Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T01:04:18.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

L2 activation and blending in third language acquisition: Evidence of crosslinguistic influence from the L2 in a longitudinal study on the acquisition of L3 English*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

LAURA SÁNCHEZ
LAURA SÁNCHEZ*
Affiliation:
University of Barcelona
*
Address for correspondence: Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585, 08007 Barcelona, Spain[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Keywords

crosslinguistic influencethird language acquisitionblendinglexical inventionage
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Special Issue 2: L3 Acquisition: A Focus on Cognitive Approaches , April 2015 , pp. 252 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The author is grateful to grants FFI2013-47616-P by the Spanish Ministry of Education and 2014SGR1089 by the Catalan Ministry of Education, which fund the study reported here. She is also indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their highly valuable comments on previous versions of this paper.

References

Abunuwara, E. (1992). The structure of the trilingual lexicon. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4, 311–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Arabski, J. (ed.) (2006). Cross-linguistic influences in the second language lexicon. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, C., & Prys Jones, S. (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Bardel, C., & Lindqvist, C. (2007). The role proficiency and psychotypology in lexical cross-linguistic influence: A study of a multilingual learner of Italian L3. In Chini, M., Desideri, P., Favilla, M. E. & Pallotti, G. (eds.), Atti del VI Congresso di Studi dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, Napoli, 9–10 February 2006, pp. 123–145. Perugia: Guerra Editore.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. (1992). Cognitive psychology: An overview for cognitive scientists. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bernardini, P., & Schlyter, S. (2004). Growing syntactic structure and code-mixing in the weaker language: The ivy hypothesis. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 49–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boas, H. (2003). A constructional approach to resultatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Bolonyai, A. (1998). In-between languages: Language shift/maintenance in childhood bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2, 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouvy, C. (2000). Towards the construction of a theory of cross-linguistic transfer. In Cenoz & Jessner (eds.), pp. 143–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cenoz, J., & Jessner, U. (eds.) (2000), English in Europe: The acquisition of a third language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B., & Jessner, U. (eds.) (2001). Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistic perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B., & Jessner, U. (eds.) (2003). The multilingual lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, H., & Leung, Y. (1989). Patterns of lexical processing in a non-native language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 15, 316–325.Google Scholar
Christen, H., & Näf, A. (2001). Trausers, shoues und Eis – Englisches im Deutsch von Französischsprachigen. In Adamzik, K. & Christen, H. (eds.), Sprachkontakt, -vergleich, -variation. Festschrift für Gottfried Kolde zum 65. Geburtstag, pp. 61–98. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., Aveledo, F., & Roca, I. (2002). The development of regular and irregular verb inflection in Spanish child language. Journal of Child Language, 29, 591–622.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clyne, M., & Cain, H. (2000). Trilingualism in related languages: Dutch–German–English near and far. In Hirschfelder, G., Schell, D. & Schrutka-Rechenstamm, A. (eds.), Kulturen – Sprachen – Übergänge, pp. 135–152. Köln: Böhlau.Google Scholar
Clyne, M., & Mocnay, E. (1999). Zur ungarisch–deutsch–englischen Dreisprachigkeit in Australien. In Bührig, K. & Matras, Y. (eds.), Sprachtheorie und sprachliches Handeln, pp. 159–169. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Caramazza, A., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2000). The cognate facilitation effect: Implications for models of lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 26, 1283–1296.Google ScholarPubMed
Dauven-van Knippenberg, C. (1996). Beobachtungen zum Erwerb einer verwandten Fremdsprache. IRAL: International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 34, 292–300.Google Scholar
De Angelis, G. (2007). Third or additional language acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Angelis, G., & Selinker, L. (2001). Interlanguage transfer and competing linguistic systems in the multilingual mind. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 42–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Bot, K. (2004). The multilingual lexicon: Modelling selection and control. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1, 17–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Bot, K., & Schreuder, R. (1993). Word production and the bilingual lexicon. In Schreuder, R. & Weltens, B. (eds.), The bilingual lexicon, pp. 191–214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dechert, H. W. (2006). On the ambiguity of the notion “transfer”. In Arabski (ed.), pp. 3–11.Google Scholar
Dechert, H. W., & Raupach, M. (1989). Interlingual processes. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
De Groot, A., & Hoeks, J. (1995). The development of bilingual memory: Evidence from word translation by trilinguals. Language Learning, 45, 688–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (1997). The role of input in the acquisition of past verb forms in English and Dutch: Evidence from a bilingual child. In E. Clark (ed.), Proceedings of the 28th Stanford Child Language Research Forum, pp. 153–162. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
