Finally, several researchers apply the concept of deficit thinking in their analyses without explicitly defining it (Cooper, Cooper, & Baker, 2016 Corcoran, 2015 Hardy & Woodcock, 2015 Humphries, 2013). Second, a handful of researchers cite similar definitions of deficit thinking and highlight the ways in which these views blame the victim but then go on to suggest that deficit thinking might be sufficiently characterized by discussion of “unfavorable conditions,” the existence of “environmental” challenges, or racial disparities in educational outcomes (Banks, 2014 Poon et al., 2016). First, the vast majority of scholars engaging deficit thinking in their work define it as a blame the victim way of thinking that attribute students’ failures to their individual, family, or community traits, and utilize this definition throughout their analyses (Bruton & Robles-Piña, 2009 McKay & Devlin, 2016 Haggis, 2006 Solórzano & Yosso, 2001 Valencia, 1997, 2010 Weiner, 2003). Over the last decade, scholars have utilized the concept of deficit thinking in at least three different ways, contributing to growing confusion and misinterpretation within this literature. Overall, these perspectives serve as tools that maintain hegemonic systems and, in doing so, fail to place accountability with oppressive structures, policies, and practices within educational settings. In general, deficit thinking holds students from historically oppressed populations responsible for the challenges and inequalities that they face (Bruton & Robles-Piña, 2009 Haggis, 2006 McKay & Devlin, 2016 Solórzano & Yosso, 2001 Valencia, 1997, 2010 Weiner, 2003). For one thing, the behaviorist notion of transfer often implies the extinction of earlier habits, whereas the acquisition of a second language need not (and normally does not) lead to any replacement of the learner's primary language.Although deficit thinking has existed for well over a century (Menchaca, 1997), scholarly analyses of it have become increasingly common over the last two decades. ![]() A discussion of contrastive analysis and behaviorism by Carroll (1968) makes clear that the behaviorist notion of transfer is quite different from the notion of native language influence (cf. Transfer is not simply a consequence of habit formation. However, before any observations are made about what transfer is (or at least seems to be), some observations about what transfer is not are appropriate. In this section, a definition of the term transfer will be presented, along with a critique of that definition. Some scholars have advocated abandoning the term or using it only in highly restricted ways (e.g., Corder 1983 Kellerman and Sharwood Smith 1986), yet many others continue to use it without restriction. The issue of cross-linguistic influence is controversial with or without the term, but the long-standing use of transfer has itself led to differences of opinion. ![]() The terminology used to study language reflects – and sometimes creates – vexing problems, and in the terminology of second language research, the term transfer is as problematic as any. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to review them all, but problems in four areas have an especially important bearing on the discussion in subsequent chapters: definition, comparison, prediction, and generalization. There are many theoretical and practical problems that attend the study of transfer.
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