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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Transfer can also mean “the carry-over or generalization of learned responses from one

type of situation to another”, especially “the application in one field of study or effort of

knowledge, skill, power, or ability acquired in another” (Webster’s Third New World

International Dictionary, 1986). The use of “transfer” in “linguistic transfer” is such an

example. By linguistic transfer, we mean what the learners carry over to or generalize in

their knowledge about their native language (NL) to help them learn to use a target

language (TL). Here transfer does not indicate whether what is carried over is bad or

good. This meaning from the dictionary shows that transfer is a neutral word in origin

and nature.

Pragmatics, a branch of linguistics which studies how people interpret and produce

meaning in a specific context (Leech, 1983; Liu, 2000), also claims an interest in

transfer. For pragmaticians, they are interested in finding out in what way NL-based

transfers influence the learners in comprehending and performing a speech act in a TL

and whether such transfers are appropriate in the context.

Error Analysis

There are good reasons for focusing on errors. First, they are conspicuous feature of

learner language, raising the important question of “Why do learners make errors?”

Second, it is useful for teachers to know what errors leaner make. Third, paradoxically,

it is possible than making errors may actually help learners to learn when they self-

correct the errors they make.

Identifying errors

The first step in analysing learner errors is to identify them. We have to compare the

sentences learners produce with what seem to be the normal or “correct” sentences in

the target language which correspond with them.On the other hand, we need to distinguish errors and mistakes. Errors reflect gaps in a

learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct.

Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular

instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.

Eles acham que o que eu disse foi certo .

Eles acham que o que eu disse foi verdade .

Certo in Portuguese means “precise ” and the participant in this example wanted to

express the idea of “truth”.

Taking into consideration the following example written by one of the participants,

“How can we distinguish errors and mistakes?”

Ela foi pra casa de seu mãe.

Ela foi pra casa de sua mãe.

One way might be to check the consistency of learners’ performance. If she consistently

substitutes “sua” for “seu” this would indicate a lack of knowledge: an error. However,

if she sometimes says or writes “seu” and sometimes “sua”, this would suggest that she possesses knowledge of the correct form and is just slipping up: a mistake. Another

way might be to ask learners to try to correct their own deviant utterances. Where they



are unable to, the deviations are errors; where they are successful, they are mistakes.

Defining errors

Once all errors have been identified, they can be described and classified into types.

There are several ways of doing this. One way is to classify errors into grammatical

categories. We could gather all the errors relating to verbs and then identify the different

kinds of verb errors, for instance, errors in the past tense. Another way might be to try to

identify general ways in which the learners’ utterances differ from the rec onstructed

target language utterances. Such ways include:

Omission: Leaving out an item that is required for an utterance to be considered

grammatical.

Misinformation: Using one grammatical form in place of another grammatical form.

Misordering: Putting the words in an utterance in the wrong order.

Interlanguage

Interlanguage scholarship seeks to understand learner language on its own terms, as a

natural language with its own consistent set of rules. Interlanguge scholars reject, al

least for heuristic purposes, the view of learner language as merely an imperfect version

of the target language. Interlanguage is perhaps best viewed as an attitude toward

language acquisition, and not a distinct discipline. By the same token, interlanguage

perspective to learners’ knowledge of L2 sound systems (interlanguage phonology), and

language-use norms found among learners (interlanguage pragmatics).

Developmental patterns

Ellis (1994) distinguish between “order” to refer to the pattern in which different

language features are acquired and “ sequence” to denote the pattern by which a specific

language feature is acquired.

Variability

Valid though the interlingua perspective may be which views learner language as alanguage in its own right, this language varies much more than native-speaker language,

in an apparently chaotic way. A learner may exhibit very smooth, grammatical language

in one context and uninterpretable gibberish in anther. Scholars from different traditions

have taken opposing on the importance of this phenomenon. Those who bring a

Chonsky an perpective to SLA typically regard variability as nothing more than

“performance errors”, and not worth of systematic inquiry. On the other hand, those

who approach it from a sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic orientation view variability

as a key indicator of how the situation affects learners’ language use.

Research on variability in learner language distinguishes between “free variation”,

which correlates with the same situational changes. Of course, there are differences between them.

Free variation, variation without any determinable pattern, is itself highly variable from



one learner to another. To some extent it may indicate different learning styles and

communicative strategies. Learners that favor high-risk communicative strategies and

have an other directed cognitive style are more likely to show substantial free variation,

as they experiment freely with different forms.

Free variation in the use of a language feature is usually taken as a sign that it has not

been fully acquired. The learner is still trying to figure out what rules govern the use of

alternate beginning learners, and may be entirely absent among the more advanced.

