Changing names, making a difference

What is acquisition?

Jason Anderson (2022) is concerned that the term acquisition (along with second) in the label second language acquisition is not logical, equitable or inclusive and more specifically that acquisition has an inherent overly cognitive focus. He claims Stephen Krashen used the distinction of learning to acquisition "somewhat derogatively". Anderson adds that acquisition implies completion which in turn is used as a normative criteria.

Acquisition then is critiqued for essentially being too mentalist. Mentalist, after Ray Jackendoff 1997, as the way a human individual understands and uses language, or how language ability is embodied in the human brain. Anderson (2022: 5) raises the language as abstract aspect "how I, we, or even ‘they’ (e.g., artificial systems) adapt and evolve over time" as well as the language as social aspect.

Jackendoff (1997: 3) notes

"The mentalist stance would say, though, that we eventually need to investigate how such properties [abstract & social] are spelled out in the brains of language users, so that people can use language. It then becomes a matter of where you want to place your bets methodologically: life is short, you have to decide what to spend your time studying. The bet made by generative linguistics is that there are some important properties of human language that can be effectively studied without taking account of social factors."

Anderson argues we need to turn away from mentalist conceptions to more social and/or abstract approaches. Yet this disregards the recognition by (cognitively oriented workers) John Truscott & Michael Sharwood-Smith (2004: 1) of the multi-disciplinary character of language acquisition. They note two risks due to this multi-disciplinary nature:

1. "Some relevant domains mighty simply not yet be sufficiently developed to yield important insights"

2. "Some relevant domains are sufficiently developed... but [have] their own conceptual frameworks and methodological traditions impeding easy cross-fertilisation".

Risk 2 was noted in a tweet by Olcay Sert:

"For example, what is means to "learn" and to "develop" in applied linguistics still heavily depends on the theoretical and methodological positions in research."

Yet Sert next claims that:

"How use, learning, and development are defined and operationalised in a given paper, then, matters for the selection of terms. However, this shouldn't stop the terminological reconsideration in #SLA. As @jasonelt states, "names define us as much as we define them"

Unless a change in term can be justified theoretically then name changes are irrelevant at best to the work of explaining language acquisition. Certainly values such as equity and inclusiveness are important yet Anderson has not made the case for a term change logically. Further the charge by Geoff Jordan that Anderson: "misrepresents the history of SLA research" has some substance as seen in the previous point that some workers do acknowledge the multi-disciplinary nature of language acquisition.

Some related reading - Acquisition & Development, Horses for courses.

References

Anderson, J. (2022). What's in a name? Why ‘SLA’ is no longer fit for purpose and the emerging, more equitable alternatives. Language Teaching, 1-7.

Jackendoff, R. (1997). The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Truscott, J., & Sharwood Smith, M. (2004). Acquisition by processing: A modular perspective on language development. Bilingualism: language and cognition, 7(1), 1-20.