ERIC Number: EJ1114786
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1479-0718
EISSN: N/A
The Bilingual Advantage in L3 Learning: A Developmental Study of Rhotic Sounds
Kopecková, Romana
International Journal of Multilingualism, v13 n4 p410-425 2016
Facilitative effects of bilingualism on general aspects of third language (L3) proficiency have been demonstrated in numerous studies conducted in bilingual communities and classrooms around the world. When it comes to L3 phonology, however, empirical evidence has been scarce and inconclusive in respect to the question of whether and/or how knowledge of two (or more) phonologies enhances the acquisition of an additional one. Adopting the Focus on "Multilingualism" [Cenoz, J. (2013). The influence of bilingualism on third language acquisition: Focus on multilingualism. "Language Teaching," 46(1), 71-86] approach, the present study investigates the L3 phonological development in 19 German learners of Spanish with prior knowledge of English. Five of the young L3 learners were also speakers of Croatian, Israeli Hebrew, Italian and Polish, Russian, or Spanish as a heritage language. All the learners were tested on their developing ability to produce the Spanish /r/ and /?/ segments in the course of three years of formal target language instruction. The results suggest a positive effect of specific, rather than broad-based, bilingual experience on L3 speech learning, in particular the production of universally difficult phonemes. Evidence for a degree of a "connected growth" of L2 and L3 phonology further illuminates the results.
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Second Language Learning, German, Native Language, Spanish, Phonology, English (Second Language), Polish, Italian, Russian, Semitic Languages, Serbocroatian, Phonemes, Language Universals, Language Classification, Foreign Countries, Accuracy, Statistical Analysis, Secondary School Students, Speech Communication
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A