Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Influence in Multilingual Contexts: The Processing and Acquisition of L3 English Datives By Cape Verdean-Portuguese Bilinguals

Abstract

The present dissertation investigates the processing and acquisition of L3 English dative constructions by adult Cape Verdean (L1CVC) - Portuguese (L2EP) bilinguals at beginner and intermediate L3 English proficiency levels. Through the use of two syntactic priming tasks (an off-line picture description task and an online self-paced reading task), a translation task, and a questionnaire, three studies, distributed into three modalities (reading, oral production, and written production), tapped into implicit (for intermediate proficiency participants) and explicit (for beginner proficiency participants) cognitive processes mediating participants’ transition from the non-alternating dative constructions in the L1CVC (only accepts double-object) and in the L2EP (only accepts prepositional object) to the alternating L3 English dative forms. The syntactic priming tasks aimed primarily at finding out whether cross-linguistic syntactic priming occurred across the two language pairings (L1CVC L3English; L2EP-L3English) at the implicit level and, if so, investigate the possible sources of priming effects. The questionnaire inquired participants about their source language preference to support L3 English learning. This information was first analyzed qualitatively and then quantitatively against participants’ answers in the translation task to verify whether their actual use of English dative constructions in writing was better informed by their expressed language preference (in the questionnaire) or by either stimulus language (L1CVC or L2EP) used in the text they were asked to translate. The results of all three studies show that the stimulus languages consistently subserve processing strategies in the target language. The two syntactic priming studies produced priming effects between L1CVC and L3 English suggesting interaction between their syntactic representations. No priming effects were found between the L2EP and the L3 English. The translation task showed that the stimulus language (either the L1CVC or the L2EP) functions as better predictor of the use of dative constructions in L3 English writing than the previosuly expressed language preference. Results are discussed in relation to the shared vs. separate syntax and residual activation vs. implicit learning accounts. Some pedagogical implications for EFL learning in the Cape Verdean educational context are raised towards the end of the dissertation.