Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

Language Transfer
OUTLINE OF RESEARCH: -Background of the research. Part one: 1-Definition of transfer 1.1 Negative transfer 1.2 Positive transfer Part two: 1-The role of transfer in the Second and third language acquisition: 1.1 First language transfer during second language learning. 1.2 Second language transfer during third language learning. Conclusion: Discussion of the pedagogical or practical teaching implications of the research: What you have learned from the topic How can you apply this knowledge to your future teaching?

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

BACKGROUND OF RESEARCH: In this research paper I will discuss a very important topic. Transfer. Language transfer is considered one of the most problematic phenomenon in Second Language Acquisition. It plays a big role in the learning of another language. That is why we can say that the two, language acquisition and language transfer, are linked because language transfer is a process that goes hand in hand with the learning of a second language since once a person starts learning another language the transfer process begins. For many years linguists tried to find out the cause of transfer during Second language acquisition and how does this transfer work. They tried to find a definition of it but all what they came out with was a broad and general definition. Thus transfer has been defined as a process that leads to the incorporation of elements from one language to another or transfer is the influence resulting when two languages have similarities and differences. Here, we can say that the term or phenomenon is still unclear. The latter thing made linguists raise many different and interesting questions such as how learners first languages do influence their acquisition of the other language? Does the previously learned language facilitate the acquisition of a second language or does it hinder it? To what extent transfer helps in the acquisition of a second, third, fourthlanguage?

PART ONE:

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition Definition of transfer:

Katherine McCarthy

Depending on regular dictionaries the word transfer means to cause something to pass from one place, person or thing into another. However, from a linguistic point of view it is different but before indulging into the linguistic definition of the term let us first know the origin of it. The term transfer originates from the behavioristic school, which believes that second language learning is a habit formation that is based mainly on imitation and reinforcement. Thus, according to the behaviorists transfer is seen as old habits that appear in L2 and they are either helpful which means help in the learning or harmful harm the learning of the second language. Other linguists, scholars and researchers such as Odlin defined the term in a broad way saying that transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired (p.27). Also, Sharwood Smith and Kellerman prefer to limit transfer to those processes that lead to incorporation of elements from one language to another (p.1). Finally, the most specific definition is the one that Weinreinch called interference for instances of language deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language (p.1). He defined it as having two functions. The first one is when it works as an impediment to the production of the language learning and this by producing incorrect forms. The second one functions as a facilitative tool that helps in the learning of a second language.

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

Here we can say that the most specific and accurate definition is the one provided by Weinreinch since he defined the term in a specific way compared to the other linguists and went farther into devising the process into a positive and a negative one. After defining the term transfer and discovering that transfer is divided into two poles, the positive transfer and the negative transfer. Now, let us see what is the difference between the negative transfer and the positive one?

The negative transfer: Negative transfer is a term used to define the use of prior linguistic knowledge in the production of second language that results unacceptable forms. This negative transfer hinders or blocks the learning and the accurate performance of appropriate target language forms. As Corder said that any native language influence would actually inhibit, prevent, or make more difficult the acquisition of some feature of the target language (p 87). According to the Behaviorists school, who believes in stimulus response, they define negative transfer as the effect of a preceding activity upon the learning of a given task (Osgood in Silinker 1969:68). Moreover, they consider negative transfer or interference as something that damages, hinders and delays the acquisition of L2. That is why they strongly refused and considered errors resulting from interference unacceptable. Subsequently, however, other linguists opposed the Behaviorists views and their stimulus response theory and there comes the cognitive school that accounted for the transfer theory. They defined it as: to transfer the forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture (Lado in James, 198:14).

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

This means that they admit not only the existence of transfer but also its occurrence. Moreover, they assume that learners use whatever prior knowledge they have to produce and learn L2. Positive transfer: Positive transfer is similar to negative transfer in the sense that it is the use of prior knowledge or skill in the learning of a target language but the only difference that exists between the two is that the Negative transfer hinders the learning whereas the positive one helps and accelerates progress in the learning of the target language. As Omally and Chamot (1990) defined as: it is the use of previous linguistic or prior skill to assist comprehension or production. In this respect, positive transfer unlike the negative one has a positive effect on the learning of the target language and this if and only if the two languages, the previously learned and the target one, have similarities in terms of grammar for example word order Part two: 1.1 First language transfer during Second language learning: In this section I will be talking about transfer from L1 to L2. I will take the case of Moroccan students as an example since I am Moroccan and I have gone through the same processes. Moroccan students are students whose native language is Arabic. This native language is totally different from all languages derived from Latin. Its grammar, Arabic, is different from all the other Latin derived languages not only in terms of its grammar, word order, which is VSO, but also in terms of its phonology, morphology and writing system (alphabet).

