Morphosyntactic linguistic interference in academic writing in English by Spanish speakers

Abstract

Linguistic transfer is a fundamental process in interlanguage and at the morphosyntactic level for Spanish speakers. In contrast to Spanish (L1) and English (L2), this is the area that exhibits the most significant and systematic typological differences between the two languages. This study focuses on the construct of interlanguage and Error Analysis Theory (EAT), and within the context of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), it specifically examines the final product of this process: the English summary. This summary is a direct reflection of a student's evolving linguistic system. Furthermore, the work contributes to the branch of Applied Linguistics (AL), which communicates directly with pedagogy and curriculum design, and is supported by the conceptual use that allows the meticulous identification of the critical divergences between Spanish and English, which makes it possible to lay the foundations for a subsequent analysis of the final effect on the comprehensibility of scientific discourse in the English summaries of undergraduate theses, prepared by Spanish speakers from the Higher Polytechnic School of Chimborazo (ESPOCH).