Interlanguage (Part I): L1 Interference

If you know two languages, you will not have any problem finding examples of L1 transfer since
it is so common among L2 learners worldwide. I will use Spanish and English language learner
examples, but these same types of issues are common in many languages.

Transfer can occur at the lexical (1&3) and structural level (2&4):

(1) *¿Qué tiempo está ahora? [What time is it now?] L2 Spanish learner

(2) *Estoy 38 años viejo. [I am 38 years old] L2 Spanish learner

(3) *What hour is it? [Qué hora es?] L2 English learner

(4) *I have 38 years. [Tengo 38 años] L2 English learner

It is very difficult to claim that the errors in 1-4 are not caused by the learner’s L1. Of course
they are! The influence in 1&3 is lexical. In Spanish, the word tiempo is not only used to talk
about time, but also to talk about the weather (¿Qué tiempo hace? Hoy hace calor. > ‘How’s
the weather. Today it’s hot.’). In English, “time” is used only to talk about the hours and
minutes in a day. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the L2 Spanish learner inserted
tiempo to ask for the time of day. Hora and “hour” mean the same in both languages “time”,
but hour is not used in English when someone asks for the time. For this reason, an L2 English
learner might ask *What hour is it? since the Spanish construction is ¿Qué hora es? Notice that
not everything was transferred in 1&3 since the native English speaker did not try to translate it
into Spanish and the native Spanish speaker did learn how to place it in the correct location.
Most of the words and word order in these two sentences did not produce the error, it was the
word choice that caused problems.

In (2&4) however, we find structural problems. The L2 Spanish learner in (2) chose the wrong
verb (estar instead of tener) and also carried over old from English into Spanish viejo which
sounds very strange in Spanish. The L2 English learner has done the opposite by using the verb
that would have been used in Spanish (have (Sp. tener) instead of be). Together the structural
and lexical transfers from one’s L1 have produced errors in the target language.

During the early years of research on L2 language errors, many linguists who were influenced by
behaviorism argued that all language errors were a direct result of L1 interference. The evidence
did seem to support this claim at first; however, upon further examination researchers noticed
that many errors could not be directly linked to L1 transfers. For this reason, linguists have
developed a more comprehensive understanding of a language learner’s internal grammar, called
“interlanguage”. Interference from a person’s first language is just one component of
interlanguage (the following sections below will discuss the other aspects of interlanguage).
Although we have located other factors that challenge second language learners, L1 interference
still plays a prominent role in influencing L2 production.
Typically, L1 influence is discussed as having positive and negative effects, oftentimes referred
to as “positive transfer” and “negative transfer”. Positive transfer occurs with language
similarities which help learners guess the grammar features or meanings of the target language
based on what they know from their native language.

Examples of Positive Transfer in English and Spanish

Example #1 “Plural Marker -s”

The regular plural morpheme in both English and Spanish happens to be –s which is not the case
for other languages in the world, but it is for many Romance (Spanish, Italian, French) and Indo-
European languages (German, English, Swedish).
Therefore, when we want to make a singular noun plural in English we add a form of –s
[car 🡪 cars; dance 🡪 dances; tree 🡪 trees].
Similarly in Spanish, –s is added to nouns to indicate plurality
[carro 🡪 carros; baile 🡪 bailes; taco 🡪 tacos].

Example #2 Spanish-English Cognates

Spanish and English cognates simply mean that the words in the two languages share a similar
history. In most of the examples in the chart below, English had borrowed Latin-based words
when the French-speaking Normans ruled the British Isles during the 11th-15th centuries. As you
probably already know, Spanish and French are derived from the same parent language, Latin,
and belong to a subset or linguistic family called “Romance Languages”. Had the Normans
never conquered the Anglo-Saxons in modern-day Britain, English would not have so many
cognates with Spanish.

English Spanish English Spanish English Spanish

actor actor abundance abundancia history historia
color color arrogance arrogancia urgency urgencia
doctor doctor experience experiencia remedy remedio
director director patience paciencia salary salario
horror horror intelligenc inteligencia testimony testimonio
e
animal animal activity actividad dictionary diccionario
general general curiosity curiosidad brutal brutal
hospital hospital electricity electricidad usual usual
manual manual identity identidad local local
moral moral university universidad criminal criminal
tourist tourista association asociación natural natural
artist artista combination combinació ambitious ambicioso
n
 egoist egoista condition condición gracious gracioso
list lista exemption exempción delicious delicioso
socialist socialista instruction instrucción generous generoso

idealism idealismo agency agencia venomous venenoso

despotism despotismo agony agonía magnetic magnético
mechanis mecanismo battery batería fantastic fantastico
m
organism organismo family familia electric eléctrico

