Second Language Acquisition

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.    Background of The Study

To acquire second language, there is a study named Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It  refers both to the study of individuals and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and to the process of learning that language. There are three theories in SLA that should be realized and learnt to guide us to understand SLA further. Besides these theories, there is an issue about the ability of chimps to learn human language. It must be discussed because it relates with the topic about acquiring the language.

B.     Problems of The Study

1.   What is learning a second language?

2.   What are the theories of second language acquistion?

3.   Can chimps learn human language?

C.           Aims of The Study

1.      To know the scope of learning a second language

2.      To realize the theories that are used in second language acquisition

3.      To investigate if chimps can learn human language or not

CHAPTER II

CONTENT

A.    Learning a Second Language

1.      Understanding of Learning

Understanding own learning vary according to experts. Al Khuli (1981) said, "al ta'liimmu iktisaabi suluuk soid au taqwiyah suluuk saabiq natiijatan li khubrah maa, zhahiiron kaana au kamin". That is, that learning is the occurrence of new behaviors or the reinforcement of old behaviors as a result of experience either happening explicitly or implicitly. McGeoch (1956) says, Learning is a change in performance as a result of practice, ie changes in performance caused by the training process. Witting (1981) argues that learning is relativity permanent change in an organism's behavioral repertoire that occurs as a result of experience, meaning that learning is a relatively settled change that occurs in all behavior within an organism as a result of experience. From some of these opinions, we can draw the conclusion that learning is a process of relatively permanent change resulting from an experience in the form of exercises or interaction with the environment.

While learning activities (ta'liim / at tadris) is a process that is identical to the teaching activities undertaken by educators to occur learning activities. In KBBI V edition, learning means the process, the way, the act of making people or living beings learn. Bahauddin (2007: 116) explains that learning is a process to help learners to learn well. So that we can draw the conclusion, that language learning is the process of language mastery, both in the first language or second language. The process of mastering the language itself, including the acquisition of natural (acquisition) and formally (learning) (krashen, 1981: 40).

2.      Understanding The Second Language

a.       According to Chaer and Agustina

The second language acquisition is a gradual span starting from mastering the first language (L1) getting a bit knowing the second language (L2), then the mastery of L2 increases gradually, until finally the mastery of L2 is as good as L1.

b.      Kholid A. Harras

The second language is the language the child acquires once they have acquired the first language.

c.       Henry Guntur Tarigan

The acquisition of a second language is defined by teaching and learning a foreign language and / or other second language.

d.      Dardjowidjojo

The acquisition of a second language is obtained through the process of adult learning in the classroom is a formal learning in comparison with a natural gem language.

e.       Wikipedia

The second language or L2 usually refers to all languages ​​learned after their mother tongue, also called the first language, L1.

3.      Understanding of the Learning a Second Language

The second language learning is the process of understanding one or more individuals of a language after the preceding language is controlled to some extent. Thus, learning a second language means learning to master a second language is exposed to them. Generally the second language learning outcome is not as good as the first language learning outcome. Nevertheless, in children, according to Paivio and Begg (1981). the learning process happens very quickly and smoothly, especially because their brains are still very sensitive to receive language stimuli.

4.      The Characteristics of Language Acquisition and Language Learning

The second language learning for children needs to be designed in such a way that it resembles a natural acquisition condition. This needs to be emphasized, because the acquisition has different characteristics from learning (Cox, 1999; Musfiroh, 2002)

a.       Language Learning

1)      Focus on the forms of language

2)       Success is based on the mastery of the forms of language

3)       Learning is emphasized on the types of language forms and structures, activities under the instruction of the teacher

4)      Correction of errors is very important to achieve the behavior of mastery

5)      Learning is a conscious process for memorize rules, forms, and structures

6)      Emphasis on production capability may result from interest in the early stages.

b.  Language Acquisition

1)      Focus on meaningful communication

2)      Success is based on the use of language to do things;

3)      The material is emphasized on the ideas and interests of child-centered activities

