Acquisition OF English AS A Foreign Language - Reading 4 PDF

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1 SAMY BRUGES erasmus

ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE : READING 4 READING 4: Ellis, R. (1997). The nature of learner language. In R. Ellis, Second Language Acquisition (Ch. 2. pp. 15-30). 1. Describe the difference between global errors and local errors and give an example of each. While global errors violate the overall structure of a sentence, making it difficult to process, local errors only affect a single constituent in the sentence and are less likely to create any processing problems which makes it easier to understand the speaker than global errors. The policeman was in this corner whistle is a global error because the entire sentence is wrong, whether it be the tense ( was whistling) or the overall structure (  the policeman was whistling in this corner). The policeman was in this corner whistle can also be a local error if we focus on grammar in the sense that the tense is wrong. It should be was whistling. 2. Explain the concept of variability and give examples of different types. The learner language is variable, it is a fact. Errors may come from learners wanting to employ different one grammatical form or the other. Language can be systematic since variability can also be systematic. There are five types of settings which can influence a learner. According to linguistic context, leaners vary in their use of the L2. For example, their choice of using a past tense marker is up to the verb they are using, whether it refers to an event, an activity or a state. In the two following sentence, an adverb of frequency can trigger another linguistic form: George playing football (George played football all the time) George usually play football every day. (George usually played Football every day

Learners also vary the linguistic forms they use according to the situational context. In this particular context, there are no differences between native speakers and learners. The latter is able to produce a native-like speech using colloquial expressions: My kid’s a real pain these days.

However, they can also showcase a native-like speech when they speak to someone they do not know very well: My daughter can be very troublesome these days.

Learners vary their use of language similarly. They are more likely to use the correct target-language forms in general 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. For example, when a speaker is aware that they are being recorded, their

2 SAMY BRUGES erasmus

speech will automatically be better as more thoughts will be put into speaking. In the next example, the learner was able to plan his first production but not his second: He went out of the bus with three packets […] he don’t saw it but the man who was passing by this way saw it. An Indian gentleman, a snake charmer, arrived in England by plane. He was coming from Bombay with two pieces of luggage. The big of them contained a snake.

They use a more intricate language, with irregular verbs such as saw and went whereas in the unplanned narrative, they fail to mark a single irregular verb for past tense. The form-function mappings learners make are not always the same as the ones found in the target language. For example, one learner used two forms to express negatives: Mariana no coming today. Don’t sit in that one chair.

While the first one is false, the learner had acquired some kind of consistency which led them to believe that this no+verb form was actually right. Learners try to make their available linguistic resources work to maximum effect by mapping one meaning on to one form. The results can be different from the target-language. Variety can also be free. As a matter of fact, learners sometimes use two or more forms in free variation. It can constitute an essential stage in the acquisition of grammatical structures. Different kinds of variability may be evident at different stages of development. However, it only applies to specific grammatical features. For example, the learner used two negative forms in close proximity to each other, in the same context, while addressing the same person and with similar amounts of planning time: No look my card. Don’t look my card.

3. Explain the concept of fossilization and give an example of a typical fossilized structure for Spanish learners of English. Fossilization refers to the process in which incorrect language becomes a habit and cannot easily be corrected. It is very frequent in L2 acquisition. An example would be Spanish speakers finding it difficult to get used to saying Spanish /’spænɪʃ/ instead of /ɛspænɪʃ/ when learning English as a L2.

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