Interplay between Forward and Backward Transfer in L2 and L1 Writing: The Case of Chinese ESL Learners in the US^1

Abstract

This paper focuses on the issue of language transfer in an L2 environment. Research has shown that forward transfer from L1 to L2 appears at early stages and decreases as L2 proficiency increases. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that backward transfer from L2 to L1 may occur in an L2 environment in which subsequent contact to L2 is limited or in an L2 academic community in which confirming evidence that L1 syntax is correct is lacking. The study of this paper investigates Chinese and Spanish learners across three English proficiency levels, who wrote in L1 and L2 at U.S. graduate schools. All participants completed sentence and discourse tasks. It is found that forward transfer occurred in the Chinese learners' L2 writing at the discourse level and that backward transfer occurred in their L1 writing at the sentence level. Moreover, both forward transfer and backward transfer are mitigated by L2 proficiency. Furthermore, among the Level 2 Chinese learners, the relationship between forward transfer and L2 proficiency in the English sentence task follows a U-shaped curve, and the relationship between backward transfer and L2 proficiency in the Chinese sentence task also follows a U-shaped curve. The results of this study point to the complexity of language transfer and its interactions with L2 proficiency and distinctive task types.