Sociolinguistic Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Research—1997–2007 ELAINE TARONE 619 Heller Hall CARLA University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 Email:
[email protected] This article discusses sociolinguistically oriented research on second language acquisition (SLA) in the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997). Over the last 10 years, substantial progress has been made in developing a model of the sociolinguistic processes that inform second language acquisition. This model is supported by empirical evidence on the relationship between social context and second language use and acquisition, which shows that learners’ second language (L2) input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated, that social and linguistic context affect linguistic use, choice, and development, and that learners intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social contexts. A strength of sociolinguistically oriented SLA research is its strong focus on linguistic outcomes, tracking the impact of contextual factors in producing those outcomes. Preston (2000, 2002) and Fasold and Preston (2006) provided a central sociolinguistic framework to integrate research on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes in producing interlanguage, which is a variable linguistic system.
IN 1997, FIRTH AND WAGNER ARGUED THAT second language acquisition (SLA) research was too dominated by psycholinguistic thinking and called for research that made sense in the socially embedded experiences of second language (L2) speakers in their own worlds. In this article, I will review the construction of SLA theory in the decade following Firth and Wagner, focusing on theory that takes a sociolinguistic orientation1 to SLA. It will be argued that a sociolinguistic approach should be central to socially oriented SLA research. A sociolinguistic approach goes a long way toward establishing the balance between the cognitive and the social that Firth and Wagner called for. However, a sociolinguistic approach also adds something that Firth and Wagner’s approach risks losing—a focus on the linguistic outcomes of the process. Sociolinguistic approaches allow us to study the impact of social factors on The Modern Language Journal, 91, Focus Issue, (2007) 0026-7902/07/837–848 $1.50/0 C 2007 The Modern Language Journal
cognitive processes as these result in the acquisition of a new linguistic system. Sociolinguistics is a well-established branch of linguistics that focuses on the study of the impact of society, including the impact of social context, on the way language is used. A sociolinguistic approach to SLA is one that studies the relationship between such social contextual variables as interlocutor, topic, or task and the formal features of learner language or interlanguage2 (IL) production. There is a long record of research on social causes of IL variation dating back to the beginning of IL study (see Selinker & Douglas, 1985; Tarone, 1979, 1988, 2000; Tarone & Parrish, 1988), though it is interesting that Firth and Wagner (1997) did not choose to cite that strand of SLA research in their article. An important aspect of sociolinguistic SLA work examines the interdependence between the social contexts in which IL is used and the cognitive processes of the learner that affect learner language variation and change, leading to acquisition. The sociolinguistic strand of research on SLA has been marginalized by some (cf. Gregg,
838 1990) and has not been cited by other researchers, but nevertheless has generated a considerable and growing body of data on the relationship between social context and L2 use and acquisition. In the next section, I will briefly summarize sociolinguistic work on SLA prior to 1997, and then I will describe in more detail the growth of this field of study in the decade since Firth and Wagner’s article appeared. SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BEFORE 1997 In the decades preceding Firth and Wagner’s (1997) article, sociolinguistically oriented SLA research (work on IL variation) explored the ways in which the linguistic structure of learner language was systematically affected by specific aspects of social context. The results of this research (which I summarized in Tarone, 1988) clearly showed that specific phonological, morphological, and syntactic variables in the linguistic system of IL could change markedly in relation to social contextual changes such as shifts in interlocutor, task, or topic. Some of the earliest of these studies of learner language include those by Dickerson (1975), Beebe (1980), and Tarone and Parrish (1988). This research showed, for example, that L2 phonology shifted in response to changes in interlocutor or task. Variationist research also showed that L2 learners produced a significantly more fluent and accurate IL in some social contexts than in others. International teaching assistants, for example, were shown to be more fluent and grammatical in lecturing on their academic field than when talking about an everyday topic like favorite foods or bicycling (Selinker & Douglas, 1985). Preston (1989) showed that theoretical work in SLA was deeply related to ongoing research in sociolinguistics. A major problem for researchers in this area, from the beginning, has been sociocognitive, that is, how to understand the psycholinguistic underpinnings of this variable speech performance. In SLA research, the problem may be phrased this way: Given that learner IL use is systematically variable, how do we characterize what L2 learners know at any given time? If we can characterize that knowledge, how do we describe the longitudinal process of SLA? Several attempts were made to address the problem (Beebe & Giles, 1984; Beebe & Zuengler, 1983; R. Ellis, 1985; Gregg, 1990; Preston, 1989, 1996; Tarone, 1983, 1990). Beebe and Giles (1984) proposed a theoretical model predicting that learners’ linguistic systems (their ILs)
