The Interference of First Language and Second Language Acquisition

Ali Derakhshan

Department of English Language and Literature, Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran

Elham Karimi

Department of English Language Teaching, Gorgan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Gorgan, Iran;

Department of English Language Teaching, Golestan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Gorgan,Iran.

The language which is acquired during early childhood starting before the age of about 3 years is first language. First language has different names such as, mother tongue, native language and primary language. First language acquisition is the first  language that we recognized  before another language or commonly we called it home language. Every people took a long period in this learning process, they have to  follow every step of learning their  first language simultaneously with their age. In the last step, they may communicate fluently in all context by using their first language. The individual may  have an accent and use idiomatic expression and grammatical , when  they can create a success communication by using their first language, so this is what we called acquisition.

             Second language acquisition is the next language that learned by people after their first language or home language. Second language has many differents patterns with the first language. This differentiation, makes low the acquisition of second language learners because of the interference of learner first language.

First language influence may  be an indicator of low acquisition, or the result of the performer attempting to produce before having acquired enough of the target language. It is not surprisingly, found most often in foreign language, as opposed to second language situations. A learner has difficulties in second language such as phonology, vocabulary and grammar due to the interference of habits from L1 and L2 (Beardsmore, 1982).Those errors that occur in learning debate in second language cause interference which are categorized asfollows:1. Developmental errors: the errors that are not related to learner’s first language.2.Ambiguous errors: the errors that involve interference and developmental errors. Interference is the result of old habits of the firstlanguage, and it must be unlearned before the learning of the new hobbits of second language (Dualy, Burt, &Krashen,1982).

            The learner of second language tend to transfer the forms, meaning and culture of their L1 to the foreign language and culture when attempting to speak the language. when negative transfer occurs, we can study learners with different native language and compare them to find out the effect of L1 in learning a second language. First language can be considered as a tool for language acquisition to solve learning and communication problems.

Source  :  437-1706-1-PB (3)pdf