2. TLA Research at the Lexical
level
• the most investigated linguistic area
• non-native influence is especially visible at
the level of vocabulary
WHY?
• Evidence of non-native information is
mostly overt and easily recognizable
(DeAngelis, 2007)
3. Astrid Stedje (1977)
• pioneer studies on L3 Acquisition: lexical
transfer into L3 German.
• one of first studies to point out that transfer
from one foreign language to another is also
possible
• The 55 participants of L1 Finnish/L2
Swedish, transferred function words from
their L2 more often than they did from their
L1
4. Ringbom (1987)
• one of the most comprehensive studies on
non-native linguistic influence to this date
• collected 11,000 essays written in L3
English by Finnish students of Finnish L1
and Swedish L1
5. Ringbom (1987): Findings
• several instances of non-native linguistic
influence: referred to as borrowing and
lexical transfer
CONCLUSIONS:
• L3 learners often transfer ‘form’ from the
L2 and rarely or never do they transfer
‘meaning’
6. Why form and not meaning?
Possible explanation Ellis (1994, 1997) :
• learning the semantic interpretation of a
word is more intellectually demanding
since it necessarily involves conscious and
explicit learning, whereas the acquisition
of form is essentially implicit and
unconscious learning.
7. L3 Processing of Vocabulary
• Magiste (1979, 1986): one of the first
studies to look at multilingual processing
• Testing: a number of speeded tasks such
as word, number and picture naming as
well as some decoding tasks.
8. Magiste (1986)
Results:
• trilinguals were slower at decoding for
word naming as well as some of the
decoding tasks.
• bilinguals and monolinguals were slower
on the naming tasks.
9. More Processing
• Van Gelderen et al. (2003)
Participants:
• Dutch monolingual and bilingual teenagers
(of Turkish, Maroccan or Surinam
background) learning English.
Testing:
• word recognition tasks
10. Van Gelderen et al. Results
• Although by a very small difference, the
results showed that bilinguals were slower
in their L2 Dutch and L3 English than
monolinguals were.
12. Pure Codeswitching
• the borrowing and inclusion of entire
words from one language into another)
13. Example: Bardel and Falk
(2007)
• interaction between the speaker’s German
L1, English L2 and Swedish L3
EXAMPLE:
Isn’t it tycka heisst doch denken?
Isn’t it think means MODAL PARTICLE think?
(“tycka”: Swedish L3, “heisst doch denken”:
German L1)
14. False Friends
• words from the background language(s)
that are phonologically and/or
orthographically identical to the target
language.
15. Example: Bardel (2011)
• native speakers of Swedish who often use
the English word “eventually” in the sense
of maybe/possibly
• influence could come from L1 Swedish,
since the Swedish word “eventuellt” does
have the meaning of maybe/possibly
16. Example: Bardel (2011)
HOWEVER,
• transfer could also be another one of the
languages known by the speaker such as
Italian and French where “eventuellt” is a
true friend for the Italian “eventualmente”
and the French “eventuellement”.
17. Word Construction
• the process by which words from either
background language(s) are adapted and
included into the target language at the
morphological as well as phonological
level.
18. Example: Lindqvist (2006)
• from L3 French, Swedish L1 and English L2.
• Speakers commonly use *grades in the
target language that comes from the
English grades.
• The correct target language form should
be: notes.
19. Example 2: Bardel and
Lindqvist (2007)
• L3 Italian where French is the source
language for transfer
• *esciarpa, from the French ‘écharpe’ and
English ‘scarf’
• the correct Italian word is ‘sciarpa’