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007) would converge in form to resemble the forms produced by some interlocutors or diverge from those produced by other interlocutors, depending on issues of learner identity. Selinker and Douglas (1985) suggested that adult L2 learners set up their own internally created discourse domains, based on their perceptions of social settings that call for particular language forms and structures. Because of this, learners produce ILs with different linguistic characteristics when speaking in different discourse domains. Key cognitive processes such as fossilization were claimed to be more prominent for a given learner in one discourse domain than in another. Failure to acquire an L2 variety needed for a particular discourse domain had even been shown to cause learners to switch to their first language (L1). Tarone and Swain (1995) claimed that adolescents in French immersion classroom settings needed a vernacular variety of the L2 that their adult teachers could not provide in such settings, and so switched to their L1 English vernacular when talking to each other for social purposes. One such learner, Suzannah, put it this way: when . . . [we] get older. . . . we start speaking in a way that they don’t teach us, in French, how to speak. So I don’t know if it’s slang or just the way kids speak. . . . I speak differently to my friends than I do to my parents. It’s almost a whole different language, and . . . they don’t teach us how to speak [French] that way. (p. 172)
Thus, IL and the cognitive processes underlying its development were viewed by some SLA researchers as profoundly affected by social factors. Nevertheless, Gregg (1990) found it impossible to reconcile the generative distinction between competence and performance with my (Tarone, 1983) and R. Ellis’s (1985) proposition that L2 learners’ linguistic knowledge was variable and probabilistic. In generative linguistics, competence is categorical, not variable, so Gregg found untenable the idea that variable rules3 might have psychological reality of any kind in the mind of the learner. He asked: “Do we really want to claim that a speaker knows, whether consciously or unconsciously, the probabilities for the production of a specific form?” (p. 372). In Gregg’s view, variation in grammatical production in different social contexts could only be a characteristic of language performance; variation had nothing to do with language knowledge, or competence. Many of the researchers who reacted negatively to Firth and Wagner’s (1997) ideas held similar views about the distinction between competence and performance.
Elaine Tarone Such views about the absolute separation of performance from competence were not and are not universally held. Indeed, the year before Firth and Wagner’s (1997) article was published, assumptions about the distinction between competence and performance for L2 learners were questioned in a collection of articles edited by Brown, Malmkjaer, and Williams (1996). The linguistic scholars in this volume proposed different models of learner knowledge that all assumed integration between competence and performance. Among them, V. J. Cook (1996) proposed that in SLA, the target for acquisition is multicompetence, not a native-speaker competence that is impossible by definition: The goal of L2 acquisition should be seen as something other than monolingual native competence. The term ‘multi-competence’ has been introduced to cover knowledge of more than one language in the same mind. . . . There is no assumption that this knowledge corresponds to a monolingual native speaker’s in either L1 or L2; this is a matter for empirical research. . . . The starting point should be what L2 learners are like in their own right rather than how they fail to reach standards set by people that they are not by definition. (p. 64)
So as we see, even as Firth and Wagner called for a broader theory of SLA, that is, one that would move beyond a narrow focus on cognition alone to explore the impact of social context on the process of SLA, several strands of SLA research were doing just that. 1997–2007: DEVELOPMENT OF A SOCIOLINGUISTIC THEORY OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Long ’s Response to Firth and Wagner One of the strongest and most immediate reactions to Firth and Wagner (1997) came from Long (1997, 1998), whose view was that the sole object of study in SLA research should be the cognitive processes used by the learner to acquire L2s. He argued that social context has no impact on the learner’s cognitive processes, and therefore, that issues of social context fall outside the scope of SLA theory. The following is one of his more provocative statements on this position: Remove a learner from the social setting, and the L2 grammar does not change or disappear. Change the social setting altogether, e.g., from street to classroom, or from a foreign to a second language environment, and, as far as we know, the way the learner acquires does not change much either, as suggested, e.g., by a
839 comparison of error types, developmental sequences, processing constraints, and other aspects of the acquisition process in and out of classrooms. (Long, 1998, p. 93)
