Interlanguage and the Error analysis

Interlanguage:

 The learner’s developing second language knowledge. It may have characteristics of the learner’s native language, characteristics of the second language, and some characteristics which seem to be very general and tend to occur in all or most interlanguage systems. Interlanguages are systematic, but they are also dynamic, continually evolving as learners receive more input and revise their hypotheses about the second language.

L2 learners process through an interlanguage, which is an independent knowledge of L1 and L2 system.

Interlanguage is systematic, because the learner selects the rules systematically, learners bases plans on the rule system, in the same way as the native speaker bases on the internalized knowledge of L1 system.

Interlanguage is dynamic; learner’s interlanguage is constantly changing. The learner revises the interim system to accommodate new hypotheses about L2 system. (First introduction the new rule in one context and than another, and so on)

The term interlanguage was first issued by Selinker (1972)

“Interlanguage refers to the structured system which learner constructs at any given stage in the development. “

“Interlanguage  refers to the series of interlocking system which form the learner’s built-in syllabus” Corder

L2 learner progress along the interlanguage continuum in the same way as it was in L1.Both L1 and L2 learners make errors in order to test out certain hypothesis about the nature of the language they are learning.

Selinker suggested that 5 principal processes operated in interlanguage.

  1. language transfer( L1  interference)
  2. Overgeneralization of target language rules
  3. Transfer of training (rules enter in learner system)
  4. Strategies of L2 learning  (identifiable approach by the learner to the material to be learned)
  5. Strategies of L2 communication (identifiable approach by the learner to communication with native speakers)
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The 5 principle together constitute the way in which the learner tries to internalize the L2 system.

Learners have limited space for processing, cannot cope with the complex language system.

Some L2 learners fail to reach the target language, because they do not reach the end of the interlanguage continuum, stop learning, when their interlanguage contains some rules different from the rules of the target language. This is called fossilization. Fossilization occurs in most language learners. Fossilized structure can be realized as errors or as correct target language forms.

If the learner has reached the stage of development, in ...

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