论文总字数：44751字

摘 要

第二语言习得是上世纪后期新兴的学科，同时也是应用语言学研究领域发展最快的学科。在第二语言习得中，一个显而易见的事实是：学习者所使用的中介语是不断变化的，这种变化通常是由多种因素造成的。因此有必要对二语习得中介语的变化进行研究，这样有利于提高学习者的语言水平。本文试图分析引起中介语变化的两大因素，即语言因素和非语言因素，从而根据这些因素来提出对英语教学的启示，给出一些教学策略，以便更好地促进英语教学。

关键词：第二语言习得；中介语；中介语变化；语言因素；非语言因素

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Definition of Interlanguage 2

2.2 Definition of Interlanguage Variation 3

2.3 Previous Study 3

3. Factors Influencing Interlanguage Variation 4

3.1 Linguistic Factors 4

3.2 Non-linguistic Factors 9

4. Implications for English Language Teaching 11

4.1 Importance of Teaching Grammar 12

4.2 Importance of Teaching Speaking 13

4.3 Necessity of Cultivating English Thinking Pattern 14

4.4 Necessity of Cultivating Cross-cultural Awareness 15

5. Conclusion 17

Works Cited 19

1. Introduction

Research on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is fairly a new fast-developing discipline in the area of applied linguistics. In the field of SLA, research on interlanguage attracts researchers’ increasing attention. Larry Selinker"s article Interlanguage in 1972 concluded that second language learners process languages individually independent of their first and second language.

Selinker provided a comprehensive explanation of interlanguage. The term interlanguage soon became widely recognized by the areas of First Language Research and Foreign Language Teaching. Scholars show great promise and identify with interlanguage from different perspectives. The late 1960s and early 1970s, is when researchers began to agree that interlanguage was systematic. Although the interlanguage theory had been previously accepted, researchers continued to correlate systematicity with interlanguage.

Interlanguage incorporates systematicity and variability. And both are either uniform or contradictory. The variability of learners’ interlanguage created misconceptions as researchers were unsuccessful with proving that interlanguage is a highly coherent and sequential system. Therefore, interpreting interlanguage variation is an imminent issue in the field of SLA. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers have developed many classifications of interlanguage variation from the viewpoint of sociolinguistics and SLA. Researchers reached a consensus on the phenomenon of variation occurring in interlanguage under different circumstances and different tasks as well as addressing the question of why variation occurs in interlanguage and what rules of the variation are known and applied. Some causes to interlanguage variation have been confirmed. However, it does not mean that there are no other additional causes which are inconvincible and remain to be proved. Moreover, most previous researches only focus on one single factor influencing interlanguage variation; studies are scarce as to the effect of multi-factors on interlanguage variation and the inter-relationship among them. It is only when the studies of causes on interlanguage variation reach a high level and form an independent branch that we can say that the enterprise of interlanguage variation is successful.

This thesis is composed of five parts. Part one is an introduction. In this part it gives a brief introduction to the theory background, the purpose and the organization of this thesis. Part two is the literature review, in which the definitions of interlanguage and interlanguage variation are introduced and some related studies are also reviewed. The factors that cause interlanguage variation are presented in part three, including linguistic factors and non-linguistic factors. In part four, the writer summarizes some implications for English Language Teaching in China. Part five is the conclusion of this thesis. What’s more, some suggestions for further study are also presented.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definition of Interlanguage

Interlanguage is defined “as the linguistic system evidences when adult second language learners attempted to express meanings in the language being learned” (Diane and Michael, 2000: 71). However, Ellis points out that “various alternative terms have been implemented by different researchers to refer to the same phenomenon” (Ellis, 1999: 47). Nemser (1971) refers to approximate systems, and Corder (1971) to idiosyncratic dialects and transitional competence. These terms reflected two related but different concepts. First, interlanguage refers to the structured system which the learner constructs at any given stage in his development. Second, the term refers to the series of interlocking systems, which form what Corder (1967) called the learner’s built-in syllabus. In summary, the concept of interlanguage “is established as learners’ independent system of the second language, which is of neither the native language nor the second language, but a continuum or approximation from one extreme of his native language to the other the second language” (Dai Weidong amp; He Zhaoxiong, 2010: 160). According to Yang Lianrui (2012), interlanguage is independent, systematic, dynamic, and permeable. Interlanguage is also a process that reflects learning psychology.

