New Trends in Crosslinguistic Influence and Multilingualism Research

Gessica De Angelis, Jean-Marc Dewaele

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781847694447
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book presents the latest developments in crosslinguistic influence (CLI) and multilingualism research. The contributors, both veteran researchers and relative newcomers to the field, situate their research in current debates in terms of theory and data analysis and they present it in an accessible way. The chapters investigate how and when native and non-native language knowledge is used in language production. They focus on lexis, syntax, tense-aspect, phonology of multilingual production and link it to a range of concepts such as redundancy, affordances, metalinguistic awareness and L2 status. The empirical data have been collected from participants with a wide combination of languages: besides English, German, French and Spanish, there is Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Chinese and Catalan.

Chapter 1

Awareness and Affordances: Multilinguals versus Bilinguals and their Perceptions of Cognates

AGNIESZKA OTWINOWSKA-KASZTELANIC

Introduction

The theory of affordances has recently been discussed with reference to domains as diverse as ecological psychology industrial design, human–computer interaction and, finally, language acquisition, where it sheds new light on the meaning and importance of awareness phenomena. The present chapter briefly discusses the theory of affordances and its relation to language acquisition, attempting to show the link between affordances available to language learners and their awareness of crosslinguistic lexical similarities. The chapter points to the fact that although the presence of cognate vocabulary in L1, L2 and Ln may constitute a set of affordances, these affordances are not easily available to all language learners, and that multilinguals and bilinguals differ in their awareness of the role of crosslinguistic similarities. The research presented investigates the differences in the range of lexical affordances available to Polish multilingual and bilingual learners of English. Finally, the chapter presents some implications for teacher training and syllabus design based on the research findings.

The Theory of Affordances and Second Language Acquisition

The theory of affordances was first proposed by perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson (1977, 1979). It dealt with the mutual relationships between the organism and its environment in the area of perception. For conventional theories, perception is a one-way process where an organism processes the image formed by the stimuli in the environment. According to Gibson, however, perception of the environment is also the perception of the self: the environment and the organism are mutually complementary. The organism perceives its environment as a set of possibilities that the environment provides or affords. According to Gibson (1977: 67), an affordance is ‘a specific combination of the properties of [the environment’s] substance and its surfaces taken with reference to the animal’. In other words, affordances are the perceived opportunities for action provided for the observer by an environment. Hence, they can be understood as the possibilities that an object or environment offers (or appears to offer) to the organism for action or functioning, or chances for the organism to fulfil its goals. Norman (1988, 1999), who popularized the theory within the field of interaction design, developed the term of ‘perceived affordance’. This distinction makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of the actor but also on the actor’s goals, plans, values, beliefs and experience. As he puts it:‘ … the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used’ (1999: 9). Effectively, Norman’s affordance ‘suggests’ how an object can be used and interacted with.

As for connections between perceptual psychology and linguistics, Gibson’s ecological psychology affected the development of a linguistic theory of situations (Barwise & Perry, 1983). The theory, together with Norman’s idea of perceived affordances has been used to point out that language, like any other environment, offers certain affordances to its users. MacWhinney (1999) noted that language plays an important role in communicating information about situational affordances. Drawing on his observations, Segalowitz (1997, 2001) suggested that taking advantage of affordances that language offers plays a role in individual differences in second language acquisition. According to him, learners may vary with regard to the flexibility and fluency required to deal with language. However, their L2 performance may also involve sensitivity to environmental affordances, that is, the ability to adjust to the changing linguistic and non-linguistic context. Segalowitz (2001) claimed that affordances are important for learning, on condition that the learner is aware of them, whereas van Lier (2000: 252) emphasized the fact that an affordance affords further action but does not cause or trigger it. According to Segalowitz (2001: 15), although a given language, like any physical environment, possesses affordances and supports a particular set of constructions, the constructions are ‘available for packaging a message if the speaker knows how to use them. These constructions afford the possibility of making certain messages but not others, and make some messages easier to communicate than others’. As Tella and Harjanne put it:

Affordances speak a language of their own. Some actors can understand that language better than others. Others can be completely deaf to that language. […] Linguistic affordances are for us to take advantage of, but they do not spontaneously engage us, unless we are active enough to notice them and proactive enough to start exploiting them. (Tella & Harjanne, 2007: 502)

