Sociolinguistic Approaches to

Second Language Acquisition

Research—1997–2007
ELAINE TARONE
619 Heller Hall
CARLA
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Email: etarone@umn.edu

This article discusses sociolinguistically oriented research on second language acquisition

(SLA) in the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997). Over the last 10 years, substantial progress
has been made in developing a model of the sociolinguistic processes that inform second lan-
guage acquisition. This model is supported by empirical evidence on the relationship between
social context and second language use and acquisition, which shows that learners’ second
language (L2) input and processing of L2 input in social settings are socially mediated, that
social and linguistic context affect linguistic use, choice, and development, and that learners
intentionally assert social identities through their L2 in communicating in social contexts. A
strength of sociolinguistically oriented SLA research is its strong focus on linguistic outcomes,
tracking the impact of contextual factors in producing those outcomes. Preston (2000, 2002)
and Fasold and Preston (2006) provided a central sociolinguistic framework to integrate re-
search on the interaction of social factors and cognitive processes in producing interlanguage,
which is a variable linguistic system.

IN 1997, FIRTH AND WAGNER ARGUED THAT
second language acquisition (SLA) research was
too dominated by psycholinguistic thinking and
called for research that made sense in the so-
cially embedded experiences of second language
(L2) speakers in their own worlds. In this article,
I will review the construction of SLA theory in
the decade following Firth and Wagner, focusing
on theory that takes a sociolinguistic orientation1
to SLA. It will be argued that a sociolinguistic
approach should be central to socially oriented
SLA research. A sociolinguistic approach goes a
long way toward establishing the balance between
the cognitive and the social that Firth and Wag-
ner called for. However, a sociolinguistic approach
also adds something that Firth and Wagner’s ap-
proach risks losing—a focus on the linguistic out-
comes of the process. Sociolinguistic approaches
allow us to study the impact of social factors on
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0026-7902/07/837–848 $1.50/0


C 2007 The Modern Language Journal
cognitive processes as these result in the acquisi-
tion of a new linguistic system.
Sociolinguistics is a well-established branch of
linguistics that focuses on the study of the impact
of society, including the impact of social context,
on the way language is used. A sociolinguistic ap-
proach to SLA is one that studies the relationship
between such social contextual variables as inter-
locutor, topic, or task and the formal features of
learner language or interlanguage2 (IL) produc-
tion. There is a long record of research on social
causes of IL variation dating back to the beginning
of IL study (see Selinker & Douglas, 1985; Tarone,
1979, 1988, 2000; Tarone & Parrish, 1988), though
it is interesting that Firth and Wagner (1997) did
not choose to cite that strand of SLA research in
their article. An important aspect of sociolinguis-
tic SLA work examines the interdependence be-
tween the social contexts in which IL is used and
the cognitive processes of the learner that affect
learner language variation and change, leading to
acquisition. The sociolinguistic strand of research
on SLA has been marginalized by some (cf. Gregg,
838
1990) and has not been cited by other researchers,
but nevertheless has generated a considerable and
growing body of data on the relationship between
social context and L2 use and acquisition. In the
next section, I will briefly summarize sociolinguis-
tic work on SLA prior to 1997, and then I will
describe in more detail the growth of this field
of study in the decade since Firth and Wagner’s
article appeared.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
BEFORE 1997
In the decades preceding Firth and Wagner’s
(1997) article, sociolinguistically oriented SLA re-
search (work on IL variation) explored the ways
in which the linguistic structure of learner lan-
guage was systematically affected by specific as-
pects of social context. The results of this research
(which I summarized in Tarone, 1988) clearly
showed that specific phonological, morphologi-
cal, and syntactic variables in the linguistic sys-
tem of IL could change markedly in relation to
social contextual changes such as shifts in inter-
locutor, task, or topic. Some of the earliest of
these studies of learner language include those
by Dickerson (1975), Beebe (1980), and Tarone
and Parrish (1988). This research showed, for ex-
ample, that L2 phonology shifted in response to
changes in interlocutor or task. Variationist re-
search also showed that L2 learners produced a
significantly more fluent and accurate IL in some
social contexts than in others. International teach-
ing assistants, for example, were shown to be more
fluent and grammatical in lecturing on their aca-
demic field than when talking about an everyday
topic like favorite foods or bicycling (Selinker &
Douglas, 1985). Preston (1989) showed that theo-
retical work in SLA was deeply related to ongoing
research in sociolinguistics.
A major problem for researchers in this area,
from the beginning, has been sociocognitive, that
is, how to understand the psycholinguistic under-
pinnings of this variable speech performance. In
SLA research, the problem may be phrased this
way: Given that learner IL use is systematically
variable, how do we characterize what L2 learn-
ers know at any given time? If we can characterize
that knowledge, how do we describe the longitudi-
nal process of SLA? Several attempts were made to
address the problem (Beebe & Giles, 1984; Beebe
& Zuengler, 1983; R. Ellis, 1985; Gregg, 1990; Pre-
ston, 1989, 1996; Tarone, 1983, 1990). Beebe and
Giles (1984) proposed a theoretical model pre-
dicting that learners’ linguistic systems (their ILs)
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
would converge in form to resemble the forms
produced by some interlocutors or diverge from
those produced by other interlocutors, depend-
ing on issues of learner identity. Selinker and Dou-
glas (1985) suggested that adult L2 learners set up
their own internally created discourse domains,
based on their perceptions of social settings that
call for particular language forms and structures.
