Do Bilinguals Acquire Similar Words to Monolinguals? An Examination of Word Acquisition and the Similarity Effect in Japanese-English Bilinguals' Vocabularies.

Aya Kutsuki

doi:10.3390/ejihpe11010014

Abstract

Previous research has paid much attention to the overall acquisition of vocabularies among bilingual children in comparison to their monolingual counterparts. Much less attention has been paid to the type of words acquired and the possible transfer or cross-linguistic effects of the other language on vocabulary development. Thus, this study aims to explore similarities and dissimilarities in the vocabularies of simultaneous bilinguals and Japanese monolinguals and considers the possible cross-linguistic similarity effect on word acquisition. Six simultaneous Japanese–English bilingual children (mean age = 34.75 months (2.56)) were language–age-matched with six Japanese monolinguals; their productive vocabularies were compared regarding size and categories. Additionally, characteristic acquired words were compared using correspondence analyses. Results showed that, although delayed due to the reduced inputs, young bilinguals have a similar set of vocabularies in terms of word category as monolinguals. However, bilingual children’s vocabularies reflect their unevenly distributed experience with the language. Fewer interactive experiences with language speakers may result in a lower acquisition of interactive words. Furthermore, there is a cross-linguistic effect on acquisition, likely caused by form similarity between Japanese katakana words and English words. Even between languages with great dissimilarities, resources and cues are sought and used to facilitate bilingual vocabulary acquisition.

Highlights

It is widely known that bilingual children can have smaller vocabularies in individual languages than their monolingual peers, but that their overall vocabulary is larger [1,2].Notwithstanding the generally expected extra cognitive load for learning two languages, bilingual children seem to acquire two languages quite smoothly and without much hindrance
When English words are adopted into the Japanese language, their sounds become modified; this causes some katakana words to differ greatly from their original meanings in English; we focused on the fact that they originate from English words, regardless of similarities in meaning
Analysis 1 investigated the first research question; whether limited experience with each language affects bilingual children’s vocabulary and whether the kind of words they acquire differ from those acquired by monolingual children

Summary

Introduction

It is widely known that bilingual children can have smaller vocabularies in individual languages than their monolingual peers, but that their overall vocabulary (considering both languages together) is larger [1,2].Notwithstanding the generally expected extra cognitive load for learning two languages, bilingual children seem to acquire two languages quite smoothly and without much hindrance. It is widely known that bilingual children can have smaller vocabularies in individual languages than their monolingual peers, but that their overall vocabulary (considering both languages together) is larger [1,2]. There are reasonable concerns for educational achievements of immigrant bilingual children; the focus of many studies has been on size of their vocabularies in comparison to monolingual children. Earlier studies came to the conclusion that the rate of vocabulary acquisition for one of the languages by bilingual children is not much different from that of monolingual children [2]. It is well documented that when two languages are combined, the overall vocabulary of bilingual children is larger than the vocabulary of monolingual children [1,6]

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