Annual Review of Applied Linguistics

2021 Volume, Language Aptitude

Contents preview

(The following contents are subject to final confirmation)

Position paper

1. Stages of acquisition and the P/E Model of working memory: Complementary or contrasting approaches to foreign language aptitude?

Zhisheng (Edward) Wen, Macao Polytechnic Institute, Macao

Peter Skehan, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

This paper explores the roles of both working memory (WM) and more traditional aptitude components such as input processing and language analytic ability in the context of foreign language learning aptitude. More specifically, the paper compares two current perspectives on language aptitude: the Stages Approach (Skehan, 2016, 2019) and the P/E Model (Wen, 2016, 2019). Input processing and noticing, pattern identification and complexification, and feedback are examined as they relate to both perspectives and are then used to discuss existing aptitude testing, recent research, and broader theoretical issues. It is argued that WM and language aptitude play different but complementary roles at each of these stages, reflecting the various linguistic and psycholinguistic processes that are most prominent in other aspects of language learning. Overall, though both perspectives posit that WM and language aptitude have equal importance at the input processing stage, they exert greater influence at each of the remaining stages. More traditional views of aptitude dominate at the pattern identification and complexification stage and WM with the feedback stage.

Research synthesis

2. The methodology of the research on language aptitude: A systematic review

Shaofeng Li, Florida State University

Huijun Zhao, Yango University

This article provides a comprehensive and critical synthesis of the methods utilized in studies investigating the role of language aptitude in second language acquisition (SLA). The synthesis is informed by 65 studies generated by a thorough search of the literature, three meta-analyses (Li, 2015, 2016, 2017), and a thematic issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Li & DeKeyser, in press). The synthesis starts by identifying three categories of research investigating the role of aptitude in naturalistic learning, aptitude’s associations with instructed learning, and the nature of aptitude pertaining to whether it increases with age and learning experience and how it is connected to other individual difference variables. The synthesis then presents an overview and critique of major measures of aptitude and discusses the construct validity of aptitude measures based on the principles of psychometric assessments. Specifically, the measures are scrutinized along the dimensions of reliability, content validity, divergent/convergent validity, and predictive validity. The content and measurement of implicit aptitude—a newly emerged construct in SLA—are highlighted. The synthesis proceeds to summarize and vet the measures of the outcome variable of aptitude research—L2 proficiency. Throughout the synthesis, methodological features are summarized, issues are identified, and remedies are proposed.

Empirical Articles

3. Language aptitude and language awareness: Polyglot perspectives

Kenneth Hyltenstam, Stockholm University, Sweden

  The paper discusses the notion of language aptitude as a factor contributing to successful language acquisition achievements in polyglots. The difficulty in distinguishing between what is, indeed, language aptitude and what is language awareness is the main focus of the paper. A polyglot is here operationalized as a person who, after puberty, acquired/learnt at least 6 new languages (L2s), who command at least 6 L2s at an intermediate or advanced proficiency level and who can presently use these languages relatively unimpededly in oral interaction. The article draws specifically on a controlled investigation of ten polyglots who were extensively interviewed and tested for language aptitude, cognitive ability, motivation, language awareness and use of language learning strategies. Results show well above average, often outstanding, aptitude scores, but also an immediate preference for explicit learning. It appears that the combination of a strong motivation and high levels of language aptitude and language awareness is what makes polyglots unusually successful second language learners. It is suggested here is that language aptitude is a prerequisite for the development of high levels of language awareness, and, since the two concepts are partially overlapping, much of the dynamism sometimes ascribed to aptitude is indeed awareness.

4. Lexical diversity development in newly arrived parent-child immigrant pairs: Aptitude, age, exposure, and anxiety

Dr. Amelia Lambelet, University of Fribourg, Switzerland / CUNY Hunter College, USA.

