scholarly journals Acceptance of lexical overlap by monolingual and bilingual toddlers

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1517-1530
Author(s):  
Marina Kalashnikova ◽  
Aimee Oliveri ◽  
Karen Mattock
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Lexical Competence

Aims and Objectives: Mutual exclusivity refers to children’s assumption that there are one-to-one correspondences between words and their referents. It is proposed to guide the process of fast-mapping when children encounter novel words in referentially ambiguous situations. However, children are often required to suspend this default assumption and accept lexically overlapping labels, which is particularly common for bilingual children who learn multiple labels for most referents in their environment. Previous research has shown that school-aged bilinguals are more successful at learning overlapping labels than monolinguals, but the mechanisms underlying the development of this word-learning ability remain unknown. Methodology: This study investigated the ability to accept lexical overlap in monolingual and bilingual two-and-a-half-year-old children and its relation to children’s lexical competence. Children’s ability to retain two novel labels assigned to a novel referent was assessed in an interactive lexical overlap paradigm. In addition, parental inventories were used to measure children’s receptive vocabulary size and patterns of language exposure and use. Data and analysis: Data were collected from 68 (34 monolingual and 34 bilingual) children between 26 and 34 months of age. Binomial logistic regressions were used to assess the effects of children’s language background and their individual lexical competence (receptive vocabulary for monolinguals and bilinguals, and conceptual vocabulary size and degree of bilingualism for bilinguals). Findings: Results showed that vocabulary size was a significant predictor of lexical overlap performance for monolingual children, but this was not the case for bilinguals. Originality: These findings are the first to indicate that the individual linguistic experience of growing up monolingual or bilingual shapes the mechanisms that underlie the development and usage patterns of early word-learning strategies. Limitations: This study leaves open the question of what aspect of growing up bilingual leads children to develop word-learning strategies that are shaped by their linguistic experience.

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 Monolingual and Bilingual Word Recognition and Word Learning in Background Noise

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Morini ◽  
Rochelle S. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
White Noise ◽  
Object Relations ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Speech In Noise

The question of whether bilingualism leads to advantages or disadvantages in linguistic abilities has been debated for many years. It is unclear whether growing up with one versus two languages is related to variations in the ability to process speech in the presence of background noise. We present findings from a word recognition and a word learning task with monolingual and bilingual adults. Bilinguals appear to be less accurate than monolinguals at identifying familiar words in the presence of white noise. However, the bilingual “disadvantage” identified during word recognition is not present when listeners were asked to acquire novel word-object relations that were trained either in noise or in quiet. This work suggests that linguistic experience and the demands associated with the type of task both play a role in the ability for listeners to process speech in noise.

scholarly journals Does the Use of Complex Sentences Differentiate Between Bilinguals With and Without DLD? Evidence From Conversation and Narrative Tasks

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Tamara Sorenson Duncan ◽  
Stephanie Thomlinson ◽  
Brian Rusk
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Adverbial Clauses

Over-identification of language disorder among bilingual children with typical development (TD) is a risk factor in assessment. One strategy for improving assessment accuracy with bilingual children is to determine which linguistic sub-domains differentiate bilingual children with TD from bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). To date, little research on sequential bilinguals with TD and DLD has focussed on complex (multi-clausal) sentences in naturalistic production, even though this is a noted domain of weakness for school-age monolinguals with DLD. Accordingly, we sought to determine if there were differences in the use of complex sentences in conversational and narrative tasks between school-age sequential bilinguals with TD and with DLD at the early stages of L2 acquisition. We administered a conversation and a narrative task to 63 English L2 children with TD and DLD, aged 5–7 years with 2 years of exposure to the L2. Children had diverse first language backgrounds. The L2-TD and L2-DLD groups were matched for age, length of L2 exposure and general L2 proficiency (receptive vocabulary size). Language samples from both tasks were coded and analyzed for the use of complex versus simple sentences, for the distribution of complex sentence types, for clausal density and mean length of utterance (MLU). Complex sentences included coordinated clauses, sentential complement clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses. Using regression modelling and PERMANOVA, we found that the L2-TD group produced more complex sentences than the L2-DLD group, with coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses differing the most between the groups. Furthermore, the two groups differed for mean clausal density, but not for MLU, indicating that clausal density and MLU did not estimate identical morphosyntactic abilities. Individual variation in complex sentence production for L2-TD was predicted by longer L2 exposure and task; by contrast, for L2-DLD, it was predicted by older age. This study indicates that complex sentence production is an area of weakness for bilingual children with DLD, as it is for monolinguals with DLD. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Novel Word Learning in Children With Hearing Impairment

