Monolingual Counterparts Research Articles

Does Early Kurmanji Speaking Bilingualism Lead to Better Academic Performance? The Role of Working Memory and Reading Performance

The relationship among WMC (working memory capacity), reading performance and academic achievement is both logically and theoretically undisputable. However, what may not be as obvious is that such capacity and performance, and as a result, achievement, could be higher among ECBL (early childhood bilingual) students. To reaffirm the obvious and explore what may not be so obvious in some quarters, two groups of randomly selected female third graders (200 Farsi speaking and 200 Farsi and Kurmanji speaking) were tested and compared on these characteristics. The measures used were Riding’s instrument for measuring WMC and Kormi-Nouri and associates’ tests of reading performance. Moreover, academic achievement was defined to be the average of scores obtained by students at their final school exams in math, science and Farsi. Analysis of regression was then performed to determine which construct served as the best predictor of academic achievement in both groups. Based on the results, ECBL girls were superior to their ML (monolingual) counterparts in all three areas. Findings also showed that both WMC and reading performance are strong predictors of school achievement for both groups. However, the memory capacity was the strongest predictor of achievement for both groups. Possible links among bilingualism and better WMC and reading performance are discussed in order to explain the better school achievement by ECBL students.

The Cantonese double object construction with bei2 ‘give’ in bilingual children: The role of input

This article examines the role of input in bilingual children’s acquisition of the Cantonese double object construction with bei2 ‘give’ from a usage-based perspective (Tomasello, 2003; Lieven & Tomasello, 2008). In this domain of grammar, bilingual Cantonese—English children use the non-target [ bei2-Recipient-Theme] order more frequently and for a more protracted duration than their monolingual counterparts (Yip & Matthews, 2007). We make use of corpus data to analyze the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the input that these bilingual children receive, and discuss three input factors to account for such vulnerability in bilingual children. First, the findings substantiate the idea that a bilingual child hearing fewer hours of Cantonese when compared to his or her monolingual age peers is likely to be exposed to fewer tokens of the target construction. Second, the findings indicate that the mapping between word order and thematic roles is not consistent in the Cantonese input, and as such is not conducive to learning for either bilingual or monolingual children. Third, simultaneous experience with the largely invariant [ give-Recipient-Theme] forms from the English input overlaps with and therefore entrenches the developmental errors in Cantonese. These three input factors conspire to make this grammatical domain in Cantonese particularly vulnerable in bilingual children.

Developmental pathways for first language acquisition of Mandarin nominal expressions: Comparing monolingual with simultaneous Mandarin—English bilingual children

This comparative study explores the first language acquisition of Mandarin nominal expressions by monolingual and simultaneous Mandarin—English bilingual children, with the aim of contributing new data relevant to the autonomous vs. interdependent debate in bilingual first language acquisition. More specifically, it focuses on the developmental sequences of complex definite and indefinite nominal expressions in the forms of [demonstrative + numeral + classifier + noun] and [numeral + classifier + noun] respectively, comparing both qualitatively and quantitatively the developmental pathways and time progression observed in corpora derived from two longitudinal studies. The bilingual corpus analyzed consists of an extensive daily record of utterances from age 10 months to 33 months, while the monolingual corpus is derived from a set of eight video recorded sessions spanning the age range from 20 months to 26 months. The outcomes provide support for the Autonomous Development Hypothesis, to the extent that the developmental pathway of Mandarin nominal expressions as elaborated in the bilingual child’s case is found to be highly comparable with that of the monolingual counterpart and that up to the end of the observation period no apparent transfers from English nominal syntax to Mandarin were observed.

Phonological patterns in Mandarin–English bilingual children

Adele Miccio recognized the paucity of information on the phonological development of children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and emphasized the need to apply advances in bilingual phonological research toward an appropriate phonological measure for bilingual children. In the spirit of her pioneering work, the present study investigated both Mandarin and English phonological patterns in typically-developing 5-year-old bilingual children in an English-immersion programme in Taiwan. Consonant and vowel accuracy, number and types of phonological processes, and Mandarin-influenced English patterns were assessed on a single-word assessment in each language. Results indicated comparable levels of phoneme accuracy and similar rates and types of phonological processes for bilinguals and their monolingual counterparts. A number of English phonological processes for bilinguals, however, suggested a possible Mandarin influence. The present results reiterate Dr Miccio's call for interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance one's understanding of bilingual language development, to advance successful intervention for bilingual children.

Phonological awareness skills in the two languages of Mandarin–English bilingual children

A number of studies have shown that bilingual children have an advantage when performing on phonological awareness tasks, particularly in their stronger language. Little research has been done to date, examining the effects of bilingualism on both languages of bilingual children. In this study Mandarin–English bilingual children's performance on phonological awareness tests was compared with that of Mandarin monolingual children and English monolingual children. The Mandarin–English bilinguals performed better than English monolinguals on the Elision and Blending sub-tests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). Similarly, Mandarin–English bilinguals also performed better than their Mandarin monolingual counterparts on most of the experimental Mandarin phonological awareness tasks. The results from the study are discussed in terms of the effects of bilingualism on phonological awareness in both languages of bilingual children. Further clinical and educational implications of these results are also discussed.

The production of new versus similar vowels by Korean‐English bilingual children.

The purpose of this study was to compare the vowel productions of Korean‐English bilingual children with those of monolingual English and Korean‐speaking children. Flege (1987) hypothesized that equivalent classification prevents adult L2 learners from establishing separate phonetic categories for similar phones (which occur in both languages) but not for new L2 phones. This hypothesis, however, has not been fully tested in bilingual children. The present study examined twenty 5‐year‐old Korean‐English bilingual children who had been exposed to both languages for at least 2 years along with their age‐equivalent monolingual counterparts, for a total of 60 children. Nine English vowels and six Korean vowels were elicited using picture cards. First and second formant frequencies for similar (/i, ε, u, o, a/) and new (/ɪ, ɔ, ī, æ, i/) vowels were measured. Vowels which were categorized as new were not appreciably different from those of monolinguals, suggesting that bilingual children produce new vowels authentically, consistent with the Flege hypothesis. However, the findings were mixed with respect to similar vowels. Bilingual children produced English vowels similarly to monolingual English‐speakers, but their Korean vowels differed from those of monolingual Korean children, implying influence of the dominant (English) over the less‐dominant language (Korean).

Examination of the Critical Period Hypothesis and Ultimate Attainment Among Spanish-English Bilinguals and English-Speaking Monolinguals

The purpose of this investigation was to study speech recognition among Spanish-English bilingual and monolingual English-speaking individuals in two, separate yet related, studies. The first study examined phonotactic aspects and age of arrival on speech perception among three groups of bilingual individuals, thereby investigating the effects of age limitations on second language learning. The second study addressed whether fluent and proficient bilingual speakers showed equal perceptual abilities when compared to monolingual English speakers on only English gated words, thus measuring their ultimate attainment in English.Forty-five Spanish/English fluent bilinguals with no reported speech, language, or hearing deficits participated in experiment one, whereas 30 Spanish-English fluent bilinguals and 30 monolingual English speakers with no reported speech, language, or hearing deficits participated in the second study. The Spanish-English bilingual listeners were able to differentiate words when the initial consonant cluster was voiced. In addition, CV-tense words were identified quicker (than CV-lax words) in Spanish than in English. It also appeared that exposure to two languages over a period of six or more years yielded enhanced phonotactic abilities in the second language, that is, positive language transference. Results from this study indicated that ultimate attainment of speech perception in a second language seems to occur from 9 to 15 years of age, that is, in direct contrast to when abilities should decrease according to the critical period or age limitation hypothesis. Results from the second study indicated that the Spanish-English speakers performed overall on par with their monolingual counterparts achieving ultimate attainment in speech perception. Therefore, the two studies reported here have not supported the notion of the critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967).

