Idiosyncratic Dialect

Pit Corder [1967] suggested that linguistics should study the process of second and foreign language acquisition and the various strategies learners may use. Since then he has contributed a number of articles wherein he discusses the nature of the learners’ language. He calls the learners’ language as their idiosyncratic dialect. PitCorder (1971) says that this dialect of the learners is (1) regular. (2)systematic and (3) meaningful.

According to Pit Corder the learners’ utterances can be accounted for by a set of rules. This set of rules is obtained from the target social dialect. He gives two reasons why the learners’ language should be considered as a dialect of the target language. The two reasons are as follows:

(1) It is a language and has a grammar.

(2) At least some of the rules in this grammar are the same as those in the target language grammar

Linguistically two languages which share the same rules are dialects and hence the learners’ language can be called a dialect. Having acquired this dialect the learners constantly try to change it to bring it in line with the standard dialect. This happens as far as the learners continue to learn. Once the learning stops their dialectis fossilized. That is those utterances which are deviant from the target language point of view remain unchanged. Pit Corder also points out how an understanding of the learners’ system can help the teacher and the learners.

According to Pit Corder the study of the learners’ dialect would tell the teacher how far the learners have progressed towards the goal and what more they have to learn yet. He also points out that if the learners utter a correct form we cannot take it as a proof that ‘thelearners have learned the systems which would generate that form in a native speaker’. For they might just be repeating an utterance that they have heard before. They may not have understood the system behind it. In such cases they cannot be said to be using the language. Spolsky (1966) uses the term ‘language-like behaviour’ to account for those utterances which are merely repeated from memory without a proper understanding of the system behind it.

Besides Pit Corder points out that the learners’ utterances should be studied in their situational context. For often it so happens that the learners’ utterance though well formed superficially does not express what the learners intended to say. Hence he categorizes the learners’ utterance under four heads as follows:

(1) superficially well formed and appropriate

(2) superficially well formed and inappropriate

(3) superficially deviant but as far as can be judged appropriate

(4) superficially deviant but as far as can be judged inappropriate

Pit Corde r also points out that the child language and the language of aphasics are all deviant idiosyncratic dialects. Poetic language is ‘deliberately deviant’ and the language of the aphasics is ‘pathologically deviant’. But the dialects of the children and the learners are the result of the learning process. Here both thec hildren acquiring their mother tongue and the learners learning a second language go through a similar process wherein they form hypotheses about the nature of the language and test them. But the task of the second language learners is much easier, according to PitCorder, for they only have to find out how the system of the new language they are trying to learn differs from the system of their mother tongue. In so doing they commit a lot of errors which reveal a lot of mother tongue influence.

The errors committed by the learners which show the influence of their mother tongue are often labeled as interference errors. The term suggests that old habits are interfering with those which are yetto be acquired. But according to Pit Corder possession of a language makes it easy for the learners to learn a new language as they have already learnt to adopt some strategies for language learning and they have only to find out how the new language is different from their mother tongue. Hence errors are not signs of inhibition but are evidences which show what strategies the learners are using to acquire a language.

An analysis of the learners’ language could help us adjust our syllabuses to the built-in syllabus which the learners have made for themselves. But it is not very easy to analyse the learners’ dialect mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, the learners’ dialect is not stable and secondly, interpretation is difficult because of the peculiarity of the dialect. But if we understand the learners’ built-in syllabus through the study of their errors we could create better conditions for language learning. We could help the learners to improve and adapt their strategies so that a development of the language takes place in their mind spontaneously. The suggestion that our syllabuses should suit the needs of the learners is not new. Carroll (1955) made such a proposal and thought if the learners were asked to find verbal responses to certain problems taking the help of their teacher or a dictionary they could learn better. Ferguson (1966) points out if at all our syllabuses have any considerate foundation; they are often based upon impressionistic judgments and vaguely conceived theoretical principles. Now it is an accepted fact that learners’ errors should be systematically studied and our syllabuses should be formed in such a way that they are in line with the strategies used by the learner.

If this can be done “we may be able to allow the learner’s innate strategies to dictate our practice and determine our syllabus; we may learn to adapt ourselves to his needs rather than impose upon him our preconceptions of how he ought to learn, what he ought to learn and when he ought to learn it”   (Pit Corder 1967 /p27)