Interlanguage : a language produced by

a learner of a second language that

often has grammatical features not

found in either the learner’s native

language or the language being

acquired . for example:

I’m not tell you

*

*Systematic interlanguage variation occurs

when a learner produces different variants of a

particular interlanguage in varying linguistic

environment or under different social

conditions(A learner may master a given target

language in one social context but in another

social context systematically produces a quite

different variant of that form.)

(1) Done by observing or examining a group of people or things over time to study

how one or two particular things about them to change

*The kind of data can be produced by:

Longitudinal (1) case studies : learner’s output in different social

interaction and changes in that output in those situations over

a period of some time.

*Liu conducted: a 26-month longitudinal study of a chinese boy

named “Bob” (beginning when Bob was 5 and ending when he was

almost 7 years old)

*He observed Bob in 4 interactional contexts:

1) With pre-school peers in the same classroom and supervisory

staff

2) His teacher in his primary school

3) Primary school peers in the same classroom

4) Researcher

*All the data were analyzed according to several general criteria:

• Number of utterances produced by Bob

• Complexity of utterances produced

• Proportion of those utterances which were initiation as opposed to

responses

• Functions those utterances fullfilled

• Interrogative structures produced

*Liu defines 3 interactional contexts in which Bob engaged after

starting primary school in terms of Bob’s role relationship with 3

different types of interlocutors:

1. Classroom teachers(a child-student to adult-teacher role

relationship)

2. Peers in the classroom(a child to child-friend role relationship)

3. Researcher(a child to adult-friend role relationship)

Quantitative analysis of the language produced by Bob in these 3

settings shows a considerable difference in the frequency of

grammatical elements in these settings.

1) Interaction with his teacher : he generally did not initiate interactions and focused on presenting himself as a good pupil.in language use , he did not seem to take many risks.

2) Interaction with his peer: he has a dominant role. He initiates interactions . Liu’s quantitative analysis shows a general pattern of increase in Bob’s initiation in Bob-peer interactions and a much wider range of ‘functions” expressed by Bob in interactions with his peers than with his teachers.

3) Interaction with the researchers : the researcher was a friend of the family and an adult who knew how to play and was interested in interacting with Bob and drawing him out in a relaxed home environment so Bob tried hard to initiate interactions with the researcher.

Liu’s quantitative analysis shows that there was a general pattern of increased syntactic complexity, increased initiation and increased variety of both structure and function in the conversation between researcher and Bob.

*Bob is performing his competence differently in these different

interactional contexts.The crucial question for us now,is this:

*Do the different interactional contexts cause Bob’s competence

to develop differentially?

*Liu claims that the differential interactions in which Bob engaged

had an impact on his interlanguage development,not only in terms of

the rate of the development but also on the rout of his interlanguage

development.

*Liu uses Pienemann and Johnston’s framework for the development

of English as a second language to examine the development of

various aspects of Bob’s interlanguage grammer.

*He focuses for example upon the developmental stages in Bob’s use

of interrogative forms and in general new structures appear first in

interacting with the researcher then in Bob-peer interactions and

last in Bob-teacher interactions.

This is only one study of one individual and more data of this sort

are needed and analysis of Bob’s sequence of acquisition is based

upon Pienemann and Johnston’s criteria and we need to examine

Bob’s acquisition process using other criteria as well. We need to

examine Bob’s variable use of interrogative form in more details.

Finally, we need to examine the development of other structures in

Bob’s interlanguage such as negation.

*The study of Bob’s language development illustrates the data we need

to obtain in an attempt to determine the relationship between

contextual variation and second language acquisition such an

investigation can shed light upon delicate relationship which

undoubtedly exists in SLA between internal innate and external

contextual forces and any adequate theory of second language

acquisition must be able to account for that relationship between

internal and contextual forces which occurs in the process of second

language acquisition.

*

A translator must understand the meaning of an expression not only in terms of the linguistic context, but also in terms of the nonlinguistic or situational context in which it is used.

Situational context refers to the factors outside the linguistic context which determine or influence the interpretation of an expression or statement. The situational factors may pertain to the facial expressions, gestures and stances at micro level and the social, political and economical milieu and the culture at large . As is known to all, the same expression or statement which is used in different situations may have quite different meanings . For example, the statement “Do you think this is bringing rain?” only makes sense when the speaker is pointing to a dark cloud in the sky. There are many examples to illustrate that the same expression or statement may have quite different meanings in different situations.

Thank you

for

listening to my

Presentation

Prepared by :Habibeh khosravi