4)       Mistakes are normal

5)      Acquisition is a subconscious process and occurs through exposure and input that the child understands

6)      Emphasis on naturally developing language proficiency

5.      Factors Affecting Second Language Learning

The success of second language learning is influenced by, at least, six factors. First, the motivation factor. Learning a language based on a strong motivation, will get better results. Motivation, in this perspective includes encouragement, desire, willingness, reason, or purpose that moves a person to learn the language. Motivation originates within the individual, which can be categorized as integrative motivation and instrument motivation. Integrative motivation is related to the desire to communicate with speakers, while the motivation of the instrument refers to the desire to obtain a certain achievement or occupation.

Second, is environmental factors, covering the formal and informal environment. The formal environment is a school environment that is designed in such a way, artificial, part of the teaching, and directed to conduct a rule-oriented activity (Krashen, 2002). The informal environment is a natural and natural environment that allows children to interact with the language. According to Dulay (1982), the informal environment, especially peers, has a strong influence in the process of obtaining language. In addition, enriched environments also help the child master the language. The availability of printed materials, picture books, and media that can be viewed by children at any time are part of enriched environments.

Third, is age. Children, according to Lambert (1972) have the opportunity to learn language proficiently. They are still at a critical age (Allan & Paivio, 1981). In terms of pronunciation, children have the opportunity to speak fluently, although language rules must be naturally awakened (Brewer 1995)

Fourth, is the quality of exposure. The study material is naturally exposed to give meaning to the child in everyday life. On the other hand, the exposure presented formally makes the child rule the rules relatively quickly, although they may not be able to express their mastery in natural communication (Ellis, 1986).

Fifth, is the first language. If the first language has a closeness kinship with a second language, learners have the ease of developing competence. Nevertheless, the possibility of mixing the code is easier to occur, as there is a lot of mixed code in the children's Kindergarten in DIY (Musfiroh, 2003).

Sixth, is the intelligence factor. Although it has not been proven accurately and contrary to the theory of multiple intelligences, it is thought that the level of child intelligence influences the rate of acquisition of the second language. According to Lambert, bilingual children have significantly better performance than monolingual children, both on verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests (Lambert, 1981: 154).

The success of learning a second language, according to Steinberg (2001: 238), is influenced by the strategies used by learners, namely (1) verification, is to check whether their hypothesis about the language is true, (2) inductive processing, ie to prepare a hypothesis about a second language on a base (3) deductive reasoning, using common logic in solving problems, (4) practice, ie repetition, practice, and imitating, (5) memorizing or remembering, mnemonic strategies and repetition for the purpose of strengthening storage and storage and retrieval, (6) monitoring, ie dare to make mistakes and pay attention to how the message received by the speaker.

6.      The Role of Teachers as a Second Language Learning Environment

There are many restrictions on learning, but the authors hold to the limits of the cognition, especially Jean Piaget, who essentially suggests that learning is an interaction between individual learners (learner) and the environment. In Language Two, by Heidy Dulay et al., Suggests the existence of four macro environments and three micro environments that can be influential. The macro environment is (1) the nature of the language being heard; (2) the role of learners in communication; (3) availability of reference tools to clarify meaning; and (4) who is the target language model. The microenvironment consists of (1) bulge (salience), (2) feedback, and (3) frequency. The question is, where is the teacher's position? The answer is that the teacher is one of the environmental milestones: in a macro environment he can at least model as a model, and in a micro-teacher environment plays a role as a reversal.

B.     Theories of Second Language Acquisition

1.        Behaviorist Theory

The first tradition, behaviorism, dominated the field of SLA until the end of the 1960s and found its most visible application in contrastive analysis and the audio-lingual method (Johnson, 2004). Behaviorism views human mind as tabula rasa; that is, the human mind, at birth, is a “blank tablet” where experiences are written, and that it is only the environment that shapes the human mind (Almqvist, 2012). Environment, then, plays an important role in learning and development, whereas the learners are viewed as passively adapting to the environment (Xiangui, 2005).

