30.2840, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Gudmestad, Edmonds (2018)

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Subject: 30.2840, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Gudmestad, Edmonds (2018)

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2019 11:47:39
From: Ottavia Tordini [ottavia.tordini at gmail.com]
Subject: Critical Reflections on Data in Second Language Acquisition

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-4105.html

EDITOR: Aarnes  Gudmestad
EDITOR: Amanda  Edmonds
TITLE: Critical Reflections on Data in Second Language Acquisition
SERIES TITLE: Language Learning & Language Teaching 51
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Ottavia Tordini, Università di Pisa

SUMMARY

The volume “Critical Reflections on Data in Second Language Acquisition”
edited in 2018 by Aarnes Gudmestad & Amanda Edmonds is designed to provide an
overview of research methods applicable to different levels of linguistic
analysis on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) (pragmatics,
phonetics/phonology, discourse analysis and morpho-syntax). Specifically, it
concentrates on both the challenges faced by researchers in data design,
coding and interpretation and the benefits they can draw upon the right
methodological choices.

The book can be divided into three main sections. The first three chapters
(respectively authored by Naoko Taguchi, Shaofeng Li and Tania Leal) comprise
an accurate up-to-date review of studies in the field of pragmatics, and
outline tendencies in research methods. In the second section (the fourth and
fifth chapters are respectively authored by Megan Solon and Amanda Edmonds &
Aarnes Gudmestad), the authors re-examine some of their previous works on
interlanguage development, underlining how methodological decisions influence
outcomes in experimental research. The third part is made up of the
contributions of Nicole Tracy-Ventura & Amanda Huensch (Chapter VI), Kathleen
Bardovi-Harlig (Chapter VII) and Rachel L. Shively (Chapter VIII) and focuses
on specific approaches to SLA (corpus linguistic and concept-oriented
analysis), with a detailed focus on the pragmatic domain.

Chapter I

The author first discusses the original contributions of Hymes (1972) on the
notion of communicative competence, which integrates grammatical knowledge and
sociocultural knowledge. Then, he maps out the different directions stemming
from Hymes’ research. The first approach proposes the formulation of L2 models
of communicative competence, based on grammatical, strategic and pragmatic
knowledge. Essentially, the latter element consists in a
“form-function-context relationship”, which highly depends on unfolding
interaction. On the other hand, the second approach suggests the need to
consider the “interactional competence”, as a communicative act is co-built by
participants during interactions to achieve mutual comprehension. LoCastro
(2003) adds up to this framework the concepts of adaptability (i.e. the
ability to adapt to contextual changes exploiting linguistic and interactional
resources) and learner’s agency (i.e. the faculty to adjust communication
contexts based on his decisions). In light of these observations, Taguchi
argues for a multi-layered and dynamic definition of pragmatic competence,
especially in L2 communicative environments. Based on these classifications,
he provides a critical review of four methods for data collection and analysis
used in 22 longitudinal studies in second language pragmatics: a) written
discourse completion tasks (DCT); b) spoken DCT; c) role plays; d)
naturalistic/ semi-naturalistic interactions. Then, he points out both
strengths and weaknesses for each method. Specifically, a) demands the L2
learner to fill a slot within a given utterance with what he thinks would suit
best in that scenario, while b) stimulates the L2 learner to produce speech
rather than written acts, which can be further evaluated through speech rate
measurements, fluency and planning times. In this sense, it complements
written DCT strategies. Through both these methods, the researcher can
identify form-function-context relationships; however, he would not be able to
detect the interlocutor’s contribution, which is instead crucial in real-life
environments. On the other hand, in c) L2 learners are asked to simulate a
given role within an interactive situational scenario. Indeed, this method
allows to monitor and adapt variables which would appear in real-life events.
Nonetheless, researcher have so far focused mainly on frequency analyses at
utterance level, thus causing inconsistency between methods of data collection
and data analysis. Finally, Taguchi maintains that d) can overcome the
advantages of the previous methods, as it combines the examination of both
learner’s and interlocutor’s productions. Though, he observes that
(semi-)naturalistic settings are often difficult to control: this drawback
hence affects the reliability of results. In conclusion, the author argues
that there is a lack of a fully adequate method. Therefore, for future
investigation into pragmatic development, researchers should consider both
strengths and shortcomings of each methodology to accurately choose the one
that fits best to the goal of their study.

Chapter II 

Moving from Plonsky’s contributions (2013, 2014) on “macro” aspects of SLA
research, this work takes on a “micro” approach to evaluate and discuss
studies conducted on a specific area of SLA, i.e. corrective feedback (CF).
First, Li presents several frameworks in which the concept of CF is embedded,
with a special focus on the cognitive-interactionist approach of the
Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 2015), the Skill Acquisition Theory (Lyster,
2004; Yang & Lyster, 2010) and the Sociocultural Theory (Aljaafreh & Lantolf).
Then, the author provides a detailed critical synthesis of data collection
methods employed in 34 relevant studies published between 2006 and 2017. The
synthesis is composed of three main sections: 1) CF treatment; 2) CF
elicitation task; 3) measurement of CF effects. For each section, structural
components and critical aspects are outlined and discussed. CF Treatment (1)
is further classified under four subheadings: a) CF operationalization (i.e.
types of recast, prompts and metalinguistic cues); b) the setting of CF
treatment (laboratory vs classroom contexts); c) pre-treatment instruction
(i.e. whether L2 speakers are provided with metalinguistic explanation on the
task before receiving CF); d) CF amount (namely the amount of CF provision
during the treatment).  The CF elicitation task (2) is considered with respect
to task type and task validation. The former relates to whether the task used
to elicit CF (i.e. communicative tasks or mechanical drills) is coherent with
the theoretical assumptions of the research. The latter is dependent on two
crucial parameters: task complexity, which indicates whether an independent
variable is successfully manipulated to guarantee a study’s internal validity,
and contexts of obligatory use of the target structure, which account for the
external validity of the study.  The measurement of CF effects (3) is surveyed
through a two-fold perspective: in terms of whether treatment effects are
evaluated via tests of explicit or implicit knowledge, and in terms of how
these effects are operationalized to facilitate L2 learning. In this respect,
the author observes that research has mostly treated language learning as
mastery of the target structure, substantially neglecting the presence of
partial learning and staged development. Other approaches to CF measurement
are automatization of existing knowledge and the degree of task performance
estimated through the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of learners’
speech production. Finally, the author argues for the need to further explore
both the comparative effects of a variety of CF versus a single type and the
influence of pre-treatment instruction on CF effects.

Chapter III 

This chapter straightforwardly faces, both from theoretical and empirical
perspectives, a common problem among studies on SLA: the assessment of
proficiency (henceforth P) in L2 learners. The author lucidly observes that
most studies (either online and offline) published in SLA top journals have so
far treated P as a discrete variable – adopting the so-called practice of
“dichotomization” – despite both cognitive and statistical evidence suggest
treating it as a continuous dependent variable. The choice to consider P as
discrete is largely related to the fact that, for the sake of simplicity,
researchers commonly tend to classify learners into distinct bins based on
their performances (intermediate vs advanced), without including P as
predictor in statistical analyses (Grosjean, 1998; Hulstijn, 2012; Tremblay,
2011). With respect to this assumption, Leal presents solid counter-arguments,
advocating that a change in P measurements and interpretations is warranted.
First, from a theoretical point of view, it is not disputable that L2 learning
is a gradual process (i.e., a continuum) driven by underlying principles, and
that it also heavily depends on a wide gamut of concurring factors (for
instance, environment, motivation, input, type and amount of exposure, age of
onset/arrival). In this respect, the author reports a large number of studies
that have treated proficiency as a crucial factor in determining the degree of
proximity to nativelike representations. Considering the progressive and
incremental nature of SLA, it would hence be  inappropriate to fit the concept
of P into a discrete dimension. Second, from an empirical perspective,
establishing a discrete cut-off point to categorize groups of L2 learners into
different bins based on their proficiency (for instance, through descriptive
statistical methods) may yield inaccurate and debatable results, such as
incorrect labeling. In sum, according to Leal, future studies should take into
account the factor proficiency when collecting and sampling, and perform
rigorous and coherent analyses on broader spectra, in order to produce
generalizable outputs.

