Investigating L3-to-L2 Transfer in Reflexive Pronoun Interpretation: A Study of Korean-English-Chinese Unbalanced Trilinguals

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study investigates the phenomenon of reverse (backward) transfer in third language acquisition (TLA), focusing on whether knowledge of a later-acquired L3 (Chinese) can influence the interpretation of morphosyntactic features in a previously acquired L2 (English). Specifically, the interpretation of reflexive pronouns in English among Korean-English-Chinese (KEC) unbalanced trilinguals was examined using the Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT). The KEC trilinguals with high L2 proficiency outperformed the KE control group, suggesting a facilitative effect of the L3 Chinese language on L2 English reflexive interpretation. Additionally, the KEC participants exhibited a more stable performance in the short- and long-distance binding conditions. These findings support the view that L3 can exert backward influence under certain linguistic conditions and contribute to ongoing discussions on cross-linguistic interaction in multilinguals. The results are interpreted within the framework of several L3 transfer models. This study fills a gap in TLA literature by providing behavioral evidence of the L3-to-L2 influence, challenging the traditional assumption of unidirectionality in language transfer models.