How languages are learned (Oxford) – Chapter 4: Learner Language

8/18/2019 How languages are learned (Oxford) – Chapter 4: Learner Language

1/10

.

.

l

Letirner preferences

Reid,

J.

(ed.). 1995. Learning Sty es in the ESLIEFL C assroom.

New

York:

Heinle

Heinle.

Oxford, R. 1990.

Langnage

Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Shou d

Know.

New

York:

Newbury

House.

Wesche,

M.

B. 1981. 'Language aptitude measures in streaming, marching

studen tswith methods, and diagnosis oflearningproblems' in K. Diller (ed.):

Individua Differences and Universttfs in

Lttnguage

Learning Aptitude. Ro\vley

Mass.:

Newbury

House. pp.

119-39.

Yorio, C. 1986. 'Consumerism in second language learning and reaching.'

Canaditm Afodern Language Review 42/3: 668-87.

Age ofttcquisition

Burstall,

C.

1975. 'French

in

the primary school: The British experiment.'

Czn,1dianl11odern

Language

Review

3115: 388-402.

Johnson,

J. and

E. Newport. 1989. 'Critical period effects

in

second language

learning: The influence

of

maturationalstate on rhe acquisirion ofEnglish as

a

second

language.'

Cognitive Psychology

21:

60-99.

Long,

M. H.

1990. 'Maturadonal constraints

on

language development.'

Studies in Second Language Acquísition 1213:

251-85.

Patkowsl


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an

e f f ~ r t

to understand ho\V learners process second language data.

Error

analysts was based on the

assumption

that, like child language,

second

language learner language is a sysrem in its own righr--one

which

is rule

governed

and prcdicrable.

Larry Selinker gave rhe name inter dnguage to learners' developing

second

language knowledge (Selinker 1972). Analysis of a learner's interlanguage

shows that t has sorne cha.racrcristics influe nced by rhe learner's previously

learned

l ~ n ~ u a g e ~ ) ,

sorne characreristics

of

the sccond language,

and

sorne

~ h a r a c t e n s n c s wh1ch seem to

be

very general

and

tend to

occur

in

all

or most

i n t e r l a ~ g u a g e

systems. lnrerlanguages are systemaric,

but

rhey are also

dynan11c,

continually evolving as learners receive more

input and

revise their

hyporheses about the second language.

In

the activity that follows, we will

look at son1e characreristics of nterlanguage.

Activíty

The Great Íoy Robbery

The,following rexts were written

by

two learners ofEnglish, one a French

speaiung secondary school student, the other a Chinese-s peákingadu lt Iearner.

In,both cases, th e learners saw a cartoon film entitled The Great Toy Robbery

(Nanonal Film Board of Canada). Afrer v1ewrng the film, srudents were asked

to

retcll the srory

in

wriring, as

i

hey were telling

ir

to

so

meo

ne

who had

noc

seen rhe film.

Read the textsand examine the errots made by each learner.

Do

theymake rhe

same kinds

of

errors?

In what

ways

do

the two inrerlanguages differ?

Learner 1: French -lirst language,

secondary

schoo student

During

a sunny day, a

cowboy

go in the desert with his horse. he has a

big har. His

horse eat a

flour. In

the same rime, Santa Clause

go in a

cirv

to gi:'e sorne

surprises. He

has a

red costume

and a

red packet

surpnses. You have rhree robbers in che mounrain

who

seesSanta Clause

with aking

of glaces that ir permirted

us

rosee ar a long distance. Every

robbers have a horse.

They

go in the way

of

Santa Clause,

not

Santa

Clause

but

his

pocket

of

surprises. Afrer rhey

will

go

in

a city

and they

goma

saloon. [

(unpublished data from P M. Lighrbown

and

B Barkrnan)

Learner 2: Chinese first language, adult

T ~ i s year Christmas comes soon Santa Claus ride a one horse

open

;Ie1gh to sem presenr

forchildren.

on thebackofhis body has big packet.

ir have a lor of oys. in the way he meer rhree robbers. Theywant to rake

his big packet. Santa Claus no

wayand

no bodyhelp, so onlya way give

rhem, rhen rhree robbers ride their horse dashing through the rown.

There ha

ve saloon,

theygo

to

drinksome

beer and open the bigpackent.

They plays toys in the Bar. They meet a cow boy in rhe saloon.

(unpublished

data from M.