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 630-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margie Gilbertson ◽  
Alan G. Kamhi
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Novel Word Learning

This study examined novel word-learning abilities in young school-age children with mild-to-moderate hearing losses. We questioned whether degree of hearing loss or measures of language and phonological processing abilities were more likely to be related to novel word-learning ability. Subjects were 20 children with hearing impairment (M = 9:0) and 20 children with normal hearing (M = 6:5) matched for receptive vocabulary knowledge. Children were administered measures of language and phonological processing. The novel word-learning task consisted of an acquisition and retention phase in which children received a series of trials to learn to produce four novel words. Half of the children with hearing impairment performed comparably to the children with normal hearing on all of the measures obtained, whereas the other 10 children with hearing impairment performed more poorly than the higher functioning children with hearing impairment and all of the children with normal hearing on most of the measures of language, phonological processing, and novel word learning. Degree of hearing loss was not related to language or word-learning abilities. These findings suggest that the population of children with mild-to-moderate hearing loss may contain two distinct groups: a group of normally developing children who have a hearing loss and a group of children with language impairment who have a hearing loss. The implications of this categorization will be discussed.

Is Oral Bilingualism an Advantage for Word Learning in Children With Hearing Loss?

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 965-978
Author(s):  
Beatriz de Diego-Lázaro ◽  
Andrea Pittman ◽  
María Adelaida Restrepo
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Auditory Recognition ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Children With Hearing Loss

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine whether oral bilingualism could be an advantage for children with hearing loss when learning new words. Method Twenty monolingual and 13 bilingual children with hearing loss were compared with each other and with 20 monolingual and 20 bilingual children with normal hearing on receptive vocabulary and on three word-learning tasks containing nonsense words in familiar (English and Spanish) and unfamiliar (Arabic) languages. We measured word learning on the day of the training and retention the next day using an auditory recognition task. Analyses of covariance were used to compare performance on the word learning tasks by language group (monolingual vs. bilingual) and hearing status (normal hearing vs. hearing loss), controlling for age and maternal education. Results No significant differences were observed between monolingual and bilingual children with and without hearing loss in any of the word-learning task. Children with hearing loss performed more poorly than their hearing peers in Spanish word retention and Arabic word learning and retention. Conclusions Children with hearing loss who grew up being exposed to Spanish did not show higher or lower word-learning abilities than monolingual children with hearing loss exposed to English only. Therefore, oral bilingualism was neither an advantage nor a disadvantage for word learning. Hearing loss negatively affected performance in monolingual and bilingual children when learning words in languages other than English (the dominant language). Monolingual and bilingual children with hearing loss are equally at risk for word-learning difficulties and vocabulary size matters for word learning.

scholarly journals Second language perception of English vowels by Portuguese learners: The effect of stimulus type

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Anabela Alves dos Santos Rato ◽  
Angélica Carlet
Keyword(s):  
Stimulus Type ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Perceptual Performance

