ERROR ANALYSIS REVISION TEST 1 CORDER: INTERLANGUAGE- the language learner at all points of his learning career 'has

a language', in the sense that his behaviour is rule governed and therefore describable in linguistic terms Interlanguage-changing all the time, rules are constantly undergoing revision, consistent and inconsistent, deficient as a means of communication -we must regard the learner as the only 'native speaker' of his language -he has 'intuitions' about the grammaticality of his language which are potentially investigable -we want to identify the differences between the two sets of rules and discover what he has still to learn, so that we may take appropriate and remedial action -Error analysis viewed in this way is a branch of applied comparative linguistics -in error analysis we are comparing the learner's language with the 'whole' of the target language (or with what has been selected for incorporation in the syllabus) = prospective comparison -the distinction between the notion of input and the notion of intake is relevant -learners do not immediately learn, on first exposure, what the syllabus prescribes should be learnt at that point -reasons for that: the nature of the data or the manner in which they are presented is defective, or while the data are adequate, the state of the learning device is such that it cannot take them in (the learner has to know certain things before he can learn something new) -learners are programmed cognitively to process data in a certain way -Some data may be presented prematurely so that they cannot form part of the intake, or alternatively some data may not be available when they are logically required. -the goal is to discover the relationship between the nature of the data presented and the state of the learner's grammar. -we need a longitudinal study of learners exposed to particular syllabuses (captive learners), or even exposed to no particular syllabus (non-captive learners) -two sorts of data: textual data and intuitional data are related to the two levels of adequacy, observational and descriptive. -A description based only on textual data cannot achieve mofe than observational adequacy -To be descriptively adequate a grammar must accord with the intuitions of the native speaker -in theory, error analysis is based on textual data, so it cannot achieve descriptive adequacy, but in practice, a teacher has an insight into linguistic development of his pupils and he has at some point been a native speaker of his pupil's interlanguage, so error analysis incorporates intuitional data as well. -We need therefore in the investigation of the learner's language to supplement textual data by intuitional data and devise systematic methods of investigating these. -Textual data cannot be regarded as a representative sample of the learner's language because the sample is biased due to external constraint and internal constraint -the textual data we usually work on is not spontaneous language produced by the learner under the pressure of natural communicative needs, but material produced as exercises in classroom conditions with a consequent variety of artificial constraints imposed on it - restricted topics, restricted functions, restricted time, etc. -Secondly, the learner himself will place limitations upon the data we work with, by selecting from his actual repertoire, where possible, only those aspects of his knowledge which, rightly or wrongly, he has most confidence in. -We need, therefore, techniques which allow us to correct this sampling bias, which will enable us to elicit information about the learner's interlanguage which he is not required to reveal by the ordinary tasks we set him -tests and examinations not useful for descriptive purposes because we want to know what actual rules he uses, what we need is an elicitation procedure. -An elicitation procedure is any procedure which causes a learner to make a judgement about the grammatical acceptability of a form or provokes him into generating a linguistic response. It is clear that his judgements and responses can only be based upon the grammar of his interlanguage. -elicitation procedures are used to find out something specific about the learner's language -constraints must be placed on the learner so that he is forced to make choices within a severely restricted area of his phonological, lexical, or syntactic competence -elicitation procedures VS tests - the selection of the contexts in elicitation procedures is based not upon a description of the target language, but upon what is known (however limited) of the learner's interlanguage -the investigator must have some prior hunch or hypothesis about the possible nature of the learner's interlanguage as a guide -the main notions about the learner's language will derive from the two systematic techniques already mentioned: formal error analysis and contrastive analysis -The role of contrastive analysis is now increasingly seen as explanatory rather than predictive -analysis of a textual corpus can yield no more than a number of equally likely hypotheses -that is why the devising of systematic elicitation procedures must follow, not precede, as complete and explanatory study of the learner's language -requirements of the informant (the subject being tested): he should be able to make judgements about the acceptability of forms, give the authoritative interpretation of a linguistic form (the ability to give a translation equivalent) and in 1

