Transfer and translation in L2 word associations: Comparing learner data across languages.
Résumé
L1 transfer is often considered in a negative light as “interference” — something to be eradicated at all costs. In vocabulary studies, for example, interference characterises Meara's seminal 1978 article, the base reference for most work on L2 word associations over the last 25 years. His main conclusion is that L2 learners and native speakers provide fundamentally different responses, and this is automatically attributed to defective underlying mental representations resulting largely from negative L1 transfer. We begin with a critical review of Meara's article and how it has influenced the field to date, and discuss some alternative interpretations for such data and what they can tell us about the structure of the L2 mental lexicon. We then provide new context for this by describing part of an ongoing series of experiments of our own amongst French learners of English. Rather than comparing the learners with natives of the L2, we compare the results of subjects performing the same word association task in English and in French. If their L1 responses are taken as the baseline, then any differences in the L2 data should be indicative of influence from the L2 irrespective of whether such responses approach L2 norms. In other words, we are looking for evidence of approximating towards the L2 rather than deficiency away from it.
Domaines
Linguistique
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