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

All Moroccan students have to learn the second language, French, since it is the country official second language. However, those students most of the time face a lot of obstacles while learning the language. Here my concern is about students who went to public schools because they are the one who face problems in there production process due to the fact that they start learning the L2 at a late age, third grade. However, those who go to private schools rarely face problems because they start the L2 learning at the same time of L1 learning or lets say from kindergarten. So, they have fewer problems. So, here many questions arise such as what is the reason behind students transferring? Does transfer helps in the L2 learning or not? And why? The major problem that Moroccan students face while learning L2 is transfer. They incorporate elements from their mother tongue to the L2 and instead of helping the learning process and accelerating it makes it slow and make them produce erroneous forms such as distorted word order, over production; substitution, borrowing transfer and translation. Word order: Students tend to transfer their native languages structure, word order, to the target language and this results into the following structure. *Mange Mouna la pomme. *Eat Mouna the apple. In the above examples we can notice that students have transferred Arabic language structure into the target language, which is French. However, the correct form should be Mouna mange la pomme which means Mouna eats the apple and that is an SVO order rather than VSO.In this respect, we can say that the transfer from L1 to L2 didnt accelerate the learning or facilitate it but it made it more difficult.

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

Overproduction: It is a result of transfer that hinders too the learning process. And as Odlin said: students may use overproduction as a way to avoid using some structures that rarely occur in their L1 For example: Substitution is another problem that students face due to transfer. They resort to substitution to fill a gap in their L2. If we take the case of Moroccan students they will substitute Arabic words or expressions with French words and this is due to lack of vocabulary. With the borrowing transfer students tend to use lexical items from the native language into the target one and change the way it is pronounce. They pronounce it as if it is a French word. And this speaking problem is more frequent with Moroccan students at their two first years of learning the language. For example: *Jai vue le mesh. In this example, the student didnt just borrow the word Mesh from the native language, which means cat in English, and le chat in French but she has also adopted the pronunciation of the borrowed word to the French language pronunciation. Thus, the correct form would be Jai vue le chat which means, I have seen the cat. Translation is one of the most problematic areas of transfer. Most of Moroccan students tend to translate expressions, sentences and ideas from their native language, Arabic, to the target language, French. The latter thing results into an awkward meaning. This problem happens because students think in their native language and write in the target language. To clarify this point I will provide an example that students always do. *J ai coupe la rue.

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition *I cut the street.

Katherine McCarthy

Here we can see that the sentence that the student came up with is grammatically correct but semantically incorrect and this is due to the student thinking in his native language and writing in the target language. Moreover, what is correct in a language may wrong in another and this is what happened. The word couper in Arabic has the meaning of crossing the street. However, in French and English is has a different meaning, which cannot be used in this case. Thus the appropriate word that would fit this situation would be traverser which means crossing the street. After presenting the above examples or errors made by learners, we can say that transfer is playing a negative role. It is making the learning of the target language slow but also it is making students produce erroneous language forms. In this respect, we can say that this kind of transfer is a negative one. It blocks the learning process and makes it hard for students. 1.2 Second language transfer during third language learning: Now, I will tackle the issue of transfer from L2 into L3 since in addition to French Moroccan students tend to learn English as a foreign language or L3. Many students in the last 20 years got interested into learning English as a third language for many reasons such as economic, cultural, political..However, this doesnt exclude the different problems students face in their process of learning since they may go threw the same process they went threw when learning L2. Thus, questions such as do L3 learners transfer during L3 production? Why do they transfer? Does this transfer help in their learning of the L3? And why?

