Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

The Impact of Applied Linguistics: Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of BAAL
University of the West of England
collocational transfer from either source language to the L3 are part of
categories 8-14. Category 15 to 21 contain deviations, which one might
prefer to describe as “infelicities”, such as contracted or shortened forms,
incorrect style and sign posting.
Form Meaning Pragmatic
Grapheme/morpheme 1 8 15
Morpheme 2 9 16
Lexeme 3 10 17
Phrase 4 11 18
Clause 5 12 19
Sentence 6 13 20
Text 7 14 21
Table 17.1: Framework for analysis
The results show that the main areas of CLI in the L3 from an L1 or L3 at
both levels are transfers of form, followed by transfers of meaning. The
number of pragmatic transfers was too small to be statistically significant.
Generally the amount of CLI found in the data is relatively low. Only
between 2.26 and 4.62 words per hundred words that were produced can be
traced back to transfer from the L1 or L2. These quantities, which vary
according to stage of learning and task type, are similar to the ones found in
other studies, such as Tremblay (2006), Lindqvist (2009), Marx (2000) and
Piller (2001).
The results suggest that in oral productions the L3 proficiency level is
decisive for the use of other languages in at least two ways. First, the
amount of all types of CLI (from L1, L2 and L1/L2) decreases with
increasing L3 proficiency. This result is in line with previous studies on
transfer, which report that less proficient students present more CLI.
Second, regarding the type of transfer, combined (formal) CLI seems to be
the main type of CLI in beginners. It seems that the reinforcing effect that
formal similarities between two languages can have is particularly strong in
beginners. In intermediate students the L1 is the main source of transfer of
both form and meaning.
In the written productions, however, L3 proficiency does not seem to have
a major influence on the quantity and quality of CLI. The figures are very
similar at the two stages. L1 is the main source of transfer, followed by
combined CLI and then CLI from L2, transfer of form is the main type of
transfer, followed by transfer of meaning.
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