Microsocial factors
Within a microsocial focus, our first topic will be L2 variation, which has received extensive attention since the 1970s from SLA researchers concerned primarily with sociolinguistics. We explore how contextual dimensions relate to variation in learner language and consider why differing varieties of an L2 may be chosen as targets of SLA even within groups who are supposedly learning the “same” language. Our second microsocial topic is input and interaction, where we consider how native speakers often modify their language in communicating with L2 learners, how interactional strategies among L2 learners may differ in actual versus virtual communication, how social and cultural factors may affect the quantity and quality of input, and how cultural knowledge and prior experience are involved in processing and interpreting input. As our third topic, we examine how Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory views interaction as the basic genesis of language itself and explore how learners negotiate meaning and fulfill pragmatic objectives even while their linguistic resources are still exceedingly limited.
Variation in learner language
One defining characteristic of L2 learner language is that it is highly variable. Some of the variability is due to changes that occur in what learners know and can produce as they progressively achieve higher levels of L2 proficiency. However, there is also considerable variation in learners’ L2 production at every stage along the way that we can attribute in large part to their social context.
One of the most important contributions of sociolinguistics (beginning with Labov 1965) has been the demonstration that much of what earlier linguists had considered unsystematic irregularity in language production can be seen to follow regular and predictable patterns, when treated as variable features. These are multiple linguistic forms which are systematically or predictably used by different speakers of a language, or by the same speakers at different times, with the same (or very similar) meaning or function. They occur at every linguistic level: vocabulary, phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse; they include both standard (“correct”) and nonstandard options; and they are characteristic of all-natural language production, whether L1 or L2. For example, native speakers of English may say: I ate dinner or I ate supper (variable vocabulary); She was coming or She was comin’ (variable phonology); She has sewed or She has sewn (variable morphology); and That is a big book or That a big book (variable syntax); and they may respond to an introduction with Hi or I am very pleased to meet you (variable discourse).
Which variable feature occurs in the production of any one speaker (native or language learner) depends largely on the communicative con texts in which it has been learned and is used. Some relevant contextual dimensions are:
• Linguistic contexts: elements of language form and function associated with the variable element. In the examples given above, for instance, the phonological variable [ŋ] in coming is more likely to be used before a word which begins with a back consonant or before a pause, and the variable [n] in comin’ is more likely before a front consonant. The part of speech can also be a relevant linguistic context, with pro duction of [ŋ] most frequent in one-syllable nouns such as ring or song, and [n] in the progressive form of verbs, as in I’m workin’.
• Psychological contexts: factors associated with the amount of attention which is being given to language form during production, the level of automaticity versus control in processing, or the intellectual demands of a particular task. In learners’ production, for instance, the copula of That is a big book may be produced during a formal second language lesson or in a writing exercise but omitted in informal conversation even at the same point of L2 development. Similarly, the variable [ŋ] is more likely to be used by L1 or L2 speakers when they are focusing on their pronunciation in a formal setting than in casual conversation.
• Microsocial contexts: features of setting/situation and interaction which relate to communicative events within which language is being produced, interpreted, and negotiated. These include level of formality and participants’ relationship to one another, and whether the inter action is public or intimate. Such features interact importantly with the amount of attention that is paid to language form, as illustrated above for the probability that the copula or [ŋ] versus [n] will be produced, or that the differences among see, saw, and have seen will be consistently observed.
Macrosocial factors, which will be discussed later, may also influence linguistic variation. These include features of the larger political setting within which language learning and use takes place, including the social position and role of users (e.g. whether immigrant, international student, visiting dignitary), societal attitudes toward specific languages and multilingualism in general, and institutional organization (e.g. patterns of education, employment, and political participation). For example, standard and prestige L2 forms are more likely to be used by international students or diplomats while they are functioning within those social roles than by the same individuals while they are shopping in a market or visiting tourist sites.
