Language Play and Language Acquisition

In this article, we use an approach to the study of inter-language that challenges prevailing models of second language acquisition (SLA) which assume that negotiation of meaning is the only causal variable in SLA. Ludic language play may also play a role in the development of inter-language (Tarone, 2000a). In this article, we examine two notions of language play as they have been presented in the applied linguistics literature: ludic language play, as defined in Cook (2000), and language play as rehearsal in private speech, as considered by Lantolf (1997), and its relationship to SLA. Through the analysis of classroom interactions among children attending a full immersion program, we show that these two types of play can be distinguished in classroom discourse by the presence or absence of five channel cues: presence/absence of laughter, shifts in voice quality and pitch versus shifts in loudness/whispering, use of language forms that are well-known versus forms that are new; presence/absence of a fictional world of reference, and presence/absence of an audience other than the self. It is also argued that the distinction between the two types of language play in learner language allows us to study their distinct roles in the process of SLA.

The aim of this study is to gain insights into students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. Two Facebook groups were introduced in different English-as-L2 classes that were part of an international collaborative project comprising secondary schools in Colombia, Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The study is theoretically grounded in sociocultural perspectives on learning, and the methods involve logging the students’ linguistic interactions in the social media groups. The analysis of the empirical material explored how the students framed the activities by different types of keying in their choice of linguistic repertoires. The findings show that the social media context offered a casual space for communication in which the students, by attentively attuning to the local coordinated framing, used diverse linguistic repertoires to play with the language. In instances of upkeyed framings, the language play was not only used with pragmatic intentions, but also as a means for various socializing purposes. In conclusion, it is suggested that language play on social media can be seen as a valuable activity in developing sociopragmatic competence to prepare students for L2 use outside of school.

Investors look to the language a firm uses for information that may not be available otherwise, especially in entrepreneurial settings. One aspect of language that is garnering greater attention in the management and other business literatures is vagueness. Vague language is often viewed negatively by audiences because of its association with greater uncertainty and potential to obscure negative information. However, some work in linguistics implies that the use of vague language can have positive impacts if the speaker understands the needs of the audience. This study explores the use of vague language and its relationship with investor interest as well as how it interacts with the skills of the entrepreneurial founding team. We hypothesize that, in general, investors are less interested in firms that use vague language, but the positive impacts of vague language become apparent when firm founders have human capital endowments associated with the effective use of language. Analyses based on data from a major start-up pitch competition provide evidence to support these hypotheses. Post hoc analyses explore potential mechanisms. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16367 .

Reviewed by: Second language acquisition by Roumyana Slabakova Tania Ionin Second language acquisition. By Roumyana Slabakova. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xxi, 483. ISBN 9780199687275. $40. Introduction This book is a textbook of second language acquisition (SLA) written within the theoretical framework of the generative approach to SLA research. The intended readers are advanced undergraduate students and graduate students who have some background in linguistics, in particular in syntax and semantics. The text is intended first and foremost for students with a prior background in generative linguistics. While the main linguistic concepts are explained when they are introduced, such explanations are necessarily brief, and students with no prior background in linguistics would find the more technical parts of the text somewhat difficult to follow. However, students or other readers who have a general interest in language and/or language acquisition, but lack a background in generative linguistics, should still be able to follow the main concepts presented in the book. This textbook is quite unique in that, while its focus is on theoretical research on SLA, it explicitly makes the link to potential pedagogical relevance of the research findings. Brief summary The book consists of thirteen chapters, divided into three parts. Each chapter ends with a section of exercises; at the end of the book are a glossary, references, and an index. Part I, ‘Language’, provides a brief overview of the relevant background information that readers need to have in order to fully appreciate the rest of the book. Ch. 1, ‘Language architecture’, lays out the central argument of generative linguistics for the innateness of language and introduces the reader to several famous proposals on the structure of the language faculty. Ch. 1 then addresses the task faced by a second language learner and lays out the logic of the methodology used in generative SLA research. Ch. 2, ‘Language variation’, walks the reader through the history of the generative study of language variation, from principles and parameters through the minimalist program. Like Ch. 1, Ch. 2 ends by considering the implications of the theoretical linguistic research for the learning task of a second language learner. The goal of Ch. 3, ‘The psychological reality of language in use’, is to prepare the reader for later chapters that address second language processing by reviewing the central models and findings of the literature on language processing and psycholinguistics more generally. Part II, ‘Language acquisition’, has the goal of placing the study of SLA into the study of language acquisition as a whole by considering a number of different language-acquisition scenarios. The focus of this part is on the respective contributions of age of acquisition and of input quantity and quality to the task of language acquisition. Ch. 4, ‘The critical period hypothesis’, goes over the history of critical period studies and addresses the debate about the existence of critical or sensitive periods in SLA. This chapter also considers the role of input, bringing together a number of quite distinct phenomena, including variable input, comparisons between heritage speakers and second language learners, and variability among native speakers at different educational levels. Ch. 5, ‘First language acquisition, two first languages’, provides an overview of the process of first language acquisition; most of the chapter is devoted to monolingual first language acquisition, but the last section discusses simultaneous bilinguals, who form a natural link between monolinguals and adult second language learners. In Ch. 6, ‘Child second language, multilingual and heritage language acquisition, language attrition’, a variety of other types of language acquisition scenarios are discussed. Throughout this chapter, and especially in the last section, the focus is, once again, on the relative contributions of age of acquisition and input quantity and quality to the outcome of the language acquisition process. The position taken in this chapter, and [End Page e198] throughout the rest of the book, is that the effects of age can potentially be overridden by rich input, and that universal grammar remains active in SLA by adults. Part III, ‘Second language acquisition’, is the heart of the book. In addition to providing an overview of SLA research in the core areas of linguistics (with the one exception of...

Multilingualism is embedded in the Malaysian Education Blueprint (2015-2025) as a stated goal towards nation building. The education system provides opportunity to learn Malay which is the national language, the mother tongue (Mandarin or Tamil) and the English language as part of formal schooling. In fact, Malaysian primary schools are classified into two major divisions. Students can opt to study in national schools in which the medium of instruction is Malay with the provision for the learning of English and a mother tongue. The other option allows students to enrol in national-type schools of which the medium of instruction is either Mandarin or Tamil, with English and Malay taught as academic subjects. At secondary level, the medium of instruction in national schools is Malay and students are provided the opportunity to learn their mother tongue and English. Other than in school, other social milieus also allow the use and practice of these languages. Given this linguistic environment, there exists a myriad of language experiences within and outside formal learning which together would influence the totality of language vitality. This paper investigates language vitality featured in this multilingual environment. It focuses on the vitality of the English language among students that appears to co-exist with the learning and use of other languages as they progress through the primary and secondary levels. The vitality is measured by the following indicators: language preference, choice, dominance, use, attitude and motivation and proficiency which were used to develop a questionnaire to obtain data on strength evaluation of these languages. The methodology encompasses random and convenient sampling to obtain representative responses from students with different levels of education and language experiences. The study reveals relative vitalities of languages used and highlights values attached to languages at different points of language exposure that coincide with chronological age.

This paper examines the patterns of language use among immigrant children from Anglophone African countries living in Botswana. The study reveals major differences in their patterns of language use when compared to that of their parents. Three distinct language use patterns were identified; namely, children who are monolingual in English; those who are bilingual in English and the mother tongue, English and Kiswahili, or English and Setswana; and a third group who are multilingual in the mother tongue, English, Kiswahili and/ or Setswana. The study also reveals that whereas majority of the immigrant parents do not speak Setswana, in spite of their length of residence in Botswana, a good percentage of their children speaks Setswana. Another interesting finding is that many of the immigrant children who cannot speak their mother tongues are fluent speakers of Setswana, the dominant language of the host community. Data for this study were collected using two instruments; namely, a questionnaire designed for parents and an interview schedule for children aged between 18- 25. The questionnaire was administered to 100 immigrant parents from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. Fifty immigrant children from these countries were interviewed to get more insightful data on the patterns of language use among this population. Convenience sampling was used to identify the participants. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the “opportunity versus motivation” argument on language maintenance and language shift. The researcher recommends that immigrant children should be given more exposure and opportunities to learn and speak their mother tongue languages, especially in the family domain.

Martin Smith’s article uses Shakespeare’s Macbeth and its visual imagery as a means to discuss social work practice, supervision and research. The article concludes that Macbeth might offer something distinctive to busy, hard pressed social workers by opening out a capacity for empathic connection (also explored by Malone in this issue). Smith argues that there is a value to be gained from developing, honing and making explicit the use of imagery in social work, which can help practitioners to reach ‘beneath the surface’. This enables social workers to render ‘visible’ the affective qualities of social work. He shows how Macbeth is rich in visual metaphor through which Shakespeare finds a figurative language for otherwise inexpressible emotion.Turning to social work processes he discusses the ubiquity of risk assessment and the complex temporalities at play in social work, in which practitioners must often generate understandings quickly in the here and now, whilst also orienting themselves towards future possibilities that can’t be known or predicted (Gunaratnam 2015). The paper suggests that, rather than being a distraction, the full use of visual sensibility and language which is rich with imagery might allow a fuller truth about social work to emerge. Shakespeare’s use of visual language in drama augments the scene on the stage with a scene in the mind offering a window onto the emotional world of the characters that far exceeds their ‘actions’. In the discussion of visual matrix methodology later in this issue Liveng et al show how ‘a scenic register of experience’ conveys a particular depth and complexity of emotion. In social work practice a visual or scenic sensibility may allow unconscious aspects of experience to come to the surface (Roy 2017). Working with the imagery embedded in language therefore offers a means by which the unconscious dynamics of practice might become better available for thought and communication in practice, supervision and research (Froggett & Briggs 2012).

In this paper we want to focus on the so called vehicular use of second languages - i.e. the use of a second language in teaching knowledge in different fields -, in order to evaluate its effectiveness as an educational approach in early foreign language teaching. We will analyse the advantages of the vehicular use of languages in the perspective of teaching languages in the kindergarten school, considering in particular the parallelism between first and second language acquisition. Then, we will suggest some practical considerations to follow and implement this approach, also illustrating a concrete experience.

Balinese, as the mother tongue of the Balinese people, faces challenges in its survival. Although the number of Balinese speakers is still relatively large, there is an alarming shift among the younger generation in the use of this language. This phenomenon creates the need for more serious efforts to strengthen the position of the Balinese language, especially in the family environment and early education. The method used in this research is a qualitative descriptive approach, with data collection carried out through a literature review. Analysis shows that Balinese is included in the category of endangered languages according to language typology by Michel Krauss. The use of Balinese as the language of instruction in initial education at school level is also an important focus. However, national policies and globalization pressures often lead to a decline in the use of regional languages in schools. The importance of using the mother tongue in education, especially at the initial level, has been supported by international organizations such as UNESCO. Efforts to strengthen the Balinese language can be carried out through several strategies, including strengthening the use of the Balinese language in the family environment, using Balinese as the language of instruction in schools at the educational level beginning, holding family-level Balinese language competitions, and reviving the "Dina Mabasa Bali" program as part of a policy that strengthens the habit of using the Balinese language. Through these steps, it is hoped that the existence of the Balinese language as the mother tongue of the Balinese people can be maintained and strengthened.

The paper presents a case study of early childhood language development focused on a Tamil child from Sri Lanka. The research study aims to analyse the progress a Tamil child from Sri Lanka achieves in language development at the five levels: phonological, morphological, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic. The methodology involves a five-fold linguistic analysis of some utterances extracted from a conversation between the researcher and the subject, who is a six-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil child, based on a story presented in the form of a monologue. It reveals that the child had acquired the necessary language skills in Tamil to communicate his thoughts in advance of the conversation. Also, his speech is equal to that of an adult, if not for some interlanguage expressions and discourse markers. The findings reveal that the child has managed to internalise the structure of the Tamil language, which is his mother tongue. The child possesses a considerable fund of ‘language universals’ that are required in the narration of his story. Although the story is not his own creation but heard from his teachers or parents, the utterances he makes are similar to those used by an adult. Most of the sentences he utters represent a high level of competence. So, this paper identifies the child’s language output under Chomsky’s mentalist approach to language and transformational generative language acquisition. It is perceived that his innate language faculties help him utter sentences, in addition to his exposure to the use of language by the adults in the environment.

This chapter views the interactional instinct as related to a constellation of conceptualizations that see language, language evolution, language acquisition, and language use from an interactive socioaffective perspective (e.g., the pedagogical stance/natural pedagogy, willingness to communicate). In this chapter, we examine the interactional instinct in relation to six other perspectives: the social instinct, the interactional engine, the cultural intelligence hypothesis, the interaction hypothesis, relational models, and the perspective of language as shaped by the brain. We see these various perspectives as correlated variations on language acquisition and use, which capture different facets of these phenomena.

As a former colony of Britain and now a cosmopolitan city in Asia under the sovereignty of China, Hong Kong has adopted a bilingual policy in education and public administration, with English and Chinese as the two official languages. Much previous research has focused on verbal bilingual practices for social and educational communication. The present paper, however, explores the increasing use of visual bilingual texts at the societal level for playful effects. Ten examples of bilingual texts showing linguistic creativity were collected through incidental sampling mostly from the linguistic landscape and mediascape in Hong Kong and analysed for their textual properties, semantic features and socio-pragmatic use. The analysis revealed three distinct strategies of bilingual language play: phonological/lexical crossover, semantic enhancement and visual parody. Apart from displaying features of the commercial use of language play to enhance memorability, some of the examples revealed a desire to mock government policies or to achieve mental pleasure of a nonsensical nature. These examples of bilingual language play provide evidences of local creative and motivated use of bilingual resources to achieve a double-voiced social discourse.

There has been a longstanding debate on the use of native language (L1) in second language acquisition (SLA). One important topic in language education to investigate is the use of language in the second language (L2) writing process. The majority of studies have focused on L2 writers in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings. Quantitative research approaches have been dominant. Nevertheless, the complexity of this issue cannot be comprehensively explored without qualitative analysis. This case study investigates the language use of a Chinese international college student in the United States throughout the L2 writing process. It adopts a qualitative research approach. The findings show that language learners draw upon their entire linguistic repertoire while writing; even those with a high proficiency level still rely upon their L1 in the L2 writing process. The findings also reveal the multiple functions of the L1 in facilitating L2 writing. Although this study primarily focuses on the linguistic influences of the L1, its implications can be generalized to a broader context. Teachers working with English learners (ELs) or bilingual students are highly recommended to acknowledge and gain a comprehensive understanding of the value of students’ linguistic knowledge, as well as embrace and strategically utilize students’ linguistic repertoires.

The way in which affective processing influences the use and development of language in both monolinguals and multilinguals requires a theoretical apparatus that draws on and integrates research in different areas of cognitive science. The Modular Online Growth and Use of Language aims to provide researchers with just such a service. In the contribution that follows, a number of examples will be provided to demonstrate how this conceptual framework can be implemented in order to bring some clarity to our understanding of affective processing. These examples, which cover much more than affect as consciously experienced emotion, include a range of apparently heterogenous phenomena namely (a) how affect influences code selection either within a language, such as when choosing between a formal and informal style or, in the case of bi/multilingualism, choosing between languages, (b) how affective processing subtly influences semantic judgements, (c) how heritage language use can be explained and finally d) the role of affect in language acquisition and attrition.

BackgroundChildren naturally seek risk in play and adventurous play outdoors confers many benefits, including the potential to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). This study aimed to investigate the relationship between parent attitudes to risk and injury, and their elementary school-aged child’s daily adventurous play and MVPA. MethodsA panel sample of 645 Australian parents/guardians completed an online survey consisting of several validated measures of risk and injury attitudes, and physical activity and play behaviour. Data were analysed via descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariable regressions using Stata 17. A series of exploratory univariate logistic regressions were conducted, followed by a series of multivariable logistic regressions fitted to test the association between parent risk and injury attitudes and (i) children’s MVPA, (ii) active play and (iii) adventurous play, while adjusting for socio-demographic factors. ResultsMost adult participants (81%) were female. The mean age of the child participants (53% male) was 8.6 years (SD = 2.4). On average, parents were positive about children’s engagement with risk, however, 78% of parents had low tolerance of risk when presented with specific play scenarios, and attitudes towards injuries varied, with mothers more concerned than fathers. After adjusting for confounders, children with parents who were tolerant of risk in play were more likely to meet the MVPA guideline of ≥60 min daily (OR 2.86, CI: 1.41, 5.82, p < 0.004) and spend more time playing adventurously (OR 3.03, CI: 1.82, 5.06, p < 0.001). Positive associations for MVPA and adventurous play were observed across all models examining parent attitudes to risk and injury. Younger children engaged in more play and physical activity, however, more positive parent attitudes appeared to moderate the age-related influences. ConclusionsWe found a divergence between the outcomes parents desire for their children through engagement with risk and the play activities they are comfortable with in practice. Parent attitudes to risk and injury are potentially modifiable factors that may increase children’s affordances for adventurous play and physical activity. Interventions that provide parents with practical approaches to address injury concerns and support children’s risk-taking in play outdoors are recommended.