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In:Meaning and Structure in Second Language Acquisition: In honor of Roumyana Slabakova
Edited by Jacee Cho, Michael Iverson, Tiffany Judy, Tania Leal and Elena Shimanskaya
[Studies in Bilingualism 55] 2018
► pp. 203–227

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Chapter 8
Proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement by L2 and L3 English learners

 | Mondragon University
 | University of the Basque Country
Published online: 16 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.55.08ima
Abstract
The present study examines proficiency and transfer effects in the acquisition of gender agreement in third person singular possessives (his/her) by second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of English. Within current generative second language acquisition research, gender agreement has been found to be a complicated feature to acquire for non-native language learners. A group of Basque/Spanish speakers (n = 117) and a group of Spanish speakers (n = 70) divided into three proficiency levels (elementary, intermediate and advanced) completed two written (a fill in the gap task and a written description task) two oral production tasks (an oral elicitation and a picture description). Our findings show that previous linguistic knowledge and proficiency level in English seem to have an influence on the type of errors attested in the L2 and the L3 groups.
Article outline
  • The present study
    • Participants
    • Experimental materials and tasks
    • Procedure
    • Data coding
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (38)
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2025. Integration of Grammar Instruction and Task-Based Interaction with Young EFL Learners: An Investigation into the Use of English Possessive Determiners (His/Her). In Investigating Attention to Form and Individual Differences:Research with EFL Children [Second Language Learning and Teaching, ], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
SÓLYOM, CSILLA IBOLYA
2025. Non-Facilitative Transfer Effects of the First (L1) and Second Language (L2) in Third Language (L3) Acquisition of Pronominal Possessors, Differential Object Marking, and Resultative Constructions. Studii și cercetări lingvistice 2024:2 ► pp. 239 ff. DOI logo
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2024. The impact of textual enhancement on the acquisition of third person possessive pronouns by child EFL learners. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 62:4 ► pp. 1485 ff. DOI logo
Mayo, María del Pilar García & María Luquin
2023. Does repeated pre-task planning have an impact on form-focused LREs?. Language Teaching for Young Learners 5:2 ► pp. 149 ff. DOI logo

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