order to understand the instructions given in elicitation exercises some linguistic metalanguage is almost inevitably needed -three types of informants: infant, native informant, language learner (the best informant, has some metalinguistic knowledge) CONCLUSION: To discover something about the processes of second language learning we need to be able to make longitudinal studies of language learners, correlating their linguistic development with the data which is put before them. This means making successive descriptions of their interlanguage. The data on which we base these descriptions is, in the first instance, a body of utterances by the learner - the textual data. -because of the effect of the internal and external constraints on its production, test results are probably not a representative sample of the learner's language. They provide, however, when analysed, useful hypotheses about the nature of the learner's language. These hypotheses require explanatory refinement by contrastive analysis, and are finally validated or otherwise by elicitation procedures whose object is to gain access to the learner's intuitions about his language - intuitional data. CORDER'S INTERLANGUAGE -errors arise because there has not been enough effort on the part of the learner or enough explanation or practice on the part of the teacher -another view of errors is that they are all the result of the influence of the mother tongue on the learning process, 'interference' as it was called, from the habits of the first language. -errors are regarded as useful evidence of how the learner is setting about the task of learning, what 'sense' he is making of the target language data to which he is exposed and being required to respond. The making of errors, in this approach, is seen as an inevitable, indeed a necessary part of the learning process. -learners' errors are in some sense systematic and not random, otherwise there would be nothing for the teacher to learn from them - if the learner's errors are systematic, then his own peculiar version of the target language must be based on some systematic knowledge or personal 'competence -learners' versions of target languages were given the collective name interlanguage by Selinker in 1972 -The study of interlanguage is, then, the study of the language systems of language learners, or simply the study of language learners' language. -other terms: interlingua (James), approximative system -term transitional competence (Corder) borrows the notion of 'competence' from Chomsky and emphasises that the learner possesses a certain body of knowledge that is constantly developing -linguistics has traditionally concerned itself with the institutionalized realizations of human language that is with 'langues' in de Saussure's terminology, rather than with the particular idiosyncratic manifestations of the individual native speaker's versions of particular languages, that is with idiolects or 'parole' -interlanguage can be viewed as idiosyncratic individual dialect, but it has no socially given name or fixed grammar, so we cannot use de Saussure's approach with interlanguage -interlanguages are not institutionalized manifestations of language. They do not therefore develop 'norms'. Indeed the norms which interlanguage speakers implicitly accept and aim at are those of the target language. Approximative interlanguage systems are therefore unstable. It is because of the dynamic nature of approximative systems that their investigation presents peculiar theoretical and methodological problems. -Linguistic theory copes with the problem of describing change by postulating a succession of 'stable states' or 'etats de langue' -the learner's approximative systems merge gradually into each other rather than switch from one discrete state to the next, they're highly dynamic -learners do not use their interlanguage very often in the classroom for what we may call 'normal' or 'authentic' communicative purposes, so such situations are not very relevant to the study of interlanguage -Learners typically produce a different set of errors in their spontaneously generated utterances, when attempting to communicate, than in their practice utterances. They appear to operate according to two differing sets of rules. Widdowson refers to these as 'rules of use'and 'rules of usage. In the classrooms, learners rarely communicate. -two tendencies therefore emerge: there has been an increased interest in the study of learners in informal settings of language learning and use and, on the other, in the devising of techniques for getting at the learner's knowledge more directly than by inference from his functionally constrained utterances in the classroom. -These techniques take the form of elicitation procedures of various sorts. They have the objective of requiring the learner to reveal what he knows, that is, his 'transitional competence' or 'approximative system' by responding to various types of tests. Their objective is descriptive not evaluative -two methods of investigation we can call clinical and experimental respectively and they form the basic techniques used by any linguist investigating particular manifestations of language -child language, interlanguage, or institutionalized language. -the exception is a child cannot use metalanguage

-the overwhelming majority of bilinguals in the world have not learnt their second language in the classroom. In most multilingual communities throughout the world the learning of a second language takes place in an informal situation of language contact as a result of exposure to the second language being spoken by native speakers -In such informal learning settings, one might expect that the interlanguage of learners would show different properties from that of learners in formal settings -so, if we cannot show some common formal features, the notion of interlanguage is trivial -the evidence is beginning to point to the conclusion that interlanguages as they develop, particularly in the unstructured learning situation, do bear resemblances to each other -The resemblances which have been found are almost entirely syntactic ones. The phonology and phonetics of interlan-guage have been extensively studied and invariably they show features related to the phonology of the mother tongue. At this level there is clearly interference. This can be accounted for by the transfer of the articulatory and perceptual habits of the mother tongue to the interlanguage-But the syntax he creates appears to be largely uninfluenced by his phonological system. -the sequence of development of the interlanguage syntax of learners will show general overall similarities This claim implies that