Syntactic calques and errors ELE in the verbal paradigm on bilingual subjects in Barcelona

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of syntactic calques and errors in the verbal paradigm as transfer errors EL2/ELE, produced by a group of 30 bilingual subjects (Catalan-Spanish) in Barcelona on its written productions. We establish a group of 15 subjects whose L1 family language is Catalan (A group with EL2) and a group of 15 subjects whose family language is Spanish (B group with EL1). We have raised two specific objectives: describe the selected interlingual errors and try to identify possible causes for the previously mentioned errors, and we focus our analysis on the data of the A group with EL2 group. The data obtained from a questionnaire (linguistic profile) and essays (150 words) are treated by quantitative descriptive statistics and reflect that the subjects of the group A group with EL2 produce more errors that significantly affect the structure of the language: syntactic tracing, verbal system, and prevailing local errors on global ones, showing that everyone of our subjects has a high level of competence in Spanish language. Etiologic analysis indicates that the different phonological, verbal and pronominal system in Catalan and Spanish configuration could act as one of the causes of the errors produced and studied on this study. The expansion of the population, a wider range of the textual typology and a didactic approach can lead to future research.