Gender Assignment Strategies Among Simultaneous Spanish/English Bilingual Children from Miami, Florida

Abstract We examined gender assignment patterns in the speech of Spanish/English bilingual children, paying particular attention to the influence of three gender assignment strategies (i.e., analogical gender, masculine default gender, phonological gender) that have been proposed to constrain the gender assignment process in Spanish/English bilingual speech. Our analysis was based on monolingual Spanish nominals (n = 1774), which served as a comparative baseline, and Spanish/English mixed nominal constructions (n = 220) extracted from oral narratives produced by 40 child bilinguals of different grade levels (second graders vs. fifth graders) and instructional programs (English immersion vs. two-way bilingual) from Miami Dade, Florida. The narratives, available in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, Brian. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk, 3rd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), were collected by Pearson, Barbara Z. 2002. Narrative competence among monolingual and bilingual school children in Miami. In D. Kimbrough Oller & Rebecca E. Eilers (eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children, 135–174. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Results revealed that in Spanish nominal constructions, children across both instructional programs and grade levels evinced native-like acquisition of grammatical gender. In mixed nominals, children overwhelmingly assigned the masculine gender to English nouns. Notably, irrespective of schooling background, simultaneous Spanish/English bilingual children used the masculine default gender strategy when assigning gender to English nouns with feminine translation equivalents. This suggests that from age seven, simultaneous Spanish/English child bilingual acquisition of grammatical gender is characterized by a predisposition towards the employment of the masculine default gender strategy in bilingual speech.

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

Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools ◽

10.1044/2018_lshss-17-0107 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 356-378 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

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.

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Defining Bilingualism: Factors Contributing to Variability in Language and Literacy Development of Spanish-English Bilingual Children

Perspectives on Communication Disorders and Sciences in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations ◽

10.1044/cds16.2.38 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 38-44 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Megan Dunn Davison

Keyword(s):

Language Development ◽

Literacy Development ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Primary Language ◽

Language And Literacy ◽

Speech Language Pathologists ◽

Number Of Children ◽

Literacy Outcomes ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Language And Literacy Development

Abstract Given the increasing number of children from homes in which a language other than English is the primary language, it is important for speech-language pathologists to understand how bilingualism is defined and the implications of different defining factors for language development and later literacy outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors contributing to the differences observed across bilingual language and literacy development. Previous research suggests there are differences in the language and literacy development of bilingual children due to differing ages of exposure to each language and the context in which each language is then used. Implications for assessment and interventions are discussed.

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Grammatical gender selection and phrasal word order in child heritage Spanish: A feature re-assembly approach

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728914000893 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 50-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

ALEJANDRO CUZA ◽

ROCÍO PÉREZ-TATTAM

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Heritage Language ◽

Language Use ◽

Naming Task ◽

The United States ◽

Grammatical Gender ◽

Language Experience ◽

Gender Assignment ◽

English Bilingual

The present study examines the development of grammatical gender assignment, agreement, and noun-adjective word order in child heritage Spanish among thirty-two Spanish–English bilingual children born and raised in the United States. A picture-naming task revealed significant overextension of the masculine form and high levels of ungrammatical word order strings. There were no significant differences by age regarding gender concord or noun-adjective word order. We argue that the differences found can be accounted for in terms of a re-assembly of gender features leading to both morphological and syntactic variability. This approach allows for subsequent morphosyntactic shifts during early childhood depending on patterns of language use, and conceptualizes heritage language variation along the lines of current linguistic theorizing regarding the role of innate linguistic principles and language experience in language development.

