Language Second Acquisition

Bilingualism :
Definition :
 Bilinguals are those who use two or more languages (or dialects) in their everyday live.
 Bilinguals use different languages for different purposes and do not typically possess the same level
or type of proficiency in each language. => Gaps are typical and normal.

 Bilingualism is a relative concept. It involves a question of:

 Degree: extent of knowledge of each language (speaking, listening, reading, writing vs

phonology/spelling, grammar, lexis, semantics, stylistics)
 Alternation: The readiness with which a bilingual change from one language to the other
depends on his fluency in each language and on its external and internal functions.
 Interference: Interference is the use of features belonging to one language while speaking
or writing another. (ex: loan-words)
 Function: role => What are they used for?
(PS: I TRIED TO CLARIFY THIS PART AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE 5TR IT IS CONFUSING! XD)

I. External functions: objective+ what people can do in a language. determined

by the number of areas of contact and by the variation of each in duration,
frequency, and pressure.
a. Language contact/exposure:
1) Home languages. Variable. Different reasons! The home family can be bilingual or
monolingual
2) Community languages:
a) neighborhood. This can be more important than the home.
b) ethnic group, very important in a community with no other possible contact with the
language.
c) religious group, which may not be the language of his ethnic community
d) occupational group Moroccans in Italy are mainly market traders. Ex: Air speak.
e) recreation group. Ex: foreign children in a school, taking their breaks together and using
their language.
3) Education languages
a) Single language schools, ex: in bilingual areas.
b) Dual language schools.
i. divergent media schools. The use of the two languages for different purposes.
ii. parallel media schools. Both languages are equal and used for the same purposes and
under similar circumstances. The syllabus will be taught in both languages. Ex: some parts of
Belgium. This may be for instance by using a language one week, and the whole school uses
another language the next week. Some military and technical schools in Canada do this.
c) Private tuition. This may be in a language not spoken in the community.
d) Self-study, through another language.
4) Mass media and its influence on language
Ex Tunisians learning Italian to watch TV. Mass media can include reading. ex A father
insisting that his children read 30 minutes per day in Italian, age 11-16, in order to keep up
the Italian they already knew.
5) Correspondence
Regular correspondence is a way a bilingual may maintain L2 skills.
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b. Variables (other outside factors and pressures)

Contacts with each of the above may vary in duration, frequency, and pressure. They may
also vary in the use of each language for comprehension only, or for both comprehension
and expression.
1) Duration (amount of time in a foreign language)
2) Frequency: contact hours per month, words written/read per month. Ex: some children
grow up with only a few hours a week of interaction with their parents in that language.
3) Pressure:
a) Economic. ex minorities need the majority language.
b) Administrative. Civil servants are sometimes required to know another language. Welsh
c) Cultural. Not considered educated unless using L2. Prestige
d) Political ex Arabisation
e) Military. Ex: occupation, means the locals learn the language of the invader.
f) Historical. Ex English in India
g) Religious. A bilingual may become fluent in L2 for purely religious reasons.
h) Tourism
I. Internal functions: (personal)
a) Internal uses ex: counting, adding-up, praying, cursing, dreaming.
b. Aptitude:
1) Sex: Women are usually better at languages than men.
2) Age: Persons who become bilingual in childhood may have differences in
language learning from those who become bilingual as adults.
3) Intelligence.
4) Memory: The auditory memory span for sounds immediately after hearing them
is related to the ability to learn languages. As L2 ability increases, more words are
held in the memory before interpreting them.
5) Attitude. Crucial. It will also influence the hearer's attitude to them.
6) Motivation. This is vital too. In a child, it can influence progress. Ex: a child can
reject the language of one parent. Another sibling may not!

Types of bilingualism:
Productive competence: ability to speak and write in both languages. => active bilinguals
Receptive skills: ability to read and listen to both languages. => passive bilinguals. It is especially common in
times of language shift, where a group is changing from using one language to using another. Ex: immigrant
groups: parents use one language with each other and another with the children. In such circumstances
children learn to understand the language of their parents but never speak it. But should the family move
to the environment where speaking is needed, the children can quickly change.
Balanced bilingualism: ability to use both languages equally. => very rare because often one language is
dominant! NB: categorizing individuals into such groups raises the issue of comparisons. Who is judged
‘normal’, proficient, skilled, fluent or competent?
Infant bilingualism: children learn two languages from birth.
Consecutive or sequential bilingualism: a child learns a second language after about three years of age.
Incipient bilinguals: bilinguals have one well-developed language, and the other is in the early stages of
development.
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Circumstantial bilinguals: groups of individuals who must become bilingual to operate in the majority
language society that surrounds them. Their first language is insufficient to meet their educational, political
and employment requirements, and the communicative needs of the society in which they are placed.
(immigrants)
Asymmetrical bilingualism: where you speak a language better than you understand it. This is usually a
short-lived period.

