| Language transfer has been viewed as the influence of the first language on second language acquisition. But developmental influences from the incompletely and imperfectly acquired second language also affect the developing interlanguage system.; This study cross-sectionally compares transfer and developmental errors in 210 compositions written by grade 3, 4, and 5 students in a transitional bilingual education program in suburban Houston, Texas, at 6 intervals during the 1995--1996 academic year. For comparison, 280 baseline compositions were simultaneously collected from mainstream students in companion classrooms at the same school. The data corpus of 490 compositions was statistically analyzed to correlate 4 variables (gender [male, female]; class designation [bilingual, mainstream]; writing sample number [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]; and grade level [3, 4, 5] with 30 error types.; Contrary to Dulay and Burt's 1974 contention that transfer does not exist, this analysis shows it plays a significant role in the development of second language composition skills. The bilingual third graders had numerous transfer errors, although these did decrease significantly in number until the fifth grade. The most transfer errors occurred in the second writing sample, and the fewest transfer errors occurred in the last writing sample.; Among the bilingual students, transfer errors correlated significantly with grade and writing sample until grade 5, sample 6, when direct translation was the only measurable, although not significant, correlation present. This lack of correlation indicates that the achievement gap between the bilingual and mainstream students was closing. As the bilingual students progressed along the path to fluency, their errors became more like the mainstream students, developmental errors.; The parameters of morphological transfer, syntax transfer, and lexical transfer varied in significance depending upon the variables of gender, class, writing sample, and grade.; Apparently the different transfer strategies ceased to be utilized when they were no longer useful to the bilingual students. Teaching transfer strategies to bilingual students could therefore be useful in helping them reach target language norms. |
