Study on the occurrence of forward transfer and backward transfer among the younger and older generation people from Chakma community of Bangladesh

Abstract

This mixed method study was designed to investigate the occurrences of “forward transfer (FT)” and “backward transfer (BT)” among the Chakma community people of Bangladesh. Conversations of both younger and older generations were recorded and then were transcribed for analysis by focusing on their usages of different language mixing type (codemixing, code-switching, and borrowing) and occurrences of phonological change. Analysis of the collected data indicates the presence of both FT and BT among the both generation groups, where most of the FT were observed among the participants from older generations (26.32%), and higher BT were observed among the younger generations (38.07%). Significant BT occurred among the younger participants while borrowing words/phrases from L2/L3 (18.00%), while most of the FT occurred among the older participants due to codemixing (18.38%). However, phonological interferences were observed among the both groups during FT (18.70% and 25.10% for the younger and older groups, respectively).