Gesture viewpoint in Japanese and English

Abundant evidence across languages, structures, proficiencies, and modalities shows that properties of first languages influence performance in second languages. This paper presents an alternative perspective on the interaction between established and emerging languages within second language speakers by arguing that an L2 can influence an L1, even at relatively low proficiency levels. Analyses of the gesture viewpoint employed in English and Japanese descriptions of motion events revealed systematic between-language and within-language differences. Monolingual Japanese speakers used significantly more Character Viewpoint than monolingual English speakers, who predominantly employed Observer Viewpoint. In their L1 and their L2, however, native Japanese speakers with intermediate knowledge of English patterned more like the monolingual English speakers than their monolingual Japanese counterparts. After controlling for effects of cultural exposure, these results offer valuable insights into both the nature of cross-linguistic interactions within individuals and potential factors underlying gesture viewpoint.

A comparative study of requests in heritage speaker Spanish, L1 Spanish, and L1 English

Although requests are the most widely studied speech act, there has not been extensive research on the requests produced by heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States. This study compares the requests of three groups: Spanish heritage speakers, Mexican native speakers of Spanish, and native speakers of English. The first research question examines the level of directness of the requests combined with the frequency of downgraders. The following two research questions analyzed separately the level of directness of the head act and frequency of downgrading mechanisms. Differences between the two L1 groups are found to be statistically significant for all three of the categories investigated. In contrast, the heritage speakers differ significantly from their Mexican monolingual counterparts in the level of directness of the head act, producing Spanish requests more in line with the tendency in English to employ indirect strategies. Although the heritage speakers differ from the L1 Spanish group on this one dimension, the fact that they share other characteristics with both L1 groups suggests the existence of a unique intercultural style. The findings of this study also indicate that heritage speakers display many of the same characteristics as L2 learners reported in previous research.

Interactive question answering: Is Cross-Language harder than monolingual searching?

Is Cross-Language answer finding harder than Monolingual answer finding for users? In this paper we provide initial quantitative and qualitative evidence to answer this question. In our study, which involves 16 users searching questions under four different system conditions, we find that interactive cross-language answer finding is not substantially harder (in terms of accuracy) than its monolingual counterpart, using general purpose Machine Translation systems and standard Information Retrieval machinery, although it takes more time. We have also seen that users need more context to provide accurate answers (full documents) than what is usually considered by systems (paragraphs or passages). Finally, we also discuss the limitations of standard evaluation methodologies for interactive Information Retrieval experiments in the case of cross-language question answering.

The Language Abilities of Bilingual Children With Down Syndrome

Children with Down syndrome (DS) have cognitive disabilities resulting from trisomy 21. Language-learning difficulties, especially expressive language problems, are an important component of the phenotype of this population. Many individuals with DS are born into bilingual environments. To date, however, there is almost no information available regarding the capacity of these individuals to acquire more than 1 language. The present study compared the language abilities of 8 children with DS being raised bilingually with those of 3 control groups matched on developmental level: monolingual children with DS (n = 14), monolingual typically developing (TD) children (n = 18), and bilingual TD children (n = 11). All children had at least 100 words in their productive vocabularies but a mean length of utterance of less than 3.5. The bilingual children spoke English and 1 other language and were either balanced bilinguals or English-dominant. English testing was completed for all children using the following: the Preschool Language Scale, Third Edition; language sampling; and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Bilingual children were also tested in the second language using a vocabulary comprehension test, the CDI, and language sampling. Results provided evidence of a similar profile of language abilities in bilingual children as has been documented for monolingual children with DS. There was no evidence of a detrimental effect of bilingualism. That is, the bilingual children with DS scored at least as well on all English tests as their monolingual DS counterparts. Nonetheless, there was considerable diversity in the second-language abilities demonstrated by these individuals with DS. Clinical implications are addressed.

