IV.

FACTORS AFFECTING LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

There are many factors which can influence SLA, including internal factors and external
factors. Internal factors, known as individual difference factors, are composed of learner’s
age, attitude, personality, motivation, and first language proficiency, and the like. While
external factors, so-called social factors, usually refer to the political, economic, cultural, and
technological environment. Let’s have a detailed look at these factors.
A. Internal Factors
1. Age
Keller thought the learner’s ability of learning language and motivation are two main factors
in a successful language acquisition, while the ability of learning language has much to do
with the age of a learner. Age factor is an important physiological factor in both first
language learning and second language learning, which has attracted much attention of
psychologists, linguists, and educators. They have spent lots of time and energy trying to
analyze the relationship between age and SLA from different angles. It’s generally believed
that children have the advantage over adults in SLA, which has still been hotly debated in
terms of learning motivation. Based on many researches, Cazden holds that children,
teenagers, and adults will experience the same learning period, during which they have
to deal with language data (Cazden, 1988). However, in terms of learning speed and
achievement, there are great differences between them. Generally, adults can do better
on the initial stage for their better cognitive ability; while children can do better in
pronunciation and standard accent, and after a long period of learning they can be
more likely to succeed in acquiring second language and communicating with it. Different
people hold different opinions, but the importance of age factor in SLA can not be ignored.
2. Attitude
In most theories, attitude is defined as a reaction to one thing or a kind of thing. In SLA,
attitude consists of three parts: cognitive part (the belief in something), emotional part
(the degree of likes and dislikes of something), and the part of conation( the intention
and action to do something). Attitude seems to be the phantom mental state, but in SLA,
it is the tendency of learner’s cognition, emotion and action in learning target language,
so attitude really plays an important part in SLA. In the process of bilingual research, Baker
has emphasized the significance of attitude (Baker, 1988). Attitude includes positive one
and negative one. With positive attitude, a learner will be active in communicating with
the people speaking target language, which will promote the SLA. Holding a negative
attitude, a learner tends to refuse or be afraid to contact the people speaking target
language, which will definitely hinder the development of SLA and the improvement of
the communicative ability. Of course, attitude is not hereditary, instead, it will affected
by the environment, while it is relatively steady. Larsen-Freeman and Long ever
mentioned factors affecting attitude: parents, friends, teachers, learning environment,
etc.(Larsen and Long, 1991). At present, in China, English is the language, widely taught
and learnt. The attitude of Chinese learners exerts a big impact on its learning efficiency.
Besides the factors affecting attitude mentioned above, the main factor affecting the attitude
of Chinese learners is the learning experience in class. So teachers should improve the
teaching and learning efficiency in class by making English class more interesting and
attractive.
3. Personality
Personality factors consist of self-esteem, anxiety, depression, spirit of adventure,
extraversion and introversion, etc, which will have an effect on SLA and will make
much difference to learning efficiency. Psychologically speaking, personality can be
divided into extraverted one and introverted one. Compared with an introvert, an
extravert is more likely do better in SLA, because extraverted personality endow the
learner with optimism, better socializing ability, and strong desire to communicate with
others, especially the person speaking target language, which will help create more
opportunities to practice the target language for a learner. While the introvert often
miss the chances for language learning and practice, because the introverted person
tends to be inactive in networking, language learning and communication, which are all
obstacles to SLA. The extravert often shows optimism, spirit of adventure, self-
confidence, while the introvert is always shy and afraid of making mistakes, and lack
self-confidence. It is additionally added that many Chinese learners are introverted ones,
who are always too shy to be active in SLA. Only when a person is not afraid to make
mistakes and is ready to explore, can he/she achieve what he /she wants in SLA.
According to the research by Krashen, it can be concluded that different personalities
exerts an impact on whether the learner can speak fluently in oral English in SLA
(Krashen, 1981). Everything cuts both ways, so does personality. An extravert in SLA is
likely to pay little attention to basic form of language and always lack the endurance in deep
thing and research, which an introvert often can do well in. So we can see that these two
different personalities have both an active and negative effect on SLA, but in general
extraverted personality can do better than the introverted one in SLA.
4. Motivation
Motivation is an internal process that stimulates an individual’s activity and helps them to
maintain the effort to realize their expected goal (WEI Fang-fang and HE Hua-qing, 2013).
As an internal impetus, motivation can promote the learning process, and can inspire and
guide learners’ learning. There is no doubt that motivation plays an important role in a second
language learning. To some extent, whether the learner ‘s motivation is strong or not directly
affects the learning efficiency. Learners with definite motivation are always active in
participating in foreign language learning, which often results into high learning efficiency.
On the contrary, learners with weak motivation always take a negative attitude in the learning
process, and they tend to spend less time and energy in a second language learning, which
often lead to low learning efficiency. Motivation has been the focal point of the research of
SLA for a long time. Skehan holds that motivation appears to be the second strongest
predictor of success, trailing only aptitude (Skehan, 1989).After the research on the
relationship between motivation and SLA, Gardner and Lambert propose Gardner and
Lambert proposed that there are two main types of second language learning motivation:
integrative motivation and instrumental motivation(Gardner and Lambert, 1972). Integrative
motivation features the strong desire of learners to mingle with the people speaking with
target language, and the learners’ appreciation of a second language and people as well as
culture related. Learners with integrative motivation see SLA as the goal of their interests,
which they will be active to achieve. While learners with instrumental motivation regard SLA
as a utilitarian goal, which will be achieved by finding a job, passing exams, improving their
social status and income, …everything can help them to be qualified for the future job or life.
