Larry Selinker | 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.
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