LINGUISTIC TRANSFER OF L1 AND L2 IN THE ACQUISITION OF L3: THE CASE OF FRENCH LEARNERS IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA

Abstract

Generally, interference occurs at the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, or lexical levels through contact with foreign languages, especially among learners of French as a foreign language (FLE). Previous works on language interference have examined the concept of transfer and error in the acquisition of L2 and L3 in French without paying attention to learners of French who have Yoruba as their L1, English as their L2, and French as their L3 in South-West Nigeria. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the linguistic transfer of L1 and L2 in the acquisition of French as L3 among learners of French in South-West Nigeria to demonstrate the influence of Yoruba and English on their learning of French. For this study, through the pronunciation of word lists according to the Labovian approach, data were collected from forty-four (44) students from four universities, namely, the University of Ibadan, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Osun State University and the University of Lagos. The participants were selected because they have Yoruba as their mother tongue, English as their L2, and French as their L3. The results revealed transfers and errors such as anglicism, substitution, insertion, voicing and devoicing, omission, denasalization, and nasalization.