Resultados de la evaluación de riesgos

As you have seen in this chapter, over its 40 years of existence the field of SLA has contributed a wealth of research on how knowledge of the first and other languages universally influences L2 acquisition. Let us conclude with an evaluation of the findings presented in this chapter and what they might mean beyond research contexts.

First, from an intuitive standpoint, it is all too easy to conclude the L1 is a major explanatory factor in learner language. If we hear How I do this? from a Punjabi or a Spanish learner, whose languages do not have inversion, we may conclude it is the L1 that is causing this choice. This explanation is indeed compatible with the description of these two particular L1s. However, if we sampled learners from other L1 backgrounds where inversion does exist, we would find that at some early stage of development in the L2 they use uninverted questions in their English interlanguage (Pienemann et al., 1988; see also Table 6.9 in Chapter 6). Thus, many errors that at first blush might be attributed to the influence of the mother tongue can be, in fact, unrelated to the L1 and instead reflect developmental universal processes that have been attested in the acquisition of human language in general (and often in L1 acquisition as well, where no pre-existing knowledge of a specific language can be assumed to influence the process). In addition, many interlanguage phenomena are motivated by simultaneous L1 transfer and linguistic universal influences that conspire together to promote certain L2 solutions. For example, Spanish and Punjabi speakers of English at a given developmental level may more often produce such uninverted questions than speakers from other L1 backgrounds at the same developmental level.

It is intriguing to ask ourselves: Just how much of learners’ obvious errors in production (that is, errors of commission) might one be able to explain away as caused by L1 transfer? In 1985, Rod Ellis tried to answer this question by polling the findings reported across seven studies of L2 English published between 1971 and 1983 (Ellis, 1985). The typical amount seemed to be in the range of 23 per cent to 36 per cent, as contributed by four studies, all involving English as a second language (ESL) adult learners of various L1 backgrounds (Arabic, German, Spanish and mixed). However, the full range across the seven studies was striking, from a low 3 per cent in the only sample of children, whose L1 was Spanish, to a highest of roughly 50 per cent in two studies involving adult learners of Chinese and Italian L1 background, respectively. This wildly varying quantitative estimation of the importance of transfer in L2 development has been cited by other researchers since then. However, by the late 1980s most SLA researchers were in agreement with Ellis’s caution that trying to ascribe all interlanguage forms attested in a given data set to either the L1 or universal influence may be a futile enterprise. There are too many variables that can affect the amount of L1 transfer that materializes for a given learner. To the ones reviewed in this chapter, we can add external variables. Interlocutors, for example, may affect the degree to which L1 transfer occurs (Beebe and Zuengler, 1983; Young, 1991).

Another area that has occasionally intrigued SLA researchers and language teach- ers is whether we can assume that L1 transfer effects are subtle and selective in some areas of language but more robust and prominent in other areas. For example, is it possible that the L1 has a less massive and more fleeting influence on an area like L2 morphosyntax than on an area like L2 phonology? Might it be that transfer of prag- matic formulas (e.g. Takahashi, 1996) occurs more sporadically and at lower levels of proficiency, whereas the transfer of L1 sociopragmatic values (e.g. Olshtain, 1983; Yu, 2004) is more common and persists for a longer time in development? In his authoritative review of L1 transfer, Terence Odlin (2003) notes that it may be futile to pose such questions because seeking to make such comparisons across subsys- tems of a language is to try to ‘compar[e] the incomparable’ (p. 440). He explains that comparisons that try to quantify the incidence of L1-to-L2 transfer across sub- systems are difficult, among other reasons, because certain phenomena are of high frequency in any language (e.g. sounds and articles cannot be avoided for very long in production), whereas other features of the grammar may be of very low frequency. For example, relative clauses are much less frequent than noun clauses, particularly in speech, and inversion in non-question contexts (as in Not only did I warn him, I

warned him repeatedly) is of even lower frequency in English. Attempts at quantify-

ing and comparing the amount of transfer observed across these areas and for dif- ferent types of L1 knowledge would be difficult to interpret.

