scholarly journals L1, L2 and L3: Same or different?

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832094103
Author(s):  
Camilla Bardel ◽  
Ylva Falk

This text comments on the Keynote article ‘Microvariation in multilingual situations: The importance of property-by-property acquisition’ by Marit Westergaard, who argues for Full Transfer Potential within the Linguistic Proximity Model in third language (L3) acquisition. The commentary points at some theoretical and methodological issues related to the Linguistic Proximity Model, e.g. the age factor in language learning, the role of metalinguistic knowledge and proficiency in L3 learning, and the lack of predictive power of the model.

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832094576
Author(s):  
Suzanne Flynn

This provocative article raises many important issues that need to be addressed and in so doing will advance the fields of second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition in several important ways. Fundamental questions concerning multilingual development persist especially with respect to the role of Universal Grammar in this language learning process. This response article has a dual role: It first outlines those areas of agreement with the proposals made in this article and, second, it discusses those areas of the proposed model that need to be confronted in order to have the model evaluated as a fully viable one.


2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832093452
Author(s):  
Tania Ionin

This commentary discusses the recent keynote article in Second Language Research by Westergaard (2019), which extends the Micro-cue Model to second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition. The commentary comments on such questions as: What makes a given property easy or hard to acquire? How do learners determine similarity? What exactly is the role of UG, on a non-parametric view? And what explains the differences between L1 and L2/subsequent acquisition?


Paramasastra ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Kholiq

Cross language influence in third language (L3) acquisition is related to the first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition. Cross-language influence in third language acquisition studies can be analyzed from the first and second language role in the third language acquisition. Each acquisition Indonesian language as L3 is always English as L2 so that the role of English in acquiring Indonesian as B3 be worth studying. It is a qualitative approach based research. This study focuses on (1) the role of English of articulation and (2) the role of English as the provider acquiring vocabulary in Indonesian as L3. Data used in this research is the conversation conducted by the researcher and research subject; and sentence production based on picture by the research subject. Data analysis result finds 1) the role of English as an addition to the mastery of the sound that is not owned B1 of pemeroleh Indonesian as L3 and English influence language sounds in pronunciation Indonesian, and 2) The role of English as a provider of vocabulary in language acquisition Indonesia as B3 is as a language bridge in language acquisition Indonesia if the Indonesian pemeroleh not master words in Indonesian. 


2000 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 83-91
Author(s):  
Silvia Vega

This study investigates the effect of the language learner's 'psychotypology', i.e. per-ception of language distance, on the extent to which he or she transfers from a second language (L2) to a third language (L3). Three native speakers of Dutch with additional knowledge of English were interviewed in their L3 French. Subsequently, retrospective comments were elicited. The French oral data was analysed for lexical transfer errors, and by means of the retrospective data lexical transfer 'successes' were also identified. It was found that L2 English outweighed LI Dutch as a transfer source. Considering the formal similarities between the English and French lexicons, this result supports the importance of a psychotypology factor to L2 transfer which was further confirmed by the retro-spective data. The incidence of transfer successes from L2 English could further point to a facilitative role of the psychotypology factor.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nader Fallah ◽  
Ali Akbar Jabbari ◽  
Ali Mohammad Fazilatfar

This study investigates the role of previously acquired linguistic systems, Mazandarani and Persian, in the acquisition of third language (L3) English at the initial stages. The data have been obtained from 31 students (age 13–14 years), testing the placement of attributive possessives in a grammaticality judgment task, an element rearrangement task and an elicited oral imitation task. The participants consist of three groups: The first two groups have Mazandarani as the first language (L1) and Persian as the second language (L2), but differ from each other with respect to the language of communication, Mazandarani and Persian, respectively. The third group has Persian as the L1 and Mazandarani as the L2, with Persian as the language of communication. English and Mazandarani pattern similarly in the target structures. That is to say, possessors precede possessed nouns and possessive adjectives come before nouns. In contrast, in Persian, possessives occur post-nominally. The results of this study reveal that none of the proposals tested (e.g. the L1 Factor, Hermas, 2010, 2014a, 2014b; the L2 Status Factor, Bardel and Falk, 2007; Falk and Bardel, 2011; the Cumulative Enhancement Model (CEM), Flynn et al., 2004; the Typological Proximity Model (TPM), Rothman, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015) could account for the results obtained. This study provides support that at the initial stages of L3 acquisition, syntactic transfer originates from the language of communication, irrespective of order of acquisition.


