The translinguistic influence on oral production in French L3: The case of Iranian students

The present study examines the cross-linguistic influence in a group of 30 Iranian children between the ages of 8 to 13, who have Persian as their mother tongue, English as their second language and are learners of French as the third language. Their oral productions in French have been analyzed based on the typologies of Williams and Hammarberg (1998), Cenoz (2001) and Trevisiol (2006), in order to understand to what extent their L1 and L2 influence their production in L3 and to demonstrate the role of each previously acquired language. The results indicate that the first language (Persian) plays both instrumental and supplier roles, while the second language (English) is only used in the supplier role.