Third language acquisition: why it is interesting to generative linguists

Abstract

The present article reviews three collections of papers edited by Cenoz and colleagues on the topic of third language (L3) acquisition from perspectives including psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and education. Our focus is on psycholinguistics, in particular, lexical acquisition studies, and with particular reference to two central notions in the study of L3, namely, language-selectiveness and cross-linguistic influence. The article also discusses expansion of the study of L3 acquisition into the Universal Grammar/Second Language Acquisition (UG/SLA) paradigm, and closes by looking at future directions for the L3 field.