YEAR TWO Second Language Acquisition
#4: Comparing and contrasting first language acquisition,
naturalistic second language acquisition
and instructed foreign language learning
1. L1 acquisition vs. L2 acquisition/L2 learning
The factors most responsible for the differences between language acquisition in childhood (L1 acquisition,
early bilingualism) and second language acquisition (late bilingualism, foreign language learning) later in life
are essentially of three kinds:
" biological (age)
" cognitive (intellectual development)
" social (upbringing and education)
2. The instructional potential of Caregiver Talk
Traditionally, linguistic input was perceived as merely a trigger for selecting among innately specified
options. However, recent research has demonstrated that infant-directed speech plays a far more
important role. This universal simplified register used by caregivers around the world when they
address babies, called caregiver talk (but also "baby talk", "mother talk", "motherese", "parentese",
 caretaker speech , etc.), is generally acknowledged to help infants to acquire language. It has also been
shown that they prefer this simplified code over adult-directed speech. Initially, for example, the
exaggerated stress and intonation contours, as well as increased pitch, typical of caregiver talk assists
infants in discriminating phonetic units. Compare also the table below:
PURPOSE OF USE ·ð to provide affection, socialise the child and direct its behaviour
FUNCTION ·ð communication, socialisation and affective feedback
PHONOLOGICAL ·ð various segmental changes (e.g. simplification of consonantal clusters)
AND PROSODIC ·ð pitch contours (both height and range)
ADJUSTMENTS ·ð focus marking
·ð junctural and hesitation pauses
SYNTACTIC ·ð less subordination (fewer embedded clauses)
AND MORPHOLOGICAL ·ð a limited range of grammatical relations (avoidance of 1st and 2nd person pronouns)
ADJUSTMENTS ·ð display questions
·ð more imperatives
·ð diminutives
GRAMMATICALITY ·ð rarely ungrammatical (e.g. omission of articles and possessives; PRO-drop)
SEMANTIC ·ð onomatopoeia
ADJUSTMENTS ·ð concrete lexicon; orientation to "here-and-now" (wh-deixis)
·ð unique lexicon
DISCOURSAL, INTERACTIONAL ·ð may assimilate some of the non-verbal patterns developed by the child
AND NON-VERBAL ADJUSTMENTS
CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ·ð caretakers are far more responsive to the truth value or social behaviour than to "errors"
Parameters of caretaker speech as a simplified register of language use (adapted from Majer 2003: 169-170)
Linguistic forms and meanings provided in caretaker talk are introduced in a principled way, so that the
child s input is organised. Despite its special phonological characteristics, the simplified register in
question tends to be both fluent and redundant. The mean length of utterance is closely related to the
child s rate of psycholinguistic development.
3. The importance of interaction and quantitative/qualitative differences in linguistic input
" By age 4-5, a child will have experienced ca. 10,000 hours of communicative practice in L1.
" By age 17-18, an adolescent learner participating in an immersion programme will have received ca.
3,000-4,000 hours of instruction in L2 (= a second language).
" By the same age, an adolescent learner enrolled in a regular school course will have done ca. 600
hours of L2 (= a foreign language).
4. Environmental and educational parameters
" Typical contexts for naturalistic second-language learners are informal settings, whereas
instructed learners study the L2 system in formal foreign-language settings.
" In the former environment, some learners may become participants of elite immersion
programmes, where nearly all content-area instruction is carried out in L2, while immigrant
children simply receive submersion in L2, i.e. having to study content and language at the same
time, together with native-speakers.
" In the latter environment, the target language is typically just another school subject and the
study of L2 is foreign-language learning.
5. Psycholinguistic aspects
" Younger naturalistic learners typically undergo subconscious acquisition or instinctive learning
('picking up' L2; in extreme cases, 'street' learning), while for tutored pupils L2 study is often
conscious learning (the effect of formal instruction).
" Untutored learners may receive rough-tuned input, whereas in most language classrooms
learners receive fine-tuned input (i.e. language that is simplified and adjusted to the current
level of their proficiency in L2).