Many theories of L2 acquisition restrict their scope to a greater or lesser extent to decontextualized learner cognition in the way Long describes. Such theories model the cognitive processes in the brain of the L2 learner as it uses input in the L2 to create a grammar. The different theories use slightly different metaphors to describe the learner’s mental processes. For writers taking a generative orientation, like Gregg (1990), competence and performance are completely different; variation in response to social context is a feature of performance, but does not apply to learner knowledge, or competence. Long’s statement seems to present a view of the mind as equivalent to a computer that processes L2 input, incorporates it into the grammar, and then uses it to generate output. Just as my laptop computer is unaffected by social context and processes my input in exactly the same way no matter what the social setting, whether I am in my office or in an airport, so the human brain, in Long’s view, should be unaffected by social setting. But is the human mind as impervious to social context as a computer? A substantial body of research shows that it is not. The L2 learner’s mind, unlike my laptop computer, processes L2 data differently in response to different social variables; Long’s (1997, 1998) assertions are based on theoretical presuppositions, not on empirical data. In my 2000 article, I described in some detail empirical evidence that directly contradicted Long’s contention that cognitive processes of SLA are unaffected by social setting. The evidence showed, for example, that social setting affects whether L2 learners receive adjusted input or corrective feedback (Bondevik, 1996; Varonis & Gass, 1985), so adjusted input is not universally provided, as Long claimed. L2 learners draw on different languages and aspects of their L2 knowledge in different social settings, as shown statistically by Broner (2001) in a VARBRUL analysis of fifth graders’ very fine-grained and nuanced shifts in choice of language variety in response to specific interlocutors. Finally, and most crucially, social setting affects such cognitive factors as L2 learners’ processing of corrective feedback (Kormos, 1999) and their sequences of L2 development (Tarone & Liu, 1995). Some of this evidence, first presented in my (2000) article, and additional evidence reviewed by Lafford (2006), will be summarized in the next section of this article in relation to
840 developments in a sociolinguistic theory of SLA during the past decade. A Sociolinguistic Model of Second Language Acquisition There is currently a good deal of interest in models and theories of SLA that explicitly take social context into account.4 These models and theories view the learner as a social being whose cognitive processing of the L2 is affected by social interactions and social relationships with others, including those others who provide L2 input and corrective feedback. One such theory is Vygotskyian, as reviewed by Swain and Deters (this issue). This theory has focused on the dynamics of social scaffolding that support the production of L2 lexical items or morphosyntactic items. However, this approach has not documented the long-term acquisition of L2 linguistic structures. Another model is V. J. Cook’s (2006a, b) notion of multicompetence. Although it has generated a good deal of interest (e.g., Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2006), this model so far has not been developed into a fully worked-out theory of SLA. Yet another model is the interactionist strand of SLA research which, although it has focused primarily on cognitive processes of SLA, has occasionally documented cases where social factors affected those processes (e.g., Varonis & Gass, 1985). In another example, Lyster and Mori (2006) showed that a classroom’s predominant communicative orientation affected learners’ perception of corrective feedback. What is the link between social factors and cognition? We can find some answers in the field of sociolinguistics. In 1984, for example, Bell showed that the cognitive process of attention to language form creates a link between the audience (participants) and an individual’s style-shifting. Several promising recent articles similarly explored the link between social contextual factors and cognition in SLA. A crucial thread in this work is that what matters is the learner’s internal perception of such social factors as interlocutor and situational norm—or, “learners’ perceptions about the type of behavior expected of them in communicative and learning contexts” (Lafford, 2006, p. 4, echoing the stance of Douglas, 2004, and Selinker & Douglas, 1985). Batstone (2002) argued that individuals orient differently to L2 input in communicative contexts than to L2 input in learning contexts, and Lafford (2006) related this insight to her research on L2 learning in study abroad contexts (primarily communicative) as opposed to classroom at-home settings (primarily learn-
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007) ing). But how does the learner’s perception of social factors affect acquisition of specific linguistic forms over time? Here again, the field of sociolinguistics, which focuses on the interaction of social factors, attention, and linguistic form, is an important resource for the field of SLA. A recently developed sociolinguistic theory of L2 acquisition that strives to integrate these factors appeared in works by Preston (2000, 2002), and Fasold and Preston (2006). This theory presented a model of the grammars that exist in the mind of the multilingual language learner, grammars that are explicitly related to social and linguistic context, and to time. Fasold and Preston’s sociolinguistic model can help SLA researchers interpret the growing body of empirical data on sociolinguistic variation in IL use because it shows how social context affects cognition in L2 processing, and how this influence on cognition, in turn, affects the learner’s acquisition of specific linguistic forms to create the IL grammar. I will discuss this model in some detail in relation to SLA research in related areas. Variability in the Grammars Fasold and Preston’s (2006) sociolinguistic model of the bilingual speaker-hearer shows two grammars in the mind, Grammar 1 and Grammar 2. Grammar 1 is that of the L1, and Grammar 2 is that of an additional language, added in adulthood. Each of these grammars contains forms that require the speaker to select one of two or more possible variants: for example, (a) Nobody came to my party, or (b) Didn’t nobody come to my party. The selection of one of these variant native language forms is probabilistically related to other factors, described in the model as Level 1, 2, or 3 factors: factors of social context, linguistic context, and time, respectively. The reader will recall that Gregg (1990) objected to the idea that a speaker might know the probability for production of a form. In so doing, he echoed an earlier objection to variable rules by Bickerton (1971). However, we now know from work by connectionist researchers, reviewed by N. Ellis (2002), that the processing of language by the human brain in fact involves “constant incessant figuring” (p. 146). According to N. Ellis, language processing is based on input frequency and probabilistic knowledge, and language learners must be sensitive to the frequency of language constructions in all domains. Consistent with this claim is Fasold and Preston’s (2006) argument for the psycholinguistic plausibility of probability weighting of forms in mental grammars, a weighting that
