Chapter 8. Cross Linguistic Influence and Learner language

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Chapter 8. Cross Linguistic Influence and Learner
language

• Chapter 8. (pp. 207-243)Brown, D. H. (2000).
  Principles of language learning and
  teaching. (4th ed.). White Plains, NY Addison
  Wesley Longman, Inc.
• Prepared by Aníbal Muñoz ClaudioCourse EDUC
  8130Professor Dr. María A. Irizarry
  Date March 28, 2006

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Preview

• Interlingual and intralingual transfers
• Context of learning
• Stages of learner language development
• Variability in learner language
• Fossilization
• Form-focused instruction
• Error treatment
• A model for error treatment (in the classroom)

• The contrastive analysis hypothesis ( CAH)
• From the CAH to CLI (cross-linguistic influence)
• Markedness and universal grammar
• Learner language
• Error analysis
• Mistakes and errors
• Errors in error analysis
• Identifying and describing errors (chart)
• Sources of errors

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The contrastive analysis hypothesis

• Deeply rooted in the behavioristic and
  structuralist approaches, the CAH claimed that
  the principal barrier to L2 is the interference
  of L1system with the 2nd system.
• A scientific- structural analysis will develop a
  taxonomy of linguistic contrasts between them
  which will enable the linguist to predict the
  difficulties a learner would encounter.
• Clifford Prator (1967) captured the essence of
  the grammatical hierarchy (Stockwell, Bowen, and
  Martin, 1965) in six categories of difficulty it
  was applicable to both grammatical and
  phonological features of language.
• Most of the examples are taken from English and
  Spanish

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Six categories of hierarchy of difficulty (a
native English speaker learning Spanish as L2)

• Level 0. No difference or contrast is present
  between the two languages. The learner can simply
  transfer a sound, structure, or lexical item from
  the native language to the target language.
• Level 1 coalescence two items in the native
  language become coalesced into essentially one
  item in the target language. Example English 3rd
  p. possessives require gender distinction
  (his/her) and in Spanish they do not (su)

• Level 2 Underdifferentiation an item in the
  native language is absent in the target language.
  The learner must avoid that item. Example
  (adjectives in Spanish require gender (alto/alta)
• Level 3 Reinterpretation an item that exists in
  the native language is given a new shape or
  distribution. Example new phonemes require new
  distribution of speech articulators -/r/, etc.

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Cont.

• Level 4. Overdifferentiation a new item
  entirely, bearing any similarity to the native
  language item, must be learned. Example English
  speakers must learn the use of determiners in
  Spanish man is mortal/El hombre es mortal.
• Level 5. Split one item in the native language
  becomes two or more in the target language
  requiring the learner to make a new distinction.
  English speakers must learn the distinction
  between (ser) and (estar)

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From the CAH to CLI (cross-linguistic influence)

• Predictions of difficulty by means of contrastive
  procedures had many shortcomings. The process
  could not account for all linguistic problems or
  situations not even with the 6 categories.
  Lastly, the predictions of difficulty level could
  not be verified with reliability.
• The attempt to predict difficulty by means of
  contrastive analysis was called the strong
  version of the CAH (Wardaugh, 1970) a version
  that he believed unrealistic and impractible.
• Wardaugh also recognized the weak version of the
  CAH one in which the linguistic difficulties can
  be more profitably explained a posteriori by
  teachers and linguists. When language and errors
  appear, teachers can utilize their knowledge of
  the target language and native language to
  understand the sources of error.

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CAH to CLI

• The so-called weak version of the CAH is what
  remains today under the label cross-linguistic
  influence (CLI) suggesting that we all recognize
  the significant role that prior experience plays
  in any learning act, and the influence of the
  native language as prior experience must not be
  overlooked.
• Syntactic , lexical, and semantic interference
  show far more variation among learners than
  psycho-motor-based pronunciation interference.

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Markedness and universal grammar

• Eckman (1977,1981) proposed a useful method for
  determining directionality of difficulty-markednes
  s theory.
• It accounted for degrees of principles of
  universal grammar.Eckman showed that marked items
  in a language will be more difficult to acquire
  than unmarked, and that degree of markedness will
  correspond to degrees of difficulty.

