Acquisition Of Other Languages Research Articles

Когнитивная регуляция младших школьников-билингвов в процессе изучения третьего языка

The work raises problems about the possibility of extrapolating the effects of bilingualism to trilingualism at primary school age, about the increase/decrease in cognitive regulation in bilingual children in the process/result of their acquisition of other languages. The purpose of the pilot study is to identify opportunities in cognitive regulation among primary bilingual schoolchildren in the educational situation of learning a third language. The study involved second grade schoolchildren (N=60) aged from 8 to 9.8 years (M=8.8, SD=0.36), among them with unbalanced bilingualism (N=30, 15 boys, 15 girls ) from the national Udmurt gymnasium; monolinguals with their native Russian language (N=30, 13 boys, 17 girls) from a secondary school in Izhevsk, Udmurt Republic. To measure the components of cognitive regulation, the following were used: test battery NEPSY-II (children's version in printed form): “Repetition of sentences”, “Memory for construction”, “Inhibition”; computer test samples of the software of the psychologist's toolkit “Practice – MSU”: Stroop Test, Shulte Tables, Memory for geometric shapes, Go-NoGo. The main statistical method for analyzing empirical research data is structural modeling (structural equation modeling). The results of the pilot study show a possible syncretic (mixed) effect of bilingualism in the process of mastering a third language by primary schoolchildren with the need to control it in the educational situation. We assume that bilingualism in the educational situation of learning a third language, as a predictor of cognitive changes, provides advantages in the self-organization of subsystems of regulatory processes at the cognitive level and, at the same time, creates difficulties due to the high regulatory load.

Subtitles as a Tool to Boost Language Learning and Intercultural Awareness?

There is growing concern about the steep decline in language learning in the UK over the last 20 years. A simple, inexpensive way to boost children’s learning of other languages in the UK and indeed in other countries could be to increase their exposure to subtitled audiovisual (AV) content in other languages. There is considerable evidence that subtitled AV content can aid children’s acquisition of other languages, enhance their literacy skills, and foster intercultural awareness. However, little attention seems to have been paid thus far to eliciting the opinions and experiences of children themselves of watching subtitled films and television programmes in other languages. This study aims to contribute to filling the gap. A cohort of 17 children aged 8-9 years took part in interviews and participatory workshops and shared their views and experiences of viewing AV content with interlingual subtitles. Although the sample size is small, the findings of this study support the proposal of providing children with greater access to subtitled AV content in other languages, since the children’s responses to the idea were overwhelmingly positive, and many felt that this would help them to learn languages and about other cultures in a fun way. Lay summary In the UK, the number of children and young people studying languages has fallen sharply over the last 20 years. This is causing a lot of concern, because learning other languages is very beneficial, especially for children and young people. Studying languages can improve their communication skills and open up other cultures and job opportunities to them. Language skills are also important for inclusion and wellbeing in our increasingly multilingual societies and for international relations and trade. Many studies have shown that watching videos in other languages with subtitles can boost children’s language learning and help them learn to read in their home language. But few researchers have asked children themselves about their opinions on reading subtitles. To help fill this gap, I held interviews and workshops with 17 children aged 8–9 years about their views and experiences of watching subtitled videos in other languages. Their answers were very positive. Many felt it helps them learn languages and about other cultures in a fun way. As a result, I have concluded that a cheap, simple way we can help children to learn other languages is by making it easier for them to watch more TV programmes and films in other languages with subtitles.

LOSING MY CODE: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY ON LANGUAGE ATTRITION

Learning a new language is one of the privileges that a person can get when moving from one place to another and staying there for a longer time. In this paper, I will discuss my journey that resulted to gradual decline of my L1 (First language), Polillohing Tagalog, which is a variety of the Tagalog language, in the Philippines. The result of migration, acquisition of other languages, and exposure to different speaking environment had led me to continuously decline my first language. Using the auto-ethnographic type of writing a research, I reflected on my experiences which lead me to language attrition. Auto-ethnographic research is when the researcher is the participant of the story narrating his experience on the culture and phenomenon of the researched topic.

