Inteference of L1 in L2

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    Since the geniuses of the two languages, viz. Bangla, i.e., L1 and English, L2 are in manyways different externally and because english is important in the Bangladeshi contextmainly as a language for national discourse, higher studies, business, administration.When English is taught as L2, the students confront some major problem and this hinderstheir L2 learning.

    There are errors in the use of English of the Bengali speakers which are related to thelinguistic rules and aspects of Bengali language. The problem which the Bengali speakersface are given below

    1. In English, there is a marked agreement between the number and person of nounand verb. In Bangla, it is not so.Again, English follows (subject+verb+object)sentence pattern. On the other hand Bangla follows (subject+object+verb)sentence pattern. This basic difference in word order often creates errors of wrongplacement of verbs and adverbs in a sentence. In English adverbs may be placedeither before or after the main verb depending on the meaning and context for

    example, he walks slowly and he always walks slowly. In Bengali, adverbs alwayscome before the verb and if there is any adjective or noun (as object) precedingthe verb, the adverb will appear in between the subject and object. Example:(a) ami jore dourai

    I fast run.(I run fast.)

    In English, the form of the verb varies depending on the person and number of thesubject such asI eat ricebutHe eats rice. In Bengali, though the form of the verbvaries in relation to the person of the subject; no such variation occurs in relationto the number of the person. That is, in Bengali there is no morphologicalinflection of verb forms in relation to the third person singular number. Examples

    for comparisons are given below:(a)tara bhat khai.they rice eat.( they eat rice.)(b)she (/te/) bhat khai.he/she rice eat.(he/she eats rice.)Similar in the case for the verb be i.e. there is no need to change form of verbs inBengali for singular or plural number. For example,(a) ami chilam.(I was)(b) amra chilam(we were)(c)she chilo(he/she was)(d) tara chilo(they were.)

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    2. English yields to passivization, e.g. Rahim killed Karim. Karim was killed byRahim. But in Bangla no such transformation is generally possible except informal writing.

    3. There are some sounds in English which are more similar to some sounds inBengali but which involve different articulatory organs. For example, English has

    labio-dental sounds like /f/ and /v/ whereas Bengali has the bilabial stops / p

    / and/b/ are. It happens that in pronouncing those two English sounds, Bengalispeakers use both their lips instead of using the upper teeth and the lower lip.Therefore all the words with these sounds are heard as aspirated bilabial plosivesrather than /f/ or /v/. Example words can be given from the conversation like fine,very, fish, etc. However native English speaker may confuse these words asaspirated /p / and /b/.The English sounds like /z/ // and // are similar to two types of /z/ and //sounds in Bengali. But a sound like // often creates problem for all types oflearners at the initial level. They cannot often produce the actual // sound in theword like 'vision'. They produce this sound either like //or //. So here also

    confusion may arise to the listener due to this mispronunciation.4. The concept of time (tense) and its presentation in the two languages is different.For example: there is no separate use or auxiliary verbs like is/was/am etc. inBangla. Again, in Bangla, as per perception of the speaker, bolchilo wassaying and boleche Has said both are considered as past tense, whereas inEnglish there is a well defined grammatical distinction between the immediatepast and distant past.

    5. Bangla speaker of English are often heard saying cousin brother, return back,actual facts etc. In contrast, in English these are frowned upon as grammaticalfaults.

    6. English words are selectionally restricted to their place in a sentence, e.g. an is

    used before umbrella, egg, and you and is are not well-matched. Where asin Bangla, such tagging of articles or auxiliaries are not at all used.In the case ofaffixation, there are a whole variety of problems. In English, lexicalmetamorphosis is the order (good-better, go-went), while in Bangla they are rare.Then there is again the problem of internal change in English (man-men, wife-wives etc.) Lastly, in English there is no change of some words in plural (sheep,deer). In contrast, there is no such thing in Bangla. In the use of plural number inEnglish, both the determiner and the main word (i.e. noun) become plural in form,for example, a workerbut some workers and a man but many men. But inBengali, the plural marker is used either before the noun as a pre-determiner orafter the noun as plural inflection but not both at the same time. For example:onek manush (many men), onekgulo manush (many men)This difference of plural marker between English and Bengali leads to errors likemissing one plural marker either at the pre-determiner position or at the end ofhead word as inflection. Such errors found in the conversation are:(a) Some organization.(b) Many tourist

    7. In Bangla often the gesture and intonation determine the question structure, but inEnglish the WH has a fixed place in the question patter. Moreover, the auxiliary

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    verb in English is always shifted to the beginning of the sentence while framingYes-No question. So, it makes a contrast with Bangla language.

    8. Again, in English, the third person singular pronoun varies in terms of gendersuch as he/she, him/herand his/her. But no such variation occurs in the Bengalilanguage, i.e. both masculine and feminine gender share the same form of

    pronoun like she(pronounced as /te/-he/she) as subject, take (pronounced as/take/-him/her) and taar (pronounced as /tar/-his/her). This lack of genderbased pronouns in Bengali influences learners to make errors like saying he forshe andshe forhe.

    9. Unlike English there is no use of an empty subject like it or there to expressimpersonal action. Examples in English are It rains and There are manyuniversities in Dhaka. But in Bengali no such empty subjects can be found.Rather impersonal subject or existential place or objects themselves becomesubject. Examples for Bengali sentences are like:(a) bristi porccherain falling (It is raining.)

    (b) dhakai onek biswabiddaloy acchein Dhaka many university are (There are many universities in Dhaka.)

    10. Auxiliary verbs in all tenses are the basic markers of tenses in English. To showtense variation in English, these auxiliary verbs are changed with the form of themain verb as well. For example: I am eating rice and I have eaten rice. But inBengali, there is no such rule or use of auxiliary verbs. Examples for analysis areas follows:(a) ami bhat khacchi. (Present Progressive)I rice eating.(I am eating rice.)(b) ami bhat kheyecchi.(Present Perfect)I rice eaten(I have eaten rice.)This difference between Bengali and English directly influences all the learners atthe initial stage and less proficient learners all the time.

    So, these are the things which a person faced when he/she will be going to learn Englishin Bangladesh. Again, the teacher who takes class is coming from Bangladeshibackground. So, there are also some lakes in them. By going through all these points wefound that Bengali influence is present in the actual English speech taken from Bengalispeakers. Bengali influence is present in the speech of all levels of proficiency among theBengali speakers. Again more proficient speakers have made fewer mistakes in limitedaspects in morphology with Bengali phonetic and phonological influence. In contrast to them,less proficient speakers have made more errors in morphology, syntax and they are alsoinfluenced by Bengali in phonetics and phonology.