FOUR INTERLANGUAGE PROCESSES

Aided by memory of formulas and experience-based induction of abstract generalizations, learners’ internal knowledge systems continually engage in processes of building, revising, expanding and refining L2 representations, as the new grammar develops. Four important ways in which they do so are simplification, overgeneralization, restructuring and U-shaped behaviour.

Simplification reflects a process that is called upon when messages must be conveyed with little language. It is particularly pervasive at very early stages of L2 development and among naturalistic learners, as we will see in section 6.8. In later development too, simplification may be seen in early representations of L2 morphology, when a one-meaning-one-form mapping is initially assumed by learners, as predicted by Andersen’s (1984a) One to One Principle. For example, Sugaya and Shirai (2007) found that even though the Japanese marker te i-ru can have a progressive meaning (Ken-ga utat-te i-ru, ‘Ken is singing’) and a resultative meaning (e.g. Booru-ga oti-te i-ru, ‘The ball has fallen’), L2 Japanese learners at first use it to express progressive meaning only.Likewise,Andersen (1984b) found that Anthony, a 12-year-old L1 English learner of Spanish he investigated, used two invariant forms of the Spanish article – one devoted to mark definiteness (la, ‘the’

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in feminine singular form) and one to mark indefiniteness (un, ‘a’ in masculine singular form). This was despite the full choice of eight forms that are available in the Spanish target input.

Overgeneralization is the application of a form or rule not only to contexts where it applies, but also to other contexts where it does not apply. Overgeneralization has been particularly well documented with morphology. For example, learners begin using –ing from very early on, but they also overgeneralize it to many non-target- like contexts, sometimes for substantially long periods. Thus, Schmidt (1983, p. 147) reported that over three years Wes produced many instances of –ing that were appropriate in terms of meaning, as in (5), but also many instances of oversuppliance, as in (6):

(5) I don’t know why people always talking me

(6) so yesterday I didn’t painting

You will remember that Wes learned English naturalistically (see Chapter 4, section 4.1). In instructional contexts, too, classroom students have been seen to overgeneralize –ing frequently, even during the same period when they may not provide it in other required contexts, as in (7) and (8), produced by L1 Spanish learners of English as a foreign language and reported by Pica (1985, p. 143):

(7) I like to studying English

(8) I was study languages all last year

Overgeneralization can be apparently random, as in examples (6) through (7) above, or it can be systematic. An important case of systematic overgeneralization in morphology involves overregularization, or the attempt to make irregular forms fit regular patterns. The overapplication of –ed to irregular verbs, shown earlier in illustrations (1) and (3), is a well-known case of overregularization, whose important theoretical consequences have been discussed by many researchers (e.g. see Clahsen, 2006, for L1; and Leung, 2006, for L2). Overgeneralization does not need to be interpreted negatively. Indeed, this process typically manifests itself after a certain level of development has been reached, in that it presupposes that learners have at least partially figured out some regularity. After systematically overgeneralizing, the learning task is to retreat from the overgeneralization and to adjust the application of the form or rule to increasingly more relevant contexts.

Restructuring is the process of self-reorganization of grammar knowledge representations. In their review of this concept for an SLA audience, McLaughlin and Heredia (1996) explained that restructuring covers a range of processes by which existing knowledge schemata may be quite radically modified, or a new organization may be imposed on already stored knowledge structures so as to accommodate smaller-scale knowledge changes that may have occurred previously. It is therefore assumed that restructuring involves knowledge changes that can be large or small, abrupt or gradual, but always qualitative and related to

development or progress. However, the kind of progress that is implied in the notion of restructuring should not be equated with increased accuracy.

That progress does not always translate into accuracy is clear in the notion of U- shaped behaviour, which typically manifests itself as part of restructuring. The process is defined by Sharwood Smith and Kellerman (1989) as ‘the appearance of correct, or nativelike, forms at an early stage of development which then undergo a process of attrition, only to be reestablished at a later stage’ (p. 220). That is, in U- shaped learning curves, the linguistic products of the final phase cannot be distinguished from those of the first phase, as both are seemingly error-free. However, the underlying representations at the two times are qualitatively different. In the first phase, accuracy is purely coincidental, because it lacks the full representation of target-like functions and meanings that underlies the final phase. We saw a case of U-shaped behaviour in Chapter 3 (section 3.6), when we discussed Kellerman’s research with three groups of Dutch L1 students of English. The group at the intermediate level of proficiency appeared to worsen in their intuitions about the L1–L2 meaning correspondences of breken/break. Another oft-cited L2 illustration of restructuring accompanied by U-shaped behaviour can be found in Huebner’s (1983) study of Ge, a naturalistic learner of English in his early twenties who also spoke Hmong as an L1 and Lao as an additional language. In fact, Ge’s learning of the English article the provides a good illustration of the interrelationship of all four interlanguage processes we have examined in this section.