interlanguage hypothesisn
the hypothesis that language learners possess a grammatical system that
is different from both the first language and the target language but is
nevertheless a natural language. That is, interlanguages are believed to be
constrained by the same principles as all languages.
interlingual errorn
(in error analysis) an error which results from language transfer, that
is, which is caused by the learner’s native language. For example, the incor-
rect French sentence Elle regarde les(“She sees them”), produced according
to the word order of English, instead of the correct French sentence Elle les
regarde(literally, “She them sees”).
An intralingual erroris one which results from faulty or partial learning of
the target language^1 , rather than from language transfer. Intralingual
errors may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon
another. For example a learner may produce He is comes, based on a blend
of the English structures He is coming, He comes.
interlingual identificationn
(in second or foreign language learning) a judgement made by learners
about the identity or similarity of structures in two languages. For example,
in learning the sound system of a new language, a learner may have to
decide whether the ‘d’ sound in the new language is the same or different
from the ‘d’ sound in his or her native language. Learners often categorize
sounds in terms of the phonemic systems of their first language, making
acquisition of new target language sounds difficult.
see also phoneme, language transfer
interlocutorn
a neutral term referring to any person with whom someone is speaking.
A conversation requires at least two interlocutors. In language testing, the
term is sometimes used to refer to a teacher or other trained person who acts
during a test as the person with whom the student or candidate interacts in
order to complete a speaking task.
internal consistency reliabilityn
(in testing) a measure of the degree to which the items or parts of a test
are homogeneous, equivalent or consistent with each other. It is based on a
single test administration and obviates the need for parallelforms of a
test, which are often expensive and difficult to develop. Internal consistency
reliability is often estimated by the following approaches: Cronbach
alpha, Kuder-Richardson formulas orsplit-half reliability.
interlanguage hypothesis