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Date Posted: 13:30:11 10/18/05 Tue
Author: Ana Flora Schlindwein
Subject: Final Paper for Evaluation (Professor Ricardo) - Key concepts - Interlanguage

Key concepts - Interlanguage

People learning a second language pass through some of the same stages as do children learning their native language, including overgeneralization (1). However, people rarely become as fluent in a second language as in their native tongue. An understanding of second language acquisition can improve the ability of mainstream teachers to serve the culturally and linguistically diverse students in their classrooms. While significant professional development is necessary to gain a full understanding of second language acquisition theory, some key concepts can be quickly understood and applied by teachers, improving their classes. This paper attempts to describe one phenomenon found during L2 learning process which can affect the way teachers lead their classes and how they deal with their students’ production in general.

Interlanguage is the result of the interaction among the many language acquisition device factors in any two (or three in multilingual situations) languages developing more or less simultaneously. This linguistic behavior is described similarly by many researchers in second-language acquisition and bilinguality studies. The term was first coined by Larry Selinker in 1972, and many others have since expanded the notion.

According to Hamers and Blanc (1990), between the choice of one language or the other there exists a whole range of intermediary strategies for the speaker which include the modification of either code and the relative use of both. Interlanguage may be viewed as an adaptive strategy in which the speaker tries to speak the interlocutor's L1 although he has little proficiency in it. This strategy uses simplification, reduction, overgeneralization, transfer, formulaic language (2), omissions, substitutions, and restructurings (Selinker, 1972, apud Duran, 1995).

Ellis (1985, apud Duran, 1995) explains interlanguage as the theoretical construct which underlies the attempts of SLA researchers to identify the stages of development through which L2 learners pass on their way to L2 or near L2 proficiency. The author says learners do not progress from zero knowledge of a target rule to perfect knowledge of the rule. They progress through a series of interim or developmental stages on their way to target language competence. Interlanguage is described by many as permeable, dynamic, changing, and yet systematic (Corder, 1975; Selinker, 1972, apud Duran, 1995). It may undergo relative fossilization (3) and relative change, but it reveals an underlying cognitive process even though its surface structure seems the opposite because it does not match conventional forms of what is linguistically correct.

According to Andersen (1984, apud Duran, 1995), interlanguage goes from a nativization process to a denativization one. For Andersen there has been too much focus on the acquisition of target language features rather than on the process of interlanguage construction itself. For him second language acquisition by any other name can and should be characterized in positive terms and principles that govern the construction of meaning-to-form and function-to-form relationships.

Because interlanguage does not sound “conventional”, and because many people do not understand the role it plays in natural language development and usage, and because people have little control over it, it has been tended to be seen as aberration. Viewing and constructing the world from one cultural point of view may appear to be more normative and refined and therefore more conventionally accepted. The same constructs can be viewed, however, from two or more world views in a rich multicultural environment. Interlanguage seems to have a function of facilitating and supporting thinking and communication, no matter how the outward information may appear. It remains for teachers to see how they might approach such facilitation in the classroom.

(1) when a person applies a grammatical rule across all members of a grammatical class (e.g. verbs) without making the appropriate exceptions. For instance, using the -ed suffix to indicate past tense for verbs like "go" and "think".
(2) preferred sequences or chunks of words such as idioms, collocations, and lexical phrases.
(3) when an error becomes a habit of speech in a second language learner. This happens especially when the error does not interfere with communication, and hence, the speaker does not get corrective feedback.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

BROWN, D. Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. Second Edition. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 2001.

CELCE-MURCIA, M.; LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. The Grammar Book - an ESL/EFL Teacher’s Course. Rowley, Mass: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1999.

CHOMSKY, N. Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use, New York, Praeger, 1986.

COOK, V.J. The Object of Second Language Acquisition. [s.l.], 1999.

DURAN, L. “The Toward a better understanding of code switching and interlanguage in bilinguality: implications for bilingual instruction”. In Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, v14 p69-88, Winter 1994.

ELLIS, R. Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

FIGUEIREDO, F. Aprendendo com os erros: uma perspectiva comunicativa de ensino de línguas. Goiânia: Editora UFG, 2004.

HAMERS, J. F., BLANC, M. H. A. Bilinguality and bilingualism. Great Britian: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

RICHARDS, J; PLATT, J.; WEBER, H. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Essex (England): Longman, 1985.

RICHARDS, J.; RODGERS, T. Approaches and methods in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

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