Influence of Learner’s First Language on Second Language Development.doc

外文文献： Influence of Learner’s First Language on Second Language Development Liu Shuyan （School of Foreign Languages, Beihang University, Beijing 100191） Abstract: A significant relation can be detected between the first language and the second language and some researchers mention that the closer the second language is to the first language, the easier it is. The effects played by the first language do exist during the course when learners acquire their second language. The relation between the first language and the second language has been explored in this article from two aspects: the possible effects of first language orthographic features influences on word recognition processing in English as a second language and the phonological system of first language constraints second language learners’ ability of produce the sound of the target language especially in the early period of learning. Key words: the first language (L1)；the second language (L2)；orthographic features；phonological system；behaviorist learning theory. It is popular belief that second language acquisition is strongly influenced by the learner’s first language. The role of the first language in the learning of second language draws not only the attention of the foreign language learning research, but the second language teaching research. Beebe (1988:15-39) points out that there lies the significant relation between the mother tongue and the second language and he argues that we are inclined to assume that the nearer the second language is to our first language, the easier it is. For example, a Frenchman about to learn Italian has a very different character from that encountered by a Hungarian learns English. French and Italian are cognate or sister languages; English and Hungarian are not even relative with each other. French and Italian are very similar in structure, and by far the greater part of their vocabularies bear strong resemblances. To a certain extent one may conclude that it is possible