3.4 第二语言习得概论（Rod Ellis)：Interlanguage an

Empirical evidence for the interlanguage hypothesis

(1) Intro

① issue: the nature of the interlanguage continuum

1) restructuring continuum:

stretching from the learner’s mother tongue to the TL

2) recreation continuum:

the gradual complexification of interlanguage knowledge

② 发展：restructuring continuum → recreation continuum

(2) Cross-sectional research: morpheme studies

① issue: the order of acquisition (grammatical functors)

② hypothesis: invariant order in SLA

→ universal processing strategies (similar to FLA)

③ fixed procedure

1) elicit data through Bilingual Syntax Measure

ask the learners to describe a series of pictures

2) identify the target grammatical items

identify the obligatory occasions (a context in which use of the item under consideration was obligatory in correct native-speaker speech)

3) score the items

a. whether it was correctly used in each context

b. accuracy score: total use by all the learners

4) rank the items: accuracy scores

accuracy order=acquisition order (the more accurately an item was used, the earlier it was acquired)

④ empirical research and results

1) D&B: child ---- developmental errors ---- same acquisition order

2) N: adult ---- similar results

3) L: adult ---- the accuracy orders varied according to the elicitation instrument used (oral ---- same; listening, reading, and writing ---- different)

4) K: written data ---- ‘fast’ writing v.s. ‘careful writing’ ---- no effect on morpheme order

⑤ Result and Conclusion

1) the morpheme studies provided strong evidence of ‘natural’ sequence of development in SLA

2) hierarchy: the morphemes within each group are acquired at the same time (developmental stage)

3) criticism: ‘accuracy order’ was not the same as ‘acquisition order’

(3) Longitudinal studies

① Intro

1) issue:

a. the gradual growth of competence in terms of the strategies used by a learner at different developmental points

b. acquisition of particular grammatical subsystems: negatives, interrogatives, and relative clauses

2) 优缺点

a. 优点：more reliable (data from different points of time)

b. 缺点：difficult to make generalization

3) transitional constructions

a. the language forms learners use while they are still learning the grammar of a language

b. interim or developmental stages (gradual)

② Negation

1) Stages

a. external negation: the negative particle (no) is attached to a declarative nucleus (陈述句核心)

eg. No very good.

   No you playing here.

b. internal negation: the negative particle (not, don’t, no) is moved inside the utterance. (don’t: unanalyzed unit, 不能理解为’do+not’)

eg. I no can swim.

   Mariana not coming today.

    He don’t like it.

c. negative attachment to modal verbs (can’t: unanlyzed units)

eg. I can’t play this one.

    I won’t go.

d. target language rule: auxiliary system, tense and number

eg. He doesn’t know anything

    I didn’t said it.

2) feature:

a. This is a gradual route

b. The stages are not clearly defined and they overlap

c. There are learner differences

③ Interrogation

1) Stages

a. ‘non-communicative’ stage

a) the learner is not able to produce any spontaneous interrogatives, but just repeats a question someone has asked him

b) the first productive questions: intonation questions (utterances with declarative word order but spoken with a rising intonation)

c) Wh-questions: ready-made chunks

b. productive Wh-questions

a) no subject-verb inversion

b) the auxiliary verb is often omitted

c. inversion: inversion with ‘be’ tends to occur before inversion with ‘do’

d. embedded questions: subject-verb inversion

eg. I don’t know where do you live.

e. differentiate the word order: ordinary and embedded Wh-questions

2) features: 同上

④ Relative clauses（定语从句）

1) Stages

a. relative clauses

a) relative clauses used to modify the object

b) relative clauses used to modify the subject

b. relative pronouns

a) the relative pronoun was omitted

b) ordinary personal pronoun was used

(external negation stage)

c) the relative pronoun was used properly

2) Conclusion

insufficient evidence for natural sequence of development for relative clauses

⑤ A composite longitudinal picture

1) Analogy between interlanguage and pidgins(混杂语)

interlanguage =pidginization-depidginization continuum

2) four broad stages of development

a. standard word order

a) no matter whether it is the same with TL rules

b) utterances are propositionally reduced: sentence constituents are omitted

b. expanding propositions

a) all or most of the constituents are included

b) the word order varied according to TL rules

(the first two stages: erratic grammatical morphemes with different functions as in native speech)

c. systematic and meaningful use of grammatical morphemes

d. acquisition of complex sentence structures

(unpackaging unanalyzed units)

⑥ Summary

1) The longitudinal research: there is a natural development route in SLA

2) Learner differences: L1 and individual preference

(4) Interpreting the empirical evidence

① approach

1) data gatherers

a. fluency rather than formal accuracy

b. adroit use of ready-made chunks and juxtaposition of nouns

c. vocabulary > rules

2) rule formers

a. target language forms

b. accuracy

② sequence of development V.S. order of development

1) sequence

a. the overall developmental profile

b. universal and product of creative construction

2) order: individual differences

3) relationship:

Learners follow a standard sequence but vary in the order in which specific feature are acquired