An Individual’s Use of Bilingualism:

o Language use cannot be divorced from the context in which it is used, nor from the effects of the
interactions of different combinations of people in a conversation. This leads to functional
bilingualism when, where, how, with whom people use their languages. => language choice:

 When addressing a stranger, bilingual may quickly pick up clues as to which language to use. Clues
such as dress, appearance, age, accent and command of a language may suggest to the bilingual
which language it would be appropriate to use.
 An individual’s own attitudes and preferences will influence their choice of language. (ex: Teenagers
(e.g. second-generation immigrants) may reject the minority language in favor of the majority
language because of its higher status and more fashionable image.)
 Perceptions about language and identity affect language choice. In situations where the native
language is perceived to be under threat, some bilinguals may seek to avoid speaking the majority
or dominant language to assert and reinforce the status of the other language. (ex: French-
Canadians in Québec sometimes refuse to speak English in shops and offices to emphasize the
status of French.)
 Some minority languages are mostly confined to a private and domestic role. This happens when a
minority language has historically been disparaged and deprived of status. (In western Brittany in
France, for example, many Breton speakers only use their Breton in the family and with close
friends. They can be offended if addressed by a stranger in Breton, believing that such a stranger is
implying they are uneducated and cannot speak French)

Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism:

 Does a bilingual brain function differently?
 Are the mental representations of the two languages different? There is evidence both for separate
storage, and shared storage. Maybe this is two stores for language, and a common general
conceptual store.
 Speakers with different proficiency levels vary in the strength and directness of the
interconnections between the separate language stores: Some can go direct from concept to
language in either language, others have to go via L1. Advanced people are more likely to have it
use both and not to keep them separate. Beginners are more likely to keep it all separate.

The Thresholds Theory :

‘Under what conditions does bilingualism have positive, neutral and negative effects on cognition?
One theory that partially summarizes the relationship between cognition and degree of bilingualism is
called the Thresholds Theory. This was first postulated by Cummins and Toukomaa and Skutnabb-Kangas.
They suggested that the research on cognition and bilingualism is best explained by the idea of two
thresholds. Each threshold is a level of language competence that has consequences for a child.
Language Second Acquisition

• The first threshold is a level for a child to reach to avoid the negative consequences of bilingualism.
• The second threshold is a level required to experience the possible positive benefits of bilingualism.
=>This theory suggests there are children who may derive detrimental consequences from their
bilingualism.
The Thresholds Theory may be portrayed in terms of a house with three floors, indicating progression
upwards.
Lower floor: both languages weak
Middle floor. One normal language, one weak language
Upper floor. Both languages strong.

Developmental Interdependence hypothesis:

A child’s second language competence is partly dependent on the level of competence already achieved in
the first language. Therefore, higher L1 means easier to learn L2.
The unitary-language system explanation / single-system hypothesis: a common storage model of bilingual
development, according to which all the rules from both languages are initially stored in a common
location. Then later there is differentiation. Although bilingual children are exposed to different sets of
linguistic input, they go through an initial stage when they have one linguistic system.

Early bilingual development:

The Simultaneous Acquisition of Bilingualism: A belief that acquiring two languages from birth must be
detrimental to a child’s language growth. => wrong! babies appear biologically ready to acquire, store and
differentiate two or more languages from birth onwards.
To acquire successfully two languages from birth, babies need to be able to: (a) differentiate between the
two languages, and (b) effectively store the two languages for both understanding (input) and speaking
(output). Research suggests infants have these capacities, making infant bilingualism very viable.
Pre-natal: Infants show discrimination between the two languages very early. Memory for language sounds
even operates in the fetal stage, such that the processes of bilingual acquisition appear to start before
birth. Upon birth, newborns immediately prefer their mother’s voice to that of any other mother. Also,
newborns respond more to prose passages read to them regularly before birth than to new prose, even
when not read by the mother. Thus, an infant is not just recognizing the mother’s voice. There is also
immediate sound discrimination: the beginning of ‘breaking the code’. There appears to be an immediate
receptive language differentiation in the newborn particularly in intonation.
Early bilinguals can distinguish between languages they have heard, prenatally and since birth, compared
with a new, unheard language.
In the babbling stage, a child (around 10–12 months of age) exposed to two languages from birth (a) has a
tendency to babble in their stronger language, (b) demonstrates language-specific babbling features of
each language, but (c) may not babble with context-specific accuracy. Language-specific patterns and some
speech differentiation may thus occur before the first birthday.
Recent research has found that bilingual children (two years old or earlier) know which language to speak
‘to whom’ and in ‘what situation’. Very young children easily switch languages and differentiate their two
languages, but there is individual variation.
Language Second Acquisition