Elaine Tarone is assigned by this kind of unconscious “constant figuring” of associations among forms, functions, and social factors. Preston (2002) stated specifically that variation in SLA: ought to be considered from the point of view of a probabilistic device, one applied each time a variant is selected. For a two-way variable, a speaker . . . is equipped with a coin, the two sides of which represent the options for that variable; it is flipped before the product appears. . . . A great deal of sociolinguistic research has shown that social factors influence the probability of “form selection”—the result of “unfair coin” tosses, and checks of the actual performance of individuals (where data are sufficient) have shown that such statistical modeling is accurate (e.g., Macaulay, 1978). Such a model is psycholinguistically plausible and, I believe, shows how Bickerton’s objection to variability may be set aside. (p. 143)
In 2002, I pointed out the similarity between this sociolinguistic model5 and N. Ellis’s (2002) connectionist model of SLA (Tarone, 2002). Both N. Ellis and Preston (2002) viewed learners’ language knowledge as both implicit and probabilistic; both stated that learners’ own introspections do not provide an accurate picture of their own language processing.6 N. Ellis concluded the following on the basis of connectionist research: “grammatical representations must have variable strengths reflective of their frequency and connections must similarly be variable in weight” (p. 163). So, it now appears that Gregg’s (1990) objections were misguided. Variability in the weights of grammatical representations and their connections with other grammatical and social representations in the brain of the L2 learner are psychologically plausible. Let us now turn to an examination of the factors that weight the choices between variants of grammatical forms. In Grammar 1 and Grammar 2 of the sociolinguistic model, there are three causes for IL variation: causes related to social context, to linguistic context, and to time. Level 1: Variables of Social Context Cause Interlanguage Variation Level 1 of the sociolinguistic model predicts variation that is caused by sociocultural factors related to social context. Lafford’s (2006) list of these sociocultural factors included the participants (including the interlocutor and others present), purpose of the communication, social setting, and norms of interaction. So, for example, the presence of my grandmother when I am speaking might cause me to avoid using
841 nonstandard forms like ain’t and double negative constructions. Such sociocultural factors as interlocutor affect the speaker’s choice of linguistic variants, in this case grammar rule variant (a) ain’t, or grammar rule variant (b) aren’t, in Grammar 1. Sociocultural variation occurs in both grammars: Grammar 2 as well as Grammar 1. It even conditions the speaker’s decision whether to select Grammar 1 or Grammar 2—to speak in the L1 or the L2. Broner’s (2001) study clearly showed that the choice of English (Grammar 1) or Spanish (Grammar 2) in a fifth grade immersion classroom depended in large part on whom her participants were addressing. Presence of the teacher caused 100% Spanish L2 use. Presence of a particular peer might cause a student to use English 33% of the time. Within Grammar 2, selection of one or another variant is conditioned by social context—again, most strongly by the nature of the interlocutor. Beebe (1977, 1980) showed that Thai speakers used more Thai phonological variants in their English L2 speech when speaking with Thai interlocutors. Similarly, Tarone and Liu (1995) showed that Bob, a Chinese boy acquiring English L2 in Australia, used different variants of questions depending on whom he was talking to and where. He used Stage 5 questions with a family friend at home for over 3 months, while he was using Stage 4 questions with his peers at school and only Stage 3 questions with his teacher in class. Beebe and Giles (1984) related sociocultural variation to learner cognition through speech accommodation theory, accounting for speakers’ convergence to, and divergence from, the speech patterns of interlocutors. According to speech accommodation theory, both convergence and divergence constitute strategies of identification with the communicative norms of some reference group, either present or absent at the time of speaking. In other words, L2 learners try to sound like people with whom they identify when they interact with them; in the same way, they try to sound different from people they do not identify with when interacting with them. Rampton7 (1995) provided a good example of divergence when he described Pakistani students’ increased use of me no, a Pakistani English variant of I don’t that was stigmatized by their non-Pakistani English teacher, when addressing her. In the decade since 1997, there has been increased interest in sociocultural theory to explain key aspects of SLA. Sociocultural researchers like Lantolf (2000) have focused on Vygotskyian sociocultural theory, but Bakhtinian sociocultural