Chapter IV 

This contribution adds up to previous investigations carried out by the same
author (Solon 2017), who acoustically analyzed /l/ in spoken productions of 85
L1 English learners of L2 Spanish and 20 native speakers of Spanish.
English-speaking informants were attending Spanish language courses and ranged
from first-year students to associate/instructors, while the control group
included associate/instructors/lecturers of Spanish who also displayed an
advanced or native-like proficiency in English. Through a more thorough and
critical approach, Solon chooses here to reexamine the same dataset surveyed
in 2017, with the aim to provide classifications and qualitative descriptions
of all L2 utterances of /l/, incorporating those which were formerly excluded
(i.e. productions within incorrect or inadmissible words, or showing
unreliable formant features). Nonetheless, we note that the reason why the
author did not choose monolingual Spanish  is not well justified. In this
respect, the reader may ask himself why the author did not take into
consideration possible cross-linguistic influence from English to Spanish in
the control group’s performances that may affect the “reliability” of their
productions.

Spoken data (both in L1 English and L2 Spanish) were pre-processed using a
specific coding method in PRAAT, through which Solon identified: the
“canonical” lateral phonemes, fricativized, devoiced and tapped /l/, laterals
characterized by no visible boundary and laterals followed by an epenthetic
vowel. The author then explored the frequency of production of each of these
types across the two systems, showing that the more proficient learners were,
the more frequently they uttered /l/ in Spanish L2 with “canonical” features.
Moreover, acoustic evidence suggested that these learners systematically
produced “novel” patterns in their L2 that could not be attributed to either
learners’ L1 or the target language, specifically: fricativization and
devoicing. We note, however, that the author does not specify either what the
word “canonical” means, in terms of phonetic features (perhaps if compared to
values found in literature?), and how these acoustic patterns were extracted
and evaluated (through PRAAT scripts?). According to the author, her findings
empirically support the hypothesis of a developmental pattern operating along
the acquisition process. In light of these observations, Solon calls for the
importance of a multi-level and unified approach within L2-phonetics research,
especially for what concerns interlanguage development: that is, through a
bottom-up approach, scholars should first “listen to data”, and then integrate
exploratory/descriptive analyses with the support provided by technological
and methodological tools.

Chapter V

In this chapter, the two editors deal with another common issue found within
SLA, i.e. the challenge posed by data-coding decisions and analysis,
especially with regard to the identification of dependent variables and the
operationalization of multiple independent variables. Focusing their
observations on either temporal distance and lexical temporal indicators (LTI)
on the expression of future in French as L2, they highlight the fundamental
role and impact of data-coding choices in L2 research. Concerning temporal
distance, they note that literature has traditionally split future-time
reference in French into two categories, i.e. proximal and distal;
nonetheless, studies within this field have often left space for ambiguity in
both definitions, as well as in the practice of coding definitions. To
highlight problems with the findings’ consistency, they present a reanalysis
of this variable using the same dataset employed in Edmonds & Gudmestad
(2015), which consists in a data-elicitation task on 30 NSs of French and 116
NNSs with different L1s. In the present contribution, the authors downsized
the number of temporal-distance categories from 5 to 2. A multinomial
regression performed on the three subcategories of temporal distance ( “future
proche”; inflectional future; futurate present) showed that NNSs distinguished
proximal and distal contexts, independently from their proficiency level;
differently, former analyses at a more fine-grained level had revealed the
presence of an evident developmental pattern. Such a difference in results
clearly derives from a different choice in data coding. Additionally, the
authors reanalyze here another previous work on LTI in informal conversations
by Edmonds, Gudmestad & Donaldson (2017), this time focusing on discourse
context; novel findings suggest that NNSs and NSs did not consistently differ
in  what concerns the use of temporal adverbials. Again, results of the new
operalization diverge from former outcomes, perhaps due to  different coding
decisions for either the dependent variable or genre/task type, or both. In
sum, through these two convincing examples, Edmonds & Gudmestad argue for the
need to openly clarify and justify data coding decisions, and to consider the
striking repercussions that these choices have within each typology of
research within the field of SLA.

