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Briefly explain the Interlanguage Theory

      

Briefly explain the Interlanguage Theory

  

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Francis
The brain child of Interlanguage theory is Larry Selinker (1972). The concept of interlanguage is founded upon the assumption that an L2 learner at any particular moment in the learning sequence is using a language system which is neither L1 nor L2.This is a third language that the learner develops. It is composed of numerous linguistic elements which include grammar, lexicon, phonology etc. Some of these elements are from the learner’s L1 and others are from L2, and others do not have their origin in either L1 or L2, (the target language). The rules used by the learners are not found in the learner’s L1 or in the TL. The interim grammars constructed by L2 learner are not static but rather they change thus IL is dynamic (Nemser 1947).
Interlanguages change because in the process of learning, a learner continually adopts a variety of strategies in order to make sense of the L2 data he encounters. This is to say a given L2 learner will have different ILs as he progresses towards the target language. This period during which the learner is advancing towards the target language was referred to by Corder (1967) and Nemser (1957) as transitional competence and approximative system respectively. Note that both Corder and Nemser never used the term inter language.
francis1897 answered the question on March 8, 2023 at 12:27


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