COROLLARIES OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ FIRST LANGUAGE

English has become the governing means of international communication and the lingua franca where people around the world with different backgrounds, mother tongues and cultures use English for career advancement, and deem that having adequate proficiency in English is the key to success (Fielder, 2011). English is widely used as a second language but it has also been depicted as a threat to the L2 or second language learners’ mother tongue (House, 2003). Knowledge of a second language impacts the ability to cope with information in the native language (Kaushanskaya, Yoo, Marian, 2011); therefore, English might replace their mother tongue in the future, since the acquisition of a second language is related to the bilinguals’ performance in the native language (Kaushanskaya et al., 2011). Hence, this research is aimed to retort on how English affects L2 learners in the aspects of social, culture and linguistics in a multicultural environment. Data was gathered through a survey questionnaire in relation to a specific group of transfer students at the tertiary stage. Subsequently, analysis of data in the denoted affirmative responses from the students concerning the study was concluded where the results indicate that the perceptions on the influences of English on L2 learners are positive, varying from social effects to cultural impacts as well as the linguistic implications.