Example #3 Possession

You may think that the different ways to mark possession in Spanish and English would produce
negative transfer (English uses –‘s, “Tom’s car” while Spanish employs de, el carro de tomás).
These two different forms of the possessive morpheme may cause learner errors; however,
English also uses of in a similar way to the Spanish de: “The Duke of Earl”, “the constitution of
Texas”, “the edge of the desk”, “the antique doors of the hotel”. Although –‘s is more common
and accepted in most instances of marking possession in English (*the car of Tom), L1 English
speakers make cognitive connections between structures that exist in their native tongue and
target language despite the infrequency of the form, such as, the rare use of possessive of in
English and the standard use of de in Spanish. In other words, native English speakers learning
Spanish are actually aided by the fact that Eng. of follows a similar pattern to Sp. de.

Examples of Negative Transfer in English and

Spanish Example #1 Object Pronoun Placement

Object pronouns in English and Spanish follow different syntactic rules. In Spanish, they can
appear before the verb, but in English they cannot be used in pre-verbal positions.

(1a) Yo te llamaré. (1b) I’ll call you. (1c) *Yo llamaré te. (1d) *I’ll you call.

In (1a) we can see that the object pronoun te can be placed before the verb which is not possible
in English (1b). Applying the syntactic rule from English into Spanish produces an
ungrammatical sentence (1c). Applying Spanish’s object placement rule in English sounds quite
strange (1d). Word order rules are classic examples of L1 transfer and can constitute what we
would call “expected language errors” in second language acquisition or simply “negative
transfer”.
 Example #2 English-Spanish Connectors

Word connectors (such as, subordinators, conjunctions, and relative pronouns) are commonly
transferred between languages.

(2a) The guy who sold it to me. (2b) The guy that sold it to me.
(2c) *El hombre quien me lo vendió. (2d) El hombre que me lo vendió.

In Standard English, it is more prescriptive to use “who” as a relative pronoun when referring to
human beings. Over the last few decades, it has become more common to also use “that” for
humans although it had been traditionally reserved for objects and animals (e.g. The car that I
bought). Spanish does not have this distinction between quien and que when heading adjectival
clauses, instead que is used exclusively. Therefore, L2 learners of Spanish may sometimes insert
quien for que when forming complex sentences (such as in 2c). This is an error that native
speakers of Spanish do not tend to make; rather it is an error that derives from L1 English
speakers. In other words, it clearly originates from English and is thus another example of
negative transfer.

Language students will often take guesses (or working hypotheses) at target language
structures that they have not heard or been taught. They will most likely use their L1 grammar
knowledge in order to make these guesses. Sometimes the transfers will sound strange yet
their main point will be understood (I’m going to take some sun) while other times the
meaning may be lost entirely (The actions shot themselves when detaining the authors of the
attended. from Spanish Las acciones se dispararon al detener los autores del atentado.). As
teachers we will want to encourage learners to try to make educated guesses at target
language grammar forms because the process of doing so will help them become more aware
of the differences between the two languages.

Interlanguage (Part II): Developmental Stages

Not all errors can be explained through the negative and positive transfer from a
learner’s L1. Each language has particular features that have proven difficult for every learner
no matter how similar or dissimilar their L1 is to the target language. For example, irregular
past tense verbs in every language are challenging for learners. Look at the following irregular
past participles in English and Spanish.

Irregular Past Participles and Regularized Forms in English and Spanish

Englis Spanis
h h
Infinitiv Past L2 Error Infinitiv Past L2 Error
 e Particip e Particp
le le
buy bought *buyed abrir abierto *abrido
do done *doed decir dicho *decido
break broken *breaked escribir escrito *escribido
choose chosen *choosed hacer hecho *hacido
drink drunk *drinked poner puesto *ponido
drive driven *drived romper roto *rompido
dive dove *dived satisfac satisfec *satisfacido
er ho
fall fallen *falled ver visto *veido
freeze frozen *freezed volver vuelto *volvido

Do you think irregular past participles are easy for a learner to predict? No, none of
these irregular past participles are easy to predict based on what the learner knows about the
past tense and other (regular) past participle forms. Some languages like Swahili and Quechua
do not have irregular past tense verbs. Therefore, the next logical question is: Will a learner,
who has irregular verbs in their L1 have an easier time learning the target language irregular
verbs? And will native Swahili and native Quechua speakers have a more difficult time learning,
for example, English than a native Spanish speaker given that they will have to learn about the
concept of irregular verbs? The answer again is “No”. Developmental stages will be difficult for
all learners. Generally speaking, a typical learner will go through a series of stages when
acquiring the target language, rarely jumping to an advanced stage before an earlier stage has
been first mastered.

