Assignment

MA(ELT), 2009-10
Name of the course: Second Language Acquisition.

Submitted to:

Dr. A.K.M. Waliul Islam

Associate Professor
Institute of Modern Languages, DU
On
12th August, 2010.
Interlanguage Development of Korean Learner of Bangla

By
Sumaiya Akhtar Tulip
Institute of Modern Languages
University of Dhaka.

Introduction:

This paper explores how an 'interlanguage' develops and how this development
is revealed in various feature. The subject is consisted of one Korean teacher
who is teaching at Institute of Modern Languages, University of Dhaka. The
subject has a lot of exposures to Bangla and seems a little nervous while being
interviewed. The requirement of this interview is to answer the questions
preferably in Bangla to see how her 'interlanguage' skills are developed. The
interviewers and the interviewee make a heterogeneous group as the
competence levels (Bangla language) are not same in this context.

Procedure:

A lady named Sadia is been interviewed by fourteen students of MA(ELT). Sadia

is a Korean teacher, works at Institute of Modern Languages. She is a L2 learner
of Bangla. Before coming here she learnt Bangla for two months so her Bangla is
still is an 'emersion process'. She is been interviewed to observe her
interlanguage Bangla. It is important to know that she is also proficient in seven
other languages. So not only Korean (her L1) but there are some transfer from
English also found n her L2 Bangla. The whole act has been recorded by a MP3
player.

Objective:

The aim of this paper is to find out the features of 'interlanguage' in Sadia's L2
(Bangla) speaking. It will also discuss how the errors/ mistakes made by her can
be analyzed and labeled by 'systematic' or 'non systematic' variability in terms of
'performance variability'.

What is an 'interlanguage' ? :

“An interlanguage is an in-between system used in second language acquisition

by L2 learners which seem to have no connection to the forms of either L1 or L2
it contains aspects of L1 and L2 but it is an inherently variable system with rules
of its own (Yule, 195)."

The term 'interlanguage' was introduced by Selinker in 1969 (Jowitt, 52), and was
subsequently given a working definition by him as a separate linguistic system,
the existence of which we are compelled to hypothesize based upon the
observed output which results from the second language learner’s attempted
production of the target language. The conscious mental activities of the leaner
at rationalizing, analyzing and resolving similarities and differences between L1
and L2 result in the adoption of a form of the target language which bears
semblance to L2 but at the same time fail to be totally L1 or L2.

The main features of interlanguage which will be used in the diagnosing systems
are :

1. Language Transfer : where some items, rules and structures of L1 can be

transferred to production of L2. (e.g."ami bibinno basha chini" here she may
have used the rules of English i.e. "I know different languages" and "owh balo
lagse, akon onek gorom naholey..hahahha" as in English "oh feeling good but its
very hot otherwise...) where in Bengali it is like "emnite bhaloi kintu akhon
onek gorom...". As the subject is procient in many other languages so other
languages may have the interferences as well.

2. Transfer of Training : when language teaching creates interlanguage rules that

are not of the L2 and which result in the way the learners were taught (e.g.
"English basha chiney Bangladeshi der bolley kisu shomosha hoyna". Here her
teacher may have used the word 'chini' for 'jani' and 'kisu' for 'kono'.

3. Strategies of Second Language Learning : e.g. simplification, when for

example the learner uses only one form of a verb ("Bangla basha ami akhono
kichu porishkar hoini" instead of *Bangla bhasha ami akhono temon kisu
shikhini). She uses 'porishkar hoini' for both 'shikhini' and 'jani na'

4. Communicative Strategies : When ,for instance, learner omits grammatically

redundant items in an utterance, producing ill-formed sentences (e.g. "English
basha amake kothin " instead of *English bhasha amar kache kothin lage)

