Lexical transfer and second language morphological development

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Hancin-Bhatt ◽  
William Nagy
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Bilingual Students ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
8Th Grade ◽  
Systematic Relationships ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Lexical Transfer

AbstractThis study investigates the development of two levels of morphological knowledge that contribute to Spanish-English bilingual students’ ability to recognize cognates: the ability to recognize a cognate stem within a suffixed English word, and knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes (e.g., the fact that words ending in -ty in English often have a Spanish cognate ending in -dad). A total of 196 Latino bilingual students in 4th, 6th, and 8th grade were asked to give the Spanish equivalent for English words, some of which had derivational and inflectional suffixes. The results indicated that the students’ ability to translate cognates increased with age above and beyond any increase in their vocabulary knowledge in Spanish and English. There was also marked growth in the students’ knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes. Students recognized cognate stems of suffixed words more easily than noncognate stems, suggesting that, in closely related languages such as Spanish and English, cross-language transfer may play a role, not just in recognizing individual words, but also in the learning of derivational morphology.

On the nature of morphological awareness in Japanese–English bilingual children: A cross-linguistic perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUKO HAYASHI ◽  
VICTORIA A. MURPHY
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Morphological Awareness ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Reciprocal Transfer ◽  
Japanese English

While morphological awareness has received much attention to date, little is understood about how morphological awareness develops within bilingual children learning typologically different languages. Therefore, we investigated children's knowledge of inflections and derivations in Japanese and English, and also asked whether morphological awareness in one language predicted morphological awareness in the other. To that end, 24 Japanese learners of L2 English (ESL) and 21 English learners of Japanese as a heritage language (JHL) were recruited and participated in a range of tasks assessing both vocabulary and morphological knowledge. Cross-linguistic contributions of morphological awareness were identified in both directions (Japanese ↔ English), after controlling for age, IQ, and vocabulary knowledge. This bidirectional transfer was, however, identified only in the ESL group. The group-specific and reciprocal transfer observed is discussed in terms of morphological complexities and relative competence in each language. The potential role of different types of L2 instruction in morphological development is also discussed.

Is he floating across or crossing afloat? Cross-influence of L1 and L2 in Spanish–English bilingual adults

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
JILL HOHENSTEIN ◽  
ANN EISENBERG ◽  
LETITIA NAIGLES
Keyword(s):  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Lexical Choice ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Lexical Transfer

Research has begun to address the question of transfer of language usage patterns beyond the idea that people's native language (L1) can influence the way they produce a second language (L2). This study investigated bidirectional transfer, of both lexical and grammatical features, in adult speakers of English and Spanish who varied in age of L2 acquisition. Early and late learners of English watched and orally described video depictions of motion events. Findings suggest bilinguals' patterns of motion description lexically and grammatically resemble those of monolinguals in each language. However, although participants showed bidirectional lexical transfer, they displayed only L1-to-L2 grammatical transfer. Furthermore, learning L2 post-puberty affected L2 lexical choice, but both early and late L2 learners showed L2 influence on L1 lexical choice. Finally, the findings of grammatical transfer and age of acquisition were mixed. We discuss results with reference to theories of cross-language transfer.

Vowel development in young Mandarin-English bilingual children

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Formant Frequency ◽  
High Group ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract This study examined the development of vowel categories in young Mandarin -English bilingual children. The participants included 35 children aged between 3 and 4 years old (15 Mandarin-English bilinguals, six English monolinguals, and 14 Mandarin monolinguals). The bilingual children were divided into two groups: one group had a shorter duration (<1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-low group) and one group had a longer duration (>1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-high group). The participants were recorded producing one list of Mandarin words containing the vowels /a, i, u, y, ɤ/ and/or one list of English words containing the vowels /i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, u, ʊ, o, ɑ, ʌ/. Formant frequency values were extracted at five equidistant time locations (the 20–35–50–65–80% point) over the course of vowel duration. Cross-language and within-language comparisons were conducted on the midpoint formant values and formant trajectories. The results showed that children in the Bi-low group produced their English vowels into clusters and showed positional deviations from the monolingual targets. However, they maintained the phonetic features of their native vowel sounds well and mainly used an assimilatory process to organize the vowel systems. Children in the Bi-high group separated their English vowels well. They used both assimilatory and dissimilatory processes to construct and refine the two vowel systems. These bilingual children approximated monolingual English children to a better extent than the children in the Bi-low group. However, when compared to the monolingual peers, they demonstrated observable deviations in both L1 and L2.

scholarly journals Language contact within the speaker: Phonetic variation and crosslinguistic influence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khia A. Johnson ◽  
Molly Babel
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Recent Model ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Language Influence

A recent model of sound change posits that the direction of change is determined, at least in part, by the distribution of variation within speech communities (Harrington, Kleber, Reubold, Schiel, &amp; Stevens, 2018; Harrington &amp; Schiel, 2017). We explore this model in the context of bilingual speech, asking whether the less variable language constrains phonetic variation in the more variable language, using a corpus of spontaneous speech from early Cantonese-English bilinguals (Johnson, Babel, Fong, &amp; Yiu, 2020). As predicted, given the phonetic distributions of stop obstruents in Cantonese compared to English, intervocalic English /b d g/ were produced with less voicing for Cantonese-English bilinguals and word-final English /t k/ were more likely to be unreleased compared to spontaneous speech from two monolingual English control corpora (Pitt, Johnson, Hume, Kiesling, &amp; Raymond, 2005; Swan, 2016). Cantonese phonology is more gradient in terms of voicing initial obstruents (Clumeck, Barton, Macken, &amp; Huntington, 1981; W. Y. P. Wong, 2006) than permitting releases of final obstruents, which is categorically prohibited Bauer &amp; Benedict (2011); Khouw &amp; Ciocca (2006). Neither Cantonese-English bilingual initial voicing nor word-final stop release patterns were significantly impacted by language mode. These results provide evidence that the phonetic variation in crosslinguistically linked categories in bilingual speech is shaped by the distribution of phonetic variation within each language, thus suggesting a mechanistic account for why some segments are more susceptible to cross-language influence than others in studies of mutual influence.

Polish–English bilingual children overuse referential markers: MLU inflation in Polish-language narratives

2020 ◽  
pp. 014272372093376
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Otwinowska ◽  
Marcin Opacki ◽  
Karolina Mieszkowska ◽  
Marta Białecka-Pikul ◽  
Zofia Wodniecka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Dp Structure ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance ◽  
Cross Language

Polish and English differ in the surface realization of the underlying Determiner Phrase (DP): Polish lacks an article system, whereas English makes use of articles for both grammatical and pragmatic reasons. This difference has an impact on how referentiality is rendered in both languages. In this article, the authors investigate the use of referential markers by Polish–English bilingual children and Polish monolingual children. Using the LITMUS-MAIN picture stories, the authors collected speech samples of Polish–English bilinguals raised in the UK ( n = 92, mean age 5;7) and compared them with matched Polish monolinguals ( n = 92, mean age 5;7). The analyses revealed that the bilinguals’ mean length of utterance (MLU) in Polish was significantly higher than that of the monolinguals because the bilinguals produced significantly more referential markers (especially pronouns) which inflated their MLU. The authors posit that the non-standard referentiality used by the bilinguals in Polish is caused by cross-language transfer at the syntax–pragmatics interface. When producing narratives in Polish, Polish–English bilinguals overuse referential markers as cohesive devices in their stories, which is not ungrammatical, but pragmatically odd in Polish. Bilinguals tend to do this because they are immersed in English-language input, rich in overt pronouns. Thus, in the process of realizing the surface features of the Polish DP they partly rely on an underlying English DP structure.

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