Halo, teman-teman. Aku mau share salah satu tugas aku semasa kuliah dulu. Kali ini tentang Social Aspects of Interlanguage. Siapa tahu bisa bermanfaat! Selamat membaca!
 |
| Image from Tridindia |
INTERLANGUAGE AS A STYLISTIC CONTINUUM
Elaine Tarone, has proposed that interlanguage involves a stylistic continuum. She argues that learners develop a capability for using the L2 and that this underlies all regular behavior. This capability, which constitutes ‘an abstract linguistic system’, is comprised of a number of different ‘style’ which learners access in accordance with a variety of factors. At the end of the continuum is the careful style, evident when learners are consciously attending to their choice of linguistic forms, as when they feel the need to be ‘correct’. At the other end of the continuum is the vernacular style, evident when learners are making spontaneous choices of linguistic form, as is likely in free conversation.
Collect samples of spoken English form a number of Japanese learners over a period of time and under different conditions of language use-free speech, reading a dialogue =, and reading lists of isolated words. One study found Japanese learners produced /z/ most accurately when reading isolated words and least accurate in free speech. This study also showed that over time he learners improved their ability to use /z/ accurately in their careful style to a much greater extent than in their vernacular style.
Tarone herself has acknowledged the model also has a number of problems. First, later research has shown that learners are not always most accurate in their careful style and least accurate in their vernacular style. L2 speakers show greatest accuracy in the vernacular style, for example, when a specific grammatical feature is of special importance for conveying a particular meaning in conversation.
A second problem is that the role of social factors remains unclear. Style-shifting among native speakers reflects the social group they belong to.
Another theory , the theory of stylistic variation but which is more obviously social is Howard Gile’saccommodation theory. The seeks to explain how learner’s social group influences the course of L2 acquisition. When people interact with each other they either try to make their speech similar to that of their addressee in order to emphasize social cohesiveness or to make it different in order to emphasize their social distinctiveness.
Accommodation theory suggests that social factors, mediated through the interactions that learners take part in, influence both how quickly they learn and the actual route that they follow.
THE ACCULTURATION MODEL OF L2 ACQUISITION
A similar perspective on the role of social factors in L2 acquisition can be found in John Schumann’s acculturation model.
Acculturation is the way people adapt to a new culture. The Schumann theory on acculturation is mainly based on the social factors experienced by those learning English as their second language within the mainstream culture. The factors determine the social distance between the second language learner and the mainstream culture in which they are living in. this distance between the learners and the mainstream culture in turn determine the rate of language acquisition. Schumann states that “the degree to which a learner acculturates to the target language group will control the degree to which he acquires the second language”.
There are several social factors that Schumann accounts for the rate of second language acquisition:
1. Limited integration of cultural groups
2. Size of minority group-the group is more self-sufficient the larger they are
3. How tight-knit the group is
4. The variance of characteristics between their culture and the mainstream culture
5. Majority groups attitude towards the minority group
6. Language learner expects to stay a short time in the country
7. Motivation, culture shock and attitude of language learner
8. Language learner and mainstream culture both view each other as equal
9. Language learner and mainstream culture both desire assimilation
Definition: According to Schumann (1976 as cited in Ushioda 1993), there is a taxonomy of eight factors which control social distance that determine how close an individual will come to becoming like the TL group:
1. Dominance/subordination: Relating to the perceive status of a group in relation to another.
2. Integration pattern: Assimilation (giving up your own lifestyle in favor of another)/acculturation/preservation (how much of your own culture you hold on to),
3. Degree of enclosure of both groups: Amount that the L2 group share the same social facilities (low enclosure), or have different social facilities (high enclosure).
4. Degree of cohesiveness of 2LL group: intra group contacts (cohesive), or inter group contacts (non-cohesive)
5. Size of 2LL,
6. Degree of congruence of the two cultures: The culture of the L2 group may be similar or different to the TL group.
7. Inter-group attitudinal evaluations: Positive or negative attitudes to each other.
8. Intended length of residence of 2LL group members: Whether the L2 group intends to stay a long time or a short time.
Schumann (1975, as cited in Ushioda, 1993) lists five affective factors that may increase the psychological distance:
1. Language Shock: Disorientation caused by learning a new linguistic system.
2. Culture Shock: Stress, anxiety and fear caused when entering a new culture, the routines activities suddenly become major obstacles.
3. Culture Stress: Prolonged culture shock, such as, homesickness, and questioning self identity.
4. Motivation: Instrumental and integrative.
5. Ego permeability: The amount in which an individual gives up their differences in favor of the TL group.
SOCIAL IDENTITY AND INVESTMENT IN L2 LEARNING
Bonny Peirce has two views about the relationship between social context and L2 acquisition:
1. The notions of “subject to” and “subject of” are central.
She has studied an adult immigrant learner of English in Canada named Eva.
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 so bad and I didn’t answer her nothing.
The theory of social identity assumes that power relations play a crucial role in social interaction between language learners and target language speakers. Eva indicated she had felt humiliated at the time. She said that she could not respond to the girl because she had been positioned as a “strange woman”. What had made Eva feel strange? The girl’s questions to Eva were in fact rhetorical. She didn’t expect, or possibly even desire a response from Eva: “How come you don’t know him? Don’t you watch TV? That’s Bart Simpson.” It was the girl and Eva who could determine the grounds on which interaction could proceed, it were them who had the power to bring closure to the conversation.
Eva became subject to a discourse which assumed an identity she didn’t have. She was also the subject of the discourse had she attempted to continue on which the interaction could proceed, for example, by asserting that she didn’t watch the TV program of which Bart Simpson was the star.
2. Language learners have complex social identities
Peirce argues that language learners have complex social identities that only be understood in terms of the power relation that shape social structures. A learner’s social identity is ‘multiple and contradictory’. Investment is required for learners to construct an identity that enables them to get their right to be heard and become the subject of the discourse. It is something learners will only make if they believe their effort will increase the value of their “cultural capital”.
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 choice.
REFERENCE:
Ellis, Rod. 1997. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp 37-42
.png)
0 Comments