L2 Problem Solving Mechanics: Resource & Processing Strategies
L2 Problem Solving Mechanics (PSM)
L2 speakers may encounter problems related to:
Resource Deficits
Incomplete lexicon or insufficient morphological or phonological specification. When faced with a lexical deficit (when the student doesn’t know or can’t find a word), they may:
- Abandon or reduce the message
- Apply some kind of substitution
- Reconceptualize the message
Grammatical Deficit
Example: “Appears the man and the woman is happy” The verb ‘appear’ is underspecified in the L2 lexicon, so an L1 rule from “aparecer” (Spanish) or “aparèixer” (Catalan) is applied. SUBSTITUTION
Example: “When he er come back again” The learner hesitated about which verb tense to use and stuck to the present because it was the easiest tense. REDUCTION
Phonological Deficits
Example: “In the picture there was a cou coup er couple in bed trying to sleep” The learner utters parts of the word until the complete word is achieved or tries out several alternatives until one sounds right. RETRIEVAL: TIP-OF-TONGUE PHENOMENON
Example: “His social class is very slow” The learner wanted to say “low”. SUBSTITUTION: USE OF SIMILAR SOUNDING WORDS
Processing Time Pressure
- Unfilled Pauses: The speaker remains silent while thinking. “The man is /// is ///angry”. The learner is silent for a few seconds until the word is found.
- “Umming” and “Erring”: Use of non-lexicalized filled pauses like ‘er’, ‘uhm’, and ‘uh’. “So er Mister Roper er wake up”. The learner cannot remember the name of the character and uses filled pauses to plan the message.
- Sound lengthening: Lengthening of a sound. “suddently ([s:::adentli]) no suddenly”. The learner lengthens the “s” because of being unsure about the accuracy of the word, as shown in the subsequent repair.
- Fillers: Time-gaining devices such as okay or you know which maintain discourse when there are difficulties. “This is the story of a man and woman who are married okay and they they are in a room”. The learner says “okay” probably to plan the sentence ahead and to maintain the fluent pace of the narration.
- Repetitions: Repeating a word or a string of words right after they were said, or right after the interlocutor said them to gain time. “They go to to the to the door”. The learner repeats words to gain time, either to find words or plan what to say next.
PSM: Repairs (=monitoring)
D-repair: They imply the reconceptualization of the speech plan. “We go straight on or… we come in via red, go then straight to green”. The speaker changes the original speech plan by encoding different information.
A-repair: The speaker decides to be more precise or specific. “Then a clock rings an alarm clock rings”. The learner specifies the type of clock that they are talking about.
Error repair (Lexical): The detection of a lexical error causes the speaker to self-correct. “An a man and a other man enter to the room who after wa bueno before was Guelda”. The learner replaces the wrong adverb with the correct one.
Error repair (Syntactic): The speaker self-corrects after detecting a syntactic error. “A woman that she lives in the no, that lives in the house”. The speaker eliminates the extra subject.
Error repair (Morphological): The speaker finds a problem with the morphology of the word and repairs it. “The man go go went went into the room”. The learner is narrating a story in the past tense, detects an error, and corrects it.
Error repair (Phonological): The speaker detects a phonetic error and repairs it. “The woman gets into the wait ([wait]) the wait ([weit]) room”. The learner detects a problem with a diphthong and replaces it with a different one.