scholarly journals Perceived Accentedness in Monolingual and Simultaneous Bilingual Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Cambria Willis ◽  
Anna Colpitts ◽  
Lauren Denusik
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
The Difference ◽  
English Monolingual

Previous research on accentedness in simultaneous bilinguals has produced inconsistent results and has focused on adult speakers. The current study explores the question of whether simultaneous bilingual children are perceived to have stronger accents in comparison to monolingual children. Adult participants were asked to rate the accentedness of English-Mandarin simultaneous bilingual children and English monolingual children. The difference in ratings between the two groups was not found to be statistically significant. It is concluded that simultaneous bilingual children seem not to differ in accentedness when compared to monolingual children, which has a number of social and theoretical implications.

scholarly journals Bilingual children show an advantage in controlling verbal interference during spoken language comprehension

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 490-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERTO FILIPPI ◽  
JOHN MORRIS ◽  
FIONA M. RICHARDSON ◽  
PETER BRIGHT ◽  
MICHAEL S.C. THOMAS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Target Sentence ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Auditory Modality ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Adult Participants

Studies measuring inhibitory control in the visual modality have shown a bilingual advantage in both children and adults. However, there is a lack of developmental research on inhibitory control in the auditory modality. This study compared the comprehension of active and passive English sentences in 7–10 years old bilingual and monolingual children. The task was to identify the agent of a sentence in the presence of verbal interference. The target sentence was cued by the gender of the speaker. Children were instructed to focus on the sentence in the target voice and ignore the distractor sentence. Results indicate that bilinguals are more accurate than monolinguals in comprehending syntactically complex sentences in the presence of linguistic noise. This supports previous findings with adult participants (Filippi, Leech, Thomas, Green & Dick, 2012). We therefore conclude that the bilingual advantage in interference control begins early in life and is maintained throughout development.

scholarly journals Simple vs. complex transitive constructions in the acquisition of English structures

2021 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Silvia Sánchez Calderón
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Spontaneous Production ◽  
The Difference ◽  
English Monolingual

This study examines the acquisition of English simple monotransitive and complex dative alternation (DA) structures (double object constructions (DOC) and to/for-datives) in the longitudinal spontaneous production of monolingual children. In order to address these issues, we analyzed data from twelve English monolingual children and from adults’ child-directed speech, as available in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000). The findings revealed that simple monotransitive constructions started being produced earlier and showed a higher incidence when compared to complex DA constructions, which suggests that the degree of syntactic complexity has had an effect on the acquisition of transitives. However, the two complex DA constructions emerged at an approximately similar age, which could be explained by the Case assigning related properties. Furthermore, the chronological progression and the difference regarding the incidence of the three constructions (monotransitives > DOCs > to/for-datives) could be attributed to the amount of exposure to these structures in the adult input.

scholarly journals Monolingual and bilingual children's processing of coarticulation cues during spoken word recognition

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1189-1206
Author(s):  
Félix DESMEULES-TRUDEL ◽  
Charlotte MOORE ◽  
Tania S. ZAMUNER
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonetic Cues ◽  
Vowel Nasalization ◽  
English Monolingual

AbstractBilingual children cope with a significant amount of phonetic variability when processing speech, and must learn to weigh phonetic cues differently depending on the cues’ respective roles in their two languages. For example, vowel nasalization is coarticulatory and contrastive in French, but coarticulatory-only in English. In this study, we extended an investigation of the processing of coarticulation in two- to three-year-old English monolingual children (Zamuner, Moore & Desmeules-Trudel, 2016) to a group of four- to six-year-old English monolingual children and age-matched English–French bilingual children. Using eye tracking, we found that older monolingual children and age-matched bilingual children showed more sensitivity to coarticulation cues than the younger children. Moreover, when comparing the older monolinguals and bilinguals, we found no statistical differences between the two groups. These results offer support for the specification of coarticulation in word representations, and indicate that, in some cases, bilingual children possess language processing skills similar to monolinguals.

Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natascha Müller ◽  
Aafke Hulk
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
Target Form ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

In this paper we want to compare the results from monolingual children with object omissions in bilingual children who have acquired two languages simultaneously. Our longitudinal studies of bilingual Dutch–French, German–French, and German–Italian children show that the bilingual children behave like monolingual children regarding the type of object omissions in the Romance languages. They differ from monolingual children with respect to the extent to which object drop is used. At the same time, the children differentiate the two systems they are using. We want to claim that the difference between monolingual and bilingual children concerning object omissions in the Romance languages is due to crosslinguistic influence in bilingual children: the Germanic language influences the Romance language. Crosslinguistic influence occurs once a syntactic construction in language A allows for more than one grammatical analysis from the perspective of child grammar and language B contains positive evidence for one of these possible analyses. The bilingual child is not able to map the universal strategies onto language-specific rules as quickly as the monolinguals, since s/he is confronted with a much wider range of language-specific syntactic possibilities. One of the possibilities seems to be compatible with a universal strategy. We would like to argue for the existence of crosslinguistic influence, induced by the mapping of universal principles onto language-specific principles – in particular, pragmatic onto syntactic principles. This influence will be defined as mapping induced influence. We will account for the object omissions by postulating an empty discourse-connected PRO in pre-S position (Müller, Crysmann, and Kaiser, 1996; Hulk, 1997). Like monolingual children, bilingual children use this possibility until they show evidence of the C-system (the full clause) in its target form.

scholarly journals Different sources of delay and acceleration in early child bilingualism

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natascha Müller
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
First Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Efficient Computation ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Acquisition Delay ◽  
Different Sources

AbstractThe present article argues that the two effects observed in bilingual first language acquisition, delay and acceleration, have different sources. Whereas delay can be due to cross-linguistic influence on the competence or the performance level and to the mere cognitive burden to process two languages, acceleration is always rooted in efficient computation in a non-linguistic sense. The evidence for the difference between delay and acceleration effects stems from children who are raised bilingually from birth and who are studied during spontaneous speech production. It falls out rather naturally that linguistic development is immune to acceleration, while it can be delayed in bilingual children as compared to monolinguals.

scholarly journals Bilingual children's production of regular and irregular past tense morphology

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUDITH RISPENS ◽  
ELISE DE BREE
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
The Past ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Past Tenses

This study examined the production of the Dutch past tense in Dutch–Hebrew bilingual children and investigated the effect of type of past tense allomorph (de versus te) and token frequency on productions of the past tense. Seven-year-old bilingual children (n=11) were compared with monolingual children: age-matched (n=30) and younger vocabulary-matched (n=21). Accuracy of regular and novel past tense was similar for the bilingual and monolingual groups, but the former group was worse on irregular past tense than the age-matched monolingual peers. All three groups showed effects of type frequency: te past tenses were more accurate than de. The difference between the bilingual and monolingual children surfaces in the extent of the effect: for the bilingual children it was most pronounced in verbs with low token frequency and novel verbs. Results are interpreted as stemming from a learning strategy or from phonological transfer from the Hebrew morphosyntactic system.

Phonetic equivalence in the acquisition of /l/ by Spanish–English bilingual children

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSICA A. BARLOW ◽  
PAIGE E. BRANSON ◽  
IGNATIUS S. B. NIP
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonetic Category ◽  
Contextual Variation ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Second Formant ◽  
English Monolingual

Spanish [l] is characterized as clear, and is associated with a high second formant (F2) frequency and a large difference between F2 and the first formant (F1) frequencies. In contrast, English [l] is darker (with a lower F2 and a relatively smaller F2–F1 difference) and also exhibits contextual variation due to an allophonic velarization rule that further darkens [l] postvocalically. We aimed to determine if Spanish–English bilingual children evidence these differences productively, in a manner comparable to that of monolinguals, or if they produce an [l] that is intermediate to that of Spanish and English monolinguals. We acoustically analyzed [l] productions of seven Spanish–English bilingual, seven Spanish monolingual, and seven English monolingual children. Results showed that the bilinguals had similar prevocalic F2 and F2–F1 values for [l] in both languages, comparable to those of Spanish monolinguals, but significantly higher than those of English monolinguals. The bilinguals also produced English (but not Spanish) [l] with significantly lower postvocalic F2 and F2–F1 values. We assume that the bilinguals have a merged phonetic category for prevocalic [l] but not postvocalic [l], and further, that they maintain separate grammars, allowing the allophonic velarization rule to apply in English but not Spanish.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document