A second language (L2) is any language Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of learned after the first language or mother tongue A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. The term is also used for the language that the speaker speaks best. In either case, a person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity (L1). Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.
A person's first language may not be their dominant language, the one they use most or are most comfortable with. For example, the Canadian The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three census defines first language for its purposes as "the first language learned in childhood and still spoken", recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition Language attrition is the loss of a first or second language or a portion of that language by individuals. Speakers who routinely use more than one language may not use either of their languages in ways which are exactly like that of a monolingual speaker. In sequential bilingualism, for example, there is often evidence of interference from the. This can happen when young children move, with or without their family (because of immigration Immigration is the introduction of new people into a habitat or population. It is a biological concept and is important in population ecology, differentiated from emigration and migration or international adoption International adoption, or intercountry adoption, is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple becomes the legal and permanent parents of a child born in another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country in which the child was born), to a new language environment.
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Age
According to some researchers, the defining difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is the age the person learned the language. For example, linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty. In most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the Critical Period Hypothesis The critical period hypothesis is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age. The hypothesis claims that there is an ideal 'window' of time to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which this is no longer.
In acquiring an L2, Hyltenstam (1992) found that around the age of six or seven seemed to be a cut-off point for bilinguals Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. The generic term for a multilingual person is polyglot to achieve native-like proficiency. After that age, L2 learners could get near-native-like-ness but their language would, while consisting of few actual errors, have enough errors to set them apart from the L1 group. The inability of some subjects to achieve native-like proficiency must be seen in relation to the age of onset (AO). “The age of 6 or 8 does seem to be an important period in distinguishing between near-native and native-like ultimate attainment... More specifically, it may be suggested that AO interacts with frequency and intensity of language use” (Hyltenstam, 1992, p. 364).
Later, Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson (2003) modified their age cut-offs to argue that after childhood, in general, it becomes more and more difficult to acquire native-like-ness, but that there is no cut-off point in particular. Furthermore, they discuss a number of cases where a native-like L2 was acquired during adulthood.
As we are learning more and more about the brain, there is a hypothesis that when a child is going through puberty, that is the time that accents start. Before a child goes through puberty, the chemical processes in the brain are more geared towards language and social communication. Whereas after puberty, the ability for learning a language without an accent has been rerouted to function in another area of the brain—most likely in the frontal lobe area promoting cognitive functions, or in the neural system of hormone allocated for reproduction and sexual organ gowth.
Similarities and differences between L2 and L1
Speed
Acquiring a second language can be a lifelong learning process for many. Despite persistent efforts, most learners of a second language will never become fully native-like in it, although with practice considerable fluency can be achieved. However, children by around the age of 5 have more or less mastered their first language, with the exception of vocabulary A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge and a few grammatical In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the structures.
Stages
Acquiring a second language occurs in systematic stages. Much evidence has been gathered to show that basic sounds, vocabulary, negating phrases, forming questions, using relative clauses A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there. A relative clause can also modify a pronoun, as in "he to whom I have written", or a noun phrase which, and so on are developed. This development is independent of input (we do not hear nor read language in this order) and learning situation (in the classroom or on the street). It is also generally applicable across a spectrum of learners (from different language backgrounds). This is similar to the learning stages that babies go through when acquiring the first language: babbling (bababa), vocabulary (milk then later milk drink), negation (no play), question forming (where she go), and so on.
Correction
Error correction does not seem to have a direct influence on learning a second language. Instruction may affect the rate of learning, but the stages remain the same. Adolescents and adults who know the rule are faster than those who do not. In the first language, children do not respond to systematic correction. Furthermore, children who have limited input still acquire the first language.
Depth of knowledge
Learners in the first or second language have knowledge that goes beyond the input they received, in other words, the whole is greater than the parts. Learners of a language are able to construct correct utterances (e.g. phrases, sentences, and questions) that they have never seen or heard before.
Success
Success in language learning can be measured in two ways: likelihood and quality. First language learners will be successful in both measurements. It is inevitable that all first language learners will learn a first language and with few exceptions, they will be fully successful. For second language learners, success is not guaranteed. For one, learners may become fossilized or stuck as it were with ungrammatical items. (Fossilization occurs when language errors become a permanent feature. See Canale & Swain (1980), Johnson (1992), Selinker (1972), and Selinker and Lamendella (1978)). The difference between learners may be significant. Finally, as noted elsewhere, L2 learners rarely achieve complete native-like control of the second language.
| X | L2 | L1 |
|---|---|---|
| speed | NA | acquisition is rapid |
| stages | systematic stages of development | systematic stages of development |
| error correction | not directly influential | not involved |
| depth of knowledge | beyond the level of input | beyond the level of input |
| success (1) | not inevitable (possible fossilization*) | inevitable |
| success (2) | rarely fully successful | successful |
Theories of second language acquisition (SLA)
Blackboard A blackboard or chalkboard is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Chalkboards were originally made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone. Modern versions are often green or brown and are thus sometimes called a greenboard or used in class It can be the group of students which attends a specific course or lesson at a university, school or other educational institution at Harvard Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Established in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the first corporation chartered in the United States and oldest institution of higher learning in the United States shows students The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb studēre, meaning "to direct one's zeal at"; hence a student could be described as "one who directs zeal at a subject". In its widest use, student is used for anyone who is learning' efforts at placing the ü "Ü", or "ü", is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter U with an umlaut or a diaeresis and acute accent The acute accent is a diacritical mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign) is an ancillary glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός (diakritikós, "distinguishing"). Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the used in Spanish orthography Spanish orthography is one of the most phonemic among those that are written with the Latin alphabet. For detailed information on the pronunciation not found here, see also Spanish phonology. Main article: Second language acquisition Second language acquisition or second language learning is the process by which people learn a second language in addition to their native language. "Second language acquisition" refers to what the learner does; it does not refer to what the teacher does (see "language education" for work on language teaching). "SecondThe distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen (1982) 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 the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations. In the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction; however, the study of how a second language is learned/acquired is referred to as Second Language Acquisition or SLA.
