L1 Conceptual Transfer in L2 and L3 Narratives. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach to the Study of Crosslinguistic Influence

Abstract

The linguistic expression of conceptual representations can pose considerable difficulties for foreign language learners. Such lack of conceptual fluency can be explained by the interaction of many factors, and amongst the most prevalent ones are those caused by processes of crosslinguistic influence, i.e., the effect that a previously learned language exerts on the use of another one. This research project aims to explore meaning related aspects of the influence, specifically L1 tendencies at the conceptual level. The thesis thus contributes to a better understanding of the phenomenon known as conceptual transfer. Additionally, the project aims to provide new insights to researchers, instructors, and learners of English and Spanish as foreign languages in England, Spain, and Norway, where both languages are widely learned within formal education settings. To carry out this investigation, several corpora of written narratives were elicited and compiled. The elicitation instrument was a picture story that participants in the project had to use as a prompt in a retelling task. The participants were students of English or Spanish in upper-secondary schools of the three countries where the data was collected, and their average age was 16.43 years. Following a balanced protocol, they were asked to produce narratives in all their languages, which allowed for crosslinguistic comparisons within and across groups. The thesis relied on theoretical frameworks from Cognitive Linguistics such as Leonard Talmy¿s Cognitive Semantics and Charles Fillmore's Frame Semantics, as well as on the framework for the investigation of conceptual transfer proposed by Scott Jarvis and Aneta Pavlenko.Many of the participants' conceptualization patterns were found to be L1 specific, and they often influenced the production of their foreign language narratives in various regards. These included the selection of what to explicitly mention, the conceptual framing of the selected content, and the segmentation, degree of elaboration, and profiling of events. The transfer effects were evidenced in the avoidance of L1 specific tendencies and in the congruous performance across languages. Other themes explored in the thesis are the degree to which speakers are biased by their L1 or their L1 language type, the interaction of language modality (i.e., oral vs written) and language type, and the role of conceptual frames theory in the investigation of conceptual transfer.The findings highlight the need for scholars to pay attention to L1 specific conceptualization tendencies during language production processes. The assessment of content in learners' texts, for example, may benefit from considering learners' knowledge of previously acquired languages, rather than assuming a language-neutral onset in the message elaboration phase of language production processes. The contributions of the thesis are discussed in the light of the research goals, and the pedagogical implications of the findings, as well as the limitations of the project are considered.