Second-language Acquisition
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Second-language Acquisition
Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning—otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process of learning a language other than one's native language (L1). SLA research examines how learners develop their knowledge of second language, focusing on concepts like ''interlanguage'', a transitional linguistic system with its own rules that evolves as learners acquire the target language. SLA research spans cognitive, social, and linguistic perspectives. Cognitive approaches investigate memory and attention processes; sociocultural theories emphasize the role of social interaction and immersion; and linguistic studies examine the innate and learned aspects of language. Individual factors like age, motivation, and personality also influence SLA, as seen in discussions on the critical period hypothesis and learning strategies. In addition to acquisition, SLA explores language loss, or second-language attrition, and the impact of f ...
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Second Language
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 "What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands?", 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. Second-language acquisition The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen as part of his monitor theory. According to Krashen, the ''acquisition'' of a language is a natural process; whereas ''learning'' a language is a conscious one. In ...
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Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American Left, American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, Criticism of capitalism, contemporary capitalism, and Corporate influence on politics in the United States, corporate influence on political institutions and the media. Born to Ashkenazi Jew ...
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Lexicon
A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for words'. Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts: a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar, a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon is also thought to include bound morphemes, which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions, collocations and other phrasemes are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries are lists of the lexicon, in alphabetical order, of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Size and organization Items ...
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Phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' [''obsolescent''] 1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often preferred by the American Structuralists and reflecting the importance in structuralist work of phonemics in sense 1.": "phonematics ''n.'' 1. [''obsolete''] An old synonym for phonemics (sense 2).") is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages systematically organize their phonemes or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but now it may relate to any Linguistic description, linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The buil ...
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Syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). Diverse approaches, such as generative grammar and functional grammar, offer unique perspectives on syntax, reflecting its complexity and centrality to understanding human language. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from the ancient Greek word , meaning an orderly or systematic arrangement, which consists of (''syn-'', "together" or "alike"), and (''táxis'', "arrangement"). In Hellenistic Greek, this also specifically developed a use referring to the grammatical order of words, with a slightly altered spelling: . The English term, which first appeared in 1548, is partly borrowed from Latin () and Greek, though the L ...
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Error Analysis (linguistics)
In linguistics, according to J. Richard et al., (2002), an error is the use of a word, speech act or grammatical items in such a way that it seems imperfect and significant of an incomplete learning (184). It is considered by Norrish (1983, p. 7) as a systematic deviation which happens when a learner has not learnt something, and consistently gets it wrong. However, the attempts made to put the error into context have always gone hand in hand with either [language learning and second-language acquisition] processe, Hendrickson (1987:357) mentioned that errors are ‘signals’ that indicate an actual learning process taking place and that the learner has not yet mastered or shown a well-structured [linguistic competence, competence] in the target language. All the definitions seem to stress either the systematic deviations triggered in the language learning process, or its indications of the actual situation of the language learner themselves, which will later help monitoring ...
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Contrastive Analysis
Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a couple of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. Historically it has been used to establish language genealogies. Second language acquisition Contrastive analysis was used extensively in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of a target language were more difficult to acquire than others. According to the behaviourist theories prevailing at the time, language learning was a question of habit formation, and this could be reinforced or impeded by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in a second language (L2) depended on the difference between the learners' mother language (L1) and the language they were trying to learn. History The theoretical foundations for what became known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis were formulated in Robert Lado's ''Linguistics Acr ...
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Multi-competence
Multi-competence is a concept in second language acquisition formulated by Vivian Cook that refers to the knowledge of more than one language in one person's mind.. From the multicompetence perspective, the different languages a person speaks are seen as one connected system, rather than each language being a separate system. People who speak a second language are seen as unique multilingual individuals, rather than people who have merely attached another language to their repertoire. The concept has been backed up by studies showing how the different languages a person learns affect each other. The phenomenon of language transfer, or the first language affecting the second, has long been known. More recent research has also shown that the second language also affects the first in various subtle ways. There is also evidence that people who learn other languages gain general cognitive benefits. Under multi-competence, the second language speaker is seen as more than the sum of t ...
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Vivian Cook (academic)
Prof. Vivian James Cook (13 June 1940 – 10 December 2021) 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 ( English as a foreign language), 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 and was survived by his wife Pam. Early and personal life Cook's interest in second languages began in childhood when he was sent to a Swiss sanatorium to medicate his asthma, where he met speakers of French, It ...
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Fossilization (linguistics)
In linguistic morphology, fossilization refers to two close notions. One is preserving of ancient linguistic features which have lost their grammatical functions in language. Another is loss of productivity of a grammatical paradigm (''e.g.'' of an affix), which still remains in use in some words.''The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics'', by Robert Lawrence Traskp. 125/ref> Examples of fossilization include fossilized morphemes and fossil word A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom or phrase. An example for a word sense is 'ado' in 'much ado'. An example for a phrase is ' in point' (relevant), which is retained ...s. The term interlanguage fossilization refers to common types of errors made by most adult second-language learners, differing from the idiomatic usage of native-language learners. These are erroneous generalizations or simplified language rules, which may be classified as ...
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Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and sentence (linguistics), sentences to communicate. Language acquisition involves structures, rules, and representation. The capacity to successfully use language requires human beings to acquire a range of tools, including phonology, morphology (linguistics), morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign language, sign. Human language capacity is language processing in the brain, represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive Mechanisms of mindfulness meditation, mech ...
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National Virtual Translation Center
The National Virtual Translation Center (NVTC) is a United States government organization established in February 2003 which provides "timely, accurate, and cost-effective translations for the U.S. Intelligence Community and other federal agencies." Section 907 of the USA PATRIOT ActUSA PATRIOT Act (U.S. H.R. 3162, Public Law 107-56), Title IX, Sec. 907. adopted in 2001 requested a report on the establishment of such a translation center. It was then formed by section 313 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003.Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 (U.S. H.R. 4628, Public Law 107-306) The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the executive agency in charge of the organization. NVTC's language-technology tools and linguists can accurately translate over 120 languages in text, audio, and visual formats. Its primary customers are intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-a ...
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