The Role of L2 Proficiency in the Backward Transfer of L3 on the Interpretation of L2 Reflexives

• Published in: 영어학 Vol. 22; pp. 661 - 674
• Main Authors: Hee-Don Ahn, Yongjoon Cho, Jong-Bai Hwang, Jung Hyun Lim, Cui Mao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국영어학회 2022
• Subjects: 영어와문학; L3 acquisition; reflexive; proficiency; backward transfer
• ISSN: 1598-1398; 2586-7474
• DOI: 10.15738/kjell.22..202207.661

Situated in the context of third language acquisition, Ahn and Mao (2019) reported supportive evidence for the existence of backward transfer of L3 on the interpretation of L2 reflexives with three groups—a CE, a KE, and a CEK group. Nevertheless, whether the detected backward transfer was modulated by L2 proficiency remained unclear. As one of the potential contributing factors influencing crosslinguistic transfer, the role of L2 proficiency in the backward transfer needs to be clarified. The present study enrolled participants with CE, KE, and CEK language configurations and manipulated their L2 English proficiency levels to explore if L2-English proficiency modulated the backward transfer detected in the binding interpretation of normal and exempt anaphors with L2 and L3 learners. The results of the contrastive study did not reveal positive evidence for a decisive role of L2 proficiency, which indicated that the developmental path towards the target grammar of reflexive binding was not reflected by the general proficiency measured in traditional ways. Furthermore, the results reinforced the conclusion Ahn and Mao (2019) had drawn previously that the differentiating performance of the KE, the CE, and CEK group in the reflexive interpretations was less likely to be introduced by the significant difference in their L2 scores. KCI Citation Count: 0