842 theory goes a long way toward explaining IL variation of the sort we have examined here. Bakhtin (1929/1984) wrote a good deal about multilinguals’ internalization of what he called different voices, or speaking styles. He described double voicing , in which a speaker intentionally produces another person’s discourse. According to Bakhtin, it is crucial that we do not learn language from dictionaries, but from people, and that the language varieties we learn from people always retain elements of the personalities and values of those people. When the language varieties of others are internalized by the learner, they retain elements of otherness in the mind of the learner; they are not absorbed into a single voice, but rather exist in the mind of the learner as a kind of chorus of different voices that may be invoked in turn as the learner has need of them. These voices retain the social values of their original speakers, and when the learner uses those voices, the social characteristics and values of each speaker are also displayed. Broner and Tarone (2001) provided many examples of fifth graders in a Spanish immersion classroom producing different voices in both English and Spanish as they engaged in language play with their classmates. Even with the same interlocutor, they might speak first in one voice and then in another. In this way, their speech production was variable in drawing on a range of socially stereotyped voices formed in earlier interactions with others. Fasold and Preston’s (2006) sociolinguistic model allows for and predicts double voicing of the sort Bakhtin (1929/1984) described, that is, the same kind of ironic and deliberate use of nonstandard L2 forms that Rampton (1995) noted. (In this, it pursues a direction suggested by Firth and Wagner in 1997.) The sociolinguistic model predicts that the speaker’s intention can activate the sociocultural selection device; in other words, one can intentionally produce in other settings a linguistic style that originated as a social response to a particular interlocutor or social setting. In this aspect of his model, Preston (2000) seemed to be describing double voicing when he stated: “The ‘intention’ of a speaker may interact with his or her socio-cultural identity. That is, one may choose to ‘perform’ (or perform to a greater or lesser extent) an available socio-cultural identity” (p. 27). In the following example (from Broner & Tarone, 2001), we see the participant Leonard producing exactly the same L2 utterance—no hay recreo ‘There’s no recess’—in two different voices when addressing the same audience; first he speaks in his student voice or role, and then
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007) he uses the voice of a villain (I can almost see him twirling his moustache, the recess-hating villain!): Teacher: Leonard: Girl: Leonard:
no hay recreo. (There’s no recess.) no hay recreo. (There’s no recess.) no hay recreo ahora. (There’s no recess now.) ahora? . . . ahora no hay recreo heh heh heh (villainous voice)
It is clearly Leonard’s creative volition that leads him to use his villainous voice here in his L2; he does it for fun and for social effect. It could even be argued that he is trying out new identities here, through the medium of a repertoire of L2 varieties, or voices, that he has internalized in relation to specified interlocutors and social settings. (For other examples of a Bakhtinian sociocultural approach to language play by L2 learners, see G. Cook, 2000; Ohta, 1998.) A growing amount of empirical evidence has been produced in the last decade that shows Level 1 variation, that is, the impact of social factors such as interlocutor, task, purpose, interactional norms, and setting on L2 learners’ use of variable forms of Grammar 2. Social context affects not just learners’ speech production, but also their perception of L2 input. Evidence shows, for example, that social context affects learners’ noticing of corrective feedback on their errors. Kormos (1999) reviewed research on monitoring and self-repair, and concluded that social contextual factors such as the “accuracy demand of the situation” (p. 324) had an impact on L2 learners’ cognitive process of error detection.8 Similarly, Nicholas, Lightbown, and Spada (2001) reviewed research on learners’ noticing of recasts, or implicit negative feedback on their errors, and in their synthesis of that research concluded that learners’ noticing of this feedback varies from one social context to another. A recent study documenting the effect of classroom context on learner noticing of recasts was done by Lyster and Mori (2006), who coined the term counterbalance hypothesis to specify the classroom factors that affect learner noticing of different kinds of L2 corrective feedback. Other studies have produced evidence of the impact of social context on L2 use and development. Rehner, Mougeon, and Nadasdi (2003) showed that learners do not acquire vernacular variants of French L2 unless they have contact with French L1 speakers. Exploring the impact of learning context on SLA, Collentine and Freed (2004) edited a collection of papers, which included one by Collentine (2004), whose
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Elaine Tarone multivariate analysis of study abroad versus at-home L2 learners documented very specific consequences for the learners’ morphosyntactic and lexical development. After one semester, athome students developed more discrete grammatical and lexical features than did the study abroad students, but the study abroad students developed better oral narrative ability and produced more semantically dense language than their at-home peers. In the same volume, Segalowitz and Freed (2004) found that the study abroad context produced significant effects on learners’ oral fluency and overall proficiency; and Lafford (2004) showed that study abroad students used fewer communication strategies than at-home classroom learners. In a comprehensive review of research on study abroad versus at-home classroom SLA, Lafford (2006) argued that it is not the social settings themselves, but the L2 learners’ perceptions of social variables like interlocutor and setting that account for differences in linguistic performance and development in these different social settings.9 It is important to recognize the growing body of empirical evidence that integrates IL variation with the expression of sociocultural identity by L2 learners. For example, Gatbonton, Trofimovich, and Magid (2005) showed that the accuracy of English L2 pronunciation by Chinese and Francophone learners in Canada was directly related to their own perceived ethnic group affiliation, and, furthermore, that the learners treated one another’s level of pronunciation accuracy as an indicator of their degree of ethnic affiliation. In their research synthesis, Rehner et al.