one learns to read by reading, and to write by writing.
Similarly, it can be argued that one learns to speak by speaking.
This study can offer insight into the role of output in SLA, and how environment can have an
effect on language learning.
5. Selinker, L. (1972) Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Lan
guage Teaching, 10, 209-231.
Interlanguage is a theory by Larry Selinker, it explores the psychological process in which
language learners formulate their L2, the relationship between the two languages, and:
the existence of a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a
learners attempted production of a TL norm. This we will call interlanguage. (Selinker 1972)
Interlanguage has been an influential SLA theory over the years, likely because it is evident that
sometimes L2 utterances are not a) the L1 or b) the target language (L2). They are something
else. This is interlanguage, it is what happens when people are in the process of figuring out the
correct way to speak another language. In past research it has been concluded that mistakes are
developmental, and in a way this idea is somewhat parallel to interlanguage.
Selinker also discusses issues such as fossilization and factors that may contribute to
interlanguage. There are 5 that he goes into more detail about: language transfer, transfer of
training, strategies of second language learning, strategies of second language communication
and overgeneralization of TL linguistic material. According to Selinker these play a key role in
interlanguage. Sometimes it is hard to identify from exactly where interlanguage comes from,
but these are some of the possibilities.
Selinker has formulated a strategy to investigate the interlanguage process. To study data on
interlanguage, one should record three things: Utterances by the learner, in the first language,
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utterances by the learner in the target language, and utterances by a native speaker in the target
language. By comparing these things, one could observe and study the psycholinguistic
processes which establish the knowledge which underlies interlanguage behavior. (Selinker
1972)
6. VanPatten (1990) Attending to Form and Content in the Input, An Experiment in Con
ciousness. SSLA, 12, 287-301
This study was done to test the role of working memory, attention and consciousness
in processing L2 input. The test was to see if students could attend to both form and meaning
simultaneously. Can a L2 learner successfully pay attention to two tasks at the same time? Or
will focusing on one task have a negative effect on the other? This work was inspired by studies
that also focused on noticing and consciousness, such as Swain (1985) and Schmidt (1988). The
research questions for this study were:
1. Will attention to form as well as meaning have a negative effect on comprehension?
2. Will attention to lexical items have an affect on comprehension?
3. Will advanced learners and beginning learners have the same outcome?
The results VanPatten got were that: Yes, simultaneous processing of meaning and form is
difficult for language learners. This does have a negative affect on comprehension, and
attention to meaning and a lexical item does not affect comprehension.
Another result from this test was that more advanced learners did better on the tasks. Because
beginning learners had to focus more on meaning, it was even more difficult to focus on form at
the same time.
Conscious attention to form in the input competes with conscious attention to meaning, and, by
extension, that only when input is easily understood can learners attend to form as part of the
intake process.
Regarding classroom application, some things to consider would be: 1)that when students need
to focus on form, keep content simple and easily understood 2)Focusing on meaning and form at
the same time is difficult--ideas will compete for working memory 3) Focus on vocabulary wont
interfere with understanding content.
This study presents a clear idea: working memory is limited, so L2 learners have a hard time
focusing on meaning and form at the same time. As a teacher this can be easily related to
classroom application and curriculum planning.
Articles about Cross-linguistic Influence and Language Transfer
7. Zobl, H. (1982) A Direction for Contrastive Analysis: The Comparative Study of De
velopmental Sequences*. TESOL Quarterly, Vol.16, No.2 (pp.169-183)

The focus of this paper is the sequence of development of L2 structures, and the influence of a
learners L1 on them. Several areas are highlighted; specifically, the varied time it can take to
acquire certain elements of a language, and also the differences in structures that the learners use
depending on their L1.
Zobl starts by explaining the way an L1 can effect the L2, namely by facilitating in a positive
way or interfering. The types of language relationships he looks at are zero contrast languages,
where the L2 actually has a structure that the L1 doesnt, or languages with categorical
congruence, where both languages share a certain structure or item.