The present study investigated L2 English vowel perception and the effect of stimulus type on the identification of vowel segments that present difficulties for Portuguese learners. It also examined the effect of subject factors such as age of acquisition, length of formal instruction, language use and vocabulary size, on the L2 learners’ perceptual performance. Twenty-nine adult Portuguese learners of English were tested on six English vowels (/iː ɪ ɛ æ ɜː ʌ/) with two tasks, differing in stimulus type, i.e., in the lexical status of trials (real words and pseudo words) in which the target vowels were auditorily presented. The testing stimuli consisted of 72 trials with real CVC words and 72 trials with pseudo CVC words, naturally produced by two speakers of standard southern British English (SSBE). The L2 vocabulary size of the participants was measured with two receptive vocabulary size tests and the language background data, viz. age of learning, length of formal instruction and L2 use was collected with a questionnaire. Results confirmed the Portuguese learners’ difficulties in accurately categorizing the target vowels, particularly when identifying the vowel target sounds embedded in pseudo words, which suggests that L2 phonological categories may be established after lexical forms. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between L2 language use and accurate perception of four of the target vowels, which indicates that the more frequently learners use the target language, the more accurate is their L2 English vowel perception.

Relative language exposure, processing efficiency and vocabulary in Spanish–English bilingual toddlers

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEREYDA HURTADO ◽  
THERES GRÜTER ◽  
VIRGINIA A. MARCHMAN ◽  
ANNE FERNALD
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Cognitive Outcomes ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
English Bilingual

Research with monolingual children has shown that early efficiency in real-time word recognition predicts later language and cognitive outcomes. In parallel research with young bilingual children, processing ability and vocabulary size are closely related within each language, although not across the two languages. For children in dual-language environments, one source of variation in patterns of language learning is differences in the degree to which they are exposed to each of their languages. In a longitudinal study of Spanish/English bilingual children observed at 30 and 36 months, we asked whether the relative amount of exposure to Spanish vs. English in daily interactions predicts children's relative efficiency in real-time language processing in each language. Moreover, to what extent does early exposure and speed of lexical comprehension predict later expressive and receptive vocabulary outcomes in Spanish vs. English? Results suggest that processing skill and language experience each promote vocabulary development, but also that experience with a particular language provides opportunities for practice in real-time comprehension in that language, sharpening processing skills that are critical for learning.

The effects of linguistic experience on the flexible use of mutual exclusivity in word learning

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARINA KALASHNIKOVA ◽  
KAREN MATTOCK ◽  
PADRAIC MONAGHAN
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Pragmatic Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
One To One ◽  
The One

Mutual Exclusivity (ME) is a prominent constraint in language acquisition, which guides children to establish one-to-one mappings between words and referents. But how does unfolding experience of multiple-to-one word-meaning mappings in bilingual children's environment affect their understanding of when to use ME and when to accept lexical overlap? Three-to-five-year-old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children completed two pragmatically distinct tasks, where successful word learning relied on either the default use of ME or the ability to accept overlapping labels. All children could flexibly use ME by following the social-pragmatic directions available in each task. However, linguistic experience shaped the development of ME use, whereby older monolinguals showed a greater reliance on the one-to-one mapping assumption, but older bilinguals showed a greater ability to accept lexical overlap. We suggest that flexible use of ME is thus shaped by pragmatic information present in each communicative interaction and children's individual linguistic experience.

scholarly journals Differences in how monolingual and bilingual children learn second labels for familiar objects

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1219-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDSEY ROWE ◽  
REBECCA JACOBSON ◽  
MEGAN M. SAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Learning Constraints ◽  
Second Labels ◽  
Familiar Objects

AbstractMonolingual children sometimes resist learning second labels for familiar objects. One explanation is that they are guided by word learning constraints that lead to the assumption that objects have only one name. It is less clear whether bilingual children observe this constraint. In the current study, we test the hypothesis that bilingual children might be more willing to accept second labels for objects and ask how they are affected by different amounts of information relevant to the second label. Although monolingual and bilingual children benefited from increased levels of information, only bilingual children chose the referent at above chance levels when they were offered increased levels of information. They were also more likely than monolingual children to accept second labels. Differences emerged even when English language vocabulary size was controlled for in the analyses.

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