Language Simplification in Foreigner Talk and Second Language Development.
Adel I. Tweissi · Deep Blue (University of Michigan) · 1987
This dissertation has implications for establishing a link between what happens outside and inside the language learner. The link is specifically between simplications involved in the simplified input addressed to the learner and simplifications involved in the learner's development of a non-primary language. Two working assumptions underlie research in this study. (1) Language simplification is guided by some general universal principles that work under certain simplification-enforcing circumstances, such as talking to non-native speakers of a language or reducing the cognitive load in the course of developing an interlanguage. Evidence for this assumption is drawn from a review of literature on simplification in 13 "simplified" codes, among which are foreigner talk and interlanguage. (2) The way language is learned is a reflection of the way it is used. This assumption constitutes one of the tenets of Ellis' "Variable Competence Model" of second language acquisition. Simplification in foreigner talk is one way of using language; simplification in acquisition is one way of learning language. A link is attempted in this study between the two types of simplification above. Data consist of transcripts of 60 telephone calls between native and non-native speakers of Arabic and baseline data from native speaker-native speaker calls. Non-native speaker and native speaker callers asked the called subjects, who are all native speakers of (Jordanian) Arabic, predetermined questions on food in the Jordanian society. The results of this study show that (1) native speakers of Arabic make similar simplifications to those made by native speakers of other languages when talking to non-native speakers; (2) these simplifications occur at all language levels; (3) these simplifications are variable in the sense that they are sensitive to the listener's second language proficiency; (4) this sensitivity is not a monolithic event; (5) all levels of language are not equally accessible to the process of simplification in foreigner talk; (6) discourse level features are most subject to this process, followed by phonology, morphology, and syntax; and (7) evidence for a possible parallel pattern of accessibility to simplification in second language development is presented.