The Role of Linguistic Typology, Target Language Proficiency and Prototypes in Learning Aspectual Contrasts in Italian as Additional Language

Abstract

The study examines how prototypes and typological relationships between the L1, the L2 and the target language (TL) interact with TL proficiency in learning Italian as additional language. Low-proficiency and high-proficiency undergraduate learners of Italian (N = 25) with Swedish as L1 performed an oral retelling story test, aiming to elicit the Italian aspectual contrast perfective-imperfective. Their tense selection was analyzed considering the predicates’ lexical aspect and the learners’ knowledge of a Romance L2, or lack thereof. The findings show that the typological proximity between the L2 and the TL exerts a differential role depending on TL proficiency. Initially, it is beneficial for accelerating the overall emergence of the imperfetto as an aspectual marker. However, the prototype factor and, more specifically, the predicates’ dynamicity influences the selection of past inflectional morphology. At more advanced stages, knowledge of a Romance language helps learners move beyond prototypical associations with the passato prossimo, but it does not seem to influence the use of the imperfetto among high-proficiency learners. These results are discussed in the light of research on the second and additional language learning of aspectual contrasts in Romance languages.

Always trust your gut?

“…In that study, the non-prototypical combination of perfective past tense and states was negatively constrained by the L1 English, despite generally positive L2 transfer effects. Salaberry's (2005) research paved the way for other studies which corroborated the difficulty of overcoming L1 representational constraints in the case of nonprototypical associations (Diaubalick et al, 2020;Eibensteiner, 2019Eibensteiner, , 2022Foote, 2009;Vallerossa, 2021;Vallerossa et al, 2021).…”

“…Recently, several studies have attested to influences from other learned languages (e.g. Diaubalick et al, 2020;Eibensteiner, 2019Eibensteiner, , 2022Vallerossa, 2021Vallerossa, , 2022Vallerossa et al, 2021), but the field still lacks a comprehensive account of how different languages (L1s and L2s) and different types of transfer (linguistic or conceptual) are applicable to tense-aspect research. It is beyond the scope of this article to provide such a complex account, theoretically and empirically.…”

“…Beneficial effects of typological proximity on linguistic transfer are also traceable from languages acquired later in life. Structures that are similar across languages are most likely to be transferred, both from a Romance L2 language into a Romance L3 (Comajoan-Colomé, 2019;Eibensteiner, 2021Eibensteiner, , 2022Eibensteiner, , 2023Vallerossa, 2021Vallerossa, , 2022 and from L2 English to a Romance L3 (Eibensteiner, 2019). Transfer of meanings originating in L2 English has also been found in a study by Vallerossa et al (2021), where learners with high aspectual knowledge in English (operationalized as knowledge of the contrast perfective/progressive) outperformed learners with low aspectual knowledge in English when it came to the progressive meaning expressed by the Italian Imperfect.…”

“…The C-tests consisted of 62 items and were aimed at measuring general proficiency (Klein-Braley, 1985, 1997. One of the two passages of the C-test in French was originally employed in Ågren et al (2021) and subsequently adapted to Italian (see Vallerossa, 2021;Vallerossa et al, 2021). The other passage was created by the authors of this article and subsequently adapted to French.…”

The L3 acquisition of English tense-aspect system by Uygur speakers with L2 Mandarin Chinese

“…Previous studies on second and third language acquisition of the grammatical categories of tense and aspect have found several factors that influence the use of tense-aspect markers of the target language (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds, 1995;Robison, 1995;Shirai and Kurono, 1998;Eibensteiner, 2019;Vallerossa, 2021). One of those factors, which is a general factor that constantly influences the process of L2 and L3 acquisition, is the (learners' perceived) typological distance between the target language and the previously acquired languages (both L1 and L2), which could easily induce a language transfer in learning the tense and aspect system of a new language.…”