In the behavioristic tradition, the learner’s mental processes were disregarded because they were not accessible to external observation (Johnson, 2004). That is, they were viewed as too subjective, too “hidden”, for observation, measurement, and verification. Under this old and by now disregarded paradigm, the mental processes that could not be externally evaluated were exempt from scientific investigations. The possibility of their existence was minimized.

Behaviorism emphasizes stimulus, response, and reinforcement as the basic elements of learning, including the learning of language. Johnson (2004) mentioned that in behaviorism, learning was regarded as a habit formation, the process of making a link between stimuli and responses. This link, viewed as being influential for learning, had to be reinforced, observed, corrected, and practiced. Almqvist (2012) stated that in behaviorism, first the child sees an object (i.e. stimulus). Then, the adult says a word describing the object and the child imitates it (i.e. response). Finally, the adult praises the child for using the word or words, and the child wants to describe it again (i.e. reinforcement). For example, to learn the word ball, the child would first associate the word ball with the familiar spherical object, the stimulus. Next the child would produce the word by imitation, at which time an adult would praise the child for saying ball, thereby reinforcing the child’s correct verbal response.

B. F. Skinner, in Almqvist (2012), examined how behavior is shaped when punishment and praise are used in relation of a child’s behavior. These studies were based on experiments with rats and pigeons. Skinner believed that punishing consequences would lead to less repetition of the undesired behavior. Skinner’s behavioristic views are known as radical behaviorism. This is relevant to language learning because a child’s language learning is in need of the caretaker’s positive or negative reinforcement. In other words, language is learned by hearing a phrase and repeating it. The conclusion is that if the child is not praised or rewarded, the utterance will not be repeated.

Xiangui (2005) mentioned that behaviorism is usually connected to Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH). According to behaviorism, in contrast to a first language learner, the second language learner already has a set of habits. The L1 habits are namely assumed to be so well established and so appealing to use so that they constantly get in the way of the L2 habit formation process. Lado (1957), in Xiangui (2005), assumed that the transferred L1 habits either facilitate or inhibit the process of L2 habit formation. Where there are similarities between the L1 and the L2 the student will acquire easily, but where there are differences the students will find difficulties. As a consequence, a detailed comparison (i.e. contrastive analysis) of the native and the target language would suffice to reveal areas of differences and similarities. These in turns would allow predicting where the errors would and would not occur.

In behavioristic theory, spoken language is more important than written language (Almqvist, 2012). Behaviorists believe that spoken language is primary since we learn to speak before we learn how to read and write. Thus, it leads to the implementation of audio-lingual method and the practice of oral skills in a controlled environment. Based on it, language skills are taught in the order of listening, speaking, reading and writing (Dolati, 2012). In classrooms, the instructional approach emphasizes the formation of habits through modeling, imitation, repetition and pattern drills, and mistakes are to be avoided and immediately corrected.

Though some features of language, such as pronunciations and collocations, may be successfully acquired through repetition and memorization, the audio-lingual method has come under severe criticism as being overly mechanical and theoretically unjustified (Xiangui, 2005). The behaviorist theory was also being criticized for not being able to explain some points in language learning. Its concept of imitation and reinforcement could not account for typical child utterances like “Him don’t say it right,” which were clearly not imitations of adult speech. Moreover, behaviorists could not explain how any novel utterance was produced, even those that were grammatically correct. In addition, child language researchers noticed that parents typically reinforce their children for the meaning of their utterances, not for grammatical correctness. These and other concerns were pointed boldly by Noam Chomsky in a heated debate with behaviorist B. F. Skinner, attacking the behaviorist theory to be inadequate for explaining the development of a child language development. The challenge on behaviorism caused innatist perspective to emerge.

2.      Innatist Theory

   Noam Chomsky made revolutionary views through his studies on syntax, and was able to give strong arguments against the behaviorist theory. Chomsky’s findings set the basis for the expansion of the innatist theory. Lightbown and Spada, in Almqvist (2012), referred innatism as a theory that human beings are born with mental structures that are designed specifically for the acquisition of language.

