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.

Effect of speaker certainty on novel word learning in monolingual and bilingual children

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (04) ◽  
pp. 883-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
MILIJANA BUAC ◽  
AURÉLIE TAUZIN-LARCHÉ ◽  
EMILY WEISBERG ◽  
MARGARITA KAUSHANSKAYA
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds ◽  
Novel Words

In the present study, we examined the effect of speaker certainty on word-learning performance in English-speaking monolingual (MAge = 6.40) and Spanish–English bilingual (MAge = 6.58) children. No group differences were observed when children learned novel words from a certain speaker. However, bilingual children were more willing to learn novel words from an uncertain speaker than their monolingual peers. These findings indicate that language experience influences how children weigh cues to speaker credibility during learning and suggest that children with more diverse linguistic backgrounds (i.e., bilinguals) are less prone to prioritizing information based on speaker certainty.

scholarly journals Do Bilingual Children Have an Executive Function Advantage? Results From Inhibition, Shifting, and Updating Tasks

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genesis D. Arizmendi ◽  
Mary Alt ◽  
Shelley Gray ◽  
Tiffany P. Hogan ◽  
Samuel Green ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Second Graders ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Potential Factors

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine differences in performance between monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual second graders (aged 7–9 years old) on executive function tasks assessing inhibition, shifting, and updating to contribute more evidence to the ongoing debate about a potential bilingual executive function advantage. Method One hundred sixty-seven monolingual English-speaking children and 80 Spanish–English bilingual children were administered 7 tasks on a touchscreen computer in the context of a pirate game. Bayesian statistics were used to determine if there were differences between the monolingual and bilingual groups. Additional analyses involving covariates of maternal level of education and nonverbal intelligence, and matching on these same variables, were also completed. Results Scaled-information Bayes factor scores more strongly favored the null hypothesis that there were no differences between the bilingual and monolingual groups on any of the executive function tasks. For 2 of the tasks, we found an advantage in favor of the monolingual group. Conclusions If there is a bilingual advantage in school-aged children, it is not robust across circumstances. We discuss potential factors that might counteract an actual advantage, including task reliability and environmental influences.

The production of referring expressions in oral narratives of Chinese–English bilingual speakers and monolingual peers

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Jianghua Lei
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Chinese And English

This study evaluates the extent to which the production of referring expressions such as noun phrases and pronouns to fulfill various discourse functions in narratives of Chinese–English bilingual children matches that of their monolingual peers in each of the two languages. Spoken narratives in English and Chinese were elicited from 30 9-year-old participants from each of the three groups: Chinese–English bilinguals and their monolingual peers in each of the two languages using the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Narrative analysis focused on the referring expressions that are used to introduce, re-introduce, and maintain reference to story characters in the narratives. Results show that (1) monolingual Chinese and English speakers differed significantly in the preferred referring expressions for the discourse functions; (2) the Chinese–English bilinguals differed from their monolingual peers in the distribution of referring expressions for referent introduction in English and re-introduction in Chinese; and (3) bilinguals resembled their monolingual peers in their differentiated use of referring expressions for referent maintenance in each of the two languages. These results suggest that the patterns of production of referring expressions in discourse by bilingual speakers may be unique, and fall in between those by their monolingual peers in each of the languages.

scholarly journals Difficulties using standardized tests to identify the receptive expressive gap in bilingual children's vocabularies

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
TODD A. GIBSON ◽  
LINDA JARMULOWICZ ◽  
D. KIMBROUGH OLLER
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
English Language ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
The Us ◽  
English Speaking

Receptive standardized vocabulary scores have been found to be much higher than expressive standardized vocabulary scores in children with Spanish as L1, learning L2 (English) in school (Gibson et al., 2012). Here we present evidence suggesting the receptive-expressive gap may be harder to evaluate than previously thought. We compared the performance of 116 six-year-old Spanish–English bilingual children in the US to 30 monolingual Spanish-speaking peers in Mexico across two Spanish-language standardized picture naming tests and one standardized picture pointing test. The performance of 134 monolingual English-speaking peers was compared using similar English-language tests. Results revealed the presence and magnitude of a receptive-expressive gap was largely dependent on the tests used. These discrepant results likely exist because widely-used standardized tests do not offer comparable normed scores. We review possible test norming practices that may have contributed to these results and suggest guidelines to determine a meaningful receptive-expressive gap for bilingual children.

The role of morphophonological regularity in young Spanish-speaking children's production of gendered noun phrases

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-776
Author(s):  
BRITTANY A. LINDSEY ◽  
LOUANN GERKEN
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Congruity Effect ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
High Predictability

ABSTRACTAdult Spanish speakers generally know which form a determiner preceding a noun should have even if the noun is not in their lexicon, because Spanish demonstrates high predictability between determiner form and noun form (la noun-a and el noun-o). We asked whether young children learning Spanish are similarly sensitive to the correlation of determiner and noun forms, or whether they initially learn determiner–noun pairings one-by-one. Spanish–English bilingual children and adults repeated Spanish words and non-words preceded by gender congruous and incongruous determiners. If children learn determiner–noun pairings one-by-one, they should show a gender congruity effect only for words. In contrast with this prediction, both children and adults demonstrated congruity effects for words and non-words, indicating sensitivity to correlated morphophonological forms. Furthermore, both age groups showed more facility in producing phrases with nouns ending in -a, which are more frequent and predictable from the preceding determiner.