there is a property of the human mind which determines the way language learners process the data of language to which they are exposed -It is the objective of interlanguage studies to discover what these processes are and what the 'natural' sequence of development is. -if we can find some general principles of development, then these principles can be applied to the selection, organization, and sequencing of material for learning in a structured teaching situation. -The term interlanguage was introduced because learners' languages studied up to that time had regularly displayed formal features both of the target language and of some other language, notably, though not exclusively, of the mother tongue. -it has now been well established that interlanguage may quite regularly exhibit systematic properties which show no obvious resemblance to the mother tongue or any other language known to the learner -the learner is making false inferences about the target language as a result of the way that the target data vhas been selected or presented to him, or as a result of the way that he has been required to practise -The hypothesis is that the learner is creating for himself an account of the structural properties of the target language, about its grammar, on the basis of his interaction with the data he is exposed to. -the phenomenon of fossilization = When his interlanguage grammar reaches that state of elaboration which enables him to communicate adequately for his purposes with native speakers, his motive to improve his knowledge or elaborate his approximative system disappears. -It appears then that the nature of the interlanguage grammar a learner creates for himself is to a considerable extent determined by the knowledge of language the learner already possesses and how elaborate or sophisticated that knowledge is. -many learners exposed to inconsistent data and the range of possible heuristic hypotheses they may adopt about that data may be variable (different dialects, non-standard language) -interlanguage systems are 'reduced' or 'simplified' systems, when compared with standard institutionalized languages. Furthermore they are restricted functionally in the uses to which they can be put. -different interlanguages show interesting similarities. I have suggested that these similarities are evidence that certain basic processes are at work in the acquisition of a second language. Where there is variability, as there obviously is, then it must be accounted for by variability in one or another of the three elements in the learning situation: the learner(age-the younger the learners, the more similar the structural properties of their interlanguage systems will be), the setting (the learner therefore approaches the target language data in a fundamentally different way in a formal setting and in an informal setting), and the language involved (the more communicatively oriented the learning setting, the more similar the structural properties of the learners' interlanguage systems will be). -if there are indeed universal properties in human language and if the process of language learning is one of complicating some sort of more simple, or basic, grammatical system, whatever the target language may be, then one would expect to find that in the earlier stages of learning any language, whatever the mother tongue of the learner, the approximative systems of the learners would show certain similarities. -Several important criticisms about the IL studies : (1) The concentration on morpho-syntactic development and the failure to deal with semantic development (Ellis, 1982). Interlanguage study is mostly limited to the scope of morpheme and syntax. The important aspect of meaning is rarely tackled. (2) The failure to define the concept clearly. Spolsky raised a problem with the notion of interlanguage,which was the tendency to confuse a process with a competence model (Spolsky, 1989, p. 33). Selinker seems to prefer a processing model in spite of his use of competence terminology. (3) The failure to develop effective approaches to facilitate empirical studies. Longitudinal and cross sectional studies are technically inadequate in themselves, new and complimentary methods are yet to be found to probe into the nature and underlying principles of the L2 learners interlanguage. 3

JAMES -language error = an unsuccessful bit of language -Error analysis = the process of determining the incidence, the nature, causes and consequences of an unsuccessful language. -Second language learners stop short of native-like success in a number of areas of the L2 grammar'. They stop short in two ways: when their FL/SL knowledge becomes fixed or 'fossilized', and when they produce errors in their attempts at it. -The 'first-order' application of linguistics is describing language. This is a necessary first step to take before you can move on to the 'second-order' application of comparing languages. -we can compare these three (mothertongue, interlanguage, target language) pairwise, yielding three paradigms: contrastive analysis, error analysis and transfer analysis CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS - 1950s, 1960s - the favoured paradigm for studying FL/SL learning and organizing its teaching was Contrastive Analysis -The procedure involved first "describIng' comparable features of MTand TL and then comparing the forms and resultant meanings across the two languages in order to spot the mismatches that would predictably result in error making. -By the early 1970s, however, some misgivings about tlle reliability of Contrastive Analysis (CA) began to be voiced, mainly on account of its association with an outdated model oflanguage description (Structuralism) and a discredited learning theory (Behaviourism). -also, the errors predicted did not appear, or the errors pointed out by researchers were errors teachers had already known about -1950s and 1960s the favored paradigm for studying FL/SL learning and organizing its teaching was Contrastive Analysis (James, 2001, p. 4) -a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them (Fisiak, 1981, p. 1) -CA stresses the influence of the mother tongue (MT) in learning a second language in phonological,morphological, lexical and syntactic levels: L2 would be affected by L1 -L1 learning habits will be transferred into L2 learning habits: positive vs. negative transfer -in the case of negative transfer or interference, certain elements of the MT have no corresponding counterparts in the TL, L1 habits would cause errors in the L2, and learners would transfer inappropriate properties of L1 -Purists of contrastive analysis advocate a strong approachpredictions about learner difficulties and development of teaching methods based on a comparison of phonological, grammatical, and syntactic features of the NL and TL. -A second or weaker version looks for learners recurring errors and attempts to account for those errors by ascribing their NL/TL differences -The original weakness of CA was its failure to go beyond a statement of difference to a supportable theory of difficulty.; Briere (1968): difference by itself does not predict difficulty; often there is more difficulty in practice with similar structures than with different structures -by viewing errors simply as a result of L1 interference, CA places the environment as the predominant factor in SLA, while learners are believed to play only a passive role in accepting the impositions of the environment -interference or transfer from L1 is not the sole source of errors in L2 learning, for a good number of the errors made by language learners seem to be unrelated to the learners native language ERROR ANALYSIS -This paradigm involves first independently or 'objectively' describing the learners' IL (that is, their version of the TL) and the TL itself, followed by a comparison of the two, so as to locate mismatches. The novelty of EA, distinguishing it from CA, was that the mother tongue was not supposed to enter the picture. claim was made that errors could be described without the need to refer to L1 of the learners. -the study of linguistic ignorance, the investigation of what people do not know and how they attempt to cope with their ignorance (James, 2001, p. 62) -the clearer the understanding of the sources of learners errors, the better second language teachers will be able to detect the process of L2 learning -Richards (1971) A noncontrastive approach to error analysis identified a number of different sources or causes of competence errors: -interference errors of MT interference, -intralingual errors within the TL itself and 4

-developmental errors, reflecting the learners attempts to construct hypotheses about their target language from their limited experience -EA is a systematic study and analysis of errors made by the learners of a foreign language in an attempt to account for their origin, their regularity, their predictability and variability -Richards (1971) : intralingual and developmental errors observed in the acquisition of English as a second language four categories: (1) Overgeneralization, covering instances where the learners create a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structure of the TL; (2) Ignorance of rule restriction, occurring as a result of failure to observe the restrictions or existing structures; (3) Incomplete application of rules, arising when the learners fail to fully develop a certain structure required to produce acceptable sentences; (4) False concepts hypothesized, deriving from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the TL. EA can be highly significant to SLA in the following aspects: (1) They tell the teachers how far towards the goal the learners have progressed and what remains for them to learn.: feedback (2) They provide to the researchers evidence of how language is learned or acquired. (3) They are means whereby learners test alternative hypotheses about the L2. Weaknesses: a robust error typology, no evidence of the developmental route learners take; a partial picture of what happens when one learns L2 TRANSFER ANALYSIS -Purists of contrastive analysis advocate a strong approachpredictions about learner difficulties and development of teaching methods based on a comparison of phonological, grammatical, and syntactic features of the NL and TL. -A second or weaker version looks for learners recurring errors and attempts to account for those errors by ascribing their NL/TL differences -in transfer analysis (James), you are comparing IL with MT and not MT with TL. -TA is a subprocedure applied in the diagnostic phase of doing EA. TA is not a credible alternative paradigm but an ancillary procedure within EA for dealing with those IL-TL discrepancies (and the associated errors) that are assumed to be the results of MT transfer or interference. -There are two ways to conceptualize 'IL'. First, it can refer to the abstraction of learner language, the aggregate of forms, processes and strategies that learners resort to in the course of tackling an additional language. This concept is similar to de Saussure's langue. Alternatively, 'IL' can be used to refer to any one of a number of concretizations (cf. de Saussure's parole) of the underlying system. -By the late 19605 EA had become the acceptable alternative to the Behaviourism-tainted CA of the 1950s. -in his The significance of learners' errors', Corder made five crucial points: -We should look for parallels between L1 acquisition and L2 learning, since these are governed by the same underlying mechanisms, procedures and strategies. However, one difference betiveen the two is that L2 learning is probably facilitated by the learner's knowledge of the MT. -Errors are evidence of the learners' in-built syllabus, or of what they have taken in, rather than what teachers think they have put in: intake should not be equated with input. -Errors show that L1 and L2 learners both develop an independent system of language, it is the evidence of transitional competence -Errors should be distinguished from mistakes -Errors are significant in three respects: they tell the teacher what needs to be taught; they