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.
A vocabulary is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word vocabulary originated from the Latin vocabulum, meaning "a word, name." It forms an essential component of language and communication, helping convey thoughts, ideas, emotions, and information. Vocabulary can be oral, written, or signed and can be categorized into two main types: active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. An individual's vocabulary continually evolves through various methods, including direct instruction, independent reading, and natural language exposure, but it can also shrink due to forgetting, trauma, or disease. Furthermore, vocabulary is a significant focus of study across various disciplines, like linguistics, education, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Vocabulary is not limited to single words; it also encompasses multi-word units known as collocations, idioms, and other types of phraseology. Acquiring an adequate vocabulary is one of the largest challenges in learning a second language.
English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a foreign language (EFL), English as a second language (ESL), English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), or English as a New Language (ENL).
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.
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).
Extensive Reading (ER) is the process of reading longer easier texts for an extended period of time without a breakdown of comprehension, feeling overwhelmed, or the need to take breaks. It stands in contrast to intensive or academic reading, which is focused on a close reading of dense shorter texts, typically not read for pleasure. Though used as a teaching strategy to promote second-language development, ER also applies to free voluntary reading and recreational reading both in and out of the classroom. ER is based on the assumption that we learn to read by reading.
The lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by Michael Lewis in the early 1990s. The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are taught to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way. In 2000, Norbert Schmitt, an American linguist and a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, contributed to a learning theory supporting the lexical approach he stated that "the mind stores and processes these [lexical] chunks as individual wholes." The short-term capacity of the brain is much more limited than long-term and so it is much more efficient for our brain to pull up a lexical chunk as if it were one piece of information as opposed to pulling up each word as separate pieces of information.
Vivian James Cook was a British linguist who was Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University. He was known for his work on second-language acquisition and second-language teaching, and for writing textbooks and popular books about linguistics. He worked on a number of topics such as bilingualism, EFL, first-language acquisition, second-language teaching, linguistics, and the English writing system. He published more than 20 books and 100 papers. He was founder and first President of the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA), and co-founder of the Oxford University Press journal Writing Systems Research. He died in December 2021, at the age of 81.
Ian Stephen Paul Nation is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of linguistics and teaching methodology.
A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made with suffixes and prefixes plus its cognates, i.e. all words that have a common etymological origin, some of which even native speakers don't recognize as being related. In the English language, inflectional affixes include third person -s, verbal -ed and -ing, plural -s, possessive -s, comparative -er and superlative -est. Derivational affixes include -able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-, -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize/-ise, -ment, in-. The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the base word and the affix. Bauer and Nation proposed seven levels of affixes based on their frequency in English. It has been shown that word families can assist with deriving related words via affixes, along with decreasing the time needed to derive and recognize such words.
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.
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 following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to second-language acquisition:
Judit Kormos is a Hungarian-born British linguist. She is a professor and the Director of Studies for the MA TESOL Distance programme at the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is renowned for her work on motivation in second language learning, and self-regulation in second language writing. Her current interest is in dyslexia in second language learning.
Vocabulary learning is the process acquiring building blocks in second language acquisition Restrepo Ramos (2015). The impact of vocabulary on proficiency in second language performance "has become […] an object of considerable interest among researchers, teachers, and materials developers". From being a "neglected aspect of language learning" vocabulary gained recognition in the literature and reclaimed its position in teaching. Educators shifted their attention from accuracy to fluency by moving from the Grammar translation method to communicative approaches to teaching. As a result, incidental vocabulary teaching and learning became one of the two major types of teaching programs along with the deliberate approach.
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.
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.
