Native Language Interference : A study of interference patterns in Swedish students' English writing

Abstract: Abstract Titel: Native Language Interference: A study of interference patterns in Swedish students’ English writing. Författare: Skoog, Petra Engelska C, 2006 Abstract: The purpose of this investigation was to find out if there are any patterns of native language interference in Swedish students’ written English. Extensive research has been carried out in the area of native language influence on the target language and a large number of terms are used when the influence of the native language is discussed, including contrastive analysis and positive and negative transfer. These are described in the theoretical background section of this study. The material for the empirical investigation was collected from students in year eight at a secondary school. They were given a task consisting in free essay writing, so that a general picture of interference problems would emerge. 42 essays were handed in, containing about 201 interference errors. The total number of non-interference errors found in the students’ essays was 1115 and this suggests that interference errors are not especially common among the students in my investigation. The errors committed due to interference mainly concerned the use of prepositions. One conclusion that can be drawn from this investigation is that it is very difficult to determine the source of errors and separate between errors in general and interference errors. Nyckelord: Foreign language learning, native language influence, errors, interference.