Date: 07-Jul-2006
From: Julie Bruch <jbruchmesastate.edu>
Subject: Cross-Linguistic Influences in the Second Language Lexicon (Applied Linguistics)
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-672.html
EDITOR: Arabski, JanuszTITLE: Cross-Linguistic Influences in the Second Language LexiconSERIES: Second Language AcquisitionPUBLISHER: Multilingual MattersYEAR: 2006
Julie Bruch, Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at Mesa StateCollege
INTRODUCTION
Cross-linguistic Influences in the Second Language Lexicon is a collectionof nineteen papers which focus on aspects of transfer in the acquisition oflexicon. The collection includes both theoretical analyses and work basedon empirical observation. The notion of transfer in language acquisitionhas traditionally been connected to studies of contrastive analysis (CA)theory, interference, markedness, and error analysis which have a strongtheoretical foundation spanning more than three decades. The presentcollection reviews the notion of language transfer and attempts to broadenits scope from that of a fundamentally psycholinguistic term to includesociolinguistic elements such as language contact and the effects ofinstruction.
The book is relevant to both SLA researchers and teachers of secondlanguage. Part 1 opens with a discussion of the theoretical underpinningsof transfer in second language acquisition and presents a corpus of datawith which to direct the discussion toward the key concept of lexicalcompetence in a second language. Part 2 examines the role of languagecontact in building lexical competence. Parts 3 and 4 address the morespecific questions of how lexical transfer figures in language processingand what specific strategies are employed by language acquirers as theydeal with both negative and positive aspects of transfer.
SUMMARY
In the first paper, ''On the Ambiguity of the Notion 'Transfer','' HanDechert illustrates at a conceptual level how the processes employed intransfer are inherently unpredictable and unbound. He begins by showinghow the notion of transfer is shared in ''mental space'' with the notions ofanalogy and metaphor. He poses the question of whether such mental mappingprocesses depend on the transfer of concrete, specific elements of a knownproblem to a new problem or whether that transfer occurs at a more abstractlevel by transferring an overall macrostructure. He further illustratesthe functioning of analogical transfer by showing how Roosevelt's 1937 useof medical domain metaphors in relation to World War II were used byKennedy in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to avoid all-out war. Hisconclusion is that the use of transfer, analogy, and metaphor inproblem-solving tasks has the ambiguous potential to either exacerbate orsolve problems. The reader is left to extrapolate from this reasoning theimplications as they apply more specifically to language acquisition.Inclusion of a concrete example from language learning would have made therelevance of this paper to the collection more explicit, but in theoreticalterms, its implications are clear and significant.
The next paper, ''Language Transfer in Language Learning and LanguageContact,'' continues to explore the nature of transfer by drawing parallelsbetween language transfer, linguistic borrowing, and linguisticaccommodation. The author, Janusz Arabski, provides examples from Polishspeakers in contact with English and from British English speakers incontact with American English of the similarities between languagelearning, language borrowing, and dialect accommodation. The authorexplains that in the situation of language learning, there are two completelanguage systems in contact, which means that factors such as firstlanguage (L1) and second language (L2) similarity, stage of languagelearning, age, and type of language structures involved are important. Inthe situation of language contact, two entire cultural systems becomeinvolved, which means that language is simply one aspect of the transfer orborrowing which occurs. In this case, issues of identity come into play inaddition to the factors already mentioned, and pragmatic transfer, such asthat of speech act style, may be common. When dialects come into contact,integrative motivation is usually a determining factor as well. Therefore,in addition to transfer and borrowing, converging and divergingaccommodation are common. Although the author provides clear examples ofL1 to L2 transfer, this reviewer would have liked to see a more explicitdistinction made among the concepts of transfer, borrowing, andaccommodation in order to more clearly understand their impliedinterrelatedness.
