Relationships of language learning variables in the acquisition of third languages in a multilingual context

<p>This paper reinforces the importance of third language acquisition research in a multilingual context focusing on language experience, vocabulary learning strategies, emotional self-regulation strategies, and language anxiety. This study explored three languages: Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, to know if there are significant relationships between the above variables in third language acquisition. Three specific sets of survey questionnaires were distributed to various students enrolled in foreign language courses offered in a language department in a university. To focus on the relationships of language learning variables of a foreign language, correlational design was used to analyze the survey questionnaires' responses for each language course. Among students who were enrolled in Chinese, significant relationships were established between language anxiety and language experience, language anxiety, and emotional self-regulation strategies. Significant associations were found between emotional self-regulation strategies and language experience, emotional self-regulation strategies, and vocabulary strategies, and language performance and language experience for those students enrolled in the Korean language. In learning Vietnamese, significant relationships were found between language anxiety and vocabulary strategies, language performance, and language anxiety. Teachers may need to re-evaluate prepared teaching and learning materials, for example, material difficulty, to help students alleviate anxiety in learning.</p>

The acquisition of relative clauses by Spanish-Basque learners of L3 English: does dominance play a role?

Several studies in the area of third language acquisition (L3A) have considered various factors influencing this process, but the effect of language dominance has not been thoroughly examined. The main goal of this study is to investigate whether the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) in L3 English is influenced by language internal factors, such as the syntactic features of the target language, or by external factors in the form of cross-linguistic influence (CLI). A total of 90 participants (40 Spanish-dominant, 40 Basque-dominant, 10 L1 Spanish-L2 English) and 10 native speakers of English completed a production and a comprehension task. Findings show that the L3 learners’ production of RCs seems to be driven by language internal factors, whereas their comprehension appears to be influenced by their previously acquired languages, mainly by Spanish. It is concluded that neither language dominance nor other traditionally considered factors play a determinant role in the acquisition of RCs in L3 English by these participants.

Exploring Psychotypology as an Affective factor of Cross-Linguistic Influence: Case of Algerian Multilingual Learners

Multilingualism has established itself as a separate area of research in linguistic studies for the two last decades. Therefore, the present study aims at examining Algerian Multilingual students’ perceptions of linguistic distance i.e., psychotypology, between their first Language Arabic and Second language French and third language English. It focuses on the role of psychotypology as a constraining factor of cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition that may lead to the activation of the background languages in the production of L3 English. Therefore, the researcher used a mixed research method to explore which typological or psychotypological languages L1 Arabic or L2 French would be the source of language transfer in L3 production. Forty students participated in this study, and data was gathered through a psychotypological questionnaire. The results of a qualitative and quantitative analysis showed students perceive French as a closed language to English in most the language aspects and they used it to fill a linguistic gap in their English production. It also showed that psychotypology is a complex concept that would affect students’ language choice in L3 production as well as a crucial factor in determining the source language of transfer. The findings indicated that further investigations of Psychotypology in L3 production are necessary.

Exploring Psychotypology as an Affective factor of Cross-Linguistic Influence: Case of Algerian Multilingual Learners

Multilingualism has established itself as a separate area of research in linguistic studies for the two last decades. Therefore, the present study aims at examining Algerian Multilingual students’ perceptions of linguistic distance i.e., psychotypology, between their first Language Arabic and Second language French and third language English. It focuses on the role of psychotypology as a constraining factor of cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition that may lead to the activation of the background languages in the production of L3 English. Therefore, the researcher used a mixed research method to explore which typological or psychotypological languages L1 Arabic or L2 French would be the source of language transfer in L3 production. Forty students participated in this study, and data was gathered through a psychotypological questionnaire. The results of a qualitative and quantitative analysis showed students perceive French as a closed language to English in most the language aspects and they used it to fill a linguistic gap in their English production. It also showed that psychotypology is a complex concept that would affect students’ language choice in L3 production as well as a crucial factor in determining the source language of transfer. The findings indicated that further investigations of Psychotypology in L3 production are necessary.

Multilingual lexical transfer challenges monolingual educational norms: not quite!

