Same ou Différent? Adverb Placement at the Initial Stages of L2 and L3 French

Abstract

A number of hypotheses have been put forward to account for "the L3 transfer puzzle" (Rothman & Cabrelli-Amaro 2010:192), namely  L1 transfer; L2 transfer (the "L2 status factor", Bardel & Falk 2007); and positive transfer from L1 and/or L2 (Flynn, Vinnitskaya, & Foley’s 2004 Cumulative Enhancement Model). However, cross-linguistic influence in L2/L3 acquisition can be affected by psychotypology (Kellerman 1977), that is perceived language distance [my emphasis]. Arabic and French share rich verbal morphology, which accounts for adverb placement, but learners in the Arabian Gulf may not perceive these similarities because English and French are alike in terms of their writing systems, vocabulary and culture. In this paper I will compare L1 English/L2 French and L1 Arabic/L2 English/L3 French learners to explore these issues.