Abstract
Previous research has shown that in a minority-majority language context, the quantity of language input at home is more important for the development of the minority language than for the development of the majority language. In the current study, we examined whether the same holds true for the frequency of specific language activities at home. In a group of five- and six-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (n = 120), we investigated to what extent vocabulary and morphology knowledge were predicted by reading activities, watching TV, and story-telling activities in both languages. The results showed that reading in Frisian predicted both Frisian vocabulary and morphology, while reading in Dutch only predicted Dutch vocabulary. This shows that reading at home is most important for the development of the minority language. This especially holds true for the acquisition of Frisian morphology, a domain that is known to be vulnerable in language acquisition.
Highlights
Children acquire their home language by being frequently exposed to it (Hoff, 2006)
We examined to what extent the development of vocabulary and morphology in five- and six-year-old Frisian–Dutch bilingual children was predicted by the engagement in different language activities in the home
We investigated to what extent the bilingual language acquisition of five- and six-year-old Frisian–Dutch bilingual children could be predicted by the frequency with which they were engaged in book-reading, watching TV, and oral story-telling in their two languages
Summary
Children acquire their home language by being frequently exposed to it (Hoff, 2006). As bilingual children have to divide their exposure time between two languages, they usually acquire these individual languages at a slower rate than their monolingual peers (Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller, 1993; Uccelli & Páez, 2007). The overall rate of language development, is similar to that of monolingual children (Pearson et al, 1993). Several studies show that the rate at which bilingual children acquire vocabulary is predicted by the amount of exposure to each language (Pearson, 2007; Thordardottir, Rothenberg, Rivard, & Naves, 2006). For children who grow up in a context with a minority and a majority language, the quantity of the input at home is especially important for the development of the minority
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