Because of this, learners produce ILs with differ-
ent linguistic characteristics when speaking in dif-
ferent discourse domains. Key cognitive processes
such as fossilization were claimed to be more
prominent for a given learner in one discourse
domain than in another. Failure to acquire an L2
variety needed for a particular discourse domain
had even been shown to cause learners to switch
to their first language (L1). Tarone and Swain
(1995) claimed that adolescents in French immer-
sion classroom settings needed a vernacular vari-
ety of the L2 that their adult teachers could not
provide in such settings, and so switched to their
L1 English vernacular when talking to each other
for social purposes. One such learner, Suzannah,
put it this way:
when . . . [we] get older. . . . we start speaking in a way
that they don’t teach us, in French, how to speak. So I
don’t know if it’s slang or just the way kids speak. . . . I
speak differently to my friends than I do to my parents.
It’s almost a whole different language, and . . . they
don’t teach us how to speak [French] that way.
(p. 172)
Thus, IL and the cognitive processes underlying
its development were viewed by some SLA re-
searchers as profoundly affected by social factors.
Nevertheless, Gregg (1990) found it impossible
to reconcile the generative distinction between
competence and performance with my (Tarone,
1983) and R. Ellis’s (1985) proposition that L2
learners’ linguistic knowledge was variable and
probabilistic. In generative linguistics, compe-
tence is categorical, not variable, so Gregg found
untenable the idea that variable rules3 might have
psychological reality of any kind in the mind of
the learner. He asked: “Do we really want to claim
that a speaker knows, whether consciously or un-
consciously, the probabilities for the production
of a specific form?” (p. 372). In Gregg’s view,
variation in grammatical production in differ-
ent social contexts could only be a characteristic
of language performance; variation had nothing
to do with language knowledge, or competence.
Many of the researchers who reacted negatively to
Firth and Wagner’s (1997) ideas held similar views
about the distinction between competence and
performance.
Elaine Tarone
Such views about the absolute separation of per-
formance from competence were not and are not
universally held. Indeed, the year before Firth and
Wagner’s (1997) article was published, assump-
tions about the distinction between competence
and performance for L2 learners were questioned
in a collection of articles edited by Brown, Malmk-
jaer, and Williams (1996). The linguistic schol-
ars in this volume proposed different models of
learner knowledge that all assumed integration
between competence and performance. Among
them, V. J. Cook (1996) proposed that in SLA,
the target for acquisition is multicompetence, not a
native-speaker competence that is impossible by
definition:
The goal of L2 acquisition should be seen as some-
thing other than monolingual native competence.
The term ‘multi-competence’ has been introduced
to cover knowledge of more than one language in the
same mind. . . . There is no assumption that this knowl-
edge corresponds to a monolingual native speaker’s
in either L1 or L2; this is a matter for empirical re-
search. . . . The starting point should be what L2 learn-
ers are like in their own right rather than how they
fail to reach standards set by people that they are not
by definition. (p. 64)
So as we see, even as Firth and Wagner called for
a broader theory of SLA, that is, one that would
move beyond a narrow focus on cognition alone
to explore the impact of social context on the
process of SLA, several strands of SLA research
were doing just that.
1997–2007: DEVELOPMENT OF A
SOCIOLINGUISTIC THEORY OF SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Long ’s Response to Firth and Wagner
One of the strongest and most immediate re-
actions to Firth and Wagner (1997) came from
Long (1997, 1998), whose view was that the sole
object of study in SLA research should be the cog-
nitive processes used by the learner to acquire L2s.
He argued that social context has no impact on
the learner’s cognitive processes, and therefore,
that issues of social context fall outside the scope
of SLA theory. The following is one of his more
provocative statements on this position:
Remove a learner from the social setting, and the L2
grammar does not change or disappear. Change the
social setting altogether, e.g., from street to classroom,
or from a foreign to a second language environment,
and, as far as we know, the way the learner acquires
does not change much either, as suggested, e.g., by a
839
comparison of error types, developmental sequences,
processing constraints, and other aspects of the acqui-
sition process in and out of classrooms. (Long, 1998,
p. 93)
Many theories of L2 acquisition restrict their
scope to a greater or lesser extent to decontextual-
ized learner cognition in the way Long describes.
Such theories model the cognitive processes in
the brain of the L2 learner as it uses input in
the L2 to create a grammar. The different theo-
ries use slightly different metaphors to describe
the learner’s mental processes. For writers tak-
ing a generative orientation, like Gregg (1990),
competence and performance are completely dif-
ferent; variation in response to social context is
a feature of performance, but does not apply to
learner knowledge, or competence. Long’s state-
ment seems to present a view of the mind as equiv-
alent to a computer that processes L2 input, in-
corporates it into the grammar, and then uses it to
generate output. Just as my laptop computer is un-
affected by social context and processes my input
in exactly the same way no matter what the social
setting, whether I am in my office or in an air-
port, so the human brain, in Long’s view, should
be unaffected by social setting.
