DISCOURSE ASPECTS OF INTERLANGUAGE

(Rod Ellis)

GROUP 3 :

Alimatun Nikmah (2201410020)

Meidiana Insania A.(2201410062)

Lutfiana Tyas M. (2201410072)

Social factors do not impact directly on

what goes on inside the “black box”.

Social factors have an indirect effect,

influencing the communication learners

engage in and through this rate and

possibly the route of interlanguage

development.

The study of learner discourse in SLA has

been informed by two rather different

goals:

1. There have been attempts to discover how L2

learners acquire the “rules” of discourse that

inform native-speaker language use.

2. A number of researchers have sought to show

how interaction shapes interlanguage

development.

Acquiring Discourse Rules

There are rules or, at least, regularities in the

ways in which native speakers hold

conversations.

The acquisition of discourse rules, like the

acquisition of grammatical rules,

issystematic, reflecting both distinct types of

errors and developmental sequences.

THE ROLE OF INPUT & INTERACTION IN L2 ACQUISITION

A mentalist theories

Theoretical Position

A behaviorist

theory

A BEHAVIORIST VIEW treats language

learning as environmentally determined,

controlled from the outside by the stimuli

learners are exposed to and the

reinforcement they receive.

MENTALIST THEORIES emphasize the

importance of the learner’s black box.

They maintain that learners’ brain are

especially equipped to learn language

and all that is need is minimal exposure

to input in order to trigger acquisition.

What is discourse in which learners participate is in any way different from

the discourse native speaker engage in?

If learner discourse can be shown to

have special properties it is possible that

these contribute to acquisition in some way.

It does indeed have special properties. The

native speakers modify their speech when

communicating with children learner.

The modifications are evident in both input

and interaction, have been investigated

through the study of foreigner talk.

Two types of foreigner talk can be identified :

1. Ungrammatical

2. Grammatical

Ungrammatical Grammatical

1. It is socially marked. 1. It is the norm.

2. It is characterized by the deletion

of certain grammatical features

(copula be, modal verbs and

articles).

2. Various types of modification of

baseline talk can be identified.

3. It uses the base form of the verb

in place of the past tense form.

3. It is delivered at a slower pace.

4. It uses of special constructions

(such as no+verb)

4. The input is simplified.

5. It is sometimes regularized.

6. Sometimes it consists of elaborated

language use.

We seem to know intuitively how to

modify the way we talk to learners to

make it easier for them to understand.

The results in interactional modifications

as the participants in the discourse

engage in the negotiation of meaning. As

a result of this negotiation both learners

end up correcting their own errors

For Example:

• Hiroko: a man is uh. drinking c-coffee or tea with

uh the saucer of the uh uh coffee set is

uh in his uh knees.

• Izumi: in him knee.

• Hiroko: uh on his knee.

• Izumi: yeah.

• Hiroko: oh his knee.

• Izumi: so sorry, on his knee.

Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis

Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis

Evelyn Hatch hypothesis

Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis

L2 Acquisition takes place when a learner understands input that contains grammatical forms that are at ‘i + I’ (i.e. are a little more advanced than the current state of the learner’s interlanguage). According to Krashen, then, L2 acquisition depends on comprehensible input.

Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis

emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input but claims that it is most effective when it is modified through the negotiation of meaning.

Evelyn Hatch Hypothesis

emphasizes the collaborative endeavours of the learners and their interlocutors in constructing discourse and suggests that syntactic structure can grow out of the process of building discourse.

THE ROLE OF OUTPUT IN L2 ACQUISITION

We need to consider whether output plays and part in interlanguage development. Here some conflicting opinions:

1. 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 is as auto-input.

2. Merril 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.

SUMMARY

We have considered a number of ways in which discourse might

contribute to L2 acquisition - through the modified input that comes in

foreigner talk, through the input learners obtain from the negotiation of

meaning, through scaffolding, and through comprehensible output. In the

various positions we have examined we find a rich array of metaphors on

offer. In particular, there are metaphors that suggest that L2 acquisition is

a distinctively human and social activity (for example, ‘negotiation’ and

‘collaboration’). The underlying metaphor that informs work on discourse in

SLA, however, remains that of the computer (for example, in the choice of

basic terms like ‘input’ and ‘output’). We shall now look inside the

computer and examine some of the mental mechanisms of L2 acquisition.

THANK YOU