Current Issues and Debates Surrounding First Language Acquisition - Essay Example

Current issues and debates surrounding first language acquisition and second language acquisition Discussing first language acquisition and second language acquisition Overview The fist language is called L1 and the second language as L2. The function of L1 convey on the acquisition of L2 has been the topic of debatable in the field of L2 knowledge and bilingual schooling. This essay aims to look at controversial outlook about the move of first language on the acquisition of second from the theories of (CA) Contrastive Analysis, (CR) Contrastive Rhetoric and (CC) Creative Construction and (CUP) Constructive Underlying Proficiency. Introduction With regard to L2 acquisition and bilingual schooling, cross-linguistic control is a subject generally discussed in the essay. Nevertheless, after quite a few decades of swot, linguistic examiners have not arrived at consent on whether acquisition of L1 information has destructive or constructive weight in the acquisition of L2. A variety of active theories have debatable views about the role of first language weight on second language education. Beneath, the essay talks about the role of first language on the acquisition of second language through the viewpoints of CA, CR, CC and CUP. (Flynn, Suzanne & Lust, Barbara 2002) Discussion, Debate and Issue L1 Transfer on L2 There are so many theories every theory describes differently the role of first language move on the acquisition of second language. Contrastive Analysis and Contrastive Rhetoric hold that first language interferes with second language acquisition when first language and second language demonstrate dissimilarities. (Flynn, Suzanne & Lust, Barbara 2002) The Constructive Underlying Proficiency hypothesis keeps up that first language facilitates second language learning. The Creative Construction claims that first language has no effects on second language acquisition. Negative L1 influences on L2 (WHITE, J. 2008) highlights two significant points in Creative Construction hypothesis. Firstly, in second language acquisition, transfer from the local language to objective language occurs absolutely and is regularly negative. Secondly, acquisition or learning problems could be foreseen by linguistic distinctions between 2 languages. The level of complexity is supposed to depend mainly on the degree to which second language patterns are alike to or unlike from first language. While two languages are matching, then way of learning makes it easier through constructive difficulties occurs and error resulting from unhelpful transfer are likely to take place. To conclude, the Contrastive Analysis hypothesis attributes education complexity to distances / differences between the objective language, that can be shortened as the “Distance / Differences = Difficulty” Hypothesis. Positive L1 influences on L2 As (COOK, V. 2005) states the exact the possible elements of general underlying capability with 3 principal components: a) Cognitive processes in first and second language b) Mutual structures in first and second language c) Mechanism that permits the procedures and formation to transfer athwart languages. He has further expanded the Constructive Underlying Proficiency by suggesting the threshold level as essential condition for constructive first language transfer to take place in under beneath summary: a) There be present a general underlying expertise with a threshold height of language skill that permits abilities to transfer. b) There be present an underlying expertise with a threshold height of language skill and cognitive reforming that permits abilities to transfer. c) There be present a separate language structure with a cognitive division of language abilities. Transfer takes place at the end where two formerly divided but structurally related language routines come up to jointly. To wrap up, there should be a method by which we may be able to find out resemblances between languages, otherwise synthesize, reorganize our knowledge to permit for new understandings on second language contribution, and a method that permits approaches and information to be contributed to athwart languages for the mean of cognitive competency. Such a transfer method is matter to the threshold restraints. No L1 influences on L2 (Aukrust, V. G. 2004) declares that beginners of different NLs go after a general path of expansion. In core, this hypothesis has completed two theoretical states related to first language transfer: 1. Hypothesis of first language non-transfer 2. Second language = First language hypothesis The initial claim searches for to undervalue the role of first language and highlight the role of universal procedures of language education and the resemblance between second language and first language acquisition. Regards to the hypothesis, first language interference is of small significance in second language learning. Second language = first language hypothesis concerns whether basic principles that lie beneath first language and second language are the equal, and whether the language acquisition tool that mentalists claims is accountable for first language acquisition is accessible to second language learners. This hypothesis tells that second language acquisition in either very similar or identical to first language acquisition. The resemblance may be apparent at the point of product (i.e. the methods liable for acquisition). Inconsistent Empirical Findings Experiential results from the studies on first language influences on second language learning are normally in distinction between the absence and existence of first language effects on second language learning. Various studies found that first language transfer did take place in second language learning, while such a move was either positive or negative. Others illustrated that first language had no consequences on second language learning whatsoever. The subsequently sections re-examined these two categories of empirical results in contrast. (WHITE, J. 2008) The negative L1-L2 transfer A lot of studies have capitulated results of negative transfer on different levels of language like syntactic, discourse and phonological. On the level of phonological, for instance, (Cao, H. X. 2001) investigated that negative transfer was apparent amongst Chinese learners of English in creating some sounds. In a study, he explored that Chinese narrators have particular complexity