Characteristics of learner language

Remember the times when you were a beginner? Most probably you used to say things like he goand he going. These examples reflect some common features of learner language and typical examples of low proficiency levels. There are different ways of analysing learner lan-guage. These analyses have been organised around four areas: ERROR ANALYSIS;

DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS; VARIABILITY of learner language; and pragmatic features of learner language.

14.3.1. Error analysis

Error analysis (EA) concentrates on determining whether the ERRORSstudents make are sys-tematic or not. Syssys-tematicity means that students do not make errors just accidentally but there is some regularity in their errors. Error analysis has four stages: identification, descrip-tion, explanation and evaluation.

The identification of errors is difficult, mainly because there are differences between errors and MISTAKES. Errors occur because there is a gap in a learner’s knowledge. A mistake, how-ever, is a lapse in performance, which means that the learner has already learnt that particular structure but for some reason s/he does not use that. (In this chapter, from now on, “errors”

and “mistakes” will be used interchangeably.)

Errors can be classified in different ways. A well-known classification contains four error types based upon how differently students use the second language from the way native speakers do:

1. OMISSION: An item is missing from the utterance e.g. – *. . . but I know it impossible.

2. MISINFORMATION: A grammatical form is used incorrectly e.g. *And at home we could jogging or singing.

3. MISORDERING: The word order is wrong e.g. *At home they can more easily learn.

4. ADDITION: There is an extra item in the utterance which should not be there e.g. *. . . and going to home they haven’t enough time.

Having identified and described the errors the next step is to give an explanation for them.

Errors originate from different sources. They can be the result of students’ attempts to use their mother tongue knowledge. These are called TRANSFER ERRORS. For example a typical error of Hungarian learners is *“I didn’t do it yet”instead of the correct “I haven’t done it yet.”The reason for this error is that the Present Perfect Tense cannot be found in Hungarian, so it is difficult for Hungarian students to learn this grammatical structure. Another mistake frequently made by Hungarians when writing in English is the use of a comma in sentences like *“He said, that he would give that book back”instead of the correct “He said that he would give that book back.”The explanation for this is that “that” means “hogy” in Hun-garian, before which there is always a comma in HunHun-garian, while in English no comma is used before “that”.

Other errors are made regardless of the learners’ native language background. The interesting thing is that most errors are systematic, which means that students create rules about the sec-ond language they are learning, but these rules are different from the “real” rules of that lan-guage. Researchers also found that several errors are universal, meaning that similar errors can be detected in most students’ utterances.

The last step in error analysis is to evaluate the errors. There are several ways to do so. An important one is to make a distinction between overt and covert errors. OVERT ERRORSare ones which can be easily detected outside the context in which they occur e.g. he gone, from which expression a “has” is missing. Or a common problem for Hungarian learners is that instead of “I suggest that he should go to the cinema”they say “*I suggest to go to the cin-ema.”COVERT ERRORScan only be detected in the context e.g. using the past simple tense in-stead of the present perfect when talking about an activity which has not been finished yet.

For instance, “I didn’t see that film”is correct in itself grammatically, but if you talk about a film that you can still watch, it is not because “I haven’t seen the film yet”is correct.

Because error analysis mainly concentrated on the errors students make, later researchers started to analyse learner language from a different perspective: they analysed its character-istic features in general not just the errors. They called learner language INTERLANGUAGE, which implies that learner language has its own system of rules, which lies somewhere be-tween the speaker’s mother tongue and the target language.

14.3.1. Error analysis

14.3.2. Developmental patterns

Having acquired some basic L2 expressions in the target language students start learning grammar. One of the most interesting features of people’s language learning is that regardless of students’ age or mother tongue there are some developmental patterns which they follow.

These patterns refer to the order the different grammatical elements are acquired and also the stages learners go through while acquiring elements.

The definite order in which the different grammatical structures are acquired is called the

ORDER OF ACQUISITION. In all languages young children go from one-word utterances to two-word sentences and to longer stretches of speech. In the case of learning English the order in which some important grammatical elements are acquired is the following:

1. continuous -ing; auxiliary be; plural -s 2. articles; irregular past

3. regular past; 3rd person -s

While the order of acquisition refers to the order in which several language features (gram-matical elements) are acquired, the SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITIONrefers to what phases learners go through while acquiring a language element. Ellis (1997) illustrates this process with the example of the past form of “eat”.

1. First, students do not know the irregular past tense; therefore, they say “eat”.

2. After that they are able to say the correct form “ate”.

3. Later they overgeneralise the regular past form and say “eated”.

4. It may occur that mixed forms are created like “ated”.

5. In the final phase the correct form is produced: “ate”.

Naturally, the past tense form of every verb is not acquired in the same way as there may be verbs that students find easier or more difficult to memorize. Nevertheless, the existence of developmental patterns is one of the most significant findings of SLA research as it indicates that acquiring a second language is systematic and universal regardless of the learners’ back-ground and the context in which they are learning the language.

14.3.3. Variability in learner language

Have you ever noticed that one day you speak English quite well, but on other days you feel you are totally hopeless? It is a totally natural phenomenon. This is called the variability of learner language, which is also systematic.

Variability depends on at least three factors: (1) linguistic, (2) situational and (3) psycholin-guistic. An example for how the linguistic context influences learner language is taken from Ellis (1997): Instead of the correct form of the simple past form (Joe played football) learners

tend to use wrongly the continuous form (*George playing football) when there is no adverb of frequency (e.g. always, usually, often, etc.) in the sentence, and when there is (*In Peru, George usually play football every day), they use the simple present structure.

The situational context also has an impact on the way we use a foreign language. In formal contexts everybody tries to use the correct forms, but in informal context, e.g. when talking to friends, we do not concentrate too much on using the language correctly.

The psycholinguistic context is the third crucial determining factor in the variability of learner language. For instance, if you have enough time to plan what you want to say, you are more likely to produce the correct form. If you have time to prepare for a role-play, you will most probably produce a better performance than when you have to perform the same situation just off-hand.

14.3.4. Pragmatic features

As you could read in Chapter 6, pragmatics deals with how language is used in communica-tion. This is the study of appropriateness, which means that even if we use the correct gram-matical structures and vocabulary in a certain situation, an utterance can be totally unacceptable because it is not appropriate to use it in a particular context. For example, you cannot tell jokes while listening to the national anthem or when you are at a funeral.

Learner language can also be full of pragmatic problems. For instance, in a formal essay you cannot use expressions like “Boy, I was happy or what” as this sentence is far from being ac-ceptable in a formal text.

The interesting issue here is the same as in the case of errors, developmental patterns and vari-ability: are pragmatic errors systematic or not? Of course, most experts answer this question with a clear “yes.”