The first example presented is looking at an L1 and L2, the first has no article system, and the L2
does have a definite and indefinite article system. According to Zobl, this is an example where
the pace of acquisition will be slower, because the person will have to learn to use articles in the
L2, whereas a L1 with an article system will move faster in acquiring the language which also
uses this system. This is a good example of how a L1/L2 with a shared system will have a
facilitative effect. The non-article L1 speaker may not necessarily have interference, but most
likely avoidance in using this structure at first. Various examples are give with people of nonarticle language backgrounds (Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, and Chinese. The study shows that
these L1 users more frequently omit articles when they should be used. They also studied a
Spanish speaking boy learning English, to compare an article using language. In the end they
concluded that the two groups performed differently in their acquiring of the article system of
English.
In conclusion, Zobl states:
The facilitative transfer we can witness when the L2 and the L1 share roughly congruent
categories strongly suggests that the categorical elaboration carried out once in L1 acquisition
can be reactivated for a more rapid rule abduction process in L2 acquisition. (p.181)
This does study does add more support to the notion that having similar structures in an L2 will
facilitate a faster acquisition, at least in the early stages. The use of contrastive analysis does help
to see some relationships between languages, but also leaves out many other factors that may
affect the way the language is acquired.
8. Ringbom, H. (1985) Transfer in Relation to Some other Variables in L2 Learning. Ed.
Foreign Language and Bilingualism. (pp.8-20)
This article by Hakan Ringbom was written after his extensive study of Swedish and Finnish
students learning English. This was a particularly good opportunity and setting to study cross
language transfer. Swedish happens to be a language closely related to English, while Finnish is
not. The students studied were from the same region and had similar education backgrounds, so
the main factor he was investigating was the possible transfer from their L1 to English, their L2.
Ringbom starts by explaining the commonly accepted view of language transfer; learners try to
relate and use prior knowledge from their L1 to their L2, in the form of items and patterns in the
language. His findings do confirm that the Swedish students have an advantage over the Finnish
students in the early stages of learning. He also found that is more useful in receptive skills,
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rather than productive skills. Transfer is visible in the learning of items, and not as much in the
production of structures.
Another factor of transfer that is discussed is the notion of perceived distance between the L1
and L2. The perceived distance is the relationship the learner sees between the L1 and L2, and
the similarities they can see immediately. Usually languages that are more closely related are
perceived as having more common factors, compared to unrelated languages. People tend to see
this in the early stages of learning a language, and establish equivalencies between the two
languages. One of the most important sources of these equivalencies is with cognates. Cognates
are words that are similar in both languages, and help with understanding lexical meaning. In the
early stages of language learning, cognates can facilitate understanding and learning, but
typically it does not mean faster structural knowledge and production.
An interesting element of transfer is when there is something that does not occur in the L1,
therefore it is a more difficult concept for the learner to master. In the case of the Finnish
students, they had a hard time with articles in English, because Finnish does not use articles. The
Finnish students would frequently omit articles because of this difference between languages.
To conclude his ideas, Ringbom restates his main findings on language transfer, in the case of the
Swedish and Finnish students. 1) item learning and system learning are different 2) receptive
competence develops more than productive competence, and 3) Transfer depends on the learners
stage of learning, and most transfer happens in the early stages.
9. Ard, J. and Homburg, T. (1993) Verification of Language Transfer. In Language
Transfer in Lanugage Learning. (pp.46-70)
This chapter focuses on an empirical study which employs use of standardized tests obtain data
on language transfer. The results demonstrated that a L1 that is similar to the L2 (genetically
close) leads to developmentally different patterns than if the L1 and L2 are less similar. The
subjects were native Spanish speaking and Arabic speaking people learning English, and they
took the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency, a common standardized test.
