31.3559, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Han, Rast (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-31-3559. Thu Nov 19 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.3559, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Han, Rast (2019)

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Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:26:46
From: Abdu Alkadi [findtalib at gmail.com]
Subject: First Exposure to a Second Language

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36615877


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-973.html

EDITOR: ZhaoHong  Han
EDITOR: Rebekah  Rast
TITLE: First Exposure to a Second Language
SUBTITLE: Learners' Initial Input Processing
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Abdu Alkadi

SUMMARY

The book First Exposure to a Second Language: Learners’ Initial Input
Processing, published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press, is an edited
volume, which is organized in six chapters of 224 pages. The chapters are
preceded by a short introduction and followed by an epilogue. The publication
is the product of joint efforts of 12 research scholars affiliated to
universities in Canada, USA, France, and Korea. It gives a bird’s eye view of
learners’ processing of input at the very early stages of exposure to foreign
languages other than English: the Norwegian language in Chapter 1, Korean in
Chapter 2, Polish in Chapter 3, German in Chapter 4, and Spanish/Romanian in
the fifth chapter. 

The publication is rather a collection of empirical studies that were, in
part, an outcome of a colloquium at Georgetown University in 2009.  It
commences with an introduction in which the editors outline the theme and
contents of the volume. They highlighted the difference between language input
and language intake, giving reasons for selecting the topic of processing
initial input of novice second language learners and defining input processing
as “the mediating process of intake” (p. 1).  When reading this book, it is
important to keep in mind that much input that a learner is exposed to is not
fully comprehended, and as a result may not affect the learner’s linguistic
system. 

Following the introduction, Chapter 1, which is a replication of an earlier
study, hones in on an argument that the first exposure the learners start out
with is form, not meaning. This is contrary to an earlier claim that content
words are processed before grammatical morphemes (VanPatten, 2004, 2007). Han
and Sun support their argument that for meaning to be processed, prior
knowledge of the target language is necessary. In this chapter, as in the
following chapter, the authors, depending on the self-reporting techniques,
vindicate spontaneous processing of language input and shed light on what
learners process on their own. 

In Chapter 2, which is part of a larger exploratory inquiry, Eun Park heavily
connects the current study with their earlier publications, including the
adaptation of what they referred to as an ‘input marking task’ and ‘learners’
think-aloud protocols.’ The former means that learners can pose any question
about L2 input and the latter records the process when learners naturally
think aloud. The findings showed that each task had its pros and cons; the
input-marking task was better in terms of recording ‘surface-level features’
whereas the think-aloud task was more effective to students who naturally
preferred to talk aloud or their ‘deeper-level noticing.’  The current
analysis is only concerned with the ‘zero knowledge’ condition wherein the
participants had their very first exposure to L2. Like Chapter 1, this chapter
dwells on an argument that form comes before meaning. The author maintained
that for word processing to take place, learners must have sufficient
knowledge of the target words and their neighboring words. 

In Chapter 3, Rast, Watorek, Hilton, and Shoemaker used two tasks, referred to
as the ‘grammaticality judgment’ and the ‘sentence production’ tasks, to
examine the acquisition of Polish in formal educational settings. The
contributors traced a group of students’ first exposure to Polish and how they
perceived and used the new forms, and how their use was impacted by their L1,
French. The results showed that students tend to learn better when they are
exposed to the target language over time, and their learning is impacted by
whether the tasks are implemented synchronously or asynchronously.

In Chapter 4, Carroll examined word learning through first exposure using what
the author refers to as a ‘receptive task’. The study used posters to employ
50 undergraduate students at the University of Calgary. The students were
shown pictures of people along with descriptions in German. The task was to
learn the names of the people shown in the pictures. Some of the important
findings of this chapter include the concept that L1 greatly affects the way
adult learners learn a second language and that their L1 skills assist them in
using the target language. The study reported that the top down approach
affects students owing to using the target language to activate L1 words.
Moreover, the author found that learners do not need extensive exposure to be
able to segment sound forms. 

Chapter 5, by Nuria Sagarra, explicates the difference between first exposure
learners and beginners wherein the former have no previous knowledge and the
latter have incipient knowledge of the target language. The author reports a
study based on 142 right-handed 18-40-year olds. They had high school or more
education and normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Input in this chapter is
highly manipulated to test L1 transfer. Investigating subject-verb agreement
with a prime focus on previous findings from first exposure research, the
study showed that L1 transfer does not seem to occur in initial input
processing and transferring likely take place in the beginners’ case. 

In Chapter 6, Moreno brings up a very important issue that studying language
input is actually dealing with an invisible phenomenon, and measuring the
unseen is never straightforward and hence ends up with inconclusive findings.
The thrust of the chapter is the internal validity of input processing
studies. The author draws on VanPatten’s study of allocation of learners’
attention to form and meaning. The chapter provides recommendations of
research that maximize validity of such studies.

The book ends with an epilogue in which Bill VanPatten meticulously commented
on every chapter. He adamantly opines that processing is not noticing. In the
former, learners connect meaning and form while the latter (noticing) does not
entail a connection between meaning and form. To the author, form and meaning
are connected from the start, contrary to the rest of contributors’ argument
that there can be phases or levels of processing. The epiloguer brought to the
foreground insightful ideas for further consideration. 

