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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. 229–260

Chapter 9
Language dominance and transfer selection in L3 acquisition

Evidence from sentential negation and negative quantifiers in L3 English

| University of Reading
| University of Reading
| University of Reading | UiT the Arctic University of Norway

This study examines the role Language Dominance plays in determining the source of transfer in the Initial Stages of L3 processing by investigating Negative Quantifiers in L3 English to discriminate between two possible sources of transfer in the L3 grammar of Catalan/Spanish early bilinguals. Using a Self-Paced Reading technique, two groups of early bilinguals differing in their dominant language were tested: Catalan-dominant (n = 13) and Spanish-dominant (n = 9). Our results provide evidence that Language Dominance (LD) does not trump other traditionally-assumed variables in determining the source of transfer. Additionally, the data provide evidence that true beginners of an L3 are sensitive to morphosyntactic violations when their procedural knowledge of the L3 is examined, meaning that applying methodologies that tap procedural knowledge in L3 acquisition is viable and needed (cf. Rothman, Alemán Bañón, & González Alonso, 2015).

Keywords: L3 acquisition, L3 processing, transfer, language dominance, early bilinguals
Article outline
  • Models of L3/Ln transfer
    • A privileged role of the L1
    • L2 Status Factor
    • The Cumulative Enhancement Model
    • The Typological Primacy Model
    • The Linguistic Proximity Model
    • The Scalpel Model
  • Linguistic background
    • English negative quantifiers
    • Catalan and Spanish negative concord items
    • Summary of the properties
  • The present study
    • Participants
    • Materials
    • Procedure
    • Results
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.55.09pui
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