Abstract
This article presents six case studies of L3 production performed by trilinguals in China, aiming to explore the activation status of L1 and L2 during L3 production. Six Mongolian native college students participated as research subjects, and qualitative and quantitative research methods including a think-aloud writing test and interviews, were adopted to examine which language, Mongolian L1 or Chinese L2, were more readily activated in the process of English L3 production, as well as, what roles L1 and L2 play in the process of L3 production and what factors contribute to the activation of L1 and L2. The findings show that Mongolian L1 and Chinese L2 are activated competitively in the process of English L3 production, but for different learners, they are activated to different levels and play different roles. The recency use of background languages, language proficiency and the medium of instruction are decisive factors in determining the activation levels of Mongolian L1 and Chinese L2 for Mongolian native college students in China. Language proficiency, the type and amount of exposure to L3 and the perceived language distance are the factors that contribute the most to activation of L1 and L2 during L3 production.
Highlights
A large number of studies have been carried out on Third Language Acquisition (TLA) over the past two decades (De Angelis, 2007)
3.1 Research Questions The present study aims to investigate the following three questions: 1) Which language, L1 or L2, is more readily activated in L3 production? 2) What roles does L1/L2 play in the process of L3 production? 3) What factors contribute to the activation of L1 and L2 in the process of L3 production? 3.2 Participants The participants of the present study are 6 female university students aged between 20 to 25 from Chi Feng University
The results show that language switches into Mongolian L1 and Chinese L2 respectively occur in different levels
Summary
A large number of studies have been carried out on Third Language Acquisition (TLA) over the past two decades (De Angelis, 2007). All Mongolian national schools in the Inner Mongolia Region offered bilingual education to the Mongolian minority students from primary to tertiary level until the end of 20th century, with Mongolian as their first language and Chinese as second language. English has become a compulsory course for Mongolian native students in Inner Mongolia, from primary to tertiary education Their English learning experience is different and more complex than that of other Chinese bilingual learners due to the fact that Mongolian, English and Chinese are very different systems with their own writing forms. Chinese is a branch of the Sina-Tibetan phylum, Mongolian is a sub-phylum of the Altaic phylum, and English belongs to a west-Germanic sub-phylum of the Indo-European language This has added difficulties to Mongolian native college students learning English. The aim of this research study is to understand the impact of English learning for Mongolian native college students
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