CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF INTERLANGUAGE

Three different approaches in L2 acquisition:

1.      Views interlanguage as consisting of different styles which learners call upon undr different conditions of language use

2.      Concern how social factors determine the input that learners use to construct their interlanguage

3.      Consider how the social identities that learners negotiate in their interaction with native speakers

Interlanguage as a stylistic continuum

Elaine Tarone has proposed that interlanguage involves a stylistic continuum. She argues that learners develop a capability for using the L2 and that this underlies “all regular language behavior”. This capability, which constitutes “an abstract linguistics system”, is comprised of a number of different “styles” which learners access in accordance with a variety of factors. At one end of the continuum is the careful style, evident when learners are consciously attending to their choice of linguistic forms, as when they feel the need to be “correct”. At the other of the continuum is the vernacular style, evident when learners are making spontaneous choices of linguistic form, as is likely in free conservation

Tarone’s idea of interlanguage as a stylistic continuum is attractive in a number of ways. It explains why learner language is variable. It suggests that an interlanguage grammar, although different from a native speaker’s grammar, is constructed according to the same principles. First problem is that learners are not always most accurate in their careful style and least accurate in their vernacular style. Second problem is that the role of social factors remains unclear. This suggests that the variability evident in their language use is psycholinguistically rather than socially motivated.

Howard Giles’s accommodation theory explain how learners’ social group influences the course of L2 acquisition.  According to Gile’s theory, then, social factors influence interlanguage development via the impact they have on the attitudes that determine the kinds of language us4e learners engage in

Accommodation theory suggest that social factors, mediated through the interaction that learners take part in, influence both how quickly they learn and the actual route that they follow.

 The Acculturation Model of L2 Acquisition

Schumann entertained a number of possible reasons in errors that occur in Alberto, for example, intelligence and age- and dismissed all of them. Schumann proposes that pidginization in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to acculturate to the target-language group, that is, when they are unable or unwilling to adapt to a new culture.

Social distance, this concern to the extent to which individual learners become members of a target-language group and therefore achieve contact with them. He also suggests psychological distance that identifies a further set of psychological factors, such as language shock and motivation, to account for this.

Social Identity and Investment in L2 Learning

Bonny Peirce’s view focuses on the relationship between social context and L2 acquisition. She gives the illustration about Eva’s diary. Eva was subject to a discourse which assume an identity she did not have. As Peirce points out, Eva could have made herself the subject of the discourse had she attempted to reshape the grounds on which the interaction took place.

A learners’ social identity is according to Peirce “multiple and contradictory”. Learning is successful when learners are able to summon up or construct an identity that enables them to impose their right to be heard and thus become the subject of the discourse. This requires “investment”, something that learners will only make if they believe their efforts will increase the value of their “culture capital”

L2 acquisition involves a “struggle” and “investment”. Learners are not computers whom process input data but combatants who battle to assert themselves and investors who expect a good return on their efforts. Successful learners are those who reflect critically on how they engage with native speakers and who are prepared to challenge the accepted social order by constructing and asserting social identities of their own choice.

CHAPTER IV

QUESTIONS:

1.      What is different of “the subject to” and the subject of “ in which written on page 41

2.      Could you give more explanation in the reasons are mentioned by Schumann those are intelligence and age, and dismissed all of them?

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

INTERLANGUAGE

To understand what is meant by interlanguage we need to briefly consider behaviorist theory and mentalist theory.

1.      Behaviorist Theory

It says that language learning is like any other kind of learning in that involves habit formation. Habits are formed when learners respond to stimuli in the environment and subsequently have their responses reinforced so that they are remembered. Thus, a habit is a stimulus-response connection.

2.      Mentalist Theory

From a preoccupation with the role of “nature” (how environment mental factors shape learning), researchers switched their attention to “nature” (hoe the innate properties of the human mind shape learning). This new paradigm was, therefore, mentalist (or nativist) in orientation.