(2003)10 reported studies by Knaus and Nadasdi (2001) and Rehner and Mougeon (1999) showing that the learners’ social class influenced the degree to which they use formal or standard variants of French L2 (e.g., ˆetre vs. avoir , and ne retention). This sort of careful sociolinguistic research provides data that supplement and support work done within less quantitatively oriented sociocultural theory. Sociocultural and interactionist research does not show the way such social variables as social class and the social roles of interlocutors affect the acquisition of specific linguistic variables; sociolinguistic research does, however, and so it can enhance our understanding of SLA. Level 2: Linguistic Context Causes Interlanguage Variation Level 2 of the sociolinguistic model predicts that the presence of other language forms in the linguistic context may also cause the speaker to favor one variant of a language form over an-
other. Here, the choice between the two forms is weighted by such elements in the accompanying linguistic context as stress placement and wordfinal position, or such cognitive facts as cognitive status of a referential form. Therefore, in Grammar 1 English, word-initial position causes speakers to aspirate voiceless consonants, whereas wordmedial or final position disfavors aspiration of the same consonants. Variation related to linguistic context occurs in both Grammar 1 and Grammar 2. A sociolinguistic model of variation in SLA has considerable power in being able to account not just for the impact of social factors (factors that are given more space in this article because of the importance accorded to them by Firth & Wagner, 1997), but also for the impact of linguistic variables, on grammatical or phonological use and acquisition of L2. This breadth of scope, coupled with its ability to deal systematically with specific linguistic outcomes, makes it uniquely capable of integrating several levels of analysis in a single model of SLA. Examples of Level 2 variation (variation due to linguistic context) in Grammar 2 are provided in numerous studies published over the last decade. Space permits reference to only a few here. An example of transfer of Level 2 variation from L1 into Spanish L2 occurred when English-speaking learners of Spanish L2 aspirated voiceless consonants in initial word position, but not in medial or final position (Diaz-Campos, 2004). Numerous studies on English speakers’ acquisition of French L2 completed over the last decade were synthesized by Rehner et al. (2003) and documented many instances of the impact of linguistic context on IL variation. Geeslin (2000) showed the different linguistic factors that favor use of ser versus estar by Spanish L2 learners at different proficiency levels. Geeslin (2003) extended this work with a statistical model indicating the degree to which the presence of a particular linguistic feature could predict use of estar by two different groups of L2 learners. Geeslin and GuijarroFuentes (2006) used this model to identify the subtle linguistic features of the discourse context that predicted copula choice by Portuguese speakers acquiring Spanish L2. In short, there is substantial and very detailed empirical evidence of Level 2 variation in learners’ Grammar 2, showing that linguistic context systematically causes the learner to select one IL variant over another. Level 3: Relative Time of Acquisition Affects Interlanguage Variation Level 3 variation in Preston’s (2000, 2002) sociolinguistic model occurs when the factor of time
844 is added in. Time affects the degree to which social and linguistic variables cause variation in the linguistic systems of Grammar 1 and Grammar 2. It does so in at least two ways. First, relative time of acquisition affects the weighting of the choices between two forms. The earliest learned forms are deepest and most automatic, and forms learned later require more attention and control. Preston’s visual representation of the bilingual’s grammars showed the depth of acquisition of the different grammatical forms and the different grammars by means of grey shading. Those forms in Grammar 1 that are not as deeply internalized are in a shaded section of Grammar 1. In Preston’s case, these represent language forms such as more formal academic expressions (e.g., Had I known) that he acquired later in life, after he had previously acquired less formal variant forms (e.g., If I ’da known) as a child. The sociolinguistic model predicts that language forms that are shaded are not as deeply internalized as unshaded forms, and so cannot be accessed as automatically; they require more attention and control in their production than forms that are not shaded. This feature of the sociolinguistic model is particularly attractive in that it captures the well-attested evidence that some varieties or languages known by a speaker are more accessible and automatic in production than others. Another way to think about Level 3, or time variation, is that it predicts the process by which a speaker’s IL changes over time. A sociolinguistic model of SLA predicts two kinds of change: change from above, in which new forms are explicitly learned, typically in school settings, and change from below, in which new forms are implicitly internalized, typically in informal social settings (Preston, 1989, pp. 143–144; Tarone, 2007c), Longitudinal studies of SLA should document both kinds of change. In 1998, Long stated that there was only one piece of evidence that social context might affect the cognitive processes and outcomes of SLA. This evidence was Tarone and Liu’s (1995) report of Liu’s (1991) longitudinal study of “Bob,” a 5-year old Chinese boy learning English L2 in Australia. In this case, social context was shown to cause changes in both the rate and the (supposedly universal) route of the learner’s acquisition of L2 questions. Liu (1991) audiotaped Bob over a period of 2 years in three social settings, which were defined primarily in terms of his interlocutor: at home playing with the researcher, in desk-work at school with peers, and at school interacting with the teacher.11 Bob’s stages of acquisition