in recognizing the emotional conditions of narrators of English as the earlier judged the international English language as per their pitch Chinese of language. Such Phonological transfer knowledge resulted in faults. Negative first language transfer is also persistent at level of syntactical. (Francis, N. 2000) explored that negative transfer be present in the education of second language syntax. He observed the transfer cause of first language in the acquisition of English impetuous with position to English learner Chinese. This study examined how English learner Chinese used the acquaintance of the required properties of Chinese reflexive "self", "herself / himself" as a foundation for the English acquisition. The positive L1-L2 transfer Dissimilar to the examination of negative first language influences on second language learning, experiments have explored positive first language transfer in changed aspects that comprise the transfer of writing and reading skills, approaches and concepts. Such studies demonstrate that positive transfer generally occurs at the thorough and cognitive levels. (Upton 2001) considered the first language use in second language reading method of 20 native narrators of Japanese ESL and Chinese learners at three separate skill levels in the USA, by retrospective interview and think-aloud protocol. The examination discovered the question of when and where second language readers apply their first language cognitive sources and how such cognitive exercise of the first language helps them understand a second language text. First, reading in second language wasn’t a monolingual happening. Second language readers had way in to their first language as they read and lots of applied it as an approach to help understand a second language text. Second language readers with diverse levels of second language skill made use of first language and second language to different ways in their efforts to make text understandable. Secondly, the lower squad used first language more when tackled with unknown second language words while the higher squad did not. Thirdly, the less capable readers had a superior tendency to go on a second language text and sentence sense using the L1. The results projected that the role of the first language in second language reading was not just that of translation and carried on far ahead. Hawkins, Roger (2001) Findings denying L1-L2 transfer Dissimilar to the examination in support of the first language – second language transfer, many studies have recognized neither positive nor negative first language effects on second language learning. In many cases, the learners of second language seemed not to be dominated in any way by their local language. The results confirmed that first language did not transfer to second language in aspects like as literacy abilities of writing or reading, discourse patterns and syntax, as the proponents of first language transfer had declared. In one revision on second language learners' transfer mistakes, WHITE, J., COLLINS, L., & MUNOZ, C. (2007) found that the second language learners' mistakes could be divided into three types: i) Developmental ii) Interference iii) Unique. In one useful investigation (BIALYSTOK, E. (2001) examined their pragmatic survey of the L1 and L2 writing and reading of adult ESL learners to conclude the affiliations across languages (First and second) and across abilities (writing and reading) in the acquisition of second language literacy abilities. Francis (2000) fall out that in the revision of bilingual transfer, it was compulsory to identify more specifically which features of language capability and language use were interdependent and what characteristic were separate. Conclusion As Wang (2004) sorts out, the position of L1 on L2 is dynamic and versatile. So, with a multidimensional viewpoint in mind, teachers could use more retrospective processes in the educational situations. Above essay proves that identical attention has to be given to the pupils’ idea growth and language acquisition. Teachers have to be more broad-minded with low-level second language learners’ dependence on their first language if their second language fails them for an efficient thinking. To conclude the versatile role of first language transfer on second language involves the point existence and practice of first language in the acquisition of second language, which takes advantage of and will really help the educational processes. References Cao, H. X. (2001). A Study on How Chinese EFL Learners Develop Comparison-and contrast Essays in English. Unpublished MA theis, Nanjing University. Francis, N. (2000). The Shared Conceptual System and Language Processing in Bilingual Children: Findings from Literacy Assessment in Spanish and Nahuatl. Applied Linguistics 21/2: 170-204. BIALYSTOK, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. COOK, V. (2001). Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(3), 402–423. COOK, V. (2005). Basing teaching on the L2 user. In E. Llurda (Ed.), Non-native language teachers: Perceptions, challenges and contributions to the profession (pp. 47–61). New York: Springer. Aukrust, V. G. (2004). Explanatory discourse in young second language learners’ peer play. Discourse Studies, 6, 393–412. Galasso 2002: J. Galasso, Interference in Second Language Learning: A Review of the Fundamental Differnce Hypothesis, California State University, Northridge. WHITE, J., HORST, M., & BELL, P. (2009). Making the most of learners’ linguistic knowledge. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Denver, CO. WHITE, J. (2008). Speeding up acquisition of his/her: Explicit L1/L2 contrasts help. In J. Philp, R. Oliver & A. Mackey (Eds.), Second language acquisition and the younger learner: Child’s play? (pp. 193–228). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. GASS, S. M., & SELINKER, L. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge. WHITE, J., COLLINS, L., & MUNOZ, C. (2007). The his/her challenge: Making progress in a ‘regular’ second language program. Language Awareness, 16(4), 278–299. Hawkins, Roger (2001): Second Language Syntax: A Generative Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell, ch.1: “A Framework for Studying Second Language Syntax”, p. 1-33. Flynn, Suzanne & Lust, Barbara (2002): “A minimalist Approach to L2 solves a Dilemma of UG” in Portraits of the L2 User, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, ch.4, p.93-120. Read More