Please cite as:

Ortega, L. (2008). Contemporary Challenges for SLA Theories. IGSE Distinguished Lecture Series. International Graduate School of English, Seoul, June 5.

Copyright © Lourdes Ortega, 2008

Contemporary Challenges for SLA

Theories

Lourdes OrtegaUniversity of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

IGSE Distinguished Lecture SeriesSeoul, June 5th 2008

Thank you

Dr. Nahm-Sheik ParkDr. Hyun-Sook ChungMs. Hye-won Lee

Locating myself

Up until mid 1980s

1986-1993

Since 1993

Europe

In crisis? Norton Peirce (1995) Block (1996) Lantolf (1996) Firth & Wagner (1997) Atkinson (2002) Watson-Gegeo (2004) Larsen-Freeman (2006) de Bot et al. (2007) V. Cook (1991, 2008) Hall et al. (2006) Special Monograph Firth & Wagner ten years later (MLJ, 2007)

and so many more... ... ... ...

SLA as a field since late 1990s:

Background: Intense disciplinary crisis & reflection in recent years

Ortega (2005) special MLJ issue on Methodology, epistemology, and ethics in instructed SLA research

Auckland 2007 conference on Social & Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and Teaching

Preparing the closing chapter for Bill VanPatten & Jessica Williams (Eds.) on Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (Erlbaum, 2007)

Writing an SLA textbook (Ortega, forthcoming, with Arnold Publ.)

Guiding Question:

What will it take in the future so we can improve our explanations about second language learning?

epistemological diversity

interdisciplinarity:

Cognitive ScienceSocial Theories

Study of Bilingualism

Values:

Contemporary challenges for SLA

Challenge 1:

addressing the explicit-implicit

knowledge interface

Theories in SLA(VanPatten & Williams, Eds., 2007):

Functionalist-linguistic SLA(e.g., Barvodi-Harlig, Ch. 4; Pienemann, Ch. 8)

Formal-linguistic SLA(e.g., White, Ch. 3; Carroll, Ch. 9)

Emergentism(e.g., N. Ellis, Ch. 5)

[LINGUISTIC roots]

[PSYCHOLOGICAL

roots]

Cognitive-interactionist(e.g., Gass & Mackey, Ch. 10; VanPatten, Ch. 7;

TBLT: Robinson, Skehan, etc...)

Vygostkian SLA(e.g., Lantolf & Thorne, Ch. 11)

Skills acquisition(e.g., DeKeyser, Ch. 6)

[ECLECTIVE linguistic &

psychological,

& social psychological roots]

[SOCIOCULTURAL roots]

Current positions/foci:

•Linguistic approaches to SLA (UG, functionalist)…•Emergentist SLA

Implicit only/mostly

•Skills acquisition

From explicit to implicit

•Cognitive-interactionist SLA

Both implicit & explicit

(“interface” debate)

•Vygotskian SLA

Explicit mostly

Relative recent interest:

DeKeyser (2003) HSLA “explicit > implicit”

R. Ellis (2004) LL “Definition & measurement…”

N. Ellis (2005) SSLA “At the interface…”

But still disengagement or underdetermination are the norm:

Illustrative case in point: RECAST debate (Lyster, 2004-SSLA; Long, 2006)

Recasts

St: The bank assistant told Mary that she need to talk with the card holder.

Int: The bank assistant told Mary that she needed to talk with the card holder.

Simple recasts:(Han, 2002, p. 555)

Asako: …My opinion is… cats are more dangerous animal than dog because they…they keep going when they met a car. They never change their way, and they … run over.

Teacher: OK. Yeah, … cats are …Cats are at more danger. OK… So something is dangerous is going to hurt something else. At danger is they can be hurt. OK.

Recast with meta-linguistic explanation:(Nabei & Swain, 2002, p. 50)

José: I think that the worm will go under the soil.Teacher: I think that the worm will go under the soil?José: [no response]Teacher: I thought that the worm would go under the

soil.José: I thought that the worm would go under

the soil.

