LANGUAGE TRANSFER IN LEARNER LANGUAGE

In using the foreign language they are learning, learners tend to use forms that deviate from the target language (TL) norms. The question that arises is whether these forms are the result of transfer or the result of some other causes; and if transfer does exist in learner language, whether it diminishes with the development of the learner TL achievement. This paper tries to find answers to these questions by (1) reviewing some related literature, and (2) looking at some data of learners’ written production of Indonesian learners of English. The data were collected from the writings of the fifth semester students of the English Department (group A, representing low level of L2 achievement), and the final projects written by the English Department students (group B, representing high level of L2 achievement). In this paper, all forms that deviate from the TL norms were called errors, irrespective of whether they were, in fact, mistakes or real errors. The learners’ errors were broadly classified into two classes: intralingual errors and interlingual errors, and it was the latter that became the focus of this study on the assumption that interlingual errorswere caused by L1 transfer. The results of data analysis showed that intralingual errors were slightly higher in group A than interlingual ones; but in group B interlingual errors formed the majority of errors made by the learners (75%). It can be concluded that L1 transfer does exist in the L2 of the Indonesian learners of English. The results also showed that L1 transfer does not diminish with the development of the L2 achievement. It is strongly suggested, therefore, that Indonesian English teachers anticipate the errors caused by L1 transfer and find ways to solve the problems

Measuring Syntactic Complexity in Spoken and Written Learner Language: Comparing the Incomparable?

Spoken and written language are two modes of language. When learners aim at higher skill levels, the expected outcome of successful second language learning is usually to become a fluent speaker and writer who can produce accurate and complex language in the target language. There is an axiomatic difference between speech and writing, but together they form the essential parts of learners’ L2 skills. The two modes have their own characteristics, and there are differences between native and nonnative language use. For instance, hesitations and pauses are not visible in the end result of the writing process, but they are characteristic of nonnative spoken language use. The present study is based on the analysis of L2 English spoken and written productions of 18 L1 Finnish learners with focus on syntactic complexity. As earlier spoken language segmentation units mostly come from fluency studies, we conducted an experiment with a new unit, the U-unit, and examined how using this unit as the basis of spoken language segmentation affects the results. According to the analysis, written language was more complex than spoken language. However, the difference in the level of complexity was greatest when the traditional units, T-units and AS-units, were used in segmenting the data. Using the U-unit revealed that spoken language may, in fact, be closer to written language in its syntactic complexity than earlier studies had suggested. Therefore, further research is needed to discover whether the differences in spoken and written learner language are primarily due to the nature of these modes or, rather, to the units and measures used in the analysis

Complexity and interaction: comparing the development of L1 and L2

In research into first and second language development, the focus has mainly been either on the formal features of learner language alone (both L1 and L2) or on the interaction between learners and their caretakers (L1) or native speaker peers (L2).These research traditions have been kept a part even though it has been widely acknowledged that both first and second languages are appropriated essentially in social interaction. This paper aims to strengthen the connection between social and formal approaches by combining interactional views with those focusing on the structural complexity of learner language. Some excerpts from L1 and L2 interaction data (in the Finnish language) are discussed. It is suggested that segmentation of linguistic material occurs in everyday situations and serves as a link between interaction and the growth of structural complexity in learner language. To situate this argument into a broader theoretical framework, various socially oriented research paradigms are briefly discussed

Comparing collocations in translated and learner language

This paper compares use of collocations by Italian learners writing in and translating into English, conceptualising the two tasks as different modes of constrained language production and adopting Halverson’s (2017) Revised Gravitational Pull hypothesis as a theoretical model. A particular focus is placed on identifying a method for comparing datasets containing translations and essays, assembled opportunistically and varying in size and structure. The study shows that lexical association scores for dependency-defined word pairs are significantly higher in translations than essays. A qualitative analysis of a subset of collocations shared and unique to either mode shows that the former set features more collocations with direct cross-linguistic links (connectivity), and that the source/first language seems to affect both modes similarly. We tentatively conclude that second/target language salience effects are more visible in translation than second language use, while connectivity and source language salience affect both modes of bilingual processing similarly, regardless of the mediation variable

The linguistic dimension of L2 interviews: A multidimensional analysis of native speaker language

This research profiles the L2 interviews from a variationist perspective by using native speaker data in order to gain insight into the characteristics of three different speaking tasks in the framework of the LINDSEI learner language corpus tradition: Personal Narrative Component, an Interaction Component and a Picture Description. This way, we set out to research one area of the assessment of proficiency that is usually neglected: that of the linguistic nature of the tasks used to assess general “proficiency” in a given language. Our corpus was part-of-speech (POS) tagged and analysed using Multidimensional Analysis (MDA). We found that the different speaking tasks determine the range of linguistic features that are more likely to be generated by the communicative potential of the task itself. This profiling is of interest in areas such as language assessment, where the interview is widely used to evaluate the speakers’ communicative competence, but also in the field of learner language research. Our research is an example of the possibilities which combined methodologies of learner language analysis can offer to both the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research community and the more general applied linguistics research field

The overuse of MAKE in Estonian learner language

High frequency verbs in learner language have received considerable attention in previous research, but little research has been done about the Estonian EFL learners and comparing the latter to native speakers’ speech. This thesis investigates the use of the high frequency verb make by Estonian EFL speakers and native speakers of English. The motivation for writing this paper is due to little research done about the Estonian EFL learners and comparing the latter to native speakers’ speech. The research questions that this paper aims to answer are a) how much is make used by EFL speakers compared to native speakers, b) in which situations does the overuse of make take place most often, c) how is the use of make different between EFL learners and native speakers. To find answers to these questions, a corpus study has been conducted.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5461085*es