Variation that occurs in learners’ language as they develop increasing competence over a period of time is of particular interest from linguistic and psychological perspectives, as it reflects a developmental continuum. This interest has increased within psychological approaches because of the Complexity Theory claim that “a degree of variability cannot be explained by influences from the outside world because some variability is an intrinsic and central property of a self-organizing, dynamic system” (Verspoor, Lowie, and van Dijk 2008 :229). Variation that occurs in different contexts at a single point in time is of more interest from a social perspective, as it often corresponds to informal–formal features associated with linguistic register.
A substantial amount of research on the effect of microsocial contexts has been based on the framework of Accommodation Theory. Speakers (usually unconsciously) change their pronunciation and even the grammatical complexity of sentences they use to sound more like whomever they are talking to. This accounts in part for why native speakers tend to simplify their language when they are talking to an L2 learner who is not fluent (which we will discuss below), and why L2 learners may acquire somewhat different varieties of the target language when they have different friends (see Giles, Coupland, and Coupland 2010).
The effect of macrosocial contexts can also be seen when learners acquire different varieties of the “same” target language. Given similar linguistic, psychological, and microsocial contexts, for instance, female immigrants in the USA may hear and use more standard variants than male immigrants from the same language and cultural background – in part because females are more likely to find employment in middle- or upper-class households or in service positions, while males are more likely to find employment in blue-collar occupations. Workplace stratification affects both the nature of language input and group identity.
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Still more effects of macrosocial contexts can be found in the variable L2 production of learners whose L1 is relatively more or less prestigious in the wider society, and in the L2 of learners who are acquiring it as an auxiliary language for indigenous technical and political functions rather than as a second language for use with its native speakers. Speakers of a prestigious L1 may carry more features of L1 pronunciation and lexical borrowings into a less prestigious L2 than they do when their L1 is less prestigious. For learners of an auxiliary language, the target language grammar may not be that of native speakers, but of educated users of the L2 in their own country (Kachru 1986); learners may not wish to identify with or fully participate in a language community for which the L2 is politically dominant. These factors are explored further when we shift to a macrosocial focus later in this chapter.
Some variation in IL production (called free variation) remains even after accounting for linguistic, psychological, and social contexts as much as possible, and it can shed particularly important insights on processes of development. Indeed, Ellis suggests “that free variation constitutes an essential stage in the acquisition of grammatical structures” (1997 :19). He hypothesizes that the nature of variability changes during the process of L2 development in the following stages:
(1) A single form is used for a variety of functions.
(2) Other forms have been acquired but are initially used interchange ably (i.e. in “free variation”).
(3) The variant forms begin to be used systematically (e.g. depending on the amount of attention to form or the situational context).
(4) The non-target forms are eliminated. Removal of free variability is making the IL more efficient.
Summarizing the sociolinguistic perspective, then: (1) what is acquired in L2 includes variable linguistic structures and knowledge of when to use each; (2) the process of acquisition includes progress through stages in which different types of variability are evident; and (3) reasons why some learners are more successful than others include how well they can perceive and align their own usage in accord with the target system. Considering all of the variable features which occur in IL development and use, and all of the contextual dimensions which influence their occurrence; however, we are still left with the observation made in previous chapters that the sequence of SLA is remarkably the same under all conditions.
Input and interaction
Language input to the learner is absolutely necessary for either L1 or L2 learning to take place, but the nature of its role is in dispute. Within the linguistic approaches discussed in Chapter 3 , for instance, followers of behaviorist learning theories consider input to form the necessary stimuli and feedback which learners respond to and imitate; followers of Krashen’s Monitor Model consider comprehensible input not only necessary but sufficient in itself to account for SLA; proponents of UG consider exposure to input a necessary trigger for activating internal mechanisms, but of minimal importance for many aspects of language development beyond the initial state. Within the psychological approaches discussed in Chapter 4, those working from an IP framework consider input which is attended to (i.e. intake) as essential data for all stages of language processing; those working from a connectionist framework further consider the quantity or frequency of input structures to largely determine acquisitional sequencing, though this is partially contradicted by actual frequencies. Within the social approaches surveyed in this chapter, some researchers also consider input primarily as “data” for essentially innate linguistic and/or cognitive processes, but others claim a more important role for input in determining what features of language are learned, and how. Social approaches also consider the nature and role of interaction in acquisition, and ways in which it is helpful – and perhaps necessary – for the development of advanced levels of L2 proficiency. From a social perspective, interaction is generally seen as essential in providing learners with the quantity and quality of external linguistic input which is required for internal processing, in focusing learner attention on aspects of their L2 which differ from target language norms or goals, and in pro viding collaborative means for learners to build discourse structures and express meanings which are beyond the current level of their linguistic competence.
Nature of input modifications
Language addressed by L1 speakers to L2 learners frequently differs in systematic ways from language addressed to native or very fluent speakers. In speech, the modified variety is called foreigner talk; it has the characteristics listed in Table 5.1 (based on Long 1996).
While utterances by native speakers to language learners are usually grammatical, simplified input may omit some obligatory elements. For example, JoAnne Kleifgen (1986) recorded the following utterances by a native English-speaking teacher to L2 children who were engaged in an art activity:
Although this teacher’s modification of input to L2 learners was for the most part unconscious, she adroitly adjusted her language to individuals’ level of proficiency. This includes not only the grammatical deletions that these examples illustrate, but also shorter sentences and less varied vocabulary addressed to the least proficient children. This selective modification can be considered part of her own “communicative competence,” acquired as a result of many years’ experiences in teaching young English learners.
There is no direct evidence as to whether or not the modifications found in Kleifgen’s study enhanced the children’s comprehension, but we have reports that it does for older learners. When we surveyed international students at a US university to determine which professors they found easiest to understand, for example, faculty with extensive teaching experience in L2 contexts (who were more practiced in making appropriate modifications) were rated more comprehensible. Modifications with students at the university level are also generally unconscious, but they are likely to rise to an instructor’s awareness when addressing classes which include both beginning and advanced L2 learners, or both limited and native speakers of the language. In such situations, I often find myself restating a point I consider important with stress on key terms as a topic indicator and then a “translation” of them with simpler vocabulary.
The types of adaptations that are found in speech to L2 learners are similar in some ways to the “baby talk” used with young children in many languages (Ferguson 1971). Some of the linguistic modifications appear to aid comprehension at early stages of learning: e.g. high-frequency phrases may be memorized as chunks of speech which can be processed automatically; pauses at appropriate grammatical junctures can help listeners recognize constituent structures; a slower rate of speech allows more time for information retrieval and controlled processing; and topicalization helps in identifying what a sentence is about and what part of it contains new information. On the other hand, the common practice of speaking louder to an L2 learner (as if the person were hard of hearing) probably does no good at all, and “simplification” of sentence structure may actually impair comprehension to the extent that it reduces redundancy.
Modification of written input for L2 learners also typically includes controlled vocabulary and shorter, simpler sentence structure. In writ ten academic texts, modifications meant to help L2 students understand what they read are essentially the same as those used in text books for native speakers of English. These include those listed in Table 5.2.
As in oral input, “simplification” of sentence structure alone is of questionable value in enhancing the comprehensibility of written text (see e.g. Floyd and Carrell 1987). More important for interpretive processing are the provision of relevant background knowledge and modifications which assist readers in focusing on important terms and concepts.
In the nature of input modifications, then, we find both similarities and differences for L1 and L2 learners. Some of the oral modifications may make acquisition easier, but all L1 and many L2 learners can succeed without them. Modifications in written input which improve comprehension are similar for L2 and L1 students, but research on their effectiveness for SLA is quite limited.
