ABSTRACT
After Corder (1967) proposed that second-language learners have a universal “built-in syllabus” that guides them in the systematic development of their own linguistic system, or “transitional competence,” Selinker (1972) posited that this linguistic system (which he called “interlanguage”) was variable, in that learner utterances could be expected to vary dramatically in form depending on whether the learner was trying to communicate meaning or was focused on form (as when responding to classroom drills and exercises or providing grammaticality judgments). Thus, variationist SLA began in 1972. Only three years later, Dickerson (1975), drawing upon the models of variation developed by Labov (1966, 1972a, 1972b), Wolfram (1969), and others for the study of variation in first languages, particularly in non-standard dialects, published the first variationist study of interlanguage. Her results showed systematic shifts in the accuracy of Japanese learners’ production of English z depending on the degree of attention to form required by the task (e.g., reading a passage vs. reading a word list). Soon after, Beebe (1977, 1980) demonstrated the dramatic impact of the interlocutor on Thai English L2 learners’ variable production of phonological forms. Early studies (Adamson, 1980; Ellis, 1985, 1987) explored the impact of social factors such as interlocutor and task on interlanguage variation and are summarized in Tarone (1988). Many early longitudinal case studies focusing on the spontaneous production of learner language in the daily life of individual learners, such as Schumann (1978) and Huebner (1983), also gathered data varying across a wide range of social situations.
