Page 1 of 10

319

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 3

Publication Date: March 25, 2021

DOI:10.14738/assrj.83.9899. Thuy, N. N. (2021). Language Transfer and Errors Transfer in Teaching a Foreign Language. Advances in Social Sciences Research

Journal, 8(3) 319-328.

Language Transfer and Errors Transfer in Teaching a Foreign

Language

Nguyen Ngoc Thuy

Lecturer, Ho Chi Minh city University of Natural Resources and

Environment, 236B Le Van Sy, Ward 1, Tan Binh District

Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Correcting students’ language errors is always importance during

teaching because of its significance for analyzing those errors and

trying to provide students and teachers with adequate techniques and

strategies to avoid or at least minimize the number of errors

committed while practicing the foreign languages. This article will

focus mainly on different ways in which an interest in language learner

has revealed different aspects of the language learning process and

suggested different ways of treating errors in our teaching. The

objectives of the paper are mainly to understand the origins of an

interest in errors that learners made and the related development of

the concept of interlanguage , to appreciate the significance of learner

error and how it might affect our methodology and to realize some of

the causes of errors including positive and negative transfer.

Furthermore, the article will explain the concept of systematic

variability in learner language in order to become aware of some of the

causes and significances of variability.

Keywords: Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, Interlanguage, Mother

Tongue, Variability

INTRODUCTION

Few decades ago, Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research was dominated by Contrastive

Analysis (CA) research. The purpose of that research was to test the CA Hypothesis’ idea that

learners’ errors could be predicted on the basis of differences between the learners’ first language

and the target language. Linguists compared languages to see what the differences were and then

used those data to predict the transfer errors learners would make. It was hoped that the data

from linguists could eventually be used to help design special drills and exercises that would help

learners learn accurate use of second languages but not make any errors while doing so. The

prevailing view of errors at that time was that errors were bad habits that must be broken and not

reinforced. They were viewed as harmful. Experts felt that errors had to be avoided, even in the

course of learning, and for decades SLA researchers worked toward this goal.

Nowadays. , it was clear that CA could not predict the errors which learners would make,

therefore, researchers concluded that they must be some other processes involved in second

Page 2 of 10

320

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 3, March-2021

language learning besides interference. As researchers discovered many errors that were clearly

not due to interference, it became safe to assume that there must be other sources of errors

besides the first language. Researchers then, shifted their focus from predicting errors based on

contrasting language, to classifying the various kinds of errors they saw learners making. It was

hoped that by studying the various types of errors that learners made at various stages of

learning, that researchers could get a clearer view of the second language learning process. Thus,

Error Analysis (EA), the study of learner language for the purpose of classifying errors and

identifying their sources, emerged as the dominant SLA research.on the assumption that errors

were all due to first language interference and were somehow harmful to the learner’s

development, Error Analysis was based on the assumption that errors were a natural and healthy

part of the language learning process- a natural “by –product” of the learners step by step

discovery of the second language’s rules through a process of errors. This process was called

“Creative Construction”.

Error Analysis (EA) should be explained in relationship with interlanguage because it is difficult to

understand the construct of interlanguage without the background of Error Analysis. The

definition of Error Analysis involves the study of the errors learners make in their speech and

writing. It has the longest history of all the methods of analysis of learner language.

ErrorEvaluation is a set of procedures for assessing the relative seriousness of learner's

errors(Ellis.R.1994). Error Analysis (EA) is the study and analysis of the errors made by second

language learners. Error analysis may be carried out in order to (a.) identify strategies which

learners use in language learning (b.) try to identify causes of learner errors (c.) obtain

information on common difficulties in language learning, as an aid to teaching or in the

preparation of teaching materials.(Richards,Jack C et al.,1992).

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ERROR ANALYSIS AND CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

EA became distinguished from CA by its examination of error attributable to all possible sources

not just those which result from negative transfer of the native language.(Broun,Douglas B.1994.

p.206). Error Analysis supplanted Contrastive Analysis, which sought to predict the error that

learners make by identifying the linguistic difference between their L1 and the target language.

The underlying assumption of CA was that error occurred primarily as a result of interference

when the learner transferred native language ‘habits’ into the L2. Interference was believed to

take place whenever the ‘habits’ of the native languages differed from those of the target

language.CA gave way to EA as this assumption came to be challenged, whereas CA looked at only

the learner’s native language. EA provided a methodology for investigating learner

language.(Ellis.R,1994.)

Learning a second language constitutes a very different task from learning the first language. The

basic problems arise not out of any essential difficulty in the features of the new language

themselves but primarily out of the special “set” created by the first language habits. (Fries in

Lado, 1957)

Contrastive Analysis approaches to second language acquisition, based on a behaviorist approach

to learning and a structural approach to language, could not satisfactorily explain how learners

acquired a second language. Looking at learner language, or interlanguage, illuminated various

Page 3 of 10

Thuy, N. N. (2021). Language Transfer and Errors Transfer in Teaching a Foreign Language. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(3) 319-328.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.83.9899 321

aspects of the process of second language acquisition - for example, the role of the first language,

the nature of learner errors, how learners acquire the grammar of a language. A systematic study

of learner language in all its forms underpins much of the theory in second language research.

Errors can also be discussed according to different perspectives - Contrastive Analysis, Transfer,

and Variability. The last, variability in interlanguage, is a newer area of interest and arguably of

great interest to teachers because it deals with issues of why learners sometimes 'get it right' and

sometimes 'get it wrong'.

The term “interlanguage” was first introduced by the American linguist Larry Selinker. The latter

assumed that the systematic development of learner language reflects a mental system of Second

Language (L2) knowledge. Through interlanguage, we try to explain L2 acquisition by answering

questions such as “what is the nature of the linguistic representation of the L2 that learners form?

and “ how do these representations change over time?”.

It is important to the understanding of the concept of “interlanguage” is behaviorist learning

theory and mentalist views of language learning.

Behaviorist learning theory accounts only for the observed behavior, i.e. it controls theinput to the

learner and the learner’s own ‘output’ and ignores what goes on between the two. It focused on

“nurture”.

The mentalist theory of learning: The main principles of the mentalist theory are:

1. Language learning is a uniquely human faculty; only human beings are capable of learning a

language (not animals)

2. The human mind has the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) separate from other mental

faculties responsible for other kinds of cognitive activity as logical reasoning.

3. This faculty is the primary determinant of language acquisition.

4. Input is needed, but only to “trigger” the operation of the LAD, it is the language speech that a

child hears around (input).

The concept of “interlanguage” draws directly on these mentalist views of language acquisition.

WHAT IS AN ERROR?

In the field of methodology, there are two schools of thought of foreign language learner’s errors

are concerned. The first school believes that even if we achieve a perfect teaching, errors still will

be committed because there would always be inadequacies of our teaching techniques. The second

school; however, says that since we are living in an imperfect world, errors will always occur. As

such then we must find techniques for dealing with errors after they have occurred.

A noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage

competence of the learner (Douglas Brown 1987). A belief that the first language could hinder

second language learning was reflected in the popularity of contrastive analysis. The more we

know about the differences and similarities between languages, the better we would understand

the causes of our learners' errors.