Terence Odlin, in the chapter ''Could a Contrastive Analysis Ever beComplete?'' explores how CA research can contribute to our understanding ofthe effects of second language acquisition on learners' identities andpersonalities. He explores why making predictions about transfer inlanguage is so problematic, including evidence from ''covert transfer'' suchas avoidance patterns in L2. He also discusses the fact that many of theproposed constraints on transfer have been shown to not always work due togreat variation on the part of individual language users. He suggests thatCA research has a great deal to offer, both theoretically and practically,but that the theory cannot be complete without first producing a workabletheory of transferability which includes an explanation of the intersectionof affective factors. He makes a convincing argument that affect as foundnot only in the phonological, lexical, and pragmatic aspects of language,but also in the grammatical structures is a crucial functional component oftransferability. The paper ends with a series of questions related to theuniversality of affect that could profitably be explored to further thisline of study.
In ''The Importance of Different Types of Similarity in Transfer Studies,''Hakan Ringbom points out that CA research has often focused on languagedifferences, but that the similarities across languages influence learnerseven more significantly when it comes to transfer. The paper attempts toprovide objective qualifications of factors involved in cross-linguisticsimilarity. Main factors mentioned include: degree of similarity(one-to-one relationship, partial similarity, or zero similarity),item-by-item similarities as opposed to system level similarities,similarities used in comprehension of language as opposed to production,and similarities in form versus those in function. A careful distinctionis made between perceived similarity and objective similarity, and thenon-uniform nature of similarities is also outlined (e.g., unrelatedlanguages may have certain similarities that related languages do not have).
The main thesis of Elzbieta Manczak-Wohlfeld in ''Language Contact vs.Foreign and Second Language Acquisition'' is that there is a correlationbetween language contact and SLA that can and should be used to advantagewhen teaching language. She outlines in detail some of the features oflinguistic borrowing and goes on to summarize some practical proposals forusing extant loanwords in a language to help beginning language studentsfeel enabled to communicate at an early stage of their learning. Thecontext of this paper is Polish learners of English, and it is suggestedthat since English loanwords are so common in Polish, there are no trulybeginning level students of English, at least in the aspect of lexicon.Disadvantages of an overdependence on loanwords for developing a base inEnglish are both linguistic and psychological. First, loanwords mainlyconstitute a set of nouns lying within a small range of semantic fields,and second, learners may be led to believe that English lexicon iscomprised mostly of words they are familiar with. The practicalsuggestions outlined in this article for how to introduce loanwords as partof English study are very helpful, and since a majority of SLA taking placearound the world today occurs in a similarly rich surrounding of Englishloans, the ideas are applicable to a variety of learners.
In ''Genre: Language Contact and Culture Transfer,'' Andrzej Lyda discussesthe significance of the role of genre acquisition in overall SLA. It issuggested here that internal changes in a culture's language genres, due tochanges in political and economic systems, as well as borrowing of L2 genrecategories, due to increased contact with other cultures, are occurringtogether with other types of linguistic change and borrowing. If we acceptthe notion that genre is more than just a unit of the language system, thatindeed it occupies an important place in the thought patterns of a languagecommunity, this paper implies that research in SLA should focus itsattention not only on individual language, but on genre forms extant in theentire L2 speech community and how they relate to new genre forms beingcreated in the L1 community. The question of transferability here is takento the level higher of discourse, which is not typically found in theliterature.
In Chapter 7, Justyna Lesniewska presents findings from a large-scale studythat asks: ''Is Cross-linguistic Influence a Factor in Advanced EFLLearners' Use of Collocations?'' The study found both quantitative andqualitative differences between advanced students of English as a ForeignLanguage (EFL) and native speakers in the area of ''collocationalcompetence,'' that is, in the use of word combinations that are processed asa single chunk of meaning in discourse. However, contrary to previousstudies cited in the paper, there was no indication in the results of thisstudy that L1 played a major role in creating these differences. Rather,it was suggested that developing pools of memory of language chunks may notbe as easily accessible to the mind of a non-native speaker when it comesto producing native-like collocations.
