The Effect of the Second Language on Metalinguistic Awareness in Third Language Vocabulary Learning

Abstract This study aims at investigating the effect of second language in third language learning. It focuses on metalinguistic awareness, which reflects the extent to which learners can use their background languages in the process of third and additional language learning. The study gives insights into the issue of metalinguistic awareness by testing the participants’ vocabulary knowledge in learning English as a foreign language. The number of participants in this study is 30; they are all middle school students who have Arabic/Berber as native languages, French as a second language, and English as a third language. Two translation tasks were designed to find out how participants use their background languages in learning English: translating words in the first task and paragraph translation (from English into Arabic) and think-aloud protocols in the second task. Additionally, a semi-structured interview is conducted with 8 participants. The findings reveal how participants possess greater cognitive control in language acquisition due to language relatedness between the foreign languages they learn.