 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(September 2022) |
Elaine Tarone is a retired professor of applied linguistics and is a distinguished teaching professor emerita at the University of Minnesota. [1] She is currently a member of the editorial board of The Modern Language Journal.
Tarone was born in Modesto, California and graduated from Thomas Downey High School in 1962. She spent her freshman year at Modesto Junior College and in 1966 earned a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. After a summer volunteering in a street academy in Harlem, New York, she earned a secondary teaching credential at UC Berkeley. She taught English and Spanish for a year at Encinal High School in Alameda, California, and in 1969 earned a diploma in applied linguistics at the Department of Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh University. Transferring to the University of Washington, Seattle, she earned an M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1972) in speech science, writing a dissertation on her research on intonation in African-American vernacular English.
Tarone's published research on second-language acquisition began in 1972, and, as of 2018 [update] , includes 10 books and more than 135 papers in scholarly journals and edited volumes. From 1996 until her retirement from the University of Minnesota in 2016, she was director of the university's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). A major research interest has been the sociolinguistic factors affecting second-language acquisition, [2] and she is particularly known for her work on interlanguage, interlanguage variation [3] [4] [5] and the impact of emergent alphabetic print literacy on oral second-language acquisition. [6]
In 1972, she published the first paper on interlanguage phonology, [7] and in 1978, the first research on communication strategies in second-language acquisition. [8] She has also published research on the grammatical-rhetorical structure of academic writing. [9] Between 1984 and 1989, Tarone was editor of the journal Applied Linguistics . In 1991–92, she was the president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, and in 2012 she was given that association's Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award.
Her 1989 book with George Yule, Focus on the Language Learner, [10] aims to provide a clear overview of second-language acquisition research issues of importance to language teachers. Her co-authored 2009 book Exploring Learner Language helps language teachers develop skills and use tools to analyze learner language samples provided in transcribed videos of adult second-language learners. [11] Her most recent research publications focus on second-language learners' spontaneous language play in oral discourse, and especially the interlanguage variation revealed in oral narratives when learners enact imagined voices of protagonists who are both more- and less-proficient than they are. [12]
Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. The field of second-language acquisition is regarded by some but not everybody as a sub-discipline of applied linguistics but also receives research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as psychology and education.
An interlanguage is an idiolect which has been developed by a learner of a second language (L2) which preserves some features of their first language (L1) and can overgeneralize some L2 writing and speaking rules. These two characteristics give an interlanguage its unique linguistic organization. It is idiosyncratically based on the learner's experiences with L2. An interlanguage can fossilize, or cease developing, in any of its developmental stages. It is claimed that several factors shape interlanguage rules, including L1 transfer, previous learning strategies, strategies of L2 acquisition, L2 communication strategies, and the overgeneralization of L2 language patterns.
The generative approach to second language (L2) acquisition (SLA) is a cognitive based theory of SLA that applies theoretical insights developed from within generative linguistics to investigate how second languages and dialects are acquired and lost by individuals learning naturalistically or with formal instruction in foreign, second language and lingua franca settings. Central to generative linguistics is the concept of Universal Grammar (UG), a part of an innate, biologically endowed language faculty which refers to knowledge alleged to be common to all human languages. UG includes both invariant principles as well as parameters that allow for variation which place limitations on the form and operations of grammar. Subsequently, research within the Generative Second-Language Acquisition (GenSLA) tradition describes and explains SLA by probing the interplay between Universal Grammar, knowledge of one's native language and input from the target language. Research is conducted in syntax, phonology, morphology, phonetics, semantics, and has some relevant applications to pragmatics.
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig is an American linguist. She is currently Provost Professor and ESL Coordinator at Indiana University (Bloomington).
Teresa P. Pica, also known as Tere Pica, was Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, a post she held from 1983 until her death in 2011. Her areas of expertise included second language acquisition, language curriculum design, approaches to classroom practice, and classroom discourse analysis. Pica was well known for her pioneering work in task-based language learning and published widely in established international journals in the field of English as a foreign or second language and applied linguistics.
The main purpose of theories of second-language acquisition (SLA) is to shed light on how people who already know one language learn a second language. The field of second-language acquisition involves various contributions, such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and education. These multiple fields in second-language acquisition can be grouped as four major research strands: (a) linguistic dimensions of SLA, (b) cognitive dimensions of SLA, (c) socio-cultural dimensions of SLA, and (d) instructional dimensions of SLA. While the orientation of each research strand is distinct, they are in common in that they can guide us to find helpful condition to facilitate successful language learning. Acknowledging the contributions of each perspective and the interdisciplinarity between each field, more and more second language researchers are now trying to have a bigger lens on examining the complexities of second language acquisition.
