Some of the Things Trilinguals Do

This paper reports on a project on trilingualism currently in progress. A brief literature review indicates the diversity of trilingualism and trilingual situations. The paper then focuses on three sets of trilinguals in Melbourne-Dutch-German-English, Hungarian-German-English, and Italian-Spanish-English, and considers interlingual strategies employed by them. The three main types are: conversion rules indicative of a multilateral competence covering closely related languages, interlingual identification based on correspondences between two of the languages, and code-switching in which English transfers or bilingual compromise forms trigger switches between two other languages. Depending on the typology of the languages, trilinguals will differ in their strategies. Implications for processing models are given some preliminary consideration.