Why does language fossilization occur?
Why does language fossilization occur?
Why Does Fossilization Happen? Fossilization often means that certain aspects of the language were learned incompletely or incorrectly, such as grammatical features like conjugating verbs in the wrong fashion or using the wrong vocabulary, in such a manner that they cannot be unlearned and replaced with correct usage.
What is fossilization in Applied Linguistics?
The term fossilization or interlanguage fossilization is also used in linguistics to refer to the process in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks and writes a new language, especially when not learned as a young child.
How can we prevent language fossilization?
In oral teaching activities, teachers should guide students to focus on language accuracy, requiring students to express meaning in the form of monitoring and encourage them to correct or amend once they are aware of errors. Carefully designed feedback can prevent the formation of fossilization effectively.
What is syntactic fossilization?
Fossilization, proposed by Selinker in the 1970s, refers to a process occurring from time to time in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a learner speaks or writes in his target language.
How does fossilization of the language relate to language teaching and learning?
Fossilization refers to the process in which incorrect language becomes a habit and cannot easily be corrected. Teachers can help learners notice their fossilized errors by for example recording them speaking, or by asking them to keep a record of written errors as part of a language portfolio.
What is language fossilization and why does it matter?
Language fossilization is a broad term used to describe many forms of arrested progress in second language (L2) acquisition. This arrested progress can occur in one or more specific features of the target language, and many teachers and researchers consider fossilization an unavoidable process.
How would you deal with fossilized errors while teaching grammar?
Correcting Fossilized Errors
- Explain explicitly what the error is and how it can be corrected.
- Deal with one error at a time; don’t overload the student(s).
- If a student makes the error whilst speaking, ask them to write down what they’ve just said.
- Stop the student on that error alone.
What needs to happen for an organism to become fossilized?
For an organism to become a fossil, it must not decompose or be eaten. This can happen if the organism either lives within or is moved to a place where it can be buried and kept from decaying. When an organism is buried quickly, there is less decay and the better the chance for it to be preserved.
What is language transfer and when does it take place?
Language transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and crosslinguistic influence) is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have a native-level command of a language, as when translating into a …
What is overgeneralization in language?
In linguistics, overgeneralization is used as a name for a specific stage of language acquisition in which children apply a grammatical rule (like forming past tense verbs by adding -ed) too widely (resulting in nonwords like eated).
What are fossilized errors?
A ‘fossilized’ error is an error that has become a habit, part of a student’s repertoire, and used subconsciously as if it were the correct form. We don’t usually take students from the beginning of their language learning right through to perfect mastery.
What circumstances are the best for fossils to form?
The rapid burial and presence of minerals preserve the hard parts. To be later revealed by erosion and wave action. The conditions for the best preservation of fossils is rapid burial in sediments that contain high levels of minerals.
What are the conditions necessary for fossilization to occur?
After death, their soft parts are decomposed due to bacterial action. Hence, possession of hard parts like exoskeleton, bones, nails and tooth etc. are favorable condition for fossilization. Leaves and flowers are rarely fossilized while trunks of big trees, bones and exoskeletons are commonly preserved as fossils.
We’re not talking trilobites and Tyrannosauruses here: Language fossilization refers to the process in the learning of a secondary language in which the student has more and more difficulty furthering his fluency in the language, until eventually, the student can learn no more.
Is language fossilization inevitable in the CPH?
However, language fossilization has been noted to varying degrees among those still well within the critical period in certain individuals. This may be a minority of individuals, yes, but it proves that those within the CPH are not universally invulnerable to the effect.
What are the two types of interlanguage fossilization?
According to Selinker (1978), interlanguage fossilization falls into two categories, namely individual fossilization and group fossilization. The former is the persistence of individual learner’s IL development, while the latter is the plateau in the diachronic development of a community language.