The influence of Basque and Spanish on the acquisition of English false friends: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Recently there has been a growing interest in the acquisition of vocabulary in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Experts have conducted a vast amount of research on lexical processing and organization, examining how bilingual speakers store lexical items in their minds. Moreover, studies have also investigated lexical access in the monolingual and bilingual mental lexicon and looked at the influence the L1(s) may have in the acquisition of L2/L3 vocabulary. Nevertheless, the acquisition of false friends in English as a third language by bilingual speakers is still an under-researched topic. Accordingly, this paper aims at contributing to this area by examining the acquisition of English false friends by Basque-Spanish bilinguals. More specifically, I will present a cross-sectional study conducted with first year undergraduate students from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in which the acquisition of false friends is under the spotlight. In order to explore the acquisition of such vocabulary, the answers to a translation task containing false friends are examined in an attempt to (i) determine whether false friends provide negative transfer in the acquisition of an L3 or not; (ii) identify the supplier language in the case of the acquisition of English by Basque-Spanish bilinguals; (iii) find out if balanced bilinguals outperform Spanish dominant speakers when it comes to translating false friends; and (iv) compare the difference between learners with a higher and lower level of proficiency in the target language. The analysis of the results suggests that false friends do imply negative transfer in L3 acquisition and that Spanish is the supplier language for all the groups tested. Finally, the findings indicate that there is no difference in the acquisition of English false friends between balanced bilinguals and Spanish dominant speakers but there is between subjects with different English proficiency levels. It is therefore suggested that the most significant factor influencing the acquisition of English false friends by Basque-Spanish bilinguals may be the level of proficiency in the target language.