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The Complex Adaptive Systems Principles (CASP) model of SLA claims that L1 transfer results when language processing effort is minimized. This claim was investigated by a self-paced on-line sentence judgment task in which L1 Arabic and Korean speakers and a control group of L1 English speakers read and judged English subject, direct object, and oblique relative clauses (RCs) in gapped and resumptive pronoun (RP) conditions. It was hypothesized that L1 influence would cause the Arabic speakers to accept English RCs with RPs more frequently than Korean speakers because RPs are acceptable in Arabic direct object and oblique RCs, whereas Korean bans RPs in these RC types. It was also hypothesized that the L2 English speakers would accept RPs more often than the L1 English speakers because RPs would ease L2 sentence processing. As predicted, L1 Arabic speakers accepted RPs more frequently than L1 Korean speakers, a transfer effect, and both L2 English groups accepted RPs more frequently than L1 English speakers, a processing effect. The results thus support the CASP model's claim that L1 transfer is conditioned by language processing and other complex SLA processes that interact with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, children need to become proficient in both their home language (L1) and an international language, such as English (L2). Governments face tradeoffs in how to prioritize these two objectives. We provide empirical evidence on cross-linguistic transfer between L1 and L2, using the results of two randomized evaluations of Structured Pedagogy Programs implemented in South Africa. The programs had the same design, implementing organization, and duration. The key difference is that one program targeted the teaching of reading in L1, while the other targeted L2. We find that both interventions had positive effects on the languages they targeted. The L1 intervention also had a positive effect on L2 reading proficiency. In contrast, the L2 intervention had a negative effect on L1 outcomes, for the lower-performing students. These results are consistent with the Simple View of Reading and suggest that decoding skills are best learned in L1. It is thus cost-effective to prioritize learning to read in L1, as well as supporting teachers in this subject, even if becoming proficient in L2 is also regarded as an important policy objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of learners' first language (L1) on English language acquisition, focusing on phonology, syntax, and lexicon across five L1 groups: Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, and Hindi. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected from 200 participants through questionnaires, proficiency tests, and pronunciation assessments. The results reveal that L1 interference significantly affects English proficiency, particularly in phonology, with Arabic and Mandarin speakers showing the strongest negative correlations. Hindi and Spanish speakers demonstrated higher proficiency, with fewer syntax and lexical errors, while Japanese learners struggled primarily with phonological challenges. Regression analysis confirmed that phonology had the strongest impact on English proficiency, followed by syntax and lexicon. The study highlights the need for tailored instructional strategies to address L1-specific challenges in language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Connectors are vital tools for cohesive discourse, significantly influencing the writing proficiency of learners. In Chinese educational contexts, many learners grapple with the correct application of connectors, due to potential first language (L1) influence. Previous research primarily delves into lexical and syntactic aspects, overlooking discourse-level considerations. This study aims to assess the frequency and accuracy of connector usage in English narratives among Chinese learners. It also seeks to investigate the extent of language transfer concerning connectors among Chinese learners and discern how this transfer evolves as learners' second language (L2) proficiency advances. Methodology: To amass data, 150 narratives composed by 30 Chinese learners were analyzed. Initial qualitative analysis was followed by quantitative examination. Findings: The findings underscore temporal words as the most frequently employed connectors, closely trailed by additives and causal words. Notably, temporal words and adversatives exhibited higher accuracy when compared to other connector types. Positive transfer manifested more frequently than negative transfer. Moreover, positive transfer displayed a noticeable inflectional change across the five time narratives, whereas little variation was observed in negative transfer. Contributions: This study suggests that stakeholders, including educators, learners, and policymakers, should leverage positive transfer as a strategic resource when instructing connectors to enhance L2 writing proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Plural marking differs across languages. Some must mark plurality using an overt morpheme (e.g. English, Russian), while others mark it optionally (e.g. Korean) or lack an explicit plural morpheme (e.g. Chinese). This crosslinguistic difference in plural marking has received much attention in research exploring language transfer in the context of L2 acquisition, but little in the context of L3 acquisition. This study tests the effects of L1 and L2 knowledge on L3 acquisition with two groups of multilingual children (n = 68; 11–13 years old) with different L1s (Chinese or Russian) but the same L2 (Korean) and L3 (English). We also investigated whether L2 proficiency modulates