Comparison of Spanish, English, and Bilingual Children’s Performance Across Semantic Tasks

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Christina Rappazzo
Keyword(s):  
Group Performance ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Assessment Battery ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose: This study investigated predominantly Spanish-speaking, predominantly English-speaking, and Spanish-English bilingual children’s performance on a battery of semantic tasks. Method: Six semantic tasks (associations, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences) were developed in Spanish and English. The tasks contained comparable items but were not direct translations of each other. Each task consisted of expressive and receptive items. Predominantly Spanish-speaking children completed the tasks in Spanish, predominantly English-speaking children completed the tasks in English, and bilingual children completed the tasks in Spanish and English. Results: Children in all three groups achieved similar average levels of performance on the assessment battery. However, there were differences in the patterns of performance for English and Spanish, as well as group performance differences when compared in the same language. Clinical Implications: These findings highlight the importance of testing bilingual children in both of their languages and across a variety of semantic tasks in order to gain insight into bilingual children’s semantic knowledge.

A longitudinal study of the phonological development of two Cantonese–English bilingual children

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALISON HOLM ◽  
BARBARA DODD
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Process Data ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Error Patterns ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Longitudinal Case Studies

Longitudinal case studies of the successive phonological acquisition of two Cantonese–English bilingual children, aged 2;3 to 3;1 years and 2;9 to 3;5 years, are presented. The children were assessed at 4-week intervals. The first assessment of their phonology occurred when they had been exposed to English for three months. Phoneme acquisition and phonological process data revealed that both children had separate phonological systems for the two languages. The two phonological systems for each child developed in similar ways to monolingual children acquiring Cantonese and English. However, a number of error patterns, indicative of disorder in monolingual children, were evident in the children's phonological systems in English and in Cantonese. These patterns have been documented as normal error patterns for successive bilingual Cantonese–English speaking children. The difference between normal successive bilingual phonological development and normal monolingual development is addressed.

Narrative Discourse in Bilingual Children

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine E. Fiestas ◽  
Elizabeth D. Peña
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Story Grammar ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Static Picture ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Task Conditions

Purpose: This study investigated the effect of language on Spanish-English bilingual children’s production of narrative samples elicited in two ways. Method: Twelve bilingual (Spanish-English-speaking) children ranging in age from 4;0 (years;months) to 6;11 who were fluent speakers of English as a second language produced two narratives—one elicited by using a wordless picture book and another by using a static picture. The children produced stories for each task in each language, for a total of four stories. For the book task, the story complexities were compared across both languages. Stories were scored for complexity of story grammar and the inclusion of specific narrative elements. Both stories in each language were further analyzed for productivity (total words, number of C-units, and mean length of C-unit). The grammaticality (proportion of grammatically acceptable C-units) and the proportion of utterances influenced by the nontarget language was compared across each language and story task. Results: Children produced narratives of equal complexity for the book task regardless of language. However, children used more attempts and initiating events in Spanish, while producing more consequences in English. The picture task yielded mixed results, and these were not compared quantitatively. There were differences in the two task conditions with respect to the children’s use of Spanish influenced English and English-influenced Spanish. Although children were equally productive in both languages, they used proportionally more Spanish-influenced utterances in the book task. Clinical Implications: The results demonstrate the importance of considering the test language when eliciting narratives from bilingual children and the type of the narrative task for eliciting a productive and complex narrative.

“¿Tú tienes una little pumpkin?” Mixed noun phrases in Spanish-English bilingual children and adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 824-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desirée Ramírez Urbaneja
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Bilingual Language Development ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Finite Verb

Objectives: This study investigates the switching of a noun or a determiner in mixed noun phrases, such as “ una little pumpkin,” to test predictions from two theoretical frameworks, the Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) and the Minimalist Approach (MA) and examines whether there is a difference between child and adult code-switching (CS) patterns in order to understand children’s acquisition of grammatical patterns in general. Methodology: All tokens of mixed noun phrases (NPs) were extracted from three bilingual child corpora and one bilingual adult corpus. The finite verb (matrix language) of each utterance was also analyzed to test predictions. Data and analysis: Four hundred sixty-one mixed NPs were extracted from 15 Spanish-English bilingual children and 14 Spanish-English bilingual adults. Findings: Results support both the MLF and the MA since in more than 80% of our data, the language of the determiner matched the language of the finite verb morphology and the language with the most phi features. Originality: This is the first study to compare children’s and adults’ mixed NPs, testing predictions from the MLF and MA theories. It also provides new evidence for the acquisition of CS constraints in early bilingual language development. Implications: This study demonstrates that, like adults, children’s mixed NPs are subject to grammatical constraints. Some examples show that children produce mixed NPs immediately after hearing their caregivers produce the same NP, but in one language only. This supports the conclusion that children’s mixed NP patterns follow generalized constraints and are not item-based imitations of what they hear. Limitations: Future research should more carefully examine the CS patterns of caregivers and members of the community with whom children interact to decipher the role of input. This would help answer the question of how children acquire CS patterns.

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