Also, too, as well: non-native variation of additive adverbials

If learning stylistically differentiated variation patterns appear to be an inherent difficulty for non native language learners (Rehner, Mougeon & Nadasi 2003, Regan 1996), what will be the out come of the non native acquisition of features that not only vary, but do not present a high degree of stylistic or social differences. Three additive adverbials, also, too, and as well as, have very similar , if not identical, meanings and can be used fairly interchangeably, and although there is some stylistic variation in their selection it is not as marked as it is for some other variables (fjelkestam-Nilsson 1983). The distribution pattern of the three lexical variants, however are quite different and it is precisely this that may create a difficulty for nonnative speakers. This paper looks at how non-native speakers of English in Switzerland use the three additives adverbial in their out put of English, especially given that their native language s (French, German or Italian) do not provide the same three ways lexical distinction of variants, and whether the similarity of the adverbials has affected the non-native speakers’ variation patterns for the three variants