The two-word stage: children use language specific and different syntactic constructions when speaking to
people of different languages. They also use different phonological patterns. Research on speech
perception in children raised bilingually (Catalan and Spanish) show that they can discriminate different
language-specific phonological contrasts as early as 4½ months of age, before they produce their first
words. => the ability to use the appropriate language with a particular person occurs very early.
‘Appropriate language matching’ is found in two- year-olds from bilingual homes when talking to strangers.
Children rapidly and accurately accommodated the monolingualism or bilingualism of a stranger and talked
in the appropriate language. Bilingual children tend to mix languages less when addressing monolinguals
but move relatively more between two languages when addressing bilinguals.
Code-mixing: The age at which a child differentiates their two language systems and relatively infrequently
codemixes will differ considerably from child to child, with the interaction between adults and the child,
the nature of the adult input, increasing self-awareness in the child, adjusting to adult norms, varying
context, and the child’s relative proficiency in each language being influential.
Codemixing is partly about language proficiency levels in the child, something that is temporary and
decreases with dual language proficiency. Bilingual children mix because they lack appropriate lexical items
in one of their languages.
=>Bilingual children mix more when using their less proficient language.
=>The mixing is more likely when translation equivalents are difficult.
Even though mixing does occur, the proportion varies with who they are speaking to, and they can be
almost monolingual with monolinguals. This also indicates that there is a pragmatic element from the
beginning,
Codeswitching is affected by the language model provided by parents and significant others in the family
and community. If parents codeswitch regularly, then their children may imitate. If parents discourage
codeswitching, then less mixing will occur. => a variety of factors may affect a child’s language choice:
exposure to two languages in different social contexts, the attitudes of parents to the two languages and to
mixing the languages, the language competences and metalinguistic abilities of the child, personality, peer
interaction, exposure to different forms of language education, as well as sociolinguistic influences such as
the norms, values and beliefs of the community.

Advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism:

Advantages:
Communicative advantages include:
 Relationships, with parents, grandparents, community
 Transnational communication. One barrier between nations is language.
 Being able to move between languages and often, between cultures, may lead to greater
sensitivity. Because bilinguals are skilled in adjusting to the communicative needs of others, they
are often more empathetic, better able to listen. Bilingualism is the first step towards biculturalism.
=> To participate and become involved in a culture requires the language of that culture.
Financial advantages: getting a job becomes easier.
Cognitive advantages: Recent research has shown that bilinguals can be more creative in thinking,
and are better able to for instance redefine meanings of words.
Language Second Acquisition

Disadvantages:
Bilinguals are less intelligent than monolinguals. This claim was based on tests conducted in the 19 th C. The
tests were extremely biased in terms of culture and were done on children in L2! If you measure
intelligence through L2 the scores can be lower, for two reasons. Firstly, the tests may have a culture bias,
and secondly, the tests have an added difficulty level because of the second language. They should be
tested in their mother tongue.
The Monolingual View of Bilingualism: Some teachers, administrators and politicians look at the bilingual
as two monolinguals in one person. In the US and the UK, a bilingual’s English language competence is
often measured against that of a native monolingual English speaker. This derives from a monolingual
viewpoint – and with political overtones. It is unfair because bilinguals will typically use their two languages
in different situations and with different people. Thus, bilinguals may be stronger in each language in
different domain. One expectation from this fractional viewpoint is if proficiency does not exist in both
languages, especially in the majority language, then bilinguals may be denigrated and classified as inferior.
In the United States, for example, children of immigrant families, or of other language minority families,
have been officially federally categorized as LEP (Limited English Proficient). => Comparing with
monolinguals is probably unfair. Difference does not mean deficiency.
Semilinguals (pejorative term!) => A form of institutional biased bilinguals. the group is regarded as not
having ‘sufficient’ competence in either language. It is claimed that it is better to be proficient in just one
language than being incompetent in both.
Deficiencies in bilinguals when compared with monolinguals on the following dimensions:
• displaying a small vocabulary
• incorrect grammar.
• consciously thinking about language production.
• stilted and uncreative with each language.
• finding it difficult to think and express emotions in either language.
The holistic view: multicompetences
Any assessment of a bilingual’s language proficiency should ideally move away from traditional language
tests (with their emphasis on form and correctness) to an evaluation of the bilingual’s general
communicative competence. This appraisal would be based on a totality of the bilingual’s language usage
in all domains, whether this involves the choice of one language in a particular domain, or a mixing of the
two languages.
Communicative competence in one of a bilingual’s two languages may be stronger in some domains than
in others. This is natural and to be expected. Any assessment of a bilingual’s competence in two languages
needs to be sensitive to such differences of when, where and with whom bilinguals use either of their
languages.

Interference:
The use of features belonging to one language while speaking or writing in another. It is NOT the same as
borrowing.
 Interference is individual and contingent on various factors.
Language Second Acquisition

