Language Dominance in Dual Language Children - Do we Need to Bother Assessing It?

Abstract

As part of a doctoral investigation, the receptive lexical proficiency of 392 Dual Language (DL) primary school children in Gibraltar was studied. Using the resultant data, the subjects' lexical proficiency was measured in Gibraltarian Spanish (Yanito) their first language (L1) and in English their second language (L2). Their receptive lexical dominance was also calculated. This paper focuses on the results of analyses conducted to calculate the subjects' receptive lexical dominance and dominance shift over the years. The results of these analyses are reported and some implications briefly discussed.