Information About

Interlanguage




Interlanguage is based on the theory that there is a "psychological structure latent in the brain" which is activated when one attempts to learn a second language. Selinker proposed the theory of interlanguage in 1972, noting that in a given situation the utterances produced by the learner are different from those native speakers would produce had they attempted to convey the same meaning. This comparison reveals a separate linguistic system. This system can be observed when studying the utterances of the learners who attempt to produce a target language norm.

To study the psychological processes involved one should compare the interlanguage of the learner with two things:

#Utterances in the native language to convey the same message made by the learner
#Utterances in the target language to convey the same message made by the native speaker of that language.

An interlanguage is also a language that is used by speakers of different languages in order to be able to mutually communicate.