An Investigation of the First language - Second Language Transfer - Research Proposal Example

LITERATURE REVIEW It is the belief of many people that the first language (L1) or the mother language will have impact on the second language (L2) or the foreign language. For instance, suppose the native speaker is English, he would straightaway tell whether a person is Arab, French or Spanish after the person speaks few words of English. The continuous expanding literature of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) shows extensive researches as how the acquisition of L2 is affected by the L1 whether the L1 is envisaged as contrastive analysis, transfer of languages, cross-linguistic influence or other ways. Gass and Selinker (1993) found that “there is now overwhelming evidence that language transfer is indeed a real and central phenomenon that must be considered in any full account of the second language process.” Many writers have agreed that the language transfer is of two types: Positive Transfer This transfer is called facilitation and occurs when there are certain similarities between L1 and L2 that can lead to correct acquisition of the L2. Negative Transfer This transfer is called interference and occurs when certain distinctions between L1 and L2 can lead to the incorrect acquisition of the L2. The focus of this literature will be the transfer of L1 and L2 among the Saudi people. It is commonly known that the L1 language of the Saudis is Arabic. For this research, English will be considered the second language (L2). Arabic is very different language than all the rest of the world languages. When non-native speakers of English learn English as a second language (L2), it is the parlance of Arabic that they are exposed to in language acquisitions. The native speakers of Arabic face many problems while acquiring any second language. Arabic is language that is written from right to left and the books are bound from the right-hand side while in other foreign languages complete reverse of this is seen. The sound system of both English and Arabic and as aforementioned, the writing systems of both the languages differ a lot. The problem is transfer of language can also occur due to avoidance of use of different structure. According to Huthaily (2003), Schachter (1974) conducted a research in which he analyzed that the Chinese and Japanese native speakers made fewer errors while learning English as L2 in comparison to the Persian and Arabic learners due to the reason that they generated fewer relative clauses. Many different studies have found that when certain thinking aloud protocols are used, it helps cognitive transfer of the languages and creates developmental enlightenments for ESL students’ inter-language. Arndt (1987) have researched that these protocols can become a valuable methodology in order to measure the thinking processes involved during the writing tasks of L2 acquisition. Besides the positive transfer of language, many negative transfer in ESL learners’ writing occurs which can be attributed to explanations such as Inadequate English skills and knowledge for communicating intricate and conceptual ideas Unfamiliarity with the cultural elements of the subject More focus on the grammar and syntax level of L1 than on communicating the ideas. According to the research carried out by Noor (2007), the common source of error in acquiring English is the influence of Arabic in terms that when English syntactic structures are being processed by a non-native speaker, the strategies adopted by the native speakers is similar to those of the L1 which includes simplification and over-generalization. In order to demonstrate the writing differences in Arabic and English, Noor (2007) gave the following example. ‘Subject’ in both the languages is the same but the position of the ‘subject’ in a sentence is different. In English a subject must come first, for example, John likes coffee. While in the Arabic dialect, the subject is placed in the second position, for example, yuħibbu joun alqahwata which is English means likes John the coffee. This ‘subject’ or ‘noun’ positioning in Arabic can cause writing problems while acquiring English. According to Lord (2008), a study undertaken by Flege in 1980 examined the Saudi learners’ ability to produce sounds in English and whether or not these learners experienced any interference from their native language (Arabic) while producing sounds in English. The study confirmed that the there are influences of Arabic in English phonology. There are many other influences in phonology that the Arabic language has on English and vice versa. According to Huthaily (2003), in recent years, many new words have entered the Arabic dialect such as computer, keyboard, television etc but the pronunciation of these words has being modified to sync with the Arabic phonology. Many researches have been carried out by different writers to examine the impact of Arabic (L1) on English (L2). Obeidat (1986) examined texts written by Arabic L1 students in English using an error analysis. It was found that many mistakes were made by the students. These mistakes were pertaining to the interlingual errors in preposition usage, relating pronouns in clauses, missing subjects and word orders. In addition to this, many mistakes were also observed in the proverbs and idioms. This research shows that L1 (Arabic) does have an influence on the L2 (English). This is due to the composition of the Arabic dialect which uses different grammatical structures as compared to other second languages. It is common for learners of L2 to transfer components of L1 to L2 in this case Arabic to English. This happens because the learners are unable to identify the correct language structure as aforementioned. For instance, Arabic learner may say ‘The man I know him’ while he is transferring structures from L1 (Arabic) to L2 (English). Ostler (1987) used the T-unit analysis to identify the errors made by Saudis while acquiring English. In the research, it was found that the Saudis used more clauses using ‘and’ or ‘or’ in addition to the modified dependent sentence clauses. In comparison to English dialect, no such corpus exists. Arabic writers according to Ostler (1987) tend to begin their essays with ‘super-ordinate’ or general statement and tend to end their essays with proverbial statement. This style of writing in English has been influenced by the Arabic dialect Keeping the above argument in view, it is important to find a practical solution to learners’ of English as a second language. The solution should be such that can be easily implemented that can focus on the rhetorical differences among both the languages. REFERENCES Arndt, V. (1987). Six writers in search of texts: A protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing. ELT Journal, 41 (4), 257–267. Gass, M., and Selinker, L. (1993) eds. Language Transfer in Language Learning. John Benjamins North America Huthaily, K. (2003). Contrastive Phonological Analysis of Arabic and English B.A. Hodeidah University. Available from http://www.umt.edu/iedg/papers/KHuthaily_MA.pdf Lord, G. (2008). Second Language Acquisition and First Language Phonological Modification. Selected Proceedings of the 10th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. Joyce Bruhn de Garavito and Elena Valenzuela, pg 184-193. Mohan, B. A., & Lo, W. A. (1985). Academic writing and Chinese students: Transfer and developmental factors. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (3), 515–534 Montrul, S. (2008). Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9027241759, 9789027241757 Noor, H. (2007). The Influence of L2 on the Syntactic Processing of L1 by Arab EFL Learners. Taibah University. Vol.1. Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics. Obeidat, H. (1987). An Investigation of Syntactic and Semantic Errors in the Written Composition of Arab EFL Learners. Dissertation Abstracts International. 47. Ostler, E. (1987). English in Parallels: A Comparison of English and Arabic Prose. Writing Across Languages: Analysis of L2 text. Pg 169-185 Sarko, G. (2008). Morphophonological or Syntactic Transfer in the Acquisition of English Articles by L1 Speakers of Syrian Arabic? Proceedings of the 9th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference ed. Roumyana Slabakova et al., pg 206-217. Read More