Syntax Matters: Exploring the Effect of Linguistic Similarity in Third Language Acquisition

Jensen, Isabel Nadine; Westergaard, Marit

doi:10.1111/lang.12525

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…At the same time, the results of the Follow-up task, where structural and lexical similarity were aligned in the artificial language, indicate that both structural and lexical similarity may play a significant role as predictors of relative activation of individual representations and are important contributing factors in additional language acquisition. This resonates with recent findings in Jensen and Westergaard (2022), showing that both lexical and syntactic cues in the input play a role for CLI in early L3 acquisition. Our Russian participants who were exposed to a novel artificial language that was both lexically and structurally like Russian performed at ceiling on all conditions, were able to inhibit the subject-first bias, and follow the case cue in conditions where the case cue and word order were in a mismatch.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition

Mitrofanova,

Leivada,

Westergaard

2023

LAB

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This study investigates the role of lexical vs structural similarity in L3 acquisition. We designed a mini-artificial language learning task where the novel L3 was lexically based on Norwegian but included a property that was present in Russian and Greek yet absent in Norwegian (grammatical case). The participants were Norwegian-Russian and Norwegian-Greek bilinguals as well as a group of Norwegian L1 speakers. All participants also knew some English. The morphological expression of the L3 target property was more like Russian than Greek in that case was marked on the noun itself, not on articles. The results of our study indicate that previous experience with a language that is structurally like the L3 (Russian) is facilitative, even when the L3 lexically resembles a language that lacks this grammatical property (Norwegian). Our results suggest overt that the morphological expression of the target property also plays a role: previous experience with Greek that marks the target contrast on determiners did not seem to be facilitative at early stages of acquisition. Overall, our results are in line with models of L3/Ln acquisition which assume that both previously acquired languages influence the development of the L3 and that structural, morphological and lexical similarity play a role.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition

Mitrofanova,

Leivada,

Westergaard

2023

LAB

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“…It is nevertheless noteworthy that no trace of V2 transfer was detected, especially as instructions were given in Norwegian, which could potentially have primed participants with that language (cf. Jensen and Westergaard 2022). Even though speakers were slightly more accurate in their judgments of the RC items than the MC items (the condition in which L1-transfer could potentially manifest), the paired t-tests showed that there was no significant difference between participants' sensitivity for MC and RC items in either the timed or the untimed experiment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Transfer and Bias in Norwegians’ Judgments of Word Order in L2 English

Strætkvern

2023

NJES

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This study investigates transfer of V2 relative to certain adverbs in L1 Norwegian L2 English speakers of intermediate/advanced proficiency. Previous research has found transfer of V2 word order, especially relative to adverbs in elementary school children (i.e., beginners) (Westergaard 2002, 2003) as well as in highschoolers (Dahl et al. 2022; Listhaug et al. 2021). However, the question remains whether this tendency persists in intermediate/advanced adult speakers. The present study uses Acceptability Judgment Tasks (AJTs) to investigate the presence of V2 transfer in this speaker group. The use of AJTs to investigate transfer is complicated by the fact that there is sometimes talk of L2 users having a yes-bias (Romano and Guijarro-Fuentes 2023). In this study, I investigate the presence of such a bias in AJTs, and whether the emergence of a bias is potentially impacted by access to metalinguistic knowledge. I conducted two AJTs where access to metalinguistic knowledge differed. I used Signal Detection Theory (Bader and Häussler 2010) to get a measure of participants’ sensitivity (d’) and their decision criterion to investigate the presence of bias. The results revealed a clear no-bias in both experiments, suggesting we cannot always assume a yes-bias in L2 users. No detectable transfer of V2 relative to adverbs was found in this group of L2 users, whose performance was at ceiling. Furthermore, as the only way to detect V2 transfer in the data was for speakers to accept ungrammatical structures, any potential presence thereof may have been masked by this salient no-bias.

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“…It is widely recognized that cross-linguistic influence is one of the most important resources available to the L3 learner (e.g., Witney & Dewaele, 2018), especially when the target language and previously learnt languages reveal similarities (e.g., Schepens et al, 2016;Jensen & Westergaard, 2023). For example, it has been shown that the larger the linguistic distance between L3 and L2, the lower the degree of L3 acquirability (Schepens et al, 2016).…”

Section: Facilitative Effects Of Multilingualism On Additional Langua...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The accelerating effect of multilingualism on learning a new language grammar: the case of grammatical gender agreement

Długosz

2024

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Mounting evidence suggests that prior knowledge of multiple languages can enhance learning additional languages. Nevertheless, the effects of multilingualism on grammar learning among adults are yet to be unveiled. The present study investigates the effect of prior foreign language knowledge on the acquisition of pronominal gender agreement in a new language. Forty-three native speakers of Polish learning Swedish with and without prior knowledge of German completed a speeded acceptability judgment task that involved items with grammatical and ungrammatical pronominal gender agreement in Swedish. According to the results, learners who had learnt German achieved higher accuracy scores than learners who had not. The difference between them decreased with increasing Swedish proficiency. In addition, only learners who had learnt German judged ungrammatical items faster than grammatical items. Thus, the present study demonstrates that prior foreign language knowledge accelerates learning grammatical gender agreement and facilitates access to grammatical gender knowledge in a new language, thereby providing evidence for a multilingual advantage in learning grammar. Implications for language teaching in multilingual contexts are discussed.

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Syntax Matters: Exploring the Effect of Linguistic Similarity in Third Language Acquisition

Cited by 7 publications

References 55 publications

Crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition

Crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition

Transfer and Bias in Norwegians’ Judgments of Word Order in L2 English

The accelerating effect of multilingualism on learning a new language grammar: the case of grammatical gender agreement

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