J Martens)

Manyerror types arecommon to both learners. Both make errorsof ubject-verb

agreemenr (for example, 'a cowboy go'

and

'three robbers in che

mounrain

who

sees' by learne r 1 and Sama Claus ride' and

they

plays' by learner 2).

Such errors are clearly

not due

ro

firsr language interference.

l"hey

reflect

learners' understanding

of

rhe second language system irself rather rhan

an

attempt

to

rransfer characrerisrics of rheir 6rst language. These are referred

to

as deveiopmental errors beca use rhey are errors which might very well be made

by

children acquiring English as rheir first language. Somerimes rhese are

errors of overgenera ization, that is, errors caus ed by rrying to use a rule in a

conrext where it does

not

belong, for example, rhe .s ending on the verb in

'they plays'. Sometimes the errors are betrer describ ed as simplijication where

elemenrs

of

a sentence are lefr

out,

far example,

or

where ali verbs have rhe

same form regardless of person,

number,

or tense.

One

can also see, especially in learner 2's text, che influence of classroom

experience. n

example

is the

use

offormulaic

expressions such as 'one horse

open

sleigh'

which

is

taken

verbatim from a well-known

Christmas

song,

which h s no

doubt

been raught

and

sung in the learner's

ESL

class.

The

vivid

'dashing through the rown' probably comes from the same source.

Far rhose who are familiar with ilie English spoken by native speakers of

French. sorne

of

he errors made by che firsr learn erwill readily

be

recognized

as probably based on French. Similarly, those familiar with rhe English of

Chinese speakers may recognize errors made by che Chinese le arner as being

due ro

the learner's

attempt

to use patterns

of

Chinese in English sentences.

These

are called transfer or 'interference' errors. Ir is clear, however,

thar

ir is

very ofren difficulr to determine rhe source of errors. Thus error analysis

has

the advanrage

of

permirting a description

of

sorne systematic aspects

of

learner language,

but

ir does not always give us clear insights into whar causes

learners

ro

do

whar they

do.

Furrhermore, as Jacquelyne Schachrer

poinred

out

in a

197

4arcicle, learners sometimes avo id using cerra.in features oflanguage

which the y perceive to

be

diflicult far them. This 'avoiliance' may lead

to

rhe

absence of certain errors, but it also leaves thc analysr without informarion

about rhc learners' developing inrerlanguage.

That

is, rhe absence

of

particular features will be difficulr for che researcheror teacher

to

observe,

but

this phenomenon of'avoidance' may also be a

part

of he learner's sysrematic

second language performance.

66


4/10

76

Le11rner

language

Developmental sequences

Research on second language acquisition has reveaied rhar

second

lano-uage

learners, like first anguage learners, pass

rhrough

sequen_ces

of e v e l o p ~ e n r ~

Furrhermor e, in a given language, many

of

hese developmenral sequences are

sirnilar for firsr

and

second language learners. Even

among

second language

learn.ers, rhese developmenra1 sequen ces are similar: \vhar is learned early

by

one is learned early

by

orhers, even \vhen rhey come from differenr first

language backgrounds

and

differenr learning environments.

Among

first language learners, rhis is perhaps nor so unexpecred beca use rheir

language Iearning is parrly ried to rheir cognirive deve opmenr, r har is, ro rheir

learning

abour

rhe relarionships

among

people, evenrs,

and

objecrs

around

them. But among

second language learners, \vhose experíences

with

rhe

language

may

vary qu íre wíde y and \vhose cognirive

development

is

essentially stable, ir

is more

remarkable that developmentaI sequences are so

simílar. Furrh ermore, alrhough learners obviously need ro

haveopportunities

ro hear

or

read ccrraín things before rhey begin

ro

use rhem, ir

is not

always

the

case rhat rhose features

of

rhe Ianguage

which

are heard mosr frequenrly

are easiesr to learn. For example, virtually every English sentence has

one

or

rr ore arricles ('a' or 'rhe'),

bur

many learners have grear difficulty using rhese

forms correcdy. Finally,

although the

Iearners' firsr language does have

an

influence,

many

aspects

of

rhese developmenral srages are similar among

learners from

many

differenr first language b ackgrounds.

In

the nexr section, rhe srages

of

acquisirion for specific grammarical features

are

presented

for

second

language learners.

In

Chapter 1 we sa\v sorne

developmenral sequences for English child language acquisirion ofgrammarical

m o r p h e m e ~

negarion, and quesrions. Researchers inseco nd languageacquisirion

have exan11ned son1e

of

rhese same fearures,

as

\vell as others.

