scholarly journals The cross-linguistic influence of Arabic on the English passive voice

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-190
Author(s):  
Fatma Ali Lghzeel ◽  
Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan

It is difficult to describe cross-linguistic influence; however, it has been a contentious phenomenon for a long time. Whenever the speaker of a language becomes bilingual, the first language will subtly affect the new one, even if it is not used much. This is how first language influence begins since the majority of Arab English as a foreign language (EFL) learners suffer from this problem. This current research aims to study the negative influence of the native language (Arabic) on utilising the English passive voice. In this article, we aim to discover the levels of Arab EFL learners’ knowledge of the passive voice, as well as to examine the percentage of interlingual and intralingual errors. This study applies a quantitative method. Forty-six participants, who are Arab EFL learners studying at the Universiti Malaysia Pahang, engaged in the task of answering a grammar test. To conclude, the results show that Arab students have a high rate of L1 transfer on the English passive voice, and their levels of knowledge of passive voice are identified. The researchers recommend mixed methods for further research in order to provide a wider understanding about this issue.   Keywords: English as a foreign language, mother tongue, native language, target language.

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Khodareza ◽  
Maryam Kaviani

<p>This study investigated the role of mother tongue on learning English vocabulary by Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. For this purpose, 30 female pre-intermediate learners were chosen. After administering a Nelson test participants were selected from the intact classes at Foreign Language Institute in Babol. These 30 partners were randomly allocated to 2 gatherings (one laboratory and the other control) each comprising of 15 partners. The participants received a pre-test comprising 70 English words to ensure that they did not have previous information of objective structures. Experimental group received their instruction, meaning of each target word, and translation of target words with their mother tongue (Persian). But control group just received target language (English) for all activities or instructions. Both teacher and students in this group didn’t allow using Persian. After the treatment, the same pre-test was given to the participants as a post-test to measure the effectiveness of therapy gained. After collecting the data, to respond the research proposal, a t-test was conducted. The results indicated that first language had significant effect on learning English words. The findings of this study are considered to be useful in methodology issue.</p>


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Pienemann ◽  
Gisela HÅkansson

Ute Bohnacker's (2006) article on the acquisition of the verb second (V2) property in German by native speakers of Swedish (also a V2 language) is an attempted rebuttal of Håkansson et al.'s (2002) work on first language (L1) transfer and aspects of the underlying theory on which the work is based: Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). The article by Håkansson et al. presented empirical evidence from a similar population of learners (native language Swedish, target language German), showing that V2 is not transferred at the initial state. Unfortunately, Bohnacker misrepresents key aspects of our work on L1 transfer and, paradoxically, her own data constitute empirical evidence supporting our position, as we show in this response.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Sayana Movsum Baghirova

In the scientific literature, the symbols L1 (Language 1) and L2 (Language 2) are used to indicate the sequence of languages. In most countries, L1 is understood as a first language, and it usually coincides with the mother tongue. The other languages are learned later. This can be seen in the children of multilingual parents. Teaching a second foreign language covers everything a student hears and sees in a new language. This includes a variety of discourse activities, such as exchanges in restaurants and shops, talking to friends, reading billboards and newspapers, as well as teacher-student attitudes in the classroom, as well as language activities and books in the classroom. Regardless of the learning environment, the learner's goal is to master a target language. The learner starts the task of learning a second language from scratch (or close to it) and uses the necessary language skills in the mother tongue to determine the reciprocity of language units in the target language.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473
Author(s):  
Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal

This research study aims at replacing monoglossic approaches with a stego-translanguaging pedagogy (i.e., the indirect use of the mother tongue to enhance the target language perception and acquisition). To solve the problematic constant decline in the learners’ reading and writing IELTS scores in Port Said Language Center and to check the influence of the stego-translanguaging approach, two groups of participants were randomly chosen, an experimental group with 33 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from different colleges in Port Said University in Egypt and a control group with 30 EFL learners. The participants in the experimental group followed a heteroglossic pedagogy, whereas the control group followed a strictly non-plurilingual monolingual approach. The results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that the stego-translanguaging approach was much more influential in teaching IELTS reading than the monoglossic conventional approach with 1.483 as a mean difference between the two groups as (µ1=7) in the experimental group and (µ2= 5.517) in the control group. Another crucial result was displayed by a parametric test conducted to examine the significant differences between the IELTS writing posttest scores in the experimental and the control groups. The test showed that µ1 > µ2 with an estimation difference of 1.535, where µ1= 6.818 and µ2 = 5.28


Author(s):  
Mahanbet Dzhusupov

The article considers the problem of the interaction of languages in the process of forming a bilingual personality and society. A comparative study of the material, the mother tongue and the studied language, reveals the causes of interference in bilingual speech in a foreign language. Traditionally, the causes of speech interference are determined by the characteristics of a native language, which are not found in the language studied, therefore they negatively affect the process of mastering the second language, which generates speech errors. This is a one-sided approach to understand interference in general and its origins (causes) in particular. The article considers the problem of a two-way approach to understanding the phenomenon of speech interference. Speech interference is a result of the negative influence of both the characteristics of the native language and the characteristics of the language being studied, i.e. it is a simultaneous two-way process in dual unity. Both processes of negative influence on an individuals mastery of a second language are defined as one action in bilinguality, giving the same result - interference in bilingual speech, which is expressed in phonetic-phonological, semantic and other types and types of speech errors. The simultaneous and inconsistent negative influence of the features of the native language and the non-native language considered on the material of consonant combinations in the initial words of the Russian and Kazakh languages, when the absence of combinations of consonants in this position of the Kazakh word and their presence in this position of the Russian word to the same extent and at the same time negatively influence on the correct - the literary pronunciation of Kazakh words and Russian words. Thus, in contrast to the traditional explanation of the phenomenon of speech interference as a result of a one-sided negative process, it is proposed and proved that this phenomenon is the result of (simultaneous) two-way influence of features, native and studied languages. Errors of an individual in speech in a foreign language are considered according to the provisions of the syntagmatic typology of interference (plus segmentation, or minus segmentation).


