Interlanguage L. Selinker 2007 년 2 학기 담당교수 : 홍우평 이중언어커뮤니케이 션

Introduction Some theoretical preliminaries for researchers concerned with the linguistic aspects of the psychology of SLA –without these theoretical preliminaries, it is virtually impossible to decide what data are relevant to a psycholinguistic theory of SLA –written from the ‘learning’ perspective: to describe the processes of attempted learning of a SL, successful or not

Relevant Data What would constitute the psychologically relevant data of SLA? –those behavioral events which would lead to an understanding of the psycholinguistic structures and processes underlying ‘attempted meaningful performance’ in a SL Meaningful performance –the situation where an ‘adult’ attempts to express meanings in a language which he is in the process of learning (drills in a classroom, experimental performances (X))

Relevant Data /2 Criteria and constructs which should be used for the identification of relevant data –the regular reappearance in SL performance of linguistic phenomena which were thought to be eradicated in the performance of the learner → the postulation of certain theoretical constructs → give us a framework within which we can begin to isolate the psychologically relevant data of SLA : it is particularly this area that progress can be made at this time

Interlanguage There is a psychological structure which is latent in the brain, activated when one attempts to learn a SL. The closest thing in the literature to the concept of latent psychological structure: latent language structure of Lenneberg (1967) –an already formulated arrangement in the brain / the biological counterpart to UG / transformed by the infant into the realized structure of a particular grammar

Interlanguage /2 The latent psychological structure (for SL) –an already formulated arrangement which for most people is different from and exists in addition to Lenneberg’s latent language structure –no genetic timetable / no direct counterpart to any grammatical concepts such as UG / no guarantee that attempted learning will prove successful –every possibility that an overlapping exists between this latent language acquisition structure and other intellectual structures

Interlanguage /3 The successful SL learners –merely 5%: may be safely ignored –have somehow reactivated the latent language structure in the sense of Lenneberg The notion of ‘attempted learning’ –independent and logically prior to the notion of ‘successful learning’ –the learners activate a different, though still genetically determined structure whenever they attempt to express meanings in a SL

Interlanguage /4 A couple of idealizations –The ideal SL learner (who will not succeed) who is representative of the vast majority of SL learners –only 1 norm of the ‘target language’ (TL) –we focus on the only observable data to which we can relate theoretical predictions (the utterances which are produced when the learner attempts to say sentences of a TL): not identical to the set of utterances produced by a native speaker of the TL

Interlanguage /5 Interlanguage (IL) –Hypothesizing the existence of a separate linguistic system which results from a learner’s attempted production of a TL norm → Interlanguage Predictions of behavioral events in a theory of SLA should be primarily concerned with the linguistic shapes of the utterances produced in ILs

Relevant Data The psychologically relevant data of SLA –utterances in the learner’s native language (NL) –IL utterances produced by the learner –TL utterances produced by native speakers of that TL re

Five central processes Language transfer Transfer of training Strategies of second language learning Strategies of second language communication Overgeneralization of TL linguistic material

Fossilization Fossilizable linguistic phenomena –linguistic items, rules, subsystems which speakers of a particular NL will tend to keep in their IL relative to a particular TL, no matter what the age of the learner or amount of explanation and instruction he receives in the TL –fossilizable structures tend to remain as potential performance, re-emerging un the productive performance of an IL even when seemingly eradicated

Fossilization /2 –Whatever the cause (distributed attention, anxiety, extreme relaxation), the phenomena of ‘backsliding’ from a TL norms is not either random or towards the speaker’s NL, but toward an IL norm. A crucial fact, perhaps the most crucial fact, which any adequate theory of SLA will have to explain

Five central processes Language transfer Transfer of training –Serbo-Croatian learners of English e.g. producing in their English IL he on almost every occasion wherever he or she would be called for according to any norm of English ← due directly to the textbooks/teachers that almost always present drills with he and never with she re

Five central processes /2 Strategies of SL learning/communication –Little is known in psychology about what constitutes ‘strategy’ ☞ examples Learning strategies –that the realization of the category ‘aspect’ in its progressive form on the surface is always with ing marking: I am feeling thirsty / Don’t worry, I’m hearing him (to reduce the TL to a simpler system)

Five central processes /3 Learning/Communication strategies –A tendency to avoid grammatical formatives such as articles, plural forms, and past tense forms: It was _ niche, nice trailer, _ big one / I have many hundred carpenter my own / I was in Frankfurt when I fill application Overgeneralization –What did he intended to say? / After thinking little I decided to start on the bicycle as slowly as I could as it was not possible to drive fast