The development of the expression of temporality in the written English narratives of monolingual American and bilingual Mexican pupils

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this study we examine to what extent the linguistic expression of temporal relationships by children receiving long‐term explicit second‐language instruction parallels that previously described for instructed and noninstructed adult learners, and to what extent it resembles that of children who are native speakers. The 80 subjects for the study are divided into four groups by grade level, fourth vs ninth, and native language, English (Americans) vs Spanish (Mexicans). The data analyzed consist of written narratives elicited with two silent films. Analytic categories include: tense, aspect, subordination, temporal conjunctions, temporal adverbials, lexical tying, and juxtaposition. Analysis of variance for these variables suggests that, while children who are nonnative English speakers show the same general pattern of use of syntactic, lexical and discursive devices for expressing temporality as do children who are native speakers, with respect to the use of some temporal markers they exhibit a developmental lag. There is also some evidence of linguistic transfer in verb tense and aspect while with respect to past‐tense morphology the performance of children who are nonnative speakers of English is qualitatively different from that of children who are native speakers but similar to that of both instructed and noninstructed adult second‐language learners.