Chapter 8. Proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement by L2 and L3 English learners
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Ainara Imaz Agirre
Abstract
The present study examines proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement in third person singular possessives (his/her) by second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of English. Within current generative second language acquisition research, gender agreement has been found to be a complicated feature to acquire for non-native language learners. A group of Basque/Spanish speakers (n = 117) and a group of Spanish speakers (n = 70) divided into three proficiency levels (elementary, intermediate and advanced) completed two written (a fill in the gap task and a written description task) two oral production tasks (an oral elicitation and a picture description). Our findings show that previous linguistic knowledge and proficiency level in English seem to have an influence on the type of errors attested in the L2 and the L3 groups.
Abstract
The present study examines proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement in third person singular possessives (his/her) by second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of English. Within current generative second language acquisition research, gender agreement has been found to be a complicated feature to acquire for non-native language learners. A group of Basque/Spanish speakers (n = 117) and a group of Spanish speakers (n = 70) divided into three proficiency levels (elementary, intermediate and advanced) completed two written (a fill in the gap task and a written description task) two oral production tasks (an oral elicitation and a picture description). Our findings show that previous linguistic knowledge and proficiency level in English seem to have an influence on the type of errors attested in the L2 and the L3 groups.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Second Language Acquisition
- Chapter 1. Testing the morphological congruency effect in offline comprehension 3
- Chapter 2. Mapping at external interfaces 35
- Chapter 3. Another look at L2 acquisition of French clitics and strong pronouns 67
- Chapter 4. Animacy-based processing loads in anaphora resolution in (non-native) French 95
-
Part II. The Bottleneck Hypothesis
- Chapter 5. The Bottleneck Hypothesis as applied to the Spanish DP 123
- Chapter 6. The Bottleneck Hypothesis extends to heritage language acquisition 149
-
Part III. The Scalpel Model and L3 acquisition
- Chapter 7. Testing the predictions of the Scalpel Model in L3/Ln acquisition 181
- Chapter 8. Proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement by L2 and L3 English learners 203
- Chapter 9. Language dominance and transfer selection in L3 acquisition 229
-
Part IV. Applied SLA
- Chapter 10. What is easy and what is hard 263
- Chapter 11. Generative second language acquisition and language teaching 283
- Subject Index 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Second Language Acquisition
- Chapter 1. Testing the morphological congruency effect in offline comprehension 3
- Chapter 2. Mapping at external interfaces 35
- Chapter 3. Another look at L2 acquisition of French clitics and strong pronouns 67
- Chapter 4. Animacy-based processing loads in anaphora resolution in (non-native) French 95
-
Part II. The Bottleneck Hypothesis
- Chapter 5. The Bottleneck Hypothesis as applied to the Spanish DP 123
- Chapter 6. The Bottleneck Hypothesis extends to heritage language acquisition 149
-
Part III. The Scalpel Model and L3 acquisition
- Chapter 7. Testing the predictions of the Scalpel Model in L3/Ln acquisition 181
- Chapter 8. Proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement by L2 and L3 English learners 203
- Chapter 9. Language dominance and transfer selection in L3 acquisition 229
-
Part IV. Applied SLA
- Chapter 10. What is easy and what is hard 263
- Chapter 11. Generative second language acquisition and language teaching 283
- Subject Index 309