But is the human mind as impervious to social
context as a computer? A substantial body of re-
search shows that it is not. The L2 learner’s mind,
unlike my laptop computer, processes L2 data dif-
ferently in response to different social variables;
Long’s (1997, 1998) assertions are based on theo-
retical presuppositions, not on empirical data. In
my 2000 article, I described in some detail em-
pirical evidence that directly contradicted Long’s
contention that cognitive processes of SLA are un-
affected by social setting. The evidence showed,
for example, that social setting affects whether
L2 learners receive adjusted input or corrective
feedback (Bondevik, 1996; Varonis & Gass, 1985),
so adjusted input is not universally provided, as
Long claimed. L2 learners draw on different lan-
guages and aspects of their L2 knowledge in differ-
ent social settings, as shown statistically by Broner
(2001) in a VARBRUL analysis of fifth graders’
very fine-grained and nuanced shifts in choice of
language variety in response to specific interlocu-
tors. Finally, and most crucially, social setting af-
fects such cognitive factors as L2 learners’ process-
ing of corrective feedback (Kormos, 1999) and
their sequences of L2 development (Tarone &
Liu, 1995). Some of this evidence, first presented
in my (2000) article, and additional evidence re-
viewed by Lafford (2006), will be summarized
in the next section of this article in relation to
840
developments in a sociolinguistic theory of SLA
during the past decade.
A Sociolinguistic Model of Second Language
Acquisition
There is currently a good deal of interest in
models and theories of SLA that explicitly take
social context into account.4 These models and
theories view the learner as a social being whose
cognitive processing of the L2 is affected by so-
cial interactions and social relationships with oth-
ers, including those others who provide L2 input
and corrective feedback. One such theory is Vy-
gotskyian, as reviewed by Swain and Deters (this
issue). This theory has focused on the dynam-
ics of social scaffolding that support the produc-
tion of L2 lexical items or morphosyntactic items.
However, this approach has not documented the
long-term acquisition of L2 linguistic structures.
Another model is V. J. Cook’s (2006a, b) notion
of multicompetence. Although it has generated
a good deal of interest (e.g., Herdina & Jessner,
2002; Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2006), this model so far
has not been developed into a fully worked-out
theory of SLA. Yet another model is the interac-
tionist strand of SLA research which, although
it has focused primarily on cognitive processes of
SLA, has occasionally documented cases where so-
cial factors affected those processes (e.g., Varonis
& Gass, 1985). In another example, Lyster and
Mori (2006) showed that a classroom’s predom-
inant communicative orientation affected learn-
ers’ perception of corrective feedback.
What is the link between social factors and cog-
nition? We can find some answers in the field of
sociolinguistics. In 1984, for example, Bell showed
that the cognitive process of attention to language
form creates a link between the audience (partic-
ipants) and an individual’s style-shifting. Several
promising recent articles similarly explored the
link between social contextual factors and cogni-
tion in SLA. A crucial thread in this work is that
what matters is the learner’s internal perception
of such social factors as interlocutor and situa-
tional norm—or, “learners’ perceptions about the
type of behavior expected of them in communica-
tive and learning contexts” (Lafford, 2006, p. 4,
echoing the stance of Douglas, 2004, and Selinker
& Douglas, 1985). Batstone (2002) argued that
individuals orient differently to L2 input in com-
municative contexts than to L2 input in learning
contexts, and Lafford (2006) related this insight
to her research on L2 learning in study abroad
contexts (primarily communicative) as opposed
to classroom at-home settings (primarily learn-
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
ing). But how does the learner’s perception of
social factors affect acquisition of specific linguis-
tic forms over time? Here again, the field of so-
ciolinguistics, which focuses on the interaction of
social factors, attention, and linguistic form, is an
important resource for the field of SLA.
A recently developed sociolinguistic theory of
L2 acquisition that strives to integrate these fac-
tors appeared in works by Preston (2000, 2002),
and Fasold and Preston (2006). This theory pre-
sented a model of the grammars that exist in the
mind of the multilingual language learner, gram-
mars that are explicitly related to social and lin-
guistic context, and to time. Fasold and Preston’s
sociolinguistic model can help SLA researchers
interpret the growing body of empirical data on
sociolinguistic variation in IL use because it shows
how social context affects cognition in L2 pro-
cessing, and how this influence on cognition, in
turn, affects the learner’s acquisition of specific
linguistic forms to create the IL grammar. I will
discuss this model in some detail in relation to
SLA research in related areas.
Variability in the Grammars
Fasold and Preston’s (2006) sociolinguistic
model of the bilingual speaker-hearer shows two
grammars in the mind, Grammar 1 and Grammar
2. Grammar 1 is that of the L1, and Grammar 2
is that of an additional language, added in adult-
hood. Each of these grammars contains forms that
require the speaker to select one of two or more
possible variants: for example, (a) Nobody came to
my party, or (b) Didn’t nobody come to my party. The
selection of one of these variant native language
forms is probabilistically related to other factors,
described in the model as Level 1, 2, or 3 factors:
factors of social context, linguistic context, and
time, respectively.
