Third language acquisition of English adjective placement by Turkmen-Persian male and female bilinguals

With the spread of second language acquisition research, third language acquisition has gradually become a new research field. This study aimed at investigating the role of background language transfer in the acquisition of English adjective placement which is similar in Turkmen (i.e., L1) and English (i.e., L3) and different in Persian (i.e., L2). Moreover, the effect of gender on the acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual Persian and bilingual Turkmen Iranian EFL learners was investigated. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was given to homogenize and select participants who were in the initial state of L2 and L3 acquisition. The selected participants in the main phase of the study were assigned into two groups namely, Persian learners of English, as well as Turkmen learners of English. The present study was carried out using Grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and the Production Test. Two-way Between-groups ANOVA was used to analyze data. The results disconfirmed the findings of the hypothese related to L3 acquisition namely Cumulative Enhancement Model (CEM), and the L2 Status Factor, and confirmed the findings of the L1 transfer. Moreover, the results showed that gender did not have a significant effect on acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual and bilingual learners. The results have some implications for teaching English in the EFL context.