The
prevailing perspective on interlanguage is psycholinguistic, as reflected in
the metaphor of the computer. That is, researchers have been primarily
concerned with identifying the internal mechanisms that are responsible for
interlanguage development.
SLA
has
also acknowledged the importance of social
factors. There are three different approaches to incorporate social factors on
the study of L2 acquisition. The
first views
interlanguages as consisting of different ‘styles’ which learners call upon
under different conditions of language use. The second, concerns how social
factors determine the input that learners use to construct their interlanguage. The third, considers
how the social identities that learners negotiate in their interactions with
native speakers shape their opprtunities to speak and, thereby, to learn an L2.
Interlanguage
as a stylistic continuum
1. Elaine
Tarone
Elaine Tarone has proposed that interlanguage involves a
stylistic continuum. She argues that learners develop a capability for using
the L2 and that this underlies ‘all regular language behaviour’. This
capability, which constitutes ‘an abstract linguistic system’, is comprised of
a number of different ‘style’ which learner access in accordance with a variety
of factors. At the end of the
continuum is the careful
style, evident when learners are conciously attending to their choice of
linguistic forms, as when they feel need to be ‘correct’. At the other end of the
continuum is the vernacular
style, evident when learners are making spontaneous choices of linguistic form,
as is likely in free conversation.
Tarone’s idea
of interlanguage as a stylistic continuum is attractive in a number of ways. It
explains why learner language is variable. It suggests that an interlanguage
grammar, although different from a native speaker’s grammar, is constructed
according to the same principles, for
native speakers have been shown to posses a similar range of styles. It relates
language use to language learning. However, Tarone’s model has a number of problems. First, later
research has shown that learners are not always most accurate in their careful
style and least accurate in their vernacular style. Second, is that
the role of social factors remains unclear.
2. Howard Giles
Another theory is Howard Giles’s
accomodation theory. This seeks to explain how a learner’s social group influences the course of L2
acquisition. For Giles the key
idea is that of ‘social accomodation’. He suggests that when people interact
with each other they either try to make their speech similar to that of their
addressee in order to emphasize social cohesiveness (a process of convergence) or to make it
different in order to emphasize their social distinctiveness (a process of divergence). It has been suggested that L2 acquisition involves
‘long-term convergence’. According to the Giles’s theory,
then, social factors influence interlanguage development via the impact they
have on the attitudes that determine the kind of language use learners engage
in. Accomodation
theory suggests that social factors, mediated through the interactions that
learners take part in, influence both how quickly they learn and that actual route that they follow.
The
acculturation model of L2 acquisition
A similar perspective on the role of social factors in L2 acquisition can be found in john Schumann’s acculturation model.
Schuman proposed that pidginization
in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to acculturate to the target
language group because of their inability or unwillingness to adapt to a new
culture. The main reason for learners failing to acculturate is social
distance. Thus, a ‘good’ learning situation is one where there is little social
distance because the target language group and the L2 group view each other as
socially equal. As presented by Schumann, social factors determine the
amount of contact with the L2 individual learners experience and thereby how
successful they are in learning.
Social
identity and investment in L2 learning
Bonny Pierce argues that language
learners have complex social identity that can only be understand in terms of
power relations that shape social structures. A learner’s social identity
is multiple and contradictory’. Learning is successful when learners are able
to summon up or construct an identity that enables them to impose their right
to be heard and thus become the subject of discourse. This requires investment,
something learners will only make if they believe their effort s will increase
the value of their cultural capital. Learners use language to locate themselves
in their community and also in L2 environment. Successful learners are those
who reflect critically on how they engage with native speakers and who are
prepared to challenge the accepted social order by constructing and asserting
social identities of their own choice.
Questions:
- What explanation can you give for the second language learner groups who are in bad learning situations but they can be successful?
- Please could you explain how to handle the learning situations well?
