A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but is learned later. 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.
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig is an American linguist. She is currently Provost Professor and ESL Coordinator at Indiana University (Bloomington).
Mark Warschauer is a professor in the Department of Education and the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, director of UCI's Ph.D. in Education program and founding director of UCI's Digital Learning Lab. He is the author or editor of eight books and more than 100 scholarly papers on topics related to technology use for language and literacy development, education, and social inclusion.
Language for specific purposes (LSP) has been primarily used to refer to two areas within applied linguistics:
- One focusing on the needs in education and training
- One with a focus on research on language variation across a particular subject field
A significant construct in language learning research, identity is defined as "how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future". Recognizing language as a social practice, identity highlights how language constructs and is constructed by a variety of relationships. Because of the diverse positions from which language learners can participate in social life, identity is theorized as multiple, subject to change, and a site of struggle.
A diary study is an in-depth reflection on learning processes or teaching experiences regularly kept by an individual and then analyzed to look for recurring patterns or significant events. Diary studies are often used in qualitative studies and can be analyzed by diarists themselves or by researchers. It is a research genre gaining popularity in the TESOL field. Originated from both psychological and anthropological research, diary studies involve systematic personal accounts of the feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and reactions over a period of time. In other words, it is a kind of self-observation, introspection and retrospection. Diarists can freely write about their thoughts and have no need to answer some previously imposed questions for the research. We can often find unexpected underlying factors, especially affective factors through diary studies. Common external research tools such as observation cannot reach the affective part so far.
Focus on form (FonF) is an approach to language education in which learners are made aware of the grammatical form of language features that they are already able to use communicatively. It is contrasted with focus on forms, which is limited solely to the explicit focus on language features, and focus on meaning, which is limited to focus on meaning with no attention paid to form at all. For a teaching intervention to qualify as focus on form and not as focus on forms, the learner must be aware of the meaning and use of the language features before the form is brought to their attention. Focus on form was proposed by Michael Long in 1988.
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 interface position is a concept in second language acquisition that describes the various possible theoretical relationships between implicit and explicit knowledge in the mind of a second language learner. Tacit knowledge is language knowledge that learners possess intuitively but are not able to put into words; explicit knowledge is language knowledge that learners possess and are also able to verbalize. For example, native speakers of Spanish intuitively know how to conjugate verbs, but may be unable to articulate how these grammatical rules work. Conversely, a non-native student of Spanish may be able to explain how Spanish verbs are conjugated, but may not yet be able to use these verbs in naturalistic, fluent speech. The nature of the relationship between these two types of knowledge in second language learners has received considerable attention in second language acquisition research.
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.
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 that typically include immigrants, migrant workers, or the children of such groups. This acquisition process takes place in natural contexts of majority language setting. The main suggestion of the theory is that the acquisition of a second language is directly linked to the acculturation process, and learners’ success is determined by the extent to which they can orient themselves to the target language culture.
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.
Lilly Wong Fillmore is an American linguist. She is Professor Emerita in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has focused on second language learning and teaching and on education in language minority communities.
Charlene Polio is an American linguist. She is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, The United States. Her research focuses on second language acquisition with a special focus on second language writing.
Alison Mackey is a linguist who specializes in applied linguistics, second language acquisition and research methodology. She is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on applied linguistics and research methods.
Susan Gass is an American Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize-winner linguist. She is currently a professor emerita, retired from the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focus on second language learning, corrective feedback, and task-based language learning. She graduated in 1961 from Kingswood School Cranbrook.