The potential benefits of subtitles for enhancing language acquisition and literacy in children

Abstract While a considerable body of experimental work has been conducted since the beginning of the 1980s to study whether subtitles enhance the acquisition of other languages in adults, research of this type investigating subtitles as a tool for enhancing children’s language learning and literacy has received less attention. This study provides an integrative review of existing studies in this area and finds extensive evidence that subtitled AV content can indeed aid the acquisition of other languages in children and adolescents, and that it can moreover enhance the literacy skills of children learning to read in their L1 or the official language of the country in which they live and receive schooling. Recommendations for future research are also made, and it is highlighted that further research using eye tracking to measure children’s gaze behaviour could shed new light on their attention to and processing of subtitled AV content.

What Kind of Bilingual Education is Most Beneficial? The Psycholinguistic Perspective

The significance of bilingual education has grown remarkably in the modern society since the benefits of bilingualism were affirmed long ago. However, the specific kind of bilingualism resulting in the most favourable effect has not been clarified as much. According to our investigation held on the subject of bilingualism in terms of the comprehension of a third language without its prior learning, bilingualism between two different language families contributes significantly to the understanding of another language belonging to a language family manifested in the bilingual informant. Hence, for example, a person representing a native-like capacity in a Slavic language, such as Russian, and a Romance language, such as Romanian (the case investigated in the research), will present the development of specific psycholinguistic strategies implying particular brain functioning as well as language data analysis resulting in the ability to access and understand, then subsequently acquire another Slavic or Romance language more efficiently. Evidently, this specific example does not refer to the Russian-Romanian bilingualism merely, but to any bilingualism between two language families. Consequently, how can it contribute to the educational system? Providing a child with a strong bilingual education based on the bilingualism between two different language families can result in the subsequent opportunity for an easier acquisition of other languages provided they belong to one of the language families the child masters. Additionally, the knowledge of many languages brings more facility in terms of eventual language learning in general, including dealing with a language from a different language family.

Early Acquisition of Palato-Alveolar Consonants in Japanese: Phoneme Frequencies in Child-Directed Speech

Segmental development in infants is inevitably governed by universal constraints due to infants’ immature articulatory system, while auditory input builds up language-specific constraints. Since Jakobson (1968) first proposed the universal order of language acquisition, the universal tendency for children to acquire vowels, then nasals, glides (j, w) and labial consonants, followed by the consonants produced at the back of the oral cavity has been recognized. If the size of the tongue or the oral cavity is the only cause for children’s mispronunciation, the order of language acquisition should be the same across languages. However, cross-linguistic differences in the order of phoneme acquisition has been reported in various studies (Rice and Avey 1995, Ingram 1999, Stokes and Wong 2002, Zhu 2002, Beckman et al. 2003, Tsurutani 2004). If we presuppose that the individual differences in children’s physical development or traits are not linguistically significant, diverse patterns of development among languages of the world can be attributed to differences in the phonology of each language. Infants’ linguistic skills are shaped by auditory input from the ambient language (Vihman 1996). Their perception capacity to discriminate between speech sounds declines or is modified as they acquire the phonological system of the language (Wenker and Tees 1984). It is highly likely that the order of language acquisition is affected by language-specific factors in the input. Some studies (Pye et al. 1987, Vihman 1996, Beckman et al. 2003) have discussed the relevance of frequency of occurrence or phonological saliency to the order of phoneme acquisition. However, researchers have not reached a conclusive theoretical explanation. We may presume, then, that the investigation of sounds acquired in the earlier stage of language acquisition than the universal order would provide some clarification on this issue. Japanese palato-alveolar consonants have been chosen for this study since Japanese language is linguistically quite different from English and most other languages, and early acquisition in Japanese could present an instructive contrast to early acquisition of other languages. This study investigates the frequency of palato-alveolar consonants in child-directed speech and the phonetic environments where these consonants are used. Findings from this empirical study are then used to consider languagespecific factors that affect aspects of sound acquisition.

