Transfer and Non-Transfer: Where We Are Now

Abstract

Current research into second-language learning has tended to ignore (or at best to treat incidentally) a linguistic phenomenon that once used to be a particular preoccupation of applied linguists, the interference error. Instead, the limelight is now firmly focussed on developmental phenomena, with many studies using an approach to data gathering and analytical methodology strongly reminiscent of research into child language acquisition and language contact. There have been specific attempts to establish developmental sequences in the TL, in morpheme acquisition, for instance, so as to compare first and second language learning, and not a little attention is now being paid to such sociolinguistic notions as variability, continua and simplification. In other words, the main emphasis in interlanguage research has shifted from a rather static error-oriented view of language learning to a dynamic view of learners' language as a constantly evolving system. The calls for longitudinal studies of interlanguage of the late sixties and early seventies have not gone unheeded, eve if the word ‘longitudinal’ is sometimes rather liberally interpreted, as in those cases where a tacit (and probably justifiable) assumption is made that studying groups of learners of varying proficiency in respect of given TL features at one and the same time is really the same as following the progress of one group over a long period.

The structure of self-repairs in the speech of Hungarian learners of English

“…One of the possible explanations for this difference might be that due to the fact that the L1 of the participants of both Poulisse and Bongaert's (1994) and van Hest's (1996) study was Dutch. Dutch learners of English might be more willing to transfer the editing expressions from their L1 to L2 than Hungarian speakers, whose mother tongue has few characteristic features in common with English (for the effect of the proximity of languages on transfer see Kellerman 1979).…”

The Role of L1 in Chinese College Students' English Learning: A Study of Kellerman's Theory of Language Transfer

“…Besides, as Kellerman hypothesized, learners' actual knowledge of the TL is also a determining factor of language transfer [5] . But it is not easy to test learners' actual TL knowledge, therefore, learners L2 proficiency was employed to represent their actual TL knowledge because of the consensus on the relationship between language proficiency and language knowledge.…”

“…He claimed learners' perception of NL-TL distance was important for transfer. Learners were gradually finding out what they could transfer and what they could not [5] . The closer the two languages, the more could theoretically be transferred successfully, though there were important constraints which learners appear to impose on the transferability of items.…”

Les activités grammaticales réflexives comme facteur d’optimisation de l’efficacité du métadiscours pédagogique

“…Il ne s'agit tout de même pas de pratiques contrastives telles que définies par Lado (1957), mais de celles fondées sur la posture réflexive de l'apprenant dans la construction du système linguistique de la LC (cf. Kellerman, 1979). Ces nouvelles formes de descriptions, fondées sur une approche psycholinguistique de la contrastivité (Dabène, 1996), sont à identifier dans les grammaires conçues localement par les auteurs partageant la même L1 que leur public (cf.…”