First Noun Principle or L1 Transfer Principle in SLA?

Abstract

English LI students learning Romance Languages have been found to process the first noun or pronoun of a sentence as the agent. However, because all the evidence is based on learners with English as an L1, it is not clear whether this is due to a universal strategy or is a result of L1 transfer. According to one model of input processing (VanPatten 2007), L2 learners would initially assign agent status to the first noun and object status to the second noun (First Noun Principle) or it might be that the L1 parser is transferred into the L2 input processing procedures (L1 Transfer Principle). The present study addresses whether the L1 parsing procedures are transferred or whether there is a universal First Noun Principle. L1 Italian and L1 English speakers enrolled in beginning Spanish classes interpreted Spanish sentences they heard. The results indicated that the L1 Italian learners interpreted OVS and OOVS sentences better than the L1 English learners. Data from this study suggest that the transfer position is plausible.