Summary 6

Languange and Gender
Language and gender scholars aimed to show that language – both in use and as a form of representation – was a primary means of constructing gender differences, and at times hierarchies and inequalities between men and women. Consequently, two aspects emerged in language and gender research;
• how women and men talked (and by extension, wrote),
• how women/men/boys and girls were represented in language – as a code, as discourse, and in actual texts.

Early sociolinguistic studies of gender often assumed that gender should be studied where it was most salient, and that gender was most salient in cross-sex interaction between potentially sexually accessible interlocutors, or same-sex interaction in gender-specific tasks. Work based on this assumption led to a series of insightful studies of the linguistic styles of men and women in romantic heterosexual relationships or in experimental settings designed to simulate such relationships.

There are two strands of research that have, in my view, contributed most to the development of the field in recent decades:
• variationist
• interactional research :
 deficiency,
 dominance,
 cultural difference
 social constructionism.

Variationist studies

Traditional variationist studies conceptualise ‘sex’ as a fixed and universal variable determining people’s use of language alongside other equally key categories such as class, age and ethnicity. Men and women did use different forms, particularly phonologically, and drew the conclusion that within every social class, women use more standard forms than men.

Interactional studies

• Deficit theory

Deficit theory posited that from an early age, girls are taught how to use a separate ‘woman’s language’: they are socialised to use language in a ‘ladylike’ way. this lady-like language was mainly manifested by a range of modifiers that in her opinion diluted the message and signified an unconfident and powerless speaker.

• Dominance theory

Women constructed their own subordination through their language use was a forerunner of ‘dominance’ theory. This had two distinct, parallel branches:
 language as social interaction
Considered how gender inequalities were constructed through routine interactions between men and women
 language as a system focusing on ‘sexism’ within the language.

In terms of language as social interaction, dominance theorists viewed ordinary conversation as highly instrumental in constructing unequal gender relations. In order to reveal the word-byword reproduction of patriarchy, early feminist linguists conducted numerous small-scale, interactional studies of largely informal conversations which examined the nature and frequency of talk, silences, questions, interruptions and ‘back-channelling’.

In terms of language as a system, it was argued that language has evolved over the centuries to serve male needs, to represent male interests, and to express male experiences: in short, it is ‘man-made’. There were hree further ways in which the language sustains this andro-centric perspective:
 linguistic marking of terms to denote women
semantic derogation
 lexical

Cultural difference theory

It said that women and men constitute different ‘sub-cultures’ learnt through friendly interactions as children in single-sex peer groups. So boys learn how to compete with others for access to ‘the floor’, to use referential, goal-orientated language, and to say things for impact and effect. Girls alternatively learn how to build relationships of equality and trust, to co-operate with others to get things done, and to express feelings and emotions.

These contrasting conversational goals corresponded to differently gendered speech ‘styles’, whereby ‘women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence’. Women learn to use ‘rapport talk’ while men learn to use ‘report talk’.

Main current issues

• Social constructionism and the ‘post-modern turn’

Social constructionist theory suggests that males and females are not born, or even simply socialised into a pre-fixed gender identity, but they become gendered through their interactions. Individuals don’t have gender, they do gender through repeated behavioural and linguistic interactions.

This post-modern perspective argues that males and females do not have an individual essence, character or ‘core’; there are no intrinsic male or female characteristics, only ones that are brought into being through repeated bodily or linguistic actions. Any apparent characteristics are the effects we produce by way of particular things we do.

According to the social constructionist perspective, gender can therefore be seen as relational, a process, something that is done, and an important resource for constructing gender roles and identities.
• Gender and sexuality

The focus of much recent ‘gender and sexuality’ research has been upon
 ‘hetero-normativity’,
 the system that naturalises and rewards a particular kind of heterosexuality – complementary, monogamous.
 reproductive male/ female partnerships – as the basis for a stable society.

One line of research has examined how the hetero-normative principle is achieved through the linguistic performance of heterosexual identities.

There are, however, at least four significant, and increasingly controversial, theoretical assumptions about gender embedded in this recommendation:
1. gender is closely wedded to sex, and the study of gender is closely wedded to the study of heterosexuality;
2. gender is an attribute;
3. the study of gender is the study of individuals;
4. gender is best studied where most salient.

The relationship of gender to sex and sexuality

Challenges to norms of sex and gender can cast a particularly illuminating light on the construction of sex and gender because they make visible norms and counternorms of gender.
 “sex”: biological differences between males and females
 “gender”: the social, cultural, psychological constructs that are imposed upon these biological differences. Gender designates a set of categories to which we can give the same label crosslinguistically or crossculturally because they have some connection to sex differences.

Gender as Activity and Relation

A variety of metaphors have arisen to capture this idea: gender as activity, gender as performance, gender as accomplishment. As a group they can be understood as embodying a practice-based approach to gender, and as such they participate in a wider move within linguistic and sociocultural anthropology since the mid-1970s to use practicebased models

Judith Butler argues that Humanist conceptions of the subject tend to assume a substantive person who is the bearer of various essential and nonessential attributes. A humanist feminist position might understand gender as an attribute of a person who is characterized essentially as a pregendered substance or “core” called the person, denoting a universal capacity for reason, moral deliberation or language.

The model of personhood described by Butler has been called abstract individualism, defined as an approach to understanding the relationship of people to society which “considers individual human beings as social atoms, abstracted from their social contexts, and disregards the role of social relationships and human community in constituting the very identity and nature of individual human beings”.
The Gender of Institutions

The third problem with a focus on studying gender in heterosexual dyads is that it suggests that “gendered talk is mainly a personal characteristic or limited to the institution of the family”. This is then accompanied by a preference for studying gender in “informal conversations, often in one-to-one or small-group relationships in the family or neighborhood”.

A focus on interactions between romantic partners in sociolinguistics draws attention away from the importance of studying the ways that “gender is a structural principle other social institutions: workplaces, schools, courts, political assemblies and the state” and the patterns they display in “the recruitment, allocation, treatment, and mobility of men as opposed to women”

Gender differences are created in bureaucratic interactions in legal, medical, psychiatric, and welfare settings. Gender thus should be understood as a principle for allocating access to resources, and a defense for systematic inequalities. It is, like class and racialized ethnicity, an axis for the organization of inequality, though the way each of these axes work may have their own distinctive features.
The salience of gender

There is a radical division of opinion between those social constructionists who argue from a ‘local’ perspective that gender can be justified as a category but only on a case-by-case basis, ‘from the ground up’ before it can be legitimately addressed within research, and those who argue from a more ‘global’ perspective that there is evidence of a wider ‘gender order’. This order is viewed as ‘a repressive ideology which continues to ensure that deviation from gender norms (by women or men) entails penalties’.

The difference between the concept of ‘indexing’ and a discourse approach is that the latter is constitutive and not simply indicative: discourses position speakers to speak and act in given ways, but speakers can negotiate their subject positions and offer resistance within these discourses.

Future trajectory and new debates

• The first is the possible challenge posed by a resurgence of biological explanations of gender, spearheaded by the Darwinist science of evolutionary psychology. Cameron has warned scholars that if they fail to take notice of ‘conversations’ about biological essentialism, ‘the result may be to re-marginalise feminist linguistic scholarship’.

