L’hypercorrection dans l’apprentissage du roumain langue étrangère
On Hypercorrectness in Learning Romanian as a Foreign Language

Summary/Abstract: This study was determined by the realization that, in the process of learning Romanian as a foreign language, a series of errors constantly arise, that do not depend on the mother tongue of the learner, but are influenced by the stock of knowledge previously acquired in Romanian, more specifically by the interferences (negative transfers) that occur between the knowledge already acquired in Romanian and new information. Among such errors, which are common to all foreigners who learn Romanian, regardless of their mother tongue, we set out to draw attention to those caused by hypercorrectness, i.e. errors committed, paradoxically, out of the desire not to make mistakes. Foreigners who learn Romanian make such errors believing that they are actually avoiding others, which they have already learned to avoid. They refer to previously learned rules that are part of the stock of knowledge acquired in the language which they are in the process of learning, hypercorrectness being determined precisely by this influence of the stock of knowledge previously acquired in the language that is being learned. Therefore, if, for the native speakers of a language, hypercorrectness is determined by their conscious effort to comply with the norms of literary language, for foreigners who learn a foreign language, it is determined by the influence of the stock of knowledge previously acquired in this language. Our attempt to explain the (probable) mechanisms behind hypercorrectness-related errors can be the first step toward preventing such errors in the process of learning Romanian as a foreign language.

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