Bilingual Children's Language Research Articles

Holistic Constructions in Heritage Russian and Russian as a Second Language: Divergence or Delay?

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the strategies applied by young learners of Russian when naming a word in a vocabulary test. A total of 40 children took part in the experiment: 10 simultaneous Russian-Swedish bilingual children and 10 successive Russian-Swedish bilinguals who lived in Sweden, 10 children who moved to Russia and acquired Russian as a second language, and 10 monolingual Russian children living in Russia (as a control group). All the children were tested with the Russian version of Cross-Linguistic Tasks (CLT; Nenonen, Gagarina 2016). The results showed that the error pattern in all the groups of children seemed to be similar; yet, the acquisition of some structures appeared to be delayed in Russian Heritage Language (HL) children. Holistic constructions are common for all the children, but in bilingual children the effects of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) were also noticed. We argue that ‘atypical’ construction does not necessarily need to be disordered since the two languages of the HL child develop in contact with each other. However, a pattern of delayed acquisition can later lead to divergent development in the weaker language of bilingual children.

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children.

Awareness of language structure has been studied in bilinguals, but there is limited research on how language dominance is related to metalinguistic awareness, and whether metalinguistic awareness predicts vocabulary size. The present study aims to explore the role of language dominance in the relation between vocabulary size in both languages of bilingual children and metalinguistic awareness in the societal language. It evaluates the impact of two metalinguistic awareness abilities, morphological and lexical awareness, on receptive and expressive vocabulary size. This is of special interest since most studies focus on the impact of exposure on vocabulary size but very few explore the impact of the interaction between metalinguistic awareness and dominance. 5–6-year-old preschool children with typical language development participated in the study: 15 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the societal language (SL) Hebrew, 21 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the Heritage language (HL) Russian and 32 monolingual children. Dominance was determined by relative proficiency, based on standardized tests in the two languages. Tasks of morphological and lexical awareness were administered in SL-Hebrew, along with measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary size in both languages. Vocabulary size in SL-Hebrew was significantly higher for SL-dominant bilinguals (who performed like monolinguals) than for HL-dominant bilinguals, while HL-Russian vocabulary size was higher for HL-dominant bilinguals than for SL-dominant bilinguals. A hierarchical regression analyzing the relationship between vocabulary size and metalinguistic awareness showed that dominance, lexical metalinguistic awareness and the interaction between the two were predictors of both receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Morphological metalinguistic awareness was not a predictor of vocabulary size. The relationship between lexical awareness and SL-vocabulary size was limited to the HL-dominant group. HL-dominant bilinguals relied on lexical metalinguistic awareness, measured by fast mapping abilities, that is, the abilities to acquire new words, in expanding their vocabulary size, whereas SL-dominant bilinguals and monolinguals did not. This difference reflects the milestones of lexical acquisition the different groups have reached. These findings show that metalinguistic awareness should also be taken into consideration when evaluating the variables that influence vocabulary size among bilinguals though different ways in different dominance groups.

Parents in the playground, headscarves in the school and an inspector taken hostage: exercising agency and challenging dominant deficit discourses in a multilingual pre-school in France

ABSTRACTIn France, dominant monolingual discourses and teachers’ lack of knowledge about bilingualism and second language acquisition often result in ‘French only’ policies in classrooms including in pre-school classrooms where some emergent bilingual children speak a language other than the language of schooling and very little or no French. These policies can be detrimental to emergent bilingual children's language development, identity construction and overall long-term academic success. However, teachers in multilingual classrooms also have the power to exercise their agency to support children's bilingual language development and to implement practices which empower them and their families. This paper focuses on the ways in which one pre-school teacher working with three and four year old emergent bilingual children asserted her agency in the classroom despite institutional constraints. It investigates the beliefs, experiences, aspirations and knowledge which underpinned her sense of agency, the ways in which her actions empowered the children and parents and discusses the implications of the study for initial teacher education and continuous professional development.

