Acculturation model

Last updated

In second-language acquisition, the acculturation model is a theory proposed by John Schumann to describe the acquisition process of a second language (L2) by members of ethnic minorities [1] that typically include immigrants, migrant workers, or the children of such groups. [2] This acquisition process takes place in natural contexts of majority language settings. The main suggestion of the theory is that the acquisition of a second language is directly linked to the acculturation process, and successes are determined by the extent to which they can orient themselves to the target language culture. [3]

Contents

Background

The acculturation model came into light with Schumann's study of six non-English learners where one learner, named Alberto, unlike the other five, had little progress in the acquisition process of English. [4]

Description

The process of acculturation was defined by H. Douglas Brown as "the process of being adapted to a new culture" which involves a new orientation of thinking and feeling on the part of an L2 learner. [5] According to Douglas, as culture is an integral part of a human being, the process of acculturation takes a deeper turn when the issue of language is brought on the scene. Schumann based his acculturation model on two sets of factors: social and psychological. Schumann asserts that the degree to which the second-language learners acculturate themselves towards the culture of the target-language (TL) group generally depends on social and psychological factors; and these two sorts of factors will determine respectively the level of social distance and psychological distance an L2 learner is having in the course of their learning the target-language. [6]

Social distance, as Rod Ellis notes, concerns the extent to which individual learners can identify themselves with members of the TL group and, thereby, can achieve contact with them. Schumann identifies eight factors that influence social distance:

  1. Social dominance
  2. Integration pattern
  3. Enclosure
  4. Cohesiveness
  5. Size factor
  6. Cultural congruence
  7. Attitude factor
  8. Intended length of residence.

Psychological distance is the extent to which individual learners are at ease with their target-language learning task. [7] Schumann identified three factors that influence psychological distance: [8]

  1. Motivation
  2. Attitude
  3. Culture shock

Schumann later sought to extend the acculturation model by assessing contemporary cognitive models for second language acquisition, including Barry McLaughlin’s cognitive theory, Evelyn Hatch and B. Hawkins’ experiential approach, Ellen Bialystok and Ellen Bouchard Ryan’s model of knowledge and control dimensions, John R. Anderson’s active control of thought framework, and Michael Gasser's connectionist lexical memory framework. [9]

Related Research Articles

A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which is the language a speaker uses most or is most comfortable with, is not necessarily the speaker's first language. For example, the Canadian census defines first language for its purposes as "the first language learned in childhood and still spoken", recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when young children start school or move to a new language environment.

Rod Ellis is a Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize-winning British linguist. He is currently a research professor in the School of Education, at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is also a professor at Anaheim University, where he serves as the Vice president of academic affairs. Ellis is a visiting professor at Shanghai International Studies University as part of China’s Chang Jiang Scholars Program and an emeritus professor of the University of Auckland. He has also been elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

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.

Sequential bilingualism occurs when a person becomes bilingual by first learning one language and then another. The process is contrasted with simultaneous bilingualism, in which both languages are learned at the same time.

Language attrition is the process of decreasing proficiency in or losing a language. For first or native language attrition, this process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first. Such interference from a second language is likely experienced to some extent by all bilinguals, but is most evident among speakers for whom a language other than their first has started to play an important, if not dominant, role in everyday life; these speakers are more likely to experience language attrition. It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used. Second language attrition can occur from poor learning, practice, and retention of the language after time has passed from learning. This often occurs with bilingual speakers who do not frequently engage with their L2.

The desire to learn is often related to the concept of ‘motivation’. Motivation is the most used concept for explaining the failure or success of a language learner. Second language (L2) refers to a language an individual learns that is not his/her mother tongue, but is of use in the area of the individual. It is not the same as a foreign language, which is a language learned that is not generally spoken in the individual's area. In research on motivation, it is considered to be an internal process that gives behavior energy, direction and persistence in research . Learning a new language takes time and dedication. Once you do, being fluent in a second language offers numerous benefits and opportunities. Learning a second language is exciting and beneficial at all ages. It offers practical, intellectual and many aspirational benefits. In learning a language, there can be one or more goals – such as mastery of the language or communicative competence – that vary from person to person. There are a number of language learner motivation models that were developed and postulated in fields such as linguistics and sociolinguistics, with relations to second-language acquisition in a classroom setting. The different perspectives on L2 motivation can be divided into three distinct phases: the social psychological period, the cognitive-situated period and the process-oriented period.

