The role of morphological similarity in lexical activation and unintentional transfer

Abstract

Aims: Within the current multilingual paradigm shift, transfer is increasingly conceptualised not only as an unintentional mechanism of “interference”, but also as an intentional mechanism used as a learner strategy. However, very little is known from an empirical perspective about (un)intentionality in transfer. This article builds on an exploratory study which suggested that background language words that fit well within the morphological constraints of the target language are highly activated during target language use and, consequently, likely to transfer unintentionally. The present study tests whether the correlation between morphological similarity and unintentionality in lexical transfer is statistically significant Methodology: A quasi-Poisson regression analysis was employed to test the significance of morphological similarity on the amount of unintentional transfer in the written production of Spanish by 78 highly multilingual school students, when tested together with additional variables (number of languages known, proficiency in the target and source languages, frequency of use, first language/second language status and psychotypology) that have also been proposed to affect lexical activation and transfer. Data and analysis: A picture-story description task was used to elicit written transfer. When a learner reported – introspectively or retrospectively – a word to have been transferred from a background language, this word was coded as an instance of intentional transfer. Reversely, non-target-like words traced back to a background language by the authors that were not commented on by the learner were coded as instances of unintentional transfer. Findings: A strongly significant ( p < 0.001), positive correlation was found between the amount of unintentional transfer and morphological similarity. A negative trend ( p < 0.1) was also found between amount of unintentional transfer and number of languages known by learners. Theoretical implications are discussed. Originality: This is one of few studies shedding light on (un)intentionality in transfer. It is also one of few studies to employ regression analysis to investigate the effect of several variables on transfer. Significance: The study provides empirical evidence to substantiate theoretical accounts of lexical activation. First, the results show that morphological similarity indeed seems to be the primary variable leading to high levels of cross-lexical activation and, second, the results show how highly activated words are more likely to be transferred unintentionally, further supporting these theoretical accounts.

Research on foreign language learning, teaching, and assessment in Sweden 2012–2021

“…These are almost always studied after English, and in some cases also after another Romance language, which makes it possible to investigate the role that typology and other factors play in CLI. Recent studies of this field are Fuster and Neuser (2020) on intentional and unintentional transfer in adult multilingual learners of Catalan in Sweden, and Fuster and Neuser (2021) on the role of morphological similarity for transfer in multilingual learners of Spanish in Swedish upper secondary school.…”

“…There are a few studies on multilingual classrooms (see e.g., Fuster & Neuser, 2021;Gunnarsson, 2015;Källkvist et al, 2017Källkvist et al, , 2021, and it is likely that this is a burgeoning theme suffering from some lag, considering the influence of the 'multilingual turn' (May, 2013). Much research has been done on the role of the background languages in L3 learning during the period, but then mainly considering L1 Swedish and English and MLs as L2s.…”

Translanguaging in Sweden: A Critical Review from an International Perspective

“…Raising students' (cross)linguistic awareness is the most emphasised strategy by Cenoz and Gorter and refers to planning didactic activities that 'highlight the [similarities and differences] between languages […] so as to enhance linguistic awareness' (Cenoz & Gorter, 2011, p. 360). The idea is to 'activate […] the pre-existing knowledge that students have in their multilingual repertoire' (Cenoz & Gorter, 2022a, p. 43) 'by comparing elements of their different languages […] at different levels (phonetic, lexical, morphosyntactic, pragmatic, discursive)' (Cenoz & Gorter, 2023, p. 191), helping them transfer knowledge across languages (see Fuster, 2022a;Fuster & Neuser, 2021, for discussions of the notion of transfer in pedagogical translanguaging, and Bardel, 2019, for pedagogical implications of transfer models) (see also Cenoz & Gorter, 2014, p. 248, for an example with French and Basque).…”