Grammatical morphemes

Several srudies ro examine rhe

deveiopmenr of

grammarical

morphemes

have

?een

carried out i t h

l e a r ~ e r s

\vho have learned English as a

second

language

in a natural (non-1nstrucnonal)

environmenr.

These

srudies

\Vere done

\virh

learn_:rs

ofdifferenr

ages

and ti-om

ditTerenr first language backgrounds. Like

the

firsr language researchers, rhe

second

language researchers Iookéd ar

learners' use

ofgrammarical morphemes such as

plural,

-ing,

past tense, etc.

Theyrookspeech

samples from a large

number oflearnersar one poinr

in

time

and

seo red each

morpheme

foraccuracy in rhe learners' speech.

This\vas done

by i d e n r i t ~ i n g every obligarory conrext for each morpheme and

dividing

the

:ium?er

of

correcdy supplíed

morphemes

by rhe rotal

number

rhar should

Learner .inguage

creared

as

rhe accuracy score for rhis

morpheme. These

seores were

then

ranked frorn highest

to

lo\vesr, giving an accuracy order for rhe

morphemes.

The overall results of he srudies suggesred an orderwhich, while not the same

as

rhe developmenral sequence

found

in rhe first language srudies, \V::t. i similar

amono- second lanauage learners frorn differenr first language backgro unds.

t I o -

For example,

most

srudies showed a

higher

degree

of

accuracy

tor

plural

rhan

for possessive; for -ingrhan for -edpasr.

This

suggesrs rhar chis accuracy

order

is

nor

determined

entirely

byrhe

learners' firsr language. Ho\vever, a

rhorough

review

of

l rhe morpheme acquisitio n' srudies suggesrs rhar rhe Iearners' first

language has a

more imporranr

influence

on

acquisition

~ q u c n c e s

rhan sorne

researchers

would

claim. For example, learners whose first language has a

possessive -s form

which

resembles the English such as

German)

seem to

acquire this form earlier rhan rhose whose firsr Ianguage has a very different

\vay

of

forming rhe possessive (such as French or Spanish).

There

are

orher

unanswered questions in rhe

morpheine

acquisition literature. For examp e,

sorne

of

he similariries

and

differences observed in different sntdies seem to

be

dueto

the

\Vay

rhe language samples were collected. Neverrheless, there are

sorne very srrong

patterns

of

similarity \vhich

cannot be

explained

by rhe

influence

of

rhe firsr language alone (see Larsen-Freeman

and

Long 1991).

Negation

Anorher exarnple

of

rhe interacrion bet\veen developmenral sequences

and

first lanauacre influence is

in

the acc¡uisirion

of

negarion in Enelish.

See

b , V

Schumann

1979 for a review

of

research on negation in second language

learning.)

To

a large exrent, rhe acquisition

of

negarive sentences

by second

language learners follo

vs

a parh rhat ooks nearly identical to

the

srages we sa\v

in Chapter

1

for first language acquis tion. Wbar is differenr, ho\vever, is rhat

second language learners from different first language backgro unds behave

some\vhat differendy

zuithin

those stages.

Stage 1

The

negarive

element

( usua1ly 'no '

or

'nor')

is

typically p ::tced befo re rhe verb

or

the

element beíng

negared.

Often,

ir occurs as the first \vord

in

rhe

utterance because the subject of rhe senrence is not rhere.

No

bicycle.

No

have

any

sand. I

not

like

it.

No is

preferred by

most

learners in rhis early stage, perhaps because

it

is

the

negative tOrm rhat is easiest

ro

hear

and

recognize in rhe speech rhey are

exposed to. Iralian

and

Spanish speakers

may prefer

'no' beca use

ir

corresponds

ro rhe negative form in Italian

and

Spanish.

77

67


5/10

Stage 2

Ar rhis stage, 'no'

and not may

:alternare wirh 'don'r'. However, 'don'r'

is nor

marked for person, number, or tense and it may even be used befare modals

like 'can' and 'should':

He don'r like ir. l don'r can sing.

Stage

3

Learners begin ro place the negative elemen r after auxiliaryverbs like 'are', 'is',

and

'can'.

But

ar this srage, rhe 'don'r'

form

is

srill

nor

fuHy

analyscd:

You can nor go there.

He

was

nor

happy.

