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Oleo de José Tola
From: Assumpta
Date: 2/11/99
Time: 12:55:47 PM
Remote Name: 207.172.175.117
Before I start my comments on this question, I think that it is necessary for us to look at the definations of some key notions like 'interference' and 'developmental errors'. David Crystal In A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics defines interference as "a term used in sociolinguistics and foreign-language learning to refer to the errors a speaker introduces into one language as a result of contact with another language; also called negative transfer;... the most common source of error is in the process of learning a foreign language, where the native tongue interferes, but interference may occur in other contact situations (as in multilingualism). According to my understanding, by 'developmental error' Corder means all errors produced by a f/l2 learner. These errors could occur when the l2 learner introduces some aspects of the l1 or of any other known language into the l2 in order to achieve communicative competence in l2. I would think that Corder does not suppotr the fact that interference is synomyn to 'negative transfer'. Errors in the interlanguage as he demonstrates are developmental. They are both 'positive and negative transfers'. The proponents of interlanguage errors as 'interference' have hardly shown the positive side of transfers that are carried from l1 to l2.For instance if in my l1 I have the syntactic structure SVO, my knowledge of the structure of an l2 with this same syntax will be facilitated.Example, in my native language, I have the SVO structure ; I beleive that if I were to learn English as a l2, I would likely answer to the question "what is your name?" as "my name (some verb ) be/is Assumpta, because mentally i know that is the structure in my l1. I am sure this is a 'positive tranfer' eventhough the verb to use is not correct. This is what I think Corder calls developmental errors, the accepting of correct forms of transfers in l2 and the correcting of the negative transfers in the l2 during the process of learning. Just as F. and W. said in their article, learner's errors should be considered as some resources that could help in understanding how to correct them.To conclude i would suggest that no matter what the origin of the errors is, errors cannot be viewed as interferences, they should be considered as a normal process in the l2 learning, I don't think that they necessarilly impede the learning of an l2 because at times they do facilitate the acquisition of the l2 to a certain extend.I COULD NOT REREAD MY COMMENT BECAUSE I HAVE A STOP MESSAGE ON MY SCREEN NOW.