Nature of interactional modifications
Along with input, social interaction is also essential for L1 acquisition: no children can learn their initial language by merely listening to tape recordings, radio broadcasts, or television programs. In contrast, many L2 learners do acquire at least some level of competence without interacting face to face with speakers of the target language, and for at least some highly motivated and/or talented learners, that level may be very high. For example, I recall meeting with a delegation of English L2 speakers from China not long after the end of the Cultural Revolution in that country, which had banned almost all contact with foreigners for twenty-five years. Members of the Chinese delegation reported that they learned English via language laboratory drills (notably translations of political slogans) and BBC broadcasts, and that they had not engaged interactionally in English until their (then) current trip to the USA. Some of the delegates’ level of L2 proficiency was exceptionally high, so they must be considered successful learners. This observation does not argue against the helpful effects of reciprocal social interaction on SLA but does contribute to the conclusion that it is not absolutely necessary.
Interactional modifications made by L1 speakers in discourse with L2 learners appear to provide even more significant help than do the modifications of oral input which are listed above. Some useful types of modifications include those listed in Table 5.3, together with illustrations of each in English learning contexts (taken from personal observations).
Repetition by native speakers (NSs) of part or all of their previous utterances allows nonnative speakers (NNSs) more time for processing and an opportunity to confirm or correct perception; paraphrase by NSs allows NNSs to cast a wider net for words they recognize and may increase their vocabulary store; expansion and elaboration by NSs provide models of contextually relevant utterances which may exceed NNSs’ immediate ability to produce; sentence completion and frames for substitution provide NNSs with words or chunks of language from NSs which they can use in subsequent turns of talk; and vertical constructions allow NNSs to con struct discourse sequences beyond their current independent means (a notion associated with scaffolding , which is discussed below).
Comprehension checks and requests for clarification by NSs focus NNSs’ attention on segments of sentences which are unclear, and such checks and requests by NNSs inform NSs where repetition, paraphrase, or additional background information is required. These are important devices in the negotiation of meaning between NSs and NNSs which help in pre venting or repairing breakdowns in communication. Other devices include selecting topics that the other is familiar with, and switching topics to repair conversational breakdowns which do occur.
Feedback
Other types of interaction which can enhance SLA include feedback from NSs which makes NNSs aware that their usage is not acceptable in some way, and which provides a model for “correctness.” While children rarely receive such negative evidence in L1, and don’t require it to achieve full native competence, corrective feedback is common in L2 and may indeed be necessary for most learners to ultimately reach native-like levels of proficiency when that is the desired goal.
Negative feedback to L2 learners may be in the form of direct correction, including explicit statements like That is the wrong word; directives concerning what “cannot” or “must” be said; and explanations related to points of gram mar and usage. Or the negative feedback may come as indirect correction, which includes several of the same interactional modification forms which were listed in Table 5.3, but here they have a different function. For example:
• What appears at a literal level to be a comprehension check or request for clarification may actually be intended to mean that the NNS utterance was incorrect.
• Rising intonation questions by NSs which repeat part or all of a NNS’s utterance (“echo” questions) often mean that the utterance was wrong. (In contrast, repetition by NSs with falling intonation usually affirms correctness.) The NS usually stresses some element in the repeated form with either meaning.
• Paraphrase of an NNS utterance by NSs may be intended merely to provide an alternative way to say the same thing without overtly suggesting that an error has been made, but what might appear to be a paraphrase is often a recast which substitutes a correct element for one that was incorrect.
One potential problem for L2 learners is that they sometimes do not recognize when indirect feedback is corrective in intent. It does not help that the English phrases OK and all right (when followed by pauses) are often used as discourse markers to preface corrections and not to convey that the prior utterance is actually “OK” or “all right” in form or content. Even many experienced English teachers are not conscious of this potential source of confusion for their students, which highlights the importance and relevance of understanding L2 discourse conventions as well as vocabulary and syntax.
Computer interaction
Although computer-mediated experiences do not provide face-to-face L2 interaction of the kind I reported in the previous section, there are similarities as well as differences in the corrective feedback that they provide to learners. Especially when CMC involves synchronous oral interaction, for example, there are similar occurrences of corrections, repairs, comprehension checks, and requests for clarification, and they occur in similar form whether interaction is with a native speaker of L2 or another L2 learner (Jepson 2005). When CMC involves written instead of oral interaction, an additional type of feedback is negotiation of form, and learners pay more attention to self-correction (Chapelle 2007).
