„Heute ich habe gemacht die Hausaufgaben“ : Syntaktischer Transfer in Deutsch als Fremdsprache – eine Untersuchung von Schülertexten

Sammanfattning: This study examines syntactic transfer in written productions amongSwedish-speaking learners of German in elementary school (15-16-year-oldsin grade 9) and high school (17-year-olds, course 4, year two). In SwedenEnglish is the first (L2) foreign language, compulsory for all pupils. Germanis, together with Spanish and French, one of three eligible second (L3)foreign languages. Swedish and German are both Germanic languages, andtypologically very close. They have some syntactic similarities like the V2-structure, with the finite verb in second position, but also significantdifferences for example that German is a SOV- and Swedish a SVOlanguage, when it comes to the position of the infinite verb. The results of thestudy show that both groups reach a high level of correct syntax in theirGerman texts, both when the syntactic structure is the same in Swedish andGerman and also when syntax in the two languages differs.But there is a significant difference between the groups. The youngerlearners make more syntactic mistakes in general and transfer not onlysyntactic, but also lexical structures from both Swedish and their first foreignlanguage English (L2) while the older learners do not seem to need transferfrom either their first language Swedish L1 or their L2 English. The oldergroup of students show in general good knowledge about German syntacticstructures and how to use them.These results are similar to some other studies and show the complexity ofthe transfer phenomenon. The results can be of interest for teachers and theirteaching of syntactic structures in German.