Second-language acquisition classroom research is an area of research in second-language acquisition concerned with how people learn languages in educational settings. There is a significant overlap between classroom research and language education. Classroom research is empirical, basing its findings on data and statistics wherever possible. It is also more concerned with what the learners do in the classroom than with what the teacher does. Where language teaching methods may only concentrate on the activities the teacher plans for the class, classroom research concentrates on the effect the things the teacher does has on the students.
The good language learner (GLL) studies are a group of academic studies in the area of second language acquisition that deal with the strategies that good language learners exhibit. The rationale for the studies was that there is more benefit from studying the habits of successful language learners than there is from studying learners who fossilize at an early stage or stop studying altogether. It was thought that if the strategies of successful learners could be found, then that knowledge could help learners who were not getting such good results.
In the course of learning a second language, learners will frequently encounter communication problems caused by a lack of linguistic resources. Communication strategies are strategies that learners use to overcome these problems in order to convey their intended meaning. Strategies used may include paraphrasing, substitution, coining new words, switching to the first language, and asking for clarification. These strategies, with the exception of switching languages, are also used by native speakers.
Merrill Swain is a Canadian applied linguist whose research has focused on second language acquisition (SLA). Some of her most notable contributions to SLA research include the Output Hypothesis and her research related to immersion education. Swain is a Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Swain is also known for her work with Michael Canale on communicative competence. Swain was the president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 1998. She received her PhD in psychology at the University of California. Swain has co-supervised 64 PhD students.
Stephen Pit Corder was a professor of applied linguistics at Edinburgh University, known for his contribution to the study of error analysis. He was the first Chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics, 1967–70, and was instrumental in developing the field of applied linguistics in the United Kingdom.
In applied linguistics, an error is an unintended deviation from the immanent rules of a language variety made by a second language learner. Such errors result from the learner's lack of knowledge of the correct rules of the target language variety. A significant distinction is generally made between errors and mistakes which are not treated the same from a linguistic viewpoint. The study of learners' errors has been the main area of investigation by linguists in the history of second-language acquisition research.
Larry Selinker is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Michigan and former director of the university's English Language Institute. In 1972, Selinker introduced the concept of interlanguage, which built upon Pit Corder's previous work on the nature of language learners' errors. Corder's and Selinker's work became the foundation of modern research into second-language acquisition, and interlanguage is accepted as a basic principle of the discipline.
Heather Goad is a Canadian linguist. Her research explores areas of phonology and language acquisition, especially investigating the shapes of phonological systems, including contrasts in English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Italian and Nepali, as well as the developmental paths of acquiring speech sounds by first and second language learners.
Diane Larsen-Freeman is an American linguist. She is currently a Professor Emerita in Education and in Linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. An applied linguist, known for her work in second language acquisition, English as a second or foreign language, language teaching methods, teacher education, and English grammar, she is renowned for her work on the complex/dynamic systems approach to second language development.
Cornelis Kees de Bot is a Dutch linguist. He is currently the chair of applied linguistics at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and at the University of Pannonia. He is known for his work on second language development and the use of dynamical systems theory to study second language development.
Wander Marius Lowie is a Dutch linguist. He is currently a professor of applied linguistics at the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is known for his work on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory.
George Yule is a Scottish-American linguist. He is known for his works on pragmatics and discourse analysis.
Patsy M. Lightbown is an American applied linguist whose research focuses on the teaching and acquisition of second and/or foreign languages in a classroom context. Her theories of second language acquisition earned her the SPEAQ Award for "contributions which have had an impact on the entire English teaching community in Quebec". She served in the United States Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa from 1965 to 1967. In her more than forty years in the field she has taught at multiple universities across the United States, Australia and Canada. She holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She has written seven published books and has been featured in many book chapters and refereed journals. She currently works as an independent consultant, editor, researcher and writing in second language acquisition and learning.
Mary J. Schleppegrell is an applied linguist and Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. Her research and praxis are based on the principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a theory derived from the work of social semiotic linguist Michael Halliday. Schleppegrell is known for the SFL-based literacy practices she has continuously helped to develop for multilingual and English language learners throughout her decades long career, which she began as an educational specialist before transitioning to the field of applied linguistics. As a result, her publications demonstrate a deep understanding of both the theories and practices related to teaching and learning.
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