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Grammatical gender in bilingual Norwegian–Russian acquisition: The role of input and transparency

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728915000668 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 197-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

YULIA RODINA ◽

MARIT WESTERGAARD

Keyword(s):

Age Of Onset ◽

Grammatical Gender ◽

The Other ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Early Age ◽

Experimental Production ◽

Gender Assignment ◽

Production Study ◽

Parental Input

This paper investigates the role of parental input and transparency in the acquisition of two different gender systems, Norwegian and Russian, by bilingual children living in Norway. While gender in Russian is generally predictable from the morphophonological shape of the noun (with some exceptions), gender assignment in Norwegian is opaque. An experimental production study was carried out with two groups of bilinguals, children with one or two Russian-speaking parents, and monolingual controls (age 4;1–7;11). The findings show that both groups of bilinguals perform similarly to monolinguals in Norwegian, the majority language, despite the lack of transparency. In Russian, on the other hand, not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences are found in the data of the bilingual children with the least exposure to the language. These qualitative differences indicate that early age of onset is not sufficient to acquire phenomena such as gender; extensive input is necessary.

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EVIDENCE OF NON-SELECTIVE LEXICAL ACCESS IN CHILDREN FROM A PORTUGUESE-ENGLISH BILINGUAL SCHOOL

PROLÍNGUA ◽

10.22478/ufpb.1983-9979.2020v15n2.54901 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 183-197

Author(s):

Ana Beatriz Arêas da Luz Fontes ◽

Luciana De Souza Brentano ◽

Pâmela Freitas Pereira Toassi ◽

Catherine Sittig ◽

Ingrid Finger

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Lexical Access ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Decision Task ◽

English Version ◽

Facilitation Effect ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Cross Language ◽

Bilingual School

The issue of language selectivity regarding lexical access of bilingual adults has been thoroughly reported in the literature. However, studies with bilingual children are still limited, especially in the Brazilian context. To fill this gap, the present study was conducted with the goal of investigating whether the same cognate facilitation effect reported for bilingual adults is also true for bilingual children. To do so, two experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1, 53 Portuguese-English bilingual children from 3rd and 7th grade took part in a lexical decision task which had a Portuguese and an English version. In Experiment 2, 18 English monolinguals performed the English version of the lexical decision task. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the cognate effect was evident for the two groups of bilinguals when the task was performed in the L2- English, even though no statistical difference between the two groups of bilinguals was found. When performing the task in the L1 – Portuguese, the bilingual groups showed no cognate effect, which suggests that these participants had not reached a level of proficiency in which the L2 can influence L1 processing. The results of Experiment 2 showed no cognate facilitation effect for monolinguals, indicating that the results of the bilingual participants, in the English version of the lexical decision task, were indeed due to the cognate status of the words of the bilingual's two languages. In short, the present results favor the nonselective view of lexical access and the effect of proficiency in the perception of cross language similarity.

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An Introductory Examination of Speech Disfluencies in Spanish–English Bilingual Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter During Narratives

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2019_persp-19-00040 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 131-141

Author(s):

Cristina Rincon ◽

Kia Noelle Johnson ◽

Courtney Byrd

Keyword(s):

Diagnostic Criteria ◽

Preliminary Data ◽

Diagnostic Information ◽

English Speakers ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Developmental Stuttering ◽

Mean Length Of Utterance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency and type of speech disfluencies (stuttering-like and nonstuttering-like) in bilingual Spanish–English (SE) children who stutter (CWS) to SE children who do not stutter (CWNS) during narrative samples elicited in Spanish and English to provide further diagnostic information for this population and preliminary data toward an expansion of this study. Method Participants included six bilingual SE children (three CWS, three CWNS) ranging in age from 5 years to 7;5 (years;months) and recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Participants provided a narrative sample in English and Spanish. The frequency of speech disfluencies was tabulated, and mean length of utterance was measured for each sample. Results Results indicate that both talker groups exceed the diagnostic criteria typically used for developmental stuttering. Regardless of the language being spoken, CWS participants had a frequency of stuttering-like speech disfluencies that met or exceeded the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering that is based on monolingual English speakers. The CWNS participants varied in meeting the criteria depending on the language being spoken, with one of the three CWNS exceeding the criteria in both languages and one exceeding the criteria for percentage of stuttering-like speech disfluencies in one language. Conclusion Findings from this study contribute to the development of more appropriate diagnostic criteria for bilingual SE-speaking children to aid in the reduction of misdiagnoses of stuttering in this population.

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