Abstract

This book reports on a research project conducted in multilingual Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the mother tongue (L1) of the majority of the population and learning different foreign languages is commonplace. In addition to English, which is usually the second language (L2), more and more people learn other languages, such as French (L3). Drawing on the notions of ‘interface’ and ‘reverse transfer’ in second language acquisition, this book addresses the possible role of L3 French in the acquisition of English as an L2 with two major concerns: firstly, the degree to which L3 acquisition will bring about a positive or negative transfer effect on L2 acquisition and secondly, the way in which an L3 interacts with an L2 and/or even an L1 on different interfaces as identified in second language acquisition. The study will appeal to researchers interested in second and third language acquisition, bi- and multilingualism and crosslinguistic influence.

Wai Lan Tsang is Honorary Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Programme Director at the Graduate School at The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include second and third language acquisition, syntax and morphology.

This book makes valuable contributions to the ongoing debate on how native and nonnative resources are being used in multilingual language production from a new perspective. A particular strength of this book is that as opposed to 'forward transfer', it focuses on reverse transfer, a largely neglected area in transfer studies in the context of TLA and multilingualism.

This highly original volume breaks new ground in the study of the interaction between languages in the multilingual speaker’s repertoire. It is an outstanding contribution to the study of grammar in third language acquisition and multilingualism because of the illuminating insights obtained from the combination of three languages, Cantonese, English and French.

An illuminating study of multilingualism based on original research on second and third language acquisition. Wai Lan Tsang’s approach strikes a balance between theoretical rigour and empirical evidence and furthers our understanding of crosslinguistic influence in the grammars of multilingual speakers.

A pioneer in third language acquisition in the East Asian context, Wai Lan Tsang shows how cross-linguistic influence in multilingual speakers can be both theoretically interesting and practically important. Her study is one of the most sophisticated to date on the phenomenon of reverse transfer.

The study addressed in this book not only can be considered as innovative and one of the most sophisticated of the studies examining the phenomenon of reverse transfer to date, but it also constitutes the first project analysing crosslinguistic influence in the L1 Chinese-L2 English-L3 French context. It provides an exceptional contribution to the study of the acquisition of grammatical structures from the typological perspective, as its author relies on the contributions of Cenoz (2001) and de Angelis (2007) on second and third language acquisition as the cornerstone for the study.