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Title

Prior language learning: an advantage when learning a foreign language?

Author(s)

Chen, Lee;  Tempone, Irene

Abstract

Intemational students are seriously disadvantaged by having to leam a foreign language through the medium of another imperfectly mastered foreign language. The frequency and type of errors made in written texts by Australian students whose mother tongue is English with a comparable cohort of Chinese students whose mother tongue is a dialect of Chinese and who lack a near-native level of competence in English, are examined to assess this. The frequency and type of syntactic errors are compared for the two cohorts of students. The data are derived from the written components of the end of the year test administered to first year students of Japanese at one of Melboume's universities. The texts are analysed within the framework of interlingual interference, intralingual interference, developmental and induced categories.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. School of Business

Source

Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Western Decision Sciences Institute, Kauai, Hawaii, United States, 15-19 April 2003, pp. 317-319

Publication year

2003

Keyword(s)

Australian students;  Chinese students;  English language;  Foreign language;  International students;  Japanese language;  Language learning;  Mother tongue;  Written texts

Publisher

Western Decision Sciences Institute

Publisher URL

http://www.wdsinet.org/

Copyright

Copyright © 2003 Lee Chen and Irene Tempone. Published version reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Full text

Peer reviewed