DISCOURSE ASPECTS OF INTERLANGUAGE (Rod Ellis) GROUP 3 : Alimatun Nikmah (2201410020) Meidiana Insania A.(2201410062) Lutfiana Tyas M. (2201410072) Social factors do not impact directly on what goes on inside the “black box”. Social factors have an indirect effect, influencing the communication learners engage in and through this rate and possibly the development. route of interlanguage The study of learner discourse in SLA has been informed by two rather different goals: 1. There have been attempts to discover how L2 learners acquire the “rules” of discourse that inform native-speaker language use. 2. A number of researchers have sought to show how interaction development. shapes interlanguage Acquiring Discourse Rules There are rules or, at least, regularities in the ways in which native speakers hold conversations. The acquisition of discourse rules, like the acquisition of grammatical rules, issystematic, reflecting both distinct types of errors and developmental sequences. THE ROLE OF INPUT & INTERACTION IN L2 ACQUISITION Theoretical Position A behaviorist theory A mentalist theories A BEHAVIORIST VIEW treats language learning as environmentally determined, controlled from the outside by the stimuli learners are exposed to and the reinforcement they receive. MENTALIST THEORIES emphasize the importance of the learner’s black box. They maintain that learners’ brain are especially equipped to learn language and all that is need is minimal exposure to input in order to trigger acquisition. What is discourse in which learners participate is in any way different from the discourse native speaker engage in? If learner discourse can be shown to have special properties it is possible that these contribute to acquisition in some way. It does indeed have special properties. The native speakers modify their speech communicating with children learner. when The modifications are evident in both input and interaction, have been investigated through the study of foreigner talk. Two types of foreigner talk can be identified : 1. Ungrammatical 2. Grammatical Ungrammatical 1. It is socially marked. Grammatical 1. It is the norm. 2. It is characterized by the deletion of 2. Various types of modification of certain grammatical features (copula baseline talk can be identified. be, modal verbs and articles). 3. It uses the base form of the verb in 3. It is delivered at a slower pace. place of the past tense form. 4. It uses of special constructions (such 4. The input is simplified. as no+verb) 5. It is sometimes regularized. 6. Sometimes it consists of elaborated language use. We seem to know intuitively how to modify the way we talk to learners to make it easier for them to understand. The results in interactional modifications as the participants in the discourse engage in the negotiation of meaning. As a result of this negotiation both learners end up correcting their own errors For Example: • Hiroko: a man is uh. drinking c-coffee or tea with uh the saucer of the uh uh coffee set is uh in his uh knees. • Izumi: in him knee. • Hiroko: uh on his knee. • Izumi: yeah. • Hiroko: oh his knee. • Izumi: so sorry, on his knee. Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis Evelyn Hatch hypothesis Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis L2 Acquisition takes place when a learner understands input that contains grammatical forms that are at ‘i + I’ (i.e. are a little more advanced than the current state of the learner’s interlanguage). According to Krashen, then, L2 acquisition depends on comprehensible input. Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input but claims that it is most effective when it is modified through the negotiation of meaning. Evelyn Hatch Hypothesis emphasizes the collaborative endeavours of the learners and their interlocutors in constructing discourse and suggests that syntactic structure can grow out of the process of building discourse. THE ROLE OF OUTPUT IN L2 ACQUISITION We need to consider whether output plays and part in interlanguage development. Here some conflicting opinions: 1. Krashen argues that “speaking is the result of acquisition not its cause”. He claims that the only way learners can learn from their output is by treating is as auto-input. 2. Merril Swain has argued that comprehensible output also plays a part in L2 acquisition. She suggests a number of specific ways in which learners can learn from their own output. SUMMARY We have considered a number of ways in which discourse might contribute to L2 acquisition-through the modified input that comes in foreigner talk, through the input learners obtain from the negotiation of meaning, through scaffolding, and through comprehensible output. In the various positions we have examined we find a rich array of metaphors on offer. In particular, there are metaphors that suggest that L2 acquisition is a distinctively human and social activity (for example, ‘negotiation’ and ‘collaboration’). The underlying metaphor that informs work on discourse in SLA, however, remains that of the computer (for example, in the choice of basic terms like ‘input’ and ‘output’). We shall now look inside the computer and examine some of the mental mechanisms of L2 acquisition. THANK YOU