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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH
perceived to be different from L1 (i.e., transferability is judged to be low, and
transfer, judged to be too risky, is inhibited). Avoidance may be conscious (strate¬
gic) or unconscious. Hebrew learners, e.g., tend to avoid English phrasal verbs,
because in Hebrew there are no phrasal verbs (Dagut and Laufer 1985, Laufer and
Eliasson 1993).
Avoidance may happen when the learner knows a certain grammatical
structure or lexical item, but has not yet fully acquired it, and being uncertain
about its use, decides to use a safe solution — a structure or an item s/he knows
well. There might be various other reasons: e.g., the word mistake is easier to
pronounce for Hungarians than the word error, and this may lead to a prefer¬
ence for the former over the latter.
The result of avoidance is differences in distribution, which may be regard¬
ed as covert errors. Strategies may also be avoided: if the learner finds that
L1-based strategies do not work very well, they will tend to avoid Ll-based
strategies (Varadi 1973/1980, Schachter 1974).
Schachter (1974) studied the use of relative clauses by Arabic, Japanese and
Chinese learners. The latter commit two or three times fewer errors than Arab
students, but use few relative clauses. The reason is that there are no parallel
structures in Japanese and Chinese, so they tend to avoid relative clauses in
English.
2.8 FOSSILISATION
The errors that result from transfer may disappear as the learner learns more of
the language. Some errors may be persistent and may occur even at higher levels
of proficiency. This is called fossilisation. Fossilisation may be caused by L1-L2
contrasts, lack of motivation to pay attention to formal correctness and various
other factors.
2.9 TASKS
1. TRANSFERABILITY OF POLYSEMOUS WORDS
Without consulting a dictionary, state which meanings of the Hungarian words
szem and tor respectively would you translate with the words eye and break
into English?
szemébe néz, szembetegség, szembogár, szemcsepp, szemérem, szemdoktor,
szemfesték, szemfog, szemgolyó, szemhéj, szemüveg, jó a szeme, szem elől téveszt,
szem előtt tart, szeme se rebben, egy szem barack, láncszem, pávaszem
megtörte a jeget, diót tör, töri a lábát cipő, töri az angolt, rátör vkire, töri a
fejét
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