Investigation of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) using stimulated recall can be revealing at the level of cognition. Cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic influence in the use of French prepositions for Iranian L1 Persian/L2 English/L3 French learners was thus explored in this study. Data were gathered from 12 students of English (Group E) and 12 students of French (Group F). A fill-in-the-blank test of French prepositions was administered; then, the participants were asked to recall how they answered the items. The results of analysis of the data gathered revealed traces of CLI and intra-linguistic influence. It turned out that the participants not only used their L3 knowledge but also thought of the sentence, part of the sentence, or the preposition in Persian or English or considered a similar sentence or phrase in one of the three languages. However, Persian influence manifested more deeply in the form of thinking of sentences whereas that of English was more in the form of thinking of prepositions. Furthermore, in both groups, after the CLI of Persian, French intra-linguistic influence was more frequent followed by CLI of English; therefore, linguistic proximity between French and English was not found crucial. Finally, Group F, with more L3 exposure, experienced less CLI with a higher percentage of facilitative influence.
Daneshfard et al. (Fri,) studied this question.