Investigating L2-L1 Transfer Among Bilingual Students in the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

Language constitutes an indispensable facet of human existence It facilitates communication and perspective-sharing while allowing us to mould it to fit our unique needs. Foreign language proficiency adds an additional layer of such skills. Thus, people have been motivated to learn another language since time immemorial. As cultures and languages have intertwined and exposure to multimedia in different languages has grown, the number of bilinguals has grown, and with that, the opportunities for language transfer, as well. Language learners in North Macedonia, especially the ones who learn English have been becoming increasingly more proficient. This progress has been so substantial that educators have observed cases of influence from the second language (L2) to the first language (L1). Educators have noted various instances where this influence occurs such as: capitalizing certain words that aren’t meant to be capitalized in Macedonian, using English abbreviations incorrectly, mixing collocations, and atypical code-switching. Using observation during non–English classes and breaks, this small-scale study aimed to qualitatively investigate and interpret the L2-L1 transfer patterns in primary school students, and discuss them in a wider context using additional electronic resources. The results highlighted the numerous instances of such interlanguage influence i.e. mistakes that students make when using their mother tongue due to English.