Title: Grammatical gender in the interlanguage of English- speaking learners of Portuguese
Abstract: Second-language acquisition strategies are a result of the cognitive processing second-language learners go through in order to make sense of the language they are learning, including the usage of lexical items – borrowing – as well as structural features from L1 to L2 or an additional language. One way to categorize this kind of interference is to conceptualize it as a feature of the learners’ interlanguage or their developing second language knowledge (Gass & Selinker 2008; Lightbown & Spada 2006). Depending on the level of structural proximity between L1 and L2, grammar, especially morphology, constitutes one of the most difficult linguistic features to be acquired by a second-language learner (DeKeyser 2005). For example, nouns phrases constitute a major cause of cross-linguistic influence in the L2 or L3 of English-speaking learners of Portuguese because of their distinct representation in these two languages, especially the difference in gender and number agreement, word order, among other factors. Using the interlanguage theoretical framework and current understandings of cross-linguistic influence, the present study aims to analyze grammatical gender agreement in the written production of English-speaking learners of Portuguese. GRAMMATICAL GENDER 3 Grammatical gender in the interlanguage of English-speaking learners of Portuguese
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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