Language Transfer in Third Language Acquisition

Language transfer is one of the areas that have received special attention in the research of third language(L3).This paper focus es on the transfer of syntax from first language(L1) and second language(L2) in the early stage of third language acquisition(TLA).It aims at finding out whether L1 or L2 is the main source of transfer and trying to account for this phenomenon in light of typology and psy chotypology theories.A story telling task is used among 8 university students who have Chinese,English and French as L1,L2 and L3.The findings indicate that although both L1 Chinese and L2 English exert influence on L3 French production in the form of transfer,more L2 transfer occurs due to the typological and psychotypological similarity between L2 English and L3 French.The results confirm previous studies on the important roles of typological and psychotypological similarity in determining the source of transfer in a multilin gual’s language production.Some pedagogical implications of the findings are also discussed.