Bilingual language experience and children's social-emotional and behavioral skills: a cross-sectional study of Singapore preschoolers

ABSTRACT The current study examines the relationship between bilingual children's dual language experience (i.e. language input, language output and vocabulary proficiency), and their social-emotional and behavioral skills. Data were analysed from 805 Singaporean bilingual preschoolers (ages 4; 1–5; 8 years), who are learning English and either Mandarin (n = 551), Malay (n = 105), or Tamil, (n = 149). A parent questionnaire and standardized vocabulary tests were used to assess children's bilingual language environment and vocabulary knowledge. Children's social-emotional and behavioral skills were evaluated by teachers using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. A series of variables which might influence social-emotional and behavioral skills (e.g. gender, non-verbal IQ, SES, and emotion recognition) were controlled and mixed-effects models were used to conduct data analysis. Results demonstrated that children who had larger bilingual receptive vocabulary and had frequently spoken both languages for a longer time had better social-emotional and behavioral skills. Gender and emotion recognition ability were also found to be significantly related to children's social-emotional and behavioral skills. Such findings held true for children across different Mother Tongue language backgrounds. This suggests that a good language environment for bilingual children should be promoted not only for the sake of their early language development, but also because of the potential benefits to their social-emotional and behavioral skills.

Differential effects of internal and external factors in early bilingual vocabulary learning: The case of Singapore

ABSTRACTBoth internal factors (e.g., nonverbal intelligence) and external factors (e.g., input quantity) are claimed to affect the rate of children's vocabulary development. However, it remains an open question whether these variables work similarly on bilingual children's dual language learning. The current paper examined this issue on 805 Singapore children (4 years, 1 month to 5 years, 8 months) who are learning English (societal language) and an ethnic language (Mandarin/Malay/Tamil). Singapore is a bilingual society; however, there is an inclination for English use at home in recent years, resulting in a discrepancy of input between English and ethnic languages in many families. In this study, internal and external factors were examined comprehensively with standardized tests and a parental questionnaire. Regression analysis was used to address the questions. There were statistically significant differences in language input quantity, quality, and output between English and ethnic language learning environments. Singapore children are learning English in an input-rich setting while learning their ethnic language in a comparatively input-poor setting. Multiple regressions revealed that while both sets of factors explained lexical knowledge in each language, the relative contribution is different for English and ethnic languages: internal factors explained more variance in English language vocabulary, whereas external factors were more important in explaining ethnic language knowledge. We attribute this difference to a threshold effect of external factors based on the critical mass hypothesis and call for special attention to learning context (input-rich vs. input-poor settings) for specific bilingual language studies.

Methods for Identifying Specific Language Impairment in Bilingual Populations in Germany

This study investigates the performance of 22 monolingual and 54 bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI), in a nonword repetition (NWRT) and a sentence repetition task (SRT). Both tasks were constructed according to the principles for LITMUS tools (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) developed within COST Action IS0804, and incorporated phonological or syntactic structures that are linguistically complex and have been shown to be difficult for children with SLI across languages. For phonology these are in particular (non)words containing consonant clusters. In morphosyntax complexity has been attributed to factors such as embedding and/or syntactic movement. Tasks focusing on such structures are expected to identify SLI in bilinguals across language combinations. This is notoriously difficult because structures that are problematic for typically developing bilinguals (BiTDs) and monolingual children with SLI (MoSLI) often overlap. We show that the NWRT and the SRT are reliable tools for identification of SLI in bilingual contexts. However, interpretation of the performance of bilingual children depends on background information as provided by parental questionnaires. In order to evaluate the accuracy of our tasks we recruited children in ordinary kindergartens or schools and in Speech Language Therapy centers and verified their status with a battery of standardized language tests, assessing bilingual children in both their languages. We consider a bilingual child language impaired if she shows impairments in two language domains in both her languages. For assessment we used tests normed for monolinguals (with one exception) and adjusted the norms for bilingualism and for language dominance. This procedure established the following groups: 10 typical monolinguals (MoTD), 12 MoSLI, 46 BiTD and 8 bilingual children with SLI (BiSLI). Our results show that both tasks target relevant structures: monolingual children are classified with 100% accuracy. Crucially, both our tasks distinguish BiTDs from MoSLIs and BiTDs from BiSLIs. The NWRT shows high accuracy and only minimal influence of language dominance. The SRT can be scored as “identical repetition” or as “target structure”, the latter aiming for scoring the mastery of a syntactic structure, ignoring lexical and specific case or gender errors. Focusing on the latter measure, we