Systematic variation is brought about by changes in the linguistic, psychological, social

context. Linguistic factors are usually extremely local. For instance, the pronunciation

of a difficult phoneme may depend on whether it is to be found at the beginning or end

of a syllable.

Social factors may include a change in register or the familiarity of interlocutors. In

accordance with communication accommodation theory, learners may adapt their

speech to either converge with, or diverge from, their interlocutor’s usage.

The most important psychological factors is usually taken to be planning time. As

numerous studies have shown, the more time that learners have to plan, the more

regular and complex their production is likely to be. Thus, learners may produce much

more target like forms in a writing task for which they have 30 minutes to plan, than in

conversation where they must produce language with almost no planning at all.

Affective factors also play an important role in systematic variation. For example,

learners in a stressful situation (such as a final exam) may exhibit much less target like

forms than they would in a comfortable setting. This clearly interacts with social

factors, and attitudes toward the interlocutor and topic also play important roles.

Cogni tive Processes, Input and Interaction .

Learners need those samples of L2 as a source of input for their learning has long been

a basic assumption of SLA research. Corder (1967) distinguished between the input that

is available to L2 learners and that which individual learners can actually use as intake

for building interlanguage grammar, given their stage of development.

Decades ago, Krashen argued that 'comprehensible input' was necessary and sufficient

for successful SLA (see, for example, Krashen 1977). He described such input as

understandable in its meaning, but slightly beyond the learner's current level of

development with respect to its linguistic form. Both "intake" and "comprehensible

input" were conceptually intriguing, but they did not lend themselves to testable

hypotheses about SLA processes.

Long (1980, 1981, 1985) also argued that comprehensible input was crucial to SLA, but

his research revealed that it was the learners' interaction with interlocutors that mattered

as much as the input directed to them. Thus, when input was no longer comprehensibleduring interaction between L2 learners and interlocutors, they would modify the flow of

the interaction and repeat, rephrase, or request help with the input until comprehension



was achieved. It was claimed that the modified input directed toward the learners could

assist their comprehension as well as their L2 learning.

Models for Error Analysis

Corder (1967 & 1974) identified a model for error analysis which included three stages:

1. Data collection: Recognition of idiosyncracy

2. Description: Accounting for idiosyncratic dialect

3. Explanation (the ultimate object of error analysis).Brown (1994, pp. 207-211) and Ellis (1995, pp. 51-52) elaborated on this model. Ellis

(1997, pp. 15-20) and Hubbard et al. (1996, pp. 135-141) gave practical advice and

provided clear examples of how to identify and analyze learners’ errors. The initial

step requires the selection of a corpus of language followed by the identification of

errors. The errors are then classified. The next step, after giving a grammatical analysis

of each error, demands an explanation of different types of errors.

Moreover, Gass & Selinker (1994, p. 67) identified 6 steps followed in conducting an

error analysis: Collecting data, Identifying errors, Classifying errors, Quantifying errors,

Analyzing source of error, and Remediating for errors.

Sources of Errors

In 1972, Selinker (in Richards, 1974, p. 37) reported five sources of errors:

1. Language transfer

2. Transfer of training

3. Strategies of second language learning

4. Strategies of second language communication, and

5. Overgeneralization of TL linguistic material.

In 1974 Corder (in Allen & Corder, p. 130) identified three sources of errors: Language

Transfer, Overgeneralization or analogy, & Methods or Materials used in the Teaching(teaching-induced error).

In the paper titled “The Study of Learner English” that Richards and Simpson wrote in

1974, they exposed seven sources of errors:

1. Language transfer, to which one third of the deviant sentences from second

language learners could be attributed (George, 1971).

2. Intralingual interference: In 1970, Richards exposed four types and causes for

intralingual errors:

a. Overgeneralization (p. 174): it is associated with redundancy reduction.

It covers instances where the learner creates a deviant structure on the

basis of his experience of other structures in the target language. It may be the result of the learner reducing his linguistic burden.

b. Ignorance of rule restrictions: i.e. applying rules to contexts to which

they do not apply.

c. incomplete application of rules

d. Semantic errors such as building false concepts/systems: i.e. faulty

comprehension of distinctions in the TL.

3. Sociolinguistic situation: motivation (instrumental or integrative) and settings

for language learning (compound or co-ordinate bilingualism) may affect second

language learning.

4. Modality: modality of exposure to the TL and modality of production.5. Age: learning capacities vary with age.



6. Successions of approximate systems: since the circumstances of language

learning vary from a person to another, so does the acquisition of new lexical,

phonological, and syntactic items.

7. Universal hierarchy of difficulty: this factor has received little attention in the

literature of 2nd language acquisition. It is concerned with the inherent difficulty

for man of certain phonological, syntactic, or semantic items or structures. Some

forms may be inherently difficult to learn no matter what the background of the

learner.

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