L3 Acquisition of Simple and Present Progressive Tenses by Iranian EFL Learners

This study sought to investigate the role of transfer at the initial states of the third language (L3) acquisition. The following hypotheses were investigated in this study: (a) the second language transfer hypothesis ("L2 Status Factor") proposing that L2 impedes transfer from L1 into L3; (b) the Cumulative Enhancement Model ("CEM"), proposing selective transfer from the previously learned languages, here L1 and L2; and (c) the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (FT/FA), suggesting that the Universal Grammar (UG) is available in acquiring the succeeding languages. The data were elicited via two experimental groups: one, Persian learners of English as a second language, and the other, Turkmen learners of English as a third language who had already acquired Persian as a second one. The structures tested in this study were simple present and present progressive tenses across the languages mentioned above. The L2 and L3 learners were tested at the initial state of their English acquisition. Data were gathered through grammaticality judgment and translation tasks. The results demonstrated that there is a significant advantage of L1 transfer in L3 acquisition.