The Potential Influence of Crosslinguistic Similarity on Lexical Transfer: Examining Vocabulary Use in L2 English
Learners’ native language (L1) influences their knowledge and use of second language (L2) vocabulary, a phenomenon known as lexical transfer. Past research on this shows that learners’ L1 influences their L2 word choices, and that lexical similarity—which relates to cognancy—between L1 words and their L2 counterparts facilitates the processing of the L2 words, particularly during the early stages of L2 acquisition, and makes speakers more likely to use the L2 words in spontaneous productions. To extend past research, the present research investigates whether crosslinguistic similarity influences L2 vocabulary use in a task-based, English-as-a-foreign language educational setting. Specifically, it investigates whether increased similarity between languages as a whole increases L2 lexical diversity, and whether increased similarity between L1 words and their L2 counterparts increases the use of the L2 words. It investigates this using two matching learner samples, containing 8,500 and 6,390 English texts, written in response to 95 and 71 tasks, by speakers of 9 typologically diverse L1s, in the A1–B2 CEFR range of L2 proficiency. Surprisingly, lexical similarity between the L1 and the L2 as a whole did not influence L2 lexical diversity, regardless of learners’ L2 proficiency. Likewise, lexical similarity between corresponding L1-L2 words did not influence the use of the L2 words, again regardless of L2 proficiency. Conversely, there were strong task effects on both L2 lexical diversity and L2 word choice. These findings show that the facilitative effect of crosslinguistic lexical similarity (especially the cognate facilitation effect) is constrained, and suggest that communicative needs and other task effects can override positive lexical transfer. This highlights the role of situational factors in crosslinguistic influence, and raises questions regarding when and how these and similar factors can override language transfer, for example when it comes to different types of transfer (e.g., positive vs. negative, or lexical vs. syntactic). In addition, this research contains substantial insights into related topics, such as the developmental patterns of L2 lexical diversity, accounting for task effects in language assessment, measuring crosslinguistic distance, and using online platforms to develop language corpora.
crosslinguistic influence, language transfer, lexical transfer, word choice transfer, cognate facilitation effect, second language acquisition, English as a foreign language (EFL), vocabulary, language distance, lexical similarity, lexical diversity, corpus linguistics, learner corpus, data curation
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