РОЛЬ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ТЕКСТА В ОБУЧЕНИИ ДЕТЕЙ-БИЛИНГВОВ РУССКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ

One of the pressing issues of the Russian foreign school is maintaining students ‘ motivation to study their native Russian language, which, unfortunately, tends to fall as children get older.The article discusses the role of literary text in maintaining (or even stimulating) of interest in the Russian - second native language in bilingual children from mixed families living abroad, and the ability to use for teaching the reading of literature texts of literary works, age-appropriate reader and relevant to his interests. Describe e-learning resources - interactive author’s course “the reading Lessons is a holiday that is always with you”, offer him lessons can be used by young readers for independent reading at home and in the classroom for reading and discussion.

The Development of Japanese Modality and the Influence of Bilingual Acquisition

This paper examines the development of Japanese modality in children's speech and the influence of bilingual acquisition. We use data collected longitudinally from six Japanese monolingual children and three Japanese-English bilingual children. We compare their speech to analyze if there are any influences during the development of Japanese modality when acquiring two languages. Our data shows that children start using a variety of Japanese modal expressions before becoming five-years-old. Bilingual children also use a variety of modal expressions; however, the frequency rate of modal forms produced by an English dominant bilingual child is much lower than with a monolingual child. The results suggest that production frequency and the adequate usage of modal expressions may be used as an indicator in evaluating bilingual children's language development and performance.

Supporting the home language of bilingual children with developmental disabilities: From knowing to doing

There is a growing awareness of bilingualism and the needs of children with developmental disabilities who are exposed to more than one language. This growing awareness is paralleled by a growing research base in the area of bilingualism and emerging research in bilingual children with developmental disabilities. In this set of articles we see that there is general agreement that bilingualism does not increase risk for language impairment nor does intervention in the home language interfere with second language learning. Yet there continues to be challenges in putting this knowledge into practice. By better understanding the challenges to implementation in context we can better address the needs of children, families, and practitioners.

Subject omission/production in child bilingual English and child bilingual Spanish: the view from linguistic theory

Abstract In bilingual child language acquisition research, a recurrent learnability issue has been to investigate whether and how cross-linguistic influence would interact with the non-adult patterns of omission/production of functional categories. In this paper, we analyze the omission/production of subject pronouns in the earliest stage English grammar and the earliest stage Spanish grammar of two English–Spanish simultaneous bilingual children (FerFuLice corpus in CHILDES). We base this analysis on Holmberg’s (2005, Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36. 533–564) and Sheehan’s (2006, The EPP and null subjects in Romance. Newcastle: Newcastle University PhD dissertation) formulation of the null subject parameter and on Liceras et al.’s (2012, Overt subjects and copula omission in the Spanish and the English grammar of English-Spanish bilinguals: On the locus and directionality of interlinguistic influence. First Language 32(1–2). 88–115) assumptions concerning the role of lexical specialization in cross-linguistic influence. We have conducted a comparative analysis of the patterns of production/omission of English and Spanish overt and null subjects in two bilingual children, on the one hand, versus the patterns of production/omission of one monolingual English child and one monolingual Spanish child, on the other. The results show that while there is no conclusive evidence as to whether or not English influences the higher production of overt subjects in child bilingual Spanish, the presence of null subjects in Spanish has a positive influence in the eradication of non-adult null subjects in bilingual English. We argue that in a bilingual situation, as compared to a monolingual one, lexical specialization in one of the languages of the bilinguals (the availability of an overt and a null realization of the subject in Spanish) facilitates the acquisition of the other language.