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007) of English questions (Meisel, Clahsen, & Pienemann, 1981; Pienemann & Johnston, 1987) were related to these three social settings: almost every new stage of question first appeared at home, then at deskwork, and last with the teacher. Thus, the rate of acquisition of the L2 appeared to be fastest in the at-home setting. This is a classic case of “change from below,” or implicit SLA. (Tarone, 2007c) If Bob’s only social setting for English use had been in interactions with his teacher, his progress in acquiring English as an L2 would apparently have been much slower. But even more important than its impact on the rate of acquisition was the impact of social setting on the route of Bob’s question acquisition: that is, social setting affected the order of acquisition. Bob appeared to acquire English questions in a different order in different social settings. This was a particularly startling finding in view of Pienemann and Johnston’s (1987) claim that question stages must always be acquired in a set order, from Stage 1 through 5. But for Bob, Stage 4 and 5 questions appeared at home in Sessions 23 and 24, before Stage 3 questions. Stage 3 questions did not appear until Session 36, and then they appeared in a different social setting: in desk-work with peers. Such findings provide a particularly strong counterargument to claims by Long (1998) and others that social setting is irrelevant, that it has no impact on L2 acquisition over time. Clearly, something in these social settings affected Bob’s cognitive processing and internalization of new L2 rules to such an extent that he acquired them out of their so-called universal order. In a more recent Level 3 (time-related) longitudinal sociolinguistic study of SLA, Lybeck (2002) interviewed American sojourners in Norway twice, once in the fall and again in the spring of the same year, tracking both their social networks (cf. Milroy, 1980) and their production of a set of phonological features of Norwegian. Lybeck found that participants who were members of close-knit multiplex social networks of Norwegians used linguistic features similar to those of their group members, whereas learners whose social networks were open and uniplex developed fewer native-like linguistic features. Lybeck captured one instance of change due to social contextual factors. One learner with very native-like Norwegian phonology at Time 1 became alienated from her social network in the target culture over the course of the year. Her self-described sociocultural identity and attitude toward the target culture changed during this period, and she gave up trying to acculturate. By Time 2, her
845
Elaine Tarone Norwegian phonology showed a dramatic drop in native-likeness, with a more American variant of the Norwegian R, and much lower global ratings of her overall phonology.12 Thus, real changes over time in a learner’s social support network resulted in real changes over time in her IL phonology. Another promising area of study that can show that the social context of learning affects acquisition of specific L2 forms over time is research on learner outcomes in study abroad programs, as opposed to at-home classroom settings (see Lafford, 2006). I would argue that the only real way to produce counterevidence to claims that social context has no impact on development of IL knowledge over time is to do longitudinal sociolinguistic studies such as those conducted by Liu (1991) and Lybeck (2002). We need more studies that track over an extended period of time the development of specific L2 forms in the speech of individual L2 learners as they regularly interact with a set of interlocutors tied to clearly specified social contexts. Ultimately, we will need sociolinguistic studies that tie social context to change in the linguistic system of IL over time if we are truly to refute the assertion that acquisition and social context are unrelated. CONCLUSION In the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997) called for better balance between the cognitive and the social in SLA research, substantial progress has been made in developing models of L2 acquisition that document the impact of social context on the cognitive processes presumed to underlie SLA. In this article, I have presented empirical evidence to show the relationship between social context and L2 use. This evidence provides support for the view that L2 use is not just about cognition in a vacuum. Rather, learners’ L2 input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated; social and linguistic contexts affect L2 linguistic use, choice, and development; and learners intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social context. Nonetheless, the danger of too much focus on social and cognitive factors is that we may lose our focus on long-term linguistic consequences. Although a number of SLA approaches explore different aspects of the relationship among social context, cognition, and L2 use, few of them have shown in concrete terms how these factors affect the learner’s acquisition of specific L2 linguistic forms, rules, or systems.
