The Neurobiology of Affect in Language Learning (Language Learning Monograph)

334 Pages·1999·16.83 MB·English

by  John H. Schumann

Series Editor’s Foreword
One of the currently best-known theories of language acquisi-
tion-Universal Grammar-focuses on the similar processes that
all learners use to acquire a language, whether it is their second
or their first. In contrast, this is a book about differences. It is by
now well established that individual second language learners
learn at different rates, learn different aspects of the second lan-
guage, ultimately attain different levels of proficiency, and do so
by developing along a variety of different learning pathways.
Indeed, there are far fewer similarities among second language
learners than there are differences and universal properties of
language acquisition are perhaps the rarest of phenomena. Why,
then, has so much recent research set out to find the similarities
among learners if there are so few and why has not more
research focused on the differences, given that there are so
many?
The answer to that question must be sought in the nature of
theory construction. For decades, now, Universal Grammar has
provided a well worked-out, explicitly stated set of propositions
about human knowledge of certain syntactic and phonological
phenomena. The propositions that together form the theory of
Universal Grammar are explicit and the domain of applicability
of the theory is all human language. For this reason, second lan-
guage acquisition researchers have found it to be a powerful heu-
ristic for understanding the phenomena of acquisition.
In contrast, theories that account for the differences among
second language learners have been piecemeal. Research on
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X The Neurobiology of Affect in Language
affective variables in language acquisition has not been widely
undertaken because of a lack of a consensus among researchers
about their research methodology. Research on motivation has
resulted in stable findings for learners in some communities that
do not hold up when the same methods are applied to learners in
a different cultural milieu. Research on variation in second lan-
guage learners’ interlanguage has identified a wide range of fac-
tors that contribute to interlanguage variation but, so far,
researchers have been unable to integrate those disparate factors
into an overarching theory.
Clearly, those researchers who fixate on similarities have
until now had a better theory than those who are distracted by
differences. But does this mean that our investigations of learner
differences should be abandoned? If we did so, we would be like
the drunk who, having dropped his house keys in the street one
night, insisted on searching for them only in a small area illumi-
nated by a street lamp, not because he had lost his keys there but
because it was there that he could see better.
For decades, John Schumann has been exploring in those
areas where the light of orthodox linguistics does not shine. And
he has been doing so by going outside the accepted “feeder”d isci-
plines of second language acquisition and bringing new theoreti-
cal perspectives to bear on the second language acquisition
process. His early work comparing SLA with pidginization drew
upon pidgin and creole studies; his work on acculturation drew
on social identity theory; his work on affective variables devel-
oped new methodologies of introspection and narrative self-
report to investigate phenomena which many other researchers
refused to countenance because they lacked the tools to investi-
gate them.
In his present book, Schumann expands yet again the bound-
aries of second language acquisition research to bring to bear the
rapidly developing body of knowledge of how the brain works in
processing, evaluating, recording, and responding to stimuli. For
many of us who are untrained in functional neurobiology, such a
disciplinary leap will be hard to make, especially given the highly
technical nature of the new field. But it repays the effort because
it is from the findings of neurobiology that Schumann derives his
theory of differences. We now know enough about the brain-in
particular about how emotions are inseparably bound up with
Series Editor’s Foreword xi
perception and cognition-that differences in learning trajecto-
ries can be accounted for by different patterns of stimulus
appraisals throughout the life of the learner.
Every theory needs to be tested. In this book, Schumann
tests his theory of stimulus appraisals as an explanation for dif-
ferent language learning trajectories by examining learner’s
biographies, narratives, and learning diaries. According to those
learners who have reexamined their language learning experi-
ences from within the stimulus-appraisal framework, the theory
passes the test. A much more difficult test awaits us-how to test
the theory as a prediction of language learning behavior.
This book is the first volume in the Language Learning
Monograph Series. The object of this series is to advance knowl-
edge in the language sciences by making explicit the connections
between language sciences such as SLA and other disciplines.
Each volume in the series will be an authoritative statement by a
scholar who has led in the development of a particular line of
interdisciplinary research and is intended to serve as a bench-
mark for interdisciplinary research in the years following publi-
cation. Schumann’s “The Neurobiology of Affect in Language” is
in itself a benchmark for the interdisciplinary focus of the series.
Richard Young
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Acknowledgments
I want to thank colleagues and friends-Lou Cozolino,
Zoltan Dornyei, Bob Jacobs, Hans Miller, Regina Pally, Arnold
Scheibel, Richard Schmidt, Allan Schore, Dan Siegel, and the
many graduate students in Applied Linguistics at UCLA-who
provided helpful discussion and commentary on various versions
of this book.
I am extremely grateful to Chizu Kanada, Barbara Hilding,
Donna Mah, Garold Murray, Mayumi Noguchi, and Susan Row-
lands Shrimpton for allowing me to include their language
learning autobiographies in this volume. However, I must take
responsibility for the interpretations that are presented in the
commentaries on their language learning experiences.
I also want to thank Catherine Masaquel and Susanna
Chow who typed the manuscript, my assistant, Shannon Cish,
who supervised the project, Mila August, who always made sure
help was available, and Lyn Repath-Martos, who provided assis-
tance in numerous ways.
Also, many thanks to Richard Young, editor of the Language
Learning Monograph Series, for inviting me to write the book
and providing helpful guidance at every stage, and also to
Rebecca Carr, the production editor at Blackwell Publishers, for
her patience, guidance and advice, and to Alexander Z. Guiora,
who, as general editor and executive director of Language
Learning, initiated the monograph series with this book as its
first publication.
...
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xiv The Neurobiology of Affect in Language
Finally, I want to thank the Conservatory in Culver City for
the wonderful coffee and the pleasant place to work.
The research for this book has been supported by a series of
grants from the Committee on Research of the Academic Senate
of the Los Angeles Division of the University of California.
Introduction
All normal children in monolingual settings acquire the core
grammar of their native language by the age of five to seven.
Thus, it would appear that the acquisition of grammar is inevita-
ble for all normal first language learners. However, success is
never inevitable in second language acquisition. It is generally
recognized that if children are exposed to a second language dur-
ing childhood, they have the ability to acquire both their native
language and the second language fully. However, this potential
is frequently not realized. In some cases, the second language is
rejected or only partially acquired. In other cases, the primary
language may be rejected, and only the language of the new envi-
ronment is learned. In addition, it is known that adolescent and
adult learners of a second language vary greatly in the degree of
proficiency they achieve. It is important to note that the issue
here is not the critical period for second language acquisition,
which is supposed to come to a close at puberty. The problem
addressed is variability in success both before and after puberty.
A critical period may limit one’s ultimate achievement in a sec-
ond language, but the range of achievement in postcritical period
learners is enormous, and it is this variability that this book
seeks to explain.
It will become clear that I believe that emotion underlies
most, if not all cognition, and I will argue that variable success in
second language acquisition (SLA) is emotionally driven.
Because I also believe that researchers often have a personal
stake in the questions they ask and that it is helpful to know the
xu
xui Introduction
source of the researcher’s interest, it is perhaps worthwhile to
explain why I am concerned with variable success and why I take
the position I do.
In my life, I have pursued the study of three languages-
French, Russian, and Persian-and have not come close to
mastering any of them. In fact, I might fairly be considered
low-intermediate to intermediate in all three. I studied French
for two years in high school and did very well. My mother had
been a French major and was very enthusiastic about French
language and culture. This attitude influenced me, and I
planned to major in French in college. However, during fresh-
man orientation, the director of the university’s Russian Insti-
tute gave a talk on the value of knowing Russian, and I decided
to study that language instead, thinking that perhaps I could
minor in French. But the university was Jesuit and we were
required to take 36 units of philosophy and 16 units of theology
so these subjects became virtual minors, and I found it impos-
sible to continue French. I received a BA in Russian studies
and stayed another year and completed an MA in Russian lan-
guage and linguistics. But after those five years of study, I real-
ized that even though I had done extremely well in my Russian
classes, I did not know the language. I had applied to both the
Peace Corps and to several doctoral programs in Russian. I was
admitted to Berkeley and also received an invitation from the
Peace Corps to go to Iran. I chose the latter. In Iran I acquired
a working knowledge of spoken Persian, but never learned to
read or write the language. Essentially I learned enough to get
by, but because it wasn’t clear how the language would be use-
ful after the Peace Corps service, I never learned more than
what came effortlessly. I returned to Iran for two months in the
mid-1970s to work on a project for UCLA. During that time,
and in the Persian course I took before I went, I made substan-
tial efforts to improve my vocabulary, grammar, and reading,
but the period was short and I didn’t make substantial
progress.
After receiving an MA in Russian and having spent two
years in Iran, I often wondered why I had not achieved greater
proficiency in either language. I knew something about lan-
guage aptitude because all Peace Corps volunteers were
required to take the Modern Language Aptitude Test, and dur-
Introduction xvii
ing Peace Corps training we were grouped in language classes
according to our scores. I was in one of the middle groups, but at
the end of the two years in Iran I spoke Persian better than
many of the volunteers who were in the top group. So it was
clear that aptitude wasn’t everything, but I wasn’t sure how
important it was or to what extent I might lack it. After two
years as a volunteer, I returned to Washington, D.C. and worked
for a year at Peace Corps headquarters. Then I returned to Iran
for a year and worked as director of the Teaching English as a
Foreign Language program. During that time, I read an article
by Bernard Spolsky (1989) in Language Learning, which showed
that motivation played a powerful role in second language
acquisition. From that time I was hooked. It seemed to me that
it was integrative motivation that controlled second language
learning. Successful learners would be those who wanted to get
to know, speak with, and perhaps become like speakers of the
target language.
Later, I learned about pidgin languages,which are spoken by
people who have only very limited and utilitarian contact with
target language speakers. These forms of speech are agrammati-
cal and often unsystematic versions of the target language. They
facilitate denotative referential communication with target lan-
guage speakers. Pidgin speakers usually lack either the opportu-
nity or the desire to integrate with the target language
community, and therefore seem to provide evidence for the role of
integrative motivation in second language proficiency.
After I had begun doctoral work, I undertook a longitudinal
study of an adult second language learner who, after more than a
year of living in the United States, ended up speaking a reduced
and simplified version of English that had many characteristics
of pidgin languages. I explained his limited language acquisition
as the result of lack of integration with (i.e., exposure to, input
from) target language speakers. Essentially, he did not integrate
because he was not motivated to do so.
The theoretical position that evolved from this study was
called the pidginization hypothesis. A few years later, I expanded
that perspective by viewing second language acquisition as the
product of acculturation. In this model, the crucial variable was
integration (contact)w ith target language speakers. Such contact
could result either from necessity, as through immigration, the
xviii Introduction
desire to integrate with target language speakers, or both. The
pidginization and acculturation perspective came to be called the
pidginizatiodacculturation model (McLaughlin, 1987; Schu-
mann, 1978a, 1978b, 1978c, 1978d, 1986).
In this model, the learner is seen as acquiring the second lan-
guage to the degree he or she acculturates to the target language
group. Pidginization refers to the grammatical forms in the
speech of the second language learners during the early stages of
learning. There are two sets of forces influencing acculturation,
one social and one psychological or affective. The social forces are
such things as dominance patterns and integration strategies. It
is generally the case that in a language contact situation, the
group that is politically, culturally, technically, or economically
superior (dominant) to the target language group will not accul-
turate and therefore will not acquire the target language. Groups
that are subordinate along the same dimensions may also resist
acculturation, but those that are nondominant or roughly equal to
the target language group are likely to acculturate well. In terms
of integration patterns, the language learning group may choose
either a preservation, an adaptation, or an assimilation strategy.
In preservation, the group strives to maintain its own lifestyle
and values and rejects those of the target language group. With
adaptation, the learner group maintains its own lifestyle and val-
ues for intragroup use, but adopts the lifestyle and values of the
target language group. Finally, in assimilation, the learner group
gives up its lifestyle and values and adopts those of the target lan-
guage group. Assimilation fosters maximum acculturation and
thus a high degree of language learning. Preservation is an anti-
acculturation strategy and results in a minimal level of language
acquisition. Adaptation produces varying degrees of contact with
the target language group and therefore varying degrees of acqui-
sition of the target language (Schumann, 1976).
The psychological or affective factors that influence second
language learning center around the issues of attitude and moti-
vation (Gardner, 1985). The language learner may value the
characteristics of the target language speakers and thus have a
positive attitude toward them, leading to contact with members
of the target language group and fostering language acquisition.
A negative attitude would have just the opposite effect. Motiva-
tion is generally viewed as either integrative or instrumental.
Introduction xix
Integratively oriented learners are motivated by an interest in
the speakers of the target language; instrumentally oriented
learners have more utilitarian goals (e.g., getting a job).
In the late 1970s, along with several graduate students, I
attempted to measure acculturation and to relate it to proficiency
in SLA. This proved to be very difficult. Many of the constructs
that comprised acculturation were extremely difficult both to
operationalize and to measure. It was also clear that the degree
of an individual's acculturation changed over time, but a method-
ology to measure acculturation longitudinally was not available.
In addition, there was no principled means to weigh the various
social and psychological components of acculturation. In the mid-
1980~I ~be came interested in the cognitive and neurobiological
processes that underlie the social and psychological factors of the
pidginizatiodacculturation model. At this time, I began studying
neuroanatomy with the goal of discovering whether there was
some mechanism in the brain that allowed emotion to influence
(or perhaps even control) cognition. In 1989, I attended the
McDonnell Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience at Dart-
mouth. There I learned that in the temporal lobe there is a struc-
ture called the amygdala, which assesses the motivational
significance and emotional relevance of stimuli. On the basis of
such appraisals, the brain allocates attention and memory
resources to various problems, and the variability in such alloca-
tions affects learning.
In this book I present a theory of how the psychology and
neurobiology of stimulus appraisal influence variability in second
language acquisition, and then I extend the notion of affect devel-
oped for second language acquisition to primary language acqui-
sition and to cognition in general. Toward that end, I lay out a
psychological framework in Chapter 1 that develops the notions
of value, emotional memory, and stimulus appraisal. In Chapter
2, I suggest a neurobiological mechanism that would subserve
the psychological constructs described in Chapter 1. The neural
system consists of the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex, the
body proper, and the connections among them. In Chapters 3,4,
and 5, I offer evidence for the idea that stimulus appraisal consti-
tutes the affective basis for motivation in second language acqui-
sition (and, indeed, for all sustained deep learning). I do this first
in Chapter 3 by showing how questionnaires that are designed to