In Chapter 8 ''International Terms and Profile Transfer: On 'Discussion'''Krystyna Warchal introduces the reader to the relatively recent studies of''international terms'' (defined as words used extensively in internationalcommunication as rough translation equivalents, such as English''discussion'' and Polish ''dyskusja''). The paper outlines a study in whichbilingual and monolingual dictionary entries were examined and comparedwith translators' actual use of the two terms above in order to determinewhether the original denotations of the word in one language can influencethe denotations of the international equivalent term over time. (Thisprocess is called ''profile transfer.'') The findings of the study suggestthat although there are slightly different meanings in the two terms in thetwo languages, the English denotations are being used with increasingpredominance in academic writing in Polish as a result of the exposure ofPolish writers to academic writing in English. The hypothesis of theauthor is that this transfer in usage will affect a change in the originalPolish lexeme itself over time, so that a truly international equivalentwill result.
In ''The Influence of English on Polish Drug-related Slang,'' MagdalenaBartlomiejczyk provides numerous examples of Polish drug-related slangwhich is based on linguistic borrowing from English. She emphasizesthrough her examples the fact that these relatively recent borrowingsrepresent a variety of productive processes such as semantic shift,calques, personifications, and borrowed metaphors, so that it is not amonolithic process induced by bilingual speakers of Polish and English, butrather a richly variegated set of processes effected through marketingploys in the underground drug scene as well as through the need of drugaddicts themselves to maintain a certain identity and secrecy. This papershows how cross-linguistic influences on lexicon are not limited to theupper-crust, professionals or well-educated members of a society, but canoccur at all levels.
Chapter 10 ''Why Money Can't Buy You Anything in German'' by Marcus Calliesemploys a functional-typological approach to explore how L1 influencessuccess of learners of L2 in acquiring competence in combining verbs withtheir arguments within a sentence. Specifically, the paper investigateshow German and English assign semantic roles to various arguments andadjuncts of verbs. It was suggested that English verbs found in sentencessuch as, ''California grows the best oranges,'' which contain a non-agentiveinanimate subject (a marked verb), would prove problematic for learners ofEnglish. This type of English construction is predicted to be morevulnerable to negative transfer and be lower on the learnability scale.The paper reports quantitative and qualitative results of a study in whichGerman university students were asked to perform three tasks: one ofacceptability judgments, error identification, and a translation task. Theresults of the study confirm the predictions made and suggest that foreignlanguage teaching should attempt to incorporate more conscious practice ofsuch structures in order to achieve more idiomaticity in students' use ofthe language. The study also suggests that descriptions from languagetypology can serve as predictors of L2A difficulties.
Chapter 11 ''Lexical Transfer: Interlexical or Intralexical?'' by DavidSingleton revisits the question of whether the L1 mental lexicon isseparate from or unified with the L2 mental lexicon. Although the author,in previous work, had argued for the unitary model, this paper showsevidence for the idea of differentiation of lexicon in acquisition andprocessing of languages. Interesting arguments for the integrationistview, the modularist view, and an integration continuum view are outlined,and reports of five separate studies which support the modularists aresummarized. The studies reported here indicate that there is a strongpsychotypological factor (meaning a real or perceived distance betweenlanguages) operating in cross-lexical processing; that is, at some level,L2 learners make use of implicit knowledge of the degree of similarity ordifference in form and meanings between the L1 and other languages beingprocessed. For example, and English who knew Spanish, Latin, and Irishmade use of Spanish as a source of transfer when attempting to communicatein newly acquired French. This shows that the speaker intuitively knewthat Spanish is typologically closer to French than English, and providesevidence for differentiation of lexicon in cross-lingual processing.
