Version 1
: Received: 18 January 2019 / Approved: 22 January 2019 / Online: 22 January 2019 (11:41:10 CET)
How to cite:
Zhao, W. Cross-Linguistic Influence in Chinese Learners of Two Foreign Languages While Studying Abroad in Spain. Preprints2019, 2019010218. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201901.0218.v1
Zhao, W. Cross-Linguistic Influence in Chinese Learners of Two Foreign Languages While Studying Abroad in Spain. Preprints 2019, 2019010218. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201901.0218.v1
Zhao, W. Cross-Linguistic Influence in Chinese Learners of Two Foreign Languages While Studying Abroad in Spain. Preprints2019, 2019010218. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201901.0218.v1
APA Style
Zhao, W. (2019). Cross-Linguistic Influence in Chinese Learners of Two Foreign Languages While Studying Abroad in Spain. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201901.0218.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Zhao, W. 2019 "Cross-Linguistic Influence in Chinese Learners of Two Foreign Languages While Studying Abroad in Spain" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201901.0218.v1
Abstract
Studies in the area of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) have attracted the focus of multi-linguistic learners. However, little research on CLI deals with Asian learners, particularly Chinese-speaker with knowledge of two or more foreign languages. The present study explores CLI in L1 Chinese learners with both English (L2) and Spanish (L3) as foreign languages who are studying in Madrid, a Spanish-speaking community; their studies coincided with data collection. English learners were instructed to speak for analysis purposes, with the following aims: (i) to observe the most frequent category (functional transfer, code-switching, borrowing and coinage) in the CLI instances; (ii) to determine the source language of CLI; (iii) to investigate whether CLI factors, including language distance, L2 status, proficiency and recency of use, intervene in the appearance of CLI instances in the participants.
Data was gathered from 16 female Chinese students at Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). These were master students aged 22 to 26, who visited Spain for more than 5 months when they participated in the present study. The instrument used was an English semi-structured interview. Results primarily reveal that (a) borrowing is the most prevalent category, accounting for 70% of the CLI instances; (b) Spanish is the main source language of CLI while Chinese plays a functional role in the transfer process; (c) language distance proves to be the strongest predictor of CLI.
Keywords
cross-linguistic influence (CLI); L3 Spanish; borrowing; functional transfer; language distance
Subject
Social Sciences, Language and Linguistics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