Krashen’s Five Hypotheses

            Chomsky’s work on Universal Grammar (UG) and Language Acquisition Device (LAD) was developed further by Stephen D. Krashen through his five hypotheses, commonly known as Krashen’s Input or Monitor Hypothesis. The impact of Krashen’s input hypothesis on the field of second language acquisition and teaching has been profound (Johnson, 2004).

a. The Natural Order Hypothesis

            Krashen’s second hypothesis, the natural order hypothesis, states that SLA proceeds according to a well-defined order (Johnson, 2004). That is, the second language is acquired in a prearranged way. It unfolds along a natural and predictable path of development that cannot be altered. For example, students learning English, regardless of their cultural and linguistic background, will acquire the plural –s (girls) before the third person singular –s (likes) (Escamilla & Grassi, 2000). The natural order of acquisition is not affected by instructional sequences. Krashen suggests that providing students with meaningful comprehensible input that contains grammar, but focuses on communication, will enable students to naturally acquire the necessary grammar.

There are several predictable stages of acquisition undergone by second language learner of which those stages are similar to the stages experienced by children acquiring their native languages.

b.      The Monitor Hypothesis

            The monitor hypothesis accounts for the existence and the operation of learned knowledge (Johnson, 2004). Krashen (1985), in Johnson (2004), writes: “Our ability to produce utterances in another language comes from our acquired competence, from our subconscious knowledge. Learning, conscious knowledge, serves only as an editor, or Monitor. We appeal to learning to make corrections, to change the output of the acquired system before we speak or write (or sometimes after we speak or write, as in self-correction).” Krashen (1981) mentioned three conditions on the use of the Monitor. The first condition is that in order to successfully monitor, the performer must have time. In normal conversation, both in speaking and in listening, performers do not generally have time to think about and apply conscious grammatical rules, and we see little or no effect on the Monitor in these situations. This condition, however, is necessary but not sufficient. There is, thus, a second condition of which the performer must be "focused on form", or correctness. An important third condition for successful Monitor use is that the performer needs to know the rule; that is, he or she needs to have a correct mental representation of the rule to apply it correctly.

c. The Input Hypothesis

            The fourth hypothesis, the input hypothesis, claims that humans acquire language in only one way; that is, by understanding messages, or by receiving “comprehensible input” (Johnson, 2004). Comprehensible input is operationalized as i + 1, where i represents the learner’s current level of language competence and 1 the next level of competence in the natural order of development. Note that Krashen’s input hypothesis refers to acquisition, not learning. Krashen claims that if there is enough comprehensible input, the necessary grammar is automatically provided. There is no need to teach grammar deliberately because it can be acquired subconsciously with the assistance of the internal language processor (i.e. Chomsky’s LAD). Krashen believes that the operation of Chomsky’s UG extends beyond the L1. He disagrees with the researchers who undermine its value for second language acquisition. Krashen argues that although we may see individual variation “on the surface”, such as different sources of comprehensible input, different strategies for obtaining input, different messages, and of course different languages, and this variation may be of practical concern. But deep down, the “mental organ” for language produces one basic product, a human language, in one fundamental way.

d.         The Affective Filter Hypothesis

            The last hypothesis, the affective filter hypothesis, claims that although comprehensible input is the necessary condition for, indeed the cause of, moving along the natural order of development, there is another factor that affects SLA, which is the affective filter (Johnson, 2004). According to Krashen, in Johnson (2004), this affective filter is “a mental block that prevents acquirers from fully utilizing the comprehensible input they receive for language acquisition”. When the affective filter is “up”, the input, although understood, will not reach the LAD. This mental block is associated with the following factors: anxiety, lack of confidence, and lack of motivation. When the affective filter is “down”, the input will be delivered to the LAD, and second language acquisition will take place subconsciously.