She

don'r ike rice.

Stage4

Do

is

marked fortense, person, andnurn ber,

andmost

interlanguagesentences

appear to be jusr like rhose of he rarget language:

lt

doesn'r work. We didn'r have supper.

For sorne rime, however, learners may continue to mark tense, person, and

number

on

borh rhe auxiliary and rhe verb:

I didn t wenr there. She doesn'rwants to go.

This

sequence

of

stages is descriptive

of

he second language developmenr

of

most second language learners. However, although it is true th at virrually all

learners ofEnglish seem ro pass rhrough a srage

offorming

negacive senrences

by placing 'no' before rhe verb, sorne leamers may sray longer in rhar stage

than others.

If

a learner's native language forrns the negative in just rhat way

(for cxomple, Spanish No tienen muchos libros', No have many books'), ir

may

take longer for rhe Iearner to notic e thar native speakers ofEnglish do ot

form rhe negative in rhar way. Similarly, once German speakers reach srage 3

and

begin ro place rhe negative marker after rhe auxiliary, rhey

may

also

sometimes

place ir afrer lexical verbs (for examp e,

German

'Sie kommen

nicht nach Hause',

They

come

not

home ).

Questions

v1anfred Picnemann and his .coHeagues have developed a framework for

describing secon


6/10

8

Learner

anl;uage

a phase

of

asking questions wirhour inversion. However, once rhey reach

srage 4 and ask English quesrions

wirh

subjecr-auxiJiary inversion, rhey may

assume rhar

subject-verb

inversion is also possible.

Thus,

alongside correcr

quesrions such as 'Can I play?' one may hear quesrions such as 'Play you

baseball?'

Activity

Learners' questions

The quesrions in rhe charr on page 81 \vere asked by srudenrs in a grade 5

imensive ESL class in Quebec, Canada.

The

children (aged 10-12) are all

French-speaking

and

have lirde con raer \virh English ourside rheir English

class. In their English classes they spend mosr of heir

time

in communicative

acriviries,

and

rheir teachers rarely correcr rheir errors or focus

on

specific

poinrs

of grammar.

In manyways,

rhese srudents have

an

experienceof rheir

second language

which

is similar ro rhar of Iearners in

an

informal language

Iearning

serring.

These questions were recorded while rhe children \vere playing

a

picrure

idenrificarion game.

Their interlocutor

\Vas

looking

ar

a

picture

\Vhich was a

duplicare of one of rhe four pictures

\vhich rhe

studenrs cou d see. The

children

asked rhese questions in arder ro

garher informarion

\Vhich

would

permir rhem ro guess

which

picrure rhe interlocutor was holding.

Activity

More about questions

Anocher

group of French-speaking learners from rhe same learning context

described in rhe acrivity above \Vere asked ro judge \Vhether sorne quesrions

\.Vere correcr

or

noL

Mosr

of rhese learners

produced

srage 2

and

3 questions

\vhen rhey participared in rhe oral quesrions

game

shown. above.

The

rask \vas a 'preference rask' in \vhich learners\vere presenred \virh pairs

of

quesrions

and

asked ro

judge wherher only

one or rhe

orher

was correcr

or

vvherher theywere borh correcr or

borh

incorrect.Theyalso

had

rhe oprion of

saying I don'r know.'

Sorne

of he questions rhe srudenrs

judged

are

shown in

rhe charr pn page 82.

Deterrriine rhe developmenra1 srage

corresponding

ro each quesrion and

wherher

rhe quesrion

is

correcr

or not.

Remernber, sorne stage 3 questions are

actually grammarica11y correcr qu esrions. Then, decide

which

quesrions you

think rhese learners,

who produced

mosdy stage 2 and 3 quesrions, \vere

\villing

to

accept and which rhey rejecred.

Learner anguage

Based

on the

information

in Table

4.1, can you identify which

suge of second

language question

deve opment

each

question

fits into?

Learner 1

Stage

1

Does a dog

is

black and white?

1

2 3 4

5

6

2 Where the dog is? 2 3 4

5

6

3 Does the boy throw a ball

r

2 3 4

5

6

4 How many spot the dog has?

2 3 4

5

6

5

lt is five questio ns?

2 3 4

5

6

Learner2

6 Do

you see a dog? 2 3

4

5

6

7

Do the dog has a shoe?

2 3 4

5

6

8 The boy

throw

a ball ora shoe? 2 3 4

5

6

9

The

ball

is

on the

air?

