In Support of the Full Transfer Hypothesis: The realization of Direct Objects in the Sentence Production of Russian L2 Learners of English

Abstract

Russian L2 learners of English have to deal with a language which differs significantly from their L1 and thus they can be expected to use transfer. English and Russian use different strategies of marking definiteness/givenness. In the Russian language it is common that the sentence elements which represent given information move into the preverbal position. Russian can also mark givenness through subject and object omissions, which are usually ungrammatical in English. The English language marks definiteness/givenness and indefiniteness by the use of articles. Russian is an article-less language and thus L2 English learners usually find the acquisition of article system very challenging.

The objective of the present study is to investigate the realization of direct objects of Russian L2 English learners whose language competence is estimated as beginners. I will focus on both target ways of marking new and given objects such as correct article use and non-target ways such as transfer of SOV word order and direct object omissions.

The main working hypothesis is Full Transfer/Full Access model which suggests that L2 learners start out with the assumption that L1 = L2. In other words, while acquiring English as an L2, L1 Russian learners should use ways of marking direct objects as given and new that are appropriate in their L1.

The present study is based on Mykhaylyk’s experiment (2012, 2013) investigating object scrambling in child and adult Ukrainian. Apart from scrambling the experiment was aimed to investigate direct object drop and the article use of the participants.