Participation in a virtual community may well provide a better early L2 learning environment for some students than face-to-face interaction does. (I am relying on my own personal teaching experience in making this claim as well as on published research findings such as those in Blake 2007.) Students who sign on for CMC can be anonymous. They can use a pseudonym and present a “face” of their own choice and creation. This anonymity can cancel social mandates which may be imposed on female and less prestigious male students not to display competence in L2 pro duction; this restriction is especially strong when less linguistically competent but more politically powerful students from the same country are enrolled in a class of international students. Anonymity may also encourage more L2 production and interaction by students who are by nature not “risk-takers,” and may erase other social inequalities that may discourage interactive participation.
Intake to cognitive processing
We have already emphasized that language input may “go in one ear and out the other,” and it contributes to acquisition only if it is “let in” to the mind for processing: i.e. if it becomes intake. According to claims made in the Interaction Hypothesis , the modifications and collaborative efforts that take place in social interaction facilitate SLA because they contribute to the accessibility of input for mental processing: “ negotiation for meaning , and especially negotiation work that triggers interactional adjustments by the NS or more competent interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways” (Long 1996 :151–52).
To summarize the interactionist perspective, then: what is acquired in L2 includes only that portion of L2 input “which is assimilated and fed into the IL system” (Ellis 1985 :159); L2 is acquired in a dynamic interplay of external input and internal processes, with interaction facilitating (but not causing) SLA; and the reasons that some learners are more successful than others include their degree of access to social experiences which allow for negotiation of meaning and corrective feedback. However, reciprocal interaction as a source and stimulus for learning ignores “autodidacts” who teach themselves from books and recordings. Further, this perspective addresses in only a limited way the evidence for universal sequencing in L2 learning.
Interaction as the genesis of language
An alternative view of the role of interaction in SLA is based on Sociocultural (S-C) Theory (Vygotsky 1962, 1978; see Lantolf and Thorne 2006). A key concept in this approach is that interaction not only facilitates language learning but is a causative force in acquisition; further, all of learning is seen as essentially a social process which is grounded in sociocultural settings. S-C Theory differs from most linguistic approaches in giving relatively limited attention to the structural patterns of L2 which are learned, as well as in emphasizing learner activity and involvement over innate and universal mechanisms; and it differs from most psychological approaches in its degree of focus on factors outside the learner, rather than on factors which are completely in the learner’s head, and in its denial that the learner is a largely autonomous processor. It also (as noted above) differs from most other social approaches in considering interaction as an essential force rather than as merely a helpful condition for learning.
According to S-C Theory, learning occurs when simple innate mental activities are transformed into “higher-order,” more complex mental functions. This transformation typically involves symbolic mediation, which is a link between a person’s current mental state and higher-order functions that is provided primarily by language. This is considered the usual route to learning, whether what is being learned is language itself or some other area of knowledge. The results of learning through mediation include learners’ having heightened awareness of their own mental abilities and more control over their thought processes.
Interpersonal interaction
So far we are using the term “interaction” to mean interpersonal interaction: i.e. communicative events and situations which occur between people. One important context for symbolic mediation is such interpersonal interaction between learners and experts (“experts” include teachers and more knowledgeable learners). Vygotsky calls the level where much of this type of mediation occurs the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) . This is an area of potential development, where the learner can achieve that potential only with assistance. According to S-C Theory, mental functions that are beyond an individual’s current level must be performed in collaboration with other people before they are achieved independently.
One way in which others help the learner in language development within the ZPD is through scaffolding. This includes the “vertical con structions” mentioned above as a type of modified interaction between NSs and NNSs, in which experts commonly provide learners with chunks of talk that the learners can then use to express concepts which are beyond their independent means. This type of mediation also occurs when peers collaborate in constructing language which exceeds the competence of any individual among them. More generally, the metaphor of “scaffolding” refers to verbal guidance which an expert provides to help a learner perform any specific task, or the verbal collaboration of peers to perform a task which would be too difficult for any one of them individually (see Bruner 1985). Very importantly, scaffolding is not something that happens to a learner as a passive recipient, but happens with a learner as an active participant.