  The Language Aptitude Outside the Classroom (LAOC) study investigates the factors that contribute to successful English learning among newly arrived parent-child immigrants. Two types of factors are considered: cognitive abilities (aptitude measured with the LLAMA tests and working memory) and contextual affective factors (exposure and anxiety). Participants are pairs of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US. Each pair consists of a parent and their child aged 7-14. Their English proficiency is measured longitudinally during a one-year period using a listening comprehension test, a verbal fluency test, and an oral narrative (frog story). This contribution focuses on the lexical diversity of the oral narratives (Guiraud Index). Linear mixed models were run on the entire sample and on adults and children separately using time, aptitude, working memory, exposure to English, and anxiety as predictors of lexical diversity of the oral narratives (random effect = dyad; random slopes = group and time). The results show that the development of lexical diversity over a one-year period is predicted by exposure to the language (and, for the children, anxiety). Two subtests of the LLAMA aptitude battery are also significant predictors when the entire sample is considered, but this effect nevertheless disappears for the adults when modeled separately from the children.

Short papers/Reports

5. Brain, musicality, and language aptitude: A complex interplay 

Dr. Sabrina Turker, Department of Linguistics & Teacher Education Centre, University of Vienna, Austria

Dr. Susanne Reiterer, Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

     Music and language are highly intertwined auditory phenomena that largely overlap on the behavioral and neural levels. While the link between the two has been widely explored on a general level, comparably few studies have addressed the relationship between musical skills and language aptitude, defined as an individual’s (partly innate) capacity for learning foreign languages. Behaviorally, past research has provided evidence that individuals’ musicality levels (expressed by singing, instrument playing and/or perceptive musical abilities) are significantly associated with their foreign language learning, particularly the acquisition of phonetic and phonological skills (e.g., pronunciation, speech imitation). On the neural level, both skills recruit a wide array of overlapping brain areas, which are also involved in cognition and memory. The neurobiology of language aptitude is an area ripe for investigation, since there has been only limited research establishing neurofunctional and neuroanatomical markers characteristic of speech imitation and overall language aptitude (e.g., in the left/right auditory cortex and left inferior parietal areas of the brain). Thus, as noted above, in this short review for ARAL the aim is to describe the most recent neuroscientific findings on the neurobiology of language aptitude, to discuss the complex interplay between language aptitude and musicality from neural and behavioral perspectives and to briefly outline with the promise that future research in this area holds.

6. Language aptitude and working memory in relation to listening strategy instruction in an instructed SLA context

Şebnem Yalçın, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

Saime Kara Duman, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

Gülcan Erçetin, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

  The present study explores whether working memory (WM) and language aptitude (LA) explain any variance in L2 listening comprehension beyond baseline listening ability and explicit strategy-based listening instruction in an instructed EFL setting at tertiary level. In a pre-test/post-test non-randomized group design, the experimental group (N = 19) received explicit strategy-based listening instruction for 12 hours while the control group (N = 17) followed their regular L2 listening course syllabus. L2 listening comprehension was measured with an L2 academic listening comprehension test. WM measures (Foster et al., 2015) included an operation span task (OST), symmetry span task (SST) and a rotation span task (RST). LA was assessed with LLAMA (Meara, 2005). The findings revealed the effectiveness of strategy-based intervention for L2 listening comprehension. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that baseline listening scores explained 50 percent of variance in the post-listening scores while listening strategy instruction explained additional 15 percent of variance. On the other hand, WM and LA did not explain any variance in listening comprehension scores, suggesting that the two individual learner differences in the present study are not significant predictors of L2 listening comprehension

7. Working memory as a factor mediating explicit and implicit knowledge of English grammar

Prof. Mirosław Pawłak, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

Prof. Adriana Biedroń, Akademia Pomorska w Slupsku, Poland

This paper reports the findings of a study which investigated the relationship between phonological short-term memory (PSTM), working memory capacity (WMC), and the level of mastery of L2 grammar. Grammatical mastery was operationalized as the ability to produce and comprehend English passive voice with reference to explicit and implicit (or highly automatized) knowledge. Correlational analysis showed that PSTM was related to implicit productive knowledge while WMC was linked to explicit productive knowledge. However, regression analysis showed that those relationships were weak and mediated by overall mastery of target language grammar, operationalized as final grades in a grammar course.

---

Don’t miss the publication of the 2021 volume of Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, activate content alerts here.