The document discusses lexical transfer and crosslinguistic influence at the lexical level for third language (L3) learners. It provides examples from several studies that show evidence of transfer of vocabulary, including: 1) Transfer of function words from a second language (L2) to an L3, as found in a study of Finnish/Swedish learners of German. 2) Instances of borrowing and lexical transfer found in essays written in L3 English by Finnish students, as studied by Ringbom. 3) Slower word recognition and decoding in bilingual/trilingual learners compared to monolinguals, as shown in studies by Magiste and Van Gelderen. Three

1. Lexicon

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.

11. Crosslinguistic Influence
Three main types of CLI at the lexical level:
1. pure code switching
1. False Friends
2. Word Construction

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’