scholarly journals Prosodic structures and templates in bilingual phonological development

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARILYN VIHMAN
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Speech Errors ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Unconscious Processing ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Prosodic Structures

Bilingual children have long been held to have ‘separate linguistic systems’ from the start (e.g., Meisel, 2001). This paper challenges that assumption with data from five bilingual children's first 100 words. Whereas the prosodic structures represented by a child's words may or may not be differentiated by language, emergent phonological templates are not, the same patterns being deployed as more complex adult word forms are targeted in each language. Reliance on common (idiosyncratic) phonological templates for the two languages is ascribed to children's experience with their own voice (in production) as well as with others’ speech. Both experimental studies and spontaneous cross-linguistic speech errors in adults and older children are cited to support the view that, for a bilingual, unconscious processing draws on both languages throughout the lifespan, which suggests that the emphasis on ‘separate systems’ (from the start or thereafter) may be misconceived.

Measuring Word Learning Ability in Sequential Bilingual Children

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pui Fong Kan
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract The purpose of this article is to look at the word learning skills in sequential bilingual children—children who learn two languages (L1 and L2) at different times in their childhood. Learning a new word is a process of learning a word form and relating this form to a concept. For bilingual children, each concept might need to map onto two word forms (in L1 and in L2). In case studies, I present 3 typically developing Hmong-English bilingual preschoolers' word learning skills in Hmong (L1) and in English (L2) during an 8-week period (4 weeks for each language). The results showed gains in novel-word knowledge in L1 and in L2 when the amount of input is equal for both languages. The individual differences in novel word learning are discussed.

scholarly journals Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Chantal VAN DIJK ◽  
Elise VAN WONDEREN ◽  
Elly KOUTAMANIS ◽  
Gerrit Jan KOOTSTRA ◽  
Ton DIJKSTRA ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Effect Size ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Uniform Method ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Average Effect ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
Average Effect Size ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Bilingual Development

Abstract Although cross-linguistic influence at the level of morphosyntax is one of the most intensively studied topics in child bilingualism, the circumstances under which it occurs remain unclear. In this meta-analysis, we measured the effect size of cross-linguistic influence and systematically assessed its predictors in 750 simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children in 17 unique language combinations across 26 experimental studies. We found a significant small to moderate average effect size of cross-linguistic influence, indicating that cross-linguistic influence is part and parcel of bilingual development. Language dominance, operationalized as societal language, was a significant predictor of cross-linguistic influence, whereas surface overlap, language domain and age were not. Perhaps an even more important finding was that definitions and operationalisations of cross-linguistic influence and its predictors varied considerably between studies. This could explain the absence of a comprehensive theory in the field. To solve this issue, we argue for a more uniform method of studying cross-linguistic influence.

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 acquisition of lexical tones by Cantonese–English bilingual children

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1357-1376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy Pik Ki MOK ◽  
Albert LEE
Keyword(s):  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Pitch Pattern ◽  
Linguistic Transfer ◽  
Auditory Analysis ◽  
Early Interaction ◽  
Time Point

AbstractPrevious studies on bilingual children found intact tonal development at the initial stages of interaction between Cantonese and English in successive bilingual children, whereas children exposed to both languages from birth have not been studied in this regard. We examined the production of Cantonese tones by five simultaneous bilingual children longitudinally at 2;0 and 2;6, and compared them with age-matched monolingual children using auditory analysis. Our results showed that some bilingual children had a delay at 2;0, compared to their monolingual peers. Some bilingual children also exhibited a ‘high–low’ template in their production, resembling the pitch pattern of English trochaic words. These findings suggest a possible early interaction of the Cantonese and English prosodic systems in which bilingual children adopted the English stress pattern in Cantonese production. The time-point along the trajectory of phonological development is important in modulating whether cross-linguistic transfer can be observed.

scholarly journals Another bilingual advantage? Perception of talker-voice information

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSANNAH V. LEVI
Keyword(s):  
Learning Task ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Social Tasks ◽  
Processing Information ◽  
Voice Processing ◽  
Better Than

A bilingual advantage has been found in both cognitive and social tasks. In the current study, we examine whether there is a bilingual advantage in how children process information about who is talking (talker-voice information). Younger and older groups of monolingual and bilingual children completed the following talker-voice tasks with bilingual speakers: a discrimination task in English and German (an unfamiliar language), and a talker-voice learning task in which they learned to identify the voices of three unfamiliar speakers in English. Results revealed effects of age and bilingual status. Across the tasks, older children performed better than younger children and bilingual children performed better than monolingual children. Improved talker-voice processing by the bilingual children suggests that a bilingual advantage exists in a social aspect of speech perception, where the focus is not on processing the linguistic information in the signal, but instead on processing information about who is talking.

First words and prosodic structures

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-121
Author(s):  
Marilyn May Vihman
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
American English ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
British English ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Prosodic Structures ◽  
Language Influence ◽  
First Words

This chapter presents data from four to eight children each learning one of six languages, British English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Italian, and Welsh. As a basis for cross-linguistic comparison the chapter first considers similarities and differences in the target forms of the first words of these children. It then presents the children’s later prosodic structures, including American English in the comparison. The chapter considers the development changes apparent from comparing the first words with the later structures and quantifies the extent of variegation in first word targets and later child word forms. In concluding, it is found that common resources are strongly in evidence in the first words but by the later point there is good evidence of ambient language influence as well as of individual differences within the groups.

Phonological Templates in Development

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn May Vihman
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Studies ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Word Production ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Diary Studies ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Formal Status ◽  
First Words

Child phonological templates are idiosyncratic word production patterns. They can be understood as deriving, through generalization of patterning, from the very first words of the child, which are typically close in form to their adult targets. Templates can generally be identified only some time after a child’s first 20–50 words have been produced but before the child has achieved an expressive lexicon of 200 words. The templates appear to serve as a kind of ‘holding strategy’, a way for children to produce more complex adult word forms while remaining within the limits imposed by the articulatory, planning, and memory limitations of the early word period. Templates have been identified in the early words of children acquiring a number of languages, although not all children give clear evidence of using them. Within a given language we see a range of different templatic patterns, but these are nevertheless broadly shaped by the prosodic characteristics of the adult language as well as by the idiosyncratic production preferences of a given child; it is thus possible to begin to outline a typology of child templates. However, the evidence base for most languages remains small, ranging from individual diary studies to rare longitudinal studies of as many as 30 children. Thus templates undeniably play a role in phonological development, but their extent of use or generality remains unclear, their timing for the children who show them is unpredictable, and their period of sway is typically brief—a matter of a few weeks or months at most. Finally, the formal status and relationship of child phonological templates to adult grammars has so far received relatively little attention, but the closest parallels may lie in active novel word formation and in the lexicalization of commonly occurring expressions, both of which draw, like child templates, on the mnemonic effects of repetition.

scholarly journals Development of Spanish rhotics in Spanish–English bilingual children in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 788-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy R. MENKE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Target Production

AbstractRhotics, particularly the trill, are late acquired sounds in Spanish. Reports of Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers document age-appropriate articulations, but studies do not explore productions once exposure to English increases. This paper reports on the rhotic productions of a cross-sectional sample of 31 Spanish–English bilingual children, ages 6;8 to 13;5. Children produced taps with high rates of accuracy across age groups; the trill did not reach 80% target production until age 11;3, later than reported for monolingual speakers. Increased English exposure is explored as a contributing factor, arguing a need for continued study of bilingual phonological development beyond the preschool years.

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