Interlanguage

Earlier we noted that some researchers consider that the systematic development of learner language reflects a mental system of L2 knowledge. This system is often reffered to as interlanguage. To understand what is meant by interlanguage we need to briefly consider behaviourist learning theory and mentalist views of language learning.

    1.       Behaviourist Learning Theory

The dominant psychological theory of the 1950s and 1960s was behaviourist learning theory. According to this theory, language learning is like any other kind of learning in that it involves habit formation. Habits are formed when learners respond to stimuli in the environment and subsequently have their responses reinforced to that they are remembered. Thus, a habit is a stimulus-response connection.

    2.       A Mentalist Theory of Language Learning

In the 1970s a mentalist theory of first language (L1) acquisition emerged. According to this theory :

a.      Only human beings are capable of learning language.

b.  The human mind is equipped with a faculty for learning language, reffered to as a Language Acquisition Device.

c.      This faculty is the primary determinant of language acquisition.

d.      Input is needed, but only to ‘trigger’ the operation of the language acquisition device.

    3.       What is ‘interlanguage’?

The concept of interlanguage involves the following premises about L2 acquisition :

a.     The learner constructs a system of abstract linguistic rules which underlies comprehension and production of the L2.

b.   The learner’s grammar is permeable. That is, the grammar is open to influence from the outside and the inside.

c.   The learner’s grammar is transitional. Learners change their grammar from one time to another by adding rules, deleting rules, and restructuring the whole system.

d.    Some researchers have claimed that the systems learners construct contain variable rules. That is they argue that learners are likely to have competing rules at any one stage of development.

e.      Learners employ various learning strategies to develop their interlanguages.

f.       The learner’s grammar is likely to fossilize.

    4.       A Computational Model of L2 Acquisition

Figure 3.1 represents the basic computational metaphor that has grown out of ‘interlanguage’ and that informs much of SLA. The learner is exposed to input, which is processed in two stages. First, parts of it are attended to and taken into short-term memory. These are referred to as intake. Second, some of the intake is stored in long-term memory as L2 knowledge. The processes responsible for creating intake and L2 knowledge occur within the ‘black box’ of the learner’s mind where the learner’s interlanguage is constructed. Finally, L2 knowledge is used by the learner to produce spoken and written output (i.e. what we have called learner language).

 

The Nature of Learner Language

    1.       Errors and error analysis

There are good reasons for focusing on errors. First, they are a conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of ‘why do learners make errors?’ Second, it is useful for teachers to know what errors learners make. Third, paradoxically, it is possible that making errors may actually help learners  to learn when they self-correct the errors they make.

a.       Identifying errors

The first step in analysing learner errors is to identify them. We need to distinguish errors and mistakes. Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.

b.      Describing errors

Once all the errors have been identified, they can be described and classified into types. There are several ways of doing this. One  way is to classify errors into grammatical categories. Another way might be to try to identify general ways in which the learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances. Such ways include omission, misinformation, and misordering.

c.       Explaining errors

The identification and description of errors are preliminaries to the much more interesting task of trying to explain why they occur. Errors are, to a large extent, systematic and, to a certain extent, predictable. Errors are not only systematic; many of them are also universal. Of course, not all errors are universal. Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongues manifest the same linguistic property.

d.      Error evaluation

Where the purpose of the error analysis is to help learners learn an L2, there is a need to evaluate errors. Some errors, known as global errors, violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process. Other errors, known as local errors, affect only a single constituent in the sentence and are, perhaps, less likely to create any processing problems.

    2.       Developmental patterns

a.       The early stages of L2 acquisition

We can find out how a language is learned as a natural, untutored process by investigating what learners do when exposed to the L2 in communicative settings. When learners do begin to speak in the L2 their speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristics. One is the kind of formulaic chunks which we saw in the case studies. The second characteristic of early L2 speech is propositional simplification.

b.      The order of acquisition

To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers choose a number of grammatical structures to study (for example, progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s). They then collect samples of learner language and identify how accurately each feature is used by different learners.

c.       Sequence of acquisition

When learners acquire a grammatical structure they do so gradually, moving through a series of stages en route to acquiring the native-speaker rule. The acquisition of a particular grammatical structure, therefore, must be seen as a process involving transitional constructions.

d.      Some implications

The discovery of common patterns in the way in which learner language changes over time is one of the most important findings of SLA. The work on developmental patterns is important for another reason. It suggests that some linguistic features are inherently easier to learn than others.

    3.       Variability in learner language

Two important factors that account for the systematic nature of variability is linguistic context. In one context they use one form while in other contexts they use alternate forms. Another is the psycholinguistic context-whether learners have the opportunity to paln their production.

Introduction : Describing and Explaining L2 Acquisition

    1.       What is ‘second language acquisition’?

L2 acquisition can be defined as the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or outside of a classroom, and ‘Second Language Acquisition’ (SLA) as the study of this.

    2.       What are the goals of SLA?

One of the goals of SLA is the description of L2 acquisition. Another is explanation; identifying the external and internal factors that account for why learners acquire an L2 in the way they do. One of the external factors is the social milieu in which learning takes place. Social conditions influence the opportunities that learner have to hear and speak the language and the attitudes that they develop towards it. Another external factor is the input that learners receive, that is, the samples of language to which a learner is exposed.

A final set of internal factors explain why learners vary in the rate they learn an L2 and how successful they ultimately are. The goals of SLA are to describe how L2 acquisition proceeds and to explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others.

    3.       Two case studies

A case study is a detailed study of a learner’s acquisition of an L2. It is typically longitudinal, involving the collection of samples of the learner’s speech or writing over a period of time, sometimes years. The two case studies which we will now examine were both longitudinal. One is of an adult learner learning English in surroundings where it serves as means of daily communication and the other of two children learning English in a classroom.

a.       A case study of an adult learner

Wes was a thirty-three year-old artist, a native speaker of Japanese. He had had little formal instruction in English, having left school at fifteen. While he remained in Japan his contacts with native speakers were few and far between. It was only when he began to visit Hawaii, in connection with his work, that he had regular opportunities to use English. Wes, then, is an example of a ‘naturalistic’ learner- someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it.

b.      A case study of two child learners

It was an investigation of two child learners in a classroom context. Both were almost complete beginners in English at the beginning of the study. This study would find out how the two learners acquired the ability to perform requests for services and goods over the period of the study. By the end of the study, therefore, the two learner’s ability to use requests had grown considerably.

What do these case study show us? First, they raise a number of important methodological issues relating to how L2 acquisitiom should be studied. Second, they raise issues relating to the description of learner language. Third, they point to some of the problems researchers experience in trying to explain L2 acquisition.

    4.       Methodological issues

One issue has to do with what it is that needs to be described. Another issue concerns what it means to say that a learner has ‘acquired’ a feature of the target language. A third problem in trying to measure whether ‘acquisition’ has taken place concerns learners’ overuse of linguistic forms.

    5.       Issues in the description of learner language

One finding is that learners make errors of different kinds. Another finding is that L2 learners acquire a large number of formulaic chunks, which they use to perform communicative functions that are important to them and which contribute to the fluency of their unplanned speech. One of the most interesting issues raised by these case studies is whether learners acquire the language systematically.

    6.       Issues in the explanation of L2 acquisition

One is that learners follow a particular developmental pattern because their mental faculties are structured in such a way that this is the way they have to learn. Other explanations emphasize the importance of external as opposed to internal factors.