• A second new direction in the field is a proposal to extend the well-established concept of ‘communities of practice’ within language and gender research in order to enable an ‘articulation between the local, the extra-local and the global.

According to the CofP concept, social practice emphasising the social significance of what people do, goes well beyond simple individual acts or conversations to socially regulated, repeated and interpreted collaborative doings. The authors argue that scholars should aim to analyse how such ‘practices articulate with the wider world and with wider discourses of gender and sexuality’.

The CofP concept could be extended to achieve this aim in two ways:
 The first is comparatively by examining different but similar kinds of CofP to move beyond particular and specific insights about a community to more general observations about gender and sexuality, example of how the interactional style of female leadership in business settings varies according to the type of community of practice, and how workplaces, not participants, can be described as ‘gendered’.

 Second way of extending the CofP concept is relationally, by locating communities of practice in relation to a world beyond – other communities, social networks, institutions and more global, imagined communities. This is shows that the use of English helps to construct an ‘imagined cosmopolitanism’.

Third new direction for language and gender concerns the wide range of research methodologies through which the discipline is currently investigated. They propose that, rather than asking in competitive spirit which method is most appropriate for language and gender research, theorists should inquire what the affordances and limitations are of each method for a particular context or study.

In this sense, research methodologies are not simply instrumental, but are conceptually driven
with specific theoretical and epistemological imperatives
Question :
1. It is said that women learn to use ‘rapport talk’ while men learn to use ‘report talk’. Can you give some example of these kind of talk in Indonesian?
2. Do you think the language usage by women and men can affect their writing style/ If yes, how to differenciate the writing style between a men and a women?

 

 

Summary 5

Bilingual Education
Historical perspective: nation state and monolingualism
Monolingualism of a whole country or territories in a country is one of the key characteristics of a well-functioning and ‘sound’ nation state. Information about the language (or languages) a person lives in therefore signified not only a matter of language usage, but also the allegiance to a country. The official language of the nation mutated to the ‘mother tongue’ of its constituents. The use of the ‘correct’ language in the sense of the language of the nation has since then implied solidarity with the community of all those living in the respective nation.

The myth of monoligualism as ‘normality’ is today inscribed in societal structures as well as the self-conception of individuals in the classical nation states: their monolingual habitus.

Wilhelm Rein argues that it can be beneficial only in terms of its ‘usefulness’, for example, for the work of interpreters or in cross-border business relations. Generally, however, his view is that bilingualism is burdened with disadvantages:

• The immense amount of time and mental energy needed to maintain and achieve bilingualism.
• Dulling and weakening of the innate sense of language. Here there are of course enormous differences depending on aptitude, education and environment. When all damage of a linguistic nature has been overcome, cognitive processes still show some traces of bilingualis

The disadvantages, which do not all need to occur in the same person, are greater expenditure of time and energy at the expense of other work, weakening of the innate sense of language due to mutual interference of the two languages, uncertainty how to express oneself, mixing of languages, lack of active vocabulary, loss of intellectual community with monolinguals.

The ambiguity of monolingualism development relates to the fact that the notion of nation developed into nationalistic concepts in the course of the nineteenth century. The focus on functional aspects of language as tools for communication and participation were increasingly accompanied, if not replaced, by the connotation of language use as an expression of solidarity and loyalty with ‘emperor, people and fatherland’.

This development brings the close interconnection between language and power to the surface. The creation of a ‘common language’ inevitably meant the exclusion of other languages in a nation state from the privilege of. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the existence of language minorities within countries has repeatedly led to disputes about individual versus community versus common language. Not only did aggressive state activities give rise to such disputes, as in the prohibition of the public use of languages and their exclusion from the education system, but so also did more peaceful manifestations of human mobility: namely migration processes.

All classical nation states, at one point or the other in their histories, experienced processes of aggressive assimilation of linguistic minorities, be it in their own state territories or in the course of conquest – including the fact that more or less generous exceptions were made for certain languages which were provided with exclusive privileges. Since the 1990s, the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages provides protection for autochthonous minority languages since they are considered as elements of the European cultural heritage. The claims for linguistic minority rights are in essence elementary struggles for participation and inclusion, and access to power in a society.

Types of bilingual education

• Immersion models. Probably the best known and influential of these are the French immersion models in Canada. In the French immersion models all teaching to children in Anglophone school districts is provided in French. The models are established in different ways in nine Canadian provinces. Early immersion programmes begin in either kindergarten or grade 1; middle immersion programmes start midway through elementary school; and still others begin in the later grades. Attendance of immersion programmes varies by the type of programme.

• Another typology of bilingual education models relates to the ways in which educational programmes are organized and designed. As a general rule – with some, mostly historical exceptions – bilingual education refers to models in which both languages are used for teaching parts of the content matter. Beyond this general feature, the models can be organized in a broad range of different approaches. Differences relate to the amount of teaching hours in both languages – some models provide equal amounts of time for both languages concerned, others dedicate only a few teaching hours to one of the two languages.
• Two-way or dual immersion models which usually aim at helping children from immigrant minorities to catch up with the majority language. In theory, these models should be composed of 50 per cent bilingual children and 50 per cent monolinguals. Both languages are taught from the beginning, and a variety of academic subjects is taught in each of the languages. On the other hand, we find transitional bilingual education. Here, all the teaching takes place in the first language of the children in the beginning. The second (or majority) language is gradually introduced, at first in language as a subject only, then after some time also in other content areas. The aim of such models is to support the acquisition of the second (or majority) language and to prepare their transition to monolingual mainstream classes.

Bilingual education is a privilege for specific elites, for example: for the children of diplomats during their stays abroad, or the children of employees of supranational agencies or the children of executive staff posted abroad. In these cases, the models are either designed or emerge in practice as accessible to more affluent (and perhaps urban) communities, and they are used as strategies of social distinction. In the case of these bilingual education models, the effectiveness or appropriateness of bilingual education is hardly ever questioned. It is taken for granted that the learners from affluent backgrounds profit from bilingualism and bilingual education.

Immigration leads to language communities of varying sizes within the territory of a majority language. Bilingual education models have been established mostly in the service of larger immigrant communities. But size is not the only motivation. Another relevant factor is the access of a community to the power structures in either the country of origin or the country of residence. Usually such models emerge on the basis of bilateral agreements between the respective country of origin and the country of residence, allowing for the establishment of schools for their own constituents living abroad.

The overall goals of the models can differ. Whereas it is a common characteristic of all bilingual education models to give learners access to reading and writing in both languages concerned, the aims of this vary. On one hand, in so-called language maintenance programmes, the aim can be to produce fluent and balanced bilingualism – or even more than that, to provide the entire curriculum in both languages. This kind of model has been established in particular for autochthonous minorities in areas with quite stable bilingual speech communities, but some attempts have also been made with respect to immigrant minority communities.

Literacy in these models can be taught in parallel or consecutively. It is normally the case that the teachers involved are themselves bilingual in the languages concerned. On the other hand, and very widespread, are the so-called transitional models of bilingual education. In the majority of cases, these models address immigrant minority students. They are based on the assumption that it is an advantage for children who grow up bilingually to develop their ‘first language’ – the family language – up to a certain level before the child is confronted with education in a further language.