The reader will recall that Gregg (1990) ob-
jected to the idea that a speaker might know the
probability for production of a form. In so doing,
he echoed an earlier objection to variable rules
by Bickerton (1971). However, we now know from
work by connectionist researchers, reviewed by N.
Ellis (2002), that the processing of language by the
human brain in fact involves “constant incessant
figuring” (p. 146). According to N. Ellis, language
processing is based on input frequency and proba-
bilistic knowledge, and language learners must be
sensitive to the frequency of language construc-
tions in all domains. Consistent with this claim is
Fasold and Preston’s (2006) argument for the psy-
cholinguistic plausibility of probability weighting
of forms in mental grammars, a weighting that
Elaine Tarone
is assigned by this kind of unconscious “constant
figuring” of associations among forms, functions,
and social factors. Preston (2002) stated specifi-
cally that variation in SLA:
ought to be considered from the point of view of
a probabilistic device, one applied each time a vari-
ant is selected. For a two-way variable, a speaker . . . is
equipped with a coin, the two sides of which rep-
resent the options for that variable; it is flipped be-
fore the product appears. . . . A great deal of sociolin-
guistic research has shown that social factors influ-
ence the probability of “form selection”—the result
of “unfair coin” tosses, and checks of the actual per-
formance of individuals (where data are sufficient)
have shown that such statistical modeling is accurate
(e.g., Macaulay, 1978). Such a model is psycholinguis-
tically plausible and, I believe, shows how Bickerton’s
objection to variability may be set aside. (p. 143)
In 2002, I pointed out the similarity between this
sociolinguistic model5 and N. Ellis’s (2002) con-
nectionist model of SLA (Tarone, 2002). Both
N. Ellis and Preston (2002) viewed learners’ lan-
guage knowledge as both implicit and probabilis-
tic; both stated that learners’ own introspections
do not provide an accurate picture of their own
language processing.6 N. Ellis concluded the fol-
lowing on the basis of connectionist research:
“grammatical representations must have variable
strengths reflective of their frequency and con-
nections must similarly be variable in weight”
(p. 163). So, it now appears that Gregg’s (1990)
objections were misguided. Variability in the
weights of grammatical representations and their
connections with other grammatical and social
representations in the brain of the L2 learner are
psychologically plausible.
Let us now turn to an examination of the factors
that weight the choices between variants of gram-
matical forms. In Grammar 1 and Grammar 2 of
the sociolinguistic model, there are three causes
for IL variation: causes related to social context,
to linguistic context, and to time.
Level 1: Variables of Social Context Cause
Interlanguage Variation
Level 1 of the sociolinguistic model predicts
variation that is caused by sociocultural factors
related to social context. Lafford’s (2006) list
of these sociocultural factors included the par-
ticipants (including the interlocutor and others
present), purpose of the communication, social
setting, and norms of interaction. So, for ex-
ample, the presence of my grandmother when
I am speaking might cause me to avoid using
841
nonstandard forms like ain’t and double nega-
tive constructions. Such sociocultural factors as
interlocutor affect the speaker’s choice of lin-
guistic variants, in this case grammar rule variant
(a) ain’t, or grammar rule variant (b) aren’t, in
Grammar 1.
Sociocultural variation occurs in both gram-
mars: Grammar 2 as well as Grammar 1. It even
conditions the speaker’s decision whether to se-
lect Grammar 1 or Grammar 2—to speak in the
L1 or the L2. Broner’s (2001) study clearly showed
that the choice of English (Grammar 1) or Span-
ish (Grammar 2) in a fifth grade immersion class-
room depended in large part on whom her par-
ticipants were addressing. Presence of the teacher
caused 100% Spanish L2 use. Presence of a par-
ticular peer might cause a student to use English
33% of the time. Within Grammar 2, selection
of one or another variant is conditioned by so-
cial context—again, most strongly by the nature
of the interlocutor. Beebe (1977, 1980) showed
that Thai speakers used more Thai phonological
variants in their English L2 speech when speaking
with Thai interlocutors. Similarly, Tarone and Liu
(1995) showed that Bob, a Chinese boy acquiring
English L2 in Australia, used different variants of
questions depending on whom he was talking to
and where. He used Stage 5 questions with a fam-
ily friend at home for over 3 months, while he was
using Stage 4 questions with his peers at school
and only Stage 3 questions with his teacher in
class.
Beebe and Giles (1984) related sociocultural
variation to learner cognition through speech ac-
commodation theory, accounting for speakers’
convergence to, and divergence from, the speech
patterns of interlocutors. According to speech
accommodation theory, both convergence and
divergence constitute strategies of identification
with the communicative norms of some reference
group, either present or absent at the time of
speaking. In other words, L2 learners try to sound
like people with whom they identify when they
interact with them; in the same way, they try to
sound different from people they do not iden-
tify with when interacting with them. Rampton7
(1995) provided a good example of divergence
when he described Pakistani students’ increased
use of me no, a Pakistani English variant of I don’t
that was stigmatized by their non-Pakistani English
teacher, when addressing her.
In the decade since 1997, there has been in-
creased interest in sociocultural theory to explain
key aspects of SLA. Sociocultural researchers like
Lantolf (2000) have focused on Vygotskyian so-
ciocultural theory, but Bakhtinian sociocultural
842
theory goes a long way toward explaining IL
variation of the sort we have examined here.
