The role of order of acquisition, proficiency, and exposure in the L3 acquisition of Portuguese numeric approximators

This study examines the acquisition of numeric approximators (APs) (e.g. ao redor de ‘around’, aproximadamente ‘approximately’) in third language (L3) Brazilian Portuguese (BP). APs are lexical items that make expressions containing numeric values vague by adding fuzziness or imprecision to their semantic boundaries. In BP and many other languages, APs have been shown to be native speakers’ preferred forms to discuss quantities that are uncertain or cannot be recalled with precision.. For this study, 39 participants completed a Written Elicited Production Task in which they provided answers to quantity-related questions that were uncertain to them. The participants were divided into three groups: two experimental groups of L3 learners with L1 English/L2 Spanish (n=10) and L1 Spanish/L2 English (n=10), and a comparison group of BP L1 speakers (n=20). We examined (1) the use of APs, (2) lexical variety (diversity of APs), and (3) lexical transfer, and found that most L3 learners not only have acquired APs but also used a wide variety of them. Additionally, regression models showed that L3 proficiency is the strongest predictor for the three variables under investigation, followed by target-language exposure and order of acquisition of English vs. Spanish as L1 and L2.