 Borrowing is collective and systematic. => New features are being integrated.
Interference may vary with the medium, style, register, context, tiredness etc. It is easier to resist when
writing than when speaking. Ex: It may be more of a problem when telling a story than when for instance
planning a shopping list.
The description of interference requires three steps:
1) the discovery of exactly what foreign element is introduced by the speaker into his speech.
2) the analysis of what he does with it (substitutions, modifications...)
3) a measure of the extent to which foreign elements replace native element.
Types of interference:
Cultural: The foreign element may be the result of an effort to express new phenomena in a language
where the person does not have the language skills, or even where the language does not readily have the
words. Ex: unfamiliar objects, hot-dogs, cornflakes. Greeting sequences, behavioral patterns. (bon appétit)
Semantic: familiar phenomena and experience being classified or structured differently. Translation of
idioms and metaphors. Ex: color metaphors. They are a type of faux amis. Ex pain-brun (brown bread)
instead of pain-bis.
Lexical: ex: faux amis
Grammatical: Two languages often have the same parts of speech, but may differ considerably in the way
they put them together into structures. Ex: units and structures of foreign parts of speech, grammatical
categories, function forms…
Une des plus grande jamais vue dans la région => one of the
biggest ever seen in the area.
 Often these differences are ones of style: the phrases may well be grammatically correct.
Agreement problem ex E->F Vos montagnes sont beaux. There tends to be indifference to accord between
noun and adjective, because English does not have that, coupled with probable uncertainty about the
actual gender of the noun.
Phonological:
1) intonation
2) rhythm
3) Articulation. Responsible for a large part of the ‘‘foreign accent’’.

Age of acquisition:
Does the ability to learn a second language diminish with age?

 The claim that children learn languages easily and quickly is wrong. (naïve realism)
 All things being equal, adults do better, pronunciation excepted. Adults do better in the rate of
acquisition, but less well in terms of the final outcome.
Language Second Acquisition

In a two-month course of intensive language for adults, adults will do better than children learning
naturally over two months. Children usually get a lot more language exposure. Children usually do not stop
learning languages, adults commonly do.
The foreign accent is due to:
1) Bad teaching and practice. (repeating bad habits).
2) The need (conscious or unconscious) to show that they are different. Ex: monolinguals who hang on to
traces of their original accent years after they have moved away from the original community.
3) Children have more opportunities, in terms of time and quality. Society is organized to teach language
to children, and children have little else to do or to think about.
 Much age-research has been concerning the evaluation of early L2 instruction in schools. Most
show little advantage in beginning early except for pronunciation. In which case, the quality of the
teachers is key, and if the teachers do not have excellent pronunciation there is little advantage – in
fact it could be counterproductive.
 Time spent in the L2 country, and time spent listening and practicing with native speakers, are
major elements of L2 accent. So, there are other factors besides age.

 Motivation/attitude, needs (immigrants) and opportunity (extensive immersion across many

months) are more important factors than age.
 L1 instruction is more important than L2 for ultimate literacy and academic achievement in L2.

Misconceptions about age and L2 learning:

 Critical age theory: It is agreed upon that a critical period exists for L1, but it is controversial for L2.
Late starters and adults can achieve native speaker level, if all other features and circumstances are
right.
Widely known that adults L2 learners do worse than younger, but this in itself is no ground to argue
for a critical age for L2. => You cannot use biology to argue for the timing of L2.
 The view of a biologically constrained and specialized language acquisition device that is turned off
at puberty is not correct.
 While there are no critical periods of language learning, there are advantageous periods. Early
childhood and elementary and secondary school days seem two advantageous periods.
 Children pick up languages so quickly. => False! Older learners are generally faster and more
efficient in the early stages of L2. This is true even for phonology. Evaluations of immersion
programmes in Canada show that late immersion students perform equally or better than early
immersion. Children also learn much slower than adults do. Young children are actually slow at
developing in the target language, therefore they need a longer period to achieve levels
adolescents and adults can achieve faster.
 Well known that many adults do badly with L2, and then people falsely conclude it will always be
this way, and that no adult is capable of true L2 ability. But, whereas there is great uniformity of
behavior with children, adults show huge variability. Little research has paid any attention to this
variability. The good L2 learners need studying so that others can learn from them! There is some
research and much public discussion about the large numbers of high school students and adults
who fail to learn a second language. In comparison, there is a lack of research on adults who are
successful learners of second and third languages. Research itself is in danger or perpetuating a
‘younger is better’ belief about age and language learning.
Language Second Acquisition

 Younger second language learners are neither globally more nor less efficient than older learners in
second language acquisition. There are many factors that intervene and make simple statements
about age and language learning simplistic and untenable!
 This difference found between younger and older learners reflects typical outcomes rather than
potential. Thus, a finding favoring the young does not contradict the idea that someone can become
proficient in learning a second language after childhood. This may be related to social contexts in
which language is acquired and maintained or lost (e.g. kindergarten), as well as to the psychology
of individual learning (e.g. motivation, opportunity. Older learners tend in practice not to master a
second language as well as young learners, but ‘age differences reflect differences in the situation
of learning rather than in the capacity to learn’
 teaching a foreign language early in the elementary school may be defended in terms of general
intellectual stimulation, the general curriculum value of teaching a modern language, the benefits
of biculturalism and the benefits of learning a language for as long as possible rather than as quickly
as possible. Second language instruction in the elementary school rests on the suitable provision of
language teachers, suitable materials and resources, favorable attitudes of the teachers and
parents, and the need to make the learning experience enjoyable.

