L1 Cognitive and Linguistic Skills Transfer in the Process of Learning L2 of Different Scripts

First language transfer has been key issues in the field of applied linguistic, language acquisition, and language pedagogy for almost a century. However, it has been re-evaluated several times, but it is still controversial. This study aimed to describe the process of the L1 cognitive and linguistic skills transferred to L2 of dependent scripts and independent scripts and to find out the reason underlying the process of the transfer of dependent scripts, Bahasa Indonesia and English, which have same writing systems; and independent scripts, Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic, which have different writing systems. The subjects of the study were 30 students who divided into two groups: 15 students as the subjects of dependent scripts, 15 students as the subject of independent scripts. The instruments of the study were tests: UKBI, TOEFL, TOAFL, rapid automatized naming (RAN) test, working memory (WM) test, phonological awareness (PA) test, morphological awareness (MA)test, reading comprehension test, and interview. Each of the test were given in L1 and L2 to each group. The data of this study was analyzed with two data analysis techniques, they were non-parametric statistics and qualitative data analysis proposed by Miles, Huberman and Saldana. The findings of the research are firstly, for languages of dependent scripts, there is no significant transfer of cognitive skills from Bahasa Indonesia to English because there are only few students have the same level of Bahasa Indonesia and English cognitive skills in which they made different errors of L1 and L2 RAN and WM as the subskills of cognitive skills, while there is significant transfer of linguistic skills and reading comprehension skills from Bahasa Indonesia to English of dependent scripts which can be seen from the students’ ability of PA and MA as the subskills of linguistic skills, and students’ ability in reading comprehension both in Bahasa Indonesia and English. It means that L1 linguistic skills and reading comprehension facilitate positive transfer to L2 linguistic skills and reading comprehension of dependent scripts of dependent scripts. Secondly, for language independent scripts, there is no significant transfer of linguistic skills, cognitive skills and reading skills from Bahasa Indonesia to Arabic which can be seen that students are difficult in transferring Bahasa Indonesia to Arabic in RAN and WM as the subskills of cognitive skills, and the most of students have different level of ability in MA as the subskills of linguistic skills, and in reading comprehension.