Approaches to Language - Essay

1. - Interlanguage phenomena
      “Once upon a time there was”: this could be considered a way of starting a story, similar to L1, a memorised chunk of language, as in Spanish “Érase una vez…” It’s easy for a young student to have a way of starting, because sometimes the most difficult task is to start. “There was” could also be considered as a structure memorised by the student.
      “In a house”: the structure is correct; it’s a positive transfer from L1. There is a coincidence of elements between L1 and L2. In Spanish this structure is the same, preposition+ indeterminate article+ noun.
      “One day”: Positive transfer. It’s similar to L1.
      “They are sleeping”: this is a well-known structure, because the present continuous is studied at the very beginning, so the student knows that a continuous form must be used, but not the present the past tense must be used. It could be an overgeneralization.
      “In the window”: overgeneralization. The student should have said “through the window”, but he simplifies the sentence.
      “To the psychiatrist”: negative transfer from L1. It’s not necessary the preposition “to” with this verb.
      “Come here”: overgeneralization, in this case it’s a simplification of the language.
      “In his house”: the student introduces the possessive adjective, masculine, so he is able to differentiate between feminine and masculine.
      “Do you”: it could be an example of overgeneralization. The student knows that he has to add the auxiliary verb “do” to make an interrogative, so he uses it, and he doesn’t realized that he needs the past of the auxiliary verb. It’s a simplification of the language system, we can understand him, although is not grammatically correct. And the repetition gives him time to think.
      “I did, I did not”: it’s a negative construction. There is a repetition, and he is not completely sure about the construction of the negative sentence using an auxiliary, but he tries and we can... [continues]

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