Chapter II

Second language acquisition refers to the process in which an individual learns and acquires a
second language after their native language has been established. Each individual who acquires
a second language develops their skills at different rates, depending on factors that influence
their language learning. These factors include, but are not limited to, age of first exposure,
formal language instruction, and access to a native speaker. The focus of this project is to
identify the factors that influenced the language acquisition of two individuals who acquired
English as a second language. The two subjects are interviewed and asked the same set of
questions regarding their experiences as they learned English.

Their responses are then compared to determine the factors that caused the differences in
their English proficiency levels. As a result of this research, two variables are determined to be
the most influential on the subjects' second language acquisition. Other factors that impacted
their language proficiency are also identified and discussed.

Second language acquisition (SLA) as an independent discipline, is the process by which people
learn a second language learning. It is an extremely complex language process, psychological
process, physiological process, and even social process (Lenahan, 2015), involving many factors
such as the learning environment, the learner factors, the acquisition process, and the
relationship between language itself and language acquisition. In recent years, in terms of
learner factors, many linguistic theoretical researchers and foreign language teachers have paid
more attention to the influence of affective factors on SLA and have also made in-depth
researches and explorations from different angles and aspects.
It’s all expected to provide helps to the SLA mainly from the psychological perspective of the
learner so that the learner can obtain theoretical guidance and psychological support in the
process of SLA (Ionin, 2017).

The affections mentioned in foreign language learning involve the two aspects of humans,
namely the personality factors and people's feelings about themselves (Rastelli, 2018).
Affections have the functions of stimulating, motivating, regulating, infecting and empathizing
in human cognition; among them, stimulating function and dynamic function are especially
important in the process of SLA. The intellectual behaviours such as feeling, perception,
memory, imagination, and thinking of learners belong to the operating system of cognitive
activities (Selvi & Martin-Beltrán,2016). The state of the operating system isinfluenced by
affective factors; positive affective factors will make this system work in the best state. Affective
non-intellectual factors such as interest, will and personality belong to the dynamic system in
language cognitive activities, which affects the efficiency of language learning (Truscott, 2017).

The process of SLA is influenced by many factors, such as the language learning environment,
learning mode, learning methods and strategies, learning language, and differences in thinking
between the two languages especially the affective factors of the instructors and learners
themselves. Studies have shown that human affections are closely related to cognitive
processes and any cognitive process is accompanied by certain affections; meanwhile,
affections play a positive and negative role in human cognitive behaviour(Ramazani, Aghajani,
Alipanahi et al., 2014)
Affected by the overwhelming impact of globalization, many people have realized the
importance of mastering a second language and begun to learn it. While research on second
language acquisition has been under the way for a long time on a large scale. With the
development of second language teaching, many researchers and educators try to find out the
factors affecting second language Acquisition (SLA). SLA is a complicated and systematic
process, which will influenced by many factors that affect and interact each other. This essay
will make a further analysis on the social factors and individual factors in the process of SLA,
with the expectation that it can bring implications to teachers as well as learners.

With the rapid pace of globalization, there are more opportunities for cooperation between
countries and communication between people all over the world, as a result of which many
people, besides students, are eager to master an second language, featuring the learning of
English. It's not easy for Chinese to learn a second language and to use it properly, because
there are many factors which will affect our second language acquisition. This essay will analyze
the political, economic, cultural as well as technological factors and the factors of age,
motivation, character as well as attitude, which are divided into two groups respectively social
factors and individual factors. On when we realize the factors affecting our learning, can we
tech and learn more efficiently. Thus it will also offer help to both teachers and learners.

Second language acquisition can be defined as a kind of language leaning that people learn,
besides their mother tongue, inside and outside classrooms. By learning the relative principles
of the second language and improving the ability to use it, learners can master the language
and can use it properly.
The research on SLA is based on that of mother tongue acquisition. The differences between
them lie in the fact that SLA generally goes on out of the environment of the target language
and on the premise that learners have mastered their mother tongue. Nowadays, it's a trend to
master a second language, which is a proof of one's competence. Therefore, how to learn a
second language well and how to make the best use of those factors affecting SLA are really
important to learners.

One point we should know better is that "acquisition" differs greatly from "learning". Language
acquisition refers to a subconscious process in which people acquire the language through
social communication and then use the language properly, which is quite similar to the process
they acquire their mother tongue. With the acquisition of the language. people can
communicate easily, which is a natural process and features the natural usage without learning
studiously.

Language learning is a conscious learning process, usually obtained in a fixed setting, mainly in
school settings. In the process of language learning, people focus on the rules of the language
and the conscious learning of the systematic knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation, etc, instead of the practical usage. People always can not have a fluent
communication with such kind of learning.

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 extemal 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.

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 SL.A and the improvement of the communicative ability.

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 leamer 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, 2014). 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.

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 leaming 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 leaming 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.

