Appunti lezioni del corso di English Linguistics and Translation I

Eva Hoffman: Lost in translation

The challenge of acquiring a new language

The extract of Eva Hoffman is useful to understand the issue of acquiring another language. She moved from Poland to Canada when she was 13 years old due to WW2 and when she moved there, she started to learn English as a L2. However, she found complications with her pronunciation. Indeed, her classmates made fun of her since she couldn't pronounce English properly. This is the reason why Eva claims that a native speaker is always able to recognize a non-native one. She felt like her speech organs were changing scheduled to English adaptation. When she was alone, she used to practice English to reach a good pronunciation. It's hard to reach a perfect phonological level while acquiring our L. We're only able to reach full competency in our mother tongue.

Language acquisition and awareness

When Eva moved to Canada she had already acquired Polish as her mother tongue and she learned English pretty late. Children before the age of 5 can learn any language they are exposed to and the vocal tract can do any sound because there is equipotentiality at birth. After the age of 5, the vocal tract gets modified and it learns to produce the sounds and the phonemes of the language the baby is exposed to. So before the age of 5, children acquire the language unconsciously, but Eva learned English consciously: she has a different awareness, she notices all the salient elements. In fact, noticing is a strategy that adult learners develop when learning a new language.

Language attrition and decay

Eva Hoffman also talks about language attrition and the eventual decay of a language. It can happen that a newly acquired language inhibits the first language, to the point of losing it. This happens when someone stops using their first language for a long time.

Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

SLA refers to the acquisition of a second language (Second Language, L2 or Target Language, L2), in the sense that it is acquired after you have acquired your first language. Basically, the first language is a language we inevitably acquire, which is completely different from the act of learning which is linked to the second language. SLA is a so-called "umbrella term," this means that it includes many other aspects of the acquisition of other languages (again: multilingualism, for example).

We naturally acquire our mother tongue (First Language, L1) without particular effort, unless there's some serious brain damage or physical impairment. In fact, when we're learning other languages, we might put considerable effort into mastering and improving our linguistic knowledge: that's why when discussing SLA we're free to use both terms such as acquire and learn. For a first language, however, the distinction between acquisition and learning is fundamental. Almost everyone acquires a first language but not everyone acquires a second language.

Differences between languages

• Every language has its own phonology. Phonology is the sound system of a language, and it’s actually what causes more problems in L2 acquisition when it comes to pronunciation. In the Italian/English case, there’s not a quantity difference (we have the same amount of sounds) but a quality difference (in how these sounds are pronounced).
• There are also morphological differences between languages. Morphology is the study of word structure. Always taking Italian/English as an example, in the word “schoolbus” we know we are talking about a “bus” and not a “school”; in the word “camposanto” we know we are talking about a “campo.” The head of the word in English is put secondly (school + bus) while in Italian it is in the first place (campo + santo).
• Other differences between languages can be seen in syntax (the system between grammatical relationships of words within phrases and sentences) and vocabulary. In the latter in particular, we see that every word is a point of access to concepts – words can have layers and layers of meanings. Every concept is connected to other concepts/meanings that can be different in other languages. For example: “outdoor” in standard English means something done in open air, while “outdoor” in Ghanaian English refers to a ritual people in Ghana do to welcome children in the society.

Sequential and simultaneous acquisition

SLA can be simultaneous or sequential. Sequential acquisition of a language is chronologically learned after a first one, which can be experienced by the cut-off point of 5 years old. It's neither predictable nor uniform. There's no single way in which learners acquire a second language, and it's not predictable as it proportionally depends on the individual learning situation.

Everyone has the same capacity to learn the mother tongue. Children are always exposed to linguistic input given for instance by their parents because they tend to imitate what they hear in their surroundings. Equipotentiality at birth refers to the fact that no matter when we're born, we're able to acquire our first language. We all start the same. We undergo the same process at one year of age: the larynx slides down and the tongue becomes smaller, hence being easier to articulate phonemes. The infant imitates (stimulus-response theory) the sound it perceives in its surroundings starting to progressively notice sounds' consistency and frequency, linguistic patterns, etc. That's why if they initially use 250 sounds (including clicks, squeals, whines) but only hear 50 sounds in the context in which they're growing up, they're going to replicate ONLY those limited sounds. On average, children have mastered most of the distinctive sounds of their first language before they are three years old. Protosyllables: first and universal sounds the baby produces linked to suction movement. They are not specific to any language in particular. In sequential acquisition, we need to re-set our articular and speech organs to another language phonology.

Simultaneous acquisition: two or more languages are acquired simultaneously by the age of five.

