The impact of the typological features of the mother tongue on transfer effects in interlangauge formation 

 

2015-2016 grant awarded to Marcin Opacki (Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, MNiSW 111207  13).

Interlanguages – or transitional and volatile idiolects that L2 language learners develop during their journey from a novice to a proficient user of a foreign language – are formed through the interaction of the user’s native language (the L1) and the foreign/target language (or L2). The term itself is most notably associated with the works of Selinker. As foreign language learners progresses and become more proficient, some features of the native language present in the IL disappear, while others don’t. These become fossilized in the IL grammar and linger in the final form of the learners L2 grammar. The aim of this project was to map the trajectories of the interlanguage development of a typical Polish L2 language learner and to disentangle L1 transfer effects from regular IL developmental features. The ultimate goal was to develop a series of pedagogical recommendations tailored specifically to the needs of the Polish FL learner. This was done via a comparative corpus analysis of texts written by students at various educational stages of proficiency during high stakes exams. The FLEC (Foreign Languages Examinations Corpus) is an output of this project.