An influential theoretical assumption was the threshold hypothesis indicating that ‘transfer’ between the two languages is a positive feature for language development. This hypothesis is in educational practice and in research often misunderstood as a dictum, that a minimum command of the ‘first language’ is necessary in order to learn a second language successfully.
Effects and effectiveness of bilingual education

A consensus has been reached about the effects or effectiveness of one specific group of bilingual education models: the transitional bilingual education models. These models are not supported by empirical research. Whereas supporters of the models are still found in the public sphere, in particular among lobbyists from minority groups, there is no evidence in empirical academic work that they are appropriate for the education of second language learners. A second consensus could possibly be reached through further research concerning the question of inclusion of first language instruction in the curriculum.

There is some evidence from studies on literacy development of learners who have first contact with the second or third language in older age, namely as adults, that it is beneficial for them to be taught literacy in their expert languages first, then to transfer those literacy skills to the next language they learn.

Bilingual education can only have positive effects if both languages are taught in a coordinated and balanced way. Second: the examples show that the answer to the question of what bilingual education may or may not offer is not least dependent on the interests behind the research.

The bilingualism controversy as carried out in the presented research is clearly related to a normative perspective with respect to the question: what counts as relevant and valuable language competence for a person living in two languages
Outlook: bilingual education in a multilingual world

Vertovec’s framework of super-diversity offers a theoretical starting point for studying this diversity. Super-diversity refers to the dynamic interplay of linguistic, cultural and social phenomena which exceeds the magnitude and present understanding of complexity in societies. Vertovec refers to the growing complexity of social and cultural constellations in societies, which becomes obvious by observing the features of recent immigrations.

An ‘increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants’ build the immigrant communities (not only) in urban areas. it is obvious that bilingual education models can open up possibilities for education in very specific, clearly defined linguistic constellations of learners, and in these constellations serve learners’ needs.

If the creation of bilingual individuals is the aim, positive effects can be expected, none of the methodologically acceptable studies lead to the result that bilingual models (if they offer both languages) harm acquisition of the second language, but they provide access to two languages within the identical amount of time in which monolingual models are successful.
Question :
1. We know that learning English is important. However, we all know that in Billingual education, we find many new vocabularies that we seldom use in English class, for example special words in Physics, Math, Biology or Chemistry. In your opinion, with the advantage like this, should Billingual education be erased completely?
2. What should the govenrment do when in the future having a billingual education is a must for schools in Indonesia to achieve good human resources quality?

 

 

Summary 4

Technology and Language Learning

Metaphors of technology and language learning

Metaphor about computer as tutor, computer as tool, and computer as medium.

Tutor
the computer is treated like a teacher :

• it is used to present material

• to provide language practice

• to analyze learners’ language performance and provide feedback

• to test learners’ knowledge of language and culture

Tool

• It focuses on individual learner capabilities and cognitive goals and needs.

• Computers (via the Internet) provide learners ready access to a wide variety of written, audio, and visual materials relevant to the language and culture being studied

Medium

• Emphasizes the communicative agency of language learners, who express themselves and interact with other people ‘through’ the computer.

• Learners can use computers to engage in a wide variety of communicative practices – sometimes in instructional contexts, but often not.

These three metaphors of technology have a relationship with three metaphors of language learning :
• Associated with psycholinguistic.
Information processing approaches to language acquisition metaphorically frames the learner as a computer that receives and processes language input in order to generate rules and verbal output.
• Associated with discourse analytic and anthropological approaches to language socialization.
Frames the learner as an apprentice who uses language and behaviour to enter and participate in a community of practice, and who further learns language and behaviour by virtue of that participation.
• Emergent metaphor of language ecology attempts to encompass the full complexity of the relationships and processes involved in learning to live in one or more languages and cultures.

Features of electronically mediated communication

To elaborate on the ‘medium’ metaphor outlined above, electronically mediated communication (EMC) is often categorized as synchronous or asynchronous.
 Synchronous modes include text chat, instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (e.g. Skype), videoconferencing, online games, MOOs, and virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life).
 Asynchronous modes include email, bulletin boards, forums, wikis, blogs, SMS texting, social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace).
The synchronous/asynchronous distinction determined more by the user because it is based on the how the user uses the technology, for example email or a Facebook page can be used ‘synchronously’ like instant messaging if the communicating parties are online at the same time.

The differences betweem Electronically Mediated Communciation (ECM) with spoken communcation :
 the binary on/off nature of the medium does not allow backchannelling (‘uh-huh’, ‘right’, shaking of head, etc.) from a partner while one is communicating. The relative leanness of EMC creates a different dynamic from that of spoken communication, and this difference may well be significant for language learning contexts that are exclusively EMC-based.
 most (but not all) forms of written EMC leave an enduring trace, allowing them to be searched, sorted, reviewed, forwarded, and recontextualized. This has potential benefits for language learning in that exchanges can be mined for vocabulary, structures, discourse markers, and so on, but it also raises issues of privacy

Genre and register in EMC

Genres creates norms of interaction by codifying the respective roles of readers/listeners and writers/speakers and the relationships between them, and by setting corresponding parameters of appropriateness for language use. ECM’s various modes can be linked to a range of genres, some of which are specific to the technological medium.

Knowledge of genres gives learners a sense of organization beyond the sentence and paragraph level and allows them to make connections between social purposes, interactions they observe or participate in online, and what they learn in their language classes.

From a teaching perspective, many instructors note that learners’ language use in EMC environments is often less correct, less complex, less coherent than the language they use in their ordinary written assignments. Non-standard features are generally not due to inattentiveness or not knowing the standard forms, but are often deliberate choices to minimize typing effort, to imitate speech or sounds, or to be inventive. It is argued that simplification (e.g. omission of prepositions, copulas, auxiliary verbs) is not just a matter of typing economy but likely represents dialect features, reflecting the pressure to accommodate many diverse group members. Sometimes accommodations go beyond simplification and become multilingual hybrid forms.

Mediation in EMC

The hardware and the software, the core of the interface, can be familiar or unfamiliar to the users, and this can make a difference in language and body language and how communication unfolds. Hardware and software introduce time lags and distortions as well as noise and connection problems – all of which can affect communication. One example is a sentence can have many tones or way of speaking based on how the reader reads it. The polite sentence can be rude if the reader reads it that way.

The mediational qualities of EMC environments will influence genre and register conventions. For example, the relationship between computers and the ‘discussion’ genre: are we more likely to debate contentiously or criticize when we cannot see our partners in online dialogue; are we more or less likely to disclose personal confidences when we feel safe behind a certain level of distance and anonymity; are we more or less likely to trust our partners in conversation? The space of online communication, like any other, is not neutral and shapes the form and content of what is said or written within it: Dynamic and flexible as these channels are, they have specific features – such as synchrony or asynchrony – which privilege certain voices, perspectives, and ways of communicating.

