‘Translanguaging’ has become the most popular term in discussions about how to use learners’ languages as resources for target language teaching/learning, but it has also become ambiguous because it is being developed in proposals adopting different perspectives on multilingualism. The first aim of this article is to offer an overview of the two main current proposals of translanguaging together: García and colleagues’ ‘spontaneous translanguaging’ and Cenoz and Gorter’s ‘pedagogical translanguaging’. ‘Spontaneous translanguaging’ argues that languages in the mind are represented as one single system and that the notion of transfer, consequently, must be rejected. This article argues that this view may not be practical because it makes it difficult for teachers to conceptualise what they are doing when raising awareness of similarities between learners’ languages. ‘Pedagogical translanguaging’, by contrast, centres around transfer. Whereas transfer is traditionally seen as unintentional ‘interference’, pedagogical translanguaging considers it a phenomenon that learners can use intentionally and creatively, and which teachers could promote by raising learners’ awareness of similarities between their languages. However, very little is known about how learners use transfer unintentionally versus intentionally. This article discusses key findings and implications from Fuster’s (2022) initial study on intentionality in lexical transfer within pedagogical translanguaging.

A long-standing pedagogical implication of the traditional monolingual perspective in research and education has been to discourage any use of non-target languages in the L2 classroom as an attempt to reduce ‘interferences’ (i.e., transfer) between learners’ languages. Within the current multilingual paradigm shift, however, it has become clear that multilingualism can be an asset and the positive effects of transfer are acknowledged. The recent theoretical proposal of ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ suggests that teachers may help learners find opportunities to transfer aspects from their languages intentionally, as a resource or creative strategy, by raising their awareness of similarities between their languages.

Yet, from an empirical perspective very little is known about (un)intentionality in transfer. This thesis investigates how multilingual language learners use transfer unintentionally versus intentionally and how several potentially important variables may be related to (un)inten-tionality in transfer. The focus is on lexical transfer in the written production of multilingual learners of Spanish in Sweden.

Written transfer data were collected from 78 students in heterogeneously multilingual classrooms, including learners with different language backgrounds. Words that were reported (intro- or retrospectively) by a learner to have been transferred from a background language were coded as instances of intentional transfer. Conversely, when non-target-like words that could be traced back to a background language by the researcher were used but not com-mented on by the learner, they were coded as instances of unintentional transfer.

A quasi-Poisson regression analysis was employed to test the significance of transfer factors on learners’ amounts of unintentional and intentional transfer. A qualitative lexical analysis was conducted, moreover, to explore how the different types of lexical transfer were manifested depending on whether they were produced unintentionally or intentionally. As a complement to the data, the learners’ teachers were interviewed on their attitudes towards the use of non-target languages in the Spanish lessons.

The learners produced lexical transfer both unintentionally and intentionally. A significant tendency was found for intentional transfer to come from L2s rather than from L1s, possibly due to a higher level of metalinguistic knowledge in L2s. A significant tendency was also found for unintentional transfer to occur as a result of crosslinguistic morphological similarity. Additionally, a trend was observed for more multilingual learners to exhibit smaller amounts of unintentional transfer, possibly due to an enhanced conscious control of language use. (Un)intentionality was also found to relate to the different types of lexical transfer (e.g., foreignising, borrowing) in varying ways. The learners’ teachers felt positive about a multilingual instructional approach and often tried to make crosslinguistic comparisons.

Apart from shedding light on the dimension of (un)intentionality in lexical transfer, this thesis elaborates on pedagogical translanguaging and the idea of using languages as resources. It suggests that pedagogical linguistic awareness-raising activities should aim not only to help learners find opportunities to use transfer as a strategy, but also to help them avoid certain instances of unintentional transfer, and offers insights into which linguistic aspects such activities could focus on.

Aims: Within the current multilingual paradigm shift, transfer is increasingly conceptualised not only as an unintentional mechanism of “interference”, but also as an intentional mechanism used as a learner strategy. However, very little is known from an empirical perspective about (un)intentionality in transfer. This article builds on an exploratory study which suggested that background language words that fit well within the morphological constraints of the target language are highly activated during target language use and, consequently, likely to transfer unintentionally. The present study tests whether the correlation between morphological similarity and unintentionality in lexical transfer is statistically significant

Methodology: A quasi-Poisson regression analysis was employed to test the significance of morphological similarity on the amount of unintentional transfer in the written production of Spanish by 78 highly multilingual school students, when tested together with additional variables (number of languages known, proficiency in the target and source languages, frequency of use, first language/second language status and psychotypology) that have also been proposed to affect lexical activation and transfer.

Data and analysis: A picture-story description task was used to elicit written transfer. When a learner reported – introspectively or retrospectively – a word to have been transferred from a background language, this word was coded as an instance of intentional transfer. Reversely, non- target-like words traced back to a background language by the authors that were not commented on by the learner were coded as instances of unintentional transfer.

Findings: A strongly significant (p < 0.001), positive correlation was found between the amount of unintentional transfer and morphological similarity. A negative trend (p<0.1) was also found between amount of unintentional transfer and number of languages known by learners. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Originality: This is one of few studies shedding light on (un)intentionality in transfer. It is also one of few studies to employ regression analysis to investigate the effect of several variables on transfer.

Significance: The study provides empirical evidence to substantiate theoretical accounts of lexical activation. First, the results show that morphological similarity indeed seems to be the primary variable leading to high levels of cross-lexical activation and, second, the results show how highly activated words are more likely to be transferred unintentionally, further supporting these theoretical accounts.

Traditionally, transfer is described as interference and consequently as an unintentional mechanism. More recently, however, the perception of control in transfer has changed and it is now commonly accepted that transfer can occur both automatically and strategically. Studies have previously employed think-aloud protocols during writing tasks to establish the degree of intentionality in transfer. However, this method does not let us distinguish between instances of transfer that are truly unintentional and instances that were simply not commented on due to the constraints imposed by the think-aloud protocol. The present study, therefore, conducted a stimulated recall interview in direct succession of the think-aloud protocol in order to categorise also those instances of transfer that were not commented on initially. With data from highly multilingual adult learners of Catalan, the study examines the proportion of unintentional and intentional transfer in relation to (1) different types of transfer, (2) different source languages of transfer and (3) different word classes in transfer. The data indicates that some of these aspects of transfer tend to occur unintentionally, whereas others are more prone to be used intentionally. The theoretical implications of the results, as well as their limitations, are discussed.