Danuta Gabrys-Barker in ''The Interaction of Languages in the Lexical Searchof Multilingual Language Users,'' presents findings from a study of lexicalsearch processes used by multilinguals. In the study, two groups oftrilingual students were asked to do a translation task and providesimultaneous introspective verbalizations as they completed the task. Itwas hypothesized that the language of input would influence lexicalprocessing and types of transfer. One group was asked to translate from L1into L3, and the other group was asked to translate from L2 into L3.Important distinctions were found in the types of processing employed bythe two groups as well as the number and types of transfer errors made.Overall, the results showed that those translating from L2 engaged in moreelaborate processing strategies, showed evidence of more metalinguisticawareness, used a greater variety of strategies, and had fewer transfererrors. Those translating directly from L1 relied more on implicitawareness of language, which revealed that expertise in the input languageby itself did not facilitate performance in translating. The conclusion ofthe author is that developing language awareness and strategic competencein language learners would improve lexical processing abilities acrosslanguages.
Chapter 13 ''Assessing L2Lexical Development in Early L2 Learning: A CaseStudy'' by Anna Nizegorodcew presents a longitudinal case study of theeffectiveness of L2 instruction on early learners. The author summarizesthe results of low intensity instruction over a period of about two and ahalf years to early learners. The subjects were two children who wereabout three and a half years old and four years old respectively at thetime of the writing of the paper. Principal findings indicate that youngL2 learners may understand lexicon only globally from heavilycontextualized input rather than as discrete lexical items, and thatbecause of this, very young learners may be able to produce words in somecases before comprehending them. Positive outcomes are reported in thatboth motivation for L2A and metalinguistic awareness were very high for thechildren. The author concludes that the greatest benefits of formalinstruction for early learners in a low exposure situation lie in theaffective and cognitive domains.
In Chapter 14 ''Code-mixing in Early L2 Lexical Acquisition'' Joanna Rokitaprovides further information on early learners. Using case studies of fourchildren receiving formal instruction once a week and two others receivingthe same instruction, but who come from bilingual families, the authorfinds that code-mixing does indeed occur for all children, but inqualitatively distinct ways and for slightly different reasons. Sheconcludes that without providing more frequent exposure and more meaningfultypes of interactions than occur in the formal instruction, early learnersreally cannot be said to gain successive bilingualism in language, butrather, they are simply gaining successive second language acquisition.
Chapter 15 ''Metaphorical Transferability'' by Rudiger Zimmermann reports thefindings of a cross-linguistic study of the extent to which metaphor sourceand target domains are universal and/or transferable. Two speakers eachfrom a total of thirteen languages from around the world were interviewedusing a questionnaire related to metaphorical mapping in their nativelanguage as compared to six metaphor domains from English (such as the''problem as food'' metaphor, ''x is hard to digest''). Great variability wasfound on how metaphors in various languages are mapped, which implies thatidiom and metaphor transfer cannot be assumed. The author indicates thatthis is a preliminary study intended to be a methodological contributionand that future work would need to triangulate this type of data withdictionary comparisons and recognition tests, include additional metaphordomains, languages, and greater numbers of subjects.
The paper ''On the Use of Translation in Studies of Language Contact'' byJolanta Latkowska, moves into the question of how translation tasks mayaffect use of L1 lexicon, and at the same time, it explores the question ofwhether translation tasks are indicative of transfer or simply indicativeof errors inherent in translation strategies. The study consisted of atimed translation task of L2 sentences containing idioms, fixedexpressions, and various collocations, all of which existed but weredistinct in L1. The L2 to L1 translation study was replicated after aperiod of six years but with the time limit reduced. Findings reportedhere indicate that literal word for word translations, or calques, wererelatively rare, and that strategies of avoidance such as circumlocutionswere more frequently used. One interesting finding was that an obsolete L1expression was revived as part of a translation, which suggests that arestructuring of L1 may occur as part of bilingualism. The author hopesthat this study will help elucidate aspects of bilingual performance ingeneral.
