The use of prior linguistic knowledge in the early stages of L3 acquisition
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Rebekah Rast
Abstract
This paper examines cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition relative to language typology, psychotypology and proficiency level. In particular, it observes how learners make use of their background languages when faced with a language they know little to nothing about. The participants, native French speakers with English as a common L2 (other L2s varied) exposed to Polish (L3) for the very first time, were tested on initial exposure and then at various intervals up to 8 hours. The input provided to our learners from the moment of first exposure was recorded and transcribed. This methodology allowed us to analyze learners' use of prior linguistic knowledge (L1 and other L2s) when performing tasks in a language with low proficiency. Tasks included translating written and spoken sentences, judging grammaticality and rearranging words in sentences. Despite a limited number of participants in each language group, results indicate tendencies. They not only suggest an important role for both typology and psychotypology at this level of proficiency, but they also reveal that even minimal knowledge of a background language can be the source of cross-linguistic influence of various types.
© Walter de Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Approaches to third language acquisition: Introduction
- The languages of the multilingual: Some conceptual and terminological issues
- Multilingualism and affordances: Variation in self-perceived communicative competence and communicative anxiety in French L1, L2, L3 and L4
- Inter- and intralingual lexical influences in advanced learners' French L3 oral production
- The use of prior linguistic knowledge in the early stages of L3 acquisition
- The study of the role of the background languages in third language acquisition. The state of the art
- Informing the age-of-acquisition debate: L3 as a litmus test
- On the typological economy of syntactic transfer: Word order and relative clause high/low attachment preference in L3 Brazilian Portuguese
- On L3 acquisition and phonological permeability: A new test case for debates on the mental representation of non-native phonological systems
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Approaches to third language acquisition: Introduction
- The languages of the multilingual: Some conceptual and terminological issues
- Multilingualism and affordances: Variation in self-perceived communicative competence and communicative anxiety in French L1, L2, L3 and L4
- Inter- and intralingual lexical influences in advanced learners' French L3 oral production
- The use of prior linguistic knowledge in the early stages of L3 acquisition
- The study of the role of the background languages in third language acquisition. The state of the art
- Informing the age-of-acquisition debate: L3 as a litmus test
- On the typological economy of syntactic transfer: Word order and relative clause high/low attachment preference in L3 Brazilian Portuguese
- On L3 acquisition and phonological permeability: A new test case for debates on the mental representation of non-native phonological systems
