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The current state of interlanguage ( Draft Introduction to forthcoming Rutherford Festschrift , Benjamins )

The formal study of that independent system of knowledge developed by second-language (L2) learners interlanguage had its beginning's nearly a quarter of a century ago. By now it has been a little over ten years since we had the first attempt to produce a state-of-the-art volume in the area of interlanguage studies: This was the well-known series of studies in honor of Professor S. Pit Corder of the University of Edinburgh (Davies et. al 1984). We wanted to continue that tradition with studies in honor of Professor William E. Rutherford, and to that end we called for a series of shorter contributions that address issues associated with interlanguage. Having shorter contributions created a number of possibilities, among them, a focus on single issues as well as an increase in the number of contributions, thereby making space available for newer as well as more seasoned researchers. The result is the present volume. As some of the studies in this volume demonstrate, Bill Rutherford has had a wide ranging career from being interested in the most theoretical questions (e.g.,Rutherford 1982, 1983, 1988) to their impact upon the difficult daily task of language teaching (e.g., Rutherford 1987). One sees in fact a strong trend, with interesting collaborations, from English as a Second Language to second language acquisition (SLA; e.g., Schachter and Rutherford 1979). We thus see two constant threads viz., wide interests and attention to language and linguistics (especially the L in SLA). In this body of work one can also see, in a sense, a natural synthesis in what is nearing publication: the awaited Rutherford forthcoming). This latter work started out as a small workbook but is now a large and rich text showing structures of English from diverse theoretical perspectives, relating these to both native language (L1) acquisition and L2 acquisition. Importantly for all of us, Bill has been aiming for a long time to discover ways of getting linguists and acquisitionists to talk to each other. This approach prompted his 1982 conference (the first of its kind), from which came the much quoted John Benjamins volume: Rutherford (1984). But to tell only of Bill's interests in SLA is to miss perhaps the most fascinating part: Those who have visited Bill outside of the office' those, in other words, who have seen his early keyboard collection, observed first-hand his commitment to Musica Pacifica (of which he is a founder) and heard …