Chapter 17 ''On Building Castles on the Sand, or Exploring the Issue ofTransfer in the Interpretation and Production of L2 Fixed Expressions'' byAnna Cieslicka investigates how the proximity of ''fixed expressions'' in L1and L2 influence comprehension and production of same in L2. The studyinvolved a variety of comprehension and production tasks, such as discoursecompletion and translation, and introspective reports by subjects on theprocesses they employed to process the L2 fixed expressions. It was foundthat facility in processing fixed expressions varied according to degree ofproximity of the L2 expressions to L1 expressions. Although expressionswhich were semi-proximate were most prone to negative transfer inproduction, they were very close to lexically equivalent expressions inease of comprehension. In the metacognition protocols, it was found thatguessing, analogizing, or imaging based on literal sense were the mostfrequently employed processing strategies. Transfer of knowledge from L1idioms was also a factor.
In Chapter 18 '''Don't Lose Your Head' or How Polish Learners of EnglishCope with L2 Idiomatic Expressions'' by Liliana Piasecka, research goalswere similar to those in Chapter 17: to investigate how L2 idioms areprocessed. Advanced learners were given the task of translating L1 idiomsinto L2. Only idioms for which a lexical equivalent in L2 exists wereused. Although exact translations were among the results, a variety ofother strategies were used, including paraphrase, partial translations, andalternative idioms. Also, results indicated that contextualized testinstruments render more success than discrete item instruments.
Finally, in ''Phrasal Verb Idioms and the Normative Concept of theInterlanguage Hypothesis'' by Przemyslaw Olejniczak, the development ofidiomatic expressions in L2 is studied. Phrasal verb quizzes wereadministered to both second year and fifth year university students toinvestigate interlanguage. Findings indicate that more advanced learnersachieved higher scores on the more highly metaphorical verb phrases thandid the second year students.
CRITICAL EVALUATION
This is an impressive collection of serious thought and critical analysisranging from broad issues and their implications to more specific problems. The papers in this book explore the larger ideas of the influence ofchanging world politics, emerging national identities, and speechcommunities in contact on lexicon in both first and second languages. Theyalso delve into more local questions related to translation, early languagelearning, and L2 instruction. The papers are firmly grounded insignificant previous research (e.g., Givon 1984, Kellerman 1977, Odlin1989, Ringbom 1987, and Weinreich 1953/1968), and they present goodsummaries of much recent work as well (e.g., Arabski 2002, Dijkstra 2003). For those interested in doing research, a number of excellent researchmodels are suggested here as well as questions for further investigation.I wondered if the preponderance of Polish authors represented in the bookwould cause the collection to be rather limited in its perspective, but Ifound the topics to be intriguing, the research to be rigorous and valuableto the field, and the findings and analyses outlined in the papers as awhole to represent a perspective that is relevant and useful. While Ithought the papers in Part 4, which deal exclusively with metaphor, weresomewhat redundant, the editor did a commendable job of collecting enoughdiverse angles on the topic to be thought-provoking, while ensuring thateach paper had a sufficiently direct connection to merit inclusion. Thedata-driven papers are in good balance with the papers of theoreticalinquiry. This is a significant contribution to the field of secondlanguage acquisition studies.
REFERENCES
Arabski, J. (ed.) 2002. Time for Words. Studies in Foreign LanguageVocabulary acquisition. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
Dijkstra, T. 2003. Lexical processing in bilinguals and multilinguals. Pp.11-26 in J. Cenoz, U. Jessner and B. Hufeisen (eds.) The MultilingualLexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Givon, T. 1984. Syntax. A Funcitonal-Typlogical Introduction. Amsterdam:Benjamins.
Kellerman, E. 1977. Towards a characterization of the strategy of transferin second language learning. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2.58-145.
Odlin, T. 1989. Language Transfer. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Ringbom, H. 1987. The Role of the First Language in Foreign LanguageLearning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Weinreich, U. 1953/1968. Languages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Julie Bruch is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at Mesa StateCollege in Colorado, U.S.A. Her research interests are second languageacquisition and cross-cultural comparisons of aspects of discourse.
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