Bakhtin (1929/1984) wrote a good deal about
multilinguals’ internalization of what he called
different voices, or speaking styles. He described
double voicing , in which a speaker intentionally
produces another person’s discourse. According
to Bakhtin, it is crucial that we do not learn lan-
guage from dictionaries, but from people, and
that the language varieties we learn from people
always retain elements of the personalities and
values of those people. When the language vari-
eties of others are internalized by the learner, they
retain elements of otherness in the mind of the
learner; they are not absorbed into a single voice,
but rather exist in the mind of the learner as a
kind of chorus of different voices that may be in-
voked in turn as the learner has need of them.
These voices retain the social values of their orig-
inal speakers, and when the learner uses those
voices, the social characteristics and values of each
speaker are also displayed. Broner and Tarone
(2001) provided many examples of fifth graders
in a Spanish immersion classroom producing dif-
ferent voices in both English and Spanish as they
engaged in language play with their classmates.
Even with the same interlocutor, they might speak
first in one voice and then in another. In this way,
their speech production was variable in drawing
on a range of socially stereotyped voices formed
in earlier interactions with others.
Fasold and Preston’s (2006) sociolinguistic
model allows for and predicts double voicing of
the sort Bakhtin (1929/1984) described, that is,
the same kind of ironic and deliberate use of non-
standard L2 forms that Rampton (1995) noted.
(In this, it pursues a direction suggested by Firth
and Wagner in 1997.) The sociolinguistic model
predicts that the speaker’s intention can activate
the sociocultural selection device; in other words,
one can intentionally produce in other settings a
linguistic style that originated as a social response
to a particular interlocutor or social setting. In
this aspect of his model, Preston (2000) seemed
to be describing double voicing when he stated:
“The ‘intention’ of a speaker may interact with
his or her socio-cultural identity. That is, one may
choose to ‘perform’ (or perform to a greater or
lesser extent) an available socio-cultural identity”
(p. 27).
In the following example (from Broner &
Tarone, 2001), we see the participant Leonard
producing exactly the same L2 utterance—no
hay recreo ‘There’s no recess’—in two different
voices when addressing the same audience; first
he speaks in his student voice or role, and then
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
he uses the voice of a villain (I can almost see
him twirling his moustache, the recess-hating
villain!):
Teacher: no hay recreo. (There’s no recess.)
Leonard: no hay recreo. (There’s no recess.)
Girl: no hay recreo ahora. (There’s no
recess now.)
Leonard: ahora? . . . ahora no hay recreo heh
heh heh (villainous voice)
It is clearly Leonard’s creative volition that leads
him to use his villainous voice here in his L2;
he does it for fun and for social effect. It could
even be argued that he is trying out new identi-
ties here, through the medium of a repertoire of
L2 varieties, or voices, that he has internalized in
relation to specified interlocutors and social set-
tings. (For other examples of a Bakhtinian socio-
cultural approach to language play by L2 learn-
ers, see G. Cook, 2000; Ohta, 1998.) A growing
amount of empirical evidence has been produced
in the last decade that shows Level 1 variation,
that is, the impact of social factors such as inter-
locutor, task, purpose, interactional norms, and
setting on L2 learners’ use of variable forms of
Grammar 2.
Social context affects not just learners’ speech
production, but also their perception of L2 input.
Evidence shows, for example, that social context
affects learners’ noticing of corrective feedback
on their errors. Kormos (1999) reviewed research
on monitoring and self-repair, and concluded that
social contextual factors such as the “accuracy de-
mand of the situation” (p. 324) had an impact
on L2 learners’ cognitive process of error detec-
tion.8 Similarly, Nicholas, Lightbown, and Spada
(2001) reviewed research on learners’ noticing
of recasts, or implicit negative feedback on their
errors, and in their synthesis of that research con-
cluded that learners’ noticing of this feedback
varies from one social context to another. A re-
cent study documenting the effect of classroom
context on learner noticing of recasts was done
by Lyster and Mori (2006), who coined the term
counterbalance hypothesis to specify the classroom
factors that affect learner noticing of different
kinds of L2 corrective feedback.
