Acquisition of the present progressive tense by Arabic (L۱) speakers of Persian (L۲) and learners of English (L۳)

This study aims to investigate the sources of transfer in multilingualism and the effects of theories in area of third language acquisition. Accordingly, present progressive tense structures were used to compare the sources of transfer, where the first language (L۱) is Arabic, the second language (L۲) is Persian, and the third language (L۳) is English. To this end, ۳۲ male trilingual speakers of Arabic (L۱), Persian (L۲) and English (L۳) were selected purposefully to fulfill the requirements of the present study. The instruments utilized for the elicitation of the required data were the Grammatical Judgment Test and the Production Test. The findings revealed that, based on the second language status factor (L۲SF) model, L۲ (Persian) serves as a filter for L۱ in the acquisition of L۳ (English). Consequently, the subjects preferred their L۲ (Persian) as the source of transfer in the acquisition of the desired structures.