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Bardel ◽  
Ylva Falk

In this study of the placement of sentence negation in third language acquisition (L3), we argue that there is a qualitative difference between the acquisition of a true second language (L2) and the subsequent acquisition of an L3. Although there is considerable evidence for L2 influence on vocabulary acquisition in L3, not all researchers believe that such influence generalizes to morphosyntactic aspects of the grammar. For example, Håkansson et al. (2002) introduce the Developmentally Moderated Transfer Hypothesis (DMTH), which incorporates transfer in Processability Theory (PT). They argue against syntactic transfer from L2 to L3. The present study presents counter-evidence to this hypothesis from two groups of learners with different L1s and L2s acquiring Swedish or Dutch as L3. The evidence clearly indicates that syntactic structures are more easily transferred from L2 than from L1 in the initial state of L3 acquisition. The two groups behave significantly differently as to the placement of negation, a difference that can be attributed to the L2 knowledge of the learners in interaction with the typological relationship between the L2 and the L3.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURA SÁNCHEZ

This paper reports the findings of a four-year longitudinal study that examined the role of prior linguistic knowledge on the written L3 production of 93 Spanish/Catalan learners. Two research questions guided the study: the first asked whether a background language (L1s Spanish/Catalan, L2 German) would activate in parallel with L3 English during word construction attempts involving verbal forms, and if so, which would be the source language of blending. The second addressed the progressive readjustments of L2 activation and blending in the course of the first 200 hours of instruction. The elicitation technique was a written narrative based on a story telling task. Data were collected first when the learners were on average 9.9 years old (T1), and again at the ages of 10.9 (T2), 11.9 (T3) and 12.9 (T4). The focus of analysis was on word construction attempts that involved verbal forms. The results suggest that a background language, the L2, did indeed activate, especially at early stages of L3 acquisition.


1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merrill Swain ◽  
Sharon Lapkin ◽  
Norman Rowen ◽  
Doug Hart

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ágnes T. Balla

Abstract The central aim of my research is to investigate the third language learning processes of L1 Hungarian high-school learners learning L2 English and L3 German. More specifically, I aim at revealing to what extent Hungarian learners rely on their knowledge of their L1 and L2 as well as on the learning strategies they have developed while learning their L2.


2019 ◽  
pp. 026765831988411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard

In this article, I argue that first language (L1), second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition are fundamentally the same process, based on learning by parsing. Both child and adult learners are sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, and language development takes place in small steps. While the bulk of the article focuses on crosslinguistic influence in L2/Ln acquisition, I first briefly outline the Micro-cue Model of L1 acquisition (Westergaard, 2009a, 2014), arguing that children build their I-language grammars incrementally, paying attention to small distinctions in syntax and information structure from early on. They are also shown to be conservative learners, generally not producing overt elements or performing movement operations unless there is positive evidence for this in the input, thus minimizing the need for unlearning. I then ask the question how this model fares with respect to multilingual situations, more specifically L2 and L3 acquisition. Discussing both theoretical and empirical evidence, I argue that, although L2 and L3 learners are different from L1 children in that they are not always conservative learners, they are also sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, in that transfer/crosslinguistic influence takes place on a property-by-property basis. Full Transfer is traditionally understood as wholesale transfer at the initial state of L2 acquisition. However, I argue that it is impossible to distinguish between wholesale and property-by-property transfer in L2 acquisition on empirical grounds. In L3 acquisition, on the other hand, crosslinguistic influence from both previously acquired languages would provide support for property-by-property transfer. I discuss a few such cases and argue for what I call Full Transfer Potential (FTP), rather than Full (wholesale) Transfer, within the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) of L3 acquisition. Thus, rather than assuming that ‘everything does transfer’, I argue that ‘anything may transfer’.


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