The Effects of Linguistic Context on Unplanned Discourse: A Studyin Interlanguage Variability
[Article]
Makoni, S. B.
This study examines the variable realization of the third person singular -s by Shona learners of English at elementary and intermediate levels of proficiency. The study is unlike previous ones, not so much because it controls for differences in discourse mode but because it examines the effects of different linguistic contexts embedded in comparable discourse positions. The paper argues that although the performance of the subjects is elicited from unplanned discourse, different discourse segments might vary in terms of their degree of plannedness. The results demonstrate that very little morphological variability occurs in the production of elementary learners. The little variation exhibited is lexical. Some words attract target-language-like variants more frequently than others.