Preschool Children's Pitch-Matching Accuracy in Relation to Participation in Cantonese-Immersion Preschools

This study is an investigation of the degree to which preschool children enrolled in Cantonese-immersion preschools in three areas of the United States differed from their monolingual counterparts in pitch-matching accuracy. In a 2003 study, I found that in monolingual American English-speaking children, pitch-matching accuracy was most significantly predicted by the mean speech frequency of the voice, speech range, and age. In the present study, 20 children from the first study were matched solely by age and sex to 20 immersion children (N = 40). Results indicated that participation in the Cantonese-immersion programs most significantly affected overall pitch-matching accuracy (p < .001), with age as the strongest predictor of singing the lower notes in the study (p = . 04). Implications of these findings in relation to physiological vocal development and vocal use are also discussed.

The Effects of Japanese Heritage Language Maintenance on Scholastic Verbal and Academic Achievement in English

Abstract: This article investigates the effects of the maintenance of Japanese as a heritage language on English and overall academic achievement. The interrelationships amongjapanese oral and writing proficiency, SAT I Verbal, SAT I, and high school grade point average (GPA) were examined. The participants were 31 second generation Japanese‐American college students in Southern California, and the data was obtained from the subjects' self reports. No significant relationships were found between Japanese proficiency and English proficiency or between Japanese proficiency and overall academic achievement. The study suggests that the maintenance of a heritage language does not produce any negative effects on English development and on academic achievement.

Issues in the assessment of literacy‐related difficulties across language backgrounds: a cross‐linguistic comparison

This paper focused on the assessment of phonological skills amongst children with developmental dyslexia. Findings from assessments of English and Hungarian monolingual children with and without literacy deficits and bilingual Filipino children with and without literacy deficits in English indicated that performance on phonological‐based tasks often used in dyslexia assessment batteries was influenced by the language background. Monolingual English children with poor literacy skills showed characteristic deficits in most areas of phonological ability, whereas Hungarian counterparts showed little evidence of such difficulties. Bilingual Filipino children with poor English literacy skills showed equivalent profiles to their monolingual counterparts only when assessments in both English and Filipino were considered. The paper discusses difficulties of generalising assessment procedures from one language context to another.

Expressive Vocabulary of German-English Bilingual Toddlers

This study investigated whether young children learning two languages simultaneously are inherently weaker language learners than their monolingual counterparts. Two questions were examined: (a) whether simultaneous language learning at an early age slows down the language learning process for both languages (bilingualism deficit hypothesis) and (b) whether young children use a unitary language system containing features of both languages, preventing them from separating the languages (unitary language system hypothesis). To test these hypotheses, vocabulary skills of 10 German-English bilingual toddlers were compared with those of monolingual German- and English-speaking peers around 24 months of age using Rescorla's (1989) Language Development Survey. This vocabulary checklist, based on parental report, was used in its original English and in a German translated version. Findings revealed that bilingual toddlers were not inferior in conceptual vocabulary size and verb diversity when words in both languages were pooled. Given that nearly half of the bilingual conceptual vocabulary (43%) was associated with lexical forms in both languages, it is inferred that language separation is possible at age 2. Findings from this study contribute to the growing body of evidence that early simultaneous acquisition of more that one language is not an inherent disadvantage for the child. These findings suggest further that some existing instruments may be useful for assessing the early vocabulary of German-English bilingual toddlers.

A Cross-Language Comparison of Speaking Rate Effects on the Production of Voice Onset Time in English and Spanish

Of interest in the current study was how voice inset time (VOT) was influenced by changes in speaking rate across Spanish and English. Three groups of subjects (English monolinguals, Spanish monolinguals and early Spanish-English bilinguals) produced sentences containing voiced and voiceless bilabial stops at different speaking rates. As in previous research, English monolinguals showed rate-dependent effects on their VOT productions: VOT increased as speaking rate decreased. Spanish monolinguals showed a large effect of speaking rate on the duration of prevoicing of the voiced stops. However, they showed only a small effect of rate on the VOT of their voiceless stops. The bilinguals produced VOT values in each language that were nearly identical to their monolingual counterparts. The results from this study indicate that short-lag stops experience minimal variation as a function of speaking rate regardless of the other contrasting phonetic categories within a particular language. In addition, early bilinguals showed evidence of separate representations for voiced and voiceless stops for English and Spanish.