The purpose of this test is to test students vocabulary knowledge. They are written tests, of filln-the-blank format with multiple choice answers. By doing this test with speakers of different
L1s they can compare the differences and various choices made by the two groups. A reason
these two groups were chosen is because the Spanish lexicon is fairly closely related to English,
and Arabic is not. On this particular test about 60 percent of the English words have similar
Spanish cognates, with similar form and meaning. On the other hand, only 1 percent of English
words are similar to Arabic in form and meaning. Based on previous studies, it seems that
Spanish speakers generally accept these similarities and use them, whereas Arabic speakers dont
necessarily trust similar words to have similar meanings.
The results of the test were that the Spanish speakers did better overall, with an average of 23 out
of 40 correct, compared to 18 out of 40 correct for the Arabic speakers. Some variation may be
related to learning background. Other considerations were looked at, such as making a measure
of similarity. Different values were given to the words based on how similar they were. Those
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were more often correct compared to the Arabic students, and even words with no similarities
were more often answered correctly by the Spanish speaking students, which questions the
notion of transfer playing the role in their success. They look at the possibility of it being due to
the structural similarity of the languages.
Overall, their findings showed that there is abundant evidence for native language influence in
lexical learning. (p.62) This also takes into consideration the nature of the testing, the synonym
questions and fill in the blank format. It also shows there can be effects even when there is not
obvious similarity between lexical items of the native and target languages.
10. Ramirez, G. (2011) Cross Language Transfer of morphological awareness in Chi
nese-English Bilinguals. Journal of Research in Reading, Vol. 34, Issue 1, p. 2342
This is an article about cross language transfer between Mandarin Chinese and English, the study
performed on a group of elementary school children. The focus is morphological awareness, as
seen in vocabulary, word reading, compound words and reading comprehension. A bidirectional
relationship was seen in various areas, and demonstrate the impact of transfer as a potential for
literacy development. One of the most interesting findings was the relationship between ChineseEnglish compound words (i.e. sunshine, nighttime).
The goals of this study were:
Evaluate cross language effects of morphological awareness in Chinese-English bilingual
children.
Test which aspects of morphological awareness transfer, and in which direction.
Test to see if compound awareness will transfer (they predict it will).
Test if English derivational awareness will transfer (they predict it wont).
The study was done with L1 Mandarin students living in Canada. They were first through fourth
grade, and Chinese was the language spoken at home with their parents. English was the only
language taught in the schools. The test were done at the schools within school hours,
administered by graduate student research assistants, who were also Chinese-English bilinguals.
The students were tested on these different areas related to morphology: English phonological
awareness, English derivational awareness, English compound awareness, English word reading,
English receptive vocabulary, English reading comprehension, Chinese compound awareness,
Chinese word reading, Chinese receptive vocabulary and Chinese reading comprehension. The
results were entered into a SEM models to look at the relationships between the variables.
The Results
The testing provided evidence of cross language transfer. As they had predicted, there was visible
transfer between English and Chinese compound words.

As previously discussed, compounds in both languages are right headed, and tend to be
transparent in meaning. The similarities explain why compound awareness developed in English
transfers to Chinese and enhances Chinese vocabulary development. (p.36)
Although there was transfer from English to Chinese in compound words, there was not much
transfer from Chinese to English, because English has less compound words. From this we can
see that compound awareness is more relevant in English to Chinese learning, vs Chinese
learning English. The results showed there was no significant relation between vocabulary
knowledge and compound awareness in either Chinese or English. Also, English derivational
awareness did not transfer in a significant way. This is a significant finding, because it shows that
although there are not direct cognate words transferred from between English and Chinese, there
are other things that transfer between languages and can facilitate learning.
11. Hsu, H. (2013) Interaction between Markedness and Transfer in English Coda Nasals:
Taiwanese Learning English as a Foreign Language. Studies in Media and Communica
tion Vol. 1, No. 1. p.64-90
This research article focuses on the effect of language transfer and markedness in
Taiwanese EFL English learners, specifically investigating the nasal coda sounds of m, n and
ng. The group tested was made of two different L1 backgrounds; Mandarin and Southern Min
(Taiwanese). Because they are testing the effect of markedness, they also looked at the
interlanguage of the students.
