Analysis of Deceptive or False Cognates

In the previous analysis, I discussed the effect of cognates in the three languages involved in this study on translation performance, comparing and contrasting the bilingual groups of students learning English. This analysis was to examine the nature of deceptive cognates or false friends, that is, words, which have the same, or similar orthographic form, but different or only partly similar, meaning. Deceptive cognates are not exceedingly common in Albanian-Macedonian- English but in some contexts, they represent a true learning problem as they become rather frequent. These words are sometimes a source of confusion, since in some cases language learners judge them as being identical. For example, the Albanian and Macedonian word ‘film’ for the English word ‘movie’.In some other cases the second language can be a source of transfer e.g. L1> depo; L2>магацин /magacin/ for the L3 word ‘store’ (see appendix D).

The present analysis considers deceptive cognates as a psycholinguistic learning problem that requires special consideration in the language learning classroom. So, deceptive cognates are not analyzed with regard to any historical perspective, their diachronic background, or their evolution through time, but are simply treated as potential learning problems regardless of their origin.

The analysis adopted here is the analysis of false friends in the word recognition task by the two groups of bilingual learners of English. De Groot (2010:121) points out that in bilingual studies different versions of the word recognition tasks are used to assess one particular aspect of L2 vocabulary knowledge, namely the interconnection of a given word with other words in the learner’s L2 lexicon, which is often called “lexical access”. According to de Groot, the degree of co-activation depends on bilingual’s proficiency in the non-target language, and states:

“the stronger a similar form in this language is co-activated when a word in the target language is encountered, and, consequently, the stronger its influence on processing the target word.” (2010: 121)

In this view, de Groot suggests that because the foreign language is generally weaker than the native language, this means that the native language more often affects processing the foreign language and vice versa.

This analysis will be an attempt to test de Groot’s (2010) suggestion for word recognition in bilingual mode which will be extended to trilingual mode focusing on the degree of co-activating false friend word from L1 and L2 in production of L3.

6.5.1 Methods

As for the cognate analysis, the productive word recognition analysis task was used to analyze to analyze transfer from the L1 and the L2 to the L3. For the purpose of this analysis, I also used dictionaries of language pairs: Albanian – Macedonian; Albanian – English; Macedonian- English in order to identify words that share the same phonological representation with a possible difference in orthography, but that have totally unrelated conceptual features.

From these dictionaries, I collected 94 stimuli words which are relatively frequent in their use. The test contained deceptive cognates from L1 Albanian and L2 Macedonian and the students had to translate them into English, for example:

Ideor идеен /ideen/

The word ideor in Albanian, идеен /ideen/ in Мacedonian, in English means ‘conceptual’.

Stimuli and design:

Each group of participants was presented with the test, which contained the 94 deceptive cognates and was asked to translate the stimuli words into the target L3 English language. The time allowed for the translation task was 15 minutes. The deceptive cognate test was designed to explore the relationships between Albanian- Macedonian and English.

6.5.2 Results:

The word recognition test provided me with useful empirical data concerning the similarity in form, i.e. grapho-phonemic similarity. The quantitative analysis shows the number of deceptive cognates with influence from L1 and L2, the number of recognized deceptive cognates and the number of words left without translation.

Low Bilinguals High Bilinguals Type of transfer L1 Albanian L2 Macedonian L1 Albanian L2 Macedonian Deceptive cognates Influence index 43 0.90 8 0.17 31 0.46 19 0.28 Total number Influence index 51 1.06 50 0.75 Recognized items Percentage 13 13.8% 15 15.9% Non translated items

Percentage

30 31.9%

29 30.%

Table 6.10 Quantitative overview of deceptive cognates

The results of the word recognition test provide evidence of understanding the deceptive cognates and the influence of L1or L2 in the process of L3 acquisition. The strength of the source of influence from L1 and L2 differs widely in the two bilingual groups. However, the general results indicate that the L3 production involves primarily influence from L1.

In Low Bilinguals, subjects reported to rely more on their L1 (ii >0.90) which is a very high rate in comparison to the L2 (ii >0.17). The influence index of both languages states 1.06.

In High Bilinguals, the subjects reported lower influence of L1 (0.46) in comparison to Low Bilinguals (0.90), but higher influence of L2 (0.28) in comparison to Low bilinguals (0.17). Concerning their levels of control and attention, the results showed that due to the time limit they did not pay as much attention and the results showed higher influence from their L1.

Considering the different ratio between two bilingual (4:6), Low Bilinguals’ influence index is 1.06 and High Bilinguals influence index is 0.75 which shows an approximate ratio of 1 to 1. These results show that both groups seem to have difficulties in recognizing words, although High bilinguals were slightly better in this task, showing again an advantigve in comparison to the Low Bilinguals.

Pursuing the analysis further to the cases of recognized deceptive cognates and non translated items, the results provide another evidence of the two bilingual groups’ performance dyring L3 acquisition. Considering that the general number of stimuli items was 94, the number of correctly provided items in Low Bilinguals was 13, 8%, while in High Bilinguals was 15.9%. Adding the point of non-translated items, the results indicate 31.9% of non-translated items in Low Bilinguals and 30.8% in High Bilinguals.

In the deceptive cognate category, the High Bilinguals obtained slightly better results in tasks related to word awareness as they translated more items. These results indicate that High Bilinguals are in a higher position in comparison to Low Bilinguals, but in a less pronounced advantage.

6.5.3 Findings and discussions

The obtained results give rise to the assumption that understanding deceptive cognates remains a great challenge for Albanian bilingual learners. The students were shown to rely on similarities in form, i.e. on grapho-phonemic similarities, thus producing different meanings in English. This resemblance in form is accompanied by either partial correlation in meaning or by the absence of any direct semantic correspondence. For example, a word with partial overlap in meaning, in L1> billion; L2> билион /billion/; was produced as billion instead of ‘trillion’ in English. The absence of direct semantic correlation was found in many false cognates such as L1> temë; L2> тема /tema/ which was produced as tema instead of ‘topic’ in English.

The table below shows some examples of deceptive cognates illustrating the combination of influences from both the L1 on L3 production.

Table 6.11 Qualitative overview of transfer from L1 in L3 production

The examples when students relied on their second language were also based on the similarity of form, for example the word L1> salon veturash; L2> автосалон /autosalon/ in English was translated as ‘autosalon’ instead of ‘car-show’.

L1 Albanian L3 English production Correct English form

Ansambël ansambel band

Autoportret autoportret self-portrait

bilion bilion trillion

evidencë evidenc record, file

ideor ideal conceptual

instruktor instructor private teacher, tutor konkretisht concrelty in fact, actually konkurence concurence competition

komplet complet set, kit

participim participation contribution

recept recept prescription

reklamoj reclame advertise

stipendion stippendion scholarship

temë tеma topic, subject

menzë mеnsa canteen

trener trener coach

taksist taskist taxi driver

top top ball

semafor semafor traffic light bibliotekë biblioteka library

library library bookshop

dramë drama play

L1 Standard Albanian L2 Macedonian L2 influence in Albanian L3 English production with L2 influence Correct English form

Salon veturash автосалон autosalon autosalon car-show ndal një makinë të rastit автостоп autostop autostop hitchhiking drejtori дирекција direktori directori head office komision комисија komisija comisija committee

xhaketë мантил mantil mantil coat

sheqerkë бонбони bonbone bonbons candy stërvitje тренинг trening trening practice

raft регал regal regal shelf

depo magacin magacin magacin warehouse

pulle postale marka marke marka stamp

aktor artist artist artist actor

argjend srebro srebro srebro silver

Table 6.12 Qualitative overview of transfer from L2 in L3 production

6.5.4 Conclusion

The findings of this analysis can be interpreted in the light of de Groot’s (2010) hypothesis in the frame of bilingual mode, that is a foreign language is generally weaker than the native language than it often affects the processing which. When this hypothesis was tested in trilingual mode, the results indicate that:

1) the foreign language, and at the same time a third language of the learner, is weaker as a result of the learning process.

2) the native language exercises stronger influence in L3 production in both groups

3) the second language also affects the processing, but its effect is different in comparison to both bilingual groups.

a. L2 exercises stronger influence in High Bilinguals (0.28) b. L2 exercises weaker influence in Low bilinguals (0.16)

These results indicate that the proficiency factor is a crucial in the L3 production, in particular the proficiency in L2 can be considered as an important factor in the role of the second language influence in L3 production.