Social Aspect of Interlanguage

1. Social Aspect of Interlanguage Ellis, 2003, chapter four Page 37-42 Group two Uliazzahro (2201410052) Aida w. wardhananti (2201410055) Zumikaelvina (2201410057)

2. There are different approaches to incorporating a social angle on study of L2 acquisition can be identified: • Inter language as consisting of different styles which learners call upon under different conditions of language use • How social factors determine the input that learners use to construct their interlanguage • How the social identities the learners negotiate in their interactions with native speakers shape their opportunities to speak and learn L2

4. Interlanguage as a stylistic continuum There are two theories:

5. Elaine’s Theory Interlanguage as a stylistics continuum. i.e. when reading lists of words i.e. in free speech

6. The model which Tarone has acknowledged, has a number of problems: • Learners are not always most accurate in their careful style and least accurate in their vernacular style. • The role of social factors remains unclear.

7. Howard Giles’s Accommodation Theory

8. Convergence: The process by which speakers make their speech similar to their interlocutors’ speech. L2 acquisition can viewed as ‘long-term convergence’ towards native-speaker norms. Divergence: The process by which speakers make their speech different from their interlocutors’ speech. Frequent divergence can be considered to impede L2 acquisition.

9. The Acculturation Model of L2 acquisition John Schumann’s acculturation model: The model is built around the metaphor of distance.

10. Pidginization According to John Holm (2000), a pidgin is a simplified language containing target language lexicon and including features of the speaker’s first language, A pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of any other group for social reasons that may include lack of trust or close contact. (Holm, 2000, p. 5)

11. Pidginization Schumann proposed that pidginization in L2 acquisition results when learners fail to acculturate the target-language group, that is, when they are enable or willing to adapt to a new culture. Schumann entertained a number of possible reasons of pignization: intelligence and age.

12. There are problem in the model presented by Schumann: • It fails to acknowledge that factors like integration pattern and attitude are not fixed and static, but variable and dynamic. • It fails to acknowledge that learners are not the subject of them; they can help to construct the social context of their own learning.

13. Social Identity and Investment in L2 Learning The notion of ‘subject to’ and ‘subject of’ are central to Bonny Peirce’s view of the relationship between social context and L2 acquisition.

14. She illustrates this with an extract from the diary of Eva, an adult immigrant learner of English in Canada. The girl which is working with me pointed at the man and said: “Do you see him?” I said. “Yes, Why?” “Don’t you know him?” “No. I don’t know him.” “How come you don’t know him? Don’t you watch TV? That’s Bart Simpson.” It made me feel so bad and I didn’t answer her nothing. Until now I don’t know why this person was important.

15. Based on Peirce, Eva indicated she had felt humiliated because she found herself positioned as a ‘strange woman’. She was subject to a discourse which assumed an identity she did not have. Eva could have made herself the subject of the discourse she had attempted to reshape the grounds on which the interaction took place, for example, by asserting that she did not watch the kind of TV programmes of which Bart Simpson was the star. Eva did not feel able to assert such an identity for herself.

16. Investment is required in order to establish an identity. Peirce’s social theory of L2 acquisition affords a different set of metaphors. L2 acquisition involves a ‘struggle’ and ‘investment’. Investment: Learners’ commitment to learning an L2, which is viewed as related to the social identities they construct for themselves as learners.

17. Learners are not computers who process input data but combatants who battle to assert themselves and investors who expect a good return on their efforts. Successful learners are those who reflect critically on how they engage with native speakers and who are prepared to challenge the accepted social order by constructing and asserting social identities of their own choices.

18. Thanks