Psycholinguistic Aspects of Interlanguage

Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental structures and processes involved in the acquisition and use of language. The study of psycholinguistic aspects of L2 acquisition has been prominent in SLA and has given rise to many acquisition models. Here we will focus on a small number of major issues – L1 transfer, the role of consciousness, processing operations, and communication strategies.

    1.       L1 transfer

L1 transfer refers to the influence that the learner’s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2. This influence is apparent in a number of ways. First, the learner’s L1 is one of the sources of error in learner language. This influenceis referred to as negative transfer. However, in some cases,the learner’s L1 can facilitate L2 acquisition. For example, French learners of English are much likely to make errors of this kind :

The man whom I spoke to him is a milionaire.

than are Arabic learners becauseFrench does not permit resumptive pronouns (like ‘him’) in relative clauses whereas Arabic does. This type of effect is known as positive transfer. L1 transfer can also result in avoidance. These learners make fewer errors in relative clauses than Arabic learners of English but only because they rarely use them. Finally, L1 transfer may be reflected in the overuse of some forms.

It is clear, then, that transfer is governed by learners’ perceptions about what is transferable and by their stage of development. It follows that interlanguage development cannot constitute a restructuring continuum. That is, the starting point is not the learners’ L1, and learners do not proceed by replacing L1 rules with L2 rules. Rather they construct their own interim rules. However, they may well try to make use of their L1 knowledge along the way, but only when they believe it will help them in the learning task or when they have become sufficiently proficient in the L2 for transfer to be possible.

    2.       The role of consciousness in L2 acquisition

Richard Schmidt has pointed out that the term ‘consciousness’ is often used very loosely in SLA and argues that there is a need to standardize the concepts that underlie its use. For example, he distinguishes etwee consciousness as ‘attention’. ‘Intentionality’ refers to whether a learner makes a conscious and deliberate decision to learn some L2 knowledge. It contrasts with ‘incidental learning’, which takes place when learners pick up L2 knowledge through exposure. Schmidt argues that no matter whether learning is intentional or incidental, it involves conscious attention to features in the input.

    3.       Processing operations

a.       Operating principles

Operating principles provide a simple and attractive way of accounting for the properties of interlanguage. However, they have been criticized on a number of grounds. It is not clear how many principles are needed and the ones that have been advanced are not mutually exclusive. More important, perhaps, is the absence of any overarching theory to explain where the principles themselves come from.

b.      Processing constraints

The multidimensional model is a powerful theory of L2 acquisition in that it proposes mechanism to account for why learners follow a definite acquisitional route. However, the model has also been subject to considerable criticism. It has been ponted out that it is based on research into a fairly limited set of grammatical features. It is also not clear how variational features can be identified and, in fact, few examples have been provided, the most frequently mentioned being copula be. More seriously, the model provides no account of how or why the ‘blocks’ to developmental progress are removed. The metaphor of ‘blocks’ is interesting but remains rather undeveloped.

    4.       Communication strategies

Communication strategies constitute one of the processes responsible for learner errors. We might expect, therefore, that the choice of communication strategies will reflect the learner’s stage of development. For  example, learners might be expected to switch from L1-based strategies to L2-based strategies as their knowledge of the L2 develops. It would also be interesting to discover whether the use of communication strategies has any effect on L2 acquisition.

    5.       Two types of computational model

The ‘black box’ houses some kind of apparatus that extract information from the input, works on it, stores it, and subsequently uses it in output. Two different types of apparatus have been proposed. First type involves the idea of serial processing where the information is processed in a series of sequential steps and results in the representation of what has been learned as some kind of strategy or rule. The second type involves the idea of parallel distributed processing. This credits the learner with the ability to perform a number of mental task as the same time.