2 3 4

5

6

10 The

dog has a Httle

spot

black

2 3 4

5

6

learner 3

11

What is

the dog doing?

2 3 4

5

6

12

Are

the children running? 2 3 4

5

6

13 Is the shoe on the grass 2 3

4

5

6

14

How

many

spots does the

dog have?

2 3 4

6

15 Did

the dog

catch

the shoe?

2

3 4 5

6

Answerkey

Leamer

/:

Questions I 2, and 4 are stage 3: 'does'

and

'where' and 'how many'

appear

simply

to

be

'fronted' to forma question. Question

5

is stage

2:

t h e ~ e h a s

been

no adjustment

ro rhe

word arder of

a

dedarative senrence;

only the

nsing

intonation identifies

the sentence

as a

question. Question

3

is

a b t trlcky.

t

looks

Jike

a

correct

question,

but

it m;;i.y

be 'correct

far the

wrong reason'.

The evidence

from chis

learner's other questions

suggests that

'does' is

just the forrn that

is

placed in

front

of a sentence to

make

a

question.

That

woutd

rnake Que_stlon 3 a

stage 3 question, just like Question lf the learner had used other o ~ m s of do' or

other auxHiaries to form yes/no questions, it would be a stage 4 quest1on.

Learner 2: Questions

6 and 7 are

stage 3: here, 'do' seems to

have

been

placed

at

the

front

of the

sentence. Questions

8, 9,

and

O

are

stage 2.

Learner 3: Questions

1

and

14 are stage 5: a

wh-question w Lh both

inversion

of

the subject

and rhe auxiliary

and

the

second verb

("doing') p aced correcdy

after

the subject.

Questions

2,

13

and 5 are stage 4:

correct

subject-verb lnversion in

'yes/no' questlons. t

is dear

that these

questions

are different f;-om the 'does'

questions

asked y Learner 1 because there are severa different a.uxl iary verbs in

the 'yes/no' questions.

P

hotocopíable

©

Oxfor d Universicy Press

81

69


7/10

Question

Stage

Correct/

Accepted/

2, 3, 4, 5

incorrect rejected

1

\/Vhy do

children ike McDona d's?

2 Are you a good student?

3

Are

the students watching TV?

4 Can l take

the

dog outside?

5

Can the children speak Spanish?

6 What can we

watch

on TV

tonight?

7

What

is

your brother

doing

8 When are you going to eat

breakfast

9

o the teache rs like to cook?

10

Do

they líke pepperoni

pizza?

11 The

teachers

like to cook?

12

The chHdren can speak Spanish?

13

vVhy

fish

can

live

in

water?

14 What

your

brother is

doing?

5 Why chHdren like McDonald's?

Answerkey

Questions 2, 4, 6, 8, O

are

correct.

at

stages 4, 4, 5, 5, and 3 respectively. The

students overwhe mingly accepted these. -

Questions 1, 3, 5, 7,

9

are

also

correct,

at stages 5, 4, 5, 5, and 3 respectively.

The

student overwhehningly rejeaed these.

Questions

l , l 2.

13,

l

4, and

15

are incorrect questions,

at stages

2, 2,

3, 3, and 3

respectively. S tudents overwhelrning y accepted these.

Photocopiab e

©Oxford Universicy Press

What can the rcsults of his preference task mean? l hey produced most y

scage

2 and 3

oral questions, why


8/10

8

earner language

ar the top, bur rhe opposire was nor necessarily true. Research on rhis aspect

of second Ianguage developmenr has shown rhar ifa learner can use

one

of rhe

strucrures ar rhe bottom

of

rhe lisr, he or she will

probably

be able to use any

rhat precede ir.

On

rhe orher hand, a learn erwho can produce sentences wirh

relarive clauses in rhe sub jecr

or

direct objecr posirions will nor necessarily be

able to use relatives in anyorher posirion.

Reference to

past

Anocher rype ofdevelopmencal sequence has also

been

described. In this case,

the

sequence

reflects learners' changing abiliry

co

express the same meaning.

One example of his is the developmenr of reference ro past events. Adolescenr

and

adulr learners often have

importanr

rhings to say abour pasr evenrs,

but

their kno\vledgeo(the rargerlanguageíimits their abíiiry

to

do this. Anumber

of researchers, observing learners from different first language backgrounds

and

acquiring a variery of second languages, have observed a pattern which

is

simila r across learners.