Chapter VI 

As observed by Tracy-Ventura and Huensch, logistical challenges posed by the
collection of longitudinal studies (especially beyond one year) are largely
known to the research community on SLA. The first section of this chapter is
devoted to reporting the scarcity of longitudinal studies on SLA and to
underlining the need for producing and sharing publicly available learner
corpora. After providing a critical review of issues faced by recent
longitudinal research in SLA, the authors call for the need to make data of
present and future longitudinal studies available as electronic corpora, so as
to make them accessible to the scientific community. In the second section,
Tracy-Ventura & Huensch first introduce their ongoing Language and Social
Networks Abroad Project (LANGSNAP: see Mitchell, Tracy-Ventura & McManus,
2017), whose aim is to explore the evolution of foreign-language (FL)
proficiency (in Spanish and French, respectively) in 56 (mostly) English L1
speakers who spent a 9-month period abroad, upon the return to their home
university. The original learner corpus is made up of both oral and written
data (700,000 words) which were collected between 2011-2013 (i.e. at the time
of peak attainment in L2 proficiency) and accurately transcribed through CHAT
conventions (MacWhinney, 2000), and subsequently released online. Then, the
authors present a follow-up of this work, LANGSNAP 3.0, that consists in a
collection of more recent data from the same participants, with the purpose to
explore possible longitudinal effects of FL attrition, as well as the role of
extralinguistic factors (proficiency, motivation, social networks and amount
of L2 use) in determining such effects. Preliminary findings suggest that
either proficiency attained at the end of the stay abroad and the amount of FL
use post-university can be strong predictors for the assessment of
attrition/maintenance at long-term level.

Chapter VII 

As the title suggests, the aim of this chapter is to critically elucidate
benefits and challenges of the concept-oriented approach (henceforth COA) to
the study of interlanguage patterns (Selinker, 1972). By COA, we mean a type
of functional approach that takes into account a concept (or meaning) and
delineates meaning-to-form mappings, explores at multiple levels of linguistic
analysis the learner’s strategies, and reports the balance (and change) in the
use of learning devices throughout the acquisition span. What makes this
approach peculiar is that it places more emphasis on expressions in the
interlanguage, rather than evaluating their acceptability with respect to the
target language’s norms. Namely, there is no assessment of individual
productions as correct or incorrect. As an accurate literature review
indicates, COAs have been so far adopted to study evolving expressions of
spatial relations and temporal frames, but also modality and reference, among
others. The choice to focus more on the interlanguage – as independent system 
– than on the final stage of acquisition has the ultimate purpose to document
the balancedness of the means employed to express a given concept along the
developmental pattern. This concept is shared with the variationist approach,
which is specifically devoted to quantitatively assess the variables involved
in the change of balancedness in relation to a change in proficiency (also
using control groups of NSs: Kanwit, 2017). As in Bardovi-Harlig, the two
approaches should be intended as complementary, and can be easily integrated
to obtain fruitful results. At the same time, she efficaciously underlines
some pitfalls in the use of COAs: as they deal with the coding and the
analysis of expressions and functions, their strategy cannot be employed to
investigate purely grammatical elements (such as gender, number and
subject-verb agreement); still, they may be useful for reporting modifications
of grammatical phenomena (i.e., expressions of adjectives, plurality, etc.).
Moreover, one should also consider the possibility of misinterpretations of
productions at the early developmental stages. In light of these observations,
the author concludes that combining the COA with the variationist approach
might be a suitable method to untangle these issues and to endow future SLA
research with high-level quantitative and qualitative tools.

Chapter VIII 

Throughout this chapter, Sively openly supports the idea that natural settings
represent one of the most valid environments for data collection, especially
for pragmatic and discourse analyses. On the other hand, she asserts that the
collection of speech acts through elicitation or laboratory methods is not
always eligible to conduct conversational analysis, as these methods are often
not able to mirror the real competence of the learner, or to capture the
genuineness of his multifold interactions. To validate her position, the
author examines the content and the characteristics of a corpus realized in
2007 (no other reference is given), which includes spontaneous naturalistic L2
data within real-life environments. These data were collected through audio
recordings by students from the United States during their six-month-period in
Spain. The corpus also comprises oral interviews and journal data, according
to the triangulation method (Saville-Troike, 2003), which allows
cross-methodology comparisons within the same study. What emerges from this
discussion is that methods of data collection in naturalistic settings can
bring significant benefits to the research in SLA: to detect the language
manipulation process conducted by the speaker in the communicative setting; to
assess how speakers display communicative, interactional and symbolic
competence, paying particular attention to speakers’ individual choices and
idiosyncratic behaviors in each speech act; to raise the speaker’s
metalinguistic awareness. At the same time, Sively acknowledges some
shortcomings of naturalistic data collection. Specifically, she notes that: it
is unmanageable to systematically analyze sociolinguistic variation – and
generalizations are not always appropriate; the presence of a recording device
could be to some extent intrusive, in that it may influence the speaker’s
behavior and performance; comparability is problematic both between groups and
within the same group in longitudinal studies, as speakers do not usually
perform the same speech acts within the same socio-communicative context.
However, the author ultimately suggests that the support of technologies,
together with a reasoned choice for data design and processing, can to some
extent smooth out the challenges and drawbacks of naturalistic data
collection. Overall, we believe that the counter-arguments against the use of
elicited or laboratory speech are not always solid, as the use of such
methodology is strongly needed if we want to obtain high-quality recordings
(for instance, to extract fine-grained phonetic details). This point was
entirely neglected by the author.