3.  Interactionist Theory

 The innatist perspective is also not far from criticisms. Gardner (1995) describes that the Chomskyan view is “too dismissive of the ways that mothers and others who bring up children help infants to acquire language.” He argues that, “while the principles of grammar may indeed be acquired with little help from parents or other caretakers, adults are needed to help children build a rich vocabulary, master the rules of discourse, and distinguish between culturally acceptable and unacceptable forms of expression.” This interest in the role of people in the social environment provides the focus of the interactionist perspective.

According to the interactionist position, caregivers play a critical role in adjusting language to facilitate the use of innate capacities for language acquisition. This is in sharp contrast to the innatist view that adapting language has little effect on a child’s acquisition process. The interactionist view thus takes into consideration the importance of both nature and nurture in the language acquisition process.

In first language acquisition, children’s language develops over time, not within a single interaction. As children develop language, they must construct the meanings of thousands of words. Interactions with children do not necessarily lead to immediate understanding. Basic understandings must be developed and refined over time, often through misunderstandings. Children are constantly constructing meaning as they interact with people and the world around them, and through these interactions, they gradually sort out the nuances and construct the multiple meanings of words and phrases. The interactionist perspective acknowledges the important roles of both the child and the social environment in the language acquisition process.

In second language acquisition, the idea of the innatist perspective that comprehensible input is necessary for second language acquisition also forms a basic principle of the interactionist position. However, interactionists view the communicative give and take of natural conversations between native and non-native speakers as the crucial element of the language acquisition process (Long & Porter, 1985). Their focus is on the ways in which native speakers modify their speech to try to make themselves understood by English-learning conversational partners. Interactionists are also interested in how non-native speakers use their growing knowledge of the new language to get their ideas across and to achieve their communicative goals. This trial-and-error process of give-and-take in communication as people try to understand and be understood is referred to as the negotiation of meaning. As meaning is negotiated, non-native speakers are actually able to apply some control over the communication process during conversations, thus causing their partners to provide input that is more comprehensible. They do this by asking for repetitions, indicating they don’t understand, or responding in a way that shows they did not understand. The listener’s natural response is then to paraphrase or perhaps use some other cue to convey meaning, such as gesturing, drawing, or modified speech (sometimes referred to as “foreigner talk,” which is somewhat equivalent to caregiver speech in first language acquisition).

In addition to the importance placed on social interaction, some researchers have looked more closely at output, or the speech produced by English language learners, as an important variable in the overall language acquisition process (Swain, 1985). We have seen that the language learners’ output can serve to bring out modification of input from conversational partners to make it more comprehensible.

C.                   Can chimps learn human language?

We learn nothing conclusive about the origin of language by examining the various ways in which animals communicate. Some animaly communication takes place through fixed systems of signals, but this similarity to human language is such a vague and general one that it can hardly be taken as indicating any special relationship to language. Indeed, the organization of natural animal communication system is radically different from that of human language.

Human language is thus crucially different from both varieties of animal communication. A human speaker controls an unlimited set of discrete signals; animal communication involves either a limited set of discrete signals. This difference alone would appear to be much more impressive than the sole similarity we have noted (namely that, like human language, some animal communication relies on fixed systems of signals) and it casts doubts on the notion that human and animal communication might be directly related.

As long as bees communicate, they will only be able to exchange variants of the same message in what direction the nectar is and how far away. Apes cannot communicate freely about anything for which they do not have a specific signal, and even in these cases the possibilities are extremely restricted. People  on the other hand can talks about talk about anything they can observe or imagine. Moreover, what they can say on any given topic is almost unlimited.

1.                  Teaching Speech to Apes

The earliest-known scientific attempt at teaching language to an ape was that of Furness (1916) in the USA, who attempted to teach an orangutan to speak. The brief four-month project ended in tragedy, when the animal died with a high fever while repeating the two words it had learned to say “papa” and “cup”.

Winthrop and Luella Kellogg (Kellogg & Kellogg, 1933; Kellogg, 1968) raised a female chimp named Gua along with their own son, Donald. Their idea was that by giving the chimpanzee the same input and social interaction as a human child, the chimpanzee would learn language in the same way that the human child learns its first language.

