1. Introduction

A crucial question in the research field known as third language acquisition (L3A) is which prior language is the source of transfer into the L3, the L1 and/or the L2. Existing models of L3A take different perspectives: the role of the L1 may be maximised (L1 transfer scenario, Na Ranong & Leung, 2009; Jin, 2009; Hermas, 2010, 2014a, 2014b), the role of the L2 may be as well (L2 status factor [L2SF], Bardel & Falk, 2007, 2012; Falk & Bardel, 2011), or both background languages can be potential sources of transfer depending on (perceived) typological resemblance (Typological Primacy Model [TPM], Rothman, 2011, 2013, 2015), on abstract structural similarity (Linguistic Proximity Model [LPM], Mykhaylyk et al., 2015; Westergaard et al., 2016) or on the facilitating or neutral nature of transfer (Cumulative Enhancement Model [CEM], Flynn et al., 2004). Another question to explore is when transfer occurs in the learning process. Current L3-models predict transfer from either the L1 or the L2 in the initial stages of acquisition (TPM, Rothman, 2011, 2013, 2015; Bardel & Falk, 2007). However, it is also important to consider the interplay between the background languages in different stages of L3-learning, which becomes clearer in empirical data on L3 development.

This paper is a longitudinal study that investigates the development of the influence of L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English) on L3 French acquisition, starting in the initial stages. To collect the data, Dutch/English immersion secondary school students were followed over a period of two years. The study investigates syntactic transfer by looking at two verb placement constructions in which L3 French differs from L1 Dutch and L2 English, i.e. V-to-C movement, (+Dutch, –French) and V-to-T movement (–English, +French). We report findings from a grammaticality judgement task (GJT) and a gap-filling task (GFT).

The paper is organised as follows. In section 2, the increasing interest of development in the L3 research field is discussed. In section 3, the linguistic description is presented. In section 4, we also take a closer look at some previous studies, since the present research builds on a recent cross-sectional study. Section 5 then describes the design and the method of this empirical study, followed by the results in section 6. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings (section 7) and a number of concluding remarks (section 8).

2. Theoretical background

3. Linguistic description

In Dutch clauses that start with a sentence-initial adverbial phrase, the finite verb moves to C and appears in the second position of the clause, which results in an XVSO word order (also known as the V2-rule) (den Besten, 1983), as illustrated in (1). In declarative root sentences containing manner/frequency adverbs, the word orders in French and English differ: in French, the finite verb moves to T and therefore the verb appears before the adverb, as illustrated in (2) whereas in English there is no verb movement, resulting in Adverb-Verb word order in the same type of clause, as shown in (3) (Pollock, 1989).

In Table 1, we present the movement types and the corresponding differences between languages. It is important to emphasise that where Dutch and French differ, English and French share the same word order – and therefore, the XSVO word order in French could also indicate positive influence from English. Conversely, where English and French differ, Dutch and French share the same word order, and thus, V-Adv word order could indicate positive influence from Dutch. This study focuses on errors, this means XVSO and Adv-V word order in French, since in later stages of L3 learning it is hard to distinguish between positive influence and acquisition of L3 knowledge.

4. Influence of L1/L2 and immersion education on L3 French

In previous research, Stadt et al., (unpublished manuscript, in press, 2016, 2018) investigated L1/L2 influence cross-sectionally in different stages of L3A (in Y1, Y3 and Y4 students). This section discusses the most important findings from these studies, in order to provide the context of the present study, allowing us to explore how longitudinal data can contribute to the findings of other studies. The previous studies were conducted in the same secondary school as this study: a partial Dutch/English bilingual secondary school in which students can receive either Dutch/English immersion or regular non-immersion secondary education. We examined syntactic transfer by means of a grammaticality judgement task (GJT) and a gap-filling task (GFT) in different groups of learners: in first-year participants who were initial-state learners of French (Stadt et al., unpublished manuscript), and in both Y3 and Y4 Dutch/English immersion and non-immersion students (Stadt et al., 2016, 2018). To detect transfer, we tested the same verb placement constructions as in this study: V-to-C movement (–French, +Dutch), in which case in Dutch the verb appears in the second position of the clause, i.e. XVSO word order (also known as the V2-rule) (as illustrated in example (1)) and V-to-T movement (+French, –English), in which case the adverb appears post-verbally (V-Adv) in French (as illustrated in example (2)) and pre-verbally (Adv-V) in English (as illustrated in example (3)).

