A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

language speakers’ brain. He indicated that second language learners might achieve
native-speaker’s competence through activating the “latent language structure” (p.
211). The latent language structure was identified later by Lenneberg (1967).
Lenneberg (1967) addressed that the latent structure was a type of structure
associated with the language functions in the human beings’ brain. Also, it “(a) is a
formulated arrangement in the brain; (b) is a biological counterpart to universal
grammar; and (c) is transformed by the infant into the realized structure of a
particular grammar in accordance with certain maturational stages” (pp. 211- 212).
Through the latent structure, the language learners would be able to speak a target
language native-like without considering it for a long time. Their reason was that the
learners might resort automatically to the usage of interlanguage strategies
genetically, and speak a target language as fluently as a native speaker without
resorting to much consciousness.
According to the model of speech production suggested by Faerch and Kasper
(1983c), before the communicative goal of the intended meaning is achieved, there is
a process of planning, which seems to be a phase that the learners should have in
their consciousness. Actually, this model of speech production indicated that the
learners first should detect their linguistic problem, retrieve items from relevant
linguistic system second, and finally realize which item to apply in order to achieve
their communicative goal. Faerch and Kasper (1983) tended to involve a
consciousness issue in strategy application.
According to Faerch and Kasper’s (1983c) definition of communication
strategies, they are “potentially conscious plans set up by the learner in order to solve
problems in communication” (p. x). Faerch and Kasper (1983c) believed that the
18