In other words, language learners have at their disposal potential affordances connected with their language resources and their language-learning environments. Thus, learning or acquiring a language involves ‘attuning one’s attention system to perceive the communicative affordances provided by the linguistic environment’ (Segalowitz, 2001:15–16). Segalowitz’s framework, where learning is seen as a complex interaction between individuals and the context in which they find themselves, ties up with Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis (1990, 1998, 2001), which states that every aspect of second language acquisition involves attention. ‘Noticing’ can be described as a necessary condition for the input to become intake in language learning, although there is no agreement as to what part of the noticed input can be assimilated. According to Schmidt (1990), input equals intake, provided it is perceived as a personal reference (a subjective experience) and explicitly reflected upon. For Gass (1997), some elements of input do not automatically become intake, whereas Gass et al. (2003) see attention as a complex phenomenon related to noticing in language processing. Taking the discussion a step further, one can assume that without noticing certain available affordances, the learner may not be able to use them. Thus, affordances are connected with the perception of certain opportunities, and as a result, for affordances to be perceived, the learner must be sensitive to the relevant information and attend to that information. Thus, affordances associated with language learning and use will be available only to those learners who are aware of them. According to Singleton and Aronin (2007: 85), ‘the higher the level of language awareness is, the more effectively language-related possibilities are likely to be perceived and capitalised upon’.

Affordances and Crosslinguistic Lexical Similarities

Human beings, like other organisms, assess environmental stimuli to decide if they will enhance or hinder the fulfilling of their needs and goals. Similarly, language users and learners should intuitively judge whether phenomena within language and across languages may be utilized to enhance communication, as pointed out by Schumann (1997) in his discussion of stimulus appraisal. According to Odlin (2006: 30), ‘[w]ith specific reference to interlingual identifications, we can surmise that stimulus appraisal entails, inter alia, a judgement about communicative utility’. Crosslinguistic similarities can definitely be placed among the phenomena enhancing both communication and language learning (Odlin, 1989, 2003; Ringbom, 1987, 2007). Wode (1983, cited in Odlin 2006) suggested that learners need to notice ‘a crucial similarity’ between the native and the target language, whereas Odlin (1989: 77) stated that ‘similarities and dissimilarities in word forms, along with similarities and dissimilarities in word meanings, play a major role in how quickly a particular foreign language may be learned by speakers of another language’. What follows is that the existence of cognate words in the learner’s L1, L2 and Ln may enhance the process of language learning when the learner is able to judge their communicative utility.

Cognates are commonly defined as ‘words in different languages, which have descended from a common parent word’ (Schmitt, 1997: 209). However, as claimed by Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2001) and Rusiecki (2002), the group of cognates also comprises words borrowed from one language to another (e.g. computer and hamburger) or borrowed independently by some languages (e.g. sputnik and robot). Thus, cognates should be understood as words that have descended from a common parent word, have been borrowed from Lx to Ly or have been borrowed independently by the two languages. Defined in such a way, cognates exist in European languages both close and distant typologically (e.g. English: optimistic, computer, zebra; Polish: optymistyczny, komputer, zebra; German: optimistisch, Computer, Zebra). For instance, for Polish and English, the number of cognates exceeds 2500 items, as noted by Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2007, 2009). It is not difficult to notice that Latin- and Greek-based words are also quite common in formal styles and registers used by educated European speakers in their L1. As for English, Nation and Meara (2002: 49) point out that ‘almost all the basic Anglo-Saxon words have parallel forms based on Latin and Greek, which are used in particular, specialist discourse’. This, in turn, entails that English – the European lingua franca – can serve as a mediation tool between the native language and other European languages.

