L3 Determiner Phrase ACQUISITION and Development

My primary area of research pertains to the acquisition of DP grammatical features such as grammatical gender, number, and case in third language (L3) learners, and the degree to which previously acquired languages play a role throughout L3 development.  Research questions in this area include the degree to which grammatical  knowledge from an L1 and/or L2 is able to transfer to the L3 initial state, whether that transfer takes place in a wholesale or property-by-property fashion, and the degree to which factors such as typological similarity, order of acquisition, social status of the languages, language dominance, and proficiency in the previously known languages can influence cross-linguistic influence or transfer.

My most recent research on this topic includes my dissertation, which examines how English/Romance bilinguals begin to develop the initial grammatical gender system of L3 German. The project examines how age of acquisition of their Romance language, proficiency, and the modality of the input may impact learners’ sensitivity to L3 German grammatical gender errors across their first semester of German instruction.

I am also currently collecting data for a procjeat with Dr. Kamil Długosz examining the role of language similarity in L3 grammatical gender development, comparing L1 Spanish vs. L1 Polish speakers learning German as an L3.

Additional projects I have done include my examination of transfer of grammatical gender knowledge in beginner L3 German learners, which emphasizes the role of L2 status in post-initial state beginner learners (Brown, 2020), and my examination of the role of cognitive control in initial L3 grammatical gender development (Brown, 2021).