2.2 Definition of Interlanguage Variation

According to Tarone, interlanguage variation “is the tendency for a second language learner’s utterances, produced in the attempt to convey meaning, to vary systematically in grammatical and phonological accuracy as specific situational features change” (Tarone, 1998: 73). This variation in grammatical accuracy can occur within one time frame; sometimes within minutes, which can be called synchronic. And sometimes the variation is quite predictable in response to specific changes in features of situational context and task. A shift in grammar accuracy might occur when the topic changes. In general, the interlanguage variation can occur at any linguistic level including syntactic, phonological, morphological or lexical level.

2.3 Previous Study

Interlanguage was first created by American linguist Larry Selinker in 1967 and in 1972 he proposed interlanguage theory in his lecture Interlanguage. After that, many linguists began to focus on interlanguage research. The early researches dealing with interlanguage variation were the Labovian paradigm and Function-form model. The representative of Labovian paradigm was William Labov, whose research has a profound impact on the study of variation in SLA. Labov claimed that shifts in attention could make speakers shift along continuum of speech styles, which ranged from casual to formal. Besides, function-form model also deals with interlanguage variation. This model was first exemplified by Hakuata (1975) and later developed by Huebner (1983). According to Huebner (1985), there are three assumptions in the “function-form” approach: (1) learners must make a set of functional distinctions in order to communicate; (2) to make those distinctions, learners must systematically employ linguistic forms―although the linguistic system employed may not be target-like; and (3) variation in the form of interlanguage at a single point in time is to be expected, due to its developmental nature over time. In summary, the early interlanguage researches showed that variation can occur at linguistic level like syntactic, phonological, lexical and morphological. One morphological variation study was Dickerson’s research which was about the accuracy of the Japanese English learners’ production of consonant R. Schachter’s (1986) “Don’t V” and “No V” negation is example of the syntactical level.

Diane and Michael (2000) pointed out that like all natural languages, interlanguages are variable and feature the systematic variability. In his lecture Research on Interlanguage variation: Implications for English Language Teaching, Elaine Tarone (1998) discussed interlanguage variation and its implications related to language testing. He gave a brief introduction of interlanguage variation and discussed some variables that influence interlanguage variation, that is, linguistic factors, psychological processing factors (i.e. the degree of attention to linguistic forms), social causes (i.e. interlocutor, topics, and social norms) and language function. Various scholars also made insightful contributions to interlanguage variation study. Cai (2003) put forward a distinction to variability and variation, which provided a better interpretation of these two terms. Yang Lianrui, a famous domestic scholar and a professor from China Ocean University, engaged in studying interlanguage variation for years. He used multi-factor analysis method and summarized various factors causing interlanguage variation from perspectives of linguistic and non-linguistic factors in Foreign Language Teaching amp; Research Basic Education.

3. Factors Influencing Interlanguage Variation

3.1 Linguistic Factors

Interlanguage variation is caused by multiple factors. In general, we can summarize it from two aspects, that is, linguistic factors and non-linguistic factors. In this part, we initially discuss linguistic factors, which are context, language function and language transfer.

3.1.1 Context

Contexts here refer to linguistic contexts. Although seldom research theory of interlanguage variation is completely based on this model, some theories like Labovias model and the “function-form” model, presume that they can cause variation of interlanguage forms. Some contexts have the function of facilitation, which can help the learner get near to the target language, while some contexts can be obstacles that make the learner go beyond the target language.

Dickerson (1974) first presumed that contexts have influence on interlanguage variation. He conducted a study on the pronunciation of ten Japanese English learners whose mother tongues are Japanese. The finding turned out that the pronunciation accuracy of these learners’ interlanguage was related to the phonetic environment. For instance, when the variable R was followed by a central consonant (i.e. /ә/), the pronunciation accuracy of learners’ was pretty high; however, learners’ pronunciation accuracy descended when it was followed by a high consonant (i.e. /u:/). That is to say, the learners could pronounce “provide” very well, but did not do well in pronouncing “rule”. They tended to pronounce it as /lu:/.

Dickerson before long published his findings on the influence of contexts on the pronunciation of interlanguage. After that Hyltenstam (1977) came out with the findings about the effect of linguistic contexts on the syntactic variables of interlanguage. Hyltenstam (1977) studied the case of the acquisition of negation among Swedish adult learners. The result was that it was systematically variable whether the position of negators was followed the principle clause or the subordinate clause and the verb was an auxiliary verb or a lexical verb. Besides, Hyltenstam (1978) found that the subject-verb inversion of Swedish adult learners’ interlanguage depended on linguistic contexts. And in “yes-no questions”, when the determined verb is an auxiliary, inversion is more frequent than when it is a lexical verb. In the sentence “she is helpful”, if these learners are required to shift the sentence into a “yes-no” question, most of them can work it out like “Is she helpful”. However, if the sentence includes a lexical verb, they will have no idea how to deal with it. For instance, seldom learners can shift “He works in a company” to “Does he work in a company”.

