Cross-linguistic transfer of L1 and L2 in learning L3: French word order

The present study was conducted to explore the cross-linguistic transfer of L1 and L2 in learning French word order as L3. In order to conduct the present study, 30 Iranian students studying French as their L3 in Iran language institute were selected. The participants were all native speakers of Persian, and they had previously learned English as their L2. A grammaticality judgement/correction task (GJCT) was administered to the learners studying at three elementary classes of this institute. This task was intended to assess the participants’ word order recognition in sentence order and adjective-noun patterns. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21 statistical software. The findings revealed that Iranian French language learners were more affected by the word order of their L2 (English) rather than their L1 (Persian). These results confirm L2 Status Factor Model proposed by Hammarberg (2001). Based on this model, since an L3 structures are learned in the same way as an L2 structure (explicitly), and L1 is learned rather implicitly, transfer will be observed among the two languages that are learned and stored in same way.