Child grammar and social experience

Child grammar: kinds of utterances the child can produce or understand at a certain maturation level. However, social experience is a necessary condition for acquisition and distinction of the L1 from all other possible languages. As we said, SLA is neither a uniform nor a predictable phenomenon. There are aspects of SLA that are stable and generalizable if not to all learners, to large groups of learners. SLA refers to all aspects of language that the learner needs to master: Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Vocabulary/lexicon, Semantics, and Pragmatics.

Similarities and differences between L1 and L2 acquisition

The biggest similarities and differences between L1 and L2 acquisition are:

• Ontogenesis = stages of linguistic development ON the individual and its biological growth
• Phylogenesis = evolutionary development and diversification of the linguistic texture of animal species

These two stages are intertwined (intertwined) they are strictly connected because the development in an ontogenetic sense is confirmed by phylogenetic statements.

Three states of language acquisition

The process of acquisition of the first and the second language could be schematized into 3 states:

• INITIAL STATE: Basic actions don't involve just the talking, but also coordinating actions, the result of talking speaking + some activities and actions. Since the SLA follows L1 acquisition, a major component of the initial state for SLA must be prior knowledge of L1: this prior knowledge is responsible for the transfer from L1 to L2 during second language development.
• INTERMEDIATE STATE: These states are basically based on the evolution of a child grammar in the case of L1 acquisition, and of an interlanguage in the case of SLA; then we can say that we go through some BASIC PROCESSES that correspond with physical and mental maturation in the case of L1 acquisition, while in the case of SLA we are talking about Transfer, Imitation, and Hypothesis testing.
• FINAL STATE: The final state of L1 development is native competence and the fact that the success is guaranteed. On the other hand, the final state of L2 development can never be totally native linguistic competence, and the level of competence is highly variable (in particular from the point of view of phonology). In many cases, learners cease to make further progress toward the learning target in response to L2 input, leading to a state known as fossilization.

Other features of language acquisition

Others Features: fossilization happens when development ceases or backslides (returning to earlier stages of acquisition of a L2). However, there could be attrition between two different languages, but that's not considered fossilization. Intuition: L1 intuition for grammatical notions, L2 are often unable to form clear grammaticality judgments. Negative Evidence: children aren't typically corrected if wrong. It's completely useless. Correction is helpful and necessary for L2, but it depends on intermediate language, if I'm ready or not to acquire such information.

First Language vs. Second Language

• L1 = it’s native
• L2 = not native
• L1 = acquired during childhood as a natural process
• L2 = it is learned
• L1 = the learner is exposed to it since birth
• L2 = the learner can acquire it during childhood or adulthood because it is typically a language needed for education or employment

Ways of acquiring a second language

• Informal learning: it takes place in a naturalistic context
• Formal learning: it takes place in classroom
• Mix of both

Differences and similarities between first and second language acquisition

• Errors: in both processes the learner makes errors, which is a part of learning.
• Stages: in both first and second language acquisition there are predictable stages and the learner can move more slowly or quickly through these stages but they cannot skip ahead.
• Age: it is an important factor in the process of acquiring a language.
• Context: in both processes, learners use context clues and social interaction to comprehend a language but, while in first language acquisition learners have many chances to practice with native speakers in real contexts, in second language acquisition learners generally don’t have the opportunity to practice with native speakers on a daily basis.
• Input: learners in both processes need comprehensible and regular input, but obviously they differ from first and second language acquisition.
• Difference comprehension/production: in both processes learners can often comprehend more than what they produce because receptive language develops faster than expressive language.
• Metacomprehension: second language old learners are able to use more strategies and metacognitive processes during the learning. They have metalinguistic awareness.
• Motivation: it is important for both first and second language acquisition, in FLA children need to talk in order to communicate their desires, their needs and to obtain objects, an adult who is acquiring a second language is motivated from practical purposes.

Language and learning video

The video starts to talk about a myth according to which you acquire your language automatically when you're still a child. According to Ellen Bialystock, there is an optimal period for this. In fact, she supports the “optimal period hypothesis” according to which young children can acquire multiple languages since their brain doesn't have to accomplish any other task. In fact, acquiring their mother tongue is all children do for the first five years of life. Moreover, they are surrounded by people who can help them learn a language, their parents, teachers, and so on.

According to Laura, another researcher, the children’s brain tissue involved in language acquisition is just one, but when they grow up, many tissues of the brain get involved in order to accomplish many other tasks. This is basically the biggest difference between acquiring a language earlier when you're a child than now. When you grow up, you're supposed to accomplish much more tasks and life gets busier.