EVALUATION

By attending to the criticalities concerning data design, sampling and
processing, this volume represents a successful attempt to picture essential
methodological components in SLA research. Overall, the book has some strength
in terms of how such issues are tackled from a “practical” point of view, as
it bears attention on the crucial role of researchers in adopting the most
appropriate approach to data collection. Moreover, the critical
bibliographical reviews presented in Chapter I, II, and VI offer insightful
glimpses into the way such a topic has been so far addressed in publications
in high-level SLA journals.  However, it is worth reporting some remarks
concerning the general structure of the book. First, in my opinion, Chapter I
and Chapter VIII should have been presented one after the other to maintain
content homogeneity. Also, I noted a preponderant standpoint across some
chapters (see for instance I and VIII), in which – more or less explicitly –
the use of naturalistic data is to some extent endorsed to the detriment of
semi spontaneous/elicited collections; I believe that this perspective is
sometimes too clear-cut. 

In sum, this book can be a valuable resource for researchers who are
approaching SLA theoretical and applied research and are planning to collect
data; they would indeed benefit from the in-depth description of a wide range
of approaches, to evaluate the one(s) that would suit best to their data.

REFERENCES

Aljaafreh, A. & Lantolf, J. (1994). Negative feedback as regulation and second
language learning in the zone of proximal development. The Modern Language
Journal, 78, 465-483.

Edmonds, A. & Gudmestad, A. (2015). What the present can tell us about the
future. A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and
nonnative French. Language, Interaction, Acquisition, 6(1), 15-41.

Edmonds, A., Gudmestad, A. & Donaldson, B. (2017). A concept-oriented
analysisnbof future time reference in native and near-native Hexagonal French.
Journal of French Language Studies, 27, 281-404.

Grosjean, F. (1998). Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual
issues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 131-149.

Hymes, D. H. (1972). On communicative competence. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, J.
(Eds.), Sociolinguistics. Baltimore, MA: Penguin Books, 269-293. 

Hulstjin, J. H. (2012). The construct of language proficiency in the study of
bilingualism from a cognitive perspective. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 15(2), 422-433.

LoCastro, V. (2003). An introduction to pragmatics. Social action for language
teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Long, M. (2015). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching.
Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

Lyster, R. (2004). Different effects of prompts and effects in form-focused
instruction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 399-432.

MacWinney, B. (2000). The Childes project: tools for analyzing talk.
Transcription format and programs. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Mitchell, R., Tracy-Ventura, N. & McManus, K. (2017). Anglophone students
abroad: identity, social relationships and language learning. New York:
Routledge.

Plonsky, L. (2013). Study quality in SLA. An assessment of designs, analyses
and reporting practices in quantitative L2 research. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 35, 665-687.

Plonsky, L. (2014). Study qualitye in quantitative L2 research (1990-2010). A
methodological synthesis and call for reform. The Modern Language Journal, 98,
450-470.

Saville-Troike, M. (2003). The ethnography of communication: an introduction.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied
Linguistics in Language Teaching, 10, 209-231.

Solon, M. (2017). Do learners lighten up? Phonetic and allophonic acquisition
of Spanish /l/ by English-speaking learners. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 39, 801-832.

Tremblay, A. (2011). Proficiency assessment standards in second language
acquisition research. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(3), 339-372.

Yang, Y. & Lister, R. (2010). Effects of form-focused practice and feedback on
Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of regular and irregular past tense forms.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 235-263.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I am a third-year PhD candidate in Phonetics at the Department of Philology,
Literature and Linguistic, University of Pisa, Italy. 

My topic of research is the maintenance of native speech features (both
consonants and vowels) of Italian and regional dialects as heritage languages.
Within my PhD project, I have gained expertise in Italian linguistics, Italian
Dialectology, Language Contact, as well as in first, second and third Language
Acquisition, to which I aim to apply quantitative experimental methods to
assess variation at phonetic level.





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