1.2 The historical background and significance of this research. 

In our country, the training program of foreign language majors is “the foreign language major + second foreign language”. Up to now, the research on SLA has been developed and become matured but the research on TLA is relatively rare.

There’s no doubt that English and Japanese are the two languages which have most learners in China. Many English majors learn Japanese as second foreign language while many Japanese majors learn English as well. The current situation is that Chinese students began to learn English when they are very young; most start from elementary school whiles others from middle school. Till college & university entrance examination, most students have acquired oppositely complete English skills. On this aspect, English is the L2 and Japanese is L3 for them.

This thesis is the research on the reverse negative transfer phenomenon from Japanese (L3) to English (L2), may provide study skills for multi-language learners to anti-interference and both language well. It makes sense to do such research relevant to third language acquisition.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Cross-linguistic Influence

There are many facts which influenced the cross-linguistic transfer. They are bilingual types, the contact extent of L2 & L3, the proximate cause of the TLA, the language distance, psychotypology & transferability, language mode, second language status, age, proficiency of L2 and proficiency of L3.

Magiste pointed out, based on Balke – Aurell and Lindblad’s research on the SLA phenomena on the eighth-year-grade students in Swiss, different bilingual types (initiative bilingual & passive bilingual) have different influence on TLA. Magiste believed that initiative bilingual and passive bilingual will affect TLA in different ways: initiative bilingual puts off the process of SLA while passive bilingual promotes the process of TLA.

Another fact is whether the respondents can get touch with L2 in natural background, it also influences TLA. Who can get more touch with L2, the cross-linguistic influence from L2 to L3 will be stronger; on the contrary, who can hardly get in touch with L2, the cross-linguistic influence will be weaker.

Through investigating the case of native and non-native disturb language transfer, Shanon discovered that the latest-used language, it is also called “Last Language Effect”, is more likely to influence the acquisition of target language.

Another point is language distance, which is also called “psych typology”. Mohle pointed out that language distance is the key factor which influences lexical acquisition. Compare to the position of L2, language distance can predict cross-linguistic influence in TLA better. Most researchers in TLA field, Ahukanna, Lund & Gentile, Hammarberg, Kellerman, Mohle, Ringbom, and Williams & Hammarberg agree to this view.