Types of bilingual schools:

The varieties of bilingual education include different forms of ‘strong’ bilingual education where the
use of both languages in the curriculum is fostered.

Dual Language Bilingual Education: (US) occurs when approximately equal numbers of language
minority and language majority students are in the same classroom and both languages are used
for instruction. For example, approximately half the children may be from Spanish speaking homes,
the other half from English monolingual homes, and they work together in the classroom. Since
both languages are used for learning, the aim is to produce relatively balanced bilinguals.
A language balance among students close to 50%–50% is attempted because if one language becomes
dominant (e.g. owing to much larger numbers of one language group), the aim of bilingualism and
biliteracy may be at risk. The reality of such schools is often different, with an imbalance towards larger
numbers of language minority students being more common. => Segregation rather than integration may
occur.
 The aim of Dual Language bilingual schools is thus not simply to produce bilingual and
biliterate children, but also to enhance intergroup communicative competence and cultural
awareness. The integration of native speakers of two different languages (e.g. Spanish and
English) provides authentic, meaningful communication between children from the two
different language groups, both of whom are native-speakers. Such schools produce
children who, in terms of inter-group relations, are likely to be more tolerant, sensitive and
equalized in status.
 Dual Language schools promote the ‘competencies necessary for the new global business
job market’ (p. 5). Students graduating in Spanish and English, for example, should be well
placed to operate in international markets, transnational businesses and global operations
(e.g. national defense), as these two languages are spoken across different continents and in
many countries outside the US.
 The mission of all Dual Language schools (compared with mainstreaming) is to produce
bilingual, biliterate and multicultural children.
 Whatever the division of time, instruction in a Dual Language bilingual school will attempt to
keep boundaries between the languages. Switching languages within a lesson is not
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considered helpful. If language mixing by the teacher occurs, students may wait until there
is delivery in their stronger language, and become uninvolved at other times. When there is
clear separation, the Spanish speakers, for example, may help the English speakers on
Spanish days, and the English speakers will do the same. Interdependence may stimulate
cooperation and friendship, as well as learning and achievement.

Immersion Bilingual Education: (Canada) was coined in Canada to describe a new form of bilingual
education. Immersion in Canada aims at bilingualism in two prestigious, majority languages (French and
English).
Core feature of immersion programs:
 The immersion language is the medium of instruction.
 The immersion curriculum is the same as the local first language curriculum.
 The school supports development in all the child’s languages.
 Additive bilingualism occurs.
 Exposure to the immersion language is largely confined to the classroom.
 Students enter with similar (limited or nonexistent) levels of proficiency in the immersion language.
 All the teachers are bilingual.
 The classroom culture needs to recognize the cultures of the diverse language communities to
which the students belong, including immigrant communities.

Heritage language bilingual education: occurs where language minority children use their native,
ethnic, home or heritage language in the school as a medium of instruction with the goal of full
bilingualism.
Heritage language education is found in schools and classes for established and recent immigrant
language groups and community-based language initiatives. => The revitalization of home
languages and cultures is a key aim.

Sign language
Medical point of view: deafness is defined as a defect or a handicap that distinguishes ‘abnormal’ Deaf
people from ‘normal’ hearing persons. It is seen as a condition that needs to be remedied or cured as much
as possible., Cochlear implants, hearing aids and other devices that enhance hearing or the understanding
of speech are recommended.
(+) Linguistic point of view: Deaf people are regarded as owning sign language, a full language in itself,
grammatically complex and capable of expressing as much as any spoken language. Deaf people are
regarded as a linguistic and cultural minority that needs preservation, enrichment and celebration. By
signing, they add diversity and much color to the languages of the world. Instead of emphasizing the
deficiencies of Deaf people, their abilities are emphasized. => Deaf people should form, where possible, a
cultural community of their own and a sense of Deaf identity.
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Negative point of view:(-) Sign language may seem primitive, rudimentary, and just a simple picture
language, whereas the spoken language is seen as the natural language for all in the community, including
Deaf people. A central aim of education for the Deaf deriving from this viewpoint therefore becomes a
mastery of spoken and eventually written language. Such education, and social pressures within the
community, aim for the integration or assimilation of Deaf people with hearing people.
(-) Deaf people have much less power and prestige, lower recognition and leverage than majority groups in
society. Deaf people have historically often been regarded as ‘problems’ within the education system, the
social welfare system, among doctors and psychologists, and in the employment market.
=> Deaf people are frequently bilinguals, with sign language being a natural first language, plus literacy
(and oracy) in a second ‘hearing’ language
Your level of deafness is defined according to the quietest sound, that
you can hear:
• Mild deafness, lowest: 25-39 decibels. Find it difficult to follow speech in noisy situations
• Moderate deafness, lowest 40-69 decibels. Hearing aids may be needed.
• Severe deafness, lowest: 70-94 decibels. Commonly rely on lip reading, and use Signing
• Profound deafness more than 95 decibels. Sign language is likely to be your first or preferred language.
Historical overview:
 1545: A Spanish monk, Frey Ponce de Leon, developed a system for teaching the deaf to speak. This
was a major step forwards in that until then as inability to speak had been thought of as due to
inability to reason.
 1750: Abbe de l'Eppe established the first free school for the deaf in France. The abbot recognized
that the Deaf tend to congregate together, and that they used their hands to communicate with.
L'Eppe took the signs used by the local deaf community and matched them to French words. For
French words without a sign, he invented a sign, which led to signed French.
 1817: the first school for the deaf in America was established. a system of signed English was
developed in the hopes of educating the American deaf community, which already had its own
viable sign language.
 mid and late 1800s: the pendulum swung away from Sign, towards teaching the deaf to read write
and speak INSTEAD OF Sign. Even in the deaf schools, Signing was forbidden. Sign was viewed as a
hindrance to language; if Sign were to be allowed, it would stop the learning of real language.
 Late 1950: William Stokoe started work as an English teacher at Gallaudet University. He began to
suspect that the communication system used by deaf students was more than just “bad English”
and started studying it systematically. He soon discovered he was working with a real language,
completely different in nature to English. In 1965 he published his findings - The American Sign
Language Dictionary on Linguistic Principles. This was the first time someone had ever seriously,
with evidence systematically presented, viewed Sign as a full language.

