Situational context, variation and second language acquisition theory
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Transcript of Situational context, variation and second language acquisition theory
Interlanguage : a language produced by
a learner of a second language that
often has grammatical features not
found in either the learner’s native
language or the language being
acquired . for example:
I’m not tell you
*
*Systematic interlanguage variation occurs
when a learner produces different variants of a
particular interlanguage in varying linguistic
environment or under different social
conditions(A learner may master a given target
language in one social context but in another
social context systematically produces a quite
different variant of that form.)
(1) Done by observing or examining a group of people or things over time to study
how one or two particular things about them to change
*The kind of data can be produced by:
Longitudinal (1) case studies : learner’s output in different social
interaction and changes in that output in those situations over
a period of some time.
*Liu conducted: a 26-month longitudinal study of a chinese boy
named “Bob” (beginning when Bob was 5 and ending when he was
almost 7 years old)
*He observed Bob in 4 interactional contexts:
1) With pre-school peers in the same classroom and supervisory
staff
2) His teacher in his primary school
3) Primary school peers in the same classroom
4) Researcher
*All the data were analyzed according to several general criteria:
• Number of utterances produced by Bob
• Complexity of utterances produced
• Proportion of those utterances which were initiation as opposed to
responses
• Functions those utterances fullfilled
• Interrogative structures produced
*Liu defines 3 interactional contexts in which Bob engaged after
starting primary school in terms of Bob’s role relationship with 3
different types of interlocutors:
1. Classroom teachers(a child-student to adult-teacher role
relationship)
2. Peers in the classroom(a child to child-friend role relationship)
3. Researcher(a child to adult-friend role relationship)
Quantitative analysis of the language produced by Bob in these 3
settings shows a considerable difference in the frequency of
grammatical elements in these settings.
1) Interaction with his teacher : he generally did not initiate interactions and focused on presenting himself as a good pupil.in language use , he did not seem to take many risks.
2) Interaction with his peer: he has a dominant role. He initiates interactions . Liu’s quantitative analysis shows a general pattern of increase in Bob’s initiation in Bob-peer interactions and a much wider range of ‘functions” expressed by Bob in interactions with his peers than with his teachers.
3) Interaction with the researchers : the researcher was a friend of the family and an adult who knew how to play and was interested in interacting with Bob and drawing him out in a relaxed home environment so Bob tried hard to initiate interactions with the researcher.
Liu’s quantitative analysis shows that there was a general pattern of increased syntactic complexity, increased initiation and increased variety of both structure and function in the conversation between researcher and Bob.
*Bob is performing his competence differently in these different
interactional contexts.The crucial question for us now,is this:
*Do the different interactional contexts cause Bob’s competence
to develop differentially?
*Liu claims that the differential interactions in which Bob engaged
had an impact on his interlanguage development,not only in terms of
the rate of the development but also on the rout of his interlanguage
development.
*Liu uses Pienemann and Johnston’s framework for the development
of English as a second language to examine the development of
various aspects of Bob’s interlanguage grammer.
*He focuses for example upon the developmental stages in Bob’s use
of interrogative forms and in general new structures appear first in
interacting with the researcher then in Bob-peer interactions and
last in Bob-teacher interactions.
This is only one study of one individual and more data of this sort
are needed and analysis of Bob’s sequence of acquisition is based
upon Pienemann and Johnston’s criteria and we need to examine
Bob’s acquisition process using other criteria as well. We need to
examine Bob’s variable use of interrogative form in more details.
Finally, we need to examine the development of other structures in
Bob’s interlanguage such as negation.
*The study of Bob’s language development illustrates the data we need
to obtain in an attempt to determine the relationship between
contextual variation and second language acquisition such an
investigation can shed light upon delicate relationship which
undoubtedly exists in SLA between internal innate and external
contextual forces and any adequate theory of second language
acquisition must be able to account for that relationship between
internal and contextual forces which occurs in the process of second
language acquisition.
*
A translator must understand the meaning of an expression not only in terms of the linguistic context, but also in terms of the nonlinguistic or situational context in which it is used.
Situational context refers to the factors outside the linguistic context which determine or influence the interpretation of an expression or statement. The situational factors may pertain to the facial expressions, gestures and stances at micro level and the social, political and economical milieu and the culture at large . As is known to all, the same expression or statement which is used in different situations may have quite different meanings . For example, the statement “Do you think this is bringing rain?” only makes sense when the speaker is pointing to a dark cloud in the sky. There are many examples to illustrate that the same expression or statement may have quite different meanings in different situations.
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Prepared by :Habibeh khosravi