Odlin (2003) makes an important and seldom-voiced point that helps put transfer phenomena into a wider perspective. He notes that the macro context can also shape the nature and magnitude of crosslinguistic influences. He contrasts the case of L2 learning in postcolonial contexts, such as English in India and Nigeria, with the case of L2 formal instruction of a foreign language in expanding circle countries, such as English in China or Spain. In the latter contexts, teachers may warn students against false friends, literal translations and the dangers of relying on the mother tongue when learning a foreign language. In postcolonial contexts, by contrast, transfer occurs frequently and freely. In such contexts the learning and use of an L2 is characterized by a great degree of creativity involving crosslinguistic influences, and L1-induced transfer seems to be a major strategy for the indigenization or appropriation of a language by the postcolonial speech community. It should be also noted that in a variety of contexts learners may not wish to be identified with speakers of the L2, and creative L1 transfer processes may be a form of resistance and appropriation of the target language (see, for example, Seidlhofer, 2004). As with the topic of age and critical periods that we examined in Chapter 2, it may be that a more bilingual orientation and a less intent comparative approach of native (monolingual) and non-native (bilingual) speakers may bring further advances in the area of crosslinguistic influences in future SLA generations.

3.14 SUMMARY

● By definition L2 acquisition takes place in humans who already possess one or more languages. This being so, the mother tongue (and any other known

Summary 53

languages) universally influences the processes and outcomes of L2 learning.

● Transfer is a highly complex phenomenon. It can be caused by perceived L1–L2 similarities as well as by large differences, and it goes well beyond strident calques and awkward transliterations from the L1.

● The influence of the mother tongue cannot explain all phenomena in interlanguage development, because universal influences that operate in all natural languages exercise a powerful effect also on L2 development. Knowledge of the L1 interacts with such developmental forces but does not override them.

● Pre-existing knowledge of the mother tongue influences interlanguage development by accelerating or delaying the progress learners make along the natural, developmental pathways (e.g. orders of accuracy, natural sequences and developmental stages), but it neither predetermines nor alters such pathways.

● What gets or does not get transferred is also in part determined by: – universal constraints and processes, such as developmental sequences

and markedness, that apply across all natural languages and play a role in L1 as well as L2 acquisition

– psychological perceptions of transferability

– inherent complexity of the L2 subsystem in question – proficiency level.

● Crosslinguistic influences, even in cases of negative transfer, may or may not lead to ungrammatical solutions. Transfer can be manifested in errors of commission, errors of omission (avoidance) and L1-patterned frequencies (underuse and overuse). It can also result in subtle effects beyond form–form or form–function misidentifications and can occur at all levels of language, from information structure, to pragmatics, to thinking-for- speaking.

● L1 transfer does not happen mechanistically or deterministically. Rather, it is about tendencies and probabilities. Consciously or unconsciously, learners seem to operate on the basis of two complementary principles: ‘what works in the L1 may work in the L2 because human languages are fundamentally alike’ but ‘if it sounds too L1-like, it will probably not work in the L2’.

● Knowledge of two (or more) languages can accelerate the learning of an additional one, and all previously known languages can influence knowledge of and performance in an L3.

3.15 ANNOTATED SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

The study of crosslinguistic influence has for many years been bounded by the influence of a few seminal edited volumes and monographs, all published in the 1980s and early 1990s. It has only been recently that two publications devoted to the topic have appeared and gathered contemporary knowledge about crosslinguistic influence: Ringbom (2007) and Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008). Reading these two volumes can offer the best entry point into this fascinating field.

The seminal volumes can nevertheless be good follow-up reading. In Gass and Selinker (1983), you will find many key empirical and theoretical studies of transfer mentioned in this chapter, including Andersen’s, Kellerman’s, Rutherford’s, Schachter’s and Zobl’s. A subset of the same papers plus a number of new ones (most still conducted in the early 1980s) appeared in a revised edition (Gass and Selinker, 1993). Other two oft-cited edited volumes are Kellerman and Sharwood Smith (1986) and Dechert and Raupach (1989). Two monographs are worth reading for their extensive and authoritative treatment even today: Ringbom (1987) and Odlin (1989).

For article-length readings, the most updated review on the topic is Odlin (2003), and a perusal of any of the journals that publish SLA research will yield additional empirical studies on various topics related to crosslinguistic influence.

Finally, you can read about transfer in multiple language acquisition in Cenoz et al. (2001) and L2-to-L1 transfer in Cook (2003). The two volumes have become early classic citations in these two new burgeoning areas of crosslinguistic transfer that promise to generate high volumes of research in the future.