| dc.description.abstract | This thesis aims to investigate the role of Italian in the acquisition of English, and asks the
following research question: Is there evidence of transfer errors from L1 Italian to L3 English
in the writings of children collected in the LEONIDE corpus? The focus is on the usage of
articles, modal verbs, and lexical verbs. The annotated texts included in this learner corpus are
analysed with the use of the ANNIS corpus tool. Mistakes are counted and evaluated based on
the differences between English and Italian (e.g., Maiden & Robustelli, 2007; Proudfoot &
Cardo, 2013; Herring, 2016) and on the results of previous research (e.g., Duguid, 2001; Ionin
et al., 2008; Rocca, 2007). The mistakes are compared to those made by slightly younger L1
learners of English with the help of the Lancaster Corpus of Children’s Project Writing
(LCCPW).
This thesis concludes that some of the errors made by the participants can be traced
back to influences from L1 Italian. Such mistakes include the overuse of the definite article
the, the overuse of the modal verb must, and the use of the verb make where native speakers
might use the verbs do or have. However, other mistakes such as the omission of the third
person -s morpheme are not necessarily due to transfer from Italian; rather, these are common
errors for all learners of English. The absence of certain modal verbs and do-support,
furthermore, can be explained by the fact that the participants are beginning learners. The
comparison with L1 learners did not yield many insights, as these participants made very few
mistakes. Further research could focus on a comparison between the Italian participants and
even younger L1 learners to find out which mistakes are caused by transfer and which
mistakes are common for all learners of English. In addition, a comparison with learners from
other language backgrounds could clarify the difference between generic language learning
mistakes and transfer errors. | |