Instructional and non-instructional applications

Technology affords an ever-widening array of uses for language teaching. This section will focus on three major areas of current interest in the field: distance and blended learning, intercultural online encounters, and community participation (forums, games, and virtual worlds).

Distance and blended learning

Distance learning involves taking courses without physical presence in a classroom, and is the modern equivalent of correspondence courses.

‘Blended’ or ‘hybrid’ learning environments typically involve a distance learning component but also traditional face-to-face teaching (and sometimes out-of-class learning). As online and self-directed learning components have become more common in foreign language teaching, blended learning is increasingly becoming the norm in university level courses.

EMC is essential to such courses, as it allows interaction and feedback between learner and teacher as well as among learners. The importance of training for both instructors and students in dealing with the idiosyncrasies of audiographic EMC, such as time lags, overlapping turns, knowing when to write and when to speak, and so on.

Online intercultural encounters

An increasing trend in language teaching is the development of long-distance collaborations involving two or more classrooms, usually in different countries. Often referred to as telecollaboration, these international partnerships generally place an emphasis on culture in language use and learning.

A number of studies have found promising results regarding the viability of online encounters for developing intercultural competence and understanding. Other studies show, however, that intercultural contact in and of itself does not necessarily lead to cultural understanding. Learners’ language ability, linguistic style, academic cultures, and institutional and cultural characteristics can affect their negotiation of meaning and cultural understanding. More subtle, yet ignificant factors are differences in communicative medium and communicative genres.

In a recent and very promising development, online encounters have begun to incorporate Web-based videoconferencing, allowing participants to see and hear one another Whereas written EMC exchanges are mediated by words, symbols, and their timing and layout, desktop videoconferencing adds voice, gesture, gaze, movement, and images of a physical setting framed by a Webcam.

In sum, intercultural EMC studies indicate that just putting people together to communicate does not ensure cultural understanding, which depends on a negotiation of differences in genres, interaction styles, local institutional cultures, and culture more broadly. When designing exchanges for language learning purposes, teachers or researchers on both sides therefore need to determine how they will make students aware of this broad range of potential differences and what kinds of opportunities for negotiation they will provide.

Community participation (forums, games, and virtual worlds)

The Internet offers a wide range of opportunities for learners to participate in various sorts of online communities. Three that we will consider are :
.
 Discussion forums are a potential gold mine for language learning, since learners can become involved in discussions in the target language on any conceivable topic of interest – thereby capitalizing on any areas of personal expertise they might have and boosting their motivation and degree of engagement. Although some forums are specifically designed for language learners and teachers most are not. This poses potential risks to learners, who are attempting to enter into discussion with ‘real people’ who may have little patience for those who are still learning the language.

 Computer-mediated games provide a different kind of environment for language learning. Video games have gained educational respectability in recent years. players need to collaborate with other players in order to achieve certain goals, communication plays a central role. Video games players, who come from around the world and can number in the thousands at any given time, ‘must learn to negotiate complex scenarios, be socialized into culturally specific discourse formations, and be capable of negotiating play in real-time with game-driven characters as well as other co-present gamers.

 There are multimedia simulated 3-D environments in which one navigates (walking, jumping, or flying) by means of a user-configurable online avatar. ‘Speaking’ to other avatars or to bots (resident robots) is usually done in writing. Unlike games, the ‘content’ of virtual worlds is mostly created by users themselves with the tools and infrastructure provided by the company that has designed the product. Meeting and interacting with other people (i.e. their avatars), acquiring virtual goods, and designing one’s own custom environment are the chief activities in these environments. The limited expressive qualities of the avatars was actually beneficial, since students reported they had to focus more on ‘the speaking and listening aspects of language’.
Future directions

• First, as text-only environments become increasingly multimodal with image, voice, and sound, our resources for expressing culture and representing ourselves online expand correspondingly. More than ever, we need to remain attuned to the subtle interactions between medium, genre, register, and culture so that students can be prevented from jumping to facile conclusions about ‘the’ way that their correspondents think, feel, express themselves, and so on.
• Second, on a related note, we will need more critical explorations of how culture is understood in online environments. In the case of online exchanges, terms such as cross-cultural, intercultural, and transcultural have been used rather interchangeably, and the task of educators will be to refine the terms and develop viable methodologies and theories for examining issues of (pluri)cultural representation, identification, and contact in online contexts.
• Third, because online environments are partly shaped by the cultures of their inhabitants, ethnographic research is of key importance. To effectively study such dynamics, a great deal more longitudinal research is needed Tracking language learning through year-long or multiyear studies helps mitigate.
• Fourth, we need to be open to novel ways of integrating multiple ways of learning – some classroom-based and some not related to formal instruction. ‘School’ versus ‘home’ uses of computers is becoming a meaningless distinction, and some of the richest learning environments may not be at all ‘pedagogical’ in purpose.
• Finally, success in technology-mediated projects has been repeatedly shown to depend largely on teachers’ efforts in coordinating learners’ activities, structuring language and content, and helping learners to reflect critically on language, culture, and context. But keeping on top of project goals, activity/task design, technology interface, and the management of often complex logistical realities is challenging, and flexibility is a key asset. Teachers also need to know how technology can constrain as well as enhance their students’ language use and know when it is better not to use computers.
Questions :
1. In your opinion, how effective is game for learning a language?
2. Will students who take Distance Learning learn asmuch as those who take face-to-face classroom? Why?
Answer :
Yes, because the knowlegde the students receive from the internet is the same with the one they receive from their teacher. So in term of knowlegde aquirement, the students who take Distance Learning will learn as much as those who take face-to-face classroom

 

Summary 3

Second Language Acquisition

SLA is a study about human language development in a process of becoming competent or proficient in a second or foreign language. Beside SLA, there are two other study fields that study about language which are BFLA nd FLA.

• Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA),
It studies language development among infants and children when they grow up surrounded by two or more languages from birth.
• First Language Acquisition (FLA) or Child Language Acquisition,
Studies about how infants and children learn their first language when they grow up surrounded by one language only.

The differences between BFLA and FLA and SLA are:

BFLA :

• Infants and toddlers are investigated at the critical point in life when they are discovering human language, as instantiated in the specific language(s) that their carers happen to speak to them SLA studies will already be relatively mature users of at least one language, often more.
• infants and toddlers must develop socially and conceptually in tandem with developing linguistically.
• BFLA and FLA researchers typically assume naturalistic conditions of language learning, because infants and toddlers learn language by being surrounded by meaningful language use and in the absence of instruction

SLA :

• Their existing language competencies will influence their learning of the language that is being added to their repertoire.
• adults, adolescents, and children as young as four or five, can be expected to bring to the task already relatively sophisticated and increasingly fine-tuned social and conceptual structures
• SLA researchers investigate language learning in any possible context, ranging from naturalistic acquisition within a non-instructional community

The awakenings of SLA: interlanguage

It was argued that researchers must analyze the actual language produced by learners when they try to communicate in the target second language (L2). Therefore, the ‘errors’ learners produce was the objects of study that would serve a great value for understanding L2 acquisition.

