重释科德错误观:理据与路径

Reinterpreting Corder’s View of Errors: Rationale and Approach

错误是外语教学中无法规避的现象,外语习得的过程亦是一个不断犯错、纠错的过程。对待错误的看法和方法深刻影响着外语的教学与习得。二十世纪六七十年代,一些具有代表性的关于错误的理论观点应运而生,其中最有造诣、最为有名、对外语教学最有价值和吸引力的当属科德的研究。相较于行为主义、结构主义理论将错误作为学习失败的标志,并果断采取零容忍的态度,科德则另辟新径,不仅揭示出错误对外语学习、外语教师和研究者的巨大价值,更重要的是接纳错误,以错误为“理据”和“路径”,这对我们当下重审错误有其重要意义,以促进外语的习得,并提高外语教学的实效。

Errors are unavoidable in foreign language teaching and learning, and the process of acquiring a foreign language is also a process of making and correcting errors. The views and methods of dealing with errors have a profound influence on the teaching and acquisition of foreign languages. In the 1960s and 1970s, some representative theoretical perspectives on errors emerged, among which the most accomplished, the most famous, and the most valuable and attractive to foreign language teaching are the studies of Corder. Compared with the behaviorist and structuralist theories, which take errors as a sign of learning failure and adopt a zero-tolerance attitude, Corder’s new approach not only reveals the great value of errors to foreign language learning, foreign language teachers and researchers, but also, more importantly, accepts errors as “rationale” and “approach”. This is of great significance to our current review of errors, in order to promote foreign language acquisition and improve the effectiveness of foreign language teaching.