Variationist Approaches in SLA
Dennis R. Preston
Michigan State University

Beginning in the 1970s, students of SLA were attracted to the model of sociolinguistic research known as “variationist.” In those days, the notion of the “variable rule” was one closely tied to generativist formalizations and shared with them the hope that they modeled cognitive reality. Such a hope made that variety of sociolinguistics appealing to SLA researchers, whose focus has always been more psycho- than socio-linguistically oriented. Over the years, the psycholinguistic import of variable rules faded, and the statistical program “VARBRUL” came to be widely utilized as a device to determine the influences of various factors (linguistic and nonlinguistic) in the selection of an available linguistic form. This mode of research continued to attract SLA researchers, since many believed that a multiplicity of factors influenced the choice a learner might make from the repertoire of his or her developing interlanguage and that the probabilities associated with these various influences could characterize the development itself. SLA researchers whose main interest was not sociolinguistic even suggested that variation was the key to learning. During this same period, the creole continuum and implicational scales were also invoked as explanatory devices in SLA, but that possibility is not explored in this presentation. Most recently variationists have tried to revive cognitive models of variation in developing interlanguages and have suggested once again that the influences on selection from a repertoire of items is a profitable way to characterize learners of various sorts and at various stages.

Bio-statement

Dennis R. Preston is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and has been visiting professor at Hawaii, Arizona, and Michigan and a Fulbright Senior Researcher in Poland and Brazil. He co-directed the 1990 TESOL Institute and directed the 2003 Linguistic Society of America Institute. He was President of the American Dialect Society and served on its Executive Board as well as those of the International Conference on Methods in Dialectology and, currently, the Linguistic Society of America. He has served on the editorial boards and as a reader for numerous journals and as a consultant for publishers, granting agencies, and nonacademic as well as academic institutions. His work focuses on sociolinguistics and dialectology, and he is perhaps best known for the revitalization of folk linguistics and attempts to provide variationist accounts of second language acquisition. He has directed four recent NSF grants, two in folk linguistics and one completed and one ongoing in language variation and change. His most recent book-length publications are, with Daniel Long, A Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology, Volume II (2002), Needed Research in American Dialects (2003), and, with Brian Joseph and Carol G. Preston, Linguistic diversity in Michigan and Ohio (2005). He is a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic in 2004. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award and the Paul Varg Alumni Award of the College of Arts and Letters, both at Michigan State University.

Please direct questions to aaal2007@indiana.edu  *  Costa Mesa, California  *  April 21-24, 2007