This kind of motivation is particularly obvious for nursing majors in Medical University, who
needn’t pursuit a further study and can obtain a job after their graduation as a qualified
graduate. So SLA is just a tool for them to gain other benefits. They are inactive in class
activities and seldom communicate with their foreign teachers after class. As to integrative
motivation, clinical majors are a case in point: most of them will pursuit postgraduate study
or study abroad, so they pay little attention to fulfilling one goal, instead, they focus on
improving their comprehensive abilities of English. They are always active in class activity
and all kind of English activities after class, for example, Oral or writing English contest.
And they like to contact their foreign teachers and want to be approved by them. We can see
the differences of two types of motivation from the performances of these two majors.
5. First Language Proficiency
First language (L1) refers to a learner’s mother tongue. The proficiency of his/her mother
tongue will impact greatly the learning efficiency of SLA, because language transfer often
happens during the learning process of SLA. Language transfer , first put forward in 1950s,
refers to the fact that in the process of a second language or foreign language learning,
learners tend to handle the information of target language with the sentence structure and
communication strategies of their mother tongue because they don’t know or are not familiar
with the target language. In SLA, it can be divided into positive transfer and negative
transfer. When mother tongue has a positive effect on a second Language learning because of
the similar components between them, positive transfer happens, which can help learners to
master and practice a second language. Due to differences between two language, mother
tongue often exert a negative impact on SLA, which is called negative transfer that is an
obstacle to language learning. Positive transfer and negative transfer often coexist in the
process of language learning. Though negative transfer has a negative effect on SLA, it can
help us realize the factors hindering language learning, in which negative transfer will change
into positive transfer. Since language transfer is inevitable, we should take the advantage of
the positive one to improve learning efficiency of SLA, and try to find out the reasons for
negative transfer to turn it into positive one. Then language transfer will be a good way for
learners to master a second language. B. External Factors Language drives from social life
and social environment, and it develops with the development of our society.
1. Political Factor
With the implementation of the Reform and Opening policy, it’s much easier for people
to go abroad and to keep up with the latest news abroad, which aroused a strong passion
for a second language or foreign language learning among Chinese people. Meanwhile,
almost all schools and universities began to reform and innovate curriculums, especially
English course. It’s reported that Beijing Foreign Study University will add more
minority languages to adapt to political development of China. And the upsurge of
enthusiasm for English learning has helped non-governmental educational institutions
spring up, typically represented by Crazy English Educational School and New Oriental
English School. The liberal political policy provides an excellent environment of a
second language learning for people. But, we have to see that among the craze for
English, there are unreasonable parts, which is illustrated obviously by the appearance of
 “aphasia for Chinese culture”. Here “aphasia” implies two points: One, when learning
English, many Chinese learners don’t catch chances to get Chinese culture involved into
the learning process, which make the learning divorced from local culture. Two, After
learning English, many Chinese learners lose the ability to properly express their Chinese
culture in English. The reason for “aphasia” may be that many people are just
unreasonably crazy for a second language without the total understanding it and they
didn’t correctly hand the relationship between their mother tongue and a second
language, which definitely exert a negative impact on SLA. Political situation exerts a
subtle influence on SLA. If two countries are hostile to each other, people of these two
countries will hold hostility and prejudice to each other, too, which certainly hinder them
learning from each other about their culture and language. 2. Economic factor
A country’s economic strength plays a significant role not only in its politics but also in
its culture. In the financially underdeveloped countries, people always tend to neglect the
importance of their culture, so-called social anomie. It is illustrated by the strong desire
of some people to learn about different cultures and different life styles of other
countries, which is a driving factor affecting SLA, for example, people who want to
immigrate to American will spare no efforts to learn English. Of course, countries with
strong economy can spend more on education, A second language learning included.
Individually speaking, to get a job or offer a guarantee of the job is the main motivation
to learn or acquire a second language. In China, many people learn English with
economical orientation--- mastering English can help them get more opportunities to
obtain a job in transnational corporations, where they can be better paid.
[Link] Factor.
The development of economy will promote that of technology. The writer will set
America as an example. As one of economic powerhouses, America advances in science
and technology. Computer has been an indispensible practical tool in people’s daily life,
while over ninety percent of computer language(/program) came from American
Microsoft Corporation, which forces many users to learn English in order to better
operate computer or enable themselves to handle the problems appearing in the running
process. In 1840s, there was a global craze for learning English. According to a research,
most parents in many countries will help their children to choose English as a
compulsory course, and many countries asked primary schools to set up English course
while more and more overseas students study English abroad. English schools or
institutions have sprung up world-widely and offer more positions for people to teach
English, which has promoted the upsurge of English learning.