The Role Of L1 Influence On the Learning Of a Target Language In a Non Target Language Environment

In recent studies on the acquisition of a second or foreign language in a non target language environment, environmental factors such as lack of native peer input, a formal language learning situation and pressure on the learner to produce the required target language structures have been considered to have attributed to a high incidence of L1 induced or interlingual errors.

In order to investigate this problem, I collected spontaneous speech samples from some eighty francophone students enrolled at the Faculté de Sciences Economiques and the Ecole de Solvay who were learning English at the Institut de Phonétique at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The data represented two levels of learning, the first degree level when students entered the course and the third degree level which marked the end of the course. My hypothesis was that given a difference in emphasis within the TL syllabus from that of TL forms (communicative English) to that of TL content (business English) and given also that the same methodological approach was adopted with native teacher input and optimal corrective feedback, students might progress beyond Ll-induced to somewhere approximating TL rule formation.

The error samples were broken down into categories representing syntax, word order, morphology, semantic concepts and lexis. They were examined and compared across levels for examples of interlingual (Ll-induced) and organisational (non Ll-induced) errors.

An anamysis of the data indicated a decrease in interlingual errors but an increase in organisa-tional errors at the third degree level, suggesting the existence of a continuum that accommodates possibilities of fossilization due to lack of native peer input. My data also suggested the role of L1 in its influence on the formation of semantic concepts in TL and in organising, comparing and hypothesizing lexical domains in the two languages.