Transfer in bilingual first language acquisition

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 151-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATASCHA MÜLLER
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
First Language ◽  
Quantitative Difference ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
Bilingual Language Development

Much research on bilingual first language acquisition has stressed the role of the dominant or preferred language when the two languages have some influence on one another. The present paper tries to look at transfer or interference from the perspective of the input the child is exposed to. Transfer will be argued to occur in those domains of the grammar where the language learner is confronted with ambiguous input. The bilingual child may, as a relief strategy, use parts of the analysis of one language in order to cope with ambiguous properties of the other. Ambiguity of input is crucial and will be evaluated through a comparison with monolingual language acquisition: if monolingual children have problems with the language material in question, it may be suggested that the input contains evidence for more than only one grammatical analysis. A quantitative difference between monolingual and bilingual language acquisition will be interpreted as evidence in favor of cross-linguistic influence in bilingual language development. The paper reviews longitudinal studies on the acquisition of word order in German subordinate clauses.

Approaches to first language acquisition

1992 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Döpke
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
First Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Dependent Clause

A bilingual child’s development of word order in German and English subordinate clauses was followed between three and five years of age, and a number of diversions from the development of word order in such clauses by monolingual children was noted. Of particular interest is the fact that incorrect dependent clause structures in German were more likely to be due to intra-language influences from German main clause structures than from English. The findings are discussed in the light UG claims made by Clahsen (1988) concerning the word order development in monolingual children.

Modality and Mood in First Language Acquisition

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Hickmann ◽  
Dominique Bassano
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Developmental Process ◽  
First Language ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Acquisition Sequence ◽  
Phases Of Development ◽  
Language And Cognition

This chapter aims to provide a large overview of research focusing on the development of modality and mood during first language acquisition. This overview synthesizes results concerning both early and later phases of development, within and across a large number of languages, and including some more peripheral categories, such as evidentials and tense–aspect markings. Results recurrently show the earlier acquisition of agent-oriented modality as compared to epistemic modality. However, cross-linguistic variation has raised some questions about this acquisition sequence, suggesting that language-specific properties may partially impact timing during acquisition. In addition, findings about later phases show a long developmental process whereby children gradually come to master complex semantic and pragmatic modal distinctions. The discussion highlights the contribution of these conclusions to current theoretical debates, such as the role of input factors and the relation between language and cognition during ontogenesis.

Subject realization in the syntactic development of a bilingual child

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Juan-Garau ◽  
Carmen Pérez-Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Syntactic Development

The present article reports on the findings of a case study of bilingual first language acquisition in Catalan and English. It first presents a general overview of a child's syntactic development from the age of 1;3 to 4;2 and then focuses on the question of subject realization in the two contrasting languages he is acquiring simultaneously. In this case, Catalan is a null subject language in opposition to the overt subject properties of English. Such data allow us to provide evidence on a key issue in bilingual acquisition research: the question of language separation in the early stages of acquisition. The data available suggest the absence of any major influence of one language on the other. In other words, our subject seems to be acquiring word order patterns which are different in the two adult systems in a language-dependent manner from the beginning of his production in both languages.

scholarly journals Przyswajanie języka pierwszego - imitacja czy wrodzony dar? Analiza na podstawie wybranych teorii akwizycji języka ojczystego oraz podstawowych systemów językowych

Adeptus ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 6-25
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Włodarska
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Physical Mechanism ◽  
Nursery School ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Basic Language

First language acquisition – imitation or innate gift? Analysis based on selected theories of first language acquisition and basic language systemsThis article deals with a surprising phenomenon typical only for human beings – first language acquisition. Its aim is to answer the question as stated in the title. The author, an English teacher working in a nursery school, looks for the answer using references to theories connected with this topic, and in addition, takes into consideration the speech of children she is in charge of. In order to demonstrate the sophisticated nature of human language, the author refers to several definitions of this term. She presents the term ‘mother tongue’ and analyses the ways of acquiring its phonetic, phonological, morphological and syntactic systems by children. She also gives numerous examples of the most common mistakes found in their speech, taken from Polish and English languages. Furthermore, three major theories regarding first language acquisition, presenting the approach of Piaget, Chomsky and Skinner to this phenomenon, are described in the article. The author reaches the conclusion that first language acquisition is a mixture of imitation and innate gift. The role of the physical mechanism enabling a human being to produce speech and that of contact with the language of a child’s parents merits emphasizing also. The result of these factors is the possibility of language acquisition.