The awareness of cognates may enhance language learning, which was proved experimentally (Haastrup, 1991; Jessner, 1999; Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, 2009, 2010; Ringbom, 2007; Swan, 1997). Ringbom (2007:104) states that crosslinguistic similarity is ‘an important variable in the use of learning strategies: how the learner tries to enhance the effectiveness of learning’. However, according to Swan (1997:161), lexical similarity does not always lead to the enhanced mastery of L2 vocabulary, whereas Schmitt (1997: 209) states that cognates may be ‘an excellent resource for both guessing the meaning and remembering new words. Of course, learners do not automatically accept cognates as equivalent’. On the other hand, Odlin (2002: 260, original emphasis) points to the fact that ‘[t]he actual similarity or dissimilarity of forms and meanings is only one factor at work in transfer; the judgement of each individual learner matters as much’. On the basis of the previous discussion of affordances and the noticing phenomena, one can assume that cognates can enhance language learning only if noticed, recognized and accepted by the learner. Thus, cognate word forms, even if they do not constitute ‘crucial similarity’ between the native and the target language, may be regarded as a set of affordances in learning a foreign language since their communicative utility cannot be underestimated. Proactive learners will be aware of crosslinguistic similarities and will make use of those affordances.

Affordances in Noticing Crosslinguistic Similarities: Bilingualism and Multilingualism

The learner’s ability to notice that L1 offers certain affordances in L2 learning depends on several factors. According to Kellerman (1977, 1983), one of the key issues in the understanding of why certain learners fail to acknowledge the relationship between the mother tongue and the language learned is the typological and the psychotypological distance between L1 and L2. Crosslinguistic influence is stronger between languages that are typologically close (Duškova, 1984), such as Polish and Slovak. In the case of vocabulary in European languages, positive transfer (noticing and using cognates) as well as negative transfer (overusing false friends) will be strongest within each of the major typological groups: Germanic, Slavonic or Romance. However, the situation is different across typological boundaries. For instance, Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2010) has pointed out that overusing false friends by Polish advanced learners speaking English is rare and may be considered a feature of the learner’s idiolect.

Crosslinguistic influence also decreases when languages are perceived as distant by the learner (Kellerman, 1983; Ringbom, 1986; Singleton, 2006). Ringbom (2006: 38) discusses perceived and assumed similarity, as opposed to objective similarity of language items and forms. If the learner perceives an L2 to be significantly different or distant from his or her L1, he or she may not be aware or may not even notice certain formal similarities between the two. Thus, awareness and readiness to use the affordances offered by the cognate vocabulary depends, first of all, on the perceived psychotypological distance between L1 and L2.

Another important reason why noticing crosslinguistic similarities differs from learner to learner is the differences in the level of the learner’s language knowledge and the number of languages known. There are numerous accounts of how monolinguals differ from bilinguals and how the latter differ from multilinguals in terms of general language awareness, facilitated language learning, language learning strategies or metalinguistic awareness (Cenoz & Genesse, 1998; Cenoz et al., 2001; Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Hoffmann, 2001; Jessner, 1999, 2008). According to post-structural definitions (e.g. Macnamara, 1967), even beginning L2 learners may be called bilingual; however, their knowledge and awareness are incomparable with those of advanced learners. Since bilingualism is understood as possessing at least minimal competence in one of the four skills of L2, and multilingualism means a constant interplay between languages, the environment and cognitive processes, multilinguals are advantaged over bilinguals in learning languages. Multilinguals have more ‘experience’ in language learning and using and have more chances of interacting with the environment. Their multilingualism also facilitates their metalinguistic knowledge and awareness. That is why it is possible to assume that they will have more linguistic affordances at their disposal. As Singleton and Aronin (2007: 85) put it, ‘[i]t is obvious that more potential affordances are at the disposal of multilinguals than of other language users. Self-evidently, multilinguals have larger overall linguistic repertoires than other language users’. Having acknowledged that lexical crosslinguistic similarities may constitute a se...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Awareness and Affordances: Multilinguals versus Bilinguals and their Perceptions of Cognates
• Chapter 2: Perceived Redundancy or Crosslinguistic Influence? What L3 Learners’ Material Can Tell us About the Causes of Errors
• Chapter 3: Crosslinguistic Interaction and Metalinguistic Awareness in Third Language Acquisition
• Chapter 4: Transfer from L3 German to L2 English in the Domain of Tense/Aspect
• Chapter 5: Perception of Preposition Errors in Semantically Correct versus Erroneous Contexts by Multilingual Advanced English as a Foreign Language Learners: Measuring Metalinguistic Awareness
• Chapter 6: ‘Luisa and Pedrito's Dog will the Breakfast Eat’: Interlanguage Transfer and the Role of the Second Language Factor
• Chapter 7: Crosslinguistic Influence in Multilingual Language Acquisition: Phonology in Third or Additional Language Acquisition