In this article, I have argued that a sociolinguistic approach to L2 acquisition research, guided by a good sociolinguistic model of the mind of the learner (Fasold & Preston, 2006; Preston 2000, 2002), can provide a useful framework to pull together currently disparate areas of research, and allow us to demonstrate consequences for acquisition. According to a sociolinguistic model, variation and change in specific elements of the learner’s L2 linguistic knowledge are caused by (a) social contextual factors such as interlocutor, social setting, task, communicative purpose, learner intention, role, and identity; (b) linguistic contextual factors in the surrounding discourse; and (c) time, that is, the time in the life of the learner when the L2 item or grammar was acquired relative to other linguistic items or grammars, and the demonstration that the rate or route of SLA can be altered over time by contextual factors favoring explicit and/or implicit processes of acquisition. A sociolinguistic variationist model for the study of SLA can provide an indispensable framework to focus SLA research on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes as they produce the evolving, variable linguistic system called interlanguage. Longitudinal sociolinguistic studies are needed to produce definitive empirical evidence that the development of specific L2 forms in the speech of the individual L2 learner can be profoundly affected by the learner’s interaction with interlocutors in specific social contexts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This article has benefited from extensive and very helpful comments and suggestions from Barbara Lafford and two anonymous reviewers, as well as discussions with Rod Ellis, Jim Lantolf, and others at the Conference on Social and Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and Teaching, University of Auckland, April 2007. Any remaining errors and omissions are my responsibility, not theirs. Additional evidence and arguments in support of a sociolinguistic model of SLA are set out in Tarone (2007a, 2007b, 2007c).
NOTES 1 This orientation has been referred to as variationist because it explores the relationship between contextual variables (both social and linguistic contextual variables) and variation in the form of learner language. 2 IL is the linguistic system evidenced when an adult L2 learner attempts to express meaning in a secondary language being learned (Selinker, 1972). It is interesting
846 that Firth and Wagner in 1997 attacked the notion of IL as interpreted by Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), and did not cite the original article by Selinker (e.g., Selinker never said IL was a continuum between L1 and L2; he stated that the goal of development might not be L2 as used by native speakers at all). 3 A variable linguistic rule shows the probability of use of a given linguistic form in the presence of a specific social or linguistic variable. 4 There is this focus issue of The Modern Language Journal , of course. There is also the 2004 special issue of the International Review of Applied Linguistics on variation in the IL of advanced L2 learners (Mougeon & Dewaele, 2004), as well as the major Conference on Social and Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and Teaching, The University of Auckland, New Zealand, April 12–14, 2007, http://www.confer.co.nz/sociocog/, which will result in a published volume of work on the topic. 5 Atkinson (2002) also pointed out the merits of a connectionist view of language cognition, though perhaps not stressing so much its significance for models of learner knowledge that accord some psychological reality to variable rules. 6 It is interesting that connectionist accounts do not distinguish competence and performance. The generative competence/performance distinction is essentially incompatible with connectionist views of the mind. 7 Though Rampton’s (1995) work is praised by Firth and Wagner (1997), it must be pointed out that Rampton’s work focused far more on synchronic social contextual and identity issues than on L2 acquisition. Rampton’s research goal was apparently not to document the factors that cause change in IL linguistic systems over time. 8 See similar findings by Carrier (1999). 9 This conclusion is certainly consistent with Selinker and Douglas’s (1985) contention that the discourse domains that generate L2 learners’ variable performance are internally constructed by the learner. 10 See related sociolinguistic studies by Mougeon and Rehner (2001), Mougeon and Dewaele (2004), and Dewaele (2004a, 2004b). 11 Bob was taped for at least an hour in each data collection session, as is standard in longitudinal studies of language acquisition. After the first few months, he produced a considerable amount of data in each session that was then transcribed and analyzed. Liu (1991) focused particularly on his acquisition of English questions. 12 It is interesting to compare Lybeck’s (2002) findings on study abroad and IL phonology to those of DiazCampos (2004), whose multivariate analysis revealed no overall differences between the phonologies of study abroad versus at-home classroom learners and only some relationship between self-reported use of the L2 outside of class and higher pronunciation scores. These differences could be the result of the fact that the two studies used different measures of L2 use in the wider society. Diaz-Campos (and others in the 2004 SSLA volume) used a multiple choice language contact profile, whereas
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007) Lybeck used a more individuated social network analysis. Perhaps because the social network analysis allows us to correlate L2 use with specific interlocutors who have specified functional relationships with the learner, this kind of analysis may help us to zero in on the factors that foster development of IL phonology in study abroad contexts.
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