Orthographic crosslinguistic influence on third language pronunciation : a case of advanced students reading for a BA degree in English

Abstract EN

This paper is a contribution to the recent rationalist, multidimensional, and multidirectional trend in explaining the notion of language transfer, now “crosslinguistic influence”, as a conscious problem solving process rather than as an unconscious and mechanistic operation.

It also provides support to those who believe that the role of a second language is no less important in shaping the learner's interlanguage.

This is done through analysing some of the pronunciation errors of three groups of BA students of English: those that are the result of an orthographic crosslinguistic influence from French, their second standard language after Arabic.