5. Overgeneralization of L2 material : where the learner tries to use L2

grammatical rules in the way there would not be used by a native speaker (e.g.
"Bangla bashar sate Korean bashar onek relative ache"). Here she could have
said either "Bangla bhashar sathe amar bhashar onek mill ache" or "Bangla
bhasha amar bhashar sathe onek relative".
One area of interest in research into second language (L2) acquisition is the
nature and properties of the L2 learner’s developing knowledge of the target L2
grammar. Variability is evident in the interlanguage grammars of all L2 learners,
irrespective of their levels of proficiency; their interlanguage use is characterised
by the variable occurrence of target L2 forms, and the occurrence of more than
one variant of a form where the target L2 has only one. In this study, the
phenomenon of this variability in L2 knowledge is investigated.

What is variability? :

When L2 learners get new inputs from the Target language, he tries to apply
those rules and inputs into communication and sometimes make some mistakes.
These inappropriate forms are named as 'variability'. There are two kinds of
variabilities in interlanguage:

Systematic variable:

If the errors made by L2 learners can be categorized under any heading like
phonological, syntactical or morphological, then it can be called 'systematic
variable'. Systematic variability can be divided into two sub categories:

• Individual variability: is the particular product of an individual learner.

• Contextual variability: how L2 learner is using it in a context is it's

contextual variability. It can be explained under two variables:

o Linguistic context: refers to the complexity of forms of the TL

language produced by L2 learners.

o Situational context: is analogous to stylistic variability which

happens due to the social stratification.

Non systematic variable:

The mistakes produced by the L2 learners are sometimes difficult to categorize.

These kind of mistakes can be named as 'non systematic variables'. It has not
received much attention from the linguists. There are two kinds of non systematic
variable:
• Free variable: learners' use of two words for one meaning. Here the L2
learner Sadia uses 'porishkar hoyechi' to convey the meaning like
'shikhechi' and 'bujhechi'.

• Performance variable: the factors like emotional or physical condition

which sometimes leads to slips, hesitations and repetitions are known as
performance variability. e.g. the L2 learner examined for this study is concern
 of the interviewers presence and competence. So she sometimes hesitates
and repeats which shows her performance variability as in,
Sadia: ... shudu+++ dui mash aaa:: porishkar hoyechi aa:: hoyechilam
(hesitation). Here she tries to make correct use of tenses though its
inappropriate for wrong collocation of word "porishkar hoyechi".

Analysis:

The analysis of Sadia's utterances shows that the errors, produced by her, are
easy to categorize under three headings i.e.

1. phonological
2. morphological
3. syntactical

Phonological:

Some erroneous phonological aspects are found in her Bangla interlanguage

which are explained below:

• Stress: In Bangla the native speakers don't use any stress in their
utterances. But as the L2 learner speaks she produces unusual stress. i.e.
"Kichchu", "Abong", etc.

• Intonation: In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in

Bangla carry a rising tone (L*H), with the exception of the last word in the
sentence, which only carries a low tone (L). This intonational pattern
creates a musical tone to the typical Bangla sentence, with low and high
tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the
sentence. But she uses some unusual intonation like her "ki"(asking a
question) was so bold that it may show a negative attitude towards native
speakers. Also the question are asked with rising intonation in a simple
declarative sentence. e.g. Karonta ki?(ami kano ato bhasha shikhechi?),
Gaan shonen, gaan?(ami gaan shunechi kina?)

• Mispronunciation: there are lot of mistake in her pronunciation, e.g.

Basha(language), Chotobela(childhood), dhrudo(quick), shahaz(easy),
shudu(only), thui mash(two months), gonta(hour), bibinno(various),
wardu(Urdu), kotin(hard), kosto(pain)...etc
 • Tone: Excessive use of tone is one of the feature in her Bangla. For
example, "kichchu+++"(any/nothing) , "Basha++"(language), "lanna++"
(cooking), etc.