Other studies have produced evidence of the
impact of social context on L2 use and devel-
opment. Rehner, Mougeon, and Nadasdi (2003)
showed that learners do not acquire vernacu-
lar variants of French L2 unless they have con-
tact with French L1 speakers. Exploring the im-
pact of learning context on SLA, Collentine
and Freed (2004) edited a collection of papers,
which included one by Collentine (2004), whose
Elaine Tarone
multivariate analysis of study abroad versus
at-home L2 learners documented very specific
consequences for the learners’ morphosyntactic
and lexical development. After one semester, at-
home students developed more discrete gram-
matical and lexical features than did the study
abroad students, but the study abroad students
developed better oral narrative ability and pro-
duced more semantically dense language than
their at-home peers. In the same volume, Sega-
lowitz and Freed (2004) found that the study
abroad context produced significant effects on
learners’ oral fluency and overall proficiency; and
Lafford (2004) showed that study abroad stu-
dents used fewer communication strategies than
at-home classroom learners. In a comprehensive
review of research on study abroad versus at-home
classroom SLA, Lafford (2006) argued that it is
not the social settings themselves, but the L2
learners’ perceptions of social variables like inter-
locutor and setting that account for differences in
linguistic performance and development in these
different social settings.9
It is important to recognize the growing body
of empirical evidence that integrates IL variation
with the expression of sociocultural identity by L2
learners. For example, Gatbonton, Trofimovich,
and Magid (2005) showed that the accuracy of
English L2 pronunciation by Chinese and Franco-
phone learners in Canada was directly related to
their own perceived ethnic group affiliation, and,
furthermore, that the learners treated one an-
other’s level of pronunciation accuracy as an indi-
cator of their degree of ethnic affiliation. In their
research synthesis, Rehner et al.(2003)10 reported
studies by Knaus and Nadasdi (2001) and Rehner
and Mougeon (1999) showing that the learners’
social class influenced the degree to which they
use formal or standard variants of French L2 (e.g.,
être vs. avoir , and ne retention). This sort of careful
sociolinguistic research provides data that supple-
ment and support work done within less quantita-
tively oriented sociocultural theory. Sociocultural
and interactionist research does not show the way
such social variables as social class and the social
roles of interlocutors affect the acquisition of spe-
cific linguistic variables; sociolinguistic research
does, however, and so it can enhance our under-
standing of SLA.
Level 2: Linguistic Context Causes
Interlanguage Variation
Level 2 of the sociolinguistic model predicts
that the presence of other language forms in the
linguistic context may also cause the speaker to
favor one variant of a language form over an-
843
other. Here, the choice between the two forms is
weighted by such elements in the accompanying
linguistic context as stress placement and word-
final position, or such cognitive facts as cognitive
status of a referential form. Therefore, in Gram-
mar 1 English, word-initial position causes speak-
ers to aspirate voiceless consonants, whereas word-
medial or final position disfavors aspiration of the
same consonants. Variation related to linguistic
context occurs in both Grammar 1 and Grammar
2. A sociolinguistic model of variation in SLA has
considerable power in being able to account not
just for the impact of social factors (factors that
are given more space in this article because of the
importance accorded to them by Firth & Wagner,
1997), but also for the impact of linguistic vari-
ables, on grammatical or phonological use and
acquisition of L2. This breadth of scope, coupled
with its ability to deal systematically with specific
linguistic outcomes, makes it uniquely capable of
integrating several levels of analysis in a single
model of SLA.
Examples of Level 2 variation (variation due to
linguistic context) in Grammar 2 are provided in
numerous studies published over the last decade.
Space permits reference to only a few here. An
example of transfer of Level 2 variation from L1
into Spanish L2 occurred when English-speaking
learners of Spanish L2 aspirated voiceless conso-
nants in initial word position, but not in medial
or final position (Diaz-Campos, 2004). Numerous
studies on English speakers’ acquisition of French
L2 completed over the last decade were synthe-
sized by Rehner et al. (2003) and documented
many instances of the impact of linguistic con-
text on IL variation. Geeslin (2000) showed the
different linguistic factors that favor use of ser
versus estar by Spanish L2 learners at different
proficiency levels. Geeslin (2003) extended this
work with a statistical model indicating the degree
to which the presence of a particular linguistic
feature could predict use of estar by two differ-
ent groups of L2 learners. Geeslin and Guijarro-
Fuentes (2006) used this model to identify the
subtle linguistic features of the discourse context
that predicted copula choice by Portuguese speak-
ers acquiring Spanish L2. In short, there is sub-
stantial and very detailed empirical evidence of
Level 2 variation in learners’ Grammar 2, show-
ing that linguistic context systematically causes the
learner to select one IL variant over another.
Level 3: Relative Time of Acquisition Affects
Interlanguage Variation
Level 3 variation in Preston’s (2000, 2002) soci-
olinguistic model occurs when the factor of time
844
is added in. Time affects the degree to which
social and linguistic variables cause variation in
the linguistic systems of Grammar 1 and Gram-
mar 2. It does so in at least two ways. First, relative
time of acquisition affects the weighting of the
choices between two forms. The earliest learned
forms are deepest and most automatic, and forms
learned later require more attention and con-
trol. Preston’s visual representation of the bilin-
gual’s grammars showed the depth of acquisition
of the different grammatical forms and the differ-
ent grammars by means of grey shading. Those
forms in Grammar 1 that are not as deeply in-
ternalized are in a shaded section of Grammar 1.
In Preston’s case, these represent language forms
such as more formal academic expressions (e.g.,
Had I known) that he acquired later in life, after he
had previously acquired less formal variant forms
(e.g., If I ’da known) as a child. The sociolinguis-
tic model predicts that language forms that are
shaded are not as deeply internalized as unshaded
forms, and so cannot be accessed as automatically;
they require more attention and control in their
production than forms that are not shaded. This
feature of the sociolinguistic model is particularly
attractive in that it captures the well-attested evi-
dence that some varieties or languages known by
a speaker are more accessible and automatic in
production than others.
Another way to think about Level 3, or time
variation, is that it predicts the process by which
a speaker’s IL changes over time. A sociolinguis-
tic model of SLA predicts two kinds of change:
change from above, in which new forms are ex-
plicitly learned, typically in school settings, and
change from below, in which new forms are
implicitly internalized, typically in informal so-
cial settings (Preston, 1989, pp. 143–144; Tarone,
2007c), Longitudinal studies of SLA should doc-
ument both kinds of change.
