Second Language Acquisition (4)

SOCIAL ASPECT OF INTERLANGUAGE

1.      Interlanguage As A Stylistic Continuum

Elaine Tarone has proposed that interlanguage involves a stylistic continuum. She argues that the learners develop a capability for using the L2 and that is underlies ‘all regular language behavior’. There two style of this continuum, they are:

a)      Careful Style               : Learners are consciously attending to their choice of linguistic forms, as when they feel the need to be ‘correct'.

b)      Vernacular Style         : Learners are making spontaneous choices of linguistic form, as is likely in free conversation.

2.      The Acculturation Model of L2 Acquisition

A similar perspective on the role of social factors in L2 acquisition can be found in John Schumann’s acculturation model. He investigated any linguistic development of Costa Rican and he found that they fail to use English properly. He called it ‘pidginized’. Schumann proposed that pidginization in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to acculturate to the target-language group, that is, when they are unable or unwilling to adapt to a new culture. The main reason for learners failing to acculturate is social distance.

Schumann also recognizes that social distance is sometimes indeterminate. In such cases, he suggests psychological distance becomes important and identifies a further set of psychological factors, such as language shock and motivation, to account for this.

3.      Social Identity and Investment in l2 Learning

The notion of social identity is central to the theory Pierce advences. She argues that language learners have complex social identities that can only be understood in terms of the power relations that shape social structures. A learner’s social identity is multiple and contradictory. Learning is successful when learners able to summon up or construct an identity that enables them to impose their right to be heard and thus become the subject of the discourse. This requires investment, something learners will only make if they believe their efforts will increase the value of their cultural capital.