Un análisis de los usos de las lenguas (indígena y no indígena) entre niños toba/qom y mbýa de Argentina en experiencias lúdicas

In view of their bilingualism, these communities adopt specific strategies to everyday language use. This paper addresses the development of communication skills in less dominant languages in bilingual children from Argentina’s indigenous communities (Toba / Qom and Mbya). In particular, we set out to emphasize how certain recreational practices have impacted on use of less dominant languages among children in these groups (Toba / Qom in the first case, and Spanish in the second). The article is organized into five sections. It begins with a brief contextualization of the sociolinguistic situation of the languages spoken in the empirical referents analysed, to facilitate understanding of the importance and singularity of the case studies presented. We go on to develop the methodology supporting our research and finally consider the selected theoretical framework regarding the anthropology of childhood, while revisiting a number of anthropological contributions to studies on play and language. We also refer to the Toba / Qom and Mbya definitions of childhood and analyse games and language use among children.

Typological and developmental considerations on specific language impairment in monolingual and bilingual children: A Processability Theory account

ABSTRACTThis article suggests a method to deal with cross-linguistic differences in children with Specific Language Impairment. The differences in vulnerable structures reflect typological properties of the surrounding language (e.g., Leonard 2014a, 2014b). This article adds a developmental perspective to the discussion by interpreting the vulnerable structures through the framework of Processability Theory (PT; Pienemann 1998, 2015) and placing them along a developmental continuum. Studies focusing on production of grammatical structures in children with SLI from 19 different language backgrounds are examined. The results of the analyses suggest that the major grammatical problems in children with SLI belong to the later stages of the PT hierarchy. PT gives an alternative interpretation to earlier accounts by offering a developmental perspective and a metric that allows us to measure both languages in bilingual children.

Bi-directional cross-linguistic influence in bilingual Russian-Hebrew children

Abstract This study examines cross-linguistic influence of L1 on L2 and L2 on L1 and the extent to which age of L2 onset (L2 AoO) is linked to the acquisition of morpho-syntactic properties in both languages of bilingual children who acquire L1-Russian as a heritage language and L2-Hebrew as a majority language. Our investigation of L1-L2 influence focuses on morpho-syntactic features, whose configurations vary in Russian and Hebrew. Definiteness is realized in Hebrew (but not in Russian), aspect is selected in Russian (but not in Hebrew), and [ACC] case is realized in both languages (but the mapping is different across the two languages); finally, the features of [Person], [Number] and [Gender] are mapped onto verbal inflections in both languages. A total of 110 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children aged 5;5–6;5 with varying ages of L2-Hebrew onset (0–60 months), 20 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals and 20 Russian-speaking monolinguals participated. Results demonstrate cross-linguistic influence, showing that it is bi-directional (L1 on L2 and L2 on L1). The patterns of cross-linguistic influence were similar: bilinguals performed similarly to monolinguals on features, with similar configurations in L1 and L2 (i.e., subject-verb agreement) but performed lower for properties realized differently in L1 and L2 (i.e., [DEF] articles in L2-Hebrew; [PERF] aspect and [ACC] case inflections in L1-Russian). The results also showed an effect of L2 AoO on the acquisition of both L1 and L2. Children with earlier AoO to L2-Hebrew (before 24 months) achieve better mastery in L2-Hebrew and performed lower in L1-Russian. Conversely, later AoOs to L2, led to better mastery of L1 and weaknesses in the acquisition of L2. Findings are discussed in light of the Feature Re-assembly Hypothesis.