From first theories to the cognitive and linguistic emphases of the 1990s

Stephen Krashen’s theory Monitor Model:
• The core ingredient of additional language learning is meaningful, comprehensible input.
• The processes of additional language acquisition are implicit and subconscious and any explicit and conscious processes that may be summoned in the classroom can only help careful monitored performance but will have little effects on true language knowledge or on spontaneous performance.
• The main obstacles to additional language learning for adults stem from affective inhibitions.

Views on SLA :
• Krashen stated that L2 acquisition occurs within dimensions defined largely by input and affect and operating mostly at the unconscious level.
• McLaughlin stated that learning an additional language is a complex, cognitive process similar to any other human learning as such, it involves great amounts of experience aided by attention and memory and it must include the development of sufficient declarative knowledge about the language and sufficient deliberate practice to eventually support fully automatic use of language.
• White stated that the mental grammar of second language learners must be explained by the relative contributions of two forces that guide tacit language knowledge formation and that are independent from other cognitive operations, and even relatively independent from surrounding ambient experience, namely abstract knowledge of Universal Grammar and more specific knowledge of a given first language.

Theoretical expansions: socioculturalism and emergentism

Two new theories :

Lev Vygotsky VS Nick Ellis and Diane Larsen-Freeman

Theory :
Vygotsky : study of L2 acquisition through the sociocultural theory of mind.

Nellis and Larsen-Freeman : the application of the usage-based, emergentist family of theories developed in cognitive science and initiated in SLA.

Difference :

Vygotsky : mind is irrevocably social, and therefore it can only be Investigated holistically in the unfolding process of social action and interaction. The construction of new knowledge arises in the social plane and gradually becomes internalized psychologically by the individual.

Nellis and Larsen-Freeman : mind and environment are analytically separable, and the influences stemming from one or the other should be isolated as learner-internal and learner-external factors, so that then their interactions can be investigated.
Similarities

• consider the learner’s mind and the surrounding environment as essential dimensions of inquiry.
• vested in explaining language development as part of cognitive science, but they clash in their incompatible assumptions about what human language is and about the relative contributions that nature and nurture make to its development

Key themes in SLA research

Age: what are the effects of an early or a late start?

No researcher denies that starting age greatly affects the eventual success of additional language learning. Proponents of the critical period hypothesis believe that the explanation is biological, in that they posit a maturational, time-locked schedule after which it is no longer possible to learn a language in exactly the same ways and to exactly the same high degrees of competence as any individual does between birth and age three or four.

Sceptics of the critical period hypothesis point at alternative, non-biological reasons for the attested age effects, all of which are related to the many differences in experience (linguistic and nonlinguistic) between infants and adults.

Muñoz notes stated that the empirical evidence accumulated from foreign language contexts suggests that age is confounded with another variable that must always be evaluated when interpreting critical period and age-related SLA studies: the quantity and quality of the ambient input.

Crosslinguistic influences stemming from already known languages

A second important theme in SLA research is how previously known languages, and particularly the mother tongue, influence the process of learning an additional language. Learners rely on their first language and on other languages they know in order to accomplish something that is as yet unknown to them in the second language.

Jarvis and Pavlenko identify several noteworthy insights from accumulated research:
• The realization that crosslinguistic phenomena can slow down the pace of learning in cases of language areas where negative transfer occurs, but also accelerate learning and facilitate development in many areas where positive transfer occurs.
• Similarities in a given language pair can often lead to greater learning difficulties than differences do.
• Crosslinguistic influences are not linearly related to proficiency; instead, different areas of the languages of the individual can result in interactions at some levels of proficiency and not others.

Environment and cognition: what are their contributions to additional language
learning?

SLA research has focused on human interactions and the discourse strategies in them that bring about potentially useful opportunities for learning. There is a great deal about how linguistically mature interlocutors can facilitate additional language learning :
• by rewording their messages through simplifications and elaborations,
• by asking for clarifications and expansions,
• by using language that is appropriate, interesting, and yet slightly above the level of their interlocutors.

From socioculturally oriented studies of the environment for SLA, many additional language learners are actively involved in their own learning processes, both regulating challenges and maximizing learning opportunities as they seek environmental encounters

Finally, interaction is not a panacea, and that learning opportunities may not be actualized at all when interlocutors are not invested in communicating with each other, when they are antagonistic or, even worse, prejudiced, or when they are so emotionally and intellectually engaged in communication that their attention glosses over the formal details of what is new to them in the L2.

Three approaches to explaining variability of L2 learning across individuals

• Individual differences research
It is drawn on social psychological constructs and methods. This research is quantitative and correlational, and it assumes multiple causal variables interacting and contributing together to explaining variation systematically. Motivation is another source of individual difference that has been investigated particularly energetically by SLA researchers over the years, and several theories have shed light on different qualities of motivation that are important in sustaining and nourishing learning efforts, including integrative motivation, self-determined motivation, and motivation guided by the positive concept of an L2-speaking.

• Socio-dynamic
It is drawn from complexity theory and dynamic systems theory, which are recent approaches within the emergentist family of SLA theories. In the socio-dynamic approach all research is made to be centrally and primarily about variability. Indeed, variability is thought to be an inherent property of the system under investigation and increased variability is interpreted as a precursor for some important change in the system as well. This novel perspective calls for the use of new analytical methods that are quantitative, as in the traditional perspective, but also innovatively different because they are stochastic and non-causal, that is, based on probabilistic estimations that include the possibility of random variations and fluctuations tracked empirically over time

• A third approach to variability across individuals contrasts sharply with the previous two in taking a qualitative, sociocultural, and critical perspective towards the problem at hand. In this perspective constructs such as motivation, aptitude, and other individual differences are reconceptualized as stemming from the interplay between people’s understanding of themselves in the world and the constraints, material and symbolic, that their worlds afford them. These understandings are dialectically shaped by the hopes and aspirations of individuals and by the power structures of the societal milieus that they inhabit. Thus, there is a constant struggle between societal structure and individual agency. Structural dimensions include the socioeconomic power and the histories of settlement of each speech community in a given geography, as well as the naturalized ideologies and worldviews that construct certain attributes (e.g. ethinicity, race, language, culture) as desirable or undesirable.

The role of instruction in SLA

When instruction is designed with the exclusive goal of facilitating the learning of new forms out of context, it is clear that the results are unsatisfactory because the grammar that is understood or the stock of structures that are memorized do not suffice to make students into sophisticated and fluent language users.
Conversely, when instruction is designed with the sole concern to surround learners with L2 input clothed in meaningful and interesting content in the new language, it has been shown that the results also fall short of the ideal, because much formal linguistic detail seems to be missed and not learned. At a broad level, it appears that instruction that is designed to present language or to directly summon learners to pay attention to language leads to more tangible results, at least in terms of post-test gains.

Question :
1. When a child has parents from to different country, usually that child is able to speak bothe his/her parents mother language well. However, in Japan there is a case, a man who has a Japanese mother and an American father, but he cannot speak English very well. In your opinion, what’s the cause of that?
2. People of Java’s irst language is Javanese and the second language is Indonesian. However, most of people of Java more fluent in Indonesian than Javanese despite already expose to the language since birth and use it most of the time. In your opinion, why does it happen?

