A pragmatic analysis of children's interlanguage in EFL preschool contexts

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of very young EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' speech in both high- and low-immersion classroom contexts. The purpose of the study is twofold: to develop a taxonomy of the communicative functions used in the L2 (second language) by fiveyear-old learners of English; and to analyze the distribution of these functions in the different contexts. The taxonomy is based on the functions identified by Halliday (1975) and Painter (1999) in the L1 (first language) of the child. These authors' research is based on their observation of how children learn the mother tongue because they have the need to communicate (give personal information, ask other people to perform actions, and so forth). The present analysis reveals the extent to which the different functions are used by children, both in the L2 and the L1, in different immersion contexts, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of developing classroom tasks that encourage children to use the L2 for purposes similar to those found in mother-tongue interaction.