A Corpus-based Study of Syntactic Transfer by Italian learners of English

Abstract The central topic of this thesis is the phenomenon of transfer. This aspect of Linguistics has given rise to numerous controversies due both to the term itself and to its definition and validity. For this reason in the first chapter I will provide a brief overview of the different perspectives from which transfer can be considered. A summary of the numerous theories regarding the phenomenon and different definitions will be also provided. In the second chapter I will make a comparison of some elements of the English and Italian syntactic system and develop an hypothesis of transfer from Italian to English. This hypothesis will be verified in the third chapter. The second chapter also includes a description of the nature of the learner corpus used for the research and the methods of research. The third chapter includes the results of the research. In order to verify the presence of transfer in the written production of Italian students I anlaysed the texts of the Italian sub-corpus of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). The transfer errors which I decided to concentrate on are those linked to subject omission and wrong word order. The research has been carried out manually and it is limited to the influence of the native language (Italian) on the target language (English).