Language transfer: a useful or pernicious concept?

Abstract

Westergaard’s microcue account raises the question of the exact nature of language transfer in the acquisition of languages as well of how L1/Ln input interacts with the principles of universal grammar (UG) during processing. In order to consider in more detail the actual representation building, processing mechanisms that would be involved, her approach will be spelled out in terms of the Modular Cognition Framework (see Sharwood Smith, 2017; Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2014; Truscott and Sharwood Smith, 2004, 2019). As well as identifying the way in which microcues would be constructed, this analysis in particular will have the effect of undermining the concept underlying the transfer metaphor as a way of characterizing crosslinguistic influence.