Second Language (L2) English and Third Language (L3) French Article Acquisition by Native Speakers of Cantonese

Abstract

This paper looks at the acquisition of articles and related nominal functional properties (the status of classifier, the singular–plural distinction) in English and French by native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese. Two experimental studies are reported. In the generative SLA literature, there is disagreement as to which properties of the grammar will transfer from the first language (L1) at early stages of L2 acquisition and what the path of subsequent development might look like. We present L1 Cantonese–L2 English as well as L1 Cantonese–L2 English–L3 French data collected from learners of different proficiency levels on a variety of experimental tasks to shed light on these debates. Our findings largely support Full Transfer Full Access, a position that posits strong transfer and no impairment in SLA.

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