tell the researcher how learning proceeds; and they are a means whereby learners test their hypotheses about the L2. DATA COLLECTION FOR EA Error elicitation: 1. broad trawl: all sorts of errors, indescriminately -purpose: to gain a first impression of the learner's capacities and identify the areas of TL competence where they are most susceptible to error : the source for the analysts initial hypothesis 2. targeted elicitation: determining the levels and systems of the TL to be sampled -purpose: receptive or productive modality, four basic skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION FOR EA 1. Observational studies: role play, information gap activities, simulations - longitudinal studies vs. cross-sectional studies vs. classroom observation 2. Experimental studies: interventionist, to elicit targeted forms which the EA is interested in: - imitation, stimulus modification, controlled elicitation (cloze test, dictation, multiple choice items 3. Introspection: development of students own metalanguage(diaries, questionnaires) 5

EAS OBJECT OF ENQUIRY - FL learners ignorance of TL - Ignorance: linguistic ignorance: The Error Analyst's object of enquiry, then, is the FL learner's ignorance of the TL. This ignorance can be manifest in two ways. First, in silence, when the learner makes no response, that is, says or writes nothing. - Silence: cultural silence(learners from 'silent cultures' such as Finns or Japanese ) vs. avoidance (silence induced by ignorance) - Substitutive language (interlanguage): learners usually prefer to try to express themselves in the TL by alternative means: they 'beg, steal or borrow'. This is the second way they compensate for their ignorance. The study of this substitutive language (called IL) is EA.. Second language acquisition (SlA) theoreticians study this IL sui generis, as if its speakers were a newly discovered lost tribe in Amazonia. Error Analysts study it in relation to the TL. - Ignorance (ignorance is specific in the sense that one is said to be ignorant of such-and-such a structure, irrespective of one's overall proficiency in the TL. ) vs. Incompletness (overal insufficiency across all areas of the TL) - Error can be defined in terms of discepancy between IL and the NSs version of the TL FOUR CATEGORIES OF IGNORANCE - Grammaticality: well-formedness and ill-formedness. It is the grammar (not you or I) who decides whether something said by a learner is grammatical. - Acceptability: NSs decision on the well-formednss of the expression; contextually determined it is to do with 'actualization procedures', when non-linguistic factors militate against the use of a form, we attribute this to unacceptability. - Correcteness: a NSs metalinguistic decision based on prescriptive normative standards - Strangeness and infelicity: cooccurrence restricitons are violated - errors are the results of violating cooccurrence restrictions of English, which are not governed by frxed rules but are probabilistic or 'weighted' in unpredictable ways instances of 'locutional deviance' of the sort we expect from foreigners: He was listening *at me when I *put the statement. (collocations), or pragmatic infelicities (performative speech acts(Austin) an infelicity will yield a sociolinguistic faux pas, for instance, table manners formulae like Guten Appetit! ) MISTAKES VS. ERRORS -Mistakes: unsystematic errors of learners -If the learner is inclined and able to correct a fault in his or her output, it is assumed that the form he or she selected was not the one intended, and we shall say that the fault is a mistake. -Corder upholds the competence versus performance distinction, insisting that mistakes are of no significance to the process of language learning since they 'do not reflect a defect in our knowledge' Holly and her friends was passing by when we spotted them through the window. -Errors: systematic errors of learners -an error arises only when there was no intention to commit one. -If the learner is unable or in any way disinclined to make the correction, we assume that the form the learner used was the one intended, and that it is an error. -Errors, one must assume, are everything that mistakes are not: they are of significance; they do reflect knowledge; they are not self-correctable; and only learners of an L2 make them. -The door were closed when he attempted to enter the house. -The pyjama I bought last month was totally ruined. -The police was pursuing another tip from the informer. -Corder (1967) made use of Chomskys the competence versus performance -the causes of second language errors can be classified as: (1) interlingual transfer (interference of L1); (2) intralingual transfer (i.e., overgeneralization); (3) induced errors; and (4) performance errors -from the late 1950s to the 1960s, learners errors were almost always attributed to mother tongue interference -Duskova (1969) found many errors from interference of the mother tongue, especially on the syntactic level, but interference from the mother tongue was not the only interfering factor. -Tendency is that the difference or partial difference between the target language and the source language in linguistic properties will affect the extent of interference the lower the language level, the higher the interference percentage -besides mother tongue interference (interlingual transfer), the other major cause is recognized as intralingual transfer. -owing to the complexity of the structure of English, learners tend to make similar errors regardless of their background language. 6

-these errors usually result from complex rule-learning behavior, characterized by: -(1) overgeneralization; -(2) incomplete application of rules; and -(3) ignorance of rule restriction. - E.g. past tense(es) in English Overgeneralization is a general term that can cover: -(1) analogy (e.g. reported questions); -(2) faulty rule-learning (i.e., ignorance of rule restriction and incomplete application of rules) (e.g. reported conditional clauses); and -(3) failure to observe distinction in the target language (Cro-E interface).