EVALUATION

First Exposure to a Second Language: Learners’ Initial Input Processing is an
addition to the field of second language acquisition (SLA). The book exhibits 
the contributors’ knowledge and familiarity with the topic. Notwithstanding
many books on the capacious subject of SLA with numerous variables, this
volume succinctly discusses how novice learners process the first exposure to
the target language, which is a complicated area of research. The authors
managed to provide a thorough and timely account of the controversial issue of
initial language input. The publication has an academic style and erudite tone
that make it more appropriate for scholarly audiences within the boundaries of
SLA.

As the title indicates, the volume undertakes learners’ first input
processing. It focuses on SLA in the initial stage of exposure to the target
languages – input inducement and constraints. It touches on the difficulty of
measuring the amount of ‘input’, which is processed and turned into ‘intake’.
It hinges on such questions as what learners do when faced with a language
they know little or nothing about, how beginners treat form and meaning, as
well as the factors mediating beginning learners’ processing of input. This is
a shared concern amongst SLA researchers. It is agreeable that SLA without
input is unsuccessful (Rast, 2008) and the part of input that the learner
notices and internalizes is understood as intake (Krashen, 1985, 2009; Rast,
2008; Truscott & Sharwood Smith, 2011). 

The contributors used a diversity of techniques including
introspections/self-reporting (Chapters 1 & 2), grammaticality judgment tasks
(Chapter 3), accuracy and latency measures/think-aloud (Chapter 4), and real
time measures such as self-paced reading/listening and eye-tracking (Chapter
5). Results collected from multiple contexts and sources extended the
investigation the book endures. The editors managed to create a semblance of
uniformity in chapter arrangement.

The volume has a few key terms that need more clarification such as ‘zero
knowledge’ of the target language, noticing, novice learners and beginners.
Today it is hard to identify participants with zero knowledge of the targeted
language. The inevitable exposure to other languages through modern
communication technologies make the term ‘novice learners’ and ‘first
exposure’ hard to define. Learners might have picked up words and expressions
of the target language before they are employed in an input processing
experiment. Hence, the term ‘beginners’ arguably serves the purpose when
referring to learners with no previous exposure: beginners are being already
exposed to a few words and structure of the target language.

In addition, in the volume there is no clear-cut definition of processing. It
sometimes confounds with noticing. Throughout the book it is hypothesized that
processing input has levels or phases and noticing occurs somewhere in such
levels. This entails that form and meaning are not connected from the start − 
contrary to Bill VanPatten’s contention that form and meaning are well-linked
at the very early stage of input processing. Defending his argument,
VanPattern thought processing is unconscious and implicit and noticing is
conscious and explicit, which introduced  more controversies to the content of
the book. Since the two terms are not equivalent, it is important that
researchers use techniques for processing which differ from techniques of
noticing. This is because using research paradigms for noticing is worthless
to argue for or against principles related to processing (VanPatten, 2015).

Still, as it stands, the book is of central importance to theorists and
teachers because of its overriding theme of the state of learner spontaneous
input processing in foreign language learning, and the extent to which this
processing leads to intake. It is also an essential resource for academics,
researchers, pedagogues, and students of applied linguistics pursuing their
academic research within SLA and L2 pedagogy. The wide range of issues the
book covers may interest other researchers to pursue investigation by building
on the results, or make some inferences about processing. It also provides
practitioners with insights to manipulate intake through pedagogical
interventions. 

The valuable biographies and references used in writing the volume are
worthwhile to read for depth and breadth of the topic. For even more
understanding of the phenomenon in question, the publication could be combined
with another volume by VanPatten and Williams (2015) in which the contributors
delve into the concepts of input, output, interaction, and SLA contemporary
theories.  

REFERENCES

Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. New York:
Longman

Krashen, S. (2009). The comprehension hypothesis extended. In T. Piske & M.
Young-Scholten 
(Eds.), Input matters in SLA (pp. 81-94). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. 

Rast, R. (2008). Foreign language input: Initial processing. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.

Truscott & Sharwood Smith, M. (2011). Input, intake, and consciousness: The
quest for a theoretical foundation.  Studies in Second Language Acquisition,
33, 497–528.
doi:10.1017/S0272263111000295

VanPatten & Williams (2015). Second Language acquisition research series:
Theoretical
and methodological issues (Eds.). New York & London: Routledge. 

VanPatten, B. (2004). Input processing in second language acquisition. In B.
VanPatten (Ed.),
Processing instruction (pp. 1-31). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

VanPatten, B. (2015). Input processing in Adult SLA. In B. VanPatten & J.
Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 113-134).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Abdu Al-Kadi, an assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, has contributed
to courses in linguistics, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and English
for Specific Purposes (ESP). He has authored, co-authored, and reviewed
articles in scholarly journals within the realm of L2 education, informal
language learning, post-method pedagogy, linguistics, and CALL. He serves now
as a reviewer of the MEXTESOL Journal and is a member of the International
Editorial Board of the Journal of Education and Science (EGITIM VE BILIM) as
well as Language Teaching and Educational Research (LATER).





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