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Markedness

• Celse-Murcia and Hawkins (198566) sum up
  markedness theory
• It distinguishes members of a pair of
  related forms or structures by assuming that the
  marked member of a pair contains at least one
  more feature than the unmarked one. In addition,
  the unmarked (neutral) member has a wider range
  of distribution than the marked one. In the
  English indefinite articles (a and an) an is the
  more complex or marked form. Verbs are the
  classic example for this pattern.

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Learner language

• CAH stressed the interfering effects of L1 on L2
  learning and claimed, in its strong form, that L2
  learning is primarily a process of acquiring
  whatever items are different from the L1.
• This narrow view of interference ignored the
  intralingual effects of learning.
• Learners are consciously testing hypotheses about
  the target language from many possible sources of
  knowledge.
• 1. knowledge of the native language
• 2. limited knowledge of the target
  language itself
• 3. knowledge of communicative functions of
  language
• 4. knowledge about language in general
• 5. knowledge about life, human beings, and
  the universe.
• Learners act upon the environment and construct
  what to them is a legitimate system of language
  in its own right.

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Learner language

• The most obvious approach to analyzing
  interlanguage is to study the speech and writing
  of learners learner language (Lightbown Spada
  1993)
• Production data is publicly observable and is
  presumably reflective of a learners underlying
  competence.
• It follows that the study of the speech and
  writing of learners is largely the study of the
  errors of learners. Correct production yields
  little information about the actual linguistic
  system of learners.

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Error analysis

• Human learning is fundamentally a process that
  involves the making of mistakes.
• They form an important aspect of learning
  virtually any skill or acquiring information.
• Language learning is like any other human
  learning.
• L2 learning is a process that is clearly not
  unlike L1 learning in its trial-and-error nature.
  Inevitably, learners will make mistakes in the
  process of acquisition, and that process will be
  impeded if they do not commit errors and then
  benefit from various forms of feedback on those
  errors.
• Corder (1967) noted a learners errors are
  significant in that they provide to the
  researcher evidence of how language is learned or
  acquired, what strategies or procedures the
  learner is employing in the discovery of the
  language.

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Mistakes and errors

• In order to analyze learner language in an
  appropriate perspective, it is crucial to make a
  distinction between mistakes and errors,
  technically two very different phenomena.
• Mistake refers to a performance error that is
  either a random guess or a slip, in that is a
  failure to utilize a known system correctly.
  Native speakers make mistakes.When attention is
  called to them, they can be self-corrected.
• Error a noticeable deviation from the adult
  grammar of a native speaker, reflects the
  competence of the learner (Does John can sing?)

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Mistakes and errors

• The fact that learners do make errors, and these
  errors can be analyzed, led to a surge of study
  of learners errors, called error analysis.
• Error analysis became distinguished from
  contrastive analysis by its examination of errors
  attributable to all possible sources, not just
  those resulting from negative transfer of the
  native language.

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Errors in error analysis

• There is a danger in too much attention to
  learners errors.
• A classroom teacher can become so preoccupied
  with noticing errors that the correct utterances
  in L2 go unnoticed.
• While the diminishing of errors is an important
  criterion for increasing language proficiency,
  the ultimate goal of L2 learning is the
  attainment of communicative fluency.

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Identifying and describing errors

• One of the most common difficulties in
  understanding the linguistic systems of both L1
  and L2 is the fact that such systems cannot be
  directly observed they must be inferred by means
  of analyzing production and comprehension data.
• The first step in the process of analysis is the
  identification and description of errors. Corder
  (1971) provided a model for identifying erroneous
  or idiosyncratic utterances in a second language.
  (chart 8.1) p. 221
• A major distinction is made between overt and
  covert errors.
• a. overt erroneous utterances
  ungrammatically at the sentence level
• b. covert grammatically well-formed
  but not according to context of
• communication.

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examples

• Does John can sing?
• A. NO
• C. YES
• D. Can John sing?
• E. original sentence contained pre-posed do
  auxiliary applicable to most verbs, but not to
  verbs with auxiliaries. OUT 2

• I saw their department.
• A. YES
• B. NO (context about living quarters in
  Mexico)
• C. NO
• F. YES, Spanish
• G. Yo vi su departamento.
• H. I saw their apartment.
• E. Departamento was translated to false
  cognate department. OUT 2

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Categories for description of errors

• Errors of addition, omission, substitution, and
  ordering (math)
• Phonology or orthography, lexicon, grammar, and
  discourse
• Global or local (a scissors)
• Domain and extent

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Interlingual and intralingual transfer