Psycholinguistic peculiarities of future teachers’ interlanguage pronunciation acquisition in subordinative multilingualism environment

Introduction. Understanding the psychological premises of future teachers’ phonetic competence formation contributes to its effectiveness. So far researchers have revealed the mechanisms of their acquiring thepronunciation of English as the first foreign language whereas those that characterize studying English as the second foreign language have been paid little attention to. Purpose. To determine the psycholinguistic peculiaritiesof future teachers’ pronunciation acquisition while their studying English after German. Methods. Reviewing the works on psychological and psycholinguistic problems of foreign language learning with the aim to outline thepsycholinguistic aspects of acquiring the second foreign language pronunciation. Results. The research revealed that future teachers learning English in a subordinate multilingualism environment rely on their former experience in the acquisition of other languages. As a result, they createtheir own interlanguage phonetic system consisting of elements of four languages (Ukrainian, Russian, German and English) and some absolutely new forms. The major psycholinguistic processes that ensure this systemformation and development are language transfer from the native and German languages, intralanguage interference and students’ overgeneralization of rules. The analysis of the causes and consequences of language transfer, the influence of universals and markedness serves the ground for identifying the phonetic phenomena most difficult for acquiring. The study also highlights that pronunciation mistakes can be viewed as a product of certain systematicity. Hence, their correction requires a systematic approach. Conclusion. It is necessary to mind the revealedpsycholinguistic peculiarities for amending the structure of future teachers’ interlanguage phonetic system, correcting their pronunciation mistakes and forming the foundation for their further correct speech acts. The prospects of the further elaboration of the research may involve working out the techniques for future teachers’ phonetic competence formation based on the revealed peculiarities.

Why Native Albanian Speaker have an Easier Approach toward Acquisition of other Languages?

The Albanian native speaker’s have an easier approach toward acquisition of other languages. Studying Albanian language has a particular importance as it is been noticed that the idiom represent one of the oldest surviving members of the “Balkan” and Paleo-Balkan languages have each been proposed as the ancestor of modern Albanian. Particular words in Albanian language have a correlation of phenomena of action and sound knowing as phono-symbolism or phonosemantic. Another phenomena are compound words, in linguistic a compound is a lexeme that consist of more than one stem. Compounding or word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or wordcompounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them one word.

Tradition, globalisation and language dilemma in education: African options for the 21st century

This paper addresses the dilemma of language in education in African countries with particular reference to Burundi. African languages are still marginalised by colonial languages such as French and English. Looking at other African countries in general and at the case of Burundi in detail, an analysis is made of the adopted policies aimed at promoting the use of the mother tongue as a basis for knowledge acquisition and cultural integration. Burundi has gone through a series of educational reforms both before and after gaining independence in 1962, with French and Kirundi competing as curricular teaching languages. After the integration of Burundi into the East African Community in July 2007, English and Kiswahili were added to the curriculum, complicating education policies. This article places particular emphasis on the contextual challenges that tend to impair the full implementation of the adopted policy reforms. The paper concludes by advocating for a multilingual approach in which the indigenous mother tongue serves as the basis for the acquisition of other languages in the curriculum.

Review article: A tree in the wood: A review of research on L2 Chinese acquisition

There has been considerable research in Chinese as a second language (L2) in recent years, particularly in its morphological and syntactic aspects. This article reviews research in these aspects with reference to the broader discipline of second language acquisition (SLA) and suggests that L2 Chinese research has contributed to SLA through verification, modification or posing challenges to research findings in the L2 acquisition of other languages. On the basis of these studies, the author points out the limits of current L2 Chinese research and discusses the prospects for future development, arguing that L2 Chinese is to be investigated against hypotheses based on other L2s so that theoretical contributions can be made to the discipline of SLA.