In rhe beginning, learners with very limired language may simply refer ro

events in rhe

order

in which rhey

occurred

or menrion a

time

ar place

to show

rhat

rhe evenr occurred in the past.

My son come. He

work

in restaurant.

January. lr's very cold.

Vier Nam. \Ve work roo hard.

Later, learners start

to

artach a grammarical morpheme which shows that rhe

verb is marked tOr rhe past.

The

people worked in the fields.

E ven aft:er t:hey begin marking ~ l S c rense on verbs, however, learners

may

sriil

make errors such as rhe overgeneralizat:ion of rhe regular -ed ending.

She

rided

her

bicycle.

Anorher aspecr oflearning

hü\V

ro refer to

the

past has been shown in studies

by

Karhleen Bardovi-Harlig

and

her colleagues.

They

found thar learners are

more Iikely

to mark

pasr tense on sorne verbs than on others. For examp e,

learners seem to recognize che need ro mark pasr tense more easily in sent:ences

s,pch as 'I broke rhe vase' and

My

sisrer fixed it with glue' t:han in senrences

such

as

She

seemed happy last week' or My farher belonged to a club'

(Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds 1995).

Bardovi-Harlig has suggested rhar rhese differences are due to the kinds of

meanings expressed by rhe dit1erent: verbs. Learners seem ro find ir easier to

mark past tense \vhen referring to completed evenrs t:han \Vhen referring to

earner anguage

srares and acrivities which may l a s ~

tOr

extended periods wirhour a clear

end-point.

Movement

through

developmental sequences

We

have seen in rhis secrion rhar in second Ianguage acquisirion there are

systemaric and predictable srages, or sequences, of acquisition. We have seen

examples

of

rhis in the developmenr

of

grammatic:il m0rphemes, negarives,

questions, relarive clauses, and reference to pas t.

It is

importanr

ro

emphasize,

however, rha r developmenra l srages are not like closed rooms< Learners do not

Ieave one behind \vhen rhev enrer another. In examining a language sample

from an individual earner, shou d not expecr ro find

a l

and only examples

of behaviours from

one

srage. On the contrary, at a given poinr in rime,

learners may use senrences rypical of severa diffe rent stages. Ir is perhaps

better ro

rhinkof

asrageas being characrerized

by

rhe emergen ceand increasing

frequency

of

a particular form rather rhan by rhe disappear1nce

of an

earlier

one. Even when a more advan::ed stage comes to dominare in a learner's

speech, conditíons of tress

or

complexiry in a communicarive interacrion can

cause the learner to 'slip back' to an earlier stage.

New ways of ooki.ng at first language influence

Researchers rejecred rhe interpretarion of contrastive analysis \vhich made

'transfer'

or

'interference' che expla nation for all of a learner's difficulties \vírh

rhe targer language. This was no doubr due in part

to

the facr t:har conrrasrive

analvsis \vas closelv :issoci:ired \virh behaviourisrvie\vs ofb.nguage acquisirion.

In

~ j e c t i n g

beh:I\;iourism, some researchers al so discarded conrrasrive analysis

as a source

of

valuable

information

about learners' language.

There is no doubt: in che minds of most researchers and teachers, ho\vever,

thar learners draw on t:heir kno\vledge

of

orher b nguo.ges as they rry to

discover rhecomplexities

of

he

ne\V

language Eheyare learning. We have seen

someways in which thefirs rlanguage inreracts \vith deve opmenral sequences,

When

learners reach a certain stage

and

perceive a similarity to [heír firsr

lanauaae t:hev rnayli naer lono-erarthat srage (forexamn,,le, the Spanish speaker's

00 •

0 b

V

necration) or add a subsrage (for example, the German spcaker's inversion of

subject and lexical verbs ín quesrions) to the sequencc \vhich, overall, is very

similar across Iearners, regardless

of

their first Ianguage. They

may

learn a

second language rule but restrict its app icarion (fnr e'G1mple, the French

speaker's rejection of subject-auxiliary inversion -..vith noun subjects).

The

first lancruage rnav influence learners' inrerL:lnguage in orher\vays as well.