In 1998, Long stated that there was only one
piece of evidence that social context might af-
fect the cognitive processes and outcomes of SLA.
This evidence was Tarone and Liu’s (1995) re-
port of Liu’s (1991) longitudinal study of “Bob,”
a 5-year old Chinese boy learning English L2 in
Australia. In this case, social context was shown to
cause changes in both the rate and the (suppos-
edly universal) route of the learner’s acquisition
of L2 questions.
Liu (1991) audiotaped Bob over a period of
2 years in three social settings, which were de-
fined primarily in terms of his interlocutor: at
home playing with the researcher, in desk-work
at school with peers, and at school interacting
with the teacher.11 Bob’s stages of acquisition
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
of English questions (Meisel, Clahsen, & Piene-
mann, 1981; Pienemann & Johnston, 1987) were
related to these three social settings: almost ev-
ery new stage of question first appeared at home,
then at deskwork, and last with the teacher. Thus,
the rate of acquisition of the L2 appeared to be
fastest in the at-home setting. This is a classic case
of “change from below,” or implicit SLA. (Tarone,
2007c)
If Bob’s only social setting for English use had
been in interactions with his teacher, his progress
in acquiring English as an L2 would apparently
have been much slower. But even more important
than its impact on the rate of acquisition was the
impact of social setting on the route of Bob’s ques-
tion acquisition: that is, social setting affected the
order of acquisition. Bob appeared to acquire En-
glish questions in a different order in different so-
cial settings. This was a particularly startling find-
ing in view of Pienemann and Johnston’s (1987)
claim that question stages must always be acquired
in a set order, from Stage 1 through 5. But for Bob,
Stage 4 and 5 questions appeared at home in Ses-
sions 23 and 24, before Stage 3 questions. Stage
3 questions did not appear until Session 36, and
then they appeared in a different social setting:
in desk-work with peers. Such findings provide a
particularly strong counterargument to claims by
Long (1998) and others that social setting is irrel-
evant, that it has no impact on L2 acquisition over
time. Clearly, something in these social settings
affected Bob’s cognitive processing and internal-
ization of new L2 rules to such an extent that
he acquired them out of their so-called universal
order.
In a more recent Level 3 (time-related) longitu-
dinal sociolinguistic study of SLA, Lybeck (2002)
interviewed American sojourners in Norway twice,
once in the fall and again in the spring of the
same year, tracking both their social networks
(cf. Milroy, 1980) and their production of a set
of phonological features of Norwegian. Lybeck
found that participants who were members of
close-knit multiplex social networks of Norwe-
gians used linguistic features similar to those of
their group members, whereas learners whose so-
cial networks were open and uniplex developed
fewer native-like linguistic features. Lybeck cap-
tured one instance of change due to social con-
textual factors. One learner with very native-like
Norwegian phonology at Time 1 became alien-
ated from her social network in the target culture
over the course of the year. Her self-described so-
ciocultural identity and attitude toward the tar-
get culture changed during this period, and she
gave up trying to acculturate. By Time 2, her
Elaine Tarone
Norwegian phonology showed a dramatic drop in
native-likeness, with a more American variant of
the Norwegian R, and much lower global ratings
of her overall phonology.12 Thus, real changes
over time in a learner’s social support network
resulted in real changes over time in her IL
phonology.
Another promising area of study that can show
that the social context of learning affects acqui-
sition of specific L2 forms over time is research
on learner outcomes in study abroad programs,
as opposed to at-home classroom settings (see
Lafford, 2006). I would argue that the only real
way to produce counterevidence to claims that so-
cial context has no impact on development of IL
knowledge over time is to do longitudinal soci-
olinguistic studies such as those conducted by Liu
(1991) and Lybeck (2002). We need more studies
that track over an extended period of time the
development of specific L2 forms in the speech
of individual L2 learners as they regularly interact
with a set of interlocutors tied to clearly specified
social contexts. Ultimately, we will need sociolin-
guistic studies that tie social context to change in
the linguistic system of IL over time if we are truly
to refute the assertion that acquisition and social
context are unrelated.
CONCLUSION
In the decade since Firth and Wagner (1997)
called for better balance between the cogni-
tive and the social in SLA research, substantial
progress has been made in developing models of
L2 acquisition that document the impact of social
context on the cognitive processes presumed to
underlie SLA. In this article, I have presented em-
pirical evidence to show the relationship between
social context and L2 use. This evidence provides
support for the view that L2 use is not just about
cognition in a vacuum. Rather, learners’ L2 input
and processing of L2 input in social settings are
socially mediated; social and linguistic contexts
affect L2 linguistic use, choice, and development;
and learners intentionally assert social identities
through their L2 in communicating in social con-
text.
Nonetheless, the danger of too much focus on
social and cognitive factors is that we may lose
our focus on long-term linguistic consequences.
Although a number of SLA approaches explore
different aspects of the relationship among social
context, cognition, and L2 use, few of them have
shown in concrete terms how these factors affect
the learner’s acquisition of specific L2 linguistic
forms, rules, or systems.
