Comparison of morphosyntax in monolingual and bilingual children

Abstract

Introduction: A significant debate surrounding language acquisition in bilinguals concerns how the two languages develop and distinguish in young children. The current study aimed to compare the morphosyntactic development of English monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual children between the age group of 4–6 years. In addition, the present study examined the effect of age on morphosyntactic development as well as the correlation between the morphosyntactic development of bilingual children and their second language exposure. Methods: This cross-sectional study compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual participants on English morphosyntactic markers using the test of early grammatical impairment (TEGI) and a language background questionnaire. An independent sample t-test was used to compare the groups. Results: The results revealed that (1) the monolingual participants performed better than their bilingual peers in their use of English morphosyntactic markers, (2) 5-year-old participants performed better than 4-year-old participants suggesting an age effect, and (3) a positive correlation between second language exposure and scores on TEGI. Conclusion: The current study provides insight into the development of grammatical markers in the second language (L2) of bilingual children based on their exposure to L2.