A heritage language is a minority language learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a different dominant language in which they become more competent. Polinsky and Kagan label it as a continuum that ranges from fluent speakers to barely-speaking individuals of the home language. In some countries or cultures which determine a person's mother tongue by the ethnic group they belong to, a heritage language would be linked to the native language.
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.
Ronald Wayne Langacker is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of cognitive grammar. He has also made significant contributions to the comparative study of Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing several articles on historical Uto-Aztecan linguistics, as well as editing collections of grammar sketches of under-described Uto-Aztecan languages.
Language attrition is the process of losing a native or first language. 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 probably 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.
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.
Michael Sharwood Smith, Emeritus Professor of Languages at Heriot-Watt University & Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, is a researcher into multilingualism and the acquisition of non-native languages, a branch of developmental linguistics and cognitive science. He is a founding editor of Second Language Research, successor to the Interlanguage Studies Bulletin.
Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) refers to the different ways in which one language can affect another within an individual speaker. It typically involves two languages that can affect one another in a bilingual speaker. An example of CLI is the influence of Korean on a Korean native speaker who is learning Japanese or French. Less typically, it could also refer to an interaction between different dialects in the mind of a monolingual speaker. CLI can be observed across subsystems of languages including pragmatics, semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, phonetics, and orthography. Discussed further in this article are particular subcategories of CLI—transfer, attrition, the complementarity principle, and additional theories.
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.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to second-language acquisition:
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.
Paul van Geert is a Dutch linguist. He is currently a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is renowned for his work on developmental psychology and the application of dynamical systems theory in social science.
Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in the field of linguistics is a perspective and approach to the study of second, third and additional language acquisition. The general term Complex Dynamic Systems Theory was recommended by Kees de Bot to refer to both Complexity theory and Dynamic systems theory.
Marjolijn Verspoor is a Dutch linguist. She is a professor of English language and English as a second language at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. She is known for her work on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and the application of dynamical systems theory to study second language development. Her interest is also in second language writing.
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.
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.
Marijn van Dijk is a Dutch linguist. She is currently an Associate Professor of Developmental psychology at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen, Netherlands.
Scott Jarvis is an American linguist. He is a professor of Linguistics at the University of Utah, United States. His research focuses on second language acquisition more broadly, with a special focus on lexical diversity.
Kata Csizér is a Hungarian linguist. She is currently a professor at the School of English and American Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focus on motivation in second-language learning and teaching students with special needs.
Jasone Cenoz is a professor of education at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) University of the Basque Country in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain since 2004. From 2000 to 2004 she was Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Her research focuses on multilingual education, bilingualism and multilingualism. She is known for her work on the influence of bilingualism on third language acquisition, pedagogical translanguaging, linguistic landscape, minority languages and Content and Language Integrated Learning.
