ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE FOR L2 USE
SUMMARY
TO FULLFIL THE
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT OF
Second Language
Acquisition
which is
lectured by Prof. Utami Widiati,
M.A., Ph.D
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MALANG
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION
JANUARY 2012
A. Introduction
There are two purposes of language
learners in learning L2. One group wants to achieve academic competence while
the other wants to achieve interpersonal competence. The first group doesn’t
care much about speaking skill as they only need language as a tool in
research, understanding specific area of knowledge, writing and publishing
theses, journals, and the other academics materials. The second group uses
language as a media to conduct “face to face” contact with native speakers.
B. Discussion
Here are the list of 5 (five)
components of language knowledge. They are vocabulary, morphology, phonology,
syntax, and discourse. For those who aim at the academic competence, they will
treat these five components differently compare to those who aim interpersonal
competence.
In addition, there are two language
activities. They are receptive (reading and listening) and productive
activities like writing and speaking.
B.1 Vocabulary
Vocabularies for academic competence are
more complex because every field of study has its own technical terms which
have different meanings among others. Vocabularies for interpersonal competence
are not too complex because they only relates to daily vocabularies which are
commonly spoken by native speakers. Of course they don’t have specific
technical terms as the academic competence does.
B.2 Morphology
Morphology for academic competence has
complex word forming and commonly encountered affixes in scientific terms. For
example, biology, psychology, sociology. They have suffix –ology which means “study of” or prefix bio- for biology, biodiversity, biochemical which means “life”.
Morphology for interpersonal competence is
not too complex. However, there might be some redundancies because some words
usually carry meanings such as tense, aspect, and number agreement, which are
called inflections.
B.3 Phonology
Those who want to acquire academic
competence don’t care about their accent since they hardly speak directly to
native speakers. They only concern about reading, listening, and writing
journals, theses, and academic publications.
Those
who concern about interpersonal competence will try hard to speak like native
speakers do. They much care about the native speakers’ accent. It was
something, which seems impossible for learners to acquire. No matter how well
the learners are able to speak, in fact, they never compete to native speakers.
B.4 Syntax
Syntax in academic competence is more
complex because it is often grammatically complex, involving various types of
subordination. In addition, passive constructions are much more likely to be
used in order to foreground objects and results and to background agents of
actions.
In contrast, grammatical structure used
for interpersonal competence is much more likely to be short, and simple. For
instance, there are many fragments like OK, Right, and Me too. The function is
to show speakers’ point of view rather than to transfer referential
information.
B.5 Discourse
Discourse in academic competence might
cover all academics need like research papers, lecturers, and book review. In
contrast, for interpersonal competence, discourse will cover the skill of, for
example, how to order food in the restaurant.
B.6 Reading
Reading in academic competence is
considered to be a very important material. It happens as people here have to
understand all important and new technology, technique, or approach. While in interpersonal
competence, reading ability is used for reading letters or the other simple
activities.
B.7 Listening
Reading in academic competence is
considered to be a very important material. It happens as people here have to
understand all important and new technology, technique, or approach. While in
interpersonal competence, listening ability is used for conducting daily
conversation to native speakers.
B.8 Writing
Academic writing will of course very
different from interpersonal writing. Academic writing like journal, theses,
paper works, will be more difficult compare to interpersonal competence like
writing letter for friend.
B.9 Speaking
Those who want to master L2 for academic
purposes aren’t care much about the native accent, intonation, pronunciation,
and still many more. However, for those who want to master L2 for personal
competence will concern much about how to speak nearly like native speaker.
C. Conclusion
The different purposes between
academic and interpersonal competence are clearly seen. This condition will
create different point of view about how language is learned because there is
different priority in acquiring it. For example, academic will probably think
that speaking is less important while interpersonal will say that speaking is
the most important since they have to speak “face to face” with native
speakers.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar