engleski

'Crosslinguistic influence and perceived crosslinguistic similarity in the context of L3 English production

Research on crosslinguistic influence in the field of third language acquisition is trying to uncover under what conditions and in what way prior linguistic knowledge and language learning experience may influence the acquisition and use of subsequent languages. Given that there are at least three language systems involved in the speaker’s mind in the process of third language acquisition we encounter numerous factors which can potentially influence the source language and frequency of crosslinguistic influence. Most research concentrated on factors which can be divided into three domains: learner factors (psychotypology, level of metalinguistic awareness, age, etc.), learning factors (language proficiency, language exposure, non- native language status, context of language use, etc.), and language factors (language typology, contact between languages, etc., Hall and Ecke, 2003). The aim of this study is to examine the activation of interlingual cognates and deceptive cognates existing in previously acquired languages (L1 and L2) during L3 lexical production in order to provide an insight into the nature of crosslinguistic influence in relation to the concept of psychotypology. The study builds empirically on the widely acknowledged phenomenon that psychotypology, or perceived crosslinguistic similarity, has an effect on the transferability of linguistic features from one language to another (e.g., Kellerman, 1983 ; Ringbom, 2007). More specifically, the study focuses on the effect of perceived cross- linguistic distance between three typologically unrelated languages (Croatian, English and Italian) on noticing and capitalizing on the similarities provided by formal, and different levels of semantic similarity existing between each of the previously acquired languages (Croatian and Italian) and L3 (English) during a lexical retrieval task in L3 English. Participants in the study were 37 Croatian- Italian-English trilinguals, high-school students in Istria, an officially bilingual Croatian-Italian community in Croatia. Apart from the questionnaire which elicited perceived distance between the three typologically unrelated languages, participants were given a paper-and-pencil test in which they were asked to read a list of sentences in English (their L3) and to supply a synonym for an underlined word in each sentence. The required synonymous words were slightly above the participants' level of knowledge in order to trigger cross- language lexical search, and the test items were manipulated in terms of levels of formal and semantic similarity existing between their translation equivalents in either L1 or L2 and lexical items in L3 English. The findings only partly confirm the importance of psychotypology in the activation of each of the previously acquired languages during the lexical retrieval task in L3 English. On the other hand, the study points to the importance of the interplay of knowledge and experience that goes beyond the knowledge of each specific language and may be related to the M(ultilingualism)-factor as defined in the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (Herdina & Jessner, 2002).

psychotypology, crosslinguistic similarity, linguistic affordances

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