The construct ‘awareness’ is undoubtedly one of the more difficult constructs to operationalize and measure in both second language acquisition (SLA) and non-SLA fields of research. Indeed, the multi-faceted nature of awareness is clearly exemplified in concepts that include perception, detection, and noticing, and also in type of learning or learning conditions (implicit, explicit, incidental, subliminal), type of consciousness (autonoetic, noetic, anoetic), and type of awareness (language, phenomenal, meta-cognitive, situational). Given this broad perspective, this article provides, from a psycholinguistic perspective, a timeline on the research that addresses the role of awareness or lack thereof in second/foreign language (L2) learning.
An early focus on the potential role of awareness in L2 learning can be found implicitly embedded in the two dominant theoretical approaches (and their pedagogical spinoffs) to language learning in the sixties: The behaviorist/empiricist (e.g., Skinner Reference Skinner1957, where there was no role for learner internal processes versus the rationalist/mentalist/nativist perspective of language learning (cf. Chomsky 1957, who underscored the innateness of learning that led to a role for learner internal processes). However, research on the role of awareness in the L2 learning process in the SLA field was arguably boosted by Krashen's (1981) Monitor Model (see timeline). The Monitor Model raised the issue of the role the construct ‘awareness’ (then termed ‘consciousness’) plays in the L2 learning/acquisition process, and distinguished between learning (with consciousness) and acquiring (without consciousness). Notable was a strict relationship between the learning/acquisition process (how L2 data were processed, that is, with or without awareness) and the learned/acquired product (type of knowledge attained after the learning process). This theoretical postulation subsequently led to early research in the eighties that subsumed the role of awareness within a pedagogical approach that addressed the effect of type of instruction (explicit/deductive versus implicit/inductive) (e.g., Shaffer Reference Shaffer1989; Scott Reference Scott1989) on subsequent performance.
In addition to Krashen's Monitor Model, the first half of the nineties witnessed three early theoretical underpinnings premised, in addition to the role of attention, on the role of awareness during the early stages of the learning process (Schmidt 1990Footnote *; Robinson 1995a*) or lack thereof (Tomlin & Villa 1994*). These theoretical underpinnings, in addition to challenging Krashen's Monitor Model, led to research probing the construct ‘awareness’ as an independent variable in research designs. Several studies began to empirically address awareness as either taking place concurrently (as a process), albeit from different methodological perspectives, or as performance or type of resultant knowledge (implicit or explicit) gleaned after the experimental exposure (as a product). Definitions of awareness as a process can be found, for example, in Tomlin & Villa's (1994)* restricted definition as ‘a particular state of mind in which an individual has undergone a specific subjective experience of some cognitive content or external stimulus’ (p. 193). Consequently, early studies addressing awareness as a process employed concurrent data elicitation procedures (online verbal reports or think aloud protocols) while other studies employed non-concurrent/retrospective questionnaires or recalls.
More recent studies have also begun to employ other concurrent procedures, including retrospective stimulated recall procedure and eye-tracking. Studies addressing awareness as a product employed several non-concurrent test batteries and measures (e.g., grammaticality judgment tasks, timed oral and written tests, offline verbal reports, subjective measures such as confident ratings, source attributions) to address the type of resultant knowledge (implicit or explicit) achieved after some kind of experimental exposure (incidental, implicit, explicit). The strict relationship between the process and product of learning/acquisition postulated by Krashen appears to have played some role in the data interpretation of many of these studies. More specificially, type of knowledge reported after some type of learning condition was viewed as evidence of the role awareness played during the L2 learning process. In addition, following Reber's (1967)* seminal study on implicit learning of artificial grammar in the field of cognitive psychology, several awareness studies began to employ semi-artificial language data instead of naturally occurring languages, raising doubts as to their applicability to naturally occurring languages.
Currently, while the beneficial role of awareness (operationalized and measured both concurrently as a process and non-concurrently as a product) in L2 learning has been well established, there remains controversy as to whether such a role is important. This is reflected in a methodological debate about whether the non-concurrent operationalization and measurement of the construct ‘awareness’ were indeed referring to the same construct, that is, whether the product accurately reflects the process.
Research is still needed on the role of awareness in the L2 learning process. Current research has yet to establish whether the construct ‘awareness’ is a dichotomy (aware vs. unaware) or occurs on a continuum (Leow 2000*; Hulstijn Reference Hulstijn and Rebuschat2015). Similarly, the potential co-occurrence of both implicit and explicit learning and knowledge during the L2 learning process remains to be empirically investigated (R. Ellis 2005*; N. C. Ellis Reference Ellis and Rebuschat2015). To address these theoretical gaps, future research in SLA may need to first situate this construct appropriately within an SLA theoretical framework that typically comprises several stages along the learning process: input > intake > internal system > output (Gass Reference Gass1997; VanPatten Reference VanPatten, VanPatten and Williams2007; Leow 2015*). Addressing phases before internalization of L2 data comprises the stage of construction, where L2 learners encode and/or decode incoming L2 data (process) while addressing the phase after the internal system comprises the stage of reconstruction where L2 learners report or demonstrate what they have learned (product).
To address the dichotomy issue, Leow (2015a*) proposed applying the same descriptors of very low levels of processing associated with implicit knowledge to implicit learning. Any behavioral performance that deviates from such descriptors may be coded as an indication that the threshold of awareness has been crossed at the construction stage. To address the potential interactive role played by both implicit and explicit learning and knowledge during the construction stage, concurrent data need to be coded to allow a more sensitive operationalization of the construct when levels of awareness are considered. Similarly, at reconstruction, measures need to be designed to gather data on whether L2 learners do possess lower levels of target grammatical rules that fail to attain the level of partial or full metalinguistic verbalization, as coded by offline verbal reports. This procedure may address the important appropriateness of categorizing participants to (a) aware or unaware status or (b) accessing implicit or explicit knowledge.
The aim of this timeline is to provide only a representative sample of the key theoretical underpinnings and studies that have addressed the construct ‘awareness’, viewed from both a process and product perspective, in L2 learning over the last three decades. The articles included in this timeline cover the following five recurring themes and each publication is classified according to the most relevant theme(s).
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A: Theoretical
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B: Empirical
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C: Methodological
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D: Process
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E: Product
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Graeme Porte and two anonymous reviewers for Language Teaching for constructive comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this research timeline.
Ronald P. Leow is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of Spanish Language Instruction in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University. His areas of expertise include language curriculum development, teacher education, instructed language learning, psycholinguistics, cognitive processes in language learning, research methodology, and computer assisted language learning (CALL). Professor Leow has published extensively in prestigious journals that include Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Learning, Applied Psycholinguistics, The Modern Language Journal, and Second Language Research. He has co-edited several books and his most recent one, A psycholinguistic approach to technology and language learning (de Gruyter Mouton), appeared in 2016 while his single-authored book, Explicit learning in the L2 Classroom: A student-centered approach (Routledge), appeared in 2015.
Lucia Donatelli is a third year Ph.D. student in the Spanish Linguistics program at Georgetown University. She holds an M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a B.A. in Hispanic Literature and Culture from Brown University. Lucia's areas of interest include psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism, the syntax/semantics interface, and language education.
