Abstract:

Proficiency in foreign languages promotes effective professional communication, competitiveness and mobility and is becoming one of the main requirements for university graduates. Multilingual professionals fluent in two or more foreign languages have an especially powerful competitive advantage.

Although studies devoted to the influence of students' native language on their foreign language acquisition have been conducted by many authors, the problem of cross-linguistic interference when learning several foreign languages is still insufficiently explored. To our knowledge, only a few works in literature have examined how multilingual students overcome the challenges of cross-linguistic influence in multilingual environment and how language interference affects their foreign language acquisition and communication.

The paper is devoted to the challenges of cross-linguistic interference which occurs when English for Special Purposes is taught as the second foreign language to multilingual university students.

The purpose of this study is to find out how students learning two or more foreign languages perceive language interference when they learn English for Special Purposes and what strategies they use to overcome it.

The research hypothesis is as follows: when multilingual students learn English for Special Purposes, negative interference is experienced in productive language skills (speaking and writing) as well as in the sphere of vocabulary.

To test the hypothesis, a pilot study was conducted. The research methodology included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The research participants were senior students of the RUDN university studying English in professional communication as their second foreign language. In the course of questionnaire survey the participants were asked to give an overall ranking of the language skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening) and linguistic structures (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, syntax) in which they experienced language interference. The participants were asked to indicate how frequently they experienced interference and to rate their level of frustration with it. Statistical analysis was performed by using t-statistics.

The results of the survey confirm the hypothesis of the study: negative cross-linguistic interference is mostly experienced in productive language skills (speaking and writing), in the sphere of vocabulary and pronunciation. In receptive language skills (reading) positive transfer might be experienced. The sources of interference in most cases are Indo-European languages. Students learning two or more foreign languages perceive language interference mostly positively, it does not frustrate them. However, there seems to be some correlation between a number of foreign languages learned and a negative attitude towards cross-linguistic influence.

Keywords:

English for Special Purposes, cross-linguistic interference, multilingual students, second foreign language, productive language skills, source of interference.