Revised perspectives on transfer
Revised perspectives on transfer
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Towards a redefinition of transfer
Towards a redefinition of transfer
"I have chosen the title of this paper deliberately, A Role for the
Mother Tongue in Language Learning, because I don't wish to
prejudice the nature of my discussion of that role by using the
term 'transfer' or even less by using the term 'interference'. I
would like to hope that both these terms should be banned from
use in our current discussions unless carefully redefined. The
fact is that they are both technical terms in a particular theory of
learning [...]. The danger of using such technical terms closely
associated with particular theories is that they may perhaps
quite unconsciously constrain one's freedom of thinking about
the particular topic"
(Corder 1983: 86)
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Time frame
Time frame
" 1960 s: transfer of habits
" 1970 s: natural sequences, transfer as a marginal phenomenon
" late 1970 s and on:
 What is the role of the mother tongue?
 When does transfer take place?
 What is transferred?
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Transfer-related phenomena
Transfer-related phenomena
" avoidance (underproduction)
" differential learning rates
" different routes of acquisition
" overproduction
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Crosslinguistic Influence (CLI)
Crosslinguistic Influence (CLI)
(Sharwood Smith & Kellerman 1986)
(Sharwood Smith & Kellerman 1986)
MICHAEL SHARWOOD
ERIC KELLERMAN
SMITH
"the influence on the learner which one language system he or
she possesses may have on another language system. This is
irrespective of whether the language system is a mature
language or whether it is in a developmental stage or fossilized
before attaining maturity. The term [...] includes borrowings,
influence on L1 from L2, avoidance of transfer, etc."
(Sharwood Smith 1989: 185)
transfer -  incorporation of elements from one language into
another (Sharwood Smith & Kellerman 1986: 1)
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Avoidance
Avoidance
" Schachter (1974): the use of relative clauses in compositions
written by Persian, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese learners
NL Group Error
Persian 43
Arabic 31
Chinese 9
Japanese 5
American 0
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Avoidance
Avoidance
" Schachter (1974): the use of relative clauses in compositions
written by Persian, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese learners
NL Group Correct Error
Persian 131 43
Arabic 123 31
Chinese 67 9
Japanese 58 5
American 173 0
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Avoidance
Avoidance
" Schachter (1974): the use of relative clauses in compositions
written by Persian, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese learners
NL Group Correct Error Total % Errors
Persian 131 43 174 25
Arabic 123 31 154 20
Chinese 67 9 76 12
Japanese 58 5 63 8
American 173 0 173 ---
" Conclusion: Avoidance results from NL-TL differences.
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Avoidance
Avoidance
" Dagut & Laufer (1985): Hebrew-speaking learners of English
avoid phrasal verbs, such as:
come in, take away, lay aside, shut off, let down, mix up,
and use their one-word equivalents, i.e.:
enter, remove, save, stop, disappoint, confuse.
" If they use phrasal verbs, they prefer those that are semantically
more transparent (literal), e.g.:
come in, take away,
to those that are less transparent (figurative), e.g.:
let down, mix up.
" Conclusion: Avoidance results from the complexity of the TL
structure.
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Avoidance
Avoidance
" Hulstijn & Marchena (1989): Dutch learners of English do not
accept phrasal verbs when there is close similarity between L1
and L2.
" Conclusion: Avoidance might result from L1-L2 similarity.
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Differential learning rates
Differential learning rates
" Positive transfer facilitates L2 learning.
" Ard & Homburg (1983, 1992): words that are similar in meaning and
form to L1 equivalents (cognates),
e.g. English mute, Spanish mudo,
are acquired faster than non-cognates.
" Zobl (1982, Henkes 1974): structures that are similar to L1 structures
are acquired faster. E.g. it takes longer for an Arabic child to acquire
the copula in English than for a Spanish child:
Spanish
Su casa es vieja.
his house is old
Arabic
Baytuhu qadimun.
house his old
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Different paths
Different paths
" Development of negation in German-speaking children (Wode
1977):
Stage I: No cold.
No play football.
universal
Stage II: That s no right.
It s no Francisco.
universal
Stage III: I m steal not the base.
Marylin like no sleepy.
German postverbal negation
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Overproduction
Overproduction
" Schachter & Rutherford (1979): Chinese and Japanese learners
of English overuse sentences with topic-comment structure,
e.g.:
 As for meat [topic], we don t eat it anymore [comment].
 It is very unfortunate that...
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When does transfer take place?
When does transfer take place?
The role of L1-L2 differences
The role of L1-L2 differences
" When something in the L2 is very different from the L1, there is
a  novelty effect (Kleinmann 1977).
" Some L1-L2 differences may be relatively easy to learn due to
their saliency in the input (Kleinmann 1977).
" Forms that are frequent in the input are easier to learn (Bardovi-
Harling 1987).
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When does transfer take place?
When does transfer take place?
The role of L1-L2 similarities
The role of L1-L2 similarities
" Ringbom (1987): similarities may obscure for the learner the fact
that there is something to learn
" Oller & Ziahosseiny (1970: 186): learning is  the most difficult
where the most subtle distinctions are required either between
the target and native language, or within the target language
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978)
(Kellerman 1978)
he broke his leg
she broke his heart
the cup broke
a broken man
he broke his word
they broke the world record
the waves broke against the rocks
Who broke the ceasefire?