Foreign language learners frequently use words from their previously acquired language(s) in the target language, especially if these languages are related (Ringbom, Håkan. 2001. Lexical transfer in L3 production. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen & Ulrike Jessner (eds.), Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistic perspectives, 59–68. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters). Such insertions are referred to as ‘lexical transfer’, commonly divided into ‘transfer of form’ and ‘transfer of meaning’ (Bardel, Camilla. 2015. Lexical cross-linguistic influence in third language development. In Hagen Peukert (ed.), Transfer effects in multilingual language development, 111–128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Ringbom, Håkan. 2001. Lexical transfer in L3 production. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen & Ulrike Jessner (eds.), Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistic perspectives, 59–68. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters). Lexical transfer challenges the monolingual habitus prevailing in foreign language classes which requires students to rely exclusively on the target language and inhibit other influences. Thus, in such English classes, students should avoid the use of different languages and ideally only produce monolingual English output. In this context, the current study investigates the use of lexical transfer instances in short English texts written by bilingual (Russian/Turkish-German) and monolingual (German) secondary school students (initially attending year 7) from a longitudinal perspective. It assesses i) whether the students increasingly adhere to the imposed normative rules and ii) what influence background variables such as language background (mono- vs. bilingual), type of school (higher vs. lower academic track), gender (female vs. male), or age (four measurement points over a period of 2.5 years) exert on the use of lexical transfer instances. Apart from gender, all factors impact lexical transfer in a statistically significant way, evoking different norm-based explanations.

PROCESSABILITY APPROACHES TO RECEPTIVE THIRD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: IMPLICATIONS FOR MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOMS

Existing research indicates a qualitative difference between Second Language Learning and Third Language Acquisition, and certain psycholinguistic and developmental aspects to multilingual learners merit investigation. The present paper examines stages in receptive learner acquisition of English as a Third Language at Italian-medium primary schools in South Tyrol in Italy employing a picture selection task and implicational scaling analysis. It highlights the role that processing approaches to acquisition proposing constraints on developmental readiness and cross-linguistic influence may play for the emergence of receptive competence in morpho-syntactic structures.

A REVIEW OF FOREIGN STUDIES ON THIRD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The article employs CiteSpace analysis tool and the visualization method of bibliometrics to analyze the knowledge structure of the third language acquisition field in the past 30 years based on 221 foreign research articles from Web of Science core journal database. The study finds and combs the main research frontiers and development evolution processes in the field of third language acquisition through cluster analysis and co-citation analysis, which helps to grasp the knowledge structure and development context in third language acquisition, and provides enlightenment for the research in the field of third language acquisition in China.

Integrating Duolingo for Schools in Third Language Acquisition

The article presents the possibilities for integrating an innovative methodology in third language acquisition – Duolingo for schools. The Duolingo language learning platform is one of the leaders in the world with millions of registered users as the access to it is entirely free of charge. The article presents the leading research in the field by emphasizing the fact that none of it is yet to use Duolingo for schools. After dwelling upon Duolingo’s methodology, it is pointed out that Duolingo for schools can be integrated by teachers/lecturers in their syllabi to create a controlled environment. In the context of learning languages by Bulgarians, it is recommended using Duolingo for schools in third language acquisition, as Duolingo does not offer learning Bulgarian, neither can Bulgarian be used to learn another language.

On the status of transfer in adult third language acquisition of early bilinguals

The study of linguistic transfer—understood here in terms of the copying of previous linguistic representations—seeks to reveal how domain-relevant prior language knowledge impacts the acquisition and development of new mental representations more generally. Studying sequential multilingualism offers a natural laboratory to observe cognitive-economical mechanisms that avoid redundancy in language learning. One of the key dividing questions between theories of transfer in sequential multilingualism is the extent of transfer, that is, whether a whole previous grammar is transferred (full transfer) or a potentially different source language is selected for each linguistic property (property-by-property transfer). We adopted a novel methodological approach to this question, examining four different linguistic properties from unrelated domains of grammar across the three languages of a heterogeneous population of highly proficient, early Catalan/Spanish bilinguals with different degrees of language dominance and order of acquisition, at the very beginning of (adult) L3 English. Results are variably complex across the different properties, but compatible with a scenario where one of the previous languages, Catalan, was selected as the basis for the initial L3 English grammar of these speakers. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings.