Description

The chapters in this volume represent an approach to the notion of language transfer which reflects the paradigm shift originating from cognitive science. The perception and expression of ideas and events in one language in terms of another language is considered only a special case of one of the fundamental processes in human problem solving-reasoning by analogy. Transfer in language production is seen as a basic metaphorical concept denoting language interaction that must be discussed in connection with other metaphorical concepts denoting language interaction as well. If this is true, the assessment of language transfer in light of the production paradigm has hardly begun. It will continue to be a topic of far-reaching consequences for a theory of language processing and language acquisition.