Academic Achievement, Language Proficiency and Socialisation of Bilingual Children in a Monolingual Greek Cypriot-speaking School Environment

The present study (1) investigates the academic success of bilingual primary school children from various language backgrounds in a monolingual Greek Cypriot-speaking school environment and their mastery of Modern Greek by comparison with their monolingual counterparts and (2) examines whether these children face any problems of socialisation, adjustment and cultural identity. Thirty-nine bilingual primary school children and 210 monolingual Greek Cypriot children between the ages of 9 to 13 took part in this study. The bilingual children completed a questionnaire which examined such issues as socialisation, simultaneous acquisition of their languages, mastery and proficiency of their languages, code-switching and feelings of loyalty towards the language communities they belong to. Also, the teachers whose children took part in this study were asked to provide end-of-year class reports (that included final grades of academic achievement) of all their pupils (210 monolingual and 39 bilingual). The obtained results from several statistical tests (comparisons of responses, correlations and a chi-square) are in line with findings of recent studies which claim that bilingualism enhances childrens educational, social and intellectual achievements (Cummins, 1996).

Chicano Spanish: The Problem of the “Underdeveloped” Code in Bilingual Repertoires

Little research has been carried out on Mexican‐American university students that focuses on the characteristics of the different levels and styles of language found in the repertoires of bilingual speakers or about the awareness that they may have about the existence of different registers or levels of language. This article explores one dimension of this issue by describing the characteristics of oral texts produced by second‐ and third‐generation bilingual Chicano speakers when they were required to carry out a set of functions in only one of their available codes. The analysis focuses on the characteristics of planned, noninteractive spoken language produced in Spanish by university‐level Chicano students in a classroom setting as compared with Spanish monolinguals of comparable age, education and social background. Results of the analysis suggest that although the bilingual students' lexical production appears to be “less rich” than that of their monolingual counterparts, both bilingual and monolingual subjects appear to use an “approximative” academic register that is still clearly in a state of development.

The metalinguistic benefits of limited contact with a second language

ABSTRACTThis study examined whether the often-reported metalinguistic benefits of childhood bilingualism extend to children whose experience with a second language is considerably more limited, and if so, whether this metalinguistic advantage flows on to reading acquisition. Its purpose was to provide direct evidence of a causal role for metalinguistic awareness in reading acquisition. The study focused on the developing word awareness skills of two groups of preparatory and grade 1 children: one group was strictly monolingual in English; the other, the “marginal bilingual” group, consisted of English monolingual who were participating in a second language program that provided I hour of Italian instruction each week.After only 6 months of instruction in Italian, the marginal bilingual children showed a significantly higher level word awareness than their monolingual counterparts. This advantage weakened across grade 1, as both groups approached ceiling levels of performance. Nonetheless, the initial advantage flows through to the first major step in reading acquisition, with the grade 1 marginal bilinguals showing significantly greater word recognition skill than the monolinguals, thus strengthening the argument for a causal role in reading acquisition for word awareness.

Kinship terms (and related honorifics): An issue in bilingual lexicography

Abstract Most bilingual dictionaries are based on the controversial assumption that every basic, non‐technical, word or phrase of the ‘object language’ has a counterpart with more or less the same meaning and pattern of use in the ‘metalanguage’. Consequently, a lot of information has been omitted regarding formal and pragmatic constraints on the usages of many headwords in the ‘object language’, thus making bilingual dictionaries of limited help. Focusing on a sample of kinship vocabulary in Lingala, it is argued in this paper that bilingual dictionaries should differ from their monolingual counterparts essentially in that in the former, the ‘object language’ and the ‘metalanguage’ are different, whereas in the latter they are the same. Otherwise, they should provide comparable amounts of information in their entries.