Language Crossover

[Shannon Sauro]

You might find answers to your questions in the following book:

Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B., & Jessner, U. (Eds.). (2001).  Cross-linguistic
influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistics perspectives.
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

This is an edited volume which contains works which address different
aspects of first and second language influences on the third language.
One chapter in particular by Bjorn Hammarberg, Roles of L1 and L2 in L3
Production and Acquisition, sounds like it might deal specifically with
your questions.

The different chapters in the book investigate several factors
which may determine which language will provide such cross-linguistic
influence including issues of context, the formality of
the situation, your interlocutor, how recently you acquired one of your
languages, language distance, and age.  What may specifically
interest you is Hammarberg's 'foreign language effect' in which language
learners tend to find that their second language is the source of most
cross-linguistic influence when learning other languages.


Shannon