Developing and Using Big Data Archives to Quantify Disfluency and Stuttering in Bilingual Children.

Worldwide, bilingualism is the rule rather than the exception, and yet we have surprisingly little research data on the fluency development of bilingual children, and even less information on their potential risk for stuttering. Many variables influence a bilingual child's language, speech, and fluency development (e.g., amount of exposure to each language); controlling these variables in research studies necessitates large numbers of bilingual participants. The frequency and types of typical disfluencies in the speech of young children are also varied. In addition, stuttering is also variable in its presentation, and when we assess bilingual children for the presence of stuttering we are adding yet another layer of complexity. This article reviews research on typical disfluencies in monolingual and bilingual speakers, and how this information might be useful clinically. We provide examples from our laboratory to illustrate how computerized language analysis (CLAN) can be used over time to track the behaviors of research participants. We also present data on the identification of stuttering in bilingual children. We discuss challenges to studying bilingual speakers and how big data initiatives such as TalkBank address these challenges to increase our understanding of bilingual fluency development.

Code-Mixing and Mixed Verbs in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: Input and Innovation

In both child and adult Cantonese, code-mixing is used productively. We focus on the insertion of English verbs into Cantonese utterances. Data from nine simultaneous bilingual children in the Hong Kong Bilingual Child Language Corpus are analyzed. Case studies show that the children’s rates of mixing closely match the rate of mixing in the parental input, and that different input conditions influence rates of mixing. The bilingual children, nevertheless, show creativity, notably in inserting phrasal verb-particle combinations into a Cantonese frame. We argue that this is an innovation not derived from adult input.

Dual language versus English-only support for bilingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants and hearing aids.

There is a critical need to understand better speech and language development in bilingual children learning two spoken languages who use cochlear implants (CIs) and hearing aids (HAs). The paucity of knowledge in this area poses a significant barrier to providing maximal communicative outcomes to a growing number of children who have a hearing loss (HL) and are learning multiple spoken languages. In fact, the number of bilingual individuals receiving CIs and HAs is rapidly increasing, and Hispanic children display a higher prevalence of HL than the general population of the United States. In order to serve better bilingual children with CIs and HAs, appropriate and effective therapy approaches need to be designed and tested, based on research findings. This study investigated the effects of supporting both the home language (Spanish) and the language of the majority culture (English) on language outcomes in bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs as compared to their bilingual peers who receive English-only support. Retrospective analyses of language measures were completed for two groups of Spanish- and English-speaking bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs matched on a range of demographic and socio-economic variables: those with dual-language support versus their peers with English-only support. Dependent variables included scores from the English version of the Preschool Language Scales, 4th Edition. Bilingual children who received dual-language support outperformed their peers who received English-only support at statistically significant levels as measured by Total Language and Expressive Communication as raw and language age scores. No statistically significant group differences were found on Auditory Comprehension scores. In addition to providing support in English, encouraging home language use and providing treatment support in the first language may help rather than hinder development of both English and the home language in bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs. In fact, dual-language support may yield better overall and expressive English language outcomes than English-only support for this population.

Macrostructure in the narratives of monolingual Finnish and bilingual Finnish–Swedish children

ABSTRACTThe narrative macrostructure of 16 Finnish–Swedish bilingual children (M age = 5 years, 8 months) was assessed in both of their languages. In the case of the Finnish language, the macrostructure was compared with that of 16 monolingual same-age peers. The narratives were analyzed for story structure, structural complexity, and internal state terms in two conditions (telling and retelling). There were no differences in macrostructure between the two languages of bilingual children, or between the monolingual and bilingual children. However, the results revealed differences between elicitation tasks. The story structure score for bilingual children was lower in a telling task than in a retelling task in Finnish. Further, the retelling task elicited higher structural complexity and more internal state terms, regardless of the language.

Macrostructure, microstructure, and mental state terms in the narratives of English–Hebrew bilingual preschool children with and without specific language impairment

ABSTRACTChildren's bilingual status is important because the interest here is in narrative performance in both languages of bilingual children, in particular the within-subject, cross language comparisons. As Paradis (2010) has argued, there are some structures where performance differences will point to a temporary lack of opportunity for mastery, whereas other structures will be markers of underlying difficulties. We expect the discriminators to be language specific, depending on attested vulnerabilities for each of the languages involved. Narratives were examined for macrostructure (goals, attempts, and outcomes), microstructure (e.g., length, lexis, and morphosyntax), and mental state terms (MSTs). Thirty-one preschool children (TLD = 19, SLI = 12) retold stories accompanied by six pictures that were matched across content (Baby Birds/Baby Goats) and to the extent possible across languages (first language/second language) for macrostructure, microstructure, and MSTs in the framework of the Working Group on Narrative and Discourse Abilities in COST Action 0804 Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment. The macrostructure results confirmed previous findings showing similar performance in both languages for children with TLD and those diagnosed with SLI. Consistent with previous findings on narrative abilities among bilingual children, microstructure analysis of verbal productivity, length of communication units, and lexical diversity distinguished children with TLD from those with SLI. An analysis of MSTs yielded more MSTs in children's second language, in particular more mental verbs. The most prevalent MSTs used in all narratives were early acquired perceptual and motivational verbs (“see” and “want”). Overall, distinctions between narratives of children with TLD and SLI were found primarily for microstructure features, where error analysis was particularly important in uncovering possible markers, especially in second languages.

Narrative abilities in early successive bilingual Slovak–English children: A cross-language comparison

ABSTRACTThis study investigates macrostructure skill transfer in successive bilingual children speaking Slovak and English, a new language combination for narrative research. We examined whether narrative performance reflected language dominance and assessed relationships between nonword repetition (NWR) and narrative skills within and across languages. Forty typically developing Slovak–English bilingual children (mean age = 5 years, 10 months) were evaluated for microstructure and macrostructure performance in both languages through story telling and retelling tasks. In addition, NWR was assessed in Slovak, the children's first language (L1). Macrostructure scores were higher in their L1 than in their second language (L2), but comprehension did not differ across languages. L1 NWR was significantly related to L1 microstructure scores, but not to L1/L2 macrostructure or L2 microstructure. Implications for assessing bilingual children's language are discussed.

Marking of verb tense in the English of preschool English-Mandarin bilingual children: evidence from language development profiles within subgroups on the Singapore English Action Picture Test.

The phonological and morphosyntactic structures of English and Mandarin contrast maximally and an increasing number of bilinguals speak these two languages. Speech and language therapists need to understand bilingual development for children speaking these languages in order reliably to assess and provide intervention for this population. To examine the marking of verb tense in the English of two groups of bilingual pre-schoolers learning these languages in a multilingual setting where the main educational language is English. The main research question addressed was: are there differences in the rate and pattern of acquisition of verb-tense marking for English-language 1 children compared with Mandarin-language 1 children? Spoken language samples in English from 481 English-Mandarin bilingual children were elicited using a 10-item action picture test and analysed for each child's use of verb tense markers: present progressive '-ing', regular past tense '-ed', third-person singular '-s', and irregular past tense and irregular past-participle forms. For 4-6 year olds the use of inflectional markers by the different language dominance groups was compared statistically using non-parametric tests. This study provides further evidence that bilingual language development is not the same as monolingual language development. The results show that there are very different rates and patterns of verb-tense marking in English for English-language 1 and Mandarin-language 1 children. Furthermore, they show that bilingual language development in English in Singapore is not the same as monolingual language development in English, and that there are differences in development depending on language dominance. Valid and reliable assessment of bilingual children's language skills needs to consider the characteristics of all languages spoken, obtaining accurate information on language use over time and accurately establishing language dominance is essential in order to make a differential diagnosis between language difference and impairment.