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

Most of learners of English as a third language tend to transfer during their production. They tend to rely on their previous knowledge of L2, French, to learn English. They do so because the transfer is a natural process that students go threw during any kind of learning. However, unlike L2 the transfer that occurs during the L3 learning facilitates and accelerates the L3 learning for many reasons. The L2 and L3, French and English, originates from the same language, which is Latin. Thus, they are known to share many features. First, they have the same grammatical structure mainly word order. Second, both French and English are SVO languages. Third, they both have the same alphabetical symbols and almost the same morphology. Finally, they have some similar vocabulary that has the same meaning and the only difference in these words is that they are pronounced differently. Thus, we can say that transferring from L2 French into English is known to facilitate and accelerate the learning process as Odlin said: similarities in vocabulary can reduce the time needed to develop good reading. In this respect, we can consider this kind of transfer learners use a positive one since it facilitates the learning of the language. Even if transfer from L2 to L3 has been proven that it is positive and it helps in the learning process still students or learners may fall into some other problems such as hybrid items and substitution. So, in this case what do hybrid items and substitution means?

De Angelis and Silinker defined hybrid items as lexical items that learners of L3 tend to invent unconsciously and which consist of morphemes from two languages and which do

Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

not exist in both L2 and L3. This hybrid items are further categorized as not having any pragmatic purpose as Hammarberg categorizes them as WIPP words, which means items without identified pragmatic purpose. In other words he wants to say that the invented items or hybrid words convey absolutely no meaning and have no purpose. In addition to hybrid forms, substitution too occurs during L3 learning. And as I have mentioned before substitution is the use or substitution of words from L3 by words from L2. Even though learners of L3 face some difficulties such as hybrid and substitution and which are the result of the lack of exposure to the language and level of proficiency, their learning of the language does faster and easier than their L2 learning because they are going threw a positive transfer and this is due to the fact that their L2 has similarities with their L2.

Conclusion:
Finally, I believe that the topic that I have been discussing in this research, which is transfer, is a very important topic not only to students but spatially teachers. I think that students need to know about transfer as a process, how it occurs? Why? And how can it help or block the learning. They need to know how to use the positive aspects of transfer in order to facilitate the learning and make it faster. Also, they need to know about negative transfer. They need to know that when using another languages structure

different than the target one it results into the blocking or the slowering of the learning process. Knowing about transfers positive and negative aspects is not only beneficial for students but it is very important for teachers as well. I believe that teachers spatially the ones in

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Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

ESL/EFL field should know about transfer and how to deal with this phenomenon. They should take into consideration students knowledge about other languages. The influence of their native languages and this way try to find methods to make students avoid negative transfer instances and use the positive one in case their native languages is sharing some similarities with the target one as a way to facilitate their learning. Personally speaking, I can say that I have benefited a lot from this research. During my reading of books and articles and through the Internet I have discovered a lot of things about transfer that I didnt know before. But, due to time constrains I couldnt tackle all the topics aspects and issues. However, I have learned a lot about the new findings, theories, linguists opinions and field works done in the field. I have also benefited from the different ways that each linguist presented his/her theory and defended and supported it. Also during this research I could relate a lot of what I used to do from instances of borrowing, overproduction, underproduction, which are part of transfer, that I used to do when I was learning English. Moreover, I have realized that French as previous language knowledge helped me and accelerated my learning of English language and this through transfer. In this respect, I can say that applying all the knowledge I learned from this research would be not only a good idea but also the best thing that could be done spatially that I am intending to become an EESL/EFL teacher. My students would be people coming from different cultures and from different languages. They may have a rich background. In other words, they may know many languages and the latter thing may hinder as well as help and accelerate their learning of the target language.

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Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

Thus, knowing about transfer instances and problems would make me as a teacher views my students mistakes differently. Instead of considering my students lazy, having a slow understanding. It would rather make me think about new techniques, methods and activities to make my students overcome these problems. For example, if one of my Asian students produces the following utterance: *I went to store I would not say that the student does not revise his lesson or didnt understand the rules however I would consider it as a result of transfer, which is a natural process, and consider the fact that in his native language they do not have articles (definite and indefinite). However, to solve this problem I would find new methods and activities in teaching the grammatical instance and help the student overcome the problem. All in all, having knowledge about transfer, both the negative and the positive one, would have positive results on both teachers and students.

Reference:
Douglas Brown, H, (2000), Principles of Language Learning And Teaching, Fourth Edition, New York: Addison Wensley Longman. Article: Second Language Transfer During Third Language Acquisition. By Shirin Murphy. Cross-linguistic Transfer in Literacy Development and Implications for Language Learner. By Aydin Yucesan Durgunoglu. www.M.ED. TESOL Dissertation-@Assimina Papadimitriou www.public.iastate.edu/~apling/TLLB.html

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Mouna Ettoumi Language Learning and acquisition

Katherine McCarthy

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