Codeswitching has been used as a tool to investigate how the properties of the two language systems interact in the bilingual mind with relatively few studies investigating bilingual children. We ...target two groups of L1-Spanish–L2-English children in Spain to address language activation and language inhibition in the processing of codeswitching between a determiner (DET) and a noun (N). We investigate how the mental representation of the formal features involved is responsible for the sensitivity to grammatical gender, which in turn affects how bilinguals’ language activation and inhibition processes are at play and shape processing. We target both the directionality of the switch (English-DET–Spanish-N vs. Spanish-DET–English-N) and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism (in the case of Spanish-DET–English-N switches) by using offline acceptability judgment data and eyetracking during reading data. Results suggest lower processing costs of English DET switches and higher ones of non-congruent Spanish DET switches. We interpret the preference for classifying the non-gendered Ns along the lines of the gendered Ns in the gendered language as evidence for the integrated representation hypothesis which states that both Ns depicting the same concept are connected in the mind of the bilingual.
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:
We examine the acquisition of English active and passive monotransitives by English–Spanish bilingual children. These data are compared to English ...monolinguals from previous studies. We explore whether bi- and monolinguals show similar onset patterns given the shared grammatical properties of actives in the bilinguals’ two languages, and whether they differ in the onset of passives given the grammatical properties in English (canonical determiner phrase DP-movement) and Spanish (canonical DP-movement and se-passives). We also investigate the role played by adult input in child output.
Design/methodology/approach:
We analyze the spontaneous production data from eight English–Spanish bilinguals (ages: 1;01–6;11), and the adults who interact with them.
Data and analysis:
We perform a double analysis: (1) the onset of these structures in the spontaneous production of bilinguals to determine whether emergence patterns differ from those of monolinguals and (2) their incidence through language development to focus on production frequency.
Findings/conclusions:
Bilinguals start producing passives at the age of 3, later than actives that emerge at the age of 2, akin to English monolinguals. This acquisition order effect is also seen in the lower incidence of passives when compared to actives in the two child groups. The distributional properties of the two passive types do not seem to have interfered in the bilinguals’ acquisition of the English passive type, causing delay. These data suggest that the emergence and the incidence of the two constructions in bi- and monolinguals could be explained by the DP-movement maturation and/or adult input effects given the adults’ lower frequency of exposure to passives with respect to actives.
Originality:
This is the first study that addresses bilingual acquisition data and compares child output to adult input.
Significance/implications:
It contributes to elucidate how the bilinguals’ two languages interact in the acquisition and incidence of English actives and passives.
Abstract
This study deals with the syntactic (non-)derivational relationship of English dative alternation (DA) –double object constructions (DOCs) and
to/for
-datives–, as seen in the spontaneous ...production of English-Spanish bilinguals when compared to English monolinguals. While a chronological progression and a difference in use between the two English DA constructions could suggest a syntactic-derivational relationship between DOCs and
to/for
-datives, a fairly similar emergence and a possibly similar rate of use could point to the two constructions not displaying a syntactic-derivational status. We also explore whether English-Spanish bilinguals show divergent developmental paths when compared to English monolinguals. To address these issues, we analyze data from nine English-Spanish bilingual children and twelve English monolingual children, along with the adults interacting with them. The analysis shows that both DA structures emerge at a similar age, which suggests they are not syntactically derived from one another. Despite these differences, the later onset and the lower incidence of
to/for
-datives could be associated with the case and theta role mediated properties of prepositions as well as with the frequency of exposure to DA in the adults’ speech. As no differences appear between bilinguals and monolinguals, transfer from Spanish does not seem to be an issue.
This work investigates the acquisition of Spanish dative alternation (DA) in the production of English-Spanish bilingual and Spanish monolingual children. We explore whether a/para-datives and dative ...clitic doubled (DCLD) structures are syntactically derived from one another or, whether they are different structures. We also examine whether bilinguals follow similar developmental paths to monolinguals in the acquisition of Spanish DA or whether they differ from their peers given the influence from the syntactic status of English DA in their other language. We conduct an analysis of the spontaneous data from nine English-Spanish bilingual and nine Spanish monolingual children, along with the adults that interact with them, as available in CHILDES database (MacWhinney, B. 2000. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd ed. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Accessed December 10, 2018.
http://childes.talkbank.org
). Our results reveal that bilinguals begin to produce DCLDs and a/para-datives at an approximately similar age. This suggests a syntactic underived relationship between the two DA structures, akin to that in monolinguals' data. Nevertheless significant, the bilinguals and the monolinguals show a delay in the onset and a lower incidence in the production of a/para-datives when compared to DCLDs, which seems to be in line with adult input factors. The monolingual-like patterns in the bilinguals' data point to a lack of crosslinguistic influence from English DA.
The study focuses on the interaction between length of exposure and instruction in the L2 English acquisition process of L1 Spanish school children. Two target structures involving noun ...premodification are targeted: noun–noun (NN) compounds and adjective–noun (AN) strings. Four groups of participants have been studied for 3 years: a group that has been exposed to a specifically designed teaching program targeting NN compounds and a group that has received the regular English instruction program which does not address this structure as part of the curriculum. Two age subgroups appear in each case. The longitudinal judgment data elicited show that performance improves in the cooperation between length of exposure and the exposure to the NN instruction program. Furthermore, it is this last issue that actually takes the lead in that the NN instruction program directly impacts on not only NN compounds but also AN strings. This points to instruction being determinant in the L2 learning process; that is, a consciously and carefully directed instruction is proven to be more effective than length of exposure itself. This study on longitudinal experimental data contributes to shed light on the factors involved in instructed L2 acquisition.
The relative order of constituents within determiner phrases (DP) in which the noun is modified by an adjective (AN) has traditionally been taught in English as an L2 subject in the Spanish context. ...This is not the case for the same type of phrase in which the N-head is modified by another N (NN). This study aims to assess the impact of direct instruction in English NNs as part of the school curriculum. Acceptability judgement data and production have been elicited from two groups of L1 Spanish-L2 English children living in Spain, one receiving explicit NN instruction and the other following the regular only-AN instruction. Results show an advancement of the instruction group not only in NNs but also in ANs. This has a double implication: that NNs and ANs might share a common morphosyntactic underlying structure and that explicit teaching of grammatical properties that are shared by different structures might result in better attainment.
The present study takes as a point of departure Becker's analysis of the copula be in English monolingual data and focuses on the distribution of copula be in the data from two English/Spanish ...bilingual children. Our data analysis shows that, as in Becker's study, the distribution of copula omission in the bilingual data is determined by the nature of the predicate. However, the omission patterns in our English bilingual data do not coincide with those described by Becker for the English monolingual data, since total omission is very low in our data and there are no significant differences between the stage-level (SL) and the individual-level (IL) predicates. We attribute this to crosslinguistic influence from Spanish, specifically, to the existence of two distinct copulas in Spanish, ser and estar; in particular, we propose that the lexical distinction between these two predicates may trigger the earlier projection of inflection and with it the use of an overt copula in both languages, but specifically in English, and for both SL and IL predicates.
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