AVOIDANCE STRATEGY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

Avoidance is one of the common strategies employed by second language learners in the production of the target language when they have inadequate and incomplete knowledge about grammatical rules and lexical items. Previous studies have provided evidence for avoidance. In view of this observation, this study aimed to find out whether Turkish learners of English avoid any grammatical structure or lexical items while producing English sentences, and if so, to what extent they use it as a learning strategy to cope with the difficulties they face in the process of second language acquisition. The subjects of this study were forty Turkish learners of English studying English as their major. Data were collected from the compositions they wrote about one of their earlier memories first in their native language and then in the target language. They were asked to write the same composition in both languages to identify the modifications and omissions they were making in the compositions they wrote in their native language when producing them in the target language. The results obtained from the study provided evidence that learners did avoid some structures when writing their compositions in their second language. The findings of the study were important as regards its pedagogical implications.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Avoidance, learning strategies, second language acquisition, writing

AVOIDANCE STRATEGY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

Keywords:

Avoidance, learning strategies, second language acquisition, writing,

PDF

___

Alexander, L. G. (1967). Developing Skills: An integrated course for intermediate students. London: Longman. Alonso Vázquez, C. M. (2005). Avoidance as a Learning Strategy, Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, Vol.13, 67-83. Blum, S. and Levenston, E.A. (1978) Universals of lexical simplification, Language Learning, 28, 399-415. Chen, J. (2007). On how to solve the problem of the avoidance of phrasal verbs in the Chinese context, International Education Journal, 8 (2), 348- 353.
Cook, V., Long, J. and McDonough, S. (1979). First and Second Language Learning, In G. E. Perren (ed.) The Mother Tongue and Other Languages in Education, CILTR (Retrieved from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/L1&l21979. htm01.04. 2014). Corder, S.P. (1978). Strategies of Communication (In Claus Faerch and Gabriele Kasper (Eds.) 1983. Strategies in Interlanguage Communication (pp. 15- 19). New York: Longman. Erwin; G. (1979); Communication strategies employed by American students of Russian. Modern Language Journal 13:4, 329-334. Færch, C. and Kasper, G (1983) Plans and strategies in foreign language communication. In C. Færch and G. Kasper (eds.) Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. (pp.20-60). Harlow,UK: Longman
Hulstijn, J. H. and Marchena, E. (1989). Avoidance: Grammatical or Semantic Causes? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 11, 241-255. Kellerman, E., Bongaerts, T., & Poulisse, N. (1987). Strategy and system in L2 referential communication. In R. Ellis (Ed.), Second language acquisition in context. (pp.100-112), New York: Harper and Row. Lin, G. H. C. (2013). Revealing the effectiveness of communication strategies, Paper presented in the 8th ELT Conference of AFL, CYUT, Taiwan. Maleki, A. (2010). Techniques to teach Communication Strategies. Journal of Language Teaching and Research. Vol. 1, No.5, 640-646.
Poulisse, N. (1993). A theoretical account of lexical communication strategies. Studies in Bilingualism 6, 157-198. Schachter, J. (1974). An error in error analysis. Language Learning, 24, 205- 214.
Tarone, E. (1977). Conscious communication strategies in interlanguage: A progress report. TESOL, 77, 194-203. Taron, E. (1980) Communication Strategies, Foreigner talk and repair in interlanguage? Language learning 30, 417-413. Varadi, T. (1980) “Strategies of Target Language Learner Communication: Message Adjustment”. International Review of Applied Linguistics 18, 59-71.
Varadi, Y. (1983). Strategies of target language learner communication: message- adjustment. In C. Faerch, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 61-74). New York: Longman.