MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

SRJIS / Sudesh Sharma / ( 2165- 2169 )
APRIL-MAY, 2015. VOL. II/IX www.srjis.com Page 2165
MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE
LEARNING
Sudesh Sharma, Asstt. Professor of English,
F.G.M. Govt. College, Adampur (Hisar)
Language is a method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of
arbitrarily produced symbols for physiological as well as psychological survival. In a multilingual Indian
Society, where English acts as a second language, our aim of teaching English is not to develop British or
American accent but to help the learners to overcome regional accents, wrong pronunciation and gradually
train them in proper articulation. The aim of this article is to discuss the mother tongue influence in the process
of English Language learning and how a teacher can help to overcome some of the problem encountered by an
Indian learner of English as well as to improve his/her communicative competence.
INTRODUCTION
Learning a foreign language is a growing need of hour in this age of globalization. In
fact, second language is a language acquired by a person in addition to his mother tongue.
The definition presented by Richards C.John Plott and H.Plott (1992).
“Foreign language is a language which is not a native language in a country. A
foreign language is usually studied either for communication or for reading material in the
language.”
When confronted with something new, whether it is a new food, a different kind of
music or just new information, it is natural instinct to look for similarities with things that are
familiar to us and to draw some comparison with what we know already. Consciously or
unconsciously, we bring what we know t what we do not, making it possible to learn
language without relying to some extent on our mother tongue. In fact it is humanitarian also
Abstract

to accept mother interference in learning a foreign language Studies on the interdependence
between Mother tongue and foreign language indicate a linguistic interdependence (Jessner &
Cen02,2000) with regard to multiple subsystems (phonological, syntactic, semantic and
textual).
Due to Globalization every aspect of our world is undergoing a transformation. In the
present scenario those who are well versed in English can reap its benefits, those who are not
are marginalized. The changing and fast evolving times have witnessed the growing
importance of English language in all spheres of life. Conscious and unconscious use of
English words in our everyday conversation hears evidence to this fact. As we know very
well that language learning is a great fascinated experience especially the learning of a
foreign language or Second language, but the influence of mother tongue has become very
important area and is usually referred to as „Language Interference, Transfer or Cross-lingual
Influence.” Language learning entails the successful mastery of steadily accumulating
structural entities and organizing this knowledge into coherent structures which lead to
effective communication in the target language (Rutherford, (1987)
Because of the rapidly increasing web of educational facilities, we are enjoying the
facilities of the convents. But it has neither helped in raising the level of the students nor
made them learn English as a language. In reality, Second language learners appear to
accumulate structural entities of the target language but demonstrate difficulty in organizing
this knowledge into appropriate coherent structures. There appears a significant gap between
the accumulation and the organization of knowledge. If the structure of two languages are
distinctly different, then one could expect a relatively high frequency of errors to occur in
second language learning thus indicating an interference of L1 on L2 (Dechert, 1983 and Ellis
1997). Ellis (1997:51) refers to Interference as „transfer‟ which he says is „influence that the
learner‟s L1 exerts over the acquisition of L2.‟
In the second language teaching learning context such as in India, pronunciation of the target
language is generally not given adequate importance. But it plays a pivotal role in the entire
process of language learning. It develops the communicative skills and helps the learners to
acquire a good command of the language he learners. It is normally argued that to acquire
command of a second language, a learner has to develop four basic skills listening, speaking,
reading and writing. All these four skills interact with each other and they are essential for

