This book provides a clear, comprehensive, and authoritative guide to research methods in second language and bilingualism. Based on a set of four research parameters, it discusses the development of resarch questions and hypotheses, naturalistic and experimental research, data collection, and validation of research instruments. Each chapter include examples, and acctivities which provide readers with hands on experience of research problems.
Are you about to start a Master's degree where you will be carrying out research for the first time? Or do you refer to research in your work as a teacher, teacher trainer, or materials writer? However you are involved with research, this book will give you a clear and thorough introduction to all the main types of language learning research.
Second Language Research Methods Herbert W Seliger.pdf
This study concentrates on phonetic changes that appear in Western Armenian, a minority language in California, under the influence of English, the dominant language. Such changes are the result of interacting forces: incomplete learning of the minority language by immigrant children, use of the dominant language by adults outside their native community, and the normal processes of language change that are independent of the linguistic contact situation. The purpose of the experiment to be presented is to distinguish among these forces by measuring differences in the vowel production of Western Armenian-English bilinguals. Two main groups are compared: those whose acquisition of Western Armenian was interrupted in early childhood because of the transition to English as their dominant and primary language, and those who did not use English until adulthood. The former group will be referred to as interrupted acquirers and the latter as uninterrupted acquirers. Interrupted acquisition should not be understood as a complete halt in the learning of a language; rather, this notion entails the demotion of the primary language to a low secondary status. As a result, the acquisition of this language tapers off and does not reach the competence level of baseline speakers. For the baseline, the study uses a single monolingual speaker of Western Armenian. The baseline speaker acquired her Western Armenian without interference from any other language, and it remains her dominant language in adulthood even though she lives in Syria where Arabic is dominant. Such speakers are rare because virtually all speakers of Western Armenian have emigrated from the Western portion of historical Armenia and live in countries where Western Armenian is a minority language (Vaux 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002). In spite of the limited data provided by this single speaker, it is hoped that comparing her speech with the uninterrupted and interrupted Western Armenian speakers will contribute to our understanding of the monolingual phonetics of Western Armenian. The hypothesis for the experiment addresses the effects both of language transfer from English and incomplete acquisition.
Hypothesis: There are differences between uninterrupted and interrupted acquirers of Western Armenian in their adult production of Western Armenian vowels; the interrupted acquirers produce vowels that are more like those of their second language, English.
Although currently focused on lexical and morphosyntactic evidence, linguistic research has found all types of change in all grammar areas, including phonology, the lexicon, semantics (but only in connection with lexical change), and discourse. Phonology appears in few recent studies (Hamp 1989, Mithun 1989, Dressler 1991). There are studies of language attrition from the point of view of phonetics, but they have failed to address the possible differences between speakers who acquired the minority language fully before being exposed to the dominant language and those whose acquisition of the minority language was interrupted early.
Combined with the influence of the dominant language is the second force that operates in language attrition -- incomplete acquisition of the minority language. Sasse (1992) offers linguistic evidence for the difference between language change due to contact and change due to incomplete acquisition. The former, he claims, tends toward a one-to-one correspondence between the grammatical systems of the minority and dominant languages. The latter, in contrast, is characterized by a loss of functionality of the minority language, both as a tool for communication and as a system that can be transmitted to the next generation. Typical of this kind of loss is a breakdown in category systems (such as tense/aspect/mood), the loss of important distinctions, and confusion in the appropriate use of articles, agreement, verb tenses and syntactic rules. A further marker of functional loss is random variation in the application of rules, choice of verb tenses, and even word order.
It is important to note that individuals who leave a native community for an immigrant community may not immediately switch to the new dominant language. Very young children living in a home where both parents speak the minority language may use it as their primary means of communication, their experiences of the dominant language limited to overhearing it or being spoken to. They will not actively use the dominant language until they go to school. Furthermore, children born in the immigrant community may have a similar experience. This is true for first-borns in the current study; later children preferred to use the dominant language that their siblings had learned in school. Similar to this latter group are second-generation immigrants growing up in homes where the native language is not actively used. The children of such families may be passively exposed to the minority language as overhearers or by being spoken to; they may understand but never speak it.
(3) There are differences between uninterrupted and interrupted acquirers of Western Armenian in their adult production of Western Armenian vowels; the interrupted acquirers produce vowels that are more like those of their second language, English.
The influence of English appears even more clearly when we include the monolingual Western Armenian speaker in the comparisons, keeping in mind the possible influence of Arabic. However, both the interrupted and uninterrupted acquirers produce all the vowels except /u/ differently from the baseline speaker and with qualities more similar to the English vowels. The pattern is that the interrupted speakers' productions are closer to English, while those of the uninterrupted speakers are between the interrupted speakers and the baseline. This observation confirms the English influence on the language of Western Armenian-dominant bilinguals, whose exposure to English begins in adulthood. This effect in bilinguals could result either directly from exposure to English or indirectly by linguistic accommodation to their children, whose Western Armenian might reflect English influence. Whatever the source of this effect, the continuous influence of a dominant language is certainly well attested for several other bilingual groups (Vago 1991, Silva-Corval n 1994, Sabino 1996). Its presence in Western Armenian-English speakers, reported here for the first time, is an interesting reification of the tendency established by other researchers for different populations. 2ff7e9595c
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