Developmental Rules Of IL In Third Language Acquisition

A recent focus on the study of cross-linguistic influence is the role of transfer during third language acquisition. How do learners' prior linguistic knowledge of L1 and L2 influence the acquisition of L3? How do such influences manifest themselves in the IL of L3? Besides, the IL of L3 is influenced by L3/TL. What are the relationships among these three kinds of influences from three different languages? This thesis, in the theoretical frame of the Interlanguage hypothesis, tries to find some rules in L3 learning process with a high-standard expectation to supply some suggestions to the teaching and acquisition of German as L3. An investigation on the German IL of Chinese adults majoring in English language and literature at Lanzhou University is carried out to collect language errors from German spoken data of the subjects. Through data analysis by One-way ANOVA of SPSS, we have drawn conclusions that among the three different languages, L2 English has the greatest influence on the IL of L3/TL German, while L3/TL German itself is on the second place and L1/NL has the smallest influence on it. The research results are explained in terms of language typology. Limitations of the present research are indicated and possible directions for further study are suggested.