PLLT Chapter.8 summary

CHAPTER8. CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE AND LEARNER LANGUAGE


THE COMTRASTIVE ANALYSIS HYPOTHESIS
Deeply rooted in the behavioristic and structuralist approaches, the contrastive Analysis hypothesis claimed that the principal barrier to SLA is the interference of the L1 system with the L2 system, and that a scientific, structural analysis of the two languages in question would yield a taxonomy of linguistic contrasts between them which in turn would enable the linguist to predict the difficulties a learner would encounter. The logical conclusion from various psychological and linguistic assumptions was that second language learning basically involved the overcoming of the differences between the two linguistic systems- the native and target languages.
Clifford prator captured the essence of this grammatical hierarchy in sis categories of difficulty. Prator’s hierarchy was applicable to both grammatical and phonological features of language. The sis categories are following.
Level 0 – Transfer
Level 1 – Coalescence
Level 2 – Underdifferentiation
Level 3 – Reinterpretation
Level 4 – Overdifferentiation
Level 5 – Split

FROM THE CAH TO CLI
The attempt to predict difficulty by means of contrastive analysis is what Ronald Wardhaugh alled the strong version of the CAH, a version that he believed was quite unrealistic and impracticable. He termed some observational use of contrastive analysis the weak version of the CAH. The so-called version of the CAH is what remains today under the label cross-linguistic influence, suggesting that we all recognize the significant role that prior experience plays in any learning act, and that the influence of the native language as prior experience must not be overlooked. The most convincing early criticism of the strong version CAH was offered Whitman, Jackson, Oller and Ziahosseiny.
We must understand that CLI is an important factor at play in the acquisition of the second language. CLI implies much more than simply the effect of one’s first language on a second : the second language also influences the first; moreover, subsequent languages in multilinguals all affect each other in various ways.

MARKEDNESS AND UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
Fred Eckman’s Markedness Differential Hypothesis accounted for relative degrees of difficulty by means of principles of universal grammar. Celce-Murcia and Hawkins sum up the markedness theory: The marked member of a pair contains at least one more feature than the unmarked one. The unmarked member of the pair is the one with a wider range of the distribution than the marked one. Eckman showed that marked items in a language will be more difficult to acquire than unmarked, and that degrees of markedness will correspond to degrees of difficulty. Some arguments are about whether notions of universal grammar can be applicable to second language or not.

LEARNER LANGEAGE
In recent years researcher and teachers have come more and more to understand that second language learning is a process of the creative construction of a system in which learners are consciously testing hypotheses about the target language from a number of possible sources of knowledge. A number of terms have been coined to describe the perspective that stresses the legitimacy of learners’ second language system. The term “ interlanguage” is adapted from Weinreich’s “interlingual” by Selinker. Nemser used the term “ approximative syste,” Coder used the term “idiosyncratic dialect” These terms share the concept that second language learners are forming their own self-contained linguistic systems. The most obvious approach to analyzing interlanguage is to study the speech and writing of the learners, or what has come to be called learner language.

ERROR ANALSYS
Second language learning is a process that is clearly not unlike first language learning in its trial and error nature. Researchers and teachers of L2 came to realize that the mistakes a person made in this process of constructing a new system of language needed to be analyzed carefully, for they possibly held in them some of the keys to the understanding of the process of SLA.

Mistakes and Errors
In order to analyze learner language in an appropriate perspective, it’s important to make a distinction between mistakes and errors. A mistake refers to a performance error that is either a random guess or a slip, in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly. An error reflects the competence of the learner. The fact that learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of study of learners’ errors, called error analysis.

Errors in Error Analysis
The classroom language teacher can become so preoccupied with noticing errors that the correct utterances in the second language so unnoticed. Another shortcoming is an overemphasis on production data. In addition to this, error analysis fails to account for the strategy of avoidance. Finally, error analysis can keep us too closely focused on specific language rather than viewing universal aspects of language.

Identifying and Describing Errors
Systems are in a constant state of flux as new information flows in and, through the process of subsumption, causes existing structures to be revised. They are not stable. That’s why it’s difficult to analyze production and comprehension data. The first step in the process of analysis is the identification and description of errors. A major distinction is made at the outset between overt and covert errors.
A number of different categories for description of errors have been identified in research on learner language.
1. the most generalized breakdown can be made bu identifying errors of addition, omission, substitution, and ordering, following standard mathematical categories.
2. Within each categories, levels of language can be considered : phonology or orthography, lexicon, grammar and discourse.
3. Errors may also be viewed as either global or local.
4. Lennon suggests that two related dimensions of error, domain and extent should be considered in any error analysis.

Sources of Error
By trying to identify sources we can take another step toward understanding how the learner’s cognitive and affective processes relate to the linguistic system and to formulate an integrated understanding of the process of SLA

1. Interlingual Transfer
Interlingual transfer is a significant source of error for all learners. The beginning stages of learning a second language are especially vulnerable to interlingual transfer from the native language, or interference.

2. Intralingual Transfer
It is clear that intralingual transfer is a major factor in second language learning. Researchers have found that the early stages of language learning are characterized by a predominance of interference, but once learners have begun to acquire parts of the new system, more and more intralingual transfer is manifested.

3. Context of Learning
In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about the language. The sociolinguistic context of natural, untutored language acquisition can give rise to certain dialect acquisition that may itself be a source of error.

4. Communication Strategies
Learners obviously use production strategies in order to enhance getting their messages across, but at times, these techniques can themselves become a source of error.

STAGES OF LEARNER LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
There are 4stages.
1. random error stage
2. emergent stage
3. systematic stage
4. stabilization stage


VARIABILITY IN LEARNER LANGUAGE
Notable among models of variability are Elaine Tarone’s capability continuum paradigm and Rod Ellis’s variable competence model, both of which have inspired others to carry out research on the issue. Tarone suggested four categories of variaction.

FOSSILIZATION
It is a normal and natural stage for many learners, and should not be viewed as some sort of terminal illness, in spite of the forbidding metaphor that suggests an unchangeable situation etched in stone.

FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION
Form-focused instruction (FFI): Any pedagogical effort which is used to draw the learners’ attention to language form either implicitly or explicitly

ERROR TREASTMENT
Learners are indeed creatively operating on a second language – constructing, either consciously or subconsciously, a system for understanding and producing utterances in the language. That system should not necessarily be treated as an imperfect system; it is such only insofar as native speakers compare their own knowledge of the language to that of the learners. It should rather be looked upon as a variable, dynamic, approximate system, reasonable to a great degree in the mind of the learners, albeit idiosyncratic.