teaching and learning of second language. Wong (1987) is of the view that even when the
non native speaker‟s vocabulary and grammar are excellent, but their pronunciation falls
below a certain threshold level, they are unable to communicate efficiently and effectively. A
second language learner has a tendency to transfer his habits from his mother tongue to the
second language system. This transfer of L1 linguistic features to L2 is called Interlingual
Interference. This interference can be of two types.
1. Interference of the First language items with the second language items where both
possess certain similarities.
2. Interference of L1 items in L2 items which do not possess similarities. At points of
similarities between L1 and L2, the second language learner employs his L1 learning
strategies and techniques in his L2 learning. But at places of differences he faces
difficulties. So a second language teacher should be very careful in employing his
teaching strategies to help learners to overcome such difficulties.
Another difficulty hat the learners face in the production of English speech sounds. Many
English consonant sounds are different from those in Indian languages. For instance,
English (f) as in „fine‟ is a voiceless labio-dental fricative sound, but in Hindi and Bengali
sound system, there is a similar sound /ph/ which is a voiceless bilabial stop. So a Bengali
and Hindi learner of English find it difficult to learn English (f), which is a fricative
sound i.e. the active articulator (lower lip) does not touch the passive articulator (upper
teeth). Similar problems may occur in the production of English /Ɵ/ (a voiceless dental
fricative.
Apart from the difficulties encountered by an Indian learner of English in the area of
segmental phonology of English, problem may also occur at level of supra segmental
phonology. There are major differences in the use of stress and intonation between
English and an Indian language but most of the Indian languages are stress neutral
languages. Research studies are still going on to identify such areas of differences. Hence,
in the teaching learning context, the teacher should be careful to develop a kind of
functional intelligibility. Persistent efforts on the behalf of learners can help to develop
skills.

Some Suggestions:-
As we know language is a vehicle for cultural aspects. Many studies have been done
to analysis whether a teacher should use bilingual approach or monolingual approach but
generally monolingual approach has been criticized by many teachers as they find it
practically impossible. Monolingual approach neglects the student‟s naïve language influence
and cultural background but I strongly believe that use of mother tongue is very beneficial for
beginners, as they get pace in their learning the target language, it will take the desirable lead.
In fact, discovering the similarities and differences of both languages can enhance
acquisition. Auerbach believes that „when the native language is used, practioners, researches
and learners consistently report positive results.”
With the passage of time bilingual is gaining support and validation. Using L1 is not a
major issue but the problem is when and how to use it. Before using L1, a teacher must have
in his mind L1 as a mean to an end. The target language must be used where possible and L1
when necessary. In this regard, a complete strategy however is to be proactive, this means
that the teacher should actively control and influence how, when and where the mother
tongue is used. If he can do this his classes are likely to be more authentic in the same that
they reflect the neutral interplay of L1 and L2 which is inherent in Seconds language
acquisition.
So, the second language teacher should present a good model of utterance. He should
encourage the learners to speak in English as far as possible because for meaningful teaching
learning, it is essential to develop the learner‟s speaking and linguistic abilities. It emerged
during focus group discussion that the authoritative, embarrassing and humiliating attitude of
the teacher towards students, particularly when they make mistakes, can have severe
consequences on learner‟s cognition and their willingness to communicate in the class.
English Language Teaching in Indian context cannot follow the motto “One nation, One
People, One Language,” so a balanced approach should be applied and both languages can be
seen as complementary than as alternatives. It is obvious when English is used as second
language the influence of mother tongue occurs. The influence can be neutralized when the
learners are asked to inculcate certain practice in daily lifestyle.

REFERENCES:-
1. Richards, J.Platt, H. (1992). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Harlow:
Longman.
2. Cook, V. (2001). Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language
Review. 57 (3), p. 402-423.
3. Cook, V.J. (Ed.). (2002). Portraits of the L2 User. Clevedon, England: Multilingual
Matters.
4. Herdina, P. & Jessner, U.(2002). A dynamic model of multilingullism: Perspective of
change in psycholinguistic Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
5. Ellis, R (1994). The Study of Second Language acquisition. Oxford, England” Oxford
University Press.
6. Babu, A.ed.(2003). Teaching Spoken English in Colleges Volume 2. Hyderabad:CIEFL.
7. Ravindranathan, S.et.al.(2012). English for Effective Oral Communication. Chennai:
Emerald Publishers.
8. Odlin, T.(1989). Language Transfer. Cambridge:CUP.
9. Verma S.K.and Krishanswamy.(1989). Modern Linguistics. New Delhi:OUP.

MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

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MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING