The Nature Of Learner Language
1. Errors And Error Analysis
a. 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 sentence learners
produce with what seem to be the normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the target language
which corespond with them. Sometimes this is fairly straightforwad.
To distinguish errors and mistakes, one way might be to check the consistency
of learners’ perfomance. Another way might be to ask learners to try to correct their
our deviant utterances. Where they are unable to, the deviations are errors; where
they are successful, they are mistakes.
b. Describing errors
Once all the errors have been identified, they can be decscribed and clasified
into types. There are several ways of doing this. One way is to classify errors into
grammatical categories. We could gather all the errors relating to verb and then
identify the different kinds of verb errors in our sample.
c. Explaining errorsies
The identification and description of errors are preliminaries to the much more
interesting task to of trying to explain why they occur. Errors are, to a large extent,
systematic and to certain extent, predictable.
Erros are not only systematic; many of them are also universal. Of courese,
not all errors are universal. Some aerrors are common only to learners who share the
same mother tongue or whose mother tongue manifest the same linguistic property.
Errors, then, can have different sources. Some errors seem to be universal, reflecting
learners’ attempts to make the task of learning and using the L2 simpler. Learners
commite errors of omission. The use of ‘eated’ in place of ‘ate’ is an example of an
overgeneralization. Both errors of omission and overgeneralization are common in
the speech of all L2 learners, irrespective their L1.
d. Error evaluation
Where the purpose of the error analysis is to help learners learn an L2, there is
a need to evaluate errors. Some errors can be considered more serious than others
because they are more likely to infere with the intelligibility of what someone says.
Some erros, known as global erros, violate the overall structure of sentence and for
this reason may make it difficult to process.
2. Developmental Pattern
a. The early stages of L2 acquisition
In such circumstance, some L2 learners, particulary if they are children,
undergo a silent period. When the learners do begin to speak in the L2 their speech is
likely to manifest two particular characteristics. One is the kind of for mulaic chunks
which we saw in the case studies. The second characteristics of early L2 speech is
propotional simplification. Learners find it difficult to speak in full sentences so they
frequently leave words out.
b. The order of acquisition
To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers choose a number of
grammatical structures to study. They then collect samples of learner language and
identify how accurately each feature is used by different learners. This enable them to
arrive at an accuracy order. That is, they rank the features accordin to how accurately
each feature is used bby the learners.
c. Sequence of acquisition
When learners acquire a grammatical structure they do so gradually, moving
through a series of stages en route to acquiring the native speaker rule. The
acquisition of a particular grammatical structure, therefore, must be seen as a process
involving transtional construction.
d. Some implications
The discovery of common patterns in the way in which learner language
changes over time is one of the most important findings of SLA. The work on
developmental pattern is important for another reason. It suggests that some linguistic
features are inherently easier to learn than others.
3. Variability In Lerner Language
We have seen that learner language is systematic. That is, at a particular stage of
development, learners consistently use the same grammatical form, althiugh this is often
different from that employed by native speakers. We have also seen that learner language
is variable. At any given stage of development, learners sometimes employ one form and
sometimes another.
Learners also vary the linguistic forms they use in accordence with the situational
context. In this respect, learners are no different from native speakers. when native
speaker of English are taking to friens, for example, they tend to speak informally, using
colloquialexpression.
The importance factor that accounts for the systematic nature of variability is the
psycholinguistic context, whether learners have the opportunity to plan their product.
Variablity in learner language, then, is clearly not just random. Learners have access
to two or more linguistic forms for realizing a single grammatical structure but they do
not employe this arbitrary. Rather their choice is determined by a variety of factors such
as linguistic context, the situational context and the avaibility of planning time.
It is important to recognize that this general sequence of acquisition applies to
spesefic grammatical features. Thus, it is possible for indivisual learners to be at different
stages in the sequence for different grammatical features.