De Vriendt, S. (1972). Interferenzen der ersten Fremdsprache beim Erlernen einer zweiten. In G. Nickel (ed.), Papers from the International Symposium in Applied Contrastive Linguistics, pp. 43–50. Bielefeld: Cornelsen, Velhagen & Klasing.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (1998). Lexical inventions: French interlanguage as L2 versus L3. Applied Linguistics, 19, 471–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T. (2003). Lexical processing in bilinguals and multilinguals: The word selection problem. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 11–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ecke, P. (2003). Substitutionsfehler und Wörter auf der Zunge: Evidenz für das multilinguale Lexikon. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée, 78, 35–48.Google Scholar
Ecke, P., & Hall, C. J. (1998). Tres niveles de la representación mental: Evidencia de errores léxicos en estudiantes de lenguas extranjeras. Estudios de Lingüística Aplicada, 28, 15–26.Google Scholar
Ecke, P., & Hall, C. J. (2000). Lexikalische Fehler in Deutsch als Drittsprache: Translexikalischer Einfluss auf drei Ebenen der mentalen Repräsentation. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 1, 31–37.Google Scholar
Falk, Y., & Bardel, C. (2010). The study of the role of the background languages in third language acquisition: The state of the art. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 48, 185–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabryś-Barker, D. (2006). The interaction of languages in the lexical search of multilingual language users. In Arabski (ed.), pp. 144–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I. (2000). “I want a chimney builden”: The acquisition of infinitival constructions in bilingual children. In Döpke, S. (ed.), Cross-linguistic structures in simultaneous bilingualism, pp. 123–148. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I. (2001). “We goen shopping”: Mixed utterances in bilingual children as a case of bilingual bootstrapping. In K. Cantone & M.-O. Hinzelin (eds.), Proceedings of the Colloquium on Structure, Acquisition, and Change of Grammars: Phonological and Syntactic Aspects, special issue of Working Papers in Multilingualism, 26, 73–78.Google Scholar
Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I., & Tracy, R. (1996). Bilingual bootstrapping. Linguistics, 34, 901–926.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldrick, M., & Blumstein, S. (2006). Cascading activation from phonological planning to articulatory processes: Evidence from tongue twisters. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21, 649–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, C., & Ecke, P. (2003). Parasitism as a default mechanism in L3 vocabulary acquisition. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 71–85.Google Scholar
Hall, C., Newbrand, D., Ecke, P., Sperr, U., Marchand, V., & Hayes, L. (2009). Learners’ implicit assumptions about syntactic frames in new L3 words: The role of cognates, typological proximity and L2 status. Language Learning, 59, 153–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammarberg, B. (2001). Roles of L1 and L2 in L3 production and acquisition. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 21–41.Google Scholar
Hammarberg, B. (2009). Processes in third language acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heaton, B. (1966). Composition through pictures. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Herwig, A. (2001). Plurilingual lexical organisation: Evidence from lexical processing in L1–L2–L3–L4 translation. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 115–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulk, A., & Van der Linden, E. (1996). Language mixing in a French–Dutch bilingual child. In Kellerman, E., Weltens, B. & Bongaerts, T. (eds.), EUROSLA 6: A selection of papers, pp. 89–103. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij.Google Scholar
Huss, L. M. (1991). Simultan tvåspråkighet i svensk–finsk context [Simultaneous bilingualism in a Swedish–Finnish context]. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1987). The status of thematic relations in linguistic theory. Linguistic Inquiry, 18, 369–411.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kello, C., Plaut, D., & MacWhinney, B. (2000). The task dependence of staged versus cascaded processing: An empirical and computational study of Stroop interference in speech production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 340–360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kempen, G., & Huijbers, P. (1983). The lexicalization process in sentence production and naming: Indirect election of words. Cognition, 14, 185–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S., & Wodniecka, Z. (2006). Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, J., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leung, Y. I. (2009). Third language acquisition and universal grammar. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levelt, W. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (2011). Lexical conceptual structure. In Maienborn, C., von Heusinger, K. & Portner, P. (eds.). Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, pp. 420–440. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mägiste, E. (1979). The competing language systems of the multilingual: A developmental study of decoding and encoding processes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 18, 79–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mägiste, E. (1985). Development of intra- and interlingual interference in bilinguals. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 14, 137–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mägiste, E. (1986). Selected issues in second and third language learning. In Vaid, J. (ed.), Language processing in bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological perspectives, pp. 97–122. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Morsella, E., & Miozzo, M. (2002). Evidence for a cascade model of lexical access in speech production. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 28, 555–563.Google ScholarPubMed
Müller, N., Cantone, K., Kupisch, T., & Schmitz, K. (2002). Zum Spracheneinfluss im bilingualen Erstspracherwerb: Italienisch–Deutsch. Linguistische Berichte, 190, 157–206.Google Scholar