influence of the previously learned language in L3 acquisition. The participants completed a timed acceptability judgment designed to investigate their knowledge of English plural marking. Results showed that the L1-Russian children were better able to distinguish between felicitous and infelicitous plural marking than the L1-Chinese children. In addition, the L1-Chinese children showed poorer performance as their L2 proficiency increased. The study discusses these results in light of theoretical approaches to L3 acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the "multi-competence" of the inter-state migrant students of India who deal with four languages at the same time will be explored. The typological distance and the possible language transfer between Bangla, English, Hindi, and Telugu in terms of segmental and supra-segmental features will be tried to examine. According to the New Education Policy 2020, three-language formula has been adopted in schools of India. Generally, most of the states have taken English, Hindi and the regional language of the respective states to implement the three-language formula in schools. But people who move from one state to another learn their L4 as the third language in schools. For example, when one socioeconomically privileged Bengali moves to Telangana whose mother tongue is Bangla, he/she learns English as L1, Hindi as L2 and Telugu as L3. Here in this paper, along with English and Hindi, Bangla and Telugu have been chosen for this study as the mother tongue of the author is Bangla and the author is a resident of Telangana. This study is relevant for all the inter-state migrant students whose mother tongue is not Hindi or English. These students learn three languages in a formal set up in school in addition to their mother tongue. To learn a language, we need to acquire multiple subsystems of that language, for example, its phonology, vocabulary, writing system, grammar etc. In this study, the phonological differences of Bangla, English, Hindi, and Telugu will be discussed to understand the varied knowledge of the Indian inter-state migrant students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language transfer or crosslinguistic influence (CLI), referring to the influence of an L1 on the learning of an L2, is a significant aspect of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Much work in this area is data-driven, and consequently, large L2 corpora have been constructed for use in CLI analyses. The field of Natural Language Processing, and in particular the specific task of Grammatical Error Correction (GEC), also has corpora that can be of use in these kinds of analyses. In this paper, we take the FCE corpus, a popular dataset of English as a Second Language (ESL) learner texts used for Grammatical Error Correction model training, and use it to analyse the relationship between the distributions of errors and the first languages of the ESL learners. We carry out a detailed analysis of three error types, and demonstrate that the errors made by ESL learners have a statistically significant relationship with linguistic characteristics of their first languages, suggesting the existence of both positive and negative transfer. The analysis aligns with results from the SLA literature, and validates the use of GEC corpora for use in CLI analysis.

Extensive evidence indicates that early vocabulary skills predict later reading development among monolingually developing children. Some evidence suggests that a relationship between vocabulary and later reading also holds across languages among children whose home language differs from the school language. However, these findings have been mixed and it remains unclear if, and under what circumstances, vocabulary in one language supports reading comprehension development in another. The present study followed 84 Spanish-English bilingual children, assessing their vocabulary skills at 5 years and their reading comprehension at 6, 7, 8, and 9 years. Longitudinal multilevel models revealed significant within-language relations between early vocabulary knowledge and subsequent reading comprehension in both English and Spanish and no across-language relations. There were significant concurrent across-language relations between English and Spanish reading comprehension skills. These findings suggest that the contribution of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension is language specific but that there are also language general components to reading comprehension, which result in significant concurrent relations between reading comprehension skill across languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate the use of Visible Vowels to detect formant and durational differences between L2 and L1 speakers. We used a dataset that contains vowel measures from L1 speakers of French and from L2 learners of French, with Italian, Spanish and English as L1. We found that vowels that are not part of the L1 phonological system are often pronounced differently by L2 speakers. Inspired by the Native Language Magnet Theory which was introduced by Patricia Kuhl in 2000, we introduced magnet plots that relate vowels shared by the French phonological system and the learners' phonological system—the magnet vowels—to the vowels found only in the French phonological system. At a glance, it can be seen which vowels are attracted to the magnets and which vowels become further away from the magnets. When comparing vowel spaces, we found that the shape of the French vowel space of the English learners differed most from the shape of L1 speakers' vowel space. Finally, it was found that the vowel durations of the L2 speakers are greater than that of the L1 speakers of French, especially those of the English learners of French. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our Western and industrialized society, there is an increasing number of plurilingual individuals who know at least two distinct languages. Recent attention has been focused on bilingual children and how they learn to speak. A current research question that this work aims to answer is: How can we rehabilitate the language abilities of bilingual children who experience language difficulties? To address this question, this document begins with the need to analyze the texts and contents of national and international guidelines drafted by competent institutions, which are considered as the compass guiding the actions of health professionals who rehabilitate communicative and linguistic skills, namely speech and language therapists. Subsequently, a non-systematic review of the literature related to this research axis was conducted, starting from the assumption that the analysis of the available scientific evidence is needed to support and promote evidence-based clinical speech and language therapy practice. The tools, evidence, and theoretical and practical strategies available to speech therapists to increase the chances of effectively achieving rehabilitative goals were discussed. Finally, considering the state of the art and the absence of scientifically evaluated evidence in the rehabilitative care of bilingual children with language difficulties, a proposal for experimental projects was launched to the scientific community, aiming to begin building the foundations of rehabilitative proposals based on scientific evidence for the Italian speech and language therapy intervention for bilingual Italian-speaking children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional language (L2/Ln) research largely focuses on learners whose first languages are spoken and who are learning additional spoken languages. In the past few decades, sign languages have become increasingly popular for hearing students in schools. These students must not only learn the vocabulary and grammar of sign languages but also manage a different modality (that is, the channels of production and reception of language) than their first language. This raises questions about the role of both language and modality in the L2/Ln learning of sign languages for non‐signers. In other cases, deaf and hearing signers of a sign language learn a different sign language, raising questions about L2/Ln learning in the signed modality. This Special Issue consists of empirical contributions and a conceptual review article that examine how language and modality shape the learning of sign languages as additional languages. Theoretical issues concerning learning a sign language as another language are discussed. A one‐page Accessible Summary in English and a Video Summary in American Sign Language of this article in non‐technical language are freely available in the Supporting Information online and at https://oasis‐database.org [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language transfer is one of the most significant aspects of cross-linguistic influence. It can be divided into two types: positive and negative, the beneficial and detrimental use of one language's acquired characteristics in another. This study aims to investigate the L1 (Chinese) influence on Hong Kong ESL learners' acquisition of conjunctions and whether the use of L1 has an impact on this influence. An online questionnaire combining questions about students' English learning experience and a grammatical judgement task was sent to a government-funded secondary school in Hong Kong and completed by 79 students. Evidence of both positive and negative transfer from Chinese to English was found by testing six conjunctions or conjunction pairs: although...but, because...so, not only...but also, either...or, neither...nor, and despite. The results suggest that Chinese is likely to have an impact on students' acquisition of conjunctions, and the use of Chinese in English classes can worsen negative transfer and boost positive transfer. The degree of transfer might increase when more Chinese is used in class. To alleviate the impact of Chinese transfer and to provide more effective L2 teaching, monitoring the use of L1 and regular evaluation might be useful. Teachers can also adjust the amount of Chinese used according to the students' English proficiency level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract Speaking constitutes one of the main goals of learning a second language (L2). Despite the increasing attention on the role of planning and language transfer in L2 learning, the combined effect of using different languages and pre-task planning on language production remains unclear. This study investigated whether the use of different languages in planning affects speaking performance and whether the effect differs by language proficiency. A total of 84 students in Chinese universities learning English as a foreign language participated in several speaking tasks after planning using their first language (L1) Chinese or L2 English. Findings showed that using L1 in planning results in significantly higher syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency in speaking performance than using L2 in planning, while the difference in lexical diversity were not statistically significant. Further analysis shows that for speech accuracy, the facilitative effect of L1 was stronger among low-proficient than high-proficient learners. Findings from this study support the use of L2 learners’ entire linguistic repertoire in speaking activities and provides implications on speech production theories as well as translanguaging pedagogies.

