L’Italiano come L3 di studenti universitari rumeni: transfer dall’inglese e effetto di psychotypology
Italian as L3 of Romanian university students: transfer from English and psychotypology effect

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse how Romanian university students learn Italian as a third language. L3 acquisition is a relatively recent field of study since acquisitional linguistics has often paid little attention to the influence of other languages known by students. Although Romanian learners can rely heavily on their L1, which is typologically close to Italian, English and other languages still have a strong influence. Various studies (Safont and Portoles, 2015; Cenoz, 2013) have shown both the differences in the acquisition of L2 and L3, and the advantages of bilinguals compared to monolinguals in learning a language. In this paper, in particular, we will consider the transfer from English (and possibly from other languages) to Italian both from the perspective of error analysis, and the concept of psychotypology (Kellerman, 1983). This term indicates how the learner perceives the typological difference between L1 and L2. Kellerman considers it one of the main factors in the phenomenon of linguistic transfer and the definition of the concept of transferability. Consequently, this paper will attempt both to highlight the most frequent errors of Romanian learners that can be ascribed to the interference of English most of all and possibly other languages, and, via questionnaire, the influence of the effect of psychotypology in assessing how much the mindful perception of a learner can influence the transfer phenomenon.

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