Màster de Lingüística Aplicada i Adquisició de Llengües en Contextos Multilingües, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2015, Tutora: Maria Luz Celaya
The present paper reports the findings on the effect of typology and proficiency
in the realm of three unrelated languages; Turkish, English, and Spanish. The
participants (N=34) were university students in Turkey, all having L1 Turkish, L2
English, and acquiring L3 Spanish. The participants were divided based on Spanish
proficiency; levels 2, 3, and 4. Productions were elicited orally using a story-telling task
consisting of six panels. Data were then analyzed for cross-linguistic influence in lexis,
syntax, and morphology. Results suggest that L2 is often used lexically, while L1 is
preferred in morpho-syntactic transfer. Trends varied as to the role of TL proficiency,
depending on transfer type.