5. Discourse Aspects of Interlanguage

Tiyas Fauziah

2201411005

Rombel 4 / 103 – 104

5.   Discourse Aspects of Interlanguage

     The study of learner discourse in SLA has been informed by two rather different goals. On the one hand there have been attempts to discover how L2 learners acquire the ‘rules’ of discourse that inform native-speaker language use. On the other hand, a number of researchers have sought to show how interaction shapes interlanguage development.

Acquiring discourse rules

            There are rules or regularities in the ways in which native speakers hold conversations. In the United States, for example, a compliment usually calls for a response and failure to provide one can be considered a sociolinguistic error. However, L2 learners behave differently. Sometimes they fail to respond to a compliment at all. At other times they produce bare responses.

The role of input and interaction in L2 acquisition

            The research on learner discourse has been concerned with whether and how input and interaction affect L2 acquisition. A behaviourist view treats language learning as environmentally determined, controlled from the outside by the stimuli learners are exposed to and the reinforcement they receive.

            Learning takes place as a result of a complex interaction between the linguistic environment and the learner’s internal mechanisms. Native speakers modify their speech when communicating with learners. These modifications are evident in input and interaction. Input 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 ungrammatical and grammatical.

            Ungrammatical foreigner talk is socially marked. It implies a lack of respect on the part of the native speaker and can be resented by learners. Ungrammatical foreigner talk is characterized by the deletion of certain grammatical features.

            Grammatical foreigner talk is the norm. Various types of modification of baseline talk can be identified. First, grammatical foreigner talk is delivered at a slower pace. Second, the input is simplified. Third, grammatical foreigner talk is sometimes regularized. Fourth, foreigner talk sometimes consists of elaborated language use.

            According to Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis, L2 acquisiton takes place when a learner understands input that contains grammatical forms that are ‘i = r’. According to Krashen, L2 acquisition depends on comprehensible input.

            Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis also emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input but claims that it is most effective when it is modified through the negotiation of meaning. Learners receive input relevant to aspects of grammar that they have not yet fully mastered.

            Another perspective on the relationship between discourse and L2 acquisition is provided by Evelyn Hatch. Hatch emphasizes the collaborative endeavours 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.

            Other SLA theorists have drawn on the theories of L.S. Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, to explain how interaction serves as the bedrock of acquisition. The two key costructs in what is known as ‘activity theory’, based on Vygotsky’s ideas, are ‘motive’ and ‘internalization’. The first concerns 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. The second concerns how a novice comes to solve a problem with the assistance of an ‘expert’, who provides ‘scaffolding’, and then internalizes the solution. Vugotsky argues that children learn throught interpersonal activity, such as play with adults, whereby they form concepts that would be beyond them if they were acting alone. The child learns how to control a concept without the assitance of others. According to activity theory, socially constructed L2 knowledge is a necessary condition for interlanguage development.

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 cherised belief of many teachers that languages are learned by practising 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 learners can learn from their own output.

Questions :

1.    What is the meaning of learner’s ‘black box’?

2.    What is the difference between Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis and Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis?