scholarly journals Sensitivity to microvariation in bilingual acquisition: morphophonological gender cues in Russian heritage language

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Natalia Mitrofanova ◽  
Olga Urek ◽  
Yulia Rodina ◽  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Regular Patterns

Abstract Previous research on the acquisition of grammatical gender has shown that this property is acquired early in transparent gender systems such as Russian. However, it is not clear to what extent children are sensitive to the assignment cues and to what extent they simply memorize correspondences between frequent lexical items. Furthermore, we do not know if bilingual children are different from monolingual children in this respect. This article reports on a study investigating bilingual children’s sensitivity to gender assignment cues in Russian. A group of 64 bilingual German–Russian children living in Germany participated in the study, as well as 107 monolingual controls in Russia. The elicitation experiments used both real and nonce words, as well as noun phrases with mismatched cues (where the morphophonological shape of the noun cued one gender and the agreement on the modifying adjective another). The results show that both bilinguals and monolinguals are highly sensitive to cues, both to the frequent transparent cues and to more fine-grained gender regularities in situations where there is ambiguity. There is also an age effect, showing that younger children pay more attention to the cue on the noun itself, thus displaying a preference for regular patterns, while older children are more sensitive to gender agreement on other targets.

The Acquisition of Spanish Gender Marking in the Writing of Heritage and Second Language Learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-267
Author(s):  
Antonio Pérez-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Nonlinear Process ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Written Production ◽  
And Gender

This study aims to expand on previous research on the acquisition of gender marking by examining the longitudinal written production of second language (L2) and heritage language (HL) learners. The written production of 24 participants (L2, n = 12; HL, n = 12) enrolled in the same course was traced over four weeks and all cases of canonical and non-canonical gender marking (i.e., gender assignment and gender agreement) were coded. The group results indicated that the HL learners were significantly more accurate than their L2 counterparts with both canonical and non-canonical ending nouns; however, close inspection of the participants’ individual accuracy patterns revealed a nonlinear process that was subject to great instability in their performance over time. Findings are discussed in light of interlanguage development and implications for research in second language acquisition are presented.

Motion Lexicalization in Chinese among Heritage Language Children in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-296
Author(s):  
Youran Lin ◽  
Elena Nicoladis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Second Language Speakers ◽  
Heritage Language Speakers ◽  
Two Age Groups

Heritage language speaking children often show signs of attrition, particularly as they get older and are educated in the majority language of the society where they live. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that simplification is one process of attrition for heritage language speakers. We tested this hypothesis on the expression of motion events among children who are first language speakers of Mandarin Chinese and early second language speakers of English, the majority language in this community. We compared their motion expressions to those of monolingual Mandarin-speaking children living in mainland China. Two age groups were included: younger children (4-6 years, not yet in school) and older children (8-10 years; in school for two to five years). The children watched a cartoon and recounted the story. We coded the motion expressions used in their retellings. The results showed that the older bilingual children showed clear signs of attrition, particularly simplification, but also some signs of cross-linguistic influence from English. These results suggest that attrition in a heritage language can quickly follow the onset of schooling in the majority language.

German–English-speaking children's mixed NPs with ‘correct’ agreement

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIANE JORSCHICK ◽  
ANTJE ENDESFELDER QUICK ◽  
DANA GLÄSSER ◽  
ELENA LIEVEN ◽  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
German Word ◽  
Statistical Reliability ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking

Previous research has reported that bilingual children sometimes produce mixed noun phrases with ‘correct’ gender agreement – as inder dog(derbeing a masculine determiner in German and the German word for “dog”,hund, being masculine as well). However, these could obviously be due to chance or to the indiscriminate use of a default determiner. In the current study, we established with high statistical reliability that each of three German–English bilingual children, of 2–4 years of age, produced such mixed NPs with ‘correct’ agreement at significantly greater than chance levels. Also noteworthy was the fact that all three children produced such NPs with German determiners and English nouns much more frequently than the reverse. These findings provide a solid statistical foundation for further studies into the phenomenon of mixed noun phrases with ‘correct’ gender agreement.

scholarly journals The development of gender assignment and agreement in English-Greek and German-Greek bilingual children

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kaltsa ◽  
Ianthi Maria Tsimpli ◽  
Froso Argyri
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
School Setting ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

Abstract The aim of this experimental study is to examine the development of Greek gender in bilingual English-Greek and German-Greek children. Four gender production tasks were designed, two targeting gender assignment eliciting determiners and two targeting gender agreement eliciting predicate adjectives for real and novel nouns. Participant performance was assessed in relation to whether the ‘other’ language was a gender language or not (English vs. German) along with the role of the bilinguals’ Greek vocabulary knowledge and language input. The results are argued to contribute significantly to disentangling the role of crosslinguistic influence in gender assignment and agreement by bringing together a variety of input measures such as early and current amount of exposure to Greek, the role of area of residence (i.e. whether Greek is the minority or the majority language), the effect of maternal education and the amount of exposure to Greek in a school setting.

The Acquisition of Gender Agreement in the Determiner Phrase by Bilingual Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
I.J. ter Avest ◽  
K. Mulder
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Dutch Language ◽  
Dutch Children

In this paper, we looked at the acquisition of gender agreement in the DP by bilingual children acquiring both a Romance (Spanish or French) and Germanic (Dutch) language. The prediction was that gender agreement would be acquired earlier by bilinguals in their Romance language than in Dutch. Seven French/Dutch and nine Spanish/Dutch children participated in a sentence completion task created to elicit gender-marked determiners. It turned out that the French/Dutch bilinguals made more errors in gender assignment in Dutch than in French, which confirms this hypothesis. The Spanish/Dutch bilinguals showed atypical behaviour, omitting articles in both Dutch and Spanish quite frequendy, which indicated a delay in both languages. Since the French/Dutch bilinguals were more proficient in both languages than their Spanish peers, we suggest that a certain proficiency in the two languages must be attained in order to prevent a delay in acquisition.

Gender in Italian–German bilinguals: A comparison with German L2 learners of Italian

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIULIA BIANCHI
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
External Factors ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
L2 Learners

This study compares mastery of gender assignment and agreement in Italian by adult Italian–German bilinguals who have acquired two languages simultaneously (2L1), and by adult German highly proficient second language learners (L2ers) of Italian. Our data show that incompleteness in bilingual acquisition and in second language (L2) acquisition primarily affects gender assignment: the categorization of nouns and the interpretable gender feature are subject to vulnerability in the two modalities of acquisition. Overall, mastery of morpho-syntax (i.e., gender agreement) was nearly native-like for both groups of speakers, suggesting that uninterpretable features are unlikely to be subject to vulnerability in the heritage language of adult bilingual speakers and can be acquired in adult L2 acquisition. Deviances from the target in gender assignment and, to a lesser extent, in gender agreement are attributed to both language-internal (i.e., language) and language-external factors (i.e., amount of input).

scholarly journals Foreign Accent in Pre- and Primary School Heritage Bilinguals

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Tanja Kupisch ◽  
Nadine Kolb ◽  
Yulia Rodina ◽  
Olga Urek
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Heritage Language Maintenance ◽  
Linguistic Property

Previous research has shown that the two languages of early bilingual children can influence each other, depending on the linguistic property, while adult bilinguals predominantly show influence from the majority language to the minority (heritage) language. While this observed shift in influence patterns is probably related to a shift in dominance between early childhood and adulthood, there is little data documenting it. Our study investigates the perceived global accent in the two languages of German-Russian bilingual children in Germany, comparing 4–6-year-old (preschool) children and 7–9-year-old (primary school) children. The results indicate that in German the older children sound less accented than the younger children, while the opposite is true for Russian. This suggests that the primary school years are a critical period for heritage language maintenance.

scholarly journals The Processing of Spanish Article–Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097705
Author(s):  
Monika Molnar ◽  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Sendy Caffarra
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement

We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., * el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten & Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by 18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when processing grammatically incorrect forms.

scholarly journals Regular and Irregular Inflection in Different Groups of Bilingual Children and the Role of Verbal Short-Term and Verbal Working Memory

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Evelyn Bosma ◽  
Wilbert Heeringa
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Linguistic Distance

Bilingual children often experience difficulties with inflectional morphology. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how regularity of inflection in combination with verbal short-term and working memory (VSTM, VWM) influences bilingual children’s performance. Data from 231 typically developing five- to eight-year-old children were analyzed: Dutch monolingual children (N = 45), Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 106), Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (N = 31), Tarifit-Dutch bilingual children (N = 38) and Arabic-Dutch bilingual children (N = 11). Inflection was measured with an expressive morphology task. VSTM and VWM were measured with a Forward and Backward Digit Span task, respectively. The results showed that, overall, children performed more accurately at regular than irregular forms, with the smallest gap between regulars and irregulars for monolinguals. Furthermore, this gap was smaller for older children and children who scored better on a non-verbal intelligence measure. In bilingual children, higher accuracy at using (irregular) inflection was predicted by a smaller cross-linguistic distance, a larger amount of Dutch at home, and a higher level of parental education. Finally, children with better VSTM, but not VWM, were more accurate at using regular and irregular inflection.

scholarly journals The Development of Subject Position in Dutch-Dominant Heritage Speakers of Spanish: From Age 9 to Adulthood

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
van Osch ◽  
García González ◽  
Hulk ◽  
Sleeman ◽  
Aalberse
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish ◽  
Language Literature

This exploratory study investigates the knowledge of word order in intransitive sentences by heritage speakers of Spanish of different age groups: 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and adults. In doing so, we aim to fill a gap in the heritage language literature, which, to date, has mainly focused on adult heritage speakers and preschool bilingual children. The results from a judgment task reveal that child- and adolescent heritage speakers do not entirely resemble monolingual age-matched children in the acquisition of subjects in Spanish, nor do they assimilate adult heritage speakers. The data suggest that several different processes can occur simultaneously in the acquisition of word order in heritage speakers: monolingual-like acquisition, delayed acquisition, and attrition. An analysis of the influence of extraneous variables suggests that most of these effects are likely to be the consequence of quantitatively reduced input in the heritage language and increased input in the majority language.

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