Applied Linguistics Summary 2

Shinta Devi BT
2201410014
Key Concepts in Language Learning and Language Education

What is language? What is culture?
Cook and Seidlhofer’s characterizations of language:
a. Language as a rule-governed discrete combinatory system
In this part, language is seen as a sytem consisted of distinct segments (phonemes, lexemes, and morphines) that combine to make words, phrases, clauses and sentences based on a set of rules. This understanding of language are adopted and contributed in traditional, structural, descriptive and generative linguistics. In education part, the formal views are respinsible for grammatical syllabi and pedagodical practices (the use of inductive and deductive grammar exercises)

b. Language as social fact
In social fact, language is used in communicative competence which is the knowledge of when and how to say what to whom. The social fact focuses on language use so it is favour the language functions and meanings over language forms. Functions or speech act replace the structure of grammatical syllabi and together with notions, they make up notional-functioanl syllabi.

Functional approaches to language have been realized. It includes :
1. How texts are organized to realize the meaning potential of language.
2. Stylistics or the distinctive patterns and choices people make when using language
3. How different registers and genres are patterned.
4. How various conversational moves are structured (e.g., conversation openings and closings).
5. How these are performed differently in different speech communities/cultures, the work of cross-cultural pragmatics.
6. How the use of language differs across professional and academic contexts.

In addition, a functional view also holds implications for teaching reading and writing and for realizing one’s educational and professional/occupational ambitions. However, there is a problem with professional ambition, that it leads to the indifferent knowledge problem. Students acquire a great deal of knowledge about language, but they acquire little in the procedural knowledge like how to do things with language, especially when they attempt to use their knowledge for their own purposes outside of the classroom.

A structural approach has the advantage of being compositional or grouping, in the discrete pieces of language form natural syllabus units. On the other hand, dividing communication into discrete lessons is not easy, due to its protean nature. Even when communication is made divisible how to sequence units in a logical and pedagogically sound manner is not a straightforward matter.

Many teachers teach their students both structures and how to communicate by treating them separately in a given lesson. However, the structure and how to communicate in a language are not put in a practice in teaching and learning activity. Therefore, it is left to students to figure out how to apply their knowledge of grammar rules while communicating.

A proposal about analytic grammatical syllabus, where the students engage in meaningful activities, is made to solve this problem. In teaching and learning process, the teacher is encouraged to focus students’ attention on form fleetingly, in a way that would not disrupt communication, e.g. by recasting or reformulating a student’s error. Providing such ‘negative evidence’ is considered to be an important function of language teaching.

Another proposal involves a procedural or usage-based approach to teaching grammar is‘grammaring’ which calls for students to engage in dynamic, psychologically authentic practice, working not only on the form of grammar structures, but also on what they mean and when it is appropriate to use them.

Language as communicative/functional fact has the view that language serves the purpose of empowerment. Critical discourse analysts have pointed out that language is not a neutral medium of communication. One way that this view has been made manifest in language education is through a problem posing approach. In a problem-posing approach, students are encouraged ‘to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves’. The goal is to help students to understand the social, historical, and cultural forces that shaped the context in which they live, and then to help empower students to take action and make decisions in order to gain control over their lives in that context involves the selection of real-life issues from students’ experience, the creation of short dialogues based upon these issues, and the engagement of students in an open-ended process of problem-solving.

What is learning?

The definition about “learning” have been drawn from the theories of behaviourism, innatism, interactionism, and emergentism. They are :

a. Behaviourism: learning takes place through operant conditioning. There is no mental process involved; instead, learner behaviour is reinforced in order to condition a voluntary response to a particular stimulus. Learning took place through habit formation. According to behavioursm, the best way to learn a new language in the classroom is to ‘overlearn’ it (practise).

b. Innatism : there is some innate faculty, a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), that guides the child in the language acquisition process. Without it, the child would generate countless hypotheses about the rules such that the induction problem would be insoluble, certainly within the time it normally takes a child to acquire his or her native language. The LAD consists of innate general principles of language, which the child has to then but tune to the ambient language, said to involve a process of parameter-setting.

c. Interactionism. It is believed that it is not necessary to appeal to an innate LAD to explain the facts of language acquisition. They could instead be accounted for by looking closely at the interaction between the child and its caregivers, and the support the latter provides. For instance, even neonates engage in ‘conversations’ with their caretakers, with the latter making particular accommodations to facilitate language acquisition.

d. Emergentism. Learners build categories around frequent prototype exemplars, and from the categories extract the semantic and pragmatic information that allows them to analogize beyond the forms they have encountered. Frequent and reliably contingent form-meaning-use constructions are made more available to the learners through a social process of co-adaptation, an iterative process, with each interlocutor adjusting to the other over and over again. With each new instance of meaningful language the learner encounters or uses, certain neural connections are strengthened and others atrophy, creating a dynamic, interconnected network of language-using patterns in memory.

‘Who are the language learners?

This question would include learners’ ages, the native or other languages that they speak, and their individual differences. Taking these one at a time :
a. Age. There is a critical period for language acquisition, usually ending around the time of puberty, after which a first language is no longer learned in a normal way. Most applied linguists accept that there is no absolute age threshold when the shift takes place, but they do point to the decrease in brain plasticity after puberty (or perhaps a bit earlier) to explain the apparent differences between the learning of languages by younger and older learners and the differential success of the latter.

b. The native language that they speak. the native language that a learner speaks can make an impact on the way that the second language develops. The native language does not determine thinking, but instead acts as a filter through which the world is perceived and registered. Second language learners while otherwise producing accurate L2 utterances, may, at the same time, evidence L1 syntactic patterns. The neural connections made and strengthened over the years in the brain act as a deterrent to the acquisition of native-like L2 skills.

c. Individual differences. There were four individual differences that were attested to influence language learners in 1976, seventy-four in 1989, and now there are more likely over 100, as the list keeps growing.
These factors are varied and range, examples :
1. Innate language aptitude
2. Motivation
3. Social attitudes toward the target language group
4. Learning style differences
5. The preference for different learning strategies.
6. The circumstances of learning (i.e. as a second or a foreign language)
7. The goals or needs of the learner.

What is teaching? Who are the teachers?

a. Knowledge transmission. Here, teachers are seen to be responsible for transmitting what they know to their students. These days it is common to be critical of a knowledge transmission view of teaching for the passive role it ascribes to language learners. However, knowledge transmission remains a common practice in many parts of the world. A skilled teacher’s organization of knowledge can help students understand and remember what has been transmitted.

b. Constructivism (student-centred, view of teaching). Learning should be socially constructed and teaching meaningful, building on what students already know. This should be accomplished through active engagement with fellow students, the teacher, the world and by reflecting on these experiences. Practices associated with this approach are procedures in which students are active thorough experimentation, problem-solving, and dialoguing. Students are also encouraged to reflect upon these experiences by talking about what they did and what understanding they came to.

c. Socioculturalism. Language teaching comes from sociocultural theory. It is through social interaction that higher order thinking emerges. The ‘place’ where this is most likely to be facilitated is in the ‘zone of proximal development or ZPD’, ‘the distance between the actual developmental level of the learner as determined by independent problemsolving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’.