The results of the cross-sectional studies showed that participants lean greatly on their L1 Dutch at the onset of learning French (Stadt et al., unpublished manuscript), much more than on their L2 English. That is to say, the initial-state learners massively transfer the V2-rule into French (XVSO errors in 72.3% [GFT] and 64.6% [GJT] of the cases), whereas the first-year participants transfer the English Adv-V word order in 10.9% (GFT) and 32.5% (GJT) of the cases (Stadt et al., unpublished manuscript). In later stages of acquisition, the participants ‘unlearn’ the Dutch V2-rule to the point that they make V2 errors in only 2.6% and 11.3% of the cases (in regular and immersion Y4 participants, respectively) (data as reported from a GJT in Stadt et al., 2018).²

We found more substantial influence of the English Adv-V word order in later stages of L3 learning. The number of Adv-V mistakes increased from Y1 to Y3 in the immersion group in the production task, from 6% to 21.4% (p = 0.003) (Stadt et al., in press), which we interpreted as the L2 needing L2 exposure before it becomes an important source of transfer.³ The Y3 immersion participants who had received a considerable amount of L2 input in the daily school context also showed significantly more transfer from the L2 than from the L1 (42.4% vs 24.6%, p = 0.012) (Stadt et al., 2016). Regarding the Y4 participants, the data also showed that the L2 was significantly more important than the L1 in both the immersion and the non-immersion group (32.7% vs 11.3%, p = 0.005 and 25.3% vs 2.6%, p = 0.005, respectively) (Stadt et al., 2018).

However, we also found that the influence of the L1 does not simply decrease in the same way that the influence of the L2 increases after three years of L3A. There is also an interesting interplay between the background languages in the cross-sectional developmental process. This interplay depends on the developmental stage of the learner and the amount of L2 exposure the learner receives in the daily context. Although we found a decrease of L1 influence in L3A, in the Y3 non-immersion group – where participants are not exposed to English in the daily school context – the L1 remained a relatively important source of transfer as compared to the Y3 immersion group. That is, the Y3 regular participants made significantly more mistakes due to Dutch influence than the Y3 immersion participants (37% vs. 24.6%, p = 0.033)(Stadt et al., 2016). We explained this by stating that only in the immersion group (where participants receive enough L2 exposure) is the influence of the L1 overridden by the L2.

Since we tested participants at the onset of Y1 and others at the end of Y3 and Y4, the previous analysis was based on cross-sectional data with a ‘developmental gap’ because we only tested intermediate learners of French in Y3 and Y4. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the developmental pattern of one and the same group of participants at the onset of Y1, Y2 and Y3. As such, we can study the interplay between the background languages in L3 development described above and explore whether there is a ‘point’ in the acquisition process when the L2 ‘takes over’ the L1 as the preferred source of transfer in L3A.

5. Design

6. Results

This section presents the group results. Since we tested 18 participants in Y1 and Y2 and 14 participants in Y3, we will report and analyse two data sets separately: one on the basis of 18 participants, presented in Tables 3 and 4 (comparing Y1 to Y2), and one on the basis of the 14 participants who reached Y3, presented in Tables 5 and 6 (comparing Y1 to Y2 to Y3). The V2-errors in Y1 and Y2 are in Tables 3 and 5 and the Adv-V errors in Tables 4 and 6. We also report the accuracy scores because they reveal the L3 learners’ progress.

What stands out is the decrease in the number of V2 errors from Y1 to Y2 in both tasks. A close inspection of the table shows a difference between receptive knowledge (GJT) and guided production (GFT): Y1 participants make more guided production errors than judgement errors, and Y2 participants make more judgement errors than guided production errors. Table 4 shows that the number of English Adv-V errors stays stable across years and in both tasks. However, the participants show more judgement errors than guided production errors.

