Cross-Linguistic Influence in Third Language Acquisition A longitudinal study on the acquisition of German morphosyntax by Norwegian high school students

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate how previously acquired languages influence the acquisition of a third language (L3); modes of transfer/cross-linguistic influence (CLI) (wholesale vs. property-by-property) and factors that select the source of transfer. This longitudinal empirical study contributes to the core questions of generative adult language acquisition and adds to the current discussion on how previously acquired languages influence the acquisition of morphosyntactic properties in the L3 (e.g., Bardel, C., & Falk, Y. 2007, Rothman 2015, Westergaard, Mitrofanova, N., Mykhaylyk, R., & Rodina, Y. 2017, Westergaard 2019). In this thesis, I focus on cross-linguistic influence during the acquisition of morphosyntactic structures such as word order in sentences with habitual adverbs and non-subject initial declaratives in L3 German by L1 Norwegian, L2 English speakers. Both these structures require the finite verb to move to the second constituent position in German and Norwegian while English doesn’t require the verb to move to the second position. This study’s methodology is based on the study “L3 development: A longitudinal study on L3 German in Norway” (Kolb, Guajardo & Westergaard,2021/in preparation). The AJT used in this study was adapted to match the vocabulary used in the participants’ textbook. In order to answer the research questions, Norwegian speaking high school students completed an Acceptability Judgement Task (AJT) in L3 German and L2 English containing the two target conditions (habitual adverbs and non-subject initial declaratives) twice over a period of one year. This study did not find evidence of wholesale transfer. Rather, the data from the AJT in German at test time one suggests that both previously acquired languages influence the acquisition of the L3 morphosyntactic structures under investigation, as participant’s judgement of the structures is at around chance level. At test time two, participants performed significantly more target-like when judging the structure habitual adverbs as compared to the structure non-subject initial declaratives. This finding speaks for the notion of property-by-property transfer. As regarding to the question which factors may determine a predominant source of transfer, the data supports that economy plays a main role in cross-linguistic influence as the participants performed significantly more target-like when judging the structure habitual adverbs as compared to the structure non-subject initial declaratives in L3 German at test time two.