Language transfer, cognates and productive derivational knowledge of Serbian EFL learners

Abstract

The paper reports the results of a study which investigated whether receptive/productive knowledge of Serbian-English cognates in Serbian has any effect on Serbian L1 learners' productive knowledge of English derivational morphology by correlating Serbian L1 learners' knowledge of lexemes in English which have cognates in Serbian with learners' knowledge of lexemes in English which have no cognates in Serbian by means of a derivative word forms test. They support the claim that learners might not be making the most of their L1 knowledge when acquiring L2, and that instruction in cognate vocabulary is needed to facilitate this process.