A repeated-measures ANOVA with TIME as the between-subjects factor and STRUCTURE as within-subject factor showed a significant main effect for V2-errors in both tasks: GJT, (F(1.00, 17.00) = 18.51; p < .001, η²_p = .52 and GFT, (F(1.00, 17.00) = 68.95; p < .001, η²_p = .80). However, the difference between the two groups on Adv-V constructions is not significant: GJT, (F(1.00, 17.00) = .173; p = .682, η²_p = .010) and GFT, (F(1.00, 17.00) = .024 ; p = .878, η²_p = .001).

Table 5 presents the data of V2 and Table 6 that of the Adv-V word order of the 14 participants in Y1, Y2 and Y3. In these tables, we only took into account the participants that reached Y3.

These data show the same decrease in the number of V2 errors, especially from Y1 to Y2. The data also show that the Y1 participants make more errors in the GFT than in the GJT. However, in Y2 and Y3 it is the other way around: students make more judgement errors than production errors.

The repeated-measures ANOVA with TIME as the between-subjects and STRUCTURE as within-subject factor showed a significant main effect of the dependent variable V2 errors in both the GJT (F(1.81, 23.60) = 15.49; p < .001, η²_p = .54) and in the GFT (F(1.74, 22.59) = 51.69, p < .001, η²_p = .80). We remark that the effect size in GJT is medium and the effect size in GFT is large. Post hoc tests using the Bonferroni corrections revealed a significant difference between Y1 and Y2 in both tasks (GJT, p < .001; GFT, p < .001), but not between Y2 and Y3 (GJT, p = 0.630; GFT, p = 0.287). Therefore, we conclude that there is a significant decrease in V2 errors after the first year. Regarding the Adv-V errors, we did not find a significant effect of the dependent variable Adv-V errors in both the GJT (F(1.978, 25.715) = .108, p = 0.896, η²_p = .01) and the GFT (F(1.362, 17.701) = 1.011, p = 0.355, η²_p = .07). In the GFT, we do see a tendency of increase of Adv-V errors from Y2 to Y3.

7. Discussion

This study examined the longitudinal development of L1 Dutch/L2 English influence on L3 French in V-to-C and V-to-T movement constructions. It sought to explore how the influence of the L1 and L2 develops in the first two years of the L3 learning process.

In light of the statistical analysis, we revisit the learning predictions, repeated here for convenience:

• Prediction 1. Transfer from the L1 in the initial stages (Y1) of L3 acquisition.
• Prediction 2. A decrease of L1 influence and an increase of L2 influence in L3 acquisition starting in Y2.

Prediction 1. The first prediction regarding L1 transfer in the initial stages of French learning is confirmed, which aligns with the L1 transfer scenario (Na Ranong & Leung, 2009; Jin, 2009; Hermas, 2010, 2014a, 2014b). This is true only for the Y1 participants. At the onset of L3-learning, the Y1 participants appear to have massively transferred the L1 Dutch V2-rule into L3 French, although the transfer of the L2 English equivalent construction would have been facilitative (L1 Dutch ≠ L2 English = L3 French). Group results show that they accepted the Dutch word order at the rate of 65.9% (Table 3) and 67.3% (Table 5) (GJT) and produced the Dutch word order at the rate of 79.9% (Table 3) and 83% (Table 5) (GFT). Since only two constructions are investigated, we need to interpret the transfer of the V2-rule in the initial stages with caution. More research on other constructions is needed to learn more about the extent to which the L1 is transferred in the initial stages.

With regards to the English word order in French, we found an acceptance rate of 31% (Table 4) and 34.7% (Table 6) (GJT) and a production rate of 14.6% (Table 4) and 15.2% (Table 6) (GFT).⁹ Even though the participants were accurate on the English Adv-V word order, they are not yet exposed to enough English input for the L2 to play a significant role in the L3. There is not enough L2 frequency of use and L2 exposure (Dewaele, 2001; Hammarberg, 2009). It could also be the case that the participants need more L3 input to perceive similarities between L3 French and L1 Dutch or L2 English (which can result in both negative and positive transfer). Since the only input these participants received was lexical input to enable them to take the tests, it could be the case that they were not yet able to make appropriate assumptions at the syntactic level.