Morphological:

Many errors are found in her morphological use of language:

• Affixation: the wrong use of affixation could have convey wrong meaning.
e.g. shikhe pore (shikhar porey), ajkar(ajkal), khashi mangsho(kashir
mangsho), etc.
• Inflection : The wrong use of inflections may lead to ill form of tense and
plural marker, i.e. "...shudu SL english basha shikheychey
(shikhey/shikhchey)", "...amar chinese basha porishkar
hoyechilo(hoyeche)".
• Semantic problem: The problems like 'redundancy', 'word collocation', use
of wrong words are the features of semantic problem. For example, onek
relative ache (onek relative), poriskar hoyeche (bujhtey perechi), amra
basha (amar bhasha) , etc.

Syntactical:

The interlanguage phase of grammatical rules are categorized under this

heading.
• Inappropriate structure: Missing of words, use of wrong parts of speech
with redundancy in the sentences can be taken as sample; english basha
amake kothin (English bhasha amar kothin lage), bangla basha ami
kichchu porishkar hoini (bangla bhasha ami kisu bujhini), onek oily
ache(onek oily)...etc
• Noun pronoun agreement problem: She sometimes cannot use
appropriate pronoun in a sentence. e.g. "Bangladeshey bhalo lagchi"
(lagchey), "Korean lok pochondo kori (korey)", "amar(ami) bhat khai"...etc
• Misuse of deictic word: The opposite use of word to specify the place is
also seen in her Bangla. "okhane (ekhane) oil diye ranna kortey
hobe"...etc
• Sequence of tense: Erroneous use of inflection leads to ambiguity of
sequence of tense; "shudu 2 mash porishkar hoyechilam(hoyechi)",
"Chinese letter onek kothin tai amake likhte hobe na(hoy na/ ami likhi na)"
, etc.
• Irregular cohesive device: The devices which ties the utterances, are very
irregular an erroneous in her Bangla; "bibinno cha ache tai shadaronoto
khofi pochondo kori (...kintu ami kofi beshi pochondo kori)", etc.

So these are some categorical problems which are very prominent in Sadia's
interlanguage Bangla. She is still a long way to go to acquire the accuracy.
And as the problems are easy to categorize so it can be said her errors are
'systematic variables'. Some 'non-systematic' variables are also found but
they are not so prominent. i.e. she makes some wrong pronunciations of
English words; odmission(admission), will(oil), loaning(learning) which can be
categorized as 'free variables'. And most of the time she hesitates to collocate
the words because of the presence of well learned Bengali student which is
her 'performance variable' but it has not been an important part of this study.

General assumption:

According to interlanguage theory, linguistic mistake of a learner is a normal

phenomenon in the learning process for “fluent fools”. In linguistic
communication, what a learner considers in the first place is the expressing of
meaning. Before the internalization of their linguistic rules, mistakes of
linguistic forms are inevitable, and furthermore, some mistakes are a
necessary phase for language learning. Therefore, teachers needs to
intensify their tolerance towards mistakes, learn and acquaint themselves with
some theories related to error-correction, replace pure teaching standards of
linguistic behavior with acceptability of language, and meanwhile, give overall
consideration to linguistic accuracy and fluency. In classroom teaching, a
teacher should emphasize tactics in error-correction, and should by no means
show any impatience. Otherwise, students’ self-esteem and self-confidence
will be frustrated, and they will lose interest in foreign language learning,
which will just backfire.
References:

Ellis. R .1985. Understanding Second Language Acquisition . OUP

Cook. V. 1996. Second Language Learning And Language Teaching . Foreign

Language Teaching And Research Press & Edward Arnold Limited

Website used:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CCgQFjAE&url=https
%3A%2F%2Fapps.cla.umn.edu%2Fdirectory%2Fitems%2Fpublication
%2F300166.pdf&rct=j&q=systematic%20variable%20in
%20interlanguage&ei=NrZiTPKWGIjl4gay1oibCg&usg=AFQjCNGrZ2HcFtOXXr5
AtY7AdWazbd4HCg&cad=rja

THANK YOU