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Article published In: Conceptual transfer, (re)conceptualisation and other cognitive aspects of crosslinguistic influence in L2 acquisition
Edited by Cecilia Gunnarsson-Largy
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 14:1] 2023
► pp. 41–74

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Always trust your gut?

A case study on the differential impact of French as L1/L2 on Italian L3 tense-aspect judgments

ORCiD logo with link | Stockholm University
 | Stockholm University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Stockholm University.

Published online: 27 October 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.22020.val
Abstract
The study examines how three undergraduate beginner students of Italian as L3 make sense of Italian tense-aspect morphology based on other languages. All students had knowledge of Swedish, English, and French, in each case acquired in a particular chronological order. The participants completed two C-tests and three interpretation tests of aspectual contrasts in English, French, and Italian. The latter was complemented by written comments. The results of the Italian interpretation test varied depending on tense-aspect configurations. A qualitative analysis of the comments revealed four categories of metalinguistic reflections, referring to: (i) explicit rules, (ii) intuition, (iii) other languages, and (iv) uncertain/unknown, differently distributed among the students. The results suggest that the students relied on their L1(s) as well as their L2(s) depending on type of transfer, whether linguistic or conceptual, which is discussed in light of some recent L3 models.
Résumé
Cette étude examine comment trois étudiantes d’italien comme L3, au niveau débutant, donnent un sens à la morphologie temporo-aspectuelle italienne sur la base d’autres langues. Les étudiantes ont toutes les trois connaissance du suédois, de l’anglais et du français, mais chacune dans un ordre d’acquisition particulier. Les étudiantes ont passé deux C-tests, ainsi que trois tests d’interprétation des contrastes aspectuels en anglais, français et italien. Le dernier test a été complété par des commentaires écrits. Les résultats du test d’interprétation de l’italien ont varié en fonction des configurations temporo-aspectuelles. Dans une analyse qualitative des commentaires, nous avons trouvé quatre catégories de réflexions métalinguistiques: (i) règles explicites, (ii) intuition, (iii) autres langues et (iv) incertitude ; celles-ci étaient différemment réparties parmi les données des étudiantes. Les résultats suggèrent que les étudiantes ont recours à leurs L1 ainsi qu’à leurs L2, selon le type de transfert (linguistique ou conceptuel) en cause. Cela est discuté à la lumière de certains modèles théoriques récents du transfert en L3.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tense, grammatical aspect, and lexical aspect
    • 2.1Codification of tense and aspect in French, Italian, English, and Swedish
    • 2.2Lexical aspect and prototypical/non-prototypical associations
  • 3.Models of third language acquisition
  • 4.Transfer studies on the non-native acquisition of Romance aspectual contrasts
  • 5.The study
  • 6.Data and methods of analysis
    • 6.1Participants
    • 6.2Tests and data collection procedures
    • 6.3Analyses of the data
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Quantitative data analysis
    • 7.2Qualitative analysis
      • 7.2.1L1SW
      • 7.2.2L1FR/SW
      • 7.2.3L1FR
  • 8.Discussion
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Author contribution
  • Notes
  • References
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Mocciaro, Egle
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