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bilingualism
loosely
to
refer
to
all
forms
of multilingualism.[4] SLA is also not to be contrasted
with the acquisition of a foreign language; rather, the
learning of second languages and the learning of
foreign languages involve the same fundamental
processes in different situations.[5]
Stages[edit]
Haynes divided the process of second-language
acquisition into five stages: preproduction, early
production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency,
and advanced fluency.[9] The first stage, preproduction,
is also known as the silent period. Learners at this
stage have a receptive vocabulary of up to 500 words,
but they do not yet speak their second language. [9] Not
all learners go through a silent period. Some learners
start speaking straight away, although their output
may consist of imitation rather than creative language
use. Others may be required to speak from the start as
part of a language course. For learners that do go
through a silent period, it may last around three to six
months.[10]
The second of Hayne's stages of acquisition is early
production, during which learners are able to speak in
short phrases of one or two words. They can also
memorize chunks of language, although they may
make mistakes when using them. Learners typically
have both an active and receptive vocabulary of
around 1000 words. This stage normally lasts for
around six months.[9]
The third stage is speech emergence. Learners'
vocabularies increase to around 3000 words during this
stage, and they can communicate using simple
questions and phrases. They may often make
grammatical errors.
The fourth stage is intermediate fluency. At this stage,
learners have a vocabulary of around 6000 words, and
can use more complicated sentence structures. They
are also able to share their thoughts and opinions.
Learners may make frequent errors with more
complicated sentence structures.
The final stage is advanced fluency, which is typically
reached somewhere between five and ten years of
learning the language. Learners at this stage can
function at a level close to native speakers.[9]
The time taken to reach a high level of proficiency can
vary depending on the language learned. In the case of
native English speakers, some estimates were provided
by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S.
Department of State, which compiled approximate
learning expectations for a number of languages for
their professional staff (native English speakers who
generally already know other languages). Of the 63
languages analyzed, the five most difficult languages
to reach proficiency in speaking and reading, requiring
88
weeks
(2200
class
hours),
are Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese,
and Korean. The Foreign Service Institute and
the National Virtual Translation Center both note that
Japanese is typically more difficult to learn than other
languages in this group.[11]
Comparisons with first-language acquisition[edit]
Adults who learn a second language differ from
children learning their first language in at least three
ways: children are still developing their brains whereas
adults have conscious minds, and adults have at least
a first language that orients their thinking and
Linguistic factors[edit]
Linguistic approaches to explaining second-language
acquisition spring from the wider study of linguistics.
They differ from cognitive approaches and sociocultural
approaches in that they consider language knowledge
to be unique and distinct from any other type of
knowledge.[39][40] The linguistic research tradition in
second-language acquisition has developed in relative
isolation from the cognitive and sociocultural research
traditions, and as of 2010 the influence from the wider
field of linguistics was still strong.[38] Two main strands
of research can be identified in the linguistic tradition:
approaches informed by universal grammar, and
typological approaches.[76]
Typological universals are principles that hold for all the
world's languages. They are found empirically, by
surveying different languages and deducing which
aspects of them could be universal; these aspects are
then checked against other languages to verify the
findings.
The interlanguages of
second-language
learners have been shown to obey typological
universals, and some researchers have suggested that
typological universals may constrain interlanguage
development.[77]
The theory of universal grammar was proposed
by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s, and has enjoyed
considerable popularity in the field of linguistics. It
focuses on describing the linguistic competence of an
individual. He believed that children not only acquire
language by learning descriptive rules of grammar; he
claimed that children creatively play and form words as
they learn language, creating meaning of these words,
as opposed to the mechanism of memorizing language.
[78]
It consists of a set of principles, which are universal
and constant, and a set of parameters, which can be
set
differently
for
different
languages. [79] The
"universals" in universal grammar differ from
typological universals in that they are a mental
construct derived by researchers, whereas typological
universals are readily verifiable by data from world
languages.[77] It is widely accepted among researchers
in the universal grammar framework that all firstlanguage learners have access to universal grammar;
this is not the case for second-language learners,
however, and much research in the context of secondlanguage acquisition has focused on what level of
access learners may have.[79]
Universal grammar theory can account for some of the
observations made in SLA research. For example, L2users often display knowledge about their L2 that they
have not been exposed to.[80] L2-users will often be
aware of ambiguous or ungrammatical L2 units that
they have not learned from any external source, nor
from their pre-existing L1 knowledge. This unsourced
knowledge suggests the existence of a universal
grammar.
Individual variation[edit]
Main article: Individual variation in second-language
acquisition
There is considerable variation in the rate at which
people learn second languages, and in the language
level that they ultimately reach. Some learners learn
quickly and reach a near-native level of competence,
but others learn slowly and get stuck at relatively early
stages of acquisition, despite living in the country
where the language is spoken for several years. The
reason for this disparity was first addressed with the
study of language learning aptitude in the 1950s, and
Krashen sees
acquisition.[7]
input
as
essential
to
language