Speaking constitutes one of the main goals of learning a second language (L2). Despite the increasing attention on the role of planning and language transfer in L2 learning, the combined effect of using different languages and pre-task planning on language production remains unclear. This study investigated whether the use of different languages in planning affects speaking performance and whether the effect differs by language proficiency. A total of 84 students in Chinese universities learning English as a foreign language participated in several speaking tasks after planning using their first language (L1) Chinese or L2 English. Findings showed that using L1 in planning results in significantly higher syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency in speaking performance than using L2 in planning, while the difference in lexical diversity were not statistically significant. Further analysis shows that for speech accuracy, the facilitative effect of L1 was stronger among low-proficient than high-proficient learners. Findings from this study support the use of L2 learners' entire linguistic repertoire in speaking activities and provides implications on speech production theories as well as translanguaging pedagogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Glottotheory is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This document summarizes a study on the acquisition of attributive adjectives in L3 English by Arabic-Persian and Persian-Arabic bilingual learners. The study compares three groups of learners and analyzes their performances on two tasks. The results indicate that the dominant language of communication has a significant impact on transfer effects, with Persian facilitating transfer and Arabic not facilitating transfer. The study suggests that teachers should be aware of language similarities and differences to address potential difficulties in L3 learning. The document also provides a list of references to research articles on L3 acquisition, covering topics such as dominant languages, syntactic transfer, cognitive states, and specific linguistic features. [Extracted from the article]

Referential processing relies on similar cognitive functions across languages – in particular, working memory. However, this has only been investigated in spoken languages with highly similar referential systems. In contrast to spoken languages, American Sign Language (ASL) uses a spatial referential system. It is unknown whether the referential system of ASL (L1) impacts referential processing in English (L2). This cross-language impact may be of particular importance for deaf, bimodal bilinguals who sign in ASL and read in English. Self-paced reading times of pronouns in English texts were compared between ASL–English bimodal bilinguals and Chinese–English unimodal bilinguals. The results showed that L1 referential characteristics influenced pronoun reading time in L2. Furthermore, in contrast to Chinese–English bilinguals, ASL–English bilinguals' referential processing during reading of English texts relied on vocabulary knowledge – not working memory. These findings emphasize the need to expand current theories of referential processing to include more diverse types of language transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the field of second language acquisition has witnessed a noticeable surge in the significance of language transfer research. This current study conducted a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of language transfer research within the time frame spanning 2012 to 2023, focusing on the primary research trends and hotspots. A dataset comprising 1259 documents, sourced from the Web of Science (WOS) was collected and subjected to meticulous analysis through the combined utilisation of the Statistical Analysis Toolkit for Informetrics 4.0 (SATI) software and VOSviewer. The findings shed light on the developmental trajectory, current status, and future trends in language transfer research, offering valuable insights for further research directions and pertinent recommendations. This study holds particular significance for practitioners in the field of language education, offering a comprehensive comprehension of the contemporary landscape of language transfer. Furthermore, its implications extend to the realm of research methodology, rendering valuable guidance for the application and utility of visualisation techniques within the sphere of language transfer exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to investigate trends in academic L1 Swedish and L2 English reading comprehension ability among Swedish adolescents, with a specific focus on 18- to 20-year-olds in the period 2012–2018. The material consists of results from regular tests and anchor tests in the spring administrations of the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test (SweSAT) 2012–2018, allowing an analysis of trends in reading comprehension ability among a subset of the adolescent population. The results show two highly significant but opposite trends, with a substantial decrease in academic Swedish reading comprehension and an equally substantial increase in academic English reading comprehension. The results are discussed from the perspective of a changing media landscape, and related to results of the PISA-studies as well as to research on extramural English in Swedish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of our study is to present the issues of second language acquisition. It is an interdisciplinary scientific field that tries to point out the processes that accompany the learning of each additional language (after the first, mother tongue). Special attention is devoted to the role of the first language in relation to second language acquisition, and we juxtapose various perspectives – from accepting the statement that first language influence on the second one is minimal, to the concept of first language influence on the second one in the form of linguistic transfer, which is also the reason for occurrence of a number of errors in the acquisition process. The influence of the first language on the acquisition and afterwards on the use of the second language can be positive, negative, or even zero. Positive influence is manifested by the fact that the practical and theoretical knowledge from the mother tongue, the language habits and skills facilitate the process of acquisition and usage of the next language as a communication tool. Negative influence is manifested at all language levels though the so-called negative transfer or interference – these are the errors occurring as a result of the influence of the first language on the second, and having the characteristics of the first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of Hindi/Urdu on Czech in advanced Hindi/Urdu L1 speakers of Czech as a second language. At present, dozens of Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers enroll in Czech language courses in India every year, and thousands of Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers live in the Czech Republic and have acquired Czech at various levels of proficiency. The objective of this paper is to provide first empirically based insights for teachers of Czech as a foreign/second language to Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers in India and in the Czech Republic. This study analyzes language production of 10 Hindi/ Urdu L1 speakers who have lived long-term in the Czech Republic. The analysis is based on recordings of informal conversations. The obtained linguistic data was compared with standard grammar descriptions of Hindi/Urdu and Czech in order to perform error analysis. With the help of contrastive analysis, errors caused by language transfer were identified and categorized according to the following language domains: phonetics and phonology, and morphosyntax.

