Third Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb ii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3355::4422 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editor: Professor David Singleton, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisi- tion and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical fi ndings and, on the other, some degree of theo- retical refl ection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neuro- linguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes fi nal-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgrad- uate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers and teachers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb iiii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editor: David Singleton Third Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar Edited by Yan-kit Ingrid Leung MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb iiiiii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Third Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar Edited by Yan-kit Ingrid Leung. Second language acquisition: 37 Includes bibliographical references. 1. Language and languages--Study and teaching. 2. Language acquisition. 3. Generative grammar. I. Leung, Yan-kit Ingrid. P53.T485 2009 401’.93–dc22 2008035200 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978–1–84769–131–6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2009 Yan-kit Ingrid Leung and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustain- able forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certifi cation. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certifi cation has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby. 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TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb iivv 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Yan-kit Ingrid Leung 1 The Acquisition of Spanish Middle and Impersonal Passive Constructions from SLA and TLA Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Patricia Bayona 2 Language Transfer in the Acquisition of the Semantic Contrast in L3 Spanish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Diana Hsien-jen Chin 3 Multilingual Universal Grammar as the Norm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Vivian Cook 4 UG and L3 Acquisition: New Insights and More Questions . . . . . . 71 Suzanne Flynn 5 Transfer in L3 Acquisition: The Role of Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Rebecca Foote 6 L3 Enhanced Feature Sensitivity as a Result of Higher Profi ciency in the L2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Carol Jaensch 7 Third Language Acquisition of Norwegian Objects: Interlanguage Transfer or L1 Infl uence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Fufen Jin 8 Null Objects in L1 Thai–L2 English–L3 Chinese: An Empiricist Take on a Theoretical Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Sirirat Na Ranong and Yan-kit Ingrid Leung 9 The L3 Acquisition of Cantonese Refl exives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Wai lan Tsang v TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb vv 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb vvii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 Acknowledgements I thank David Singleton for inviting me to do this L3 project for his Multilingual Matters SLA series while I was working at the University of Essex, UK. I thank all the authors who have generously contributed their papers to the present volume. I thank the following colleagues (in alpha- betical order) who acted as external reviewers for the papers: Mónica Cabrera, Jasone Cenoz, Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, Roger Hawkins, Britta Hufeisen, Johanne Paradis, Virginia Yip and Boping Yuan. I also thank an anonymous reviewer arranged by Multilingual Matters for reviewing the entire manuscript. Finally, I thank all the staff members at Multilingual Matters particularly Marjukka Grover and Anna Roderick for their kind editorial help and advice. Yan-kit Ingrid Leung June 2008 vii TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb vviiii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb vviiiiii 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366 Contributors Patricia Bayona is a Canadian researcher interested in the acquisition of Spanish as a third or additional language, and in the sociolinguistics of Spanish as a native language. Her initial theoretical training was in second language acquisition from a generative perspective, but her doctoral spe- cialization has recently evolved toward quantitative research on trilin- gualism. As an active member of the International Association of Multilingualism and of the International Research Network on Multilingualism, her exploration of the Spanish language learner has focused on the effect of the integration of sociocultural and linguistic aspects. Diana Hsien-jen Chin is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages, Taiwan. She received her PhD in Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006. Being a lan- guage lover, she speaks Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Japanese and French. Her research interests include multilingualism, second lan- guage acquisition theories, learners’ motivation and learning strategies. Vivian Cook worked at Ealing Technical College, North East London Polytechnic and the University of Essex, teaching EFL, fi rst and second language acquisition and language teaching methodology. Since 2004 he has been Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He is chiefl y known through his books on second language learning, Chomsky and spelling. His current interests include the English writing system and the multi-competence view of L2 acquisition. He was the founder and fi rst president of the European Second Language Association, and is a founding co-editor of Writing Systems Research (OUP), to appear in 2009. Suzanne Flynn received her PhD from Cornell University in 1983 and is Professor of Linguistics and Language Acquisition at MIT. Her research focuses on the acquisition of various aspects of syntax by both children and adults in bilingual, second and third language acquisition contexts. More recently, her work has also focused on the neural representation of the multilingual brain as well as on the phonological and acoustic under- pinnings of accent. She is the author/editor of several books as well as the author of many articles published in journals and edited volumes. She is also the co-editor of the journal Syntax with T. Stowell. ix TThhiirrdd LLaanngguuaaggee AAccqquuiissiittiioonn..iinnddbb iixx 1122//1122//22000088 0099::3366::3366