This document discusses theories of second language acquisition including behaviourist learning theory and interlanguage. It provides details on: - Behaviourist learning theory which emphasizes observable learning through stimulus-response-reinforcement and does not account for internal cognitive processes. - The concept of 'interlanguage', coined by Selinker, which refers to a learner's internal linguistic system that draws from their first language and the target language. - Mechanisms of interlanguage structure including simplification and overgeneralization of rules. - The idea of fossilization where certain first language features remain permanently engrained in a learner's second language system.

1. Phonetics & phonology
SCLE5133
Prepared For:
Dr. Mohd Hilimi bin Hamzah
Prepared By:
Moustafa Mohammad Shalabi
817137
Sunday 1 / 11 /2015
UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND MODERN LANGUAGES
MASTER IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS

2. INTERLANGUAGE
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3. Learning Perspective
What would constitute the psychologically relevant data of second-language learning?
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Behaviourist learning theory

6. Behaviourist learning theory
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 Habits are formed when learners respond to stimuli in the environment and
subsequently have their responses reinforced so that they are remembered
 All behaviour, including the kind of complex behaviour found in language acquisition,
could be explained in terms of habits.

7. Behaviourist learning theory
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Learning took place when learners had the opportunity to practise
making the correct response to a given stimulus.

8. Behaviourist learning theory
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• Learners imitated models of correct language and received
positive reinforcement if they were correct and negative
reinforcement if they were incorrect.

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Behaviourist learning theory
 Behaviourist accounts of L2 acquisition
emphasize only what can be directly observed
and ignore what goes on in the black box of the
learners’ mind
 Behaviourism cannot adequately account for L2
acquisition.
 Learners frequently do not produce output that
simply reproduces the input.

11. The systematic nature of their errors demonstrates that they
are actively involved in constructing their own ‘rules’, rules that
sometimes bear little resemblance to the patterns of language
modelled input.
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Behaviourist learning theory

12. What is ‘interlanguage’?
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The term ‘interlanguage’ was coined by the American linguist, Larry
Selinker, in recognition of the fact that L2 Learners construct a
linguistic system that draws, in part, on the learner’s L1 but is also
from the language target a learner’s interlanguage is, therefore, a
unique linguistic system.

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The concept of interlanguage
involves the following premises
about L2 acquisition:
1.The learner construct a system
of abstract linguistic rules which
underlies comprehension and
production of the L2. This system
of rule is viewed as a ‘mental
grammar’ and is referred to as
an ‘interlanguage’

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Some particular mechanisms of
the interlanguage structure may
be a result of displacement of
some precise features through
which the learner acquires the
second language.
(e.g. as soon as teachers overuse
expressions including the pronoun
{I},which consequently puts off
the use of the pronoun {we})

15. Learning strategies
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(Selinker, 1972) as a trend on the
part of the students to convert the
target language to a plain system”.
For example, we have what we call
simplification when the learner uses
only one form of a verb as to use
{go} with all tenses; present and
past or to add the {s} of plurality to
all irregular plurals like foots
instead of feet and so on.

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Overgeneralization
• What did he intended to say?
After thinking a little, I decided to start on the
bycicle as slowly as a could as it was not possible to
drive fast.
• The attempt to use L2 structural instructions that
would never be used by a native speaker
• ‫أمس؟‬ ‫مصطفي‬ ‫ذهب‬ ‫أين‬
• Ayna zahab Moustafa Ams?
• Where go Moustafa yesterday? Neglecting, by
mistake or automatically, the word order and the
grammatical structure of adding the auxiliary verb
{did} before the main verb.

17. Fossilization
The presence of
linguistic items ,rules
and subsystems from
NL that remains in TL
they become norms In
the interlanguage.
(Plateau)
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18. Thank You!