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Recent work in applied linguistics has expanded our understanding of the rule governed nature of language. The concept of an idealized speaker -hearer whose linguistic competence is abstract and separate from reality has been enriched by the notion of an actual interlocutor who possesses communicative compe tence, a knowledge of language which accounts for its use in real-world con texts. Areas of variation previously relegated to idiosyncratic differences in performance have been found to be dynamic yet consistent and lend themselves to study and systematic description. Because language acquisition involves the development of communicative competence, by its very nature it incorporates variation and systematicity. Sec ond-language acquisition is similarly variable, since interlanguage is subject to the same universal and language-specific conventions. In addition, aspects of the second language have been found to be unevenly acquired and are differ entially reflected in particular contexts or settings. Yet, despite our expanding knowledge, this variability is only beginning to be treated in much of the sec ond-language acquisition literature. This volume presents the work of some researchers and methodologists who have taken on the challenge of including variation in their research designs and pedagogical recommendations. Variation is shown to be relevant to lin guistic, social, and psychological aspects of language. It is apparent in the registers and dialects of the target language and in the inter language of learners.
List of contents
1: On Chameleons and Monitors.- 2: A Cognitive View on Interlanguage Variability.- 3: Does the Bioprogram Affect Second-Language Acquisition?.- 4: Assessing an Interaction-Based Paradigm: How Accommodative Should We Be?.- 5: Incorporated Repairs in Nonnative Discourse.- 6: Interlinguistic Variation and Similarity in Foreigner Talk: Illustrated with Respect to English-Speaking and German-Speaking Contexts.- 7: The Effect of Cultural Empathy on Second-Language Phonological Production.- 8: Variation and Convergence in Nonnative Institutionalized Englishes.- 9: Different Paths to Writing Proficiency in a Second Language? A Preliminary Investigation of ESL Writers of Short-Term and Long-Term Residence in the United States.- 10: Variation and Transfer in English Creole-Standard English Language Learning.- 11: Dialect Variation and Second-Language Intelligibility.- 12: Systematic Variability in Second-Language Tense Marking.- 13: Sociolinguistic Variation in Face-Threatening Speech Acts: Chastisement and Disagreement.- 14: The Social Dynamics of Native and Nonnative Variation in Complimenting Behavior.- 15: That Reminds Me of a Story: The Use of Language to Express Emotion by Second-Language Learners and Native Speakers.- 16: Classroom Foreign Language Learning and Language Variation: The Notion of Pedagogical Norms.- 17: Discourse Conditioned Tense Variation: Teacher Implications.- 18: The Colloquial Preterit: Language Variation and the ESL Classroom.
