Discourse Aspects of Interlanguage

Discourse Aspects of Interlanguage

Social factors do not impact directly on what goes on inside the “black box”. Now, we will focus out attention on the discourse in which learners participate. The study of learner discourse in SLA has been informed by two rather different goals.

1.      How L2 learners acquire the ‘rules’ of discourse that inform native-speaker language use.

2.      How interaction shapes interlanguage development

Acquiring Discourse Rules

There are rules and regularities in the ways in which native speakers hold conversations. In the United States, a compliment usually calls for response and failure to provide one can be considered a sociolinguistic error. In American English, compliment responses are usually quite elaborate, involving some attempt on the apart of the speaker to play down the compliment by making some unfavorable comment. The acquisition of discourse rules, like the acquisition of grammatical rules, is systematic, reflecting both distinct types of errors and developmental sequences.

The Role of Input and Interaction in L2 Acquisition

Native speakers modify their speech when communicating with learners. These modifications have been investigated through the study of foreigner talk (the language that native speakers use when addressing non-native speakers). Two types of foreigner talk can be identified

1.    Ungrammatical foreigner talk

It is characterized by the deletion of certain grammatical features such as copula be, modal verbs and articles,the use of the base form of the verb in place of the past tense form, and the use of special constructions.

2.    Grammatical foreigner talk

It is the norm. There are some various types of modification of baseline talk

a.         Grammatical foreigner talk is delivered at a slower pace.

b.        The input is simplified.

c.         Grammatical foreigner talk is sometimes regularized.

d.        Foreigner talk sometimes consists of elaborated language use.

No.	Type of Talk	Example
1.	Baseline Talk	You won’t forget to buy the ice-cream on your way home, with you?
2.	Ungrammatical foreigner talk	No forget buying ice-cream,eh?
3.	Grammatical foreigner talk	The ice-cream - You will not forget to buy it on your way home -Get it when you are coming home. All right?

We seem to know intuitively how to modify the way we talk to learners to make it easier for them to understand. However, there are times when learners still fail to understand. This results in interactional modifications as the participants in the discourse engage in the negotiation of meaning.There are some theory :

a.    Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis

L2 acquisition takes place when a learner understands input that contains grammatical forms that are at ‘i+I’. Krashen suggests that the right level of input is attained automatically when interlocutors succeed in making themselves understood in communicatio. Then, L2 acquisition depends on Comprehensible Input.

b.    Michael Long’s Interaction Hypothesis

He emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input but claims that it is most effective when it is modified through the negotiation of meaning. Learners often receive negative evidence indicate they have not understood

c.    Evelyn Hatch

He emphasizes the collaborative endeavors of the learners and their interlocutors in constructing discourse and suggests that syntactic structures can grow out of the process of building discourse. One way in which this can occur is through scaffolding.

d.   L.S. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory

He explains how interaction serves as the bedrock of acquisition. The two key construct it are motive (the active way in which individuals define the goals of an activity for themselves by deciding what to attend to and what not to attend to) and internalization (how a novice comes to solve a problem with the assistance of the ‘expert’)

The Role of Output in L2 Acquisition

Krashen argues that ‘speaking is the result of acquisition not its cause’. He claims that the only way learners can learn from their output is by treating it as auto-input. In effect, Krashen is refuting the cherished belief of many teachers that languages are learned by practicing them.

In contrast, Merrill Swain has argued that comprehensible output also plays a part in L2 acquisition. She suggests a number of specific ways in which leraners can learn from their own output.

1. Output can serve a consciousness-raising function by helping learners to notice gaps in their interlanguage.

2.   Output help learners to test hypotheses

3.  Learners sometimes talk about their own output, identifying problems with it and discussing ways in which they can be put right.