Ellis also conducted research on the influence of third-person singular “s” and the link verb “s”. The findings were that when the subject was a pronoun, the case that learners added “s” to verb was more frequent, while as for link verb “s”, learners tended to use its abbreviation “’s” when the subject was a pronoun. When the subject was a noun phrase, learners would use the full form of link verb or they omitted the link verb. For instance, most learners could complete the sentence “Mary___ (like) apples” with the correct form “likes”. But they often wrote sentences like “Mary’s my classmate” instead of “Mary is my classmate”. And when the subject was a noun phrase like “a friend of my father”, they inclined to make a sentence like “A friend of my father is very kind” or “A friend of my father very kind”.

Therefore, despite from the perspective of phonology, morphology or syntax, language context has an effect on interlanguage variation. Various scholars assume that language environments and other surface-level constraints are more important than higher level constraints in determining interlanguage variation.

3.1.2 Language Function

“Function-form” model believes that one factor that causes interlanguage variation is that we use language for different purposes, that is to say, language itself demonstrates numerous functions. These functions lie in semantics, grammar, pragmatics, and discourse, etc. It is when language is used to realize different functions that its form changes accordingly.

Here is yet another significant research conducted by Schachter. Schachter (1986) analyzed a learner called Jorge and his process of using negation. Schachter embarked on a comprehensive study on Jorge’s negation from the perspective of “semantic and pragmatic” function. In the study, there appeared four kinds of negation in Jorge’s interlanguage. The four kinds of negation are exemplified as follows.

My husband not here.

No English

No look my card.

Don’t look my card. (Zhao Yang, 2011: 222)

The finding turned out that the form and function of the negation which Jorge used had a very surprising correspondent relationship. Although Jorge could use “I don’t know” and “No V” form, these two forms were not free variation, for he always used “I don’t know” to indicate the meaning of “no information” and used “no V” form to refer to denial. He could otherwise use “No V” form and “don’t V” form at the same time, but their functions were distinct. In his negation, “No V” form meant “nonexistence”, while “don’t V” referred to “never did”.

Schachter’s study mainly tells us that “don’t V” form and “No V” form can not be used interchangeably. We have to pay strict attention to the usage of “don’t V” form and “No V” form when learning English.

3.1.3 Language Transfer

Although the influence of language transfer on interlanguage variation is still unattractive to researchers, some studies have strongly proved the importance of language transfer. Then what is transfer? According to Wang Lifei, “transfer is the process of using knowledge of the first language in learning a second language.” (Wang Lifei, 2009: 37) As we all know, every coin has two sides. So does transfer. Transfer can be either positive or negative.

(1) Positive transfer.

Not all effects of language transfer are negative. In effect, we may think about that there would not have second language learning without some language transfer. Perhaps some children can pick up some second language; however, for adults they learn their mother tongue systematically. And they make more reference to their mother tongue when learning second language. Thus transfer might be obvious. When we Chinese students learn English, if the structure is SVO, it is easily understood when it is transferred into English. In the following there is an example of syntactic positive transfer.

我 爱 你。 （S V O）

I love you. （S V O）

From the example above, it is obviously noticed that Chinese and English have the same form and structure. And the situation of word for word correspondent is the case of positive transfer. At this time, a second language learner can benefit from the help of his first language.

(2) Negative transfer

Negative transfer is otherwise known as interference or disturbance. It occurs “when the first language interferes with foreign language learning, previous performance disrupts the performance on a second language task and leads to errors, or a certain rule or principle in the target language is incorrectly applied to another learning situation and leads to errors.” (Wang Lifei, 2009: 38) It is not uncommon that Chinese learners of English transfer Chinese structures or rules very often when translating English sentences. There are considerable examples among Chinese learners. Some examples are exemplified as follows.

1. I don’t know what is the time. (wrong)

I don’t know what the time is. (correct)

2. Because it is dark, so he has to go home. (wrong)

Because it is dark, he has to go home. (correct)

These two sentences above are obviously a logical transfer of the Chinese sentences “我不知道几点了and因为天黑了，他得回家”. Sentence one is a compound senescence. In English when the subordinate clause is a question, it follows the order SVO. We Chinese English learners often make mistakes like sentence two. Since we can use both “because” and “so” in Chinese structures, we take it for granted that the same form as that also exists in English. However, we can use either of them in a sentence only in English.