Developmental Sequences in English

Only certain areas of grammar produce a type of clear developmental sequence in the
learner’s acquisition process. We have already discussed irregular verbs, but here are a few
other common problems in the process of learning English: questions, negation, and tense.
Examine tables 2 & 3 below and think of how these sequences compare to a child’s
first language acquisition.
 Developmental Sequence of English Questions
Stage 1 Two-word stage You go? My pen? Today birthday? Is good? We stay?
Stage 2 Rising You go home now? You use my pen? Today is your birthday?
intonation
Stage 3 Fronting & Do you go home now? Are the players have enough water?
Yes/No
Questions
Stage 4 Basic Inversion When are they going home? Is today your birthday?
Stage 5 Inversion + When did you go home last night? What are you all doing?
Other
Aux Verbs
Stage 6 Compl Tag Q’s: You’re going, aren’t you?
ex Neg Qs: Why didn’t they understand?
questi Embedded Qs: Can you tell me when they want to leave?
ons

Developmental Sequence of English Negation

Stage 1 ‘no’, ‘not’ No bread. Not be home. She no go today.
Stage 2 ‘no’, ‘not’, don’t’ Tommy don’t could go. She don’t like him. We don’t ate
already.
Stage 3 Negation after They are not going. Yesterday the girls don’t come. She is not
some aux verbs hungry. She hasn’t the keys to the car.
Stage 4 Negated ‘do’ is She didn’t sing last night. I don’t like the snow.
marked for
tense, person, (tense is sometimes marked on both aux and main verbs):
number The
workers didn’t came in the afternoon.

Researchers have observed that learners tend to progress through these stages
sequentially. They don’t tend to learn stage six questions before the ones in stage four, for
example. In some instances, a learner may memorize idiomatic chunks or a particular question
word-for-word; However, that is quite different from acquiring the grammatical structure of a
complex question. For instance, read the following question: “You didn’t do it, did you?” This
type of construction is called a “tag question” because it consists of a declarative clause “You
didn’t do it” and is followed by a brief question that is tagged to the end.

(5) Tammy is going to the game, isn’t she?

(6) She’s going to the game, isn’t she?
(7) Tom doesn’t like pickles, does he? (*Tom doesn’t like pickles, does Tom?)
(8) They aren’t going to go, are they?
(9) We can return the pants, can’t we?
(10) They went to the movies together, didn’t they?
 The difficult aspect of this type of question formation is locating the subject (in 5, it’s
“Tammy”) and determining the auxiliary verb (in 6, it’s “is”) both of which will be reproduced in
the tag question. The rule is even more complicated as the subject of the main clause can be
replaced by a pronoun in the tag question (in #7 “Tom” 🡪 “he”). Also, a type of role reversal
occurs with regards to negation: If the main clause is negated, the tag will be positive (see #8)
and vice versa, if the main clause is positive, the tag will be negative (see #9). Finally, following
the yes/no question rule in English, if the main clause does not have an auxiliary verb, “do” is
inserted in the tag (see #10), and tense & agreement is placed on it.

If a student is clearly at stage 3 of their acquisition of English questions, we can assume

that a perfectly grammatical tag question, such as “You didn’t do it, did you?” was in fact a
memorized utterance. Why? First, language learners are able to memorize large discursive
chunks (sentences, questions, idioms, proverbs) and repeat them in appropriate contexts. This
does not mean that they have memorized the grammar. Rather they have memorized a string
of words and they probably wouldn’t be able to create an original tag question with different
subjects, auxiliary verbs, and topics. Second, if the learner is still struggling with questions such
as “Are the players have enough water?” it is quite probable they have not mastered the
complex nature of tag questions. A learner who is challenged to front auxiliary verbs or insert
“do” with other, more basic questions, will find tag questions messy since they too require
fronting and do- insertion.

Our knowing that a student is still at stage three allows us to tailor many of the activities
for the students and the rest of the class. The argument from this perspective is that presenting
classroom situations that require stage 5 or 6 questions when the students are still at stage 2 is
counter-productive. The students are simply not prepared for complex questions, and
therefore, would feel confused and even frustrated if they were being asked to write or speak
them. With certain aspects of grammar, it is better to follow the general tendency of sequential
acquisition that applies in a similar fashion to young native speakers of English as it does to
adult second language learners of English.

Interlanguage (Part III): L2 Environment

As an adult ESL instructor in Chicago, I taught students with a wide range of backgrounds
(number of years in the U.S., occupation, country of origin, L1, age, family status). My students
also varied with regards to the type of English-speaking friends they met at work and around the
city. Many of these native English speakers spoke not only different dialects of English, but
stylized their speech to fit the appropriate social contexts they found themselves in.

One student, Mirzad, was a 25-year-old immigrant from Bosnia. He worked at two
different restaurants, went to school at the community college and the university, and also did
valet parking on the weekend at nightclubs in the downtown area. His relatives typically drove
taxi cabs or ran Bosnian cafes and bakeries. I would say that he had a tremendous amount of
exposure to the English language in many different pragmatic and social contexts. Sometimes he
would explain simple things with very large words: “Then he hit this sounding apparatus to
indicate to everybodies that fire was here.” I am guessing that he was looking for a specific
word, such as “fire alarm” or “bell”, but couldn’t find it, so then said “sounding apparatus”
which he probably picked up from a science class at the university. He didn’t use it in the correct
context, but he did get his point across. He would also use features of AAVE in his speech, “He
don’t want to be bother with none of this,” was probably picked up from colleagues at the
nightclub he worked at or even from TV since he watched a lot of movies. When he spoke up in
my class, he would frequently finish his comments with “and so on and so forth”. For example,
he would say, “And then the Russians didn’t want to leave even though the Berlin Wall falled.
They had to close their offices, sell their houses, take all of their expensive things and so on and
so forth.” Sometimes it would be used inappropriately: “I really don’t want to do the homework
and so on and so forth.” In fact, he used it way too much! When I asked him why he says “and
so on and so forth” so often, he told me that he learned it in Bosnia when he studied English.

Since he worked in such an informal environment (at restaurants and clubs) he heard
many people use phrasal verbs, which are quite colloquial though very common with all English
speakers. Phrasal verbs are essentially idioms since the two parts added together do not equal
the meaning of the whole.

(11) “I took him up on his offer” [I accepted his offer]

In (11), the “up” belongs to the verb and gives “took” a different meaning than when “took” is
by itself in a sentence. Yet, “up” does not have any directional meaning in terms of pointing
upward as opposed to downward. The meaning of the two words cannot be predicted from the
meaning of their individual parts, so for this reason, we classify phrasal verbs as a type of idiom.
Mirzad used phrasal verbs very frequently, but had a difficult time guessing the correct
particle/preposition that would go after the verb.
 English Phrasal Verbs and Mirzad’s Interlanguage Grammar
Phrasal verb Meaning Mirzad’s usage
a Hand in To submit “I told you that I can’t hand off my assignment.”
. work
b Keep to (one’s To be “He just want to keep on hisself.”
. self) reserved
c Screw up To fail “I wasn’t trying to screw off when I sold it.”
.
d See through Realize deceit “My pa said he see pass me. He knew what I
. thought.”
e Break up Finish a “My girlfriend break out me and I don’t talk to
. relationship her no more.”
f. Face off Confront “Then we had to face about to each other and fight
with our hands.”
g Pass up Decline an “Yes, I know. I had to pass around the chance to
. offer work at TRU. It could have been big money.”

Although phrasal verbs should receive more attention in the ESL classroom given their
frequent use in spoken discourse, Mirzad was primarily exposed to them during conversations
he had at work and among friends. Since he was able to create relationships among many
native speakers who spoke different dialects and styles of English, the input he received was
quite informal and casual and for this reason, the particles after the verb (‘up’, ‘out’, ‘off’, ‘of’,
‘in’, ‘on’) were not very salient (that is, they were hard to hear and notice). When he attempted
to use these particles in phrasal verbs, he didn’t always guess them correctly. Such uses of
specialized language that is learned in particular contexts is grouped by researchers into the
category of “L2 environment”.

The errors that Mirzad made when speaking English did not derive from his native
language (L1 transfer), nor are they typical problems that all learners confront when acquiring
English (developmental sequences). Rather they are errors that are quite specific to the kind of
experiences the learner has during their second language acquisition process. If a
mathematician from Russia had been exposed to hundreds of hours of input talking with other
math colleagues and working with an American group of mathematicians in a lab, she/he
would make grammatical errors that are influenced from typical Math lingo. Therefore, many
language errors cannot be predicted, but rather result from the type of exposure one has with
speakers of the target language.