Intersecting angles

This sequential treatment of the issues in the different angles suggests a more disjointed view of language education than is warranted. In truth, some of the most striking developments in the field have taken place at the intersection of the angles.

Language and learning

A sector of the field at this intersection is language assessment. Standardized tests have typically made use of indirect measures of language proficiency, such as multiple-choice tests, more and more direct measures, such as oral proficiency interviews, are being employed these days

Language and teaching

The intersection between language and teaching is one in which language teaching materials are informed by linguistic corpora, large databases of spoken utterances and written materials/texts, which can be mined with computer search engines to reveal language patterns. The way that we express meaning in language is in the form of phrasal units and lexicalized stems that become conventionalized over time with use.

Learners and language

The learner’s age is often the deciding factor as to what type of language is studied. Before, many younger learners are being taught language through content. These days it is being implemented in some countries as a way to integrate English into the curriculum of all children. Their reason for studying a language is often due to a particular goal, which results in their study of language for a specific occupational, technical, or academic purpose.

Context

One aspect of the figure that I have yet to discuss is the role of context, which can mean many things, not the least of which is the physical locale – where the language learning/education has taken place. Political pressures present in the context can also be influential.

Future trajectory

With the migration of the world’s population on the rise, one of the current and likely to bevfuture issues is how to support the complex needs of students being taught and expected toblearn through a language that is not their native tongue (Bailey et al. 2008). General educationbteachers are increasingly expected to teach language to students from diverse backgrounds. Atbthe same time, second language teachers are expected to support these students’ learningbacross the curriculum. This demand is pushing the field of second language teaching to redefinebits knowledge base and professional competencies.

Issues :
1. Many of the world’s languages are endangered. Other languages are dying out is worrisome. Concerted efforts to teach these languages must be made, or they will be lost forever.
2. Which language to teach. English is now the global language, however if there is a language is spoken more in the future, then English will be replaced by that lcertain language instead.
3. The ambivalence to the study of other languages that exists in some circles. Interest in other languages picks up during times of national crisis, when the government laments not having speakers of particular languages, deemed ‘strategic’. Under those circumstances, there is a big infusion of government funding to encourage the teaching of certain languages.

Technology

There are three major ways that technology and language learning/education have interfacedin modern times. They are :
a. Computer-mediated contact with other languages/cultures. learners can engage with other learners of the same language or even with native speakers of the language they are studying.
b. The use of corpora to inform language teaching materials (and methods). Access to corpora comprising millions of words of text, makes it easy to discern usage patterns, which traditional grammars and descriptions of language have missed.
c. Internet-delivered language instruction.

PPT Presentation Group 1

LANGUAGE POLICY AND PLANNING

Applied Linguistics : L anguage Policy and Planning

Language Policy and Planning is an effort to influence ways of speaking practice within a society including government. Language Policy and Planning occurs because of a thought that newly independent states need to find their own identities, improve their education standard and economic growth. Once the states’ needs are reached, this will give same opportunity for the whole society to participate in their government and receive service from their government.

          Language Planning usually works by reducing some diversities to create a single language as the main language in multilingual country or declaring a single variety of language as a standard to promote linguistic unity in a countries with many dialects. For the linguist, this programs provide linguists with theoretical vocabulary to systematically approach and diagnose LPP-related issues.

Stages of Language Planning and Policy are :

 1.      Status planning :

a.       Codification. Characteristics or criteria of a “good” language are established.

b.      Standardization. A unified variety of the language is established, if necessary.

2.      Language Status : a concept of language prestige and language function. Four common attributes :

a.       Language origin.

b.      Degree of standardization. The extent of a formal set that define the “correct” usage.

c.       Juridical status

d.      Vitality. The ratio the language is used in total population.

3.      Corpus planning :

a.       Elaboration or graphization. Any variety of developments, including expansion of vocabulary, expansion of stylistic repertoire, and creation of type fonts, allows the language to function in a greater range of circumstances.

b.   Cultivation. The establishment of arbiters, such as dictionaries or language academies, maintains and advances the status of the language.

c.       Modernization. A form of language planning that occurs when a language needs to expand its resources to meet functions.

4.                Acquisition planning. A type of language planning in which a national, state or local government system aims to influence aspects of language, such as language status, distribution and literacy through education.

  When the linguists have to gather the data for the programs, they prefer using sociolinguistic approach as the ideal method because they would work with community as whole to analyze the language attitude and use in a very large population.

By the 1980s and part of the 1990s, LPP programs diapered because of some failure, lack of interest, resources or political importance and a critic. Luke said in his paper that LPP was worsened the old problems and creating new ones because the LPP avoid directly addressing larger social and political matters within which language change, use and development, and indeed language planning itself are embedded.

 In 1992, Tollefson introduced two major approaches to LPP : the neoclassical and the historical-structural. The neoclassical approach tends to emphasize the rational and individualistic nature of choices. The historical-structural approach would then aim to ‘examine the historical basis of policies and to make explicit the mechanisms by which policy decisions serve or undermine particular political and economic interests’.

The major differences of these approaches are :

• 1.      The unit of analysis employed.

     Neoclassical                : individual choices

     Historical-structural    : relationship between group.

• 2.      The role of the historical perspective.

     Neoclassical                : interested in current language situation

     Historical-structural    : emphasizes the role of socio-historical.

• 3.      Criteria for evaluating plans and policies.

        Neoclassical             : policies are evaluated in terms of how efficiently they achieve their goals.

    Historical-structural  : more sensitive to issue of domination, exploitation and oppression.

• 4.      The role of social scientist.

      Neoclassical          : the social scientist must and can approach language problem in a neutral manner.

      Historical-structural    : political stances as inescapable

            Tollefson assumed that the linguists should pay more attention to the historical-structural approach because by knowing the historical basic of policies, it would be easier for them to be more aware that policies making may reflect the dominant group and may work again achieving broader distribution of social and economic resources.

 Renewing LPP

 Nowdays, LPP is always going to be intertwined with the advancing of specific interests, linguists were able to engage in various LPP-related activities with a clearer appreciation of their roles and responsibilities.

      Scientific objectivity, nowdays, arises from the linguists using their knowledge about sociolinguistic and the ways which linguistic and non linguistic variable interact, so as to better advise the client. There also a case where the linguist form a strong attachment to a community that leads to a personal goal and desire to help improve its wellbeing. In such a case, the linguist is essentially acting as not just expert consultant, but also as advocate.

      The use of LPP approach will be a realistic, practical approach in situations of severe language attrition where it is most probably impossible to build a new speaker community.

      LPP is very complex because it covers from the smallest to the largest community, from individual, group,up to the state size community. Therefore, the use of LPP should be distinguished based on which kind of community a language practice is used. LPP needs to be distinguished between the language practice in a community, the language belief or ideology and any efforts to influence the practices. The effort to influence the practice usually cannot be found in community and serves as “default policy”

       In linguistic variation, linguists and native speaker can imagine themselves and at the same time the view is not present in representing linguistic difference so that the representation will influence their purpose in a phenomenon happens.

      Beside status and corpus planning, discourse planning is also added in Language Policy and Planning because discourse refers to the influence and effect on people’s mental stages, behaviors and system through the linguistically mediated ideological workings of institutions, disciplines, and diverse social formations.

