This article evaluates whether an L1 influence (language transfer) can be found in the interlanguage production of Brazilian subjects, learners/speakers of English as an L2, in contexts where the production of English causative-have construction (John had his hair cut) is expected. Results from a small study conducted with thirty-eight Brazilian subjects, distributed along three proficiency levels, are reported. The study applied Jarvis' (2000) methodology for the study of language transfer. Results point to the complexity of the language transfer phenomenon and to the importance of undertaking a statistical analysis of the data.
Language transfer; Portuguese-L1; English-L2; statistical analysis; interlanguage
