Cross-linguistic influence in L3 acquisition

Abstract In recent years, there has been considerable research into the factors contributing to cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of a third language. Much of the focus has been on linguistic cues, with less emphasis (and conflicting results) on experiential factors, such as the role of dominance. Additionally, there is very little literature on the role of the language used for instruction in experiments, which may be argued to reflect a recency effect. In this article, we investigate whether dominance (in one of the previously acquired languages) and recency may be responsible for cross-linguistic influence in the third language at early stages of acquisition. We exposed four groups of Polish–English speakers to thirty-six lexical items in a new language (Norwegian), followed by a picture-matching task to ensure word comprehension. Participants gave forced-choice judgements on sentences where the morphosyntax was either Polish-like or English-like. Four properties were tested: articles, ditransitives, number agreement, and semantic gender. The results showed complex relationships between dominance, recency, and linguistic property, which are discussed in light of a foreign language effect, differential cognitive control, language domains, and previous L3 studies. Additionally, we suggest some experimental considerations for future L3 research.