Cognates are words from different languages with similar, or identical, spelling and/or pronunciation (e.g. English “milk” and German “Milch”).
Conceptual equivalence: corresponding concepts in L1 and L2 share both concept structure and boundaries. Very often (not always!) it is the case with concrete objects:
- Table (Eng.) = Tisch (Germ.). / Vader (Dutch) = Father (Eng.)
Conceptual partial equivalence: one and the same concept in various languages has different boundaries or inner stricter.
- “Jealous” (Eng.) is a broader concept than corresponding Russian concept “revnuet”.
Conceptual non-equivalence: a concept of one language is totally missing in the other.
-Schadenfreude (Germ.) - that is a term, describing an emotion of someone enjoying other’s misfortune. There is no direct equivalent in English.
Conceptual non-equivalence may be of two types:
1) concepts that have no word-labels in a certain language, but are still understandable (as Schadenfreude for English monolinguals);
2) concepts that have no reflection in a certain language, usually due to the difference of everyday life in different cultures (Russian word “fortochka”, which stands for a particular type of a window, which is common only in Russia).
Conceptual shift is the reorganization of concept boundaries or structure.
Glossary
False friends are words in different languages with identical or similar phonetic representation and spelling, but having different meanings.
Language interference is the effect of language learners' first language on their performance in target language(s).
Language transfer: speakers applying knowledge from their native language to a second language.
Negative transfer is a situation where a speaker applies his knowledge of his native language to a second language.
Positive transfer is an instance where the knowledge of the native language helps learners acquire new words in L2 faster.
The bilingual mental lexicon is the organization of bilingual language knowledge.
True friends are words in L2 that have identical or very similar pronunciations or/and spellings to words in L1, along with the same meaning in both languages.
The mental image is the representation in the mind of the outside physical world.
The mental lexicon is a mental dictionary that contains the information about phonology, semantics, syntax, and so on.