" Immigrants in non-instructional settings may receive input via foreigner talk and/or caregiver
talk, depending on the age variable. For instructed FL learners, input is typically available in
teacher talk and peer talk (i.e. input coming from other learners in the classroom).
" Besides, uninstructed learners can approach the task of building the grammatical system of L2
through data gathering and inferencing, whereas tutored learners in FL classrooms are often
participants of guided inductive and deductive grammar learning.
6. Methodological issues
" Whereas naturalistic learners are primarily focused on communication, instructed FL learners are
often made to pay attention to form.
" Consequently, in SLA environments emphasis is placed on fluency and free practice, while FL
learning settings value accuracy and controlled practice, particularly in view of assessment and
examinations.
" Moreover, untutored acquirers may delay production, i.e. choose the moment when they feel
ready to produce output in L2. In other words, they may go through a 'silent period' (like L1
acquirers). This is hardly ever affordable for FL classroom learners, who have to participate in
instantaneous practice from the very beginning of instruction.
7. Output (= interactional) opportunities
" Interaction in naturalistic, non-educational L2 environments is typically authentic or quasi-
authentic, while classroom interactions in institutionalized settings are at best group- or pair-
work activities, though more typically teacher-student dyads with the triadic IRF tutorial cycle
(Teacher Initiation + Learner Response + Teacher Follow-up, e.g. T: What time is it, Denise? L:
Two o clock. T: Good).
" Furthermore, communication in the language classroom may sometimes become trivialised (e.g.
Is the blackboard on the ceiling? Are you sitting or standing? Am I a teacher? Is Mary a girl?).
" Learners in non-institutionalised L2 contexts are rarely corrected; instead, they get a chance to
negotiate meaning in interactions with native-speakers, who may repair discourse if there is
trouble in jointly produced communication. In contrast, instructed learners often receive
corrective feedback (error correction).
COMMENT: Repair trajectories are the routes by which interactants accomplish repair (self-
initiated vs. other-initiated, self-repair vs. other-repair).
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8. Cultural and socioaffective factors
" Part of the fluency of naturalistic learners may derive from their expert manipulation of formulaic
language and social routines, for which they have authentic situational contexts and
immediate feedback from their interlocutors. FL learners, in contrast, get model examples of
spontaneous speech from textbook dialogues (listening passages), which, however, cannot be
fully authentic.
" Generally, textbook realities of FL typical classroom materials cannot compare with the
authentic cultural contexts of most naturalistic L2 environments.
" Finally, immigrant learners in non-institutionalised settings can be integratively motivated,
whereas most students learning the target language in their home countries are instrumentally
motivated. On the other hand, immigrants may feel that there is social and psychological
distance between their native language and culture and the target language/culture, which is not
usually the concern of tutored FL learners, whose positive or negative attitudes and orientations
towards L2 and its culture will not be directly dependent on their immediate social or economic
situation.
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
Gass, S. M. & Selinker, L. 2008. Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. Third Edition.
Oxford: Routledge.
Goodluck, H. 2011.  First language acquisition . WIREs Cogn Sci 2: 47 54.
Majer, J. 2003. Interactive Discourse in the Foreign Language Classroom. A
ódz
: Wydawnictwo
Uniwersytetu A
ódzkiego.
Majer, J. 2010a. "First language acquisition". In Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (Ed.), New Ways to
Language. A
ódz
: A
ódz
University Press. 317-334.
Majer, J. 2010b. "Second language acquisition and foreign language learning". In Lewandowska-
Tomaszczyk, B. (Ed.), New Ways to Language. A
ódz
: A
ódz
University Press. 352-375.
Oliver, R. 2000. "Age differences in negotiation and feedback in classroom and pairwork". Language
Learning 50/1: 119-151.
Pinker S. 1996.  Language acquisition . In: Gleitman, L. & Liberman, M, (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive
Science, Language, Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 135 182.
Saville-Troike, M. 2006. Introducing Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Wells, G. 1986. The Meaning Makers: Children Learning Language and Using Language to Learn.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Wells, G. 1999. "Using L1 to master L2: A response to Antón and DiCamilla's 'Socio-cognitive functions
of L1 collaborative interaction in the L2 classroom'". The Modern Language Journal 83/2: 248-
254.
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