Who Transfers More … and What? Crosslinguistic Influence in Relation to School Grade and Language Dominance in EFL

An Overview of Variables Affecting Lexical Transfer in Writing: A Review Study

“…In this sense, research shows that the performance of beginner learners showed more instances of negative transfer than that of more advanced learners (Herwig, 2001;LoCoco, 1975;Naves et al, 2005;Olsen, 1999;Ringbom, 1987;Williams & Hammarberg, 1998). These results confirm the idea that transfer is used as a strategy to fill lexical gaps when learners lack L2 knowledge (Murphy, 2003).…”

“…Borrowings have been found to decrease considerably with proficiency. Naves et al (2005) report that as learners progress in school grade their use of borrowings and lexical inventions decreases, nevertheless, the difference is significant only for borrowings. Celaya (2007) observed that borrowings decreased from 5 th to 7 th grade, whereas lexical inventions (coinages and calques) increased slightly with grade (also Celaya & Torras, 2001;Gabryś-Barker, 2006, Gost & Celaya, 2005…”

“…Several studies have put forward a reduction in the extent of the influence of the L1 in lexical use as the learner gets more proficient in the target language (Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2008;Naves et al, 2005;Palapanidi, 2009;Ringbom, 1987;Williams & Hammarberg, 1998). Borrowings have been found to decrease considerably with proficiency.…”

“…In these cases, the learner falls on the native language without any previous notice, be it either consciously or unconsciously (Celaya & Torras, 2001;Dewaele, 1998;Naves et al, 2005;Tremblay, 2006;Viladot & Celaya, 2006). The need to communicate collides with lack of lexical knowledge in the L2 and in order to overcome this problem, learners decide to resort to their L1 inserting L1 words in the L2 discourse (Note 2) (Ecke, 2001, cf.…”

“…Research addressing lexical transfer has dealt with both types of transfer and differences have been found concerning quantitative and qualitative production of the different lexical transfer categories according to variables such as age (Celaya & Torras, 2001;Cenoz, 2001;Gost & Celaya, 2005), grade (Naves et al, 2005), proficiency (Tremblay, 2006;Williams & Hammarberg, 1998), or knowledge of at least one additional language (Dewaele, 1998(Dewaele, , 2001Ringbom, 2001). The findings of these studies have put forward that learners at different ages, in different grades, and with different levels of proficiency transfer to differing extent, for different purposes, in different ways, and from different languages.…”