Copyright of Literatura y Lingüística is the property of Universidad Catolica Cardenal Raul Silva Henriquez and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Collocational competence is of critical importance to EFL learners' language proficiency. Due to limited research on L1 influence on L2 learners' development of receptive and productive knowledge of adjective + noun collocations, especially in the context of Vietnam, this study is an attempt to address these gaps by investigating whether Vietnamese learners could recognize and use congruent English adjective + noun collocations more accurately than incongruent ones. Data were collected from 72 English-major undergraduates in a Vietnamese university who completed three types of collocational tests: the Receptive Knowledge Test, the Productive Knowledge Test, and the paragraph-writing test. Results showed that, in contrast to language transfer theory, congruent collocations posed considerably more problems for the students in identifying the well-formed lexical combinations and using them accurately in writing. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly teaching congruent and incongruent collocations in EFL classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Chinese Language Teaching is the property of Clifford Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study "לאֹֹא כִִכי and Mishnaic Hebrew Interference to Biblical Hebrew" examines the use of the sequence "לאֹ כִּי" in biblical Hebrew. The study shows that the Masoretic vocalization and accentuation accurately reflect the syntax of "לאֹ כִּי". It is noted that the two expressions could have different meanings and that the Masoretic vocalization may not reflect the original reading. It is suggested that Mishnaic Hebrew may have influenced the vocalization. It is emphasized that further research is needed to clarify the exact meaning and origin of these expressions. [Extracted from the article]

• Spanish phonological awareness and concepts about print predict English decoding. • Spanish phonological awareness and English vocabulary predict reading comprehension. • Phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading. • Vocabulary knowledge has a language-specific benefit to reading comprehension. • In bilinguals, the reading gap associated with early oral skills narrows over time. Despite substantial research, the contribution of oral language skills acquired in Spanish to Spanish–English bilingual children's acquisition of English reading skill is unclear. The current study addressed this question with data on the oral language and pre-literacy skills of 101 Spanish–English bilingual learners at 5 years of age and their English word reading (i.e., decoding) and reading comprehension skills at 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years. Separate multilevel models using English language, Spanish language, and pre-literacy skills as predictors of these outcomes identified English phonological awareness, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts of print knowledge as positive predictors of word reading. A final model including all these significant predictors found only Spanish phonological awareness and concept of print to be significant predictors. Significant predictors of reading comprehension in separate models were English vocabulary, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts about print. In the final model, only English vocabulary and Spanish phonological awareness predicted English reading comprehension. These findings provide evidence that phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading across languages, consistent with the common underlying proficiency model of bilingual reading development. The finding that only English vocabulary predicts English reading comprehension suggests that vocabulary knowledge is not part of a common underlying proficiency but is language specific in its value to reading ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the effects of multilingual reading with students studying several foreign languages. The importance of this study is determined by the search for better practices leading to the incorporation of all language experience of the students when proceeding with a new language. Multilingual reading is defined as a skill aiming at simultaneous perception and comprehension of several written texts in different languages translated from one authentic text. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the potential of multilingual reading in the formation of metacognitive strategies of comparison, transfer and code switching in the process of studying French and English after Russian (the students‟ native tongue). The paper examines the causes of referring to reading as a universal language skill for the enrichment of the students‟ repertoire of multilingual activities; the goals of multilingual reading; existing approaches to reading in a foreign language which have led to the idea of multilingual reading. The conclusion is drawn that to implement multilingual reading a certain level of mastery of a language under study is expected. Multilingual reading is best for incorporating into the language teaching after second foreign language is introduced. This is the time when a student is considered to be a sophisticated reader in his / her native tongue and first foreign language. The main goal of multilingual reading is to form the students‟ metacognitive strategies of comparison, transfer and code switching. The most appropriate literary genre for starting multilingual reading is popular science. Relative simplicity of its structural organization allows the readers to comprehend its meaning avoiding difficulties of reading a work of fiction full of specific stylistic devices. Besides, popular science incorporates features of science, colloquial, journalistic and feature literature styles. All things considered, popular science becomes a universal tool of multilingual reading.

