Transcript Language Transfer - National Sun Yat

Language Transfer
Lan-Hsin Chang
National Kaohsiung University of
Applied Sciences
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I. Behaviorist Views
Stimuli and responses
 Complex behaviors—component parts 
effective learning
 Habit formation; analogy
 Impediment to learning: interference from
prior knowledge
 Degree of difficulty: positive and negative
transfer
 Errors expected; should be avoided

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Behaviorist Views--II
Chomsky’s (1959) review of Skinner’s
Verbal Behavior
 Animal behavior in the lab vs. humans
language behavior
 Value of correction/reinforcement?
 Reconsideration of L1 in L2 learning

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II. Terminology

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Transfer: influence resulting from the
similarities and differences between
the target language and any other
language that has been previously
(and perhaps imperfectly) acquired
(Odlin 1989:27)
III. The Manifestations of
Transfer
Errors (negative transfer): transfer or
intralingual errors?
 Facilitation (positive transfer); Ushaped behavior
 Avoidance: infrequent use or
avoidance?
 Over-use: e.g., overgeneralization of
the regular past tense inflection

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IV. Contrastive Analysis—1
Difference = difficulty
 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH)
(Lado 1957) include steps of
description, selection, comparison,
and prediction
 Types/hierarchy of difficulty in L2:
(more difficult) split — new —
absent — coalesced —
correspondence (less difficult) (p. 307)

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IV. Contrastive Analysis—2
1. Strong form: errors can be
predicted
 2. Weak form: some are traceable;
a posteriori explanation
 Strong form: theoretically untenable
 Work form: impractical/inadequate
 Lost ground to error analysis in the
1970s

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V. The Minimalist Position--1

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Emphasize the universal processes of
language learning
V. The Minimalist Position--2
A. Interference in language contact situations
and second language acquisition
 Interference in bilinguals: social factors;
bidirectional; increased with proficiency in
the two languages
 Interference in language learning: not
motivated by social factors; unidirectional;
decreased as the learner became more
proficient (Dulay & Burt, 1972)
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V. The Minimalist Position--3

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Borrowing transfer (L2  L1) vs.
substratum transfer (L1  L2): not
always clear-cut
V. The Minimalist Position--4
B. Empirical research and the CAH
 Not easy to distinguish interference
errors from developmental errors
 Error tokens vs. error types
(Kellerman 1987)
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V. The Minimalist Position--5
C. Word order studies of transfer
Reasons for relatively few instances of basic
word order transfer (Odlin 1990):
1. relative lack of research on beginner
learners (most likely to have word order
transfer)
2. highly conscious of word order (involves
arrangement of semantically important
elements)
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V. The Minimalist Position--6
D. Minimalist theoretical positions on transfer: the
similarity between L2 and L1 acquisition

interference reflected ignorance of the L2
(Newmark & Reibel 1968)

L1 transfer  communication strategy (a means
of overcoming a communication problem)

Not learning strategy (a device for developing
interlanguage)

transfer rejected  transfer relocated within a
cognitive framework
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VI. Constraints on Transfer-1

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Language level: pronunciation, lexis,
discourse, and grammar (less
affected)
VI. Constraints on Transfer
--2
Sociolinguistic factors
 the social context: focused (e.g.,
classroom settings) vs. unfocused
contexts (e.g., natural settings)  macrosociolinguistic perspective
 the relationship between the speaker and
the addressee: careful vs. vernacular
styles  micro-sociolinguistic perspective
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VI. Constraints on Transfer
--3

Markedness: core (unmarked) vs.
periphery (marked) rules
Hypotheses:


unmarked L1 forms more likely be
transferred to correspondingly marked L2
forms
marked L1 forms less likely be
transferred to correspondingly unmarked
L2 forms
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VI. Constraints on Transfer
--4
Markedness Differential Hypothesis
(Eckman 1977)
 more marked forms in TL than in the
NL are difficult to language learners
 - vagueness of ‘markedness’
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VI. Constraints on Transfer
--5
Prototypicality (Kellerman 1977; 1978;
1979; 1986; 1989)
 native speakers’ intuitions to
determine the unmarkedness or
prototypicality of lexical items
 learners resist transferring nonprototypical meanings
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VI. Constraints on Transfer
--6



Language distance and psychotypology
(learners’ perceptions about language
distance)
the actual language distance affects
positive transfer
learners’ psychotypology governs what
they actually transfer
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VI. Constraints on Transfer
--7
Developmental factors
 The learner’s general level of development
restructuring continuum: L1 (starting point of
L2)
 Natural principles of language acquisition
interlanguage not necessarily a restructuring
continuum, except phonology
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VII. Towards a theory of first
language transfer
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
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Communication transfer: borrowing (a
performance phenomenon not a learning
process) (Corder 1983); production and
comprehension transfer
Learning transfer: transfer  a process of
hypothesis construction and testing
A framework for explaining first language
transfer (p. 339)
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VIII. Conclusion: problems in
the study of transfer

Difficult to distinguish communication
transfer from learning transfer
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