1960s and 1970s this theory said that:

a.       Only human beings are capable of learning language

b.      The human mind is equipped with a faculty for learning language, referred to as a language acquisition device. This is separate from the faculty (for example, logical reasoning)

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

What is Interlanguage?

American linguist, Larry Selinker, in recognition of the fact that L2 learners construct a linguistic system that draws, in part, on the learner’s L1 but is also different from it and also from the target language.

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

a.       The learners construct a system of abstract linguistic rules which underlies comprehension and production of the L2. This system of rules is viewed as “mental grammar” and is referred to as an interlanguage.

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

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

Interlanguage continuum        :learners construct a series of mental grammar or interlanguages as they gradually increase the complexity of their L2 knowledge.

d.      Some researchers have claimed that the system learners construct contain variable rules. They argue that learners are likely competing rules at any one stage of development. Other researchers argue that variability reflects the mistakes learners make when they try to use ir knowledge to communicate.

e.       Learners employ various learning strategy

f.         The learners’ grammar is likely fossilize

A Computational Model of L2 Acquisition

It implies that the human mind functions like a computer. 

 INPUT ----> INTAKE-----> L2 KNOWLEDGE ---->OUTPUT

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 as intake. Second, some of the intake is stored in a long term memory as L2 knowledge. The process 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 learners to produce spoken and written output.

The L2 knowledge’s component can be broke up into two or more components to reflect the different kinds of knowledge learners construct (for example, explicit knowledge about language and implicit knowledge  of language). 

CHAPTER III

QUESTIONS:

1.      What is the meaning of grammar is likely to fossilize in page 34. Could you give example of it?

2.      From a person who is not given a good change to practice his/her English, do you think that it will form different habit formation of his/her L2 acquisition, give explanation.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF LEARNER LANGUAGE

A.    Errors and error analysis

The advantages on focusing an error of learners:

·         It raises important question of “Why do they make errors?

·         It is useful for teacher to know the reason

·         It is useful for helping learners to learn they self-correct the errors they make

-          Error reflects 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 particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows

Describing error:

1.      Omission: leaving out an item that is required in grammatical utterances

2.      Misinformation: using grammatical form in place of other grammatical form

3.      Miss ordering: putting words in utterances in a wrong order

Explaining errors

1.      Omission: leave an item

2.      Overgeneralization: think that all system is the same

3.      Transfer error: learners create their own rules

B.     Developmental patterns

·         Silent period: they make no attempt to say anything to begin wish, they use the time to read and listen

·         Acquisition order: do learners acquire the grammatical structure of an L2 in a definite order? ( ex. They learn progressive features before past tense)

·          Sequences of acquisition:  do learner learn such structure in a one step or proceed it through a number of interim stages before they master the target structure?

The order of acquisition:

Using accuracy order: teacher rank the features according to how accurately each feature is used by the learners/ by collecting samples of the learners

Sequence of acquisition                                         

Ex:

Stage	Description	Example
1	Learners fail to mark the verb past time	eat
2	Learners begin to produce irregular past tense form	ate
3	learners overgeneralize the regular past tense form	eated
4	Sometimes learners produce hybrid forms	ated
5	Learners produce correct irregular past tense form	ate

Variability in Learner Language:

·         Linguistics context: in one context the use one form while in the other context they use alternate form.

·         Situational context: learner more likely to use the correct target language form in formal context and non target form in informal context

·         Psycholinguistics context: learners are more likely to use target language forms when they have time to plan.

·         Form function mappings: which learners make do not always conform to those found in target language.

·         Free variation: learners likely learn about the basic form of an item in target language and then use it for variety of function.

Fossilization: not all learners reach the completion stage for every grammatical structure. Many will show non target language variability in at least some grammatical features

CHAPTER II

QUESTIONS:

1.      As a leaner in English, what should we do when we attempt to get a silent period in our learning? As a teacher next time, what should we do when our students get this silent period?

2.      What is your opinion when someone is using free variation in English language? And do you think when this person talk to others, people will understand his/hers speech?