One way to detect bilingual children’s reliance on abstract shared representation of language is through cross-linguistic influence. The purpose of the present study was to test for this developmental change in bilingual children. There is evidence among adult language learners for this change ( Bernolet et al., 2013). Usage-based approaches predict developmental changes in the degree of abstraction of linguistic representation, from surface-level and language-specific to abstract and language-independent. Regardless of the theoretical framework adopted, researchers generally agree that bilingual children can eventually rely on language-independent representations of syntax. Indeed, bilingual children show some delays in syntax relative to monolingual children on experimental tasks, like elicitation ( Pérez-Leroux et al., 2009). Lags in bilinguals’ syntactic acquisition might be observable in experimental tasks, tapping children’s ability to process novel constructions and therefore a more abstract level of re(presentation). If so, then the apparent commensurate performance would not truly reflect bilinguals’ syntactic development. Usage-based approaches could explain bilingual children’s high degree of accuracy in terms of learning surface-level representations. However, these studies have often relied on data drawn from children’s spontaneous speech. However, some research shows that young bilingual children do not lag behind monolinguals in syntactic acquisition, including in aspects where the two languages differ structurally, such as in their word order ( Paradis and Genesee, 1996 Serratrice et al., 2004 Paradis et al., 2005-2006). Usage-based approaches also predict lags among bilinguals in syntactic acquisition. Even for monolinguals, frequency plays an important role in the acquisition of vocabulary ( Goodman et al., 2008) and morphology ( Marchman, 1997), so it is not surprising to see lags among bilinguals in these domains. Indeed, studies have shown that bilinguals often lag behind monolinguals in at least one language in terms of vocabulary ( Oller et al., 2007 Bialystok, 2009 Bialystok et al., 2010 Scheele et al., 2010 Hoff et al., 2012) and morphology ( Nicoladis and Marchak, 2011 Nicoladis et al., 2012). Usage-based accounts would therefore predict that bilinguals should lag in language acquisition relative to monolinguals. The process of abstraction is thought to be both gradual and conservative, as well as highly linked to frequency of usage ( Marchman and Bates, 1994 Matthews et al., 2005 Ambridge et al., 2015).īilingual children use each of their languages less, on average, than same-aged monolinguals (see Unsworth, 2016). Abstract representation allows children to generate novel constructions that are nonetheless grammatical ( Tomasello, 2000). They further suggest that bilingual children might catch up with monolingual through use of selective attention and/or a semantic bias.Īccording to usage-based accounts of language acquisition ( Tomasello, 2000, 2003 Bybee, 2010), children first learn surface forms of language (i.e., as presented in the input) before generalizing to more abstract forms of representation. These results are consistent with the argument that children develop increasingly abstract representations of linguistic constructions with usage. When the children made errors, the bilingual children were more likely to interpret the subject as the agent of the action than the monolingual children. In contrast, the older bilingual children scored equivalently to monolinguals, despite less exposure to English. As predicted, younger bilingual children tended to be less accurate than monolingual children. We tested this prediction with comprehension of passives in 3- to 6-year-old children: French–English bilinguals and English monolinguals. If so, bilingual children might show lags relative to monolingual children early in acquisition, but not later on, once they rely on abstract representations. According to usage-based theories, children initially acquire surface-level constructions and then abstract representations.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |