What do we know about individuals who reach native-like levels in a foreign language?

 

Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver is a research-based catalogue of factors that would seem to predict ability to reach the highest level of foreign language proficiency and is based on common characteristics shared by more than 200 near-native speakers, identified by self-report, survey, and interviews by master testers.

Following up on previous posts, one of the motivational frameworks considered was vicarious motivation. This complex type of mixed motivation was reported by a subset of individuals who were married to a native speaker of their foreign language. Of the roughly 40% of the group with foreign spouses, slightly more than 1/3 described what might be called “vicarious motivation.” The external driver was a relative, and, on the surface, the motivation to learn the language well for the spouse or children would seem to be an extrinsic motivation, perhaps not all that unlike motivation that comes from a teacher or mentor. However, the goal was quite different. It was not to speak well to please the spouse directly, but rather, for the sake of the spouse or the child, to speak well enough not to be castigated, shunted aside, or misunderstood, or, on a positive note, to slip into the family without anyone feeling that there was an outsider or foreigner amidst them. One interviewee reported working hard to develop very good sociolinguistic competence because his French in-laws thought that he was uneducated and ill-mannered, which distressed his wife, until he had acquired the ability to tailor his language to their expectations. Another interviewee, married to a native speaker of English and living in the United States, reported spending hours of work and much money on accent reduction lessons so that her children, who grew up bilingual, would not be ashamed of her; it was their comments to her once they had entered school that motivated her to bring her English to a higher level. While the motivation in these two cases might appear to be integrative in nature, the same desire for acceptance was not extended to other members of the culture; it remained a motivation that was family-centered. In the first case, visits to France were only two weeks every other year; otherwise, there was no interaction at all with the French culture per se. In the second case, the desire was not for integration with their friends, in the same way that many parents modify non-linguistic behavior when around their children’s friends, not to become part of their group but to avoid embarrassing their own children. In fact, the second speaker did not care at all about what her peers at work thought about her accent. In this case, then, the family formed a very small community, motivating its foreign or second language speakers in ways that the greater linguistic community did not. In addition to the psychological aspects of motivation described here, there were purely survival aspects: for the family unit to survive, the non-native speaker had to be able to speak well enough to communicate daily needs and requirements, and the high level speakers of this study wanted also to be able to convey ideas and share values.

(We will report on more aspects of motivation and on other learner characteristics in future Thursday blog posts.)

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