CONCEPTUAL TRANSFER: EVIDENCE FROM TURKISH EFL STUDENTS’ USE OF SPATIAL PREPOSITIONS
KAVRAMSAL AKTARIM: İNGİLİZCE’Yİ YABANCI DİL OLARAK ÖĞRENEN TÜRK ÖĞRENCİLERİN KONUMSAL EDATLARIN KULLANIMI

Author : Burcu VAROL
Number of pages : 312-322

Abstract

This descriptive study is an attempt to understand if and how the spatial positioning of information in L1 is transferred to L2 contexts. The first aim was to discern any commonalities among the syntactic errors that learners commit and put them under certain categories. Next, the influence of the learners’ first language (Turkish) was sought on their prevalent errors in the light of Bada’s (1989) comparison of Turkish and English case system and prepositions. An analysis of errors with reference to Kırkgöz’s (2010) categorization of addition, omission and misuse errors showed that the most common error type was misuse followed by omission errors. Results suggest the transfer of the mental organization of concepts from L1 to L2 (English) complying with the Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis of Jarvis (2007).

Keywords

conceptual transfer, spatial prepositions, second language acquisition

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