Transfer of Native Language——A Minor Role in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

This essay deals with the long controversial issue of whether transfer of native language has a major or minor role in the second language acquisition.Based on a brief introduction of all the literature regarding the language transfer in SLA and investigated through a deeper look into the main theories on the role of native language,the essay points out that the role of transfer of NL is evidently far from being as definite or dominant as it is supposed to be.The essay asserts that language universals but not the NL facts were found to play the leading role in the transfer.It holds that Universal Grammars are functioning in determining where language transfer occurs,and thus comes to its conclusion that the role of transfer from NL is inferior to that of UG in SLA,which explains why among second language learners there has been a remarkable common experience that language learners in the early stages will produce in the target language linguistic forms which can be related neither to their mother tongue nor to the target language.