For L2 learners, L1 as well as L2 can provide helpful mediation. Talk between peers who are collaborating in tasks is often in their common L1, which provides an efficient (and sometimes essential) medium for problem-solving and can enhance learning of both L2 and any academic subjects students are studying in the second language. Symbolic mediation can be interactional without involving face-to-face communication: although we do not often think of it that way, reading actually involves an interaction between the individual and the author(s) of a text or book, resulting in an altered state of knowledge. Symbolic mediation need not even necessarily involve language (although it usually does) but can also be achieved with such nonlinguistic symbols as gestures, diagrams and illustrations, and algebraic symbols.
Intrapersonal interaction
In addition to interpersonal interaction, S-C Theory requires consideration of intrapersonal interaction: i.e. communication that occurs within an individual’s own mind. This is also viewed by Vygotsky as a sociocultural phenomenon.
When reading, for example, we engage in intrapersonal as well as inter personal activity: “we draw interactively on our ability to decode print, our stored knowledge of the language we are reading and the content schemata through which our knowledge of the world is organized” (Ellis 1999 :1).
A second type of intrapersonal interaction that occurs frequently in beginning stages of L2 learning – and in later stages when the content and structure of L2 input stretches or goes beyond existing language competence – makes use of L1 resources. This takes place through translation to oneself as part of interpretive problem-solving processes.
Yet another type (which was of particular interest to Vygotsky) is private speech. This is the self-talk which many children (in particular) engage in that leads to the inner speech that more mature individuals use to control thought and behavior. While inner speech is not necessarily tied to the surface forms of any specific language, private speech is almost always verbalized in L1 and/or L2. Study of private speech when it is audible pro vides a “window into the mind” of sorts for researchers, through which we can actually observe intrapersonal interaction taking place and perhaps discover its functions in SLA.
I was intrigued by this possibility, and recorded children over a period of several weeks while they were just beginning to learn English (Saville Troike 1988). I was particularly interested in finding out if the children were using English to themselves, and if so, what they were using the language for, during a period when they were generally very reluctant to try speaking out loud to others in the new language. Because private speech is generally much lower in volume than interactional speech, and often inaudible unless the observer is within a few inches of the speaker, I equipped these children with wireless radio microphones for recording purposes.
For the youngest children I recorded, English was largely something to play with. For example, three- and four-year-old Chinese L1 brothers (called Didi and Gege, meaning ‘younger brother’ and ‘older brother’ in Chinese) focused extensively on the L2 sounds and seemed to derive plea sure from pronouncing certain words. High-frequency private vocabulary items for them included butter pecan, parking lot, skyscraper, and Cookie Monster. Both children also demonstrated their attention to sound by cre ating new words with English phonological structure, including otraberver, goch, treer, and trumble – impossible sequences in their L1. The focus on sounds not infrequently led to a private game, as the boys chanted rhythmically or intoned words to themselves. For example:
For somewhat older children, English was used more to comment about ongoing events. They displayed a higher level of mental activity related to L2 learning by focusing on grammar as well as on the sound of their utterances. This was very clear in private pattern drills, such as those in the following examples that were produced by a five-year-old Japanese L1 boy in his kindergarten class. While saying (a) to himself, he was practicing English auxiliaries; his drill indicates he had correctly assigned have and am to the same syntactic slot, and he recognized the contraction I’m as equivalent to I am. Example (b) represents a “build-up” drill, where the same child practiced adding an object to make the sentence longer.
The oldest children I recorded also focused on L2 form but added self-guiding language more frequently than did the younger learners. The next example illustrates a pattern which an eight-year-old Chinese L1 girl commonly produced while writing sentences in her language workbook. She first constructed the parts to herself, then named letters as she wrote, and finally repeated the result.
In addition to play, even the youngest children used private speech as intrapersonal symbolic mediation, as illustrated below in my final examples of private speech. Here, they are making use of their L1 to translate to themselves as they incorporate new language forms. (The Chinese and mixed utterances below are glossed in English.)