      Discourse permits contest and negotiation, therefore planning discourse can be seen as the efforts of institutions and diverse interest to shape, direct and influence the conclusion of the practices and patterns.  This suggestion about discourse planning helps the LPP to be more appreciative of the fact that there is no interest-free policy. A discourse orientation highlights the ways in which problem are framed, the interests served in the framings and the alternative framings.

      The data can be gathered from the analysis of narratives, ethnographic approaches and historically sensitive comparison, materials about the study of LPP, corpus and status planning and discourse planning.

    The data gathered via the analysis of narratives, ethnographic approaches, and historically sensitive comparisons,  all came to be considered relevant to the study of LPP, corpus and status planning, and discourse planning. Then they will be drawn together with backgrounds in economics, political philosophy, political science, social theory, as well as linguistics, are slowly becoming more regularly produced.

    In doing Language Policy and Planning, there are many challenges :

• 1.      Find ways of addressing multiculturalism. In multiculturalism, there will be a movement of language rights for each group. This is bcause the group grants specific forms of protection and considerations on the basis of their associated language. The native speakers of the language will argue that their language is their identity and a mark of cultural heritage.

•  2.      To take better account of the fact that traditional notions of ethnicity and nation do not fit easily with the multilingual dynamics of late modern societies, which are increasingly characterized by a pervasive culture of consumerism, where ‘people define themselves through the messages they transmit to others through the goods and practices that they possess and display’.

•  3.      Global migration and the related issue of ensuring the wellbeing and dignity of individuals as they move across the globe in search of a better life. The language policy should be fair to those who are in need of help. Therefore, when dealing with foreigners, they are given an opportunity to choose what language they want to use.

The Future of Language Policy and Planning

LPP should start rethinking the ontological nature of language, and seriously evaluate the material implications. For too long, LPP has worked with a relatively convenient conception of language as a stable and identifiably bounded entity corresponding to established language names, despite being aware that this overlooks ‘the problematic history of the construction of such languages’.

The concern of the future of LPP is not only creating new names for existing object but also names for the new objects. The new names usually derived from English words and then combine them with the already existing language in a state. LPP also should pay attention to a specific language that will be categorized under a particular label and its impact toward the society. To reach this goal, the linguists should engage policy-makers and the general public. Revaluation of language, community and identity is important parts in this field. Not only that, the linguist need to find a strategy in positioning themselves as participants in language ideological debates.

Question and Answer Chapter 9

Instruction ad L2 Acquisition
Ellis, Rod. 2003. Second Language Acquistion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter . Pp. 79-88

1. What is the three groups of L2 learners?
Answer : Teresa Pica compared three groups of L2 learners which are an untutored group, a tutored group, and a mixed group (i.e. one that had experienced both instruction and naturalistic learning).

2. What are the ways for testing the claim of the instruction’s effect?
Answer:
• The claim can be tested by investigating whether instruction has any effect on the sequence of acquisition of particular grammatical features.
• Comparing tutored and untutored learners.
• Designing instructional experiments to see if teaching a particular structure results in its acquisition.

3. What kind of form-focused instruction works best in learning L2 languages is it?

Answer :
• Input-based
• Production-based practices

4. What kind of form focused instruction working?

Answer : The first concerns the distinction between input-based and production-based practice. The second concerns in consciousness-raising. This term refers to attempt to make learners aware of the existence of specific linguistic features in target language.

5. Why is the same instructional option not equally effective for all L2 learners?

Answer :
The same instructional option is not equally effective for all L2 learners because of the individual differences. Individual differences that deal with such factors like learning style and language aptitude are likely to influence which options work best. So, it is obviously important to take individual differences into account when investigating the effect of instruction.

Question and Answer chapter 8

Individual Differences in L2 Acquisition
Ellis, Rod. 2003. Second Language Acquistion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 8. Pp. 73-78

1. What does language aptitude mean?

Answer :

Aptitude is the natural ability which is different from one person to another

2. Mention some components of language aptitude that identified by John Carroll!

Answer :

• Phonetic coding ability : the capability to make out separate sounds, connect a symbol with that sound and keep that association also.
• Grammatical sensitivity : ability to know the grammatical function of a word, phrase, etc in a sentence without clear training in grammar.
• Inductive learning ability : the ability to deduce or induce rules governing the structure of any language.
• Rote learning ability : the capacity to learn relationship between words in a foreign language and their meanings and keep that relationship in the sentence.

3. What is the difference between resultative and instrumental motivation?

Answer :

• Resultative motivation: it views motivation of the result of learning that is, learners who experience success in learning may become more, or in some contexts, less motivated to learn.
• Instrumental orientation concerns the practical value and advantages of learning a new language.

4. What are different kinds of learning strategies?

Answer :

• Cognitive strategies : are those that involved in the analysis, synthesis, or transformation of learning materials.
For example : ‘recombination’ which involves constructing a meaningful sentence by recombining known elements of the L2 in a new way.
• Metacognitive strategies : are those involved in planning, monitoring, and evaluating learning.
For example : ‘selective attention’ where the learner makes a conscious decision to attend to particular aspects of the input.
• Social/affective strategies : concern the ways in which learners choose to interact with other speakers.
For example : ‘questioning for clarification’.

5. Is there any specific learning strategy that provide successful or effective for most of L2 learners?

Answer :

The effectiveness of many strategies or technique of different for each person, for example some learners are find it more easy to study L2 by memorizing the words in L2, some feels easier to directly use it in daily speaking

Questions and Answers Chapter 7

Linguistic Aspect of Interlanguage

Ellis, Rod. 2003. Second Language Acquistion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 7. Pp. 63-71

 

1. What is accessibility hierarchy?

Answer :

Implication in the sense that the presence of a relative pronounfunction low in the order in a particular language implies the presence of all the pronoun functions above it but not those below it.

    2. What is Chomsky’s Universal Grammar?

Answer :

Universal Grammar is that language is governed by a set of highly abstract principles that provide parameters which are given particular setting in different language.

    3. What are 4 possible theories about the access of Universal Grammar? Explain them!

Answer :

• Complete access : learners begin with the parameter setting of their L1 but subsequently learn to switch to the L2 parameter setting.
• No access : Universal Grammar is not available to adult L2 learners.
• Partial access : learners have access to parts of Universal Grammar but not others.
• Dual access : adult learners make use of both universal grammar and general learning strategies but the strategies can “block” the operation of universal grammar and it will cause the learners to produce “impossible” errors and fail to achieve full competence.

    4. What are some other factors that determine the order of acquisition that will misunderstood when identifying markedness? How to identify them?

Answer :

• Input frequency : identify unmarkedand marked structures that are respectively less and more frequent in the input. Learners usually acquire frequent before mark structure.
• L1 transfer : learners usually transfer unmark structures from their L1. It usually can be seen from pronunciation of words contrast with the words from learners’ L1. Example sound /t/ and /d/

5. What are positive and negative evidences?

Answer:

1. Positive evidence is evidence that provides information only about what is grammatical in thelanguage.
2. Negative evidence is evidence that provides direct evidence of what is ungrammatical in a language.