Second language acquisition (SLA) research has extensively studied cross-linguistic transfer, the influence of linguistic structure of a speaker’s native language [L1] on the successful acquisition of a foreign language [L2]. Effects of such transfer can be positive (facilitating acquisition) or negative (impeding acquisition). We find that NLP literature has not given enough attention to the phenomenon of negative transfer. To understand patterns of both positive and negative transfer between L1 and L2, we model sequential second language acquisition in LMs. Further, we build a Mutlilingual Age Ordered CHILDES (MAO-CHILDES)—a dataset consisting of 5 typologically diverse languages, i.e., German, French, Polish, Indonesian, and Japanese—to understand the degree to which native Child-Directed Speech (CDS) [L1] can help or conflict with English language acquisition [L2]. To examine the impact of native CDS, we use the TILT-based cross lingual transfer learning approach established by Papadimitriou and Jurafsky (2020) and find that, as in human SLA, language family distance predicts more negative transfer. Additionally, we find that conversational speech data shows greater facilitation for language acquisition than scripted speech data. Our findings call for further research using our novel Transformer-based SLA models and we would like to encourage it by releasing our code, data, and models. Effects of such transfer can be positive (facilitating acquisition) or negative (impeding acquisition). We find that NLP literature has not given enough attention to the phenomenon of negative transfer . To understand patterns of both positive and negative transfer between L1 and L2, we model sequential second language acquisition in LMs. Further, we build a Mutlilingual Age Ordered CHILDES (MAO-CHILDES)—a dataset consisting of 5 typologically diverse languages, i.e., German, French, Polish, Indonesian, and Japanese—to understand the degree to which native Child-Directed Speech (CDS) [L1] can help or conflict with English language acquisition [L2]. Cross-linguistic transfer can be positive or negative in nature: positive transfer refers to the facilitating effects of one language in acquiring another (e.g., of Spanish vocabulary in acquiring French) and negative transfer between the learner’s native [L1] and target [L2] languages, producing errors. The greater the differences between two languages, the greater the negative effects. While cross-lingual transfer has received considerable attention in NLP research Wu and Dredze ( 2019 ); Wu et al. ( 2019 ); Conneau et al. ( 2017 , 2018 ); Artetxe et al. ( 2018 ); Ruder et al. Using Child-Directed Speech (CDS) to create L1 training sets that are naturalistic, ecologically valid, and fine-tuned for language acquisition, we model the kind of cross-linguistic transfer effects that cause linguistic structure of the native L1 to influence L2 language acquisition in our novel Second Language Acquisition BERT (SLABERT) framework. The resulting models, when tested on the BLiMP (Benchmark of Linguistic Minimal Pairs for English) grammar test suite Warstadt et al. ( 2020 ) , show that L1 may not only facilitate L2 learning, but can also interfere. To the extent that interference is considered in NLP research, it is often understood simply as a failure of positive transfer in model training. We suggest, instead, that these results should be analyzed in terms of distinctive patterns of both negative and positive transfer, which can reveal not just the existence of generalizable features across datasets, but also finer-grained ( 2014 ) show a strong correlation between language similarities derived from the structure of English as Second Language (ESL) texts and equivalent similarities obtained directly from the typological features of the native languages. This finding was then leveraged to recover native language typological similarity from ESL texts and perform prediction of typological features in an unsupervised fashion with respect to the target languages, showing that structural transfer in ESL texts can serve as valuable data about typological facts. Based on prior work on transfer errors and typological distance Ringbom ( 2006 ) , this decrease in performance could be the result of negative transfer effects, which tend to increase with increase in typological distance between L1 and L2. Among all CDS languages, English CDS performs closest to English ADS (5.13 points behind ADS), suggesting that even within the same language the linguistic differences between ADS and CDS affect model performance (see Table 2 ). This is considered as comparisons between other CDS languages and English ADS are made. German shows the next best performance (6.71 points behind English ADS), followed by French (7.27 points behind ADS), Polish (7.57 points behind ADS), Japanese (8.17 points behind ADS), and lastly Indonesian (8.69 points behind ADS). These results confirm our hypothesis that L1s that are structurally closer to L2 (English ADS) perform better, owing to greater degree of positive transfer effects. For human language learners, transfer works both ways: sometimes knowledge of parallel structures in the native language facilitate performance in the new language. Other times, there is interference from the native language, resulting in errors. To test sequential second language acquisition in LMs, we introduce SLABERT. The results from our experiments suggest that while positive transfer is a lot more common than negative transfer, negative transfer occurs in LMs just like it occurs in English Second Language (ESL) learners. We believe these novel findings call for further research on this front, and suggest that models like SLABERT can provide useful data for testing questions about both language acquisition and typological relationships through patterns of cross-linguistic transfer. To support this, we release our code, novel MAO-CHILDES corpus, and models.

AbstractPrior to the late 1960s second language acquisition was thought to be a relatively uninteresting phenomenon; it involved transferring grammatical properties already activated in the first language (L 1) onto second language (L 2) vocabulary. Successful L 2 learners were those who could capitalise on the similarities between the L 1 and the L 2, and eradicate the differences; and successful language teaching involved training learners to overcome the L 1-L 2 differences. Today, perceptions of second language acquisition are more sophisticated and nuanced. Second language acquisition researchers are interested in questions bearing not only on the influence of the L 1, but also on the degree of systematicity in L 2 development, the role that L 1, but also on the degree of systematicity in L 2 development, the role that conscious knowledge plays, the sources of variability in second language speaker performance, the ultimate levels of success achieved by L 2 learners of different ages, and individual differences between learners. The purpose of this article is to present what the authors believe to be some of the key issues which characterise current second language acquisition research, and to consider those issues within the specific context of the acquisition of French as second language. Second language acquisition research and the second language acquisition of French | Journal of French Language Studies | Cambridge Core Search Institution Login Search Hostname: page-component-66d9dcfd78-nm4xk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-08T04:21:39.897Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false Home > Journals > Journal of French Language Studies > Volume 2 Issue 1 > Second language acquisition research and the second... English Français Journal of French Language Studies Article contents Abstract References Second language acquisition research and the second language acquisition of French Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2008 Roger Hawkins and Richard Towell Show author details Roger Hawkins Affiliation: Dept. of Language & Linguistics, Univarsity of Essex, Colchester Co43SQ, England Richard Towell Affiliation: Dept. Today, perceptions of second language acquisition are more sophisticated and nuanced. Second language acquisition researchers are interested in questions bearing not only on the influence of the L 1, but also on the degree of systematicity in L 2 development, the role that L 1, but also on the degree of systematicity in L 2 development, the role that conscious knowledge plays, the sources of variability in second language speaker performance, the ultimate levels of success achieved by L 2 learners of different ages, and individual differences between learners. ( 1986 ). From meta-process to conscious access: evidence from childern's metalinguistic and repair data . Cognition , 23 : 95 – 147 . CrossRef Google Scholar Kellerman , E. ( 1985 ). U-shaped behaviour in advanced Dutch EFL learners. In: Gass , S. and Madden , C. (eds.), Input in Second Language Acquisition . Rowley, Mass. , Newbury House . Google Scholar Kellerman , E. and Sharwood-Smith , M. (eds.) ( 1986 ). Cross-Linguistic Influence in Second Language Acquisition . Oxford : Pergamon . 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