Didi (while watching another child who is crying):
Gege (while driving around on a tricycle):
Private speech by these children provides good evidence that even when they were not interacting with others, they were not merely passively assimilating L2 input; they were using intrapersonal interaction in an active process of engagement with the input they heard, practicing to build up their competence. Similar audible evidence would be more difficult to obtain from older learners (partly because of the inhibiting effects of social constraints on talking to oneself in public), but many report repetition and experimentation strategies in their inner speech, and some report continuing private speech (often reduced to muttering) when not within hearing range of others.
Audible private speech may continue among adult learners in special ized, socially sanctioned settings where imitation or other controlled response to linguistic input is considered “normal” behavior. A low level of muttering is frequently heard in language laboratories where learners wearing headphones practice alone in cubicles, for instance, and Ohta (2001) recorded students in a language classroom as they responded to corrections and questions quietly, even when they were not being directly addressed. The social constraints that determine which type of symbolic mediation is appropriate in a specific situation underscore its nature as a sociocultural as well as a mental phenomenon.
A common intrapersonal activity that is closely related to private speech is “private writing,” in which individuals record language forms and other meaningful symbols on paper in order to help store items in memory, organize thought, solve problems, or such, without intent to communicate with others. Students of language, for example, may keep personal journals or diaries of their learning experiences, jot notes in the margins of textbooks, list new words along with some mnemonic aid, write interlinear L1 translations in a text, and highlight or underline important points. Many language teachers list major topics and activities which they plan to include in a class lesson in a form of private writing, and they may add phonetic symbols to student names on their class roster which they otherwise might not remember how to pronounce.
Overall, Sociocultural Theory claims that language is learned through socially mediated activities. The S-C framework supports the view that some learners may be more successful than others because of their level of access to or participation in a learning community, or because of the amount of mediation they receive from experts or peers, and because of how well they make use of that help.
Acquisition without interaction; interaction without acquisition
There are challenges to a socioculturally oriented view of L2 acquisition, however. The following two facts are somewhat difficult to explain if we hold a strong position that social interaction is an essential causative force in second language learning:
(1) Some individuals are able to achieve a relatively advanced level of L2 proficiency without the benefit of any interpersonal communication or opportunity to negotiate meaning in the language with others.
(2) Some individuals engage in extensive interaction with speakers of another language without learning that language to any significant degree.
We might explain the first phenomenon by including learner engagement with text and electronic media as types of “social interaction,” as well as intrapersonal communication in the form of private speech and writing, or of inner speech. Such learners would not have the benefit of scaffolding with immediate help from other humans, but corrective feedback and other potential enhancements to SLA can be provided by other means. We could still claim that live face-to-face interaction facilitates L2 learning – at least for most people, but not that it is absolutely necessary.
Explaining why some individuals apparently interact quite successfully with others while developing little or no competence in a common linguistic code requires a closer look at what other strategies are used for communication. These include the following:
• Background knowledge and experience which help individuals organize new information and make guesses about what is going on and what will happen next
• Understanding of the overall situation or event, including its goal, the relationships among participants, and what they expect one another to do and say
• Extralinguistic context, including physical setting and objects
• Knowledge of genre-specific discourse structures: e.g. what rules for interaction are expected in a conversation versus a lesson at school, and what sequence of actions is likely
• Gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbal signs
• Prosodic features of tone and stress to convey emotional state
In spite of cultural differences in each of these elements, there is often enough commonality to allow at least some level of meaningful communication between people who do not speak the same language, but who are cooperative and willing to guess.
