This study was an approximate replication of Rothman (2011),examining the determiner phrase syntax of a large sample (n = 211) of L3 learners of Portuguese who spoke English and Spanish. Rothman (2011) investigated whether L3 Italian or Brazilian Portuguese speakers are differently impacted by another known Romance Language, if it was their L1 or L2. The original study concluded that groups did not perform differently on experimental tasks on the basis of a null effect, and that the typological similarity of Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian predicts transfer in the initial stages of L3 acquisition. The present replication recreated all materials, which were unavailable, and examined the same population and questions. However, rather than examining L3 Italian and L3 Brazilian Portuguese, the present work maintained a constant L3 Portuguese. Learners were divided into two groups in a mirror-image design (n = 96 L1 English-L2 Spanish, n = 115 L1 Spanish-L2 English), and data were collected online. Like the original study, there was no main effect of group in any of the two-way analyses of variance. However, results show that it should not be assumed that experimental groups behave equivalently based on a null effect: Of the four total post hoc tests of equivalence, only two were significant when the equivalence bounds were set at a small effect size (d = $ \pm $ .4). Ultimately, it is argued that determining the smallest effect size of interest and subsequent equivalence testing are necessary to answer key questions in the field of L3 acquisition.

这项研究是 Rothman （2011） 的近似复制，检查了说英语和西班牙语的葡萄牙语 L3 学习者的大样本 （n = 211） 的限定词短语语法。Rothman （2011） 调查了意大利语或巴西葡萄牙语的 L3 使用者是否受到另一种已知罗曼语的影响不同，如果它是他们的 L1 还是 L2。最初的研究得出的结论是，各组在实验任务中的表现并不基于零效应而有所不同，并且西班牙语、葡萄牙语或意大利语的类型相似性预测了 L3 习得初始阶段的迁移。目前的复制品重新创建了所有无法获得的材料，并研究了相同的人群和问题。然而，目前的工作没有研究 L3 意大利语和 L3 巴西葡萄牙语，而是保持了不变的 L3 葡萄牙语。学习者在镜像设计中被分为两组（n = 96 L1 英语-L2 西班牙语，n = 115 L1 西班牙语-L2 英语），并在线收集数据。与原始研究一样，在任何双向方差分析中都没有组的主效应。然而，结果表明，不应假设实验组基于零效应的行为是等效的：在总共四次事后等效性检验中，当等效边界设置为小效应量 （d = $ \pm $ .4） 时，只有两项是显著的。最终，有人认为，确定感兴趣的最小效应量和随后的等价检验对于回答 L3 采集领域的关键问题是必要的。