SLA research was born of the science of linguistics, nurtured by a psycholinguistic approach primarily concerned with cognition, and more recently step-parented by sociolinguistic perspectives (Ellis, 1996: 1). Initially occupying itself with the characteristics and properties of learner language, it has moved towards including an examination of issues of affect, but in a sense it seems uncertain about how to proceed. And no wonder - the problem of the identity of the subject is both immeasurably problematic to perceive and perceptibly difficult to measure and analyse. And when we combine the problems of identity, perception, measurement and analysis with the idea of studying, not language as such, but rather silence within language, the difficulty becomes more daunting still. What exactly is lacking, and what can be done about it?
(p.28)
Might we perhaps consider silence s more than just a direct and exclusively linguistic consequence of either a concentration on - or a lack of - comprehension, as Dulay et al. (1982) and Gibbons (1985) would have it? Equally, might silence originate in or be a symptom of something other than, or additional to, the problem of incomplete access to the conventions of the target language, as Harder (1980) seems to suggest?
That is, might there be something at stake, more or other than the reduction of a linguistic role per se, in the process of second language acquisition?
Saville-Troike's (1988) discussion about the lack of interest in private speech within first language acquisition research resonates with my own belief that SLA research is, likewise, insufficiently curious about silence as a part of the second language learning process. Following the view of George Miller, articulated in his introduction to Ruth Weir's Language in the Crib (Weir, 1970: 15), Saville-Troike writes that:
the dominant conception of language learning as critically involving responses to the stimuli and reinforcements of a supportive environment had led a focus on mother-child dyadic interaction, and entailed the assumption that nothing 'interesting' was taking place when a child was alone, and in the dark. (Saville-Troike, 1988: 568)
Saville-Troike proceeds to extend this judgement to SLA reseaerch. Her reasoning bears quoting at some length:
While strictly behaviourist theories are no longer in vogue, the now-dominant conception of language learning as critically involving social/interpersonal interaction has left potentially important ... non-interactive phenomena generally out of researchers' awareness. Further, there has been a tendency in the second language learning field to equate overt production with active learning, and lack of overt production with passivity and disengagement. These conceptual perspectives ... have led to an unconscious assumption that nothing of significance was happening unless learners were talking to others. (Saville-Troike, 1988: 568-69)
As I have indicated, it is my view that 'something of significance' is indeed happening, even when learners are silent.
Granger, Colette A. (2004) Silence in Second Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
(pp. 28-30)