An experience I had in Taiwan illustrates how well these nonlinguistic factors can work. I had accepted a last-minute opportunity to teach English there, and I arrived in the country with no prior knowledge of Chinese. One of my first goals was to mail a letter back to my family in the USA to let them know that I had arrived safely. A student who spoke some English pointed out a post office to me, and I was on my own. The physical setting inside the building was familiar enough, with a long counter on the far side of a large, rather bare room. I knew from prior experience that I needed to buy a stamp, that the man standing behind the counter facing me must be a postal clerk who could sell me one, and that the people standing in line in front of me must be other patrons. I followed the “rule” I know of taking a place in line and waiting my turn to be served. When I reached the counter, the clerk said something in Chinese (I assume the equivalent of ‘May I help you?’) and I asked for a stamp in English, holding out my letter and pointing to the upper right corner of the envelope where I knew that a stamp should be placed. He took the letter from me and said something else (I assume telling me the amount of money I owed, since that was what I expected to hear next in the sequence of this event). I held out a handful of Chinese coins, although I had no idea how much he had said the stamp cost or how much money I was offering; the clerk took a few and returned the rest. He said something, but seemed from facial expression and tone of voice to be satisfied, so I said “Thank you” and left. The transaction was thus successfully completed without benefit of any mutual linguistic knowledge, but making use of all of the other communicative strategies that I listed above.
Communicative events cannot be completed without a common language in the absence of familiar context and props, of course, or when nonpredictable information needs to be conveyed. Students studying in a foreign country, for example, cannot understand or express abstract concepts in academic subject fields without L2 knowledge or L1 translation; however, they may be able to function quite adequately in many social situations while still possessing only limited linguistic resources. If individuals have need and opportunity to develop increasing competence in the L2, they will do so; if they are not motivated to learn the L2, they may not – even if they have ample social opportunity.
An illustration of fairly prolonged interaction without acquisition comes from the experiences of Gege and Didi, the young Chinese brothers whom I introduced earlier with examples of their private speech. They not only talked to themselves while in the nursery school they attended, but addressed in Chinese their teachers and other children who spoke and understood only English, with sometimes surprisingly successful results:
Three-year-old Didi walked over to a teacher and showed her a broken balloon.
The teacher understood Didi’s meaning because he was holding up a broken balloon for her to see, and his comment was obviously about the condition of that object.
Four-year-old Gege looked at a hose lying on the playground.
TEACHER: That’s a fire hose. Gege’s question to a different teacher was also clear because there was a notable object in the immediate setting which she could assume he was asking about.
In contrast, the following exchange was not successful:
In this case, Didi was trying to get the teacher to understand that he wanted to have a drink of water. Didi’s attempts to convey his message included repetition and paraphrase, and the teacher even repeated his Chinese utterance He shui in an apparent effort to understand it, or to elicit clarification. She understood from his tone of voice that he wanted something, but this attempt at communication failed because no contextual cues were available to identify the object he wanted.
My final example in this section shows that children can also make use of nonlinguistic cues for negotiation of coherent interaction between themselves. In this event, English-speaking Michael (also four years old) approached a playhouse in the nursery school yard and correctly interpreted Gege’s repeated utterance in Chinese as a directive to come inside, which he rejected. Gege then “softened” his invitation for Michael to come in with a paraphrase, which Michael agreed to. Although in this exchange neither child understood what the other was saying, they successfully negotiated entry to a social event that subsequently yielded several minutes of sustained cooperative play.
The strategy that was shared by Chinese- and English-speaking four-year-olds in this exchange was probably the use/interpretation of para phrase as having a “softening” effect. The sheer persistence of Gege in maintaining verbal interaction may also have been interpreted by Michael as a “friendly” overture, regardless of what Gege actually said or meant.
In due time, Didi and Gege became aware that others could not understand them. Indeed, when interviewed in Chinese, Gege stated this realization explicitly and said that he intended to learn English. Over the next few years, Didi and Gege became fluent English speakers, even dominant in English to the extent that they had problems communicating in Chinese – but that is another story. The illustrative case of non-acquisition here concerns the other participants in these events. Although the nursery school teachers and other children interacted successfully with Didi and Gege for several months before English became a common language, none of them learned even a single word of Chinese as a result of the interaction. The teachers and playmates relied completely on context, nonverbal signals, and internal information to infer meaning. They had the opportunity to learn, but neither need nor motivation.
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