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-39
Author(s):  
A K M Mazharul Islam

The issue of Bangladeshi EFL learners’ phonemic challenges, though not very battered, has been addressed by some researchers at different times. Even after having a prolonged history of learning and teaching and some research in the field, awkward pronunciations and misunderstandings are still prevailing everywhere, from the primary level to tertiary level and beyond. This study is undertaken to heighten the importance of delving deeper into the root causes of phonemic difficulties of the learners and to pinpoint the major problems. To add flesh to the theoretical skeleton of the topic a group of university students was interviewed along with a questionnaire to check their understanding of English phonology along with some other basic questions related to pronunciation. It can firmly be stated that teaching/learning pronunciation and hence starting from the segmental level has never been followed. Like any other country where English is in the status of a second language or foreign language, it is very natural to face difficulties to master the intricate phonemic features of the target language for the learners. Supposedly, it mostly results from the lack of knowledge of phonology and phonetics of the target language and due to the phonemic differences between the first language and the target language. In this study, the focus is kept mainly on the salient phonemic challenges faced by Bangladeshi learners of English. Bringing in the basic ideas of consonant and vowel sounds, the sound production mechanism is shown, and then the differences between the vowels and consonants of two languages are held out. Tracing out the key difficulties, some suggestions are provided. This writing is expected to be of considerable and comprehensive help for the instructors as well as for the interested learners and crucial addition to the literature of the topic.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Mohanad A. Amret ◽  
Sinan A. Yousif

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the level of pragma-linguistic difficulties Iraqi EFL university learners face when handling phrasal verbs. Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are easy to understand by native speakers of English, non-native speakers usually encounter some difficulties in understanding the meaning of a phrasal verb depending on the meaning of the root verb, or different phrasal verbs of the same root. The problem might be attributed to pragma-linguistic knowledge. However, culture gap could be the reason behind such difficulties. The aim of the study is (1) to evaluate the pragma-linguistic level of interpreting phrasal verbs as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2) to check the level of difficulty they experience while recognizing phrasal verbs, and (3) to find out reasons behind such misinterpretations. It is hypothesized that (1) the pragma-linguistic interpretation of phrasal verbs tends to play an important role in understanding the message conveyed by the speaker; (2) cultural gap could be the reason that EFL learners recognize phrasal verbs incorrectly, and (3) mother tongue language might make it difficult for EFL learners to understand phrasal verbs. To verify the aforementioned hypothesis, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 100 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes at the department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts, in Mustansiriyah University, during the academic year 2017 – 2018. The responses of the students have been collected and linguistically analyzed according to a model given by Richards and Schmidt (2010). It has been found that Iraqi students’ lack of cultural norms of the target language makes it difficult for them to understand phrasal verbs. The lack of this knowledge is considered as a factor of confusion and then failure. The influence of the first language culture on the recognition of phrasal verbs may be seen as a negative first language transfer. The reason behind this negative transfer is that the norms and principles of first language are different from the norms and principles of the target language. It has been concluded that Iraqi EFL university learners have difficulties in pragma-linguistic knowledge as far as phrasal verbs are concerned. Iraqi EFL university learners face great difficulties in using phrasal verbs while communicating with other people. While using phrasal verbs, Iraqi EFL university learners have been highly influenced by their mother tongue language.


Author(s):  
Naria Fitriani ◽  
Said Iskandar Zulkarnain

This study aimed at investigating the mother tongue influence of Acehnese learners in vocational English class. The students’ mother tongue influence can be detected by the results of speaking errors on their performance. The primary data of the students’ speaking performance was recorded, then transcribed. Furthermore, the student’s questionnaire was applied to support the primary data. The results of this study were analyzed and presented into two parts containing pronunciation and grammar errors. Meanwhile, the data obtained from the questionnaire was quantitatively shown that the learning process of the target language was affected by the first language.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal

This research study aims at replacing monoglossic approaches with a stego-translanguaging pedagogy (i.e., the indirect use of the mother tongue to enhance the target language perception and acquisition). To solve the problematic constant decline in the learners’ reading and writing IELTS scores in Port Said Language Center and to check the influence of the stego-translanguaging approach, two groups of participants were randomly chosen, an experimental group with 33 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from different colleges in Port Said University in Egypt and a control group with 30 EFL learners. The participants in the experimental group followed a heteroglossic pedagogy, whereas the control group followed a strictly non-plurilingual monolingual approach. The results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that the stego-translanguaging approach was much more influential in teaching IELTS reading than the monoglossic conventional approach with 1.483 as a mean difference between the two groups as (µ1=7) in the experimental group and (µ2= 5.517) in the control group. Another crucial result was displayed by a parametric test conducted to examine the significant differences between the IELTS writing posttest scores in the experimental and the control groups. The test showed that µ1 &gt; µ2 with an estimation difference of 1.535, where µ1= 6.818 and µ2 = 5.28


Author(s):  
Doaa Faris Al-shammery ◽  
Azar Huesiani ◽  
Hesamoddin Shahriari

The current study was an attempt to explore the common grammatical errors in written discourse of EFL Iraqi learners across gender. To this end, five male and five female Iraqi EFL academic learners with the same proficiency level were randomly selected. The participants were supposed to write a descriptive composition on a common topic.  Findings showed Iraqi EFL learners made various errors in the following categories including tenses, prepositions, articles, active and passive voice, verbs and morphological error. It has been  found that most of these errors caused by the effect of grammatical and linguistic system of participants’ first language on their written production of the target language.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document