1. Errors and EFL learners
Session 10

2. Interlanguage
The emergence of Interlanguage evinced the shift in psychological perspectives of second language learning from a behaviourist approach to a mentalist one.
In fact, the concept of Interlanguage, in many ways, borrowed some of its major assumptions directly from the mentalist theories.
This psycholinguistic concept was first introduced by the well-known SLA theorist Larry Selinker (1969, 1972).

3. Interlanguage
In a general sense, Interlanguage is defined as the interim grammars constructed by the learner of a second language on his way to the target language.
In a narrower sense, Interlanguage refers to the intermediate status of the second language learner’s system between his mother tongue and the target language.
In a broader sense, Interlanguage is defined as the second language learner’s present knowledge of the language he is learning.

4. Core assumptions
The core assumptions underlying Interlanguage are as follows:
Second language learning is a gradual progression form L1/NL/MT towards the L2/TL/FL.
At every stage of learning the learner develops a system of rules that is neither the system of L1/NL/MT nor the system of L2/TL/FL, but instead falls between the two.
The process of learning consists of rule formation or hypothesis-testing.
The mistakes made by the learner are a natural procedure of language learning.
There is a psychological structure latent in the brain, which is activated when one attempts to learn a second language.
Many learners do not achieve the full L2/TL/FL competence.

5. Interlanguage Continuum
During L2 acquisition, the learner formulates the hypotheses about the system/rules of TL.
The rules learner’s make are exposed to influences both from outside the learner, and form the learner’s internal processing. This suggests that the learner’s performance is variable.
These grammars are transitional.
The learner changes his grammar from one time to another by adding rules, deleting rules, and restructuring the whole system. Thus, in every stage of learning there is an Interlanguage.
Through the gradual process of checking and rechecking hypotheses, the learner keeps changing his Interlanguage until the target language system is fully acquired/ shaped. This gradual progression naturally implies to an Interlanguage Continuum.

6. Language Devices Universal Grammar (UG): Latent Language Structure:
This device is postulated by Avram Noam Chomsky (1959). Chomsky asserts that there are certain principles that all possible natural human languages have. These principles are biologically determined and specialized for language learning.
Latent Language Structure:
This device is a counterpart to UG. It was proposed by Eric Heinz Lenneberg (1967), a contemporary of Chomsky. The proponent assumes that the child’s brain has an innate propensity for language acquisition and that this propensity is lost as maturation takes place.

7. Alternative mechanisms
Latent Psychological Structure:
This device is postulated by Larry Selinker. He argues that 5% of L2 learners attain mastery in their TL by using the Latent Language Structure. On the other hand, 95% of L2 learners achieve competence in their TL by using the Latent Psychological Structure. The Latent psychological Structure is different from that of the Latent Language Structure with respect to the following facts:
It has no direct genetic time table (i.e. not subject to a critical period)
It has no direct connection with any grammatical concept (e.g. Universal Grammar)
It has no guarantee of activation or realization into particular grammar structures of the L2.
Although this device is considered independent, possible overlapping may occur between this structure and other areas of the brain.

8. Latent Psychological Structures
Fossilization
Selinker recognized Fossilization as an important mechanism of the Latent Psychological Structure. He assumes that many learner will not achieve the total mastery of L2, but will stop somewhere in the middle with their language still affected by errors. Fossilization can take place at any stage of the learning process, even at a very early age. According to him, out of all the L2 learners, only 5% of them are thoroughly successful as to be able to reach the end of the Interlanguage Continuum. And when the learners stop progressing any further, their Interlanguage is said to have fossilized. However, the successful learner doesn’t fossilize, rather constantly moves along the Interlanguage continuum.

9. Latent Psychological Structures
Selinker points out five psycholinguistic processes which determine the fossilized forms:
Overgeneralization: fossilization due to the use of an L2 rule in contexts where it is not required.
Transfer of Training: fossilization due to certain features found in the instruction via which the learner is taught the second language.
Strategies of Second Language Learning: fossilization due to some approach to the learning of L2 material adopted by the learner.
Strategies of Second Language Communication: fossilization due to some approach used by the learner when communicating with L2 native speakers.
Language Transfer: fossilization due to L1 influence.

10. Latent Psychological Structure

11. Strengths
The study of Interlanguage is systematic and universal by nature. Like the Innate Theory of L1 acquisition, Interlanguage theory considers the learner as an active participator, since he is capable of constructing rules from the data he encounters.
The study of Interlanguage can help to determine what the learner already knows at a certain point of time and what he has to be taught when and how in a particular second language teaching program.
The concept of Interlanguage has liberated language teaching methods. It has paved the way for Communicative Teaching Approach. Since errors are considered a natural part of the learning process, teachers now tend to use teaching activities which do not require constant supervision of the learner‘s language. Consequently, group work and pair work has become suitable means for language learning these days.

12. Weaknesses
A major Interlanguage criticism relates to its limited explanatory power. The theory assumes that the linguistic stage that a learner is at can be predicted by analyzing his errors. However, Error Analysis as a mode of inquiry is limited in its scope as it concentrates on what the learner did wrong rather than on what made him successful. It is often impossible to identify the unitary source of an error.
Error Analysis gives the learner base for improvements of his Interlanguage rules. But researches confirm that too much correction can lead to a lack of motivation and thereby leading many correct utterances unnoticed. Thus the learner needs to be restricted to important errors only.
The theories of Interlanguage cannot determine how the exact position of the learner in between L1 and L2 will be interpreted.

13. Approximate system hypothesis
Nemser (1971) Approximate systems:
In 1971 Nemser called learner language as Approximate Systems. He also put forward the following assumptions as the foundations of the interlanguage theory:
at any given time the approximate system is distinct from L1 and L2.
the approximate systems form an evolving series.
that in a given contact situation the approximate systems of learners at the same stage of proficiency roughly coincide

14. Idiosyncratic dialect
Idiosyncratic dialect takes the point of view that the language of such a learner, or perhaps certain groupings of learners, is a special sort of dialect.
This is based on two considerations:
firstly, any spontaneous speech intended by the speaker to communicate is meaningful, in the sense that it is systematic, regular and, consequently is, in principle, describable in terms of a set of rules, i.e. it has a grammar. The spontaneous speech of the second language learner is language and has a grammar.
Secondly, since a number of sentences of that language are isomorphous with some of the sentences of his target language and have the same interpretation, then some, at least, of the rules needed to account for the learners’ language will be the same as those required to account for the target language. Therefore the learner’s language is a dialect in the linguistic sense: two languages which share some rules of grammar are dialects.

15. Idiosyncratic dialect
It is, of course, usual to apply a further non-linguistic criterion to a language in order to establish its dialect status, namely that it should be the shared behavior of a social group, i.e. that it should constitute a langue in the Saussurean sense. In this sense the language of a learner may or may not be a dialect.
However, there should be a distinction between the dialects which are the languages of a social group (social dialects) and the dialects which are not the languages of social groups (idiosyncratic dialects).
The justification for calling the latter dialects is therefore a linguistic one and not a social one. The dialect above are already adequately identified under the name idiolects.
An idiolect is a personal dialect but which linguistically has the characteristic that all the rules required to account for it are found somewhere in the set of rules of one or another social dialect.
An idiolect can be said to be some sort of a mixture of dialects.

16. idiosyncratic dialects
In the case of idiosyncratic dialects, some of the rules required to account for the dialect are not members of the set of rules of any social dialect; they are peculiar to the language of that speaker.
All idiosyncratic dialects have this characteristic in common that some of the rules required to account for them are particular to an individual. This has, of course, the result that some of their sentences are not readily interpretable, since the ability to interpret a sentence depends in part upon the knowledge of the conventions underlying that sentence.
The sentences of an idiolect do not therefore present the same problems of interpretation since somewhere there is a member of that social group who shares the conventions with the speaker.

17. Idiosyncratic dialects
It is in the nature of idiosyncratic dialects that they are normally unstable.
The object of speech is normally to communicate, i.e. to be understood. If understanding is only partial, then a speaker has a motive to bring his behavior into line with conventions of some social group, if he is able.
This instability accounts for part of the difficulty experienced by the linguist in describing idiosyncratic dialects.
The other difficulty the linguist experiences is that of placing an interpretation on some of the sentences of the dialect. Without interpretation, of course, analysis cannot begin.

18. Idiosyncratic dialects
The language of a second language learner is not the only type of idiosyncratic dialect.
Error Analysis is not applicable only to the language of second language learners.
One class of idiosyncratic dialects is the language of poems, where this cannot be accounted for wholly in the terms of the rules of some social dialect.
Second class of idiosyncratic dialect one might consider is the speech of an aphasic.
The third class is that of the infant learning his mother tongue. the fourth class is that of the learners of a second language.

19. Examples
چطوری این طوری شده؟ شما باید دست کم یک سوالی می پرسیدی چه سایزی و چه مدلی می خواهم.
How could this have happened? After all, you're supposed to ask me about the desired size and model.
اصلا نمی شه آدم خودشو بسپره دست شما آرایشگرا! حالا باید کلی صبر کنم تا باز موهام بلند بشه.
Nobody can trust you! I should wait a long time to have long hair again!
I need one cube of sugar in my tea.
A : I'm looking for Bob. You have seen him?
B : Yes. I have seen him half an hour ago.