Th, . , . . . , h , . ' ' ~ ' ... ..,

f_

.... . . ~ ~ · ' " - . . : ~ - . . T

. ••

~ 1 · · - - ~ C -L---L--- ¡____ L-.-J

85

71


9/10

appeared

to

be caused at least in part by learners perceprion rhar a fearure in

the rarger language was so disrant and d ifferent from theír first language rhar

they preferred notro try ir (Schachter 1974)1

Other researchers have also found evidence ofl earner s sensiriviry ro degrees

of distance

or

difference and a reluctance t o an:empt a rransfer over roo great

a distan ce. In one very revealing smdy,

Hlkan

Ringbom ( 1986) found that

the inrerference errors made in English

by

both Finnish-Swedish and

Svvcdish-Finnish bilinguals \.Vere most often traceable to Swedish, nor

Finnish.

The

fact that Swedish and English are closely related languages

which

actualiy do share

many characterisrics seems ro have led learners to rake

a chance thar a word

or

a senrence srructure thar worked in S\.vedish would

have

an

English equivalent. Finnish, on rhe orher hand, belongs

to

a

comp etdy differcnt language family. This knowledge led learners to avoid

using Finnish as aso urce ofpossible transfer,

vvhether

rheír own first language

was Swedish

or

Finnish.

The risk-taking associared with this perception of similariry has its limits,·

however. s we nored earlier, learners seem to know rhar idiomaric or

metaphorical uses

of

words are ofren quite unique ro a particular language.

Eric Kellerman (1986) found that many Dutch learners of English were

reluctant to accept certain idiomatic expressions

or

unusua1 uses of words

such as Thc: wave

broke on

the shore

but

accepted

'He

broke rhe cup even

though both

are srraighrforward translations

of

sentences wirh the

Dutch

verb breken

Another way in which learners first language can affect second language

acquisition

is

in ma king ir difficult for them ro no ice that something they are

saying

is

absent from rhe language

as

ir is used by more proficient speakers.

Lydia White ( 1989) drew a ttention

to

rhe difficulties learners may have when

sorne fearure of rheir inrerlanguage and their first language are based on

patterns which are very similar bur nor idenrical. When the learner s

interlanguage form does

not

cause any difficulry in communicating meaning,

the learner may find it difficult

to

ger rid ofit. Lydia Whire gives the exampl e

of

the

restrictions on adverb placement in French and English. French

and

English share considerable flexibiEty in where adverbs can be placed in simpl e

senrcnces

(.see

further discussion and references in

Chapter

6). However,

as

the examples in Table 4.3 show, there are sorne differences. English, but not

French , allows SAVO order; French, but nor English, allows SVAO.

Second language learners have dífficulty in boch direcrions. It seems fairly

easy for French-speaking learners of English ro norice the new form and to

add SVAO

to

thcir repenoite and for English-speaking learners ofFrench

to

add SAYO,

but

they have far grearer difficulry gettin g rid of he form which

does not occur in rhe target language. English-speaking learners of French

make rhe SAVO error, and French-speaking learners of English make rhe

SVAOerror.

Curre nt views of irst language inRuence emphasize that there

is

an

important

interaction involvingthe first language (or other previously learned languages),

sorne universal knowledge or processes,

and

the samples

of

he rarger language

which learners encounter in rhe input. In Chaprer 6, \Ve will look at ho\v

instrucrion and metalinguistic information may also contribute to this

inreracrion.

Table 4 3: dverb placement in

French

andEnglish

S = Subject V=

Verb

Ü=Übject

A=Adverb

ASVO

Ofren, Mary drinks tea.

Souvent, Marie boit du thé.

SVOA

Mary drinks tea often.

Marie boit

du

thé souvent.

SAVO

Mary often drinks tea.

*Marie souvent boit du thé.

SVAO

*Mary drinks often tea.

Marie boit souvent

du

rhé.

Note:

The asterisk means ch;ir the sentence is uot grammaricaL

Summary

The

focus in this chapter has been

on

seco nd language acquisirion by people

who, alrhough rhey may receive sorne instruction, also have

c o n s i ~ e r a b l e

exposure ro theír second language in natural setrings-at work, n the

schoolyard, in rhe supermarket, or rhe neighbourh ood laund romat: In

e n e ~ a l ,

researchers have found rhat learners who receive grammar-ba sed 1nstrucnon

srill pass rhrough the same developmen tal sequences

and

make the same types

0

errors

as

rhose \vho acquire láÍ1guage in natural settings. For example, in

sorne of he mo st exrensive work

on

acquisirion sequen ces, Jürgen Meiseland

his colleagues Manfred Pienem ann and H aral d Clahsen found veryco nsistent

patterns in rhe acquisirionof Getman byspeakers of everal o m a n c e l a n g ~ g e s

who had lirtle or no instruction in German as a second language (Me1sel,

Clahsen, and Pien emann 1981 ). Pienema nn la ter found very similar patterns

in rhe acquisirion of German \.vord order b y speakers of English v h o s e o n ~ y

exposure to che language

\vas

in rheir universiry German classes in Australia

72


10/10

,

1

1

88

Learner language

(Pienemann 1989).

