Sikorska Magda
TRANSFER AND OVERGENERALIZATION
1. Overgeneralization (in language acquisition)
Probably the most common mistake we make in our automatic thinking is overgeneralization. It's easy to see why. Each of us has to think about new experiences in terms of old experiences. We recognize most easily those qualities in a person or thing which we have seen before. The baby just learning to talk may call all men "Da-Da" or all four-legged animals "bow wow." But the baby will quickly learn to see the differences between different men and different animals. Generalization as a stage we go through in learning is not only acceptable; it is necessary.
EXAMPLE 1 (in terms of vocabulary)
A little kid might say: "All birds can fly."
Many young children make this overgeneralization when learning how to categorize the details of their world. They have learned a general concept, but do not yet understand its exceptions. A penguin, of course, is one of many examples of birds that cannot (or could not) fly.
EXAMPLE 2 (in terms of grammar)
The process of extending the application of a rule to items that are excluded from it in the language norm, as when a child uses the regular past tense verb ending -ed of forms like / walked to produce forms like *I goed or *Irided.
go - goed
have - haved
good - gooder - the goodest
She work in a hospital, (instead of 'She works in a hospital.)
2. TRANSFER
The term concerns the process of applying native language knowledge to a second language. Similarly language transfer refers to a situation where the learning of a skill in one language transfers to L2.
EXAMPLE: - English three, French trois, German drei, Polish trzy, Italian tre, Spanish tres, Russian tri.
The number 3 has the same meaning and similar pronunciation in most of the European countries.
TRANSFER
a) positive b) negative
Transfer can be positive or negative. That is, a previously learned event can either facilitate (positive transfer) or worsen (negative transfer) the learning of a second event.
a) Positive transfer - takes place where there are similarities between the LI and L2.
The best examples are the universals ex. /, you. Whichever language we speak, in every conversation between people there is always the / representing somebody as the speaker and the you meaning the addressee.
The same concerns the concept of previously mentioned number 3 or the concept of mother: mother in English, mere in French, Mutter in German, matka in Polish, madre in Italian and in Spanish, and mat in Russian
b) Negative transfer - occurs when semantic or lexical fields across the LI and the L2
do not overlap.
• Semantic transfer is concerned only with the meaning of the word. The Polish word pake covers the concept of fingers and toes. Native speaker of Polish would say Mam dwadziescia palcow whilst English native speaker would express the same idea by saying / have got ten fingers and ten toes.
Another example is the Polish word prezydent .We can say prezy'dent Polski and the president of USA - here the transfer is positive. The negative transfer occurs when Polish speakers says the president of New York instead of the mayor of New York.
It can be stated that some structures or concepts are language - specific which mean that very often their equivalents in other languages do not simply exist or convey various meaning (ex. ksiajzeczka RUM-owska, kuroniowka)
• The lexical transfer includes both the meaning and the form of the word. When words of LI share the form with L2 words but do not share the meaning the transfer is negative. False cognates (false friends) are the best examples - these are words with the same or similar forms in two languages, but with a different meaning.
Polish |
Part of speech |
Meaning |
English |
Part of speech |
> arbiter |
noun |
referee |
arbiter |
noun |
> cenzura |
noun |
censorship |
censure |
noun |
> szef |
noun |
boss |
chef |
noun |
> sympatia |
noun |
liking, affect |
sympathy |
noun |
> *aktualnie |
adverb |
currently |
actually |
adverb |
> *ewentualnie |
adverb |
possibly |
eventually |
adverb |
> *prezydent |
noun |
the mayor of |
the president |
noun |
miasta |
|
a city |
of a city |
|
> *ten |
pronoun |
this, that |
ten |
numeral |
> faktyczny |
adjective |
actual |
factual |
adjective |
> polityk |
noun |
politician |
politic |
adjective |