Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics

Studies have shown that students with little or no formal education usually have different personalities from students with formal education. Low education learners usually have an introvert personality as compared to high education learners that are extroverts. This difference in personalities also affects their socio-interactive practices which have repercussions of the learning of their second language. A number of empirical studies have been done to try to explain the effects of outgoingness versus reservedness on second language acquisition (TESL Canada Journal vol. 5, no.1, 1987)

 

Schumann’s Acculturation Model

3 types of social structure that can affect acquisition of second language

• sociolinguistic setting
• specific social factor
• situation factor
• figure 1

Social dominance: If the second-language learning (2LL) group is politically, culturally, technically or economically dominant to or subordinate to the target language (TL) group, social contact between the two groups will tend not to be sufficient for optimal target language acquisition. If they are nearly equal in status, then there will be more contact between the two groups and thus, acquisition of the target language will be enhanced.

Assimilation, preservation, and adaptation: The best condition for L2 acquisition is obtained when the 2LL group wants to assimilate into the TL group. The second best condition occurs when the 2LL group wants to adapt to the TL culture for intergroup interaction without assimilating to it. The least favorable conditions obtain for acquiring the L2 when the 2LL group wishes to remain separated linguistically and culturally from the TL group.

Enclosure: The more the 2LL groups share social institutions such as schools, churches, workplaces, clubs, and others with the TL group, the more favorable the conditions will be for L2 acquisition.

Cohesiveness and size: The smaller and less cohesive the 2LL group, the more likely the contact with the TL group and the more favorable the conditions for L2 acquisition.

Congruence: The more similar the culture of the two groups, the more likely there will be social contact and thus language acquisition.

Attitude: The more positive the views of the 2LL group toward the TL group, the more favorable will be the conditions for L2.

Intended length of residence: The longer L2 learners plan to remain in the L2 environment, the more likely it is that they will feel the necessity of learning the TL.

The psychological factors, mainly affective in nature, are secondary important. To him, the following factors affect the psychological distance:

• Language shock (Learner’s confusion when using L2)

• Culture shock (learners’ disorientation as a result of culture differences).

3.1 Acculturation: Types, Stages and Kinds of Learning

Trawinski (2005) cites social and psychological distances determine how much input the learner will be exposed to, and how much input will be converted in to intake. Schumann (1978) believes that the level of language proficiency the learner achieves strictly depend on the degree of acculturation. He distinguishes the functions of language, which may also be considered as the three stages of language development:

• Communicative function ( the transmission of referential information only)

• Integrative function ( the mark a membership of a particular social group)

Multimedia Adult English Learner Corpus (MAELC, 2001-2005)

• 2 classrooms, 700 students
• establish socio-interactive practices
• 6 video cameras(of which 2 are mobile operated manually from outside class),focused on students in pairs to check on learner-learner and teacher-learner task interaction, other 4 cameras focused in the class, and 5 wireless microphones alongside in total for high quality audio and video documentation.
• Figure 1

Figure 1

Basic English Skills Test (BEST, 2006)

• assessing literacy using standardized measures
• scores of writing and reading divided into 2 scales, then summed into a final scale score.
• to check if BEST correlates with behavioural measures by obtaining average scores.
• results showed that introverts obtained a lower score.

 

Introvert Vs Extrovert

Studies have shown that low education learners are usually introverts, and they rarely speak up or ask others for help. Introverts are afraid of embarrassing themselves by speaking incorrectly or by not being able to carry their message accurately across, thus may try to avoid speaking opportunities that would otherwise aid their learning.

However, on the other hand, high education learners are the complete opposite. They are extroverts that do not hesitate to speak up or ask for advice and help in classes. This has been shown in researches and tests and extroverts have shown to have better results in reading and writing tests.

The MAELC and BEST tests have shown that the extroverts are more vocal and active during lessons, while the introverts keep to themselves. Scientists think that extroverts fare better in language performance, scoring higher marks for the reading and writing tests. This being said, research are still inconclusive(Dewaele & Furnham, 1999).

Despite all these, it is difficult to measure exactly if introverts or extroverts are better in second language acquisition because there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration, such as the level of interest of the learner, the similarity of the second language as to their first, and the attention span of an individual. Different learners respond differently to the same input as a function of the ways in which their personality affects their perception and interpretation of the language.

Also, after close observation, researchers have come to realise that low educational learners only behave as introverts at different times as compared to high educational learners, and do not keep to themselves all the time. This may imply that introverts could actually learn faster and better at certain stages of their life and score better at the reading and writing tests.

Results from these tests seem to have shown that introverts are actually weaker in second language acquisition as compared to extroverts, but we cannot assume that this is true because there are many other factors that have to be considered, such as the attitude and aptitude of learners, as well as similarities of the L2 to the L1. Also, other studies have actually shown that introvert behaviour occurs under certain conditions and is not constantly portrayed for each individual.