In Chaprer

6 we will focus

on

rhe second language

acquisirion

oflearners

in classroom serti ngs. Firsr, however, we \vill look ar che

classroom irself. In Chaprer 5, we will explore rhe many

vays

in which

researchers

ha

ve soughr to understand rhe classroom environmenr for second

language acquisirion.

Sources andsuggestionsfar urther reading

General

discussion

offearner

fanguage

Cook, V 1991. Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London;

Edward Arnold.

Ellis, R.

1997.

Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford Universiry

Press.

Ellis, R

1994. The Study

of

Second Language Acquisition.

Oxford; Oxford

Universiry Press.

Larsen-Freeman,

D.

and

M. H.

Long. 1991. n lntroduction

to

Second

Language

Acquisition. New York: Longman.

Lightbown,

P.

i\11

1985.

Great

expectarions: Second language acquisition

research and classroom reaching.' Applied Linguistics612:

173-89.

The concept ofinterlanguage

Corder, S. P. 1967.

The

significance oflearners' errors.'

fnteniationa

Review

of

Applied Linguistics 512-3:

161-9.

Selinker, L. 1972. 'Interlanguage.' International Review

ofApplied

Linguistics

10/2; 209-3

Develop1nent11 sequences in second language acquisition

Bardovi-Harlig, K. and D. Reynolds. 1995.

The

role oflexical aspecr in the

acguisirion

of

rense

and

aspecr.' TESOL Quarterly

2911: 107-3

lvleísel,

J.

M. 1986. 'Reference to pasr evenrs and actions in rhe developmenr

of

na rural second language acquisirion' in C. Pfaff (ed.):

First

and Second

Language Acquisition

Processes.

Cambridge , Mass.: Ne\.vbury House.

Meísel, J. M., H. Clahsen, and M. Pienemann.

1981.

On derermining

developn1enral srages in natural second language acquisirion.'

Studies

in

Second LanguageAcquisition 312: 109-35.

Pienemann, IvL 1989. 'Is language teachable? Psycholinguistic experiments

and

hyporheses.' Applied Linguistics 10/1; 52-79.

Learner language

Pienemann, M.,

M.

Johnston,

and

G. Brindley. 1988. 'Consrrucring an

acquisirion-based

procedure

for

s ~ ~ a n g u a g e

assessmenr.' Studies in

Second LanguageAcquisition 1012: 217-43.

Schumann,

J.

1979. "The acquisirion

of

Englísh negJtion by speakers of

Spanish: a review

of

rhe lirerarure' in R. W..

i\ndersen

(ed.):

The Acquisition

and

Use

of

Spanish

and ngfish as Fírst and Second Langrtt1ges. Washington,

D.

C.: TESOL.

pp. 3-32.

Zobl,

H.

1982.

A direcríon for conrrasrive analysis; rhe compararive srudy of

developmentalsequences.' TESOL Quarterly

1612:

169-83.

Fírst language injluence

Kellerman, E. 1986. '.An eye for an eye: crosslinguisdc constrainrs on rhe

development of rhe L2 lexicon.' in E. Kellerman and M. Sharwood Smirh

(eds.): Crosslinguistic

lnfluence in Second

Language

.Acquisition.

Ne\.V York:

Pergamon, pp. 35-48.

Odlin, T. 1989. Language ·n-ansfir. Cambridge: Cambridge Universíry Press.

Ringbom,H. 1986. Crosslinguisric

influenceand the foreign language

e ~ t r n i n g

process' in E. Kellerman and M. Sharwood Smirh (eds.): Crosslinguistic

Inf/uence

in

Second Language

Acquisition.

New

York:

Pergamon,

pp.

150-72.

Schachter, J.

1974.

An error in error analysis.' Language

Leaming 2412:

205-14.

Relative cÚluse hierarchy

Doughry, C.

1991.

Second language insrrucrion

How languages are learned (Oxford) – Chapter 4: Learner Language

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