3. Technological 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.

At present, SLA happens mostly in classrooms, where teachers pay much attention to
vocabulary and grammar while learners seldom have the chances to practice what they
learned. After analyzing the factors affecting SLA, we may find out much enlightenment for
teaching and learning.
A. Teaching Enlightenment

1. To Create Language Environment

Based on the analysis of the factors affecting SLA, we can conclude that in the teaching process,
teachers should focus on students' acquiring instead of learning a second language. The process
of SAL. is a psychological process in which leamers actively participate and what learners
learned will be stored, processed and practiced. Only by creating a better language
environment and language input, can the process of SLA be realized. Therefore, in order to
improve the efficiency of language teaching, teachers should attach importance to creating
language environment. First, teachers can introduce more about the culture and custom of the
target language to attract learners arners' interest in SLA; Second, teachers should create a
pleasant environment for learners to reduce learners resistance in a second language learning.
For example, through multimedia, teachers can make language learning more interesting;
Third, teachers should hold or encourage learners to hold more activities related to language
learning, which can help learners to practice what they have learned.

2. To provide more comprehensible input

Language learning is mainly achieved by getting a lot of understandable input, which is mainly
composed of listening and reading.

According to the comprehensible input hypothesis proposed by Krashen, if we want to make

the best use of language input in SLA, we should process the meanings of it and make the
materials input interesting and understandable, which can help leamers master the language
imperceptibly. In classroom, it is teachers who are responsible for providing students with
comprehensible input besides the expression of grammar.
3. To Pay Much Attention to the Feedback on Leaming

Feedback from teachers on learners' learning is a kind of assessment, which consists of oral
compliment and criticism. Through feedback, learners can know exactly the efficiency of their
language learning, which can help them to correct the wrong and enhance the right in the
future learning. Authentic feedback on learners hard work is of help to improve their language
learning, and the sense of achievement is the motivation for the improvement of learners in
SLA.

B. Learning Enlightenment

1. To Set Up a Specific Goal

Learners with specific goals are more likely to be better motivated in a second language
learning. Because learning motivation is the intrinsic driving force which will directly promote a
learner's leaming process and efficiency. For example, if the goal of a learner is to study abroad,
he or she should learn more about cultures and customs of the country speaking target
language, which will also motive him/her to practice oral English more by join activities like Oral
English Contest and to be active in communicating with his/her foreign teachers in class. If a
learner aims at passing CET4/6, he/she should focus on writing reading and translating, which
accounts for over 60 percent in CETS/6.

2. To hold a positive attitude

Since people differs a lot from each other, so-called individual differences, it's natural that the
learning efficiencies will be different among different learners. A learner should realize the
individual differences and accept them. When a learner doesn't achieve what he or she
expected, he/she should find out the reasons and go on with his/her leaming step by step
instead of being overanxious, depressed or even giving up. Only when learners look at
individual differences in a right way and learn according to them, can learners obtain their own
achievements in a second language learning. Holding a positive attitude means not only
accepting individual differences but also actively handle the problems occurring in the learning
process.

3. To Improve First Language Proficiency

As is mentioned in the former part of this essay, first language proficiency what kind of
language transfer, positive or negative, happens in SLA. When their first language is poor, their
mother tongue will exert an negative effect on their second language learning, which makes
them proceed slowly or even fail in SLA. Thus, first lan guage proficiency is the basis of one's
SLA, for the reason of which one should learn one's mother tongue better and know better
about the differences between first language and target language, which helps positive transfer
happens and cushion the negative one. As a result, the achievement in SLA will be remarkable.

4. To Carry Out More reading

Many studies have found that reading can help learners to improve their pragmatic
competence and widen their scope of knowledge, which will lay a good foundation for future
learning. Reading can be divided into two kinds: extensive reading and classified reading.
Extensive reading refers to reading a large number of materials of target language, including
cultural background, short humorous stories, literature works, technological essays, and so on,
because it's hard to find the articles without language context. Nowadays online. reading are
popular and has become important contents of modern consciousness, which can help learners
to keep up with the latest news of target language, to update their pragmatic knowledge data,
and improve their abilities of practicing a second language. Classified reading means that
learners read a certain category of articles with purpose. It can help learners with high levels
can summarize what they've learned in the learning process and to some extent offer a rapid
way to improve accuracy in language usage.
There are many factors affecting SLA, which are inter-connected, interacting and inter-
promoting. Fortunately, in recent years, many educators and linguists, home and abroad, have
done many researches and have put forward many constructive suggestions. As a foreign
language educator, he or she should know better about the individual differences and teach
learners according to their aptitude. Language teachers should facilitate a second language
learning with the help of multimedia, internet platform, mobile communication devices,
everything available. As learners, they'd better put factors affecting SLA, individual and social, in
perspective, and take the advantage of them to succeed in Second language acquisition.