Ich brauche mix-cough: cross-linguistic influence involving German, English and Farsi

Abstract

This paper deals with cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in early trilingualism involving the languages German, English and Farsi. The data come from the case study of the author's two children growing up in a trilingual family within a monolingual German-speaking environment. Specific types of CLI from the non-dominant language Farsi on German and English are explained as being triggered by structural features of Farsi that cater to general cognitive tendencies towards iconicity and transparency, thus providing a unifying conceptual explanation for what may be termed minority influence.

Keywords:

• early trilingualism
• cross-linguistic influence
• language dominance
• minority influence
• iconicity
• transparency

Acknowledgements

Thanks for detailed discussions on the role of language structure and typology as well as insightful and important comments on first drafts of this paper go in particular to Wolfgang Schulze and Elke Ronneberger-Sibold; furthermore I thank Karin Luttermann and Thomas Fritz. The comments by the editor Suzanne Quay as well as three anonymous reviewers were invaluable, as was the feedback from the audience at the IASCL symposium ‘Multilingualism as a Norm’ in Edinburgh 2008. Technical assistance was provided by Sabine Wahl; also, example (19) was uttered in a conversation between her and Anusheh. Finally, this paper could not have been written without my husband M.K. Kazzazi not only teaching his children Farsi, but also sharing his vast knowledge about Farsi with me. All remaining errors are my own responsibility.