Christine Hélot and Anne-Marie de Mejía (eds.): Forging Multilingual Spaces: Integrated Perspectives on Majority and Minority Bilingual Education

As Helot and de Mejia explain in the Introduction to this edited volume, this book attempts to go beyond the classical distinction between ‘‘elite’’ and ‘‘folk’’ bilingualism (p. 204), or enrichment bilingualism for language majority groups and compensatory bilingualism for linguistic minorities, to explore alternatives conducive to the integration of both approaches and the development of bi/multiculturalism for all. Accordingly, the book adopts a linguistically ecological perspective, ‘‘where all languages are envisaged as learning resources for those who speak them, as well as for the monolingual majorities’’ (p. 5). In other words, it embraces a positive view of bi/plurilingualism as asset and resource instead of threat, the latter an unfortunately negative perception of the process pervading many societies worldwide. The seed for the volume dates back to a 2005 symposium on bilingualism held in Barcelona, Spain, in which participants were asked to rethink this phenomenon as well as examine policies and practices in relation to the acquisition of other languages in schools. The purpose of the symposium was twofold: to gather scholars of bilingualism from different angles (i.e., programs for indigenous populations, or for various national majority and minority groups) and ‘‘to confront reflections on how to bridge the gap between elite and minority bilingualism’’ (p. 2). In its present book form, the scholars’ insights present interested readers with a broad yet thorough view of different efforts aimed at the promotion of bilingualism and bilingual education in a variety of contexts, among them the US, Colombia, Argentina, the UK, France, and Ireland, both in terms of language policies at the national, state, regional, or local level, and their actual classroom implementation. Regrettably, the latter aspect is an issue of concern in a majority of the situations

Supporting Young Indigenous Children's Language Development in Canada: A Review of Research on Needs and Promising Practices

This article offers an original review of research and reports about young Indigenous children's language development needs and approaches to meeting them. The review addresses not only children's acquisition of an Indigenous language but also their acquisition of other languages (e.g., English and French), because their progress in one linguistic domain affects their progress in others. Indigenous children have inequitable access to supports for optimal health and development and experience persistently high rates of academic failure. A search of peer-reviewed literature yielded no empirical studies that systematically assessed Indigenous children's language development and no controlled studies that evaluated the outcomes of early language facilitation programs or early interventions. Investments in culturally appropriate supports for optimal language development of young First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children are relevant to a range of policy areas, including Residential School healing programs, social justice, education, literacy, community development, employment, and literacy.

Characteristics of the sound systems of monolingual Vietnamese‐speaking children with phonological impairment

There has been little or no research on Vietnamese phonological development, let alone on phonological disorders of Vietnamese‐speaking children. The goal of this study is to evaluate the sound systems of monolingual Vietnamese‐speaking children with phonological impairment. Independent and relational analyses of four children (ages 4;4 to 5;5) are presented in terms of error patterns, dialectal patterns, phonotactic constraints, and phonetic and phonemic inventories. The characteristics of these children's sound systems are compared to studies of phonological acquisition of other languages, in order to identify characteristics that may be universal versus those that may be language‐specific in nature.

The acquisition of verbal morphology by Chinese learners of Hungarian

This article is the first variationist analysis of speakers of an analytic language acquiring an agglutinative language: we investigate the acquisition of the rich Hungarian verbal morphological system by adult Chinese immigrants to Budapest. Multivariate analyses of data extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with nine untutored Chinese learners of Hungarian suggest that the acquisition of verbal morphology is systematic. Factors that have been identified as significant in studies of the acquisition of other languages, such as frequency, perceptual salience, morphophonological regularity, and semantic complexity, all play a significant role in the acquisition of Hungarian as a second language. The marking of definiteness or indefiniteness of the object on the verb, a rare aspect of verbal morphology, also has a significant effect. Chinese learners are more likely to mark definite than indefinite forms of the verb, despite the fact that these forms express largely redundant functions and that indefinites are more frequent. Hence, our data allow for an analysis of relative weights of factors affecting acquisition and address the issue of the relative weight of frequency over other factors.