The cross-linguistic influence of L1 Korean and L2 English in L3 Spanish syntactic processing

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of the previously acquired languages by Korean native speakers who learn Spanish as third language (L3), focused on the L3 syntactic processing of resultative predicate construction. The syntactic processing of resultative construction is very difficult for them and many Korean native speakers commit errors in its production. What is particularly noticeable in L3 productions is that resultative predicates are rarely used, whereas prepositional phrases or adverbs of -mente type are widely used. In the grammaticality judgment test and correction test performed in this study, it has been found that even learners who have good command of resultative predicate construction in L2 tend to rely more on L1 in L3 syntactic processing. Even though L3 is more similar to L2 and both of these languages are formally learned, the results show that L1 is preferred by Korean L3 learners as a source of syntactic transfer in the comprehension and production of Spanish resultative construction, which causes either positive transfer or negative transfer to L3.