Linguistic overview:
Sign languages are genuine linguistic systems, they are full languages: full-developed, authentic languages.
Sign languages are not mime – in other words, signs are conventional, often arbitrary and do not
necessarily have a visual relationship to their referent. Sign languages, like spoken languages, organize
elementary, meaningless units into meaningful semantic units.
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“In contrast, signing is a very extensive, structurally complex, rule-bound, complete means of
communication.
Sign language can perform the same range of functions as a spoken language, and can be used to teach
any aspect of the curriculum. As part of an ethnic awakening, sign language has increasingly been seen as
the natural language of Deaf people.
There are over 200 sign languages worldwide, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. What makes
them different from spoken languages is that while the vocabulary will vary enormously, there seems to be
a great similarity in their grammars.
Sign languages are natural languages, in the sense that they have not been fabricated, but have arisen
spontaneously whenever and wherever deaf people have an opportunity to meet each other regularly.
American Sign Language (ASL) is the most studied, therefore most material is available for that language.
ASL shares no grammatical similarities to English.
Features of sign languages:
Phonology:
 Sign possesses duality of patterning between:
1) meaningful level - morphemes, words, phrases, sentences
2) meaningless level - handshapes, locations, movements (in spoken languages, the sounds themselves)
Signs, like words, are mostly conventions, mostly arbitrary.
 Just as for vowels there are major features (jaw height, tongue position, lips rounding, nasalisation),
words in Sign are based on:
 handshapes
 locations
 movements
This leads to something similar to minimal pairs in spoken languages, but with greater flexibility, and more
scope for variation.
 Sign languages have assimilation. Just as in spoken languages, sounds borrow some or all of the
aspects of neighboring sounds. (ex: beanbag said as bee-bag). Also spoken languages have
assimilation and linkup. But signs flow together.
 An important difference between spoken and sign is that while in speech the phonemes are
sequential, in sign the phonemes can happen simultaneously

Morphology: Sign languages have a great deal of morphological complexity. Verb agreement, and verbs of
motion and location, have been studied in detail.
Syntax: ASL does have relative clauses, formed by a rule of subordination that allows recursion. It is now
widely accepted that ASL has an underlying structure and word order which can be modified by the words
of grammar. Concerning the Universal Grammar Hypothesis, Sandler & Lillo-Martin (2001) conclude that in
several domains of syntax, the constraints proposed to be universal (including the Coordinate Structure
Constraint) can be demonstrated to apply to ASL as well as to spoken languages, and it is expected this will
be true in other signed languages.
Poetry: (advanced sign) Sign languages have the the equivalent of prosody. They employ facial expressions,
body postures, and rhythmic devices.
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How is Sign Language acquired by children?

 Children acquire languages automatically and systematically, including a sign language.
 Studies have been done on families where both parents are deaf, and both use Sign. The deaf
children learn Sign in a similar process to normal children learning a spoken language.
 On average, in Spoken languages, the first words are learned around 11 months of age. Some early
studies claimed an earlier date, 6-8 months, for signs. Why? A child can make the movements for
signs before they can control their voice. This would imply that children are cognitively ready for
words before the coordination of speech organs permits them to.
 The use of two-word combinations seems to be attained at around 18 months for both signing and
speaking children. Other grammatical developments such verb agreement also follow in parallel.
 Age of exposure to sign: found that the age at which exposure to language began is critical for the
eventual acquisition of a complete grammar. Even after 50 years of signing, late learners differed
from early learners.