845
In this article, I have argued that a sociolinguis-
tic approach to L2 acquisition research, guided by
a good sociolinguistic model of the mind of the
learner (Fasold & Preston, 2006; Preston 2000,
2002), can provide a useful framework to pull
together currently disparate areas of research,
and allow us to demonstrate consequences for ac-
quisition. According to a sociolinguistic model,
variation and change in specific elements of the
learner’s L2 linguistic knowledge are caused by
(a) social contextual factors such as interlocu-
tor, social setting, task, communicative purpose,
learner intention, role, and identity; (b) linguistic
contextual factors in the surrounding discourse;
and (c) time, that is, the time in the life of the
learner when the L2 item or grammar was ac-
quired relative to other linguistic items or gram-
mars, and the demonstration that the rate or
route of SLA can be altered over time by con-
textual factors favoring explicit and/or implicit
processes of acquisition. A sociolinguistic varia-
tionist model for the study of SLA can provide an
indispensable framework to focus SLA research
on the interaction of social factors and cognitive
processes as they produce the evolving, variable
linguistic system called interlanguage. Longitudi-
nal sociolinguistic studies are needed to produce
definitive empirical evidence that the develop-
ment of specific L2 forms in the speech of the
individual L2 learner can be profoundly affected
by the learner’s interaction with interlocutors in
specific social contexts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article has benefited from extensive and very
helpful comments and suggestions from Barbara Laf-
ford and two anonymous reviewers, as well as discussions
with Rod Ellis, Jim Lantolf, and others at the Confer-
ence on Social and Cognitive Aspects of Second Lan-
guage Learning and Teaching, University of Auckland,
April 2007. Any remaining errors and omissions are my
responsibility, not theirs. Additional evidence and argu-
ments in support of a sociolinguistic model of SLA are
set out in Tarone (2007a, 2007b, 2007c).
NOTES
1 This orientation has been referred to as variation-
ist because it explores the relationship between con-
textual variables (both social and linguistic contextual
variables) and variation in the form of learner language.
2 IL is the linguistic system evidenced when an adult
L2 learner attempts to express meaning in a secondary
language being learned (Selinker, 1972). It is interesting
846
that Firth and Wagner in 1997 attacked the notion of IL
as interpreted by Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), and
did not cite the original article by Selinker (e.g., Selinker
never said IL was a continuum between L1 and L2; he
stated that the goal of development might not be L2 as
used by native speakers at all).
3 A variable linguistic rule shows the probability of use
of a given linguistic form in the presence of a specific
social or linguistic variable.
4 There is this focus issue of The Modern Language Jour-
nal , of course. There is also the 2004 special issue of the
International Review of Applied Linguistics on variation in
the IL of advanced L2 learners (Mougeon & Dewaele,
2004), as well as the major Conference on Social and
Cognitive Aspects of Second Language Learning and
Teaching, The University of Auckland, New Zealand,
April 12–14, 2007, http://www.confer.co.nz/sociocog/,
which will result in a published volume of work on the
topic.
5 Atkinson (2002) also pointed out the merits of a
connectionist view of language cognition, though per-
haps not stressing so much its significance for models
of learner knowledge that accord some psychological
reality to variable rules.
6 It is interesting that connectionist accounts do not
distinguish competence and performance. The genera-
tive competence/performance distinction is essentially
incompatible with connectionist views of the mind.
7 Though Rampton’s (1995) work is praised by Firth
and Wagner (1997), it must be pointed out that Ramp-
ton’s work focused far more on synchronic social con-
textual and identity issues than on L2 acquisition.
Rampton’s research goal was apparently not to docu-
ment the factors that cause change in IL linguistic sys-
tems over time.
8 See similar findings by Carrier (1999).
9 This conclusion is certainly consistent with Selinker
and Douglas’s (1985) contention that the discourse do-
mains that generate L2 learners’ variable performance
are internally constructed by the learner.
10 See related sociolinguistic studies by Mougeon and
Rehner (2001), Mougeon and Dewaele (2004), and
Dewaele (2004a, 2004b).
11 Bob was taped for at least an hour in each data
collection session, as is standard in longitudinal studies
of language acquisition. After the first few months, he
produced a considerable amount of data in each ses-
sion that was then transcribed and analyzed. Liu (1991)
focused particularly on his acquisition of English ques-
tions.
12 It is interesting to compare Lybeck’s (2002) find-
ings on study abroad and IL phonology to those of Diaz-
Campos (2004), whose multivariate analysis revealed no
overall differences between the phonologies of study
abroad versus at-home classroom learners and only some
relationship between self-reported use of the L2 outside
of class and higher pronunciation scores. These differ-
ences could be the result of the fact that the two studies
used different measures of L2 use in the wider soci-
ety. Diaz-Campos (and others in the 2004 SSLA volume)
used a multiple choice language contact profile, whereas
The Modern Language Journal 91 (2007)
Lybeck used a more individuated social network analy-
sis. Perhaps because the social network analysis allows
us to correlate L2 use with specific interlocutors who
have specified functional relationships with the learner,
this kind of analysis may help us to zero in on the fac-
tors that foster development of IL phonology in study
abroad contexts.
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