Chapter 2 The nature of learner language

CHAPTER 2THE NATURE OF

LEARNER LANGUAGE

Agnetia dian saputri2201410017101-102

English education

ERRORS AND ERROR ANALYSIS

Identifying errors

The first step in analysing learner errors is to identify them. This is in fact easier said than done.

To identify errors we have to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem ‘correct’ sentences in target language.

Examples :A man and a little boy was watching him

×A man and a little boy were watching him

We need to distinguish errors and mistakes

Errors : reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they

occur because the learner does not know what is

correct

Mistakes : reflect occasional lapses in performance;

they occur because, in a particular instance, the

learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.

Describing errors

errors into grammatical categories

try to identify general ways in which the learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances.

Omission

Misinformation

Misordering

Explaining errors

The identification and description of errors are preminariesto the much more interesting task of trying to explain why they occur.

Errors are not only sistematic, but also universal.

ERRORS, THEN, HAVE DIFFERENT SOURCESS

Learners commit errors of ommision.

Overgeneralization error.

Error evaluation

Some errors can be considered more serious than others because they are more likely to interfere with the intelligibility of what someone says.

Some errors, known as global errors and local errors.

example of global error :

The policeman was in this corner whistle. . .

(which is difficult to understand because the baic structure of the sentences is wrong).

Example of local errors :

Affect only a single constituent in the sentence (for example, the verb) and are, perhaps, less likely to create any processing problems.

DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS

The early stages of L2 acquisition

When learners do begin to speak in L2 their speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristics.

1. The kind of formulaic chunks which we saw in the case studies.

Fixed expression like ‘How do you do ?’

2. Propositional simplification.

Learners find it difficult to speak in full sentences so they frequently leave words out.

Example :

J wanted the teacher to give him a blue crayon, but he said only “Me no blue”.

The order of acquisition

To investigate the order of acquistion, reseachers choose a number of grammatical structures to study (for ex: progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s).

The acquisition of a particular grammatical structure, must be seen as a process involving transitional cosructions.

For example :

SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITION

stage description example

1 Learners fail to mark the verb for past

time.

‘eat’

2 Learners begin to produce irregular past tense forms.

‘ate’

3 Learners overgeneralize the regular past tense

form.

‘eated’

4 Sometimes learners produce hybrid

forms.

‘ated’

5 Learners produce correct irregular past

tense forms.

‘ate’

SOME IMPLICATION

The discovery of common patterns in the way in which learner language changes over time is one of the most important findings of SLA.

VARIABILITY IN LEARNER LANGUAGE

This is one type of error may alternate with another type:

Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.

Yesterday the thief stealing the suitcase.

Or an error may alternate with the correct target-language form:

Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.

Yesterday the thief stole the suitcase.

The claim that learner language is systematic since it is possible that variability is also systematic. That is, we may be able to explain, and even predict, when learners use one form and when another.

Learners vary their use of language similarly. They are more likely to use the correct target-language forms in formal contexts and non-target forms in informal contexts.

Another important factor that accounts for the systematic nature of variability is the psycholinguistic context-whether learners have the opportunity to plan their production.

A characteristic of any natural language is that forms realize meanings in a systematic way. Learners language is no different.

It is important to recognize that this general sequence of acquisition applies to specific grammatical features. Thus, it is possible for individual learners to be at different stages in the sequence for different grammatical features.

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