Another main difference is at our brain level, the tissue that's involved in language acquisition is on a maturational timetable and that means that these tissues will reach a sort of stable situation and then our capacity of learning will stop. The early exposure helps under a morphological and syntactical point of view, but the acquisition of the vocabulary remains an open field, you can always acquire new words. Ellen said that it will be also useful to add some cultural materials in classes, films, music, newspapers, and so on, because our brain works in quality and not in quantity. Our mind is biologically and genetically set to acquire languages, so this is an innate capacity that is endowed into us. Skills depend on nothing but ourselves, we are biologically disposed but some of us are more disposed to learning than others. Children have also preferences on languages so they'll choose one that will dominate.

Catch up issue: What emerges from some researches is that there are milestones in the acquisition of vocabulary. For a certain period, if you compare the production of a monolingual speaker with the production of a multilingual speaker, the production of the multilingual speaker, as far vocabulary is concerned, is lower and they result also slower in vocabulary build-up process. However, if you analyze the vocabulary, they have in their L1, they have as many concepts as monolingual speakers. Indeed, if we put together the knowledge of languages of a multilingual speaker, we notice that the overall average is identical to the overall average that the monolingual would have at the same age. For a certain period in the acquisition of vocabulary multilingual speakers seem to be a bit slower, but then they catch-up. As far as morphology and syntax are concerned, there are no differences.

The other concept is that at an academic level there is no difference because they have the same concepts (in a language or in the other). We're now accepting learning multiple languages isn't delaying children linguistic capacities.

Multilingualism

In the 50's, multilingualism was seen as an illness because it was linked to racism, but nowadays we are aware of the advantages of multiple language acquisition. For example, Ellen Bialystok discovered the differences of how monolingual and multilingual speakers think and how their thoughts are influenced. Bilingual speakers are able to recognize what is useless and unnecessary in a sentence and also able to focus on what are the most important information. This happens because the executive control system is more developed and efficient in multilingual speakers.

The experiment of the cabdrivers

To explain this, we can discuss an experiment carried out between two cabdrivers, one of them is a monolingual and the other is a multilingual. This experiment was advantageous to understand the importance of multiple language acquisition, a task was given to the two of them, drive while phoning. At the end, the multilingual conducted better than the first one.

Multilingualism can be defined under the umbrella of the second language acquisition (SLA). The word “Multilingualism” refers to the linguistic ability of some individuals to speak and use different languages in some interlinguistic communicative situation, but it can also refer to the situations of some countries in which more languages coexist. A key word in multilingualism is sequence: when a language is acquired after another one, so in a sequential manner, we talk about sequential multilingualism. When two languages are acquired simultaneously by the age of five, we talk about bilingualism.

Compared to other studies of SLA, multilingualism is a younger research field and its importance has become relevant at the beginning of the 21st century, because one of the goals of the European Union was to create trilingual European citizens.

Europeism

The term Europeism appeared for the first time in the Leopardi's Zibaldone and it refers to the items that appeared to be common among the European languages, especially in politics and philosophy. He proposed the compilation of a “Universal Dictionary” that includes those terms. This shows the attention and the relevance of languages and their features and that people, especially in Europe, have been exposed to multilingualism for centuries. In fact, most of the European languages are actually related and they belong to three big subfamilies: Italic, Germanic, and Slavic.

In 1939, Benjamin Whorf introduced the concept of SAE, Standard Average European, to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe. He observed that these languages were characterized by some similarities including syntax, grammar, vocabulary, and its use. His point was to argue that the high level of knowledge of SAE languages led linguistics to consider that these grammatical forms to be highly natural or even universal, when in fact they were only peculiar to SAE language group.

According to Martin Hapelmath, the SAE languages form a Sprachbund, that is a “euroversals,” specific linguistic area, characterized by these following features:

• Basic sentence structure: SVO
• Use of prepositions
• Use of “to be” and “to have” as auxiliary verbs
• Presence of definite and indefinite articles
• Agreement/concord between subject and verb

Multilingual acquisition

Differences between L2 and L3 learning:

• Third language learners have more experience at their disposal than second language learners. Research has shown that they use more strategies (procedures used in learning to reach a goal) and metalinguistic awareness (sequential multilingualism).
• There are issues of level of competence: the sequence does not imply that the level of competence you have in your L3 is lower than the one you have in L2. (The sequence does imply different levels of competence between L1 and other languages).
• There is a lot of linguistic interdependence. The acquisition of the L2 could potentially influence the acquisition of the L3. There is much more interaction between the various language systems in a multilingual system than the interaction you have between L1 and L2.