This exploratory study describes microlinguistic errors in composition written by a population of forty adult students enrolled in advanced English classes in three English language teaching institutions in Dakar, Senegal. The subjects had Wolof as their L1, French as their L2 and English as their L3.The study indicates that EFL learners in this context made intralingual and transfer errors; however the latter type was predominant. Most of the borrowing was from French, very little from Wolof. Researchers have suggested as the reason for extensive negative transfer the similarity of the L2 and L3 and the necessity to get one's meaning across. This study concludes that there may be other causes of borrowing: prestige associated with tolerance of breaches and societal predilections for borrowing. Arguments for this claim are found in the native language and the culture of the population involved; it is argued that in the Senegalese situation one needs cultural, sociological and historical information to account for transfer from French as a linguistic behavior.Pedagogical implications are drawn from the findings of the study, suggestions concerning the teaching of English in contexts similar to that of Senegal are made, and avenues are suggested for future research in the area. / Department of English
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/175640 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Coulibaly, Youssoupha |
| Contributors | Ely, Christopher M. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 136 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | f-sg--- |
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