Willingness to communicate (WTC) was originally conceptualised for first language acquisition, and seeks to demonstrate the probability that a speaker will choose to participate in a conversation of their own volition. Traditionally, it was seen as a fixed personality trait that did not change according to context. However, McCroskey and associates suggested that it is in fact a situational variable that will change according to a number of factors.

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.

The critical period hypothesis or sensitive period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time window of brain development to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more difficult and effortful. It is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age. The critical period hypothesis was first proposed by Montreal neurologist Wilder Penfield and co-author Lamar Roberts in their 1959 book Speech and Brain Mechanisms, and was popularized by Eric Lenneberg in 1967 with Biological Foundations of Language.

The Competition Model is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing, developed by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney (1982). The claim in MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984) is that "the forms of natural languages are created, governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions." Furthermore, the model holds that processing is based on an online competition between these communicative functions or motives. The model focuses on competition during sentence processing, crosslinguistic competition in bilingualism, and the role of competition in language acquisition. It is an emergentist theory of language acquisition and processing, serving as an alternative to strict innatist and empiricist theories. According to the Competition Model, patterns in language arise from Darwinian competition and selection on a variety of time/process scales including phylogenetic, ontogenetic, social diffusion, and synchronic scales.

Second-language attrition is the decline of second-language skills, which occurs whenever the learner uses the second language to an insufficient degree or due to environmental changes the language use is limited and another language is becoming the dominant one.

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.

Individual variation in second-language acquisition is the study of why some people learn a second language better than others. Unlike children who acquire a language, adults learning a second language rarely reach the same level of competence as native speakers of that language. Some may stop studying a language before they have fully internalized it, and others may stop improving despite living in a foreign country for many years. It also appears that children are more likely than adults to reach native-like competence in a second language. There have been many studies that have attempted to explain these phenomena.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoltán Dörnyei</span> Hungarian-born British linguist (1960–2022)

Zoltán Dörnyei was a Hungarian-born British linguist. He was a professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He was known for his work on second language acquisition and the psychology of the language learner, in particular on motivation in second language learning, having published numerous books and papers on these topics.

The interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication. Its main focus is on the role of input, interaction, and output in second language acquisition. It posits that the level of language that a learner is exposed to must be such that the learner is able to comprehend it, and that a learner modifying their speech so as to make it comprehensible facilitates their ability to acquire the language in question. The idea existed in the 1980s, and has been reviewed and expanded upon by a number of other scholars but is usually credited to Michael Long.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to second-language acquisition:

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.

The Teachability Hypothesis was produced by Manfred Pienemann. It was originally extracted from Pienemann's Processibility model. It proposes that learners will acquire a second language (L2) features if what is being taught is relatively close to their stage in language development.

References

  1. ↑ Ellis, Rod (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 230. ISBN   978-0-19-437189-6.
  2. ↑ Ellis (1994), p. 217
  3. ↑ VanPatten, Bill (2010). Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition. Continuum. p. 59. ISBN   9780826499158.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Keith; Johnson, Helen, eds. (1999). "Acculturation". Blackwell Reference Online. Blackwell Publishing Inc. doi:10.1111/b.9780631214823.1999.x. ISBN   9780631214823 . Retrieved 7 April 2013.
  5. ↑ Brown, H. Douglas (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching . New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. pp.  169–70. ISBN   978-0-13-191966-2.
  6. ↑ Schumann, John H. (1978). The Pidginization Process: A Model for Second Language Acquisition. Rowley: Newbury House Publishers. pp. 367–79.
  7. ↑ Ellis (1994), p. 231
  8. ↑ Schumann, John H. (1978). The pidginization process : a model for second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers. ISBN   978-0883770962. OCLC   3203534.
  9. ↑ Schumann, John (Winter 1990). "Extending the Scope of the Acculturation/Pidginization Model to Include Cognition". TESOL Quarterly. 24 (4): 667–684. doi:10.2307/3587114. JSTOR   3587114.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.