Prediction 2. Another important finding is the decrease of L1 transfer after the initial stages. The tasks show a highly significant decrease of L1 transfer from Y1 to Y2 with respect to the number of V2 errors. The results of this study gave us more insight into the transition point where L1 influence decreases, which occurs relatively quickly after the initial stages. Even though there is still some descending tendency from Y2 to Y3, most participants ‘unlearned’ the V2-rule within the first year of instruction in French. Recall that English and French share the XSVO word order (and differ from Dutch XVSO). Therefore, the decrease in L1 transfer after the initial stages are in favour of L2 English facilitative transfer (but maybe L3 acquisition). These findings are in line with Hermas (2015), who found L2 transfer in later stages of development. Although we have to be cautious with the interpretation of accuracy rates, since positive transfer could also indicate L3 knowledge, it is still relevant to highlight that there is a large increase in positive L2 influence with respect to the XSVO word order from Y1 to Y2 (34.1% to 67.5% in the GJT and 20.1% to 86.8% in the GFT). This confirms the second prediction and the results of a previous (cross-sectional) study in which we found an increase of the L2 from Y1 to Y3 (Stadt et al., in press).

Although we found an influence of L2 English in the L3 French acquisition (which is in line with Hermas (2015), who found that pre-intermediate learners transfer from both L2 French and L1 Arabic into L3 English), no evidence of an increase in Adv-V errors was found in this longitudinal study. Although we did find a small increase from Y2 to Y3 in the guided production task, this is not in accordance with the results of a previous study where L2 increased significantly from Y1 to Y3 in a guided production task (Stadt et al., in press). We suggest that the differences between the current study and the previous ones could be due to the fact that in the first two years of L3-learning, the L2 is (for most participants) not yet sufficiently activated to play a more important role in L3A. Note that the data collection in this longitudinal study took place at the start of the third year whereas in the cross-sectional study the data collection of the Y3 students took place at the end of the school year (Stadt et al., in press). It takes more time in the immersion context for the L2 to demonstrate a group effect. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to see that we did find that the number of Adv-V errors remains statistically stable across the years and in both tasks despite an increase in L3 proficiency.¹⁰

Transfer from both the L1 and the L2 i.e. simultaneous influence of two linguistic systems on the L3, is called combined crosslinguistic influence (De Angelis, 2007). At a certain stage of development, that is in Y2, the influence of Dutch and English is comparable in both tasks. In the GJT, students made V2-errors in 32.5% (Table 3) and 34.7% (Table 5) of the cases and Adv-V errors in 34.1% (Table 4) and 32.7% (Table 6) of the cases. The same goes for the GFT: whereas V2-errors in Y2 are made in 13.2% (Table 3) and 16.1% (Table 5) of the cases, Adv-V errors are made in 15.3% (Table 4) and 13.4% (Table 6) of the cases. In other stages of development, the influence seems to be sequential, not simultaneous. That is, L1 transfer in the initial stages of Y1 followed by more L2 transfer in subsequent stages (from Y2 to Y3). In Y1 participants, who just finished elementary school, where foreign language education plays an insignificant role, the L1 is intuitively ‘the first option’ to resort to. In Y2, both languages play a simultaneous role (De Angelis, 2007) and from Y2 to Y3, a tendency of an increase in Adv-V errors (from the L2) was found in the GFT (13.4% to 23.2%).

8. Conclusion

This longitudinal study investigated the development of the influence of L1 Dutch and L2 English in the first two years of L3 French acquisition amongst L2 immersion secondary school pupils. The first finding was the significant decrease in V2 errors (L1 Dutch) that occurred relatively early in the L3 initial stages; it took about one year of instruction in French for the L3 learners to start transferring less from the L1. This result deepens the understanding of the developmental pattern of L1 influence since previous cross-sectional work only indicated that L1 influence decreased somewhere between the initial stages and the end of Y3 (Stadt et al., in press). Further (longitudinal) studies on the decline of the L1 influence on the L3 are needed. The second finding showed no significant increase of the L2 influence in the first three years of L3A. More research on L2 influence should be undertaken with other constructions. In future research, it would also be interesting to compare L3 learners with L2 learners of French to investigate to what extent it is English rather than L3 knowledge that plays a role. Finally, other language combinations could provide more insights into the interplay between L1 and L2 in L3A.

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