The researcher used the Optimality Theory to test the participants with a set of sentences. The
Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) was chosen for this research because,
OT can provide a unified mechanism (i.e., a set of universal constraints and their relative
rankings) to succinctly explain the two different effects (i.e., the transfer and unmarkedness
effects), which exert their influence on the interlanguage English.
The hypotheses of this study were:
a. Do the transfer and markedness effects interact with each other in the course of learning an FL
or L2 with respect to nasals in the coda position?
b. Given that the two effects do affect the process of learning FL or L2 simultaneously, what will
the interlanguage production look like?
c. How does the unmarkedness effect influence FL or L2 learning with the transfer effect, or vice
versa? (p.65)
The study was done with 62 college freshman students ages 18-22. The participants spoke
English at a basic level, and were instructed on the words and phrases used in the testing. The
sentences were evaluated by 3 native English speakers with backgrounds in Linguistics. The data
was gathered over 4 months during two sessions that were recorded. The recordings were also
analyzed by acoustic measurements for clarification when needed.
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The results were the Mandarin speakers had more difficulty than the Southern Min in the correct
pronunciation of the target sounds. This was predicted early on, because English and Southern
Min are more similar than Mandarin and English, therefore by way of language transfer Southern
Min had an easier time with English phonetic sounds. Another finding was that both groups had
a preference for the unmarked n sound, over the marked m and ng. The third finding was that
the unmarkedness overrides the transfer effect in shaping interlanguage, leading to strong
preference for unmarked n over m or ng.
This research can be a helpful tool in understanding the transfer effects and markedness effects
that may occur in English learning. Whether working with Taiwanese students or students from
other countries, language transfer is something that may affect English interlanguage and
learning.
Motivation in SLA
12. Csizer, K. and Dornyei, Z. (2005) The Internal Structure of Language Learning Moti
vation and Its Relationship with Language Choice and Learning Effort. The
Modern Lan
guage Journal, Vol.89, p. 19-36
Motivation in relation to language learning is an interesting factor to take into consideration. This
study by Csizer and Dornyei looks at the aspects of L2 motivation that Dornyei (2002) has
identified previously; Integrativeness, instrumentality, Vitality of the L2 Community, Attitudes
toward L2 speakers/Community and Cultural Interest. The purpose of the study was to find out
how motivation contributed to the L2 one chooses, and also how much effort is put into language
learning. The study was done in two phases, evaluating Hungarian schoolchildren's motivation
in language learning. The data was collected from various schools, the number of participants
was 8,500. The data was collected by having students fill out a questionnaire about their
language learning experience and motives, and the results were put into a SEM model, which can
test the interrelationship of different variables.
One of the findings was related to the choice of language that the learners had chosen. Once
category tested was Attitudes towards L2 Speakers and Community. Results of the study
showed that many people chose languages based on the power and prestige related to the
language, and was chosen more than languages that lack power and prestige. (p.28)
The main hypothesis of this study were based on previous works done by Clement and Gardner,
which theorized that motivation is mainly linked to integrativeness and instrumentality. Various
other hypotheses were about the connections between the other variables, but did not show any
significant results. The main idea about intregrativeness and instrumentality was supported,
therefore the authors concluded that:
We would like to go one step further and propose that not only can instrumentality complement
integrativeness, but it can also feed into it as a primary contributor. (p.27)

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The previous notion of integrativeness as explained by Gardner (2001) is described as.

emotional identification with another cultural group. This is where Csizer and Dornyei would
like to revise and update the idea of integrativeness to also include motivation to speak a
language as a part of globalization. In the case of many students, they choose to speak English
even if they have no contact with native speakers, the language is becoming more of a global
language that people are motivated to use because of integrative and instrumental reasons. The
proposed new name for this type of motivation is Ideal L2 Self. This is an updated version of
Higgins previous idea of Ideal Self.
In conclusion, Csizer and Dornyei found that integrativeness is still the main driving factor of
motivation in language learning, and instrumentality followed closely. The other finding was the
connection between motivation and the perception of the language learned, its power and
prestige and international connection.

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