Information Structure in First Language Acquisition

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Höhle ◽  
Frauke Berger ◽  
Antje Sauermann
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Focus Particles ◽  
Comprehension Skills ◽  
Early Production ◽  
Linguistic Means

So far, research on the acquisition of information structure (IS) is still relatively sparse compared to other areas of first language acquisition research. A growing interest in this area has emerged with an increasing number of results indicating an asymmetry of an early production but late comprehension of linguistic means related to IS—which contrasts common findings in other areas of acquisition with comprehension skills typically being in advance to production skills and thus provides a challenge for theories of language acquisition. This chapter will give a review on recent findings on the acquisition of linguistic means to mark IS in first language acquisition focusing on studies looking at the production and comprehension of accentuation and word order. A further part will look at children’s production and comprehension of sentences with focus particles.

scholarly journals The role of feedback and instruction on the cross-situational learning of vocabulary and morphosyntax: Mixed effects models reveal local and global effects on acquisition

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832092774
Author(s):  
Padraic Monaghan ◽  
Simón Ruiz ◽  
Patrick Rebuschat
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Learning Condition ◽  
Learning Instruction ◽  
Improved Learning

First language acquisition is implicit, in that explicit information about the language structure to be learned is not provided to children. Instead, they must acquire both vocabulary and grammar incrementally, by generalizing across multiple situations that eventually enable links between words in utterances and referents in the environment to be established. However, this raises a problem of how vocabulary can be acquired without first knowing the role of the word within the syntax of a sentence. It also raises practical issues about the extent to which different instructional conditions – about grammar in advance of learning or feedback about correct decisions during learning – might influence second language acquisition of implicitly experienced information about the language. In an artificial language learning study, we studied participants learning language from inductive exposure, but under different instructional conditions. Language learners were exposed to complex utterances and complex scenes and had to determine the meaning and the grammar of the language from these co-occurrences with environmental scenes. We found that learning was boosted by explicit feedback, but not by explicit instruction about the grammar of the language, compared to an implicit learning condition. However, the effect of feedback was not general across all aspects of the language. Feedback improved vocabulary, but did not affect syntax learning. We further investigated the local, contextual effects on learning, and found that previous knowledge of vocabulary within an utterance improved learning but that this was driven only by certain grammatical categories in the language. The results have implications for theories of second language learning informed by our understanding of first language acquisition as well as practical implications for learning instruction and optimal, contingent adjustment of learners’ environment during their learning.

scholarly journals The development of determiners in the context of French–English bilingualism: a study of cross-linguistic influence

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 767-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coralie HERVÉ ◽  
Ludovica SERRATRICE
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Use ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Longitudinal Development ◽  
Rate Of Development ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Language Exposure ◽  
A Minor

AbstractThis paper reports the preliminary results of a study examining the role of structural overlap, language exposure, and language use on cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in bilingual first language acquisition. We focus on the longitudinal development of determiners in a corpus of two French–English children between the ages of 2;4 and 3;7. The results display bi-directional CLI in the rate of development, i.e., accelerated development in English and a minor delay in French. Unidirectional CLI from English to French was instead observed in the significantly higher rate of ungrammatical determiner omissions in plural and generic contexts than in singular specific contexts in French. These findings suggest that other language-internal mechanisms may be at play. They also lend support to the role of expressive abilities on the magnitude of this phenomenon.

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