English Language Teaching in its Social Context

SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING: CONCEPTS AND ISSUES 19children; again, variability is described byTowell et a/. (1996) as a central feature of learnerinterlanguage which L2 theories will have to explain.Creativity and routines in L2 learningIn the last section, we referred to evidence which shows that learners’ interlanguageproductions can be described as systematic, at least in part. This systematicity is linkedto another key concept, that of creativity. Learners’ surface utterances can be linked tounderlying rule systems, even if these seem primitive and deviant compared with the targetlanguage system. It logically follows that learners can produce original utterances, i.e. thattheir rule system can generate utterances appropriate to a given context, which the learnerhas never heard before.There is of course plenty of eommon-sense evidence that learners can put their L2knowledge to creative use, even at the very earliest stages of L2 learning. It becomes mostobvious that ths is happening, when learners produce Utterances like the highly deviant nonanimal (no animal ‘1 haven’t got any pet’), which we cited before.This is not an utterancewhich any native speaker of French would produce (other than, perhaps, a very young child);much the most likely way that the learner has produced it is through applying an extremelyprimitive interlanguage rule for negation, in combination with some basic vocabulary.But how did this same learner manage to produce the near-targetje n’ai pas de anima/,with its negative particles correctly inserted within the verb phrase, and correspondingalmost-perfect modification to the morphology of the noun phrase, within a fcw minutes ofthe other form? For us, the most likely explanation is that at this point he was reproducingan utterance which he has indeed heard before (and probably rehearsed), which has beenmemorized as an unanalysed whole, a formula or a prefabricated chunk.Work in corpus linguistics has led us to the increasing recognition that formulas androutines play an important part in everyday language use by native speakers; when we talk,our everyday L1 utterances are a complex mix of creativity and prefabrication (Sinclair1991). In L1 acquisition research also, the use of unanalysed chunks by young childrenhas been commonly observed. For L1 learners, the contribution of chunks seems limited byprocessing constraints; for older L2 learncrs, however, mcmorization of lengthy, unanalysedlanguage routines is much more possible. (Think of those opera singers who successfullymemorize and deliver entire parts, in languages they do not otherwise control!)Analysis of L2 data produced by classroom learners in particular, seems to showextensive and systematic use of chunks to fulfil communicative needs in the early stages(Myles et al. 1998). Studies of informal learners also provide some evidence of chunk use.This phenomenon has attracted relatively little attention in recent times, compared withthat given to learner creativity and systematicity (Wcinert 1995). However, we bclieve it iscommon enough in L2 spontaneous production (and not only in the opera house), to needsome more sustained attention from L2 learning theory.Incomplete success and fossilizationYoung children learning thcir first language embark on the enterprise in widely varyingsituations around the world, sometimes in conditions of extreme poverty and deprivation,whether physical or social.Yet with remarkable uniformity, at the end of five years or so,they have achieved a very substantial measure of success. Teachcrs and students know totheir cost that this is by no means the case with second languages, embarked on after thesecritical early years. Few, if any, adult learners ever come to blend indistinguishably with the