9. Cross-linguistic influence and learner language
: era of preoccupation with studies of contrasts btw the native language and the target language contrastive analysis and the effect of native on target language & the effect of target on native language cross-linguistic influence
: era of error analysis (-> interlanguage, learner language)
1) The contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH)
: in the middle of the 20th century
: deeply rooted in the behavioristic and structuralist approaches - human behavior is the sum of its smallest parts and components, and therefore that language learning could be described as the acquisition of all these discrete units
: principle barrier-interference of the L1 system with the L2 system
: will help predict the difficulties a learner would encounter
* strong claim
: Lado (1957), Banathy, Trager, & Waddle (1996)
: those elements that are similar to native language will be simple for a learner and those elements that are different will be difficult
* empirical method of prediction
: Hierarchy of difficulty
: 8 possible degrees of difficulty
: 16 levels of difficulty
: 6 categories of difficulty (Prator, 1967)
↳ level 0-transfer
: no difference or contrast is present between to two language
level 1-coalescence
: two items in the native language coalesced into essentially one item in the target language
level 2-underdifferentiation
: an item in the native language is absent in the target language
level 3-reinterpretation
: an item that exists in the native language is given a new shape or distribution in the target language
level 4-overdifferentiation
: a new item entirely must be learned
level 5-split
: one item in the native language becomes two or more in the target language, requiring the learner to make a new distinction
2) From the CAH to CLI(cross-linguistic influence)
* shortcoming of contrastive procedure
: the process was oversimplified
: it was very difficult to determine exactly which category a particular contrast fit into
: whether or not predictions of difficulty levels were actually verifiable
* weak version of the CAH -> CLI
: teachers and linguists had successfully used the best linguistic knowledge available... in order to account for observed difficulties in second language learning
: it recognizes the significance of interference across languages, the fact that such interference does exist and can explain difficulties, but it also recognizes that linguistic difficulties can be more profitably explained a posteriori-after the fact
: 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 be overlooked
: the difference between today's emphasis on influence, rather than prediction, is an important one
3) CLI
: uncovered a number of instances of subtle differences causing great difficulty
: great difference does not necessarily cause great difficulty
: CLI implies much more that simply the effect of one's first language on a second; the second language also influences the first
: subsequent language in multilinguals all affect each other in various ways
4) Markedness and universal grammar
* Markedness Differential Hypothesis
: marked member of a pair contains at least one more feature than the unmarked one (an)
: unmarked member of the pair is the one with a wider range of distribution than the marked one (a)
: marked items will be more difficult to acquire than unmarked, and that degrees of markedness will correspond to degrees of difficulty
* universal grammar (UG)
: the hope is that by discovering innate linguistic principles that govern what is possible in human languages, we may be better able to understand and describe contrasts between native and target language and the difficulties encountered by adult second language learners
5) Learner Language
: Weinreich's (1953) "interlingual" -> Selinker's (1972) Interlanguage -> Learner Language
-a system that has a structurally intermediate status between the native and target languages
-second language learners are forming their own self-contained linguistic systems
-neither the system of the native language nor the system of the target language
: to study production competence (comprehension of an L2 is more difficult to study)
↳ study of the speech and writing of learners
↳ study of the errors of learners (because 'correct' production yields little information about the actual linguistic system that learners have already acquired)
↳ Error analysis
6) Error Analysis
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: second language learning is a process that is clearly no unlike first language learning in its trial-and-error nature : a learner's errors... are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language : Study of learner’s errors : learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed, and classified to reveal sth of the system operating within the learner, led to a surge of study of learners' errors |
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Mistakes and Errors |
: not easy to distinguish |
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Errors in errors analysis |
① too much attention to learners'' errors (positive reinforcement of clear, free communication) ② overemphasis on production data (comprehension!!!) ③ cannnot account for the strategy of avoidance -> Learners may be avoiding structure that pose difficulty ④ error analysis can keep us too closely focused on specific languges
* performance analysis or interlanguage analysis * production errors are only a subset of the overall performance of the learner * the absence of error therefore does not necessarily reflect nativelike competence because learners may be avoiding the very structures that pose difficulty for them * challenges in the learner system : Cannot be directly observed : System must be inferred by means of analyzing production and comprehension data : Constant state of flux |
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Identifying and describing errors |
: what makes the task even thornier is the variation or instability of learners' systems : in undertaking the task of performance analysis, the teacher and researcher are called upon to infer order and logic in this unstable and variable system
① the identification and description of errors ② to describe error adequately ③ determine the source of error : understanding how the learner's cognitive and affective processes relate to the linguistic system and to formulate an integrate an integrated understanding of the process of second language acquisition
* error analysis steps (Corder, 2974) 1. Collect samples of learner’s language
2. Identify errors
3. Describe errors
4. Explain errors |
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Source of error |
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7) Stages of learner language development
① random errors, vaguely aware that there is some systematic order to a particular class of items
② emergent stage of learner language / backsliding / U-shaped learning
/ learner is unable to correct errors
③ systematic stage, able to manifest more consistency in producing the second language
: they are more internally self-consistent and, they more closely approximate the target language system
④ stabilization, called a postsystematic stage
: learner's ability to self-correct
: learners can stabilize too fast, allowing minor errors to slip by undetected, and thus manifest fossilization of their language
8) Variation in learner language
9) Fossilization or stabilization?