Gilbert made a research on the German definite article usage of migrant workers from different backgrounds. Their mother tongues were individually Turkish; South Slavic languages, Portuguese, Italian, Greek and Spanish. Among these languages, Portuguese, Italian, Greek and Spanish contained definite articles. The result showed that the probability of using definite articles for those whose mother tongues contained definite articles was higher. It is also quite difficult for English learners to master the usage of definite articles, especially for those whose mother tongues contain no definite articles. Chinese is, for example, a typical language without definite articles. For Chinese English learners they often use demonstrative pronouns to substitute for definite articles. For instance, students usually say “This pen is mine” instead of “The pen is mine”. The native language sometimes becomes the negative transfer which interferes with the learners’ production of target language. Therefore, language transfer is an assignable cause of interlanguage variation. And it is of great significance for second language learners to pay attention to the differences between the native language and target language.

3.2 Non-linguistic Factors

Linguistic factors have been discussed in previous context. It comes now to non-linguistic factors. Non-linguistic factors are learner’s psychological processing, interlocutor, and topics. And learner’s psychological processing mainly refers to “the degree which the learner is encouraged to focus on accuracy and authenticity (Bachman and Cohen, 1998:76).” In the following parts, the writer is going to discuss these non-linguistic factors: psychological processing, interlocutor and topics.

3.2.1 Learner’s Psychological Processing

Learner’s psychological processing has been so far the most prevalent factor. Many studies carried out to explore the influence of learner’s psychological processing on learner’s language accuracy. Most of the researches are based on Labovian Paradigm. There are two important points in Labovian Paradigm. The first is about the shift of linguistic forms. Labovian concludes that no person uses only one single linguistic form. When social environment and topics change, speakers will shift their linguistic forms accordingly. The second is about “attention to speech”. The speakers’ linguistic form is a continuum as to the degree of attention to speech. When the speakers use casual forms, the degree of his/her attention towards speech is least.

Scholars who employ Labovian Paradigm usually test learners with various linguistic tasks. The first scholar to use Labovian Paradigm is Dickerson. She used three different linguistic tasks, including free speech, reading paragraphs and reading the word list. In task one, the speaker pays less attention to his utterances and produces the most casual forms. In task two, the speaker pays a little more attention to his speech when reading the paragraphs. However, the speaker pays more if not most attention to his utterances and produces the most formal forms in task three. This phenomenon presents that in free speech, the speaker is encouraged to say what he wants to say, he naturally pays less attention to his utterances. When reading paragraphs, he has to read the text correctly. So he pays more attention to the expressions and sentences; while reading the word list, the speaker must pay the most attention to the pronunciation of the words. Every sound is supposed to be produced very clearly. In summary, this study shows learner’s language accuracy is systematically variable according to different linguistic forms in testing. The more formal the forms are, the more attention the leaner will pay to his utterances, and thus the more target-like the learner’s language is.

3.2.2 Interlocutor

In fact, learner’s psychological processing can be influenced by many factors. Therefore, some researchers think that attention can not be viewed as a reason of learner’s shift of language form because the degree of learner’s language form is decided by some social factors, such as interlocutor, topic and social norms in conversations. So the researchers conclude that social factors are the main sources that cause learner’s interlanguage variation. Several studies have shown that communicating with different interlocutors do cause learner’s systematic variation. For example, Ervin-Tipp (1968) studied a Japanese woman who talked with people in English. The interlocutors were an American and a Japanese reporter. The findings turned out that when the woman talked with the American, the sentences she used were shorter than she used to talk with the reporter. And she paused for several times in the conversation. What’s more, the choice of words was more easily influenced by Japanese vocabulary at phonological and morphological level. Here is an example.

American: How do you usually go to work?

Japanese: I usually go to work by bike(バイク).

Most of vocabularies in Japanese can have its native form and borrowed form. The word “bike” is “アメリカ” or “じてんしゃ” in Japanese. “アメリカ” is a word borrowed from English and pronounces “bai ku”, which sounds like “/baik/”. However, the latter is the native spelling, which pronounces “ji ten sha”. This is because many Japanese vocabularies are borrowed form English words. So Japanese words sound like English words. When Japanese speak English, they tend to use their phonetic system.

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