False friends in english for spanish-speaking students of english
- Autores: Salvador Insa Sales
- Localización: Fòrum de Recerca, ISSN-e 1139-5486, Nº. 4, 1998, págs. 165-170
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
False friends are words in a target language (L2) whose signifier is similar to (or identical with) the signifier of one or more words in the student�s native language (L1) because they derive from a common etymon. Students normally take it for granted that these similarities also occur at the plane of the signified but, unfortunately, this is not always so. The result of all this process is that semantic features from one word in L1 are ascribed to its cognate in L2.
Some of the reasons why natives of a given language establish a wrong identification between words in L1 and L2 escape all sort of scientific analysis, as Holmes et al (1993) have shown;
others, however, can be explained on linguistic grounds. Among the former we can mention the context or the personal mental associations of SSE, bearing as high a degree of arbitrariness as the nature of the linguistic sign itself. This paper deals mainly with the latter, which are the result of morphological, syntactic and lexical processes.
All throughout this paper, Spanish is L1 and English, L2. The subjects taking part in the learning process are supposed to be Spanish-speaking students of English (SSE, henceforth). Likewise, it should be stated that the communication aimed at is the written level.
In the following lines I shall intend to study how morphology, syntax and lexis start the process of false friendship. Each discipline is devoted a whole section.