: the relatively permanent incorporation of incorrect linguistic forms into a person's second language competence has been referred to as fossilization
: should not be viewed as some sort of terminal illness
* information transmitted between sources (learners) and audiences (in this case, native speakers): information about the affective relationship between source and audience, and cognitive information-fact, suppositions, beliefs
: affective information is primarily encoded in terms of kinesic mechanisms such as gesture, tone of voice, and facial expressions. while cognitive information is usually conveyed by means of linguistic devices (sounds, phrases, structures, discourse)
: one of the first requirements for meaningful communication is an affective affirmation by the other person
: Selinker and Lamendella(1979) noted that Vigil and Oller's model relied on the notion of extrinsic feedback, and that other factors internal to the learner affect fossilization
10) Errors in the classroom: a brief history
: the most useful implication of Vigil and Oller's model for a theory of error treatment is that cognitive feedback must be optimal in order to be effective
: too much negative cognitive feedback often leads learners to shut off their attempts at communication
: the task of the teacher is to discern the optimal tension between positive and negative cognitive feedback (providing enough green light to encourage continued communication, but not so many that crucial errors go unnoticed, and providing enough red lights to call attention to those crucial errors, but not so many that the learner is discouraged from attempting to speak at all)
: what we must avoid at all costs is the administration of punitive reinforcement, or correction that is viewed by learners as an affective red light-devaluing, dehumanizing, or insulting them
11) Form-focused instruction
: functional language within communicative contexts the question of the place of what has come to be
: any pedagogical effort which is used to draw the learners' attention to language form either implicitly or explicitly
* Categories of Error Treatment
Types of feedback
① Recast
: an implicit type of corrective feedback that reformulates or expands an ill-formed or incomplete utterance in an unobtrusive way
② Clarification request
: an elicitation of a reformulation or repetition from a student.
③ Metalinguistic feedback
: provide 'comments, information, or questions related to the well-formedness of the student's utterance'
④ Elicitation
: a corrective technique that prompts that learner to self-correct
: elicitation and other prompts are more overt in their request for a response
⑤ Explicit correction
: a clear indication to the student that the form is incorrect and provision of a corrected form
⑥ Repetition
: the teacher repeats the ill-formed part of the student's utterance, usually with a change in intonation
Responses to Feedback
① Uptake
: student utterance that immediately follows the teacher's feedback and that constitutes a reaction in some way to the teacher's intention to draw attention to some aspect of the student's initial utterance
② Repair
: a learner corrects an ill-formed utterance, either through self-repair or as a result of peer repair
③ Repetition
: the learner repeats the correct form as a result of reacher feedback, and sometimes incorporates it into a longer utterance
* Effectiveness of FFI
①
: most of the research of the last three decades or so suggests that communicative language instruction in general, so opposed to simple 'exposure' to a language, can indeed increase learners' levels of attainment
: primary factor in determining the effectiveness of FFI is a learner's noticing of form and of the relationship of form to feedback being given, and a secondary but important factor has to do with the quality of the learner's uptake
②
: particular stages in which learners are more ready than others to internalize FFI
: whether there are more propitious pedagogical moments to draw learners' attention to language form
③ possible number of linguistic features in a language and the many potential contexts of learning make this question impossible to answer
④ whether the success of FFI is a product of the frequency of input
⑤
: certain learners clearly benefit more than others from FFI
: the teacher needs to develop the intuition, through experience and solid eclectic theoretical foundations, for ascertaining what kind of corrective feedback is appropriate at a given moment, and what forms of uptake should be expected
: learners are indeed creatively operating on a second language-constructing, either consciously or subconsciously, a system for understanding and producing utterances in the language
: the system should not necessarily be treated as an important system
: the teacher's task is the value learners, prize their attempts to communicate, and then provide optimal feedback for the system to evolve in successive stage until learners are communicating meaningfully and unambiguously in the second language