With bilingual children, intervention for speech sound disorders must consider both of the child's phonological systems, which are known to interact with each other in development. Further, cross-linguistic generalization following intervention for bilingual children with speech sound disorders (i.e. the impact of treatment in one language on the other) has been documented to varying degrees in some prior studies. However, none to date have documented the cross-linguistic impact of treatment with complex targets (e.g. consonant clusters) for bilingual children. Because complex phonological targets have been shown to induce system-wide generalization within a single language, the potential for bilingual children to generalize learning across languages could impact the efficiency of intervention in this population. This pilot intervention study examines the system-wide, cross-linguistic effects of treatment targeting consonant clusters in Spanish for two Spanish--English bilingual children with phonological disorder. Treatment was provided with 40-minute sessions in Spanish via teletherapy, three times per week for six weeks. Comprehensive phonological probes were administered in English and Spanish prior to intervention and across multiple baselines. Pre-intervention data were compared to data from probes administered during and after intervention to generate qualitative and quantitative measures of treatment outcomes and cross-linguistic generalization. Results indicate a medium effect size for system-wide generalization in Spanish (the language of treatment) and English (not targeted in treatment), for both participants (mean effect size in Spanish: 3.6; English 4.3). These findings have implications for across-language transfer and system-wide generalization in treatment for bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of the use of demonstratives in isiZulu (izabizwana zokukhomba) has shown that they go beyond the known deictic functions of demonstratives as used in other languages like English. In isiZulu, demonstratives tend to also denote specificity, a function normally performed by the definite article in English. This article, therefore, compares the functions of articles in English to those of demonstratives in isiZulu, with the aim to demonstrate the similarities in terms of use between the two languages. This added function of demonstratives, it is argued, may account for some of the errors in English second language learners’ use of articles, as evidenced by data from written exercises of learners whose first language is isiZulu. The findings suggest that second language learners of English tend to confuse articles because of the differences between the two languages, especially during their (learners’) interlanguage stage. Contribution: The article highlights a significant difference in the use of demonstratives between English and isiZulu due to the added function of specificity in isiZulu demonstrative (isabizwana sokukhomba) which is performed by the definite article in English. It also demonstrates how, without an article system, isiZulu can convey meaning like any language with an article system.