Compound recasts:(Doughty & Varela, 1998, p. 124)

Evidence sought: Immediate

St: One of the ladies, a little girl, she wear a short . . . short . . . short skirt . . . a short skirt.

T: She’s wearing a short skirt?

St: Yeah, she’s wearing a short skirt.

Explicit learning = “uptake”=immediate learner response following feedback (Lyster & Ranta, 1997); “noticing”=retrospective perspective (Mackey et al. 2000)

A: Where where where you break it?

B: Where did you break it? Mae Sot+

A: Mae Sot in Tak?B: Yeah+A: Why why why did you

go there?

Implicit learning = “the incidental tuning or adjustment of the tendencies of a processing system as a function of experience” (Ferreira & Bock, 2006, p. 1014)

Successful uptake:(Nassaji, 2007, p. 529)

Structural priming:(McDonough, 2006, p. 186)

Recasts

Correction/negative evidence(L1: Farrar, Nelson....)

Noticing(Schmidt, 1995)

Incorporation/uptake

Positive evidence &salience increased

(L2: Leeman, McDonough, Doughty)

Repeated processingin memory

Memory traceImplicit tallying

inductive generalization of type(Robinson & Ellis, 2008)

metalinguistic

psycholinguistic

What are the posited benefits for learning?

What is the needed evidence for learning?

Recasts

Correction/negative evidence(L1: Farrar, Nelson....)

Noticing(Schmidt, 1995)

Incorporation/uptake

Positive evidence &salience increased

(L2: Leeman, McDonough, Doughty)

Repeated processingin memory

Memory traceImplicit tallying

inductive generalization of type(Robinson & Ellis, 2008)

metalinguistic

psycholinguistic

Uptake /Introspection

Structural priming /Post-test gains

Undeniable:

explicit, top down,and conscious processing

implicit, bottom up, and subconscious processing

What to do?

At this stage of our disciplinary knowledge…

…regardless of theoretical position, do not discard a priori one or the other type of knowledge as irrelevant for explaining L2 acquisition;

…strive to clarify whether claims about learning are made with regard to explicit or implicit cognition

But of course, it’s a tall order:

SLA researchers will need to draw from cognitive science in this area in order to make explorations neurobiologically plausible

e.g., the work in Michael Ullman’s lab by Georgetown applied linguistics doctoral students: Kara Morgan-Short, Harriet Wood Bowden, Helen Carpenter

e.g., new faculty member at UH Luca Onnis, trained in statistical learning in Europe and the US

Challenge 2:

Theorizing experience

Challenge 2:

Differential experience is connected to one of the most salient facts to be explained by any SLA theory: variability and heterogeneity in L2 learning processes and outcomes

Yet, traditional SLA theories are ill-equipped to deal with variability and, as a consequence, they trivialize learner experience as anecdotal, divesting it from any theoretical status

SLA and other theories offer a theoretical continuum that ranges from externally documented experience to lived experience in physical, inter-personal, social, political, and cultural-historical context.

Metaphor OntologyEpistemology Methodology

raw - perceived

etic - emic

general – particular

homogeneous – variable

quantitative

qualitative

naturalistic data

elicited data

positivist

constructivist

Critical pragmatic

container

resource

source

Site of struggle, to be transformed

Varying notions of social context(external? lived?)

More and more researchers recognize the importance for understanding context in SLA resides less in externally documented experience or fixed environmental encounters and more in experience that is lived, made sense of, negotiated, contested, and claimed by learners in their physical, interpersonal, social, cultural, and historical context.

So, yes, there are options, but...

(Ortega, 2007)

“[Studying L2 learning] is in many ways similar to painting a chameleon. Because the animal’s colors depend on its physical surroundings, any one representation becomes inaccurate as soon as that background changes.”

Adapted from Tucker (1999, pp. 208-209),who found it in Donato (1998),

who took it from Hamayan (n.d. given)

Chamaleon and books in Kafue National Park, Zambia. Photo from http://www.knoware.co.uk/Travelogues/Zambia%20and

%20Botswana/Day%2001.htm

What to do?

1. Look for theories that offer social respecifications of phenomena:

L2 interaction:Conversation Analysis

L2 grammar:Systemic-Functional

Linguistics

L2 cognition:Vygotskian theory

L2 learning:Language socialization

L2 self:Identity theory

2. Investigate diverse contexts & populations:

Second, foreign, heritagelanguage contexts

Disparate social milieuswith varying L2 use needs

L1 semiliterate/L1 oralpopulations of L2 learners

Varying ages

Better done 1 than 2 so far:

SLA researchers have begun to look for theories that offer social respecifications of phenomena (“the social turn in SLA”)

But SLA as a field continues to investigate very limited contexts & population

Yet, crucial:

We do not know what new theoretical models will need to be advanced, or how the present ones will need to be modified, once SLA researchers begin to investigate populations that are currently seriously understudied

(e.g., Tarone & Bigelow, 2005; Valdés, 2005;Verhoeven, 1994)

But, of course, it isn’t that easy:

appropriate characterization of contexts and populations vis-à-vis language learning is in itself an elusive theoretical challenge (Block, 2003, chapter 3; Rampton, 1999; Siegel, 2003; Valdés, Brookes, & Chávez, 2003)

defining populations monolithically according to cultural, linguistic, ethnic, or racial membership is fraught with essentializing dangers

cf. “EFL” or “EFL in Korea”... enough??

Contexts are never homogeneous or deterministic

Differences between urban & rural geographies in China (e.g., Hu, 2005)

Differences between academic and vocational schools in Japan (e.g., Gorsuch, 2001)

Differences in life experiences,Differences in negotiating constraints(e.g., MacPherson, 2005)

Societal-structuraltexture

Individual agency

re-evaluating SLA theories in light of what we know about

the nature of bilingual competence

Challenge 3:

Joseph Conrad Franz Kafka

Nobody remembers them for being non-native writers,but for being seminal writers

Henry Kissinger Arnold Schwarzenegger

Nobody remembers them for being non-native politicians,but for being “famous” US politicians

Second ForeignNative Non-nativeL1 language L2 languageCulture self Culture other

In this world age, we need to go beyond binaries:

Reasons/Need forAdditional Language Learning

Exams

ScienceAcademia

TradeTourism

Technology

Globalizationin some EFL contexts

Reasons/Needs forAdditional Language Learning

WarFaminine

MigrationDiasporaPersecution

Genocide

Globalizationin many other contexts

Segyehwa

Kirogi families기러기

(Hakyoon Lee, 2008)

제 2 외국어the second foreign language

(Hyeeun Kim, 2007)

Korean communities worldwide:Immigration to Argentina in 1960s50,000 Koreans currently in Brazil

Paraguay, Bolivia, ChileRemigration to the United States

(Asians in Latin America: Guide to Resources:http://lacic.fiu.edu/library/find/agla.cfm)

(Academy of Korean Studies)

Bhabha (1994)

The location of culture

Post-colonial experience affords a “third” perspective, beyond dichotomies

“What is theoretical innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences... ‘In-between’ spaces [... nourish... ] new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation...”

(Bhabha, 1994/2004, p. 2)

think beyond narratives of originary and initial

subjectivities

Focus on those moments or processes that are produced in

the articulation of cultural differences

The experience of non-nativeness can also foster a double vision, a desire (indeed, a need!) to reach beyond binaries, and to look at the in-betweenness in things

Crisis of the native speaker in applied linguistics

pedagogies

research

theories

Benchmark for…

Crisis of the native speaker in applied linguistics

pedagogies

research

theories

Monolingual bias

Benchmark for…

Accepted tenets in the study of bilingualism:

Bilinguals cannot be reduced to the sum of two monolinguals in one.

(Grosjean, 1989)

Are you bilingual...?

What?뭐라고요

... If you can understand a language, but not speak it, are you bilingual?

... If you can read a language, but cannot speak or write it, are you bilingual?

... If you can understand this lecture in English, but wouldn’t want to give your own lectures in English, are you bilingual?

Who decides whether or not a person is bilingual?

Adapted from: Virginia Scott, Professor of French, Vanderbilt Universityhttp://www.vanderbilt.edu/french_ital/faculty/workshops

©2008 Virginia Mitchell Scott. All rights reserved.

Accepted tenets in the study of bilingualism:

Context-free, fixed, and dichotomous NS/NNS categories have questionable validity.

(Wei, 2000)

Accepted tenets in the study of bilingualism:

The development of multiple language competencies is a process mediated by amount of use/degree of activation across languages.

(e.g., Sebastián-Gallés et al., 2005)

Accepted tenets in the study of bilingualism:

The development of additional language competence interacts with, destabilizes, and most likely transforms the nature of linguistic competence across the languages of the individual (languages interact).

(e.g., Cenoz et al., 2001)

Yet, L2 competence in SLA:

two monolingual speakers housed in a single head?

monolingual-like competence the goal? monolingual and monocultural acts of a

special (secondary) nature? language competencies static and fixed

in the L1, and dynamic and in flux only in the L2?

What to do?

1. Pursue new constructs:

“multi-competence is not just the imperfect cloning of mono-competence, but a different state”

(Vivian Cook, 2002, pp. 7-8)

people who speak more than one language posses varying expertise, inheritance, and affilitation across their languages

(Rampton, 1990)

2. Pursue new empirical baselines:

Compare incipient and emerging bilinguals to fully developed bilinguals; bi/multilinguals cannot be directly compared to monolinguals; the sole benchmark for comparison cannot be monolinguals.

(Birdsong, 2005; Harley & Wang, 1997; Singleton, 2003)

2. Pursue new empirical baselines:

“There is no reason why one thing cannot be compared to another; it may be useful to discover the similarities and differences between apples and pears. SLA research can use comparison with the native speaker as a tool, partly because so much is already known about monolingual speakers. The danger is regarding it as failure not to meet the standards of natives: apples do not make very good pears. Comparing L2 users with monolingual native speakers can yield a useful list of similarities and differences, but never establish the unique aspects of second language knowledge that are not present in the monolingual [...]”

(V. Cook, 2008, p. 19)

3. Pursue new designs:

Investigate a learner’s multiple languages simultaneously within the same study.

(Ortega & Carson, in press)

“Bilingual turn,” the biggest challenge:

We should not underestimate the extent to which SLA findings may change, and SLA theories may need to be modified, once studying a learner’s multiple languages within the same study becomes regular research praxis in the field, taking into account what we know about the nature of bilingual competence

Some positive consequences:

Reorientation towards studying what multicompetent users can do, as opposed to only understanding what they cannot or wish not to do in their L2

Some uncertain consequences:

The validity of key notions in the field of SLA (e.g., interlanguage and ultimate attainment) will be called into question.

For example,

what happens once we know “target” really means “monolingual target” ?

“So-and-So has failed to develop target-like competence in X area of the L2”

“Most L2 learners fall short of the target norm”

“So-and-So has failed to develop monolingual-like competence in X area of the L2”

“Most L2 learners fall short of the monolingual norm”

Biased/Uninterpretable

On with the challenges!

To do more empirical work on the nature of explicit and implicit language knowledge and their respective contributions to L2 learning

To explore theoretically sophisticated ways forward to study how the lived experiences afforded by different social contexts shape L2 learning across diverse social contexts

To embrace a bilingual turn in SLA!!

Thank Youlortega@hawaii.edu

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