Research in SLA focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language... [and] a knowledge of second language acquisition may help educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programmes for both foreign language courses and the learning of the majority language by minority language children and adults (Spada & Lightbown, p. 115).
SLA has been influenced by both linguistic and psychological Psychology is the scientific study of human or other animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge. Many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms Cognition is the scientific term for "the process of thought." Usage of the term varies in different disciplines; for example in psychology and cognitive science, it usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of, responsible for much of human learning, process language.
Foreign language
A German The German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German ancestry (Deutschstämmige). Historically, in the context of the German student learning French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live inIn pedagogy, a distinction is often made between 'second language' and foreign language A foreign language is a language not spoken by the people of a certain place. It is also a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to, i.e. an English speaker living in Japan can say that Japanese is a foreign language to him or her. These two characterizations do not exhaust the possible definitions, however, and the, the latter being learned for use in an area where that language is not generally spoken. Arguably, English English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of in countries such as India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the, Pakistan Pakistan (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the, Bangladesh Bangladesh (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ, pronounced /bæŋgləˈdɛʃ/; Bangladesh), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Banglādeśh) is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma, the Scandinavian Scandinavia is a region in northern Europe that includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Modern Norway and Sweden form the Scandinavian Peninsula. The name Scandinavia is considered to have the same etymology as Scania. Finland is sometimes considered a Scandinavian country in common English usage, and Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes also countries and the Netherlands The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany can be considered a second language for many of its speakers, because they learn it young, speak it fluently, and use it regularly, indeed in southern Asia it is the official language of the courts, government and business.
The same can be said for French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in in the Arab Maghreb Union The Arab Maghreb Union (Arabic: اتحاد المغرب العربي; transliterated: Ittihad al-Maghrib al-Araby is a Pan-Arab trade agreement aiming for economic and political unity in North Africa, except for Libya Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībiyā pronunciation ; Libyan vernacular: Lībya pronunciation (help·info); Amazigh: ), officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ( Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الإشتراكية العظمى Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Š, although—like for English in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands—French is not an official language in any of these Arabic-speaking countries The Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. It consists of 25 countries and territories with a combined population of 358 million people straddling North. In the post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent nations that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its breakup in December 1991. They were also referred to as the Newly Independent States (NIS), not withstanding that the Baltic states consider themselves states such as Uzbekistan Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south, Kyrgyzstan "Kyrgyz", is believed to have been derived from the Turkic word for "forty", in reference to the forty clans of Manas, a legendary hero who united forty regional clans against the Uyghers. At the time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghers dominated much of Central Asia , Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China and Kazakhstan Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is located in Eurasia and ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also ranked the world's largest landlocked country, its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia,, Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th can be considered a second language, and there are large Russophone A Russophone is literally a speaker of the Russian language either natively or by preference. At the same time the term is used in a more specialized meaning to describe the category of people whose cultural background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and territorial distinctions communities there.
In China China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity (with the exception perhaps of Hong Kong Hong Kong is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China; the other is Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million), however, English would be considered a foreign language due to the lack of a number of characteristics, such as historical links, media, opportunities for use, similar vocabulary, and common script.
French would be considered a foreign language in Romania Romania (pronounced /roʊˈmeɪniə/ roe-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Rumania, Roumania; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta, Lebanon Lebanon (pronounced /ˈlɛbənɒn/ or /ˈlɛbənən/; Arabic: لُبْنَان Lubnān; French: Liban), officially the Republic of Lebanon[nb 1] (Arabic: اَلْجُمْهُورِيَّة اَللُّبْنَانِيَّة al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah; French: République libanaise), is a country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Moldova Moldova /mɒlˈdoʊvə/ , officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/Romanian: Republica Moldova) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldovan SSR in 1991, as part of the as well. This is despite Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] ("the Romanian language") or româneşte (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, and French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in being romance languages (unlike Chinese and English, which come from two different language families). This is also despite Romania and Moldova being the only two countries in the world where Romanian is an official language at the federal level, Romania's historical links to France, and both Roumanophone countries' membership in the Francophonie. For Lebanon, French would be considered a foreign language, even though most of its universities operate in either that language or English, French is an administrative language and—like Romania—Lebanon has historical ties to France and is a Francophonie member state.
George Weber made a report in December 1999 about the number of secondary speakers of the world's leading languages.
| 1. English (approximately 1 billion) |
| 2. French (190 million) |
| 3. Russian (125 million) |
| 4. Portuguese (28 million) |
| 5. Arabic (21 million) |
| 6. Spanish (20 million) |
| 7. Chinese (20 million) |
| 8. German (9 million) |
| 9. Japanese (8 million) |
Categories: Language
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