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study compares transfer from Dutch to German by native Dutch speakers who learned German as a second language (forward transfer: L1 to L2) and by native German speakers who are living in the Netherlands (reverse transfer: L2 to L1). The aim of this comparison is to see whether both groups experience the same kind of transfer (i.e., transferring the Dutch preference for prepositional phrases in the postfield position to German) and whether the extent of transfer depends on their language use. Design/methodology/approach: We compiled a corpus (2,908,154 words) consisting of German e-mails written by native Dutch speakers (n = 21) and native German speakers living in the Netherlands (n = 9). In addition, speakers filled in the BLP (bilingual language profile) test. Data and analysis: The corpus was analyzed for the speakers' placement of prepositional phrases, and we linked their answers on the BLP test to their language use in the corpus data. Findings/conclusions: Our data show that the native Dutch speakers use the postfield position more frequently in their German than the native German speakers do. Besides, for both groups, the postfield use was related to the speakers' use of Dutch as well as German varieties that are influenced by Dutch. Originality: This study directly compares forward and reverse transfer using a large corpus of written German texts, and it links both types of transfer to the speakers' language use. In doing so, the study shows that the mechanism of entrenchment is likely to underlie transfer in both cases. Significance/implications: The results of this study are in line with a usage-based approach: there is extensive individual variation between speakers regarding their extent of transfer, which partly can be attributed to the speakers' language use, both in the case of forward and reverse transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study puts the usage-based assumption that our linguistic knowledge is based on usage to the test. To do so, we explore individual variation in speakers' language use as established based on corpus data – both in terms of frequency of use (as a proxy for entrenchment) and productivity of use (as a proxy for schematization) – and link this variation to the same participants' responses in an experimental judgment task. The empirical focus is on transfer by native German speakers living in the Netherlands, who oftentimes experience transfer from their second language Dutch to their native language German regarding the placement of prepositional phrases. The analyses show a large amount of variation in both the corpus and experimental data with a strong link across data types: individual speakers' usage – but not the usage by other speakers – is a significant predictor for the speakers' judgments. These results strongly suggest that, in line with a usage-based approach, variation between speakers in experimental tasks is linked to their variation in usage. At the same time, such usage-based predictions do not explain all of the variation, suggesting that other individual factors are also at play in such experimental tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The school should aim to educate people competent in oral communication, including linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic knowledge of the language. Therefore, this research offers an analysis of how the language books of the EKI project develop the oral expression in primary education. In addition, an analysis was made on whether activities are proposed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge related to oral communication between languages. The results show that the teaching materials developed by the EKI project offer different types of activities to work on oral expression in the three languages. However, in the field of orality, there is not enough coordination between the three languages to promote knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our work explores the differences between GRU-based and transformer-based approaches in the context of sentiment analysis on text dialog. In addition to the overall performance on the downstream task, we assess the knowledge transfer capabilities of the models by applying a thorough zero-shot analysis at task level, and on the cross-lingual performance between five European languages. The ability to generalize over different tasks and languages is of high importance, as the data needed for a particular application may be scarce or non existent. We perform evaluations on both known benchmark datasets and a novel synthetic dataset for dialog data, containing Romanian call-center conversations. We study the most appropriate combination of synthetic and real data for fine-tuning on the downstream task, enabling our models to perform in low-resource environments. We leverage the informative power of the conversational context, showing that appending the previous four utterances of the same speaker to the input sequence has the greatest benefit on the inference performance. The cross-lingual and cross-task evaluations have shown that the transformer-based models possess superior transfer abilities to the GRU model, especially in the zero-shot setting. Considering its prior intensive fine-tuning on multiple labeled datasets for various tasks, FLAN-T5 excels in the zero-shot task experiments, obtaining a zero-shot accuracy of 51.27% on the IEMOCAP dataset, alongside the classical BERT that obtained the highest zero-shot accuracy on the MELD dataset with 55.08%. • Context modeling for sentiment analysis in dialog systems. • Assess task transfer capabilities. • Assess language transfer capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even advanced Spanish speakers of second language Englishtend to confuse the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’, often withouteven noticing their mistake (Lahoz, 1991). A study by Antón-Méndez (2010) has indicated that a possible reason for this er-ror is the fact that Spanish is a pro-drop language. In order totest this hypothesis, we used an extension of Dual-path (Chang,2002), a computational cognitive model of sentence produc-tion, to simulate two models of bilingual speech production ofsecond language English. One model had Spanish (ES) as anative language, whereas the other learned a Spanish-like lan-guage that used the pronoun at all times (non-pro-drop Span-ish, NPD_ES). When tested on L2 English sentences, the bilin-gual pro-drop Spanish model produced significantly more gen-der pronoun errors, confirming that pronoun dropping couldindeed be responsible for the gender confusion in natural lan-guage use as well.