Classification of sign languages:

 Home sign: is not a full language, but closer to a pidgin. Home sign is amorphous and generally
idiosyncratic to a particular family, where a deaf child does not have contact with other deaf
children and is not educated in sign. Such systems are not generally passed on from one generation
to the next. Where they are passed on, creolization would be expected to occur, resulting in a full
language.
 A village sign language: is a local indigenous language that typically arises over several generations
in a relatively insular community with a high incidence of deafness, and is used both by the deaf
and by a significant portion of the hearing community, who have deaf family and friends.
 Deaf-community sign languages: arise where deaf people come together to form their own
communities. At first, Deaf-community sign languages are not generally known by the hearing
population, in many cases not even by close family members. However, they may grow, in some
cases becoming a language of instruction and receiving official recognition, as in the case of ASL.

The education of deaf students:

There are a variety of approaches to the education of Deaf students and those who are hearing impaired
ranging from minimal help to specially designed programs to mainstream ‘hearing’ education.
 There are Special Schools, Classes and Units for Deaf students where, for example, the children are
taught to thoroughly learn signing first of all, are given a full curriculum mostly through signing, and
develop written and/or oral skills in the majority spoken language.
 The idea that children should learn to speak, and hear with aids, is the traditional approach:
• Deaf children should integrate into mainstream society
• the curriculum could not be taught through sign language but required majority language proficiency
• signing as a language was insufficient for full intellectual development.
Language Second Acquisition

 The Total Communication approach: Learning a variety of languages and language skills, ex: sign,
signed, written etc. They use different languages for different purposes. But, as Baker notes, this
approach is often assimilationist, aiming to integrate the deaf with hearing people.
 Sign language as L1, and used to teach other subjects and languages. => children who learn Sign
early develop better literacy skills in L2.

Diglossia:
In many speech communities, two or more varieties of the same language are used by some speakers under
different conditions. Often, a case of the standard language and the local dialect: High and low varieties.
Characteristics:
Function: In one set of circumstances, only H is appropriate (formal) , and in another only L (informal) is
appropriate, with overlap.
Prestige: H is regarded as superior. Literacy is associated with it. Sometimes the feeling is so strong that H
alone is regarded as real, and the L is reported 'not to exist', ex 'He doesn't know Arabic'. It is close to self-
deception. Even when the feelings of reality and superiority of H is not so strong, there is usually a belief
that somehow H is more beautiful, more logical, better able to express important thoughts, etc. Many
speakers prefer to hear a lecture or speech in H even though it may be less intelligible to them than in L.
Literary heritage: Most literature is in H, and held in high esteem. It is even sometimes said to be good
style to use old phrases and constructions which may not be readily understood.
Acquisition: L is learned by the normal route, of listening to children and adults speaking L. Grammatical
concepts are rarely explained. In contrast H is learned chiefly through formal education, and grammar is
learned formally in terms of rules, like L2.
Standardization: H has a lot of formal study, dictionaries, codifying grammars etc. The formal studies of L
have often been done by scholars outside the speech community and may be written in other languages.
There is no standardized spelling, and wide variation on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. L is
rarely written.
Lexicon: H has its own distinctive lexicon, for technical terms, and learned expressions. L has its lexicon for
homely objects, popular expressions.
How does diglossia originate?
1) A sizable body of literature in a language variety emerges. This variety is related to a vernacular, and this
literature embodies and reinforces some of the fundamental values of the community. ie one of the
dialects needs to establish itself and become fixed through literature, as largely happened to English.
2) Literacy in the community is limited to a small elite. When literacy rates are high, this works against
diglossia.
3) Over several centuries, a gap evolves between High and Low. Dialects change more rapidly than the
High form.
Arguments in favor of H:
 H must be adopted because it connects the community with its 'glorious past', or with the world
community
 H is a natural unifying factor, it is not divisive like dialects.
Language Second Acquisition

 Status: Often based on the beliefs of the community in the superiority of H: it is more beautiful,
expressive, logical; it has divine sanction etc. Whatever the objective truth of such beliefs, the fact
is that they are held, and are therefore important

Arguments in favor of L:
 L is better, because it is closer to the real thinking and feeling of the people, the heart.
 Education in L is easier at the beginning because children have a basic knowledge of it. =>
simplification.
 It is more effective as a vehicle for communication, and is widely understood locally.

Family choices
Categories of Early Childhood Bilingualism:
One parent- One language: The parents have different languages, one of which is often the dominant
language of the community. The parents each speak their own language to the child from birth, but tend to
speak one language to each other. (Example: mother speaks English; father speaks Dutch; the community
language is Dutch.) This has often been suggested as a successful strategy. However, it tends to imply
incorrectly that it is only the family that influences language acquisition. Community influences are also
important (e.g. pre-school, extended family, mass media).
L1= home, L2/3 = society: What is central is that the child acquires one language in the home, and a
different language outside the home. Both parents will use the same language in the home, and the child
will acquire another language formally or informally outside the home. One further variation can produce
multilingualism. If each parent speaks a different language to the child from birth, the child may gain a
third language outside the home. This often results in trilingualism. (Example: mother speaks German;
father speaks Spanish; the community language is English.)
 Bilingualism does not hinder the acquisition of an additional language and, to the contrary, in most
cases bilingualism favors the acquisition of a third language.
Mixed language: The parents speak both languages to the child. Codeswitching and codemixing is
acceptable in the home and the neighborhood. The child will typically codeswitch with other bilinguals but
not with monolinguals.
Delayed L2: Where the neighborhood, community and school language is a higher status and dominant
language, parents may delay exposure to that dominant language. For example, parents may exclusively
speak Navajo in the home until the child is two or three years of age, then add English. The tactic is to
ensure a strong foundation in a heritage language before the dominant language outside the home
becomes pervasive.
Child preferences:
Children’s own preferences can be highly influential. Sibling interactions are also a major determinant of
language choice: Older and younger brothers and sisters play their part in shaping language interactions in
the family. Multilingual extended families may have increased choices of language, particularly if coming
from ‘elite’ circumstances. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and carers can all affect which
language a child speaks with whom, when and where.
Attitudes about Codeswitching:
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o One issue frequently raised by parents and teachers of children of differing ages is about one
language being mixed with another. Terms such as Hinglish, Spanglish, TexMex and Wenglish
(respectively for Hindi-English, Spanish-English, Texan- Mexican and Welsh-English) are often used
in a derogatory fashion to describe what may have become accepted language borrowing within a
particular community. However, in some domains, a separation of languages may be the acceptable
norm. For example, in formal classroom teaching and learning, codeswitching may be disfavored.
o Codeswitching may also be less acceptable for political, social or cultural reasons. If a power conflict
exists between different ethnic groups, then language may be perceived as a prime marker of a
separate identity, and codeswitching may seem disloyal.
o Some monolinguals have negative attitudes to codeswitching, believing that it shows a
communication deficit, or a lack of mastery of both languages. Some bilinguals also adopt a
monolingual approach by keeping their languages strictly separate. However, it tends to be those
who are more fluent in a language that codeswitch (Meisel, 2004). Yet bilinguals themselves may
be defensive or apologetic about their codeswitching and attribute it to laziness or sloppy language
habits.

Language attrition:
The gradual forgetting of a language by an individual
Its stages:
 The first sign of attrition is an increase in the length of time needed for the retrieval of words etc.
(to find the right words).
 In the next stage the information becomes temporarily inaccessible under certain conditions, while
still retrievable under others. (ex: recognize but not produce).
 In the final stage of language attrition the linguistic information becomes completely inaccessible.

 Writing and reading are usually lost a long time before speaking and listening.
 In the bilingual person when there is language attrition there is often compensation from
another of the known languages.
 younger children lose languages quicker than older children.
 Higher proficiency in the attiring language leads to better retention. The higher you go, the
slower the language loss. Therefore, if you begin to learn a language you need to be
determined to keep going. It is a general observation that if you do not keep going for at
least five years then you will eventually lose all or almost all you have learned. But if you
keep going seven or more years, then the language loss is much less.
Relearning: For children at least, learning a language for the second time can be dramatically more rapid.
Information once learned is not totally lost, it becomes inaccessible with disuse but is retrievable with the
right cues (stimuli, circumstances communities).
Factors encouraging language maintenance vs factors encouraging language loss:
1. Social, demographic, and political factors:

Language maintenance Language loss

Large number of speakers living closely Small numbers of speakers well dispersed.
together.
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Recent and/or continuing in-migration. Long and stable residence.

Close proximity to the homeland and ease Homeland remote or inaccessible.

of travel to homeland.
Occupations: stable shifting, ex; from rural to urban
Employment available where home Employment requires use of majority
language is spoken daily language
Ethnic group identity rather than identity Ethnic identity is denied to achieve social
with majority language community and vocational mobility

2. Cultural factors:

Language maintenance Language loss

Mother tongue institutions (schools, Lack of mother tongue institutions.
mass media, community organizations…)
Ethnic identity strongly tied to home Ethnic identity defined by other factors
language. other than language. mo
Emphasis on family ties and community. Low emphasis.
Emotional attachment to mother tongue Self-identity derived from other factors
giving self-identity.

3. Linguistic factors:

Lg maintenance Lg loss
Mother tongue is standardized and exists in MT not standardized.
a written form.
MT has international status. MT has little or no international status.
Flexibility in the dvt of the home lg (ex: No tolerance of new forms from majority lg
limited use of terms from the majority lg) OR too much tolerance of loan words
leading to eventual lg loss.

Additive bilingualism: where the addition of a second

language is unlikely to replace or displace the first language and culture. The value added benefits
could be social and economic as well as linguistic and cultural.
Subtractive bilingualism: When the second language and culture are acquired (e.g.
immigrants) with pressure to replace the first language. Loss can include identity, culture,
alienation, marginalization.

Ex: the strength of the dominance of English in US society places considerable pressure on language
minority students not only to acquire English at a young age, but also to replace their minority language
with English. in the US, early exposure to English can lead to a shift from Spanish to English and the
potential loss of Spanish.
 This is not a limitation of early bilingualism, but rather a caution that minority language
development needs particular nurturing in political situations where another language is ever
dominant.