L1 Transfer in the Acquisition of Word Order in the Adjective-Added Korean Classifier Phrases by L1-Chinese and L1-Russian Children

Abstract

This study explored first language (L1) transfer in child second language (L2) acquisition, testing whether L1-Chinese children learning L2 Korean show an advantage over L1-Russian children in the acquisition of adjective-added Korean classifier phrases. Chinese, like Korean, has classifier phrases with similar word orders, while Russian does not. L1-Chinese (n = 18) and L1-Russian (n = 27) children (age = 11-12 years) with L2 Korean completed an acceptability judgment task (AJT) designed to explore grammaticality in the orderings of Korean classifier phrases. The L1-Chinese children also completed a Chinese-version AJT, a translation equivalent to the Korean AJT. The study resulted in two main findings. First, in the Korean AJT, the L1-Chinese children showed more target-like performance than proficiency-matching L1-Russian children. Second, the L1-Chinese children showed comparable ratings between the Korean AJT and the Chinese AJT. The results suggest that L1 transfer takes place during child L2 acquisition, countering claims of a limited role of L1 transfer in child L2 acquisition.