2.                  Teaching Sign Language To The Chimpanzee, Gorilla, And Orangutan

In 1996, another couple team of psycholinguists, Allen and Beatrice Gardener (1969, 1975), began to Teach sign language to a baby chimp, a female they called Washoe (rhymes with ‘show’).

One of Washoe’s early signs was ‘open’, which expressed by a throwing out of the arms. After about for years with the Gardners, Washoe learned a vocabulary of about 130 signs and according to the Gardners, displayed two and three word utterances, such as, ‘go sweet’, when she wanted to be taken to the raspberry bushes, and ‘open food drink’, when she wanted something out of refrigerator. If such were the case, the two or three word length of utterance would be similar to that produced by human children around the age of 1 to 2 years. Comprehension, unfortunately, was not focused on by the Gardners.

One particular interest of theirs was Washoe ‘s ‘adopted’ son, Loulis, who they say, learned signs from Washoe that was demonstrating signs for Loulis and even helping to mould Loulis’s hands into the proper configurations.

3.                  Teaching Artificial Languages To Chimpanzee

The Rumbaughs (Rumbaugh, 1977; Savage-Rumbaugh & Rumbaugh, 1978) taught the chimp Lana a simple artificial language called Yerkish. Lana was named after the research programed which was called the Language Analogue project. Lana was just over 2 years old when the project began. Lana had to press certain keys in the right sequence to make request and consequently receive desired items, e.g. ‘please machine give milk’ or ‘please Tim give ball’. Lana learned hundreds of sentences in this fashion. She had names for people, food, objects, and even special phrase ‘that-which-is’ to name things she did not know the name of

Unfortunately, Lana’s sentences were not created according to rule but were learned by rote, in a way similar to memorizing important whole sentences in a foreign language such as ‘where is the toilet?’This learning does not provide one with the ability to create novel sentences Lana produced had to be learned over many trials. Additionally, as Wallman (1992) notes, there is a problem with this and many of the ape-language studies because ‘there is no evidence to suggest that Lana had any notion of the meaning of “please” or even a child’s rudimentary understanding of the sociolinguistic rules governing its usage’.

4.                  Animals Communication In The Wild

Human speech is only one small part of the communicative inventory of chirps, hisses, growls, snort, whistles, gestures, barks, and buzzes which we find in the rest of animal kingdom. Animals communicate through a wide variety of means. At the basic level animals have many of the same reasons as we do for passing information; to get food, to find a mate, to warn, to threaten, etc.

5.                  Biological Basis of Language

Human has ability to communicate with other person by using language. With this kind of ability, they can share their idea and express their emotion. The question is “why the animal cannot speak as human do?” Scientifically this is because the biological structure of human and animal is different.  We can see it in their organ of speech.

The example is chimpanzee. Some scientists believe that chimpanzee is an animal that has some similarities with human. Even Charles Darwin believes that human and chimpanzee are come from same family. Chimpanzee has a thin and long tongue in their mouth. The shape of their tongue is suitable only for their need in non-language need such as touching something, tasting, licking and swallowing their foods. Comparatively, the ratio of their tongue to their mouth is restricted so they have no enough space to move their tongue freely.  This limited space make chimpanzee or animal cannot modify a sound to become another sound.

Different with human, larynx in animal such as chimpanzee is located on their air channel to the nose so when they take a breath, their larynx pushed to the upper mouth and closes the air hole to the nose. Their Epiglottis and Velum make some kind like water resistant blockages which make them can breathe and eat in the same time

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

A.    Conclusion

Second-language acquisition, second-language learning, is the process by which people learn a second language . Second-language acquisition also refers to the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's first language; although concept is named second-language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth, or subsequent languages. Second-language acquisition refers to what learners do; it does not refer to practices in language teaching, although teaching can affect acquisition. There are three theories about second language acquisition (behaviorist, innatist and Interactionist Theory). Chimp can learn human language but they can’t human language.

  

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