Müller, N., & Hulk, A. (2001). Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual first language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller-Lancé, J. (2003). A strategy model of multilingual learning. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 117–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C., & Jake, J. (1995). Matching lemmas in a bilingual language competence and production model: Evidence from intrasentential code switching. Linguistics, 33, 981–1024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C., & Jake, J. (2000). Four types of morpheme: Evidence from apahsia, codeswitching, and second-language acquisition. Linguistics, 28, 1053–1100.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (1985). On the representation of two languages in one brain. Language Sciences, 7, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, M. (1993). Linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic aspects of “interference” in bilingual speakers: The activation threshold hypothesis. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 9, 133–145.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., & Prince, A. (1992). Regular and irregular morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. Proceedings of the 17th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 230–251. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Poulisse, N. (2000). Slips of the tongue in first and second language production. Studia Linguistica, 54, 136–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulisse, N., & Bongaerts, T. (1994). First language use in second language production. Applied Linguistics, 15, 36–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (1995). The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ringbom, H. (1982). The influence of other languages on the vocabulary of foreign language learners. In Nickels, G. & Nehls, D. (eds.), Error analysis, contrastive analysis, and second language learning, pp. 85–96. Heidelberg: IRAL.Google Scholar
Ringbom, H. (1987). The role of the first language in foreign language learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Ringbom, H. (2001). Lexical transfer in L3 production. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 58–69.Google Scholar
Ringbom, H. (2007). Cross-linguistic similarity in foreign language learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2003). The effect of age on crosslinguistic influence in L4 acquisition by EFL bilingual learners. Presented at the Third International Conference on Third Language Acquisition and Multilingualism, Tralee, Ireland.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2009). Selected effects of L2–L3 proficiency thresholds and asymmetric input on multiple language acquisition. Presented at the 19th European Second Language Acquisition Conference, Cork.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2011a). “Luisa and Pedrito's dog will the breakfast eat”: Interlanguage transfer and the role of the second language factor. In De Angelis, G. & Dewaele, J.-M. (eds.), New trends in crosslinguistic influence and multilingualism research, pp. 86–104. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2011b). Against “canonical word order”: Evidence of basic word order transfer at the initial state. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, 17, 220–236.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2011c). Crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition: English after German in Spanish/Catalan learners in an instructed setting. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Barcelona.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2012). Transfer and L3/L4 activation in parallel: Evidence from a longitudinal study. Presented at L3 Workshop, Vitoria, Spain.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L. (2014). An inquiry into the role of L3 proficiency on crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition. Ms., University of Barcelona.Google Scholar
Sánchez, L., & Jarvis, S. (2008). The use of picture stories in the investigation of crosslinguistic influence. TESOL Quarterly, 42, 329–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönpflug, U. (2000). Word-fragment completion in the second (German) and third (English) language: A contribution to the organisation of the trilingual speaker's lexicon. In Cenoz & Jessner (eds.), pp. 121–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönpflug, U. (2003). The transfer-appropriate processing approach and the trilingual's organisation of the lexicon. In Cenoz et al. (eds.), pp. 27–44.Google Scholar
Shanon, B. (1991). Faulty language selection in polyglots. Language and Cognitive Processes, 6, 339–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharwood Smith, M. (2010). Metalinguistic processing and acquisition within the MOGUL framework. In Everaert, M., Lentz, T., de Mulder, H., Nilsen, Ø. & Zondervan, K. (eds.), The linguistics enterprise: From knowledge of language to knowledge in linguistics, pp. 327–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sikogukira, M. (1993). Influence of languages other than the L1 on a foreign language: A case of transfer from L2 to L3. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 4, 110–132.Google Scholar
Singleton, D. (1987). Mother and other tongue influence on learner French: A case study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 9, 327–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Shopen, T. (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, pp. 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tracy, R. (1996). Vom Ganzen und seinen Teilen: Überlegungen zum doppelten Erstspracherwerb. Sprache und Kognition, 15, 70–92.Google Scholar
Tracy, R., & Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I. (2005). The strength of the weak: Asynchronies in the simultaneous acquisition of German and English. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 35, 28–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tremblay, M.-C. (2004). Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: The role of L2 proficiency. Masters thesis, York University, Toronto.Google Scholar
Wei, L. (2006). The multilingual mental lexicon and lemma transfer in third language learning. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3, 88–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, S., & Hammarberg, B. (1993). L1 and L2 influence in L3 production: Evidence from language switches. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, S., & Hammarberg, B. (1998). Language switches in L3 production: Implications for a polyglot speaking model. Applied Linguistics, 19, 259–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar