CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCES BETWEEN ITALIAN L3, ENGLISH L2 AND CROATIAN L1
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Abstract
Many researchers believe that third language acquisition is just another case of second language acquisition and the differences between second and third language acquisition have been neglected in research. Cross-linguistic influence (CLI), although defined as a field of study concerned with native and non-native language influence, has traditionally focused on L1 influence and L2 learner behavior. According to De Angelis (2007), a comprehensive theory of CLI cannot, however, be based on L1 influence alone, as a wide range of phenomena would inevitably remain unexplored and unexplained. Recent research has clearly shown that the cross-linguistic development of a second language is not identical to the development of a third language, especially with regard to potential sources of transfer. The aim of this paper is to investigate cross-linguistic influences during the acquisition of Italian as a third language by students whose first language is Croatian and English their second language, and the relationship between linguistic typology and formal similarity and the transfer and production of errors, which is in accordance with the conducted research that indicates that typology plays a key role in cross-linguistic transfer (Hammarberg, 2001; Rothman and Cabrelli Amaro, 2010). The term formal similarity explicitly identifies the similarity between specific features or components of languages, ranging from their grammatical structures to their lexicons, phonetic features, graphic forms, and so forth, without necessarily implying a genetic relationship between them. Two unrelated languages can consequently be formally similar with respect to some features or components (De Angelis, 2007). A significant portion of English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources, while Italian and English also share numerous related words. In accordance with the mentioned facts, we believe that the strongest influence of the English language will be precisely in the area of lexicon. On the other hand, Croatian and Italian are more similar in the area of morphology since Croatian and Italian have a higher degree of inflection compared to English. In accordance with the aforementioned assumptions, we believe that the strongest influence of the Croatian language will be precisely in the area of morphology. The research was conducted on a sample of 30 respondents who are third-year students at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The final written papers were analyzed using the error analysis method, which confirmed our assumption that typology and formal similarity play a key role in interlanguage transfer.
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