Interlanguage: Analysis, Errors, and Second Language Acquisition

Posted on Mar 7, 2025 in Other university degrees and diplomas

Unit 7: Interlanguage Studies

Interlanguage is a dynamic linguistic system developed by a second language learner who has not yet achieved full proficiency but is approximating the target language.

Characteristics of Interlanguages

  • Permeability
  • Dynamicity
  • Systematicity
  • Variability

Contrastive Analysis

Researchers conducted contrastive analysis, systematically comparing two languages. They aimed to identify similarities and differences between the native language (NL) and the target language (TL). It was believed that language teaching materials would be more effective if based on contrastive analyses.

Lado proposed the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH): elements similar to the learner’s native language will be easy, while different elements will be difficult.

Linguistic differences predict learning difficulty:

  • When two languages are similar, positive transfer occurs.
  • When they are different, negative transfer (interference) results.

Critical Review of CA

Serious flaws were identified:

  • Underprediction: It did not anticipate all errors, as not all errors are caused by transfer.
  • Overprediction: Some predicted errors did not occur.

Error Analysis

Error Analysis (EA) provided a methodology for investigating learner language, i.e., interlanguage. EA is connected with Chomsky’s view that language acquisition is not a product of habit formation but rather of rule formation. Chomsky’s theory received support from first language acquisition: children make errors due to their rule formation process. In different EAs, L2 learners were found to make similar developmental errors regardless of their L1 (intralingual errors). These errors were not due to L1 interference (interlingual errors), which contradicts the CAH.

Errors are significant for explaining Second Language Acquisition (SLA) because they provide information about (Corder, 1967):

  1. How much the learner has learned.
  2. How the language was learned.
  3. The devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the TL.

Explanation of Errors

Explanation involves establishing the source of the error and accounting for why it was made. A general distinction exists between two different sources:

  • Transfer/Interlingual errors: Due to the influence of the NL.
  • Developmental/Intralingual errors: Reflect the general characteristics of rule learning.

Interlingual Errors

Interlingual errors can be subdivided:

  • Overextension of analogy: Misuse of an item because it shares features with an L1 item.
  • Transfer of structure: The use of an L1 feature.
  • Lack of a distinction in the L1: Use of a wrong item because a distinction is lacking in the L1.

Intralingual Errors

Intralingual errors are subdivided:

  • Overgeneralization
  • Ignorance of rule restrictions
  • Incomplete application of rules
  • False concepts hypothesized

Main Findings in EA

  • A large number of the errors are intralingual in origin rather than transfer.
  • Learners at elementary levels produce more transfer errors than learners at an intermediate or advanced level.
  • Conversely, more advanced learners produce more intralingual and generalization errors.
  • Transfer errors are more common in the phonological and lexical levels than in the grammatical level.
  • More transfer errors in adults than in children; transfer increases as age increases.