Testing Potential Transfer Effects in Heritage and Adult L2 Bilinguals Acquiring a Mini Grammar as an Additional Language: An ERP Approach.

ABSTRACT: Models on L3/Ln acquisition differ with respect to how they envisage degree (holistic vs. selective transfer of the L1, L2 or both) and/or timing (initial stages vs. development) of how the influence of source languages unfolds. This study uses EEG/ERPs to examine these models, bringing together two types of bilinguals: heritage speakers (HSs) (Italian-German, n = 15) compared to adult L2 learners (L1 German, L2 English, n = 28) learning L3/Ln Latin. Participants were trained on a selected Latin lexicon over two sessions and, afterward, on two grammatical properties: case (similar between German and Latin) and adjective-noun order (similar between Italian and Latin). Neurophysiological findings show an N200/N400 deflection for the HSs in case morphology and a P6

SUBMITTER: Pereira Soares SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9139276 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature