Roumyana Slabakova (Bulgarian:РумянаСлабакова) is a linguist specializing in the theory of second language acquisition (SLA),particularly acquisition of semantics,and its practical implications for teaching and studying languages.
Slabakova was born in Varna,Bulgaria,where she received her first degrees (B.A. and M.A.) from Sofia University "Kliment Ohridski" in English Philology There,she also specialized in linguistics of English as well as educational psychology. [1] She spent some years teaching English as a second language in Varna in the period when Bulgaria was establishing itself as an independent county. After that,Slabakova embarked on her PhD project at McGill University where she was advised by Lydia White,a linguist who established generative second language acquisition as a separate field. [2] She wrote her thesis on acquisition of aspect,synthesizing recent development in semantic and syntactic theories of aspect (among them,telicity). Slabakova conducted a number of experiments involving ESL learners in Varna to find out whether her results would support any of the theories of SLA which existed at the time. [3] She published extensively on the topic of aspect in Slavic and Germanic languages and contributed to both SLA and syntax-semantics interface. [4] [5] [6] [7] Having graduated from McGill University,Slabakova took a position at University of Iowa where she remained for 15 years. [8] Slabakova has mentioned that working with her colleague and mentor at Iowa,William Davies,has greatly influenced her demeanor and the way she pursues research. [8]
Over her career,Slabakova worked on a wide range of topics:from purely semantic or purely syntactic ones to functional morphology. In fact,her prominent Bottleneck Hypothesis for second language acquisition posits that functional morphology is the most difficult part of acquisition process. In her 2008 book,working on the Bottleneck Hypothesis,Slabakova explores how learners make meaning from the newly acquired words and sentences. [9]
Slabakova has also made notable contributions to the field of third language acquisition (TLA). She collaborated with Marit Westergaard in this field to investigate the accessibility of Universal Grammar in the acquisition process. [10] In 2017,Slabakova proposed Scalpel Model which posed that the previous languages do play role in the transfer processes at the developmental stages of TLA. [11] It has been pointed out that the Scalpel Model is an interdisciplinary one and draws heavily on neurobiology and experimental psychology in its predictive and descriptive power (unlike,for example,Flynn's CEM model).
Slabakova has contributed to a number of peer-reviewed journals. She co-founded Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism with her student Jason Rothman in 2010. Since then,Slabakova became co-editor of SLR,one of the top-tier journals in the SLA field. Lastly,she is a co-editor of Language Acquisition and Language Disorders series of John Bemjamins with her doctoral advisor Lydia White. As of March 2021,Roumyana Slabakova has over 10,100 citations on Google Scholar,and her h-index is 35. [12] In 2020,she published a new textbook focusing on generativity in SLA. [13] Slabakova holds an adjunct position as a professor at NTNU. [1]
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.
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.
Bilingualism,a subset of multilingualism,means having proficiency in two or more languages. A bilingual individual is traditionally defined as someone who understands and produces two or more languages on a regular basis. A bilingual individual's initial exposure to both languages may start in early childhood,e.g. before age 3,but exposure may also begin later in life,in monolingual or bilingual education. Equal proficiency in a bilingual individuals' languages is rarely seen as it typically varies by domain. For example,a bilingual individual may have greater proficiency for work-related terms in one language,and family-related terms in another language.
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.
Lydia White is a Canadian linguist and educator in the area of second language acquisition (SLA). She is James McGill Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at McGill University.
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).
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 developmental stages of the brain. 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.
Martha Young-Scholten is a linguist specialising in the phonology and syntax of second language acquisition (SLA).
Heritage language learning,or heritage language acquisition,is the act of learning a heritage language from an ethnolinguistic group that traditionally speaks the language,or from those whose family historically spoke the language. According to a commonly accepted definition by Valdés,heritage languages are generally minority languages in society and are typically learned at home during childhood. When a heritage language learner grows up in an environment with a dominant language that is different from their heritage language,the learner appears to be more competent in the dominant language and often feels more comfortable speaking in that language. "Heritage language" may also be referred to as "community language","home language",and "ancestral language".
Second Language Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics,concerned foremost with second language acquisition and second-language performance. Each year,one special issue is published,devoted to some current topic. It was established in 1985 and is published quarterly by SAGE Publications. The current editors-in-chief are Silvina Montrul and Roumyana Slabakova.
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 mental lexicon is a component of the human language faculty that contains information regarding the composition of words,such as their meanings,pronunciations,and syntactic characteristics. The mental lexicon is used in linguistics and psycholinguistics to refer to individual speakers' lexical,or word,representations. However,there is some disagreement as to the utility of the mental lexicon as a scientific construct.
Silvina Montrul is a linguist specializing in generative approaches to second language acquisition. She is currently Professor of Linguistics and Spanish,Italian and Portuguese,as well as Second Language Acquisition,at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Embodied bilingual language,also known as L2 embodiment,is the idea that people mentally simulate their actions,perceptions,and emotions when speaking and understanding a second language (L2) as with their first language (L1). It is closely related to embodied cognition and embodied language processing,both of which only refer to native language thinking and speaking. An example of embodied bilingual language would be situation in which a L1 English speaker learning Spanish as a second language hears the word rápido ("fast") in Spanish while taking notes and then proceeds to take notes more quickly.
Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard is a Norwegian linguist,known for her work on child language acquisition and multilingualism.
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.
Lourdes Ortega is a Spanish-born American linguist. She is currently a professor of applied linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and second language writing. She is noted for her work on second language acquisition and for recommending that syntactic complexity needs to be measured multidimensionally.
Suzanne Flynn is an American linguist and Professor of Linguistics at MIT who has contributed to the fields of second and third language acquisition. She has also investigated language disorders.
International | |
---|---|
National | |
Academics | |
Other |