[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
Oleo de José Tola
From: Donna D.
Date: 2/3/99
Time: 11:50:21 PM
Remote Name: 38.14.126.101
The authors argue that SLA research views the NNS as a "deficient communicator" who is constantly struggling with his/her L2 incompetence. This, the authors claim, has created a "skewed perspective on discourse and communication." Firth and Wagner believe that theories within SLA have overemphasized the foreign language learner's linguistic and communicative problems and have failed to focus on their "communicative success."
The authors aruge that NNSs often negotiate meaning when engaged in conversation. This is communicative strategy that enables them to convey a message to another party (whether a NS or another NNS). As the authors note, "people cannot say what they mean in an absolute sense; meaning is ineluctably negotiated." The common misunderstanding is, however, that the NNS is viewed as a "defective communicator" rather than an effective negotiator of meaning.
What I found to be a particulary cogent argument is that the NS and the NNS should not be placed in homogeneous categories. Such generalizations fail to take into account the "multitude of social identities of the NS and the NNS. Thus, by placing speakers in clear cut binary categories, researchers focus primarily on the NNSs' "defective speech" as they compare it to the NSs' idealized one. This oversimplied view of language learning is clearly flawed.