The enemy resistance was broken
His fall was broken by a tree
His voice broke when he was 13
Some workers broke the strike
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978)
(Kellerman 1978)
Translation acceptability judgements:
Translation acceptability judgements:
% Does breken = break?
100 he broke his leg
97.5 she broke his heart
79 the cup broke
75 a broken man
74 he broke his word
63 they broke the world record
43 the waves broke against the rocks
35 Who broke the ceasefire?
27 The enemy resistance was broken
27 His fall was broken by a tree
21 His voice broke when he was 13
11 Some workers broke the strike
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978)
(Kellerman 1978)
Original text Dutch learner s translation
Zijn val werd door een boom As he hit a tree in his fall, his fall
gebroken was not that serious
 His fall was broken by a tree His fall was softened by a tree
Het kopje brak The cup was broken
 The cup broke The cup burst
Zijn stem brak toen hij 13 jaar oud His voice changed when he was 13
was
His voice deepened when he was
 His voice broke when he was 13 13
years old
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978)
(Kellerman 1978)
" Avoidance (Schacter 1974) - learners avoid structures that
cause difficulty
" Homoiophobia (Greek homoio  similar or same , phobia  fear ),
the Kellerman effect - expectation of L1-L2 difference
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
" Learners use the L1 to make predictions about the L2.
" These predictions are based on what they perceive to be
language-specific or language-neutral.
" Language-neutral items are those the learner believes to be
common across languages, e.g.:
 all languages use commas, quotation marks, question
marks, etc.
 all languages have equivalent syntactic structures to express
the relation as in:
The sky is blue.
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
" Language-specific items are those the learners perceive as
unique to their language, e.g. idioms:
English kick the bucket
Dutch iemand onder de tafel drinken
" These perceptions may not always be correct:
iemand onder de tafel drinken
drink someone under the table
 to win a bout of competitive drinking
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
" The learner s knowledge about the language with regard to what
items are language-specific and which are language-neutral is
called learner psychotypology.
" Learner psychotypology is affected by perceived language
distance.
" Languages that are closely related may influence the learners
perception of what is language-specific and what is language-
neutral.
" For example, learners may identify certain sounds as  same in
L1 and L2, even if a difference exists, e.g.
/m/, /b/, /p/.
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
" The smaller the perceived distance, the more transfer will occur:
Close Distant
Neutral x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x
x x
Specific x
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
" Certain meanings are prototypical (core), while others are
peripheral (non-core).
" Give an example of  fruit .
" Category: fruit
" Prototypical: apples, pears, bananas, oranges, strawberries...
" Non-prototypical: durians, mangosteens, rambutans... tomatoes
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
break
More prototypical usages
leg
cup
man
waves heart
word
record
fall
voice strike
ceasefire
resistance
Less prototypical usages
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Language distance and learner psychotypology
Language distance and learner psychotypology
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
(Kellerman 1978, 1979)
Core meanings are more transferable than non-core meanings:
Close Distant
Core x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x
x x
Non-core x
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Summary
Summary
" Factors that affect language transfer:
 difficulty
 salience
 frequency
 L1-L2 similarity/difference
 perceived language distance
 prototypicality
" The newer approaches to transfer place the learner with his/her
cognitive apparatus at the centre.
 Perceived language distance refers directly to learner
characteristics.
 Frequency and salience are features of the input, due to
which certain items become cognitively less demanding.
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L2-L3 transfer
L2-L3 transfer
" An English speaker who has just come from France is
attempting to speak German (Selinker & Baumgartner-Cohen
1995):
Tu as mein Fax bekommen?
you have my Fax gotten?
French French German German
 Did you get my fax?
" Schmidt & Frota (1986): a learner (L1 English, L2 Arabic, L3
Portuguese) wondered why he couldn t keep his second
languages apart
" Gass & Selinker (2001): NS of English who had spent some
time in Turkey recalls an attempt to communicate in German
while travelling in Germany:
 To my horror, out came Turkish.
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L2-L3 transfer
L2-L3 transfer
" Dewaele (1998): a study of acquisition of French in two groups
of learners:
 L1 Dutch, L2 French
" numerous instances of transfer from Dutch
 L1 Dutch, L2 English, L3 French
" numerous instances of transfer from English
(foreign language effect)
" Cenoz (2001): a study of acquisition of English by Spanish-
Basque bilinguals:
 both Spanish and Basque dominant bilinguals transferred
more from Spanish than from Dutch
(the effect of language distance)
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Are multilinguals better learners than
Are multilinguals better learners than
monolinguals?
monolinguals?
" Klein (1994):
 monolinguals: English as an L2
 multilinguals: English as an L3 or L4
" The multilinguals outperformed the monolinguals at lexical
learning and syntactic learning.
" However, there are a number of studies that do not support this
multilingual advantage.
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Reverse transfer (Jakobovits 1970)
Reverse transfer (Jakobovits 1970)
" Transfer from the L2 to the L1
(2003)
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Further reading:
Further reading:
Obligatory:
Gass, Susan M. - Larry Selinker. 2008. Second language
acquisition. An introductory course. New York: Routledge, pp.
136-155 (see also pp. 104-106 for Schachter s avoidance
study).
Recommended:
de Bot, Kees - Wander Lowie - Marjolijn Verspoor. 2005. Second
language acquisition. An advanced resource book. London:
Routledge, pp. 129-137 (LX La Bot 1).
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