Chapter published in:
Interlanguage: Forty years later
Edited by ZhaoHong Han and Elaine Tarone
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 39] 2014
► pp. 221–246

Chapter 10. Interlanguage 40 years on

Three themes from here

| New York University and Research Production Associates

This chapter pulls together 40 years of interlanguage study in terms of three interlinked themes: (1) historic roots, emphasizing ongoing questions/issues that needed interlanguage to be asked; (2) interlanguage as a system in its own right, centering on evidence for the systematic nature of interlanguage; (3) a suggested future centering on creation of a deep interlanguage semantics guided by not only learning from, but contributing to, an exponentially-changing computational world. The chapter concludes with a “peroration” addressed to current students and younger colleagues stressing development of “doubt” as a crucial skill – not being too quick to discard possible answers to core concepts and questioning whether we are training students adequately in the right skillsets for productive research.

Published online: 30 April 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.39.12ch1
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