Teaching-induced aspects of interlanguage discourse

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Abstract
The paper examines the influence of the formal classroom as a learning environment on the discourse behaviour of advanced German students of English in conversations with English native speakers. It is proposed that FL teaching as a causal factor in the formation of IL-specific rules can operate either directly, in presenting the learner with FL material which deviates from target norms, or indirectly, by triggering off psycholinguistic processes which in turn lead to IL-specific rule formation. These are referred to as primary and secondary teaching induction, respectively. On a more concrete level, the impact of two constituents of FL teaching on IL discourse is discussed: (1) the textbook and other teaching materials; (2) classroom specific discourse norms. The influence of the first factor type manifests itself primarily in (a) the use of an inappropriately formal register, (b) an inappropriate use of modal verbs. The second factor type is found to result in (a) rising intonation with non-interrogative function, (b) inappropriate propositional explicitness of speech act realizations and discourse functions, (c) “complete sentence” responses, (d) a lack of marking for expressive and relational functions (“speech act modality”). In conclusion of the data analysis, a classroom specific pidgin will be hypothesized which, when transferred to non-classroom settings, leads to pragmatically inappropriate communicative behaviour. On a more general level, it will be postulated that second language acquisition hypotheses should be formulated with reference to specific types of acquisition/learning contexts.

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