• Interlingual (L1 and L2) transfer is a
  significant source of error for all learners.
• It is now clear that intralingual transfer
  (within the target language itself) is a major
  factor in L2 learning. It is referred to as
  overgeneralization. (see examples on p. 225)

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Contexts of learning

• A third major source of error, although it
  overlaps both types of transfer, is the context
  of learning.
• Context refers, for example, to the classroom
  with its teacher and its materials in the case of
  school learning or the social situation in the
  case of untutored second language learning.
• In a classroom context the teacher or the
  textbook can lead to the learner to make faulty
  hypotheses about the language. Richards (1971)
  called it false concepts

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Stages of learner language development

• Corder (1973) presents the progression of
  language learners in four stages based on
  observations of what the learner does in terms of
  errors alone.
• 1st stage random errors, called pre-systematic
  in which the learner is only vaguely aware that
  there is some systematic order to a particular
  class of items.
• 2nd stage (emergent) stage of learner language
  finds the learner growing in consistency in
  linguistic production. Learner has begun to
  discern a system and to internalize certain
  rules. Its characterized by backsliding seems
  to grasp a a rule or principle and then regresses
  to previous stages.

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Stages

• 3. 3rd stage truly systematic stage in which the
  learner is now able to manifest more consistency
  in producing the second language. The most
  salient difference between the 2nd and the 3rd
  stages is the ability of learners to correct
  their errors when they are pointed out.
• 4. Final stage stabilization stage Corder
  (1973) called it postsystematic stage. Here the
  learner has relatively few errors and has
  mastered the system to the point that fluency and
  intended meanings are not problematic. This
  fourth stage is characterized by the learners
  ability to self-correct.

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Variability in learner language

• A great deal of attention has been given to the
  variability of interlanguage development. Just
  like native speakers hesitate with expressions in
  their own language, the same occurs in L2.
• Tarone (1988) focused her research on contextual
  variability, that is, the extent to which both
  linguistic and situational contexts may help to
  systematically describe what appear simply as
  unexplained variation. Tarone suggested four
  categories of variation
• 1. according to linguistic context
• 2. according to psychological processing
  factors
• 3. according to social context
• 4. according to language function

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Fossilization

• It is quite common to encounter in a learners
  language various erroneous features that persist
  despite what is otherwise a reasonably fluent
  command of the language.
• This phenomenon is most saliently manifested
  phonologically in foreign accents in the speech
  of those who have learned a L2 after puberty
  (chapter 3).
• The relatively permanent incorporation of
  incorrect linguistic forms into a persons second
  language competence has been referred to as
  FOSSILIZATION.
• It is a normal and natural stage for many
  learners and should not be viewed as some sort of
  terminal illness.

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Error treatment

• Should errors be treated? How they should be
  treated? When?
• Vigil and Oller (1976) provided feedback about
  these questions with the following model
• Fossilization may be the result of too many green
  lights when there should have been some yellow or
  red lights.

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Affective/cognitive feedback for error treatment

• Does John can sing?
• red (-) abort(X)
  recycle
• Message yellow (0)
  
• green ()
  continue continue
• affective
  cognitive
• feedback
  feedback

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Feedback

• Affective
• (positive) Keep talking Im listening
• (neutral ) Im not sure I want to continue this
  conversation.
• (negative) This conversation is over

• Cognitive
• (pos.) I understand your message its clear.
• (neutral) Im not sure if I correctly understand
  you or not.
• I dont understand what you are saying its not
  clear.

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Bailey (1985) recommended a useful taxonomy for
error treatment classification 7 basic options
complemented by 7 possible features

• BASIC OPTIONS
• To treat or to ignore
• To treat immediately or delay
• To transfer treatment (other learners) or not
• To transfer to another individual, subgroup or
  the whole class
• To return , or not, to original error maker after
  treatment
• To allow other learners to initiate treatment
• To test for efficacy of the treatment

• POSSIBLE FEATURES
• Fact or error indicated
• Location indicated
• Opportunity for new attempt given
• Model provided
• Error type indicated
• Remedy indicated
• Improvement indicated
• Praise indicated

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Summary

• The matter of how to correct errors is
  exceedingly complex.
• Research on error correction methods is not at
  all conclusive about the most effective method or
  technique for error correction.
• It seems quite clear that students in the
  classroom want and expect errors to be corrected.

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In the classroom A model for error treatment

• Flow chart as an example of error treatment in a
  classroom