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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 7:2 (2017) ► pp.131–162

Transfer into L3 English

Global accent in German-dominant heritage speakers of Turkish

| University of Konstanz
| Lund University
| University of Konstanz | The Artic University of Norway

This study is concerned with L3 acquisition in heritage speakers (HSs). The goals are to incorporate HSs into L3 acquisition research and investigate the role of language dominance for predicting L3 transfer. We analyze global accent in German-Turkish early bilinguals, HSs of Turkish, who acquired English as their L3. Twenty native-speaker judges determined accent strength and accent source in the speech of 18 bilinguals as well as 15 controls (L1 English, L1 German, L1 Turkish) when speaking English. Results show, firstly, that bilinguals are perceived as less accented than L1 Turkish speakers and similar to L1 German speakers. Secondly, unlike L1 controls, there is no uniform accent source for HSs when speaking their L3. Our results question the role of age of acquisition, while being generally consistent with the TPM. However, HSs seem to benefit from bilingual experience and structure-based transfer can be overpowered by high proficiency.

Keywords: L3 acquisition, global accent, heritage speakers
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies in L3 phonology
    • 2.1L3 Phonology
    • 2.2The role of language dominance
  • 3.Participants’ profiles
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Language dominance
      • 3.2.1Use-based dominance: Turkish use scores
      • 3.2.2Proficiency-based dominance: perceived phonological proficiency
  • 4.L3 English study
    • 4.1.Speakers and raters
    • 4.2.Methods
      • 4.2.1Preparation of speech samples
      • 4.2.2Procedure
    • 4.3.Results
      • 4.3.1English accent strength
      • 4.3.2Relationships between L3 English accent strength and L1 dominance
      • 4.3.3